I literally woke up turning over in the middle of the night with a pain in the neck. This has been an internally stressful week. A lot has gone on in our lives to process. And, as always, my body has spoken to tell me about it. There is something about pain in your neck–there is always a reminder whether turning to the right or left or staring straight ahead. God has reminded me to process with Him first not looking to the right or to the left but to his truth. The sermon Sunday was a reminder of that. We are beginning to study 1 Timothy, and Greg gave an introductory sermon which traced Moses handing the mantel of leadership to Joshua and Paul to Timothy. Not unlike God, he worked consistently in these situations and relationships with the same message…Remember who God is hearing and fearing him and being careful to do all the words of his law (Deut. 31), meditating on the law day and night so that you may be careful to do all that is in it (do not turn from it to the right or to the left–Joshua 1), and in Timothy charging certain persons not to teach any different doctrine…not swerving from the faith (1 Tim 1, 6). Sometimes I need tangible reminders that even though everything feels like shifting sands here, sometimes very unsafe, my life is in clinging to Him and the truth he has given us about himself in his word. That tangible reminder today comes through the pain in my neck. May I be reminded to pray and meditate and build on the only foundation–Christ the Rock instead of the shifting sands of feeling and circumstance. Sometimes circumstance is so LOUD that I forget my foundation…I look to the right and left and swerve. May my mind and heart be centered in the bedrock of his Truth.
The Art of Coming Alive 