Table of Grace with Pastor Dreama

"Deuteronomy 30:15 & 19"    I used to say (and believe) this phrase. It served as a logical excuse for when things didn't go as I had planned. But lately, I honestly think this phrase is just not right.  Deuteronomy 30:15  (NLT) reads:  "Now listen! Today I am giving you a choice between life and death, between prosperity and disaster." Deuteronomy 30:19  (NLT) reads: "Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live!" In these verses, God is telling the Israelites that He is giving them options and that their choices will be witnessed and verified in heaven and on earth.  So if "Its all in God's hands..."  why did He offer them options? Why did He tell them to choose?   Here are my thoughts on this well intended ...

Today I was enjoying one of my favorite pastimes: walking in the rain (my husband considers this odd but I since I don’t consider golf the epiphany of normal, I guess we are even).   As I moseyed around the house, I enjoyed the last blooming flowers of the season:  one perfect pink rose, two pansies snuggled against a thorny stem and a line of black-eyed Susans in various stages of survival. Getting soaked from above as my flip-flops slipped on the wet grass, I understood why John thinks his wife is a little weird.  Anyway, as I soaked up the beauty of these flowers, I was reminded that everything living develops, thrives, and withers in its own time in its own way.  I captured this picture of a pink rose with a cute green worm snuggled inside the petals.  It reminded me of how easily we let seemingly harmless things into our lives that, nibble by nibble, devour us. I believe the Bible calls these “little foxes” (Song of Solomon, 2:15. NIV).  ...