Relaxing With God

Return to your rest, O my soul, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. (Psalm 116:7)


Relaxing with God is different from resting in bed. Sleeping is certainly not the same as spending "alert time" with God. Relaxing with God is the act of bringing your whole being to the attention of the Divine. Relaxing with God centers the mind and heart on spiritual realities. Too often our minds are so busy we fail to listen to God.

There is no real relaxing with God, when our minds race past the place of holiness. Every Sunday in Metropolitan Community United Methodist Church worshippers sing "Come let us worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness." Have you been too busy to come? Come, now, where you are, to the place of worship where you may set your mind ease.

What is meant by worshipping and living in the beauty of holiness? Being in holiness is living the Christian life after being converted into the faith. We come to accept our salvation, when we acknowledge that we are saved by grace. Sin no longer has influence in our living, for our sins are forgiven. God removes sin's guilty stain. In order to live into holiness, we step from the conversion experience into daily living, as Jesus would live, making the choice to "go and sin no more".

The beauty of holiness is living the transformed life. The way we used to live, we live no more. We die to sin, and live the righteous life, so that people see Christ in us just as we see God in the life of Jesus Christ. We come to worship confessing our sins, and leave to sin no more. We worship in praise of being forgiven of sin. We live beyond worship as victorious saints. The beauty of holiness is that we worship and live to bare the fruit of love, joy, and peace, which yields kindness, goodness, patience, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Our victory is in living into the promises of God. God has promised unto all believers the opportunity to walk into the newness of life. Are you saved? Are you assured of being delivered from the enemies of life? If you have not yielded your life to Christ, do it now. Pray: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me and save my soul. I confess my sins, and accept your grace unto forgiveness. Bless me now, dear Savior, I come to live the victorious Christian life. Amen"

Agape!

LAR

Mothers

She watches over the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her. (Proverbs 31:27-28)

Good mothers are not always married. Some are single or widowed or divorced or living with significant others or the "baby's daddy". Marriage is not a requirement for motherhood, but a good and virtuous woman makes a better mother, married or unwed.

Beautiful young women you find to be our daughters, Lanecia and Ciona. Both are single and without children. Into their late twenties, they have left the gift of grandchildren to my son, Patrick, and his wife, Paula. As women, they are still able to wear red roses or carnations on Mother's Day. Since the death of my own Mother in 2002, I wear the color white on the outside however, on the inside, I still wear red. Red is the symbolic color for true love - the fruit of the spirit.

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Missy came to my office in tears. She had given a child away when she was drugging and taking sexual liberties. Clean and living a life with no thought of "the unknown child", Missy did not expect the call to a different form of Motherhood. It is called Motherhood by earnings deduction. Her teenage biological child now had guardians wanting her monies to care for her daughter. Her daughter was not asking to see her. Her caregivers only needed Missy to be a monetary provider. Missy cried, not for the unknown child, but for the money garnished from her check that would become as unknown to her as the child it is to support. Payments or not, she would remain dead to a child she has never known. Mothers may be dead to their children while yet alive.

Good Mothers, though they die, still live in the hearts of their children. For the Almighty designed it to be so. In so keeping, I pose the question: "What color rose are you wearing on Mother's Day?" And another is this: "What color flower will your child wear on their heart while you are yet alive?"

Creator of Motherhood, we are living in your hands. Make for us a living of caring. Every time we share in conception of a child, let us have the mindset to share in the rearing of our children. When there is no means for our responsible parenthood, grant blessings of people, who will represent the love that brought forth life, not from biological productivity, but from Divine Mothering. Bless our Mothers! Amen