May 2, 2026 – Choose
Car show on the base…so many great cars to see…which direction to choose to look first!!
Power – Philippians 3:14 – “I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward.” Joyce advises, “Be careful how you talk about any habit you are trying to break. Don’t go out with friends and talk about how you are trying to break such-and-such bad habit and it is so hard. The more you say it is hard, the harder it will be…. Keep your goal between you and God, and possibly one or two other trusted friends or family members who you want to pray for you and encourage you. When you are weary of doing battle with your wrong desires, think of how wonderful it will be when the bad habit is a thing of the past and a new habit has taken its place.”
Simpson – “Always causeth us to triumph” (II Cor. ii. 14). These thoughts from Simpson follow well after Joyce’s advice, “How these words help us. Think of them when the people rasp you, when the devil pricks you with his fiery darts, when your sensitive, self-willed spirit chafes or frets; let a gentle voice be heard above the strife, whispering, ‘Keep sweet, keep sweet!’ And if you will but heed it quickly, you will be saved from a thousand falls and kept in perfect peace…. God will keep you if He sees that it is your fixed, determined purpose…to refuse to fret or grudge or retaliate…. The trouble is… You want to cherish the little grudge…. Dear friends, God will give you all the love you really want and honestly choose. You can have your grievance or you can have the peace that passeth all understanding; but you cannot have both.”
Utmost – Habakkuk 2:3 – “Though it tarry, wait for it.” Getting over bad habits and grudges are not speedy endeavors. Chambers understands and offers, “Patience is not indifference; patience conveys the idea of an immensely strong rock withstanding all onslaughts. The vision of God is the source of patience, because it imparts a moral inspiration…. If we have only what we have experienced, we have nothing; if we have the inspiration of the vision of God, we have more than we can experience. Beware of the danger of relaxation spirituality.”
Streams – Cowman uses Mark Guy Pearse’s story about the wind to help us learn to lean into God’s ways in our lives. Pearse writes, “…I was going out at my door when round the corner came a blast of east wind – defiant and pitiless, fierce and withering…. I was just taking the latchkey from the door as I said, half impatiently, ‘I wish the wind would’ – I was going to say change; but the word was checked, and the sentence was never finished.”
The story goes on about how an angel gave him “the key of the winds” and he started to wield the power of it until he realized he didn’t know how it would affect the fields, flowers, and animals, etc. The key “…began to burn in my hand. ‘What am I doing?’ I cried, ‘who knows what mischief I may bring about? How do I know what the fields want! Ten thousand things of ill may come of this foolish wish of mine.” He prayed, asking for the angel to come take the key, “But lo, the Lord Himself stood by me. He reached His hand to take the key; and as I laid it down, I saw that it rested against the sacred wound-print. It hurt me indeed that I could have ever murmured against anything wrought by Him who bare such sacred tokens of His love…. He saw my look of amazement, and asked, ‘Didst thou not know, my child, that my kingdom ruleth over all?’….Then He did lay His hand upon me tenderly. ‘My child,’ He said, ‘thy only safety is, in everything, to love and trust and praise.”
