What is your compass to life?

What is your guiding light in your life? What are the values you have founded your life upon?

For me, mine is the infallible Word of God - the Bible. In everything I pursue, I refuse to deny that the Bible is the ultimate authority in my life. And life is made easy by this.

If people ask me what my opinion is on certain topics & issues, I just go to the Word, see what God says about it, and then I know my answer! It's amazing how easy the Word can make decisions too. When you study what God says about it, see what happened to people who chased that path, you realize the need to follow the wisdom the Word gives.

In addition to wisdom, the Word gives encouragement in our time of need. Just this week, I was walking a friend through some scripture to give her hope. I turned to Psalm 23...then turned a couple pages and read this to her:

"Turn to me and be gracious to me,

For I am lonely and afflicted,

The troubles of my heart are enlarged;

Bring me out of my distresses...."

Psalm 25:16, 17

How refreshing is that when you are in a distressed moment and feel like the world is falling down on top of you?

Here's a verse that I have fully founded my faith on. It is the one that keeps my mind sober and alert to deceit, trickery, and deception: "...if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book; and if anyone takes away form the words of the book....God will take away his part from the tree of life." In a nutshell: Don't veer off course and depart from the Word....EVER! It works. Everything in it works! I'm living proof in a variety of areas of my life!

Don't own a Bible, visit http://www.biblegateway.com/ today!

SIFTING

About 2 months ago, this word started resinating in my heart..sifting, sifting, sifting.  And in the last month I have witnessed some sifting here and there....in a variety of places, all shapes & sizes.

Sifting is defined as 'to seperate'...'remove impurities, take out residue'.

So, for you, I have a few questions: do you see 'sifting' around you? In you? In your relationships? In your life? Who is doing the sifting?

Let's consider it this way too: is bad being seperated from the good? Or is the good being saved from the bad? Hmmmm. I could go deeper...but I will let you come up with an explanation and I would love to hear it and dialog with you. As you go about your day I want you to ponder this as your mind is mindful of the Lord.

This is the image I got when I googled 'sifting'.

If you're sifting for gold, seperating the rocks from the gold...then what happens after you have the gold seperated? Refining...Refining removes even more impurities...with high heat.

I guess you can further conclude that when the sifting begins, hang on...because the refining is around the corner. As I write this, I am reminded that this was a word on my heart, so what is the Lord preparing me for? What is He sifting in my life?



His sifting and His refining is welcomed...it gets rid of the residue of the world to leave me more readily available to do His work and His will. Lord prepare the way and prepare me! Amen?

I hope you have a wonderful & happy SONday!