Heat Wave - Nesdoly

Yesterday’s fever
broke in the evening
This morning
cool soothing air
bathes face arms legs
the neighborhood refreshed
as if it slept
deep and exhausted
after sickness

But sun’s warm hand upon my back
warns temperature is rising
and burning heat will soon
again blister the brown grass
make bright-eyed impatiens
and roadside chicory
droop in the dazzling delirium

We will lie in darkened rooms
splayed under whirring fans
flushed, fighting off sweats
ice-tinkling drinks within arm’s reach
till evening
when the fever breaks again.

© 2007 by Violet Nesdoly



The weather man says we're in for another few hot days here - days which, if the heat goes too high, feel surreal to me. (You may have guessed that we don't have AC.) How do you feel about the heat?

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Web: http://violetnesdoly.com
Blog: promptings
Daily devotions for kids: Bible Drive-Thru
Twitter: @vnesdoly

What Does Jesus Want to Do? -- Janet Sketchley

“Jesus gave them this answer: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” John 5:19, NIV*

Mark Buchanan raises this issue in Hidden in Plain Sight, and I find it one step more immediate than “What Would Jesus Do?” (In His Steps, by Charles Sheldon).

After all, Jesus isn’t me, isn’t in my shoes, so I can only guess at what He’d do. The Holy Spirit is right here with me, so I can ask. But I need to ask, and to obey.

For me, this brings it from the theoretical to the practical. “What would the Father/Son/Spirit do here?” is something I can acknowledge and then go my own way.

“Father/Son/Spirit, what do You want to do through me?” will have an answer I need to obey.

© Janet Sketchley, 2009
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For devotionals, reviews and conversation, stop by Janet Sketchley's blog, God with Us: Finding Joy.

Maturity is being Childlike

by Elsie Montgomery

Pete was green with one black and white wing. His coloring was odd for a canary, but so was his voice and pluck. He sang like nothing I’ve ever heard and was my constant delight.

As a child, I also had a stamp collection. When it was laid out, Pete would fly into it, scattering stamps everywhere and taking one in his beak to sample. If I pointed my finger at him, he considered that an attack and came at me, his beak open. As soon as I backed off, he began to sing. In no time, to get him to sing all I had to do was point at him.

I must miss both childhood and Pete. I dreamed last night that I still had him, as well as Vicki, the female that we bought to keep him company. (He stopped singing at that point, but when Vicki died, he sang all day!) The dream was so vivid that when I woke I had to keep shaking my head to fight a sense of disorientation.

Today’s devotional verse is about being like a child. My childhood included this plucky canary and the enjoyment he gave me, but this is not what Jesus was talking about.

Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:2-4)

The comments that go with this verse say that a person needs to come to Jesus like a child to be saved, but a careful reading shows that this is not what Jesus says. He describes how a person must first be converted, then become like a child.

Conversion is the work of God in a human heart. He gives new life and faith in Jesus Christ at the same time. From that point forward, His goal is to transform the convert into the image of His Son. In a spiritual sense, a newly converted person is immediately in the kingdom of heaven, but entrance to it in a physical sense comes later. The conditions for getting in are conversion — and the proof of that conversion is childlike humility.

Jesus had to be thinking of very young children who still have a dependent attitude and outlook. Only little children are simple in thought, helpless and trusting, unaffected by the jaded world around them, without pretension and ambition. They are still sinners but naive in many ways, totally dependent on others, and free from selfish claims to greatness. They submit themselves to the care of their parents, and in having their needs met they are not demanding or obnoxious.

We cannot do anything to earn or deserve eternal life. We cannot become like a little child, then get saved and enter the kingdom. The order is like this: we are first saved, then become like children. That is what the Spirit of Jesus Christ does in a human heart. He brings a humble and dependent attitude that is unlike anything we can do ourselves.

I might have started life like this little child He speaks of, but because of my sin nature (which is part of every human being), my self-focus soon showed up. Actually, even as a baby, I wanted what I wanted NOW. In just a few months, like any other child I knew how to make my parents come running. I knew how to make people think I was cute and I knew how to manipulate my brother. This is not the type of childlikeness that Jesus was talking about.

Pete the canary died more than forty years ago, but I woke up this morning missing him. As I read the Bible and thought about what it means to be like a child, I should be longing for far more than my childhood pet. While Pete amused me and kept me company, the greater value is the trust and innocence, the simple joy and delighted contentment, of being a child of God.

The Storm - The Storyteller

Saturday afternoon I lay on my lounge chair in the backyard, basking in warm sunbeams. My cats stretched out purring in the shade beneath my chair, letting me know they kept me company. A perfect summer day.
Then a shadow swept across my closed eyes and I opened them. The sun had slid behind a cloud. Just a big white ice cream cloud. I rolled off my chair. Enough tanning for one day. Might as well put everything away.

I showered away my suntan lotion and headed back outside, but stopped in my tracks in the doorway. All around me angry, churning, black clouds rolled into the sky from two directions. After calling the cats inside, I watched from my dining room window. Lightening flashed and thunder shook my house. The sky turned green.

Thoughts of how to protect myself in a tornado ran jumbled through my mind. Basement. Bathroom. Do I face the storm so the house blows away from me or do I just curl up in the bathtub? No, I can’t do that. There is only a shower downstairs.

Before my mind could sort out the jumble, a powerful wind struck the house, shaking it. Curtains flew out from the windows. A picture fell from the wall. My mouth dropped open but not a sound followed. But I ran. Closed all the windows.

Outside rain fell so hard I couldn’t see the houses across the street. Trees bent, their upper branches almost touching the ground. Another sheet of wind and rain swept past, ripping smaller branches off trees, sending them sailing down the street in a torrent of water.

For several minutes life was a vacuum. Nothing felt real. Then it was over. The angry clouds rolled away. The sun broke through. I slipped on my runners and headed down the walking trail.
All around me, debris clung to the edges of the streets and walks. I came upon a huge poplar branch laying on a lawn. As I stared at it some pretty serious thoughts poked their heads into my mind. Like a few minutes ago, this tree was whole. Now it’s deformed or maybe even worse. It may have to be cut down. I marvelled at how fragile our life really is. Realized that tomorrow may not always be just another day. And it made me thankful. Thankful that the storm passed without more damage, but more so, thankful that God had protected us from the full blast of the storm.