As I walk my dog, I sometimes listen to Scripture from my phone’s Bible app. I don’t get as much out of it as when I do my inductive Bible devotions, but it is at least something.

Right now, I am listening through Exodus. Here are some truths that brought me joy as I walked the other day:

• Just like the tabernacle was sanctified (or set apart) by God’s glory, we are sanctified by the God’s glory when we are saved. The Holy Spirit comes to indwell us just like the presence of God dwelled the tabernacle. Our body is now the temple of the Holy Ghost.

And there I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by my glory. And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God.
Exodus 29:43, 45

• More than any other thing, we should desire the presence of God. Like Moses, our heart cry should be, “If I don’t have the presence of God, then I don’t want to go anywhere! I need His presence first!”

And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. Exodus 33:14-15

• I want to find grace in God’s sight like Moses did. I know that I have found grace in His sight by receiving His salvation. But I also want to find daily grace by abiding in His Word and obeying His commandments. It is also comforting to know that God knows me by name!

And the Lord said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken: for thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name. Exodus 33:17

• Moses desired to see God’s glory — and God showed it to Him. Do I desire to see the glory of God? I should!! God will show me His glory — maybe not by God hiding my face in a rock and passing by like He did with Moses, but I will still the glorious workings of an almighty God in my life when I ask to see His glory. The glory of God will be evident when it is desired.

And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory. Exodus 33:18

• God is so merciful and gracious with me. When I consider how many times I have sinned just like the Israelites have sinned, He is longsuffering and forgiving. He is abundant with His goodness to me. It is amazing to consider how kind He is with me — just like He was with the Israelites.

And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. Exodus 34:6-7

• It was obvious to the Israelites that Moses had been with the Lord. He did not know that his face shown as he had no mirror, but others saw right away that he had been with the Lord. When we spend time with the Lord, it will be obvious to others. Our demeanor will change, our actions will change. We will start to reflect the Lord more and more. Am I shining with God’s love and light? Am I reflecting my Savior to those around me?

And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him. And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him. Exodus 34:29-30

When we take time to read His Word, He will speak to our hearts. I hope you are encouraged by these verses like I was!

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Have you ever wondered what made God say that David was a man after His own heart? (1 Samuel 13:14, Acts 13:22)

We know David loved the Lord. Maybe because of his joyful, exuberant love that he had for God, God said that David was a man after His own heart. Dr. Sproul believes that it is because when David sinned, he was heartbroken over his sin and sought forgiveness.

Chuck Swindoll said this about a person who has a heart after God:

What does it mean to be a person after God’s own heart? It means your life is in harmony with the Lord. What is important to Him is important to you. What burdens Him burdens you. When He says, “Go to the right,” you go to the right. When He says, “Stop that in your life,” you stop it. When He says, “This is wrong and I want you to change,” you come to terms with it because you have a heart for God. That’s bottom-line, biblical Christianity.

In Psalm 57, we see some of David’s core qualities that made him a person after God’s own heart. He disciplined himself to have a fixed heart toward God.

Because He was disciplined to have a fixed heart, we see in Psalm 57 three things that a fixed heart will do. A fixed heart will:

1. Trust in God
2. Be concerned with God’s glory
3. Seek to praise God

57 Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast. 2 I will cry unto God most high; unto God that performeth all things for me. 3 He shall send from heaven, and save me from the reproach of him that would swallow me up. Selah. God shall send forth his mercy and his truth.

First of all, we see that David trusted in God.

It is believed that David wrote this psalm when he was on the run hiding from Saul in caves. Instead of opening his prayer to God asking for deliverance, he starts with asking for mercy. He acknowledges from the beginning that God is great and that he needs God’s mercy. He is humble in acknowledging that he needs God’s mercy and only God can save him.

He also compares himself to a chick that hides under its mother’s wings. He is hiding under God Almighty’s wings until the trouble is past. He would wait for God to intervene. Our protection also is from God. We can trust in God to protect us.

 David doesn’t trust in the shadow of the cave — only in God. The cave became his holy place because God was with him. Wherever we are, that place can be a holy place where we meet with God — because God is with all who have received Him as their Savior.

In this psalm, we notice that David is magnifying and exalting God before he brings up any of his problems. He knows God will send help and has a confident belief that God will work all things out for good. No one or no thing can stop God’s work from happening and others will see his great God and magnify God even more. Here are some of the positive things that David proclaims about God:

• God is a merciful God. (v. 1)
• He is the most high God. (v. 2)
• He is the God that performs all things. (v.2)
• He trusted that God that would send from heaven and save him. (v. 3)

When we are times of trouble, we need to ask ourselves: What is bigger? Your problem or your God? David’s God was bigger than his problems.

A fixed heart is confident — it trusts God. A fixed heart doesn’t stop us from experiencing trials, but it does strengthen us to triumph over the trials.

When we pray, we need to remember who we are talking to. It is good to start our prayers like David did: praising God for who He is. We see that Jesus in His model prayer also does this. He starts off His prayer by saying, “Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name.”

Secondly, we notice that David was concerned with God’s glory.

4 My soul is among lions: and I lie even among them that are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword. 5 Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; let thy glory be above all the earth. 6 They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down: they have digged a pit before me, into the midst whereof they are fallen themselves. Selah.

He started this section of verses talking about his formidable enemies. He had big problems. His enemies were ruthless — they had previously killed 85 defenseless priests. In the middle of verse 4 where he is talking about these terrible enemies, he says he will lie down! His trust in God is so great that He can lie down in peace. After he described his enemies, he exalted God in verse 5. He is more concerned with God’s glory than what his enemies can do.

Thirdly, David sought to praise God.

David continually prayed to God, but he made a practice of starting every day praising God.

7 My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise. 8 Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early. 9 I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people: I will sing unto thee among the nations. 10 For thy mercy is great unto the heavens, and thy truth unto the clouds. 11 Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: let thy glory be above all the earth.

His heart is fixed and focused on God’s glory, so he praises God. When he wakes up, he praises God. He praises God in front of others. All the nations will see his praise to God.

Here he is in the middle of running from the enemy and hiding in a cave, yet he is praising God. He keeps his heart fixed on God no matter what the circumstances are around him.

When the dark cave experiences happen to us, we can be take confidence that they will eventually pass, and we will be able to praise Him for getting us through them. We need to keep our heart fixed on God during these dark cave trials we go through so that we can trust in Him during the difficulties and give Him glory for delivering us out of those trials.

A fixed heart will seek to praise God. It has the discipline to seek His glory no matter what cave it is going through, whether it is the cave of fear or the cave of sorrow or the cave of sickness.

God doesn’t always remove the problem or remove us from the cave;  but He is always there. Because of that we can fix our hearts on Him and trust Him during the hard times, give Him glory during and after the hard times, and praise Him daily whether it is a good or bad time.

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How do you know when it’s time to quit something?

This is something I have been thinking about a lot when it comes to blogging. I started way back in 2013 first as a hobby. Then because I was putting so much time into it, I decided to see if I could make some money out of it. I came off of wordpress.com to hosting it on wordpress.org; I had two blogs for a while; I was putting up a recipe weekly and a DIY project weekly. I was making printables, and I bought a better camera and was learning how to take and edit good pictures. I bought packages of stock photos I could use. I was researching and taking classes on how to run a profitable blog.

Then life changed. I used to stay home and babysit. While the babies slept or played, I would do all of the blogging stuff. But my husband left the ministry where we were at; and for one year, I taught Kindergarten at a small Christian school. That year, I probably made the most money I have ever made with blogging — and it wasn’t that much. Maybe $3,000-$5,000. But the Lord did that. He knew we were going down in salary probably $20,000; yet that year, we had everything we needed to pay the bills. We were living by faith in moving out of our previous ministry, and He blessed our finances. We did not have to touch our savings, and I was able to do some of the sponsored posts and blogging responsibilities during the class’s naptime.

Then we moved from Illinois to Florida where my husband is the head pastor and there is one assistant pastor. I was eased into the ministry here. The first year was pretty easy, but then I took over the VBS ministry, women Bible studies, heading up the ladies activities committee, and other responsibilities. Two years ago, I became the teacher at our tiny school. There are only 9 students, but there are seven grades. I had never done anything like that before. I am at every service (of course) and entertain some.

Along with the ministry and school teaching, I have five children. My oldest now is in college, my second oldest works, and I have braces appointments and sometimes sports for other children plus just normal household duties such as cooking, cleaning, and laundry. Those activities plus a car accident where my rotator cuff was torn two years ago added more to my plate.

With such a full life, thinking about blogging became a dread and not a delight. I would stay up to 1:00 in the morning after a Wednesday night service to get a Thursday blog post down and then I would have to wake up at 7:00 to go teach. I would be exhausted and wonder if it was worth it.

Yet I didn’t want to quit as I felt like I had put in 8 years at this blog, and I have my recipes here. I have printables that may be useful to other people. For starting Christian bloggers, there aren’t many places for them to link up posts that really matter. So I kept at it.

In the back of my mind; however, was the thought process, “If I quit, when should I quit?” And that would be October before my hosting renews at a higher price. I’ve crunched the numbers about how much money my ads should pull in just to break even so that my blogging does not take away from the families’ finances, and the Lord was so good to send an email from a company where I learned I could pay for my domain much cheaper before that renewed next month. I am saving almost $20 a year!

Back in January, I did something different with my Tasty Tuesdays party. I switched to running just a monthly party. It is at the top of my home page, and people can still link up weekly. In fact, I still send out an email weekly reminding them to link up. Monthly, I share my favorite recipes that were linked up the previous month and I pin every single recipe that links up.

Even though that takes time, it takes so much less time than typing up a recipe and taking and editing pictures weekly. And I was running out of new recipes to share. There is such a relief on those weeks where I don’t have to add a new recipe.

So starting in March, I am going to start the same thing here on Thoughtful Thursdays. I am going to share monthly (and I might update posts in the middle of the month) what God has been teaching me. The wonderful thing is that I will also now share my favorite posts that you have been linking up and I will pin all of your posts monthly. When I don’t have to be writing new content every week, I can easily pin your posts. It frees up so much time.

I am going to try this strategy for the next few months and see what the Lord impresses on my heart about keeping or not keeping this blog. Then in the summer, I am going to try to add all the school printables I have been making this past school year and updating and cleaning up this blog. That’s what I say now, but the summer always goes by so quickly as I order new curriculum for the next school year, prep for a new school year, do a summer Bible study, and run the VBS program plus try to enjoy some time with the family.

So how do you know when it’s time to quit?

I feel like sometimes you don’t. So you just wait. Wait and see how God leads. You’re not impulsive.

I feel like if God wants me to quit, He will not allow me to have any time to blog and the views will keep dwindling. But if He wants me to continue, He will bring opportunities without me even looking for them, and He will make some of my printables be useful to others so that I will know I need to stay here so that others can access what I have shared over the years.

That’s my plan. How have you known when it is time for you to quit something?

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I don’t like conflict. However, I also don’t give in when it comes to truth. Yesterday was hard. The whole day was going well, and then it kind-of all blew up. It was in a group setting, a question was asked, and when Biblical truth was shared, feelings were hurt, there was a combative spirit, and there was a divisive attitude.

Even though one-on-one, the individual who was upset was fine, there is still a group dynamic that has to be dealt with. And so when I came home, I was spiritually beat. I just wanted to go to bed, and when I did, I couldn’t sleep. The incident kept playing itself over in my head.

I am also studying I Corinthians 13, and in my head, I was thinking —

“How could I have been more loving while standing for the truth of God’s Word with someone who turns combative?”

It’s not always easy. Truth must be upheld, but I Corinthians 13 says that without love I am nothing.

It says, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” So I need to make sure that I speak the truth in love, and I know that although the one person knows that I love them, it did not look like that in a group setting. If Christ is not glorified by my words and actions, then I have done something wrong in trying to do what is right.

Obviously, I don’t have the answer. I’m still a work in progress, because I didn’t do it right. I need to keep working on this dynamic of holding forth the Word of God but also having love that does not insist on it’s own way, of having love that is not rude, of having love that is patient and kind.

We never arrive. We never will be perfect, and there is always more to learn. Sometimes those lessons are hard and ugly. So we’ll go on today and keep at it. We’ll try to please God with the aftermath and learn what we could’ve done better.

How could we have loved more? How could we have spoken the truth in a kinder, gentler way? It’s something I need to get better at.

As Valentine’s Day is this weekend, let’s all try to love the way Christ loved us. He loved us with a sacrificial, I Corinthians 13 love.

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