Unidentified Flying Dog

By Sherri Holbert –

Imagine a soft ball of white, hyper fur who answers to the name Roxy. She was one of my favorite pets. She was a fluffy, spirited, extremely loving Eskimo Spitz. She was predictable. She had specific routines that she stuck to day after day. She loved to eat—a girl after my own heart.

Her morning routine at breakfast time was a sight to see. She looked liked a cotton ball on steroids running the 100 yard dash. The minute the garage door opened she would bounce off the front porch, fly at rocket speed around the corner of the house, bolt to the edge of the eight-foot-tall retaining wall, skid through the turn and cross the finish line with a catapulting jump off the low end of wall that landed her onto our driveway—very close to the food bowl.

One particular cold winter day, Roxy bolted out the door on her 100 yard food dash. Only this morning was different. A new twist to her dash soon caught poor Roxy’s undivided attention. A thin layer of black ice had carpeted the wall. As the song goes, “You can only imagine” the flying cotton ball on steroids in an instant had a new identity. She was now a spastic four-legged UFD (Unidentified Flying Dog). As she flew off the high side of the retaining wall her eyes were as wide as saucers! She was experiencing sheer panic as she tried to understand how to make four paws flap like wings of eagles.

Unsuccessful as a UFD, Roxy recovered from her brief identity crisis and by the next morning she was back to her typical self.

Roxy had her routines, things she did every day. I think we are the same way. We get comfortable in the fast paced secure routine of life. Sometimes, God has to send some “black ice” our way to get our attention. He changes our direction, gives us an unexpected circumstance and, yes, even sends us catapulting through the air in sheer panic. Why? So He can remind us of His identity and who we are in Him. He wants to shake us from our routines; our comfortable life, so we can experience His strength, His comfort, His presence.

So, whatever “black ice” you are experiencing today, just remember it is there for a purpose.

PRAYER: Father, thank you for the unexpected things that You bring into my life. Help me to seek You during my trials so I may become the person You desire me to be.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2-4 NLT).

Today’s devotion is by Donna McCrary and Sherri Holbert. As Life Coaches, they equip women to discover their life purpose. Learn more about their study DIVAS of the Divine: How to live as a Designer Original in a Knock Off World at: www.walkofpurpose.com.

Anit-wise Motion

By Robin Steinweg –

Dead ant, dead ant, dead antdeadantdeadant (sung to the Pink Panther theme). This is what goes through my mind when I enter my bathroom these days. That and some questions: why? Why are these ants in the bathroom when there’s no food? They don’t even seem to be looking for food. They appeared a couple of months ago from under the molding; aimlessly wandering in odd-shaped loops, then out of sight again—a perpetual, purposeless motion. In the past, they came into the kitchen in orderly troops, heading for crumbs on the floor. Not this time. I tried natural extermination methods first, without success. We’ve battled ants every summer for years, but I never think to have poison in the house.

I finally bought some. They lined up for it like piggies at the trough, gorging themselves. Some drowned, some staggered a few steps and expired, others faithfully carried the stuff back to the nest (I assume). I felt satisfied after they’d been gone awhile. The poison worked as it had every other summer. But the other day I noticed one tugging on something. And another. I looked closely. They were hauling the corpses of their fallen comrades to the middle of the bathroom floor, where they dumped them and returned to the molding. This went on all day. Hauling dead ants almost to my feet and dumping them off, as if they knew what they were doing—like a scene from a horror flick.

By now you are wondering what the spiritual application is. So am I! And if you are wise enough to find one from these erratic ants, would you please post it in the comments below for the rest of us?

All I know is that the Bible says to observe ants in order to be wise. Without overseer or ruler, they prepare their food in summer and gather it at harvest time. They plan ahead. I’ve been caught in last-minute panics and in an unprepared condition times without number for lack of planning. Unexpected visitors, sickness, people calling and needing to talk—or ants in the house—have brought stress or embarrassment to me and my family because I wasn’t prepared. I hope to be wiser in this way starting now. I’ll observe the ants. Just maybe not the ones in my bathroom!

PRAYER: Lord, You are the great Planner of creation and eternity. You planned our salvation in advance. You planned good works for us to do. You have plans to prosper us and to give us a future and a hope. You are even now preparing a place for us in heaven. I ask You for wisdom to be a better planner, able to learn Your wisdom even from ants.

“The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage” (Proverbs 21:5 NASB).

Today’s devotional is by Robin J. Steinweg. Robin’s life might be described using the game Twister: the colored dots are all occupied, limbs intertwine (hopefully not to the point of tangling), and you never know which dot the arrow will point to next, but it sure is fun getting there!

Do It Now-Ow-Ow-Ow!

By Robin Steinweg –

“Hey Mom, they called from work—I have to go.” I heard a slam. Uh-oh! I took the stairs two at a time and launched myself through the door, only to see my ride (my firstborn’s car) go poof. My younger son had left for work in my car fifteen minutes earlier. The door slam triggered my memory from early that morning, when my husband asked me to run Important Errands for him. Important Financial Errands that couldn’t wait. Sure, you can count on me.

Now I stood in an empty garage, viewing an empty neighborhood. No begging a ride. I could walk the mile and a half, but not in fifteen minutes. My bike? I looked around. There, up in the rafters. The ladder would reach, but I’d never have the strength to lift it down. My son’s bike beckoned. Two feet tall, with fat tires and pegs for doing tricks, it might at least get me downtown before closing.

I swung my leg over the boy-bar, sat on the vinyl-covered, two-inch slice of rock they call a seat, and wobbled down the driveway. I hadn’t ridden a bike in eight years. An oncoming car made me back-pedal to brake, but nothing happened. Legs circling frantically in reverse, I found the hand brakes just in time. After half a block I knew I was in trouble.

Had you stood on Broadway that afternoon, you’d have witnessed a middle-aged lady bumping along, “Ow! Ow-ow-ow-ow-Ow,” knees almost hitting her chin, narrowly avoiding potholes, 12×18 canvas tote banging her left leg in syncopated rhythm to the hurried pumping, her breath coming in asthmatic gulps.

I accomplished the Important Financial Errands. I saw only one person I knew, and returned home determined to find some redemptive lesson in this. The Lord was probably telling me to exercise more.

Prone on the couch, I thought about how I’d put off my errands till late in the day. That morning I had delivered another in my series of mother-lectures on the dangers of the sin of procrastination. “Do it now!” I’d told my sons. Oops. There the lesson lay.

AUTHOR QUOTE: God’s Word says if I know the good I should do and don’t do it, that’s sin. Do it now!

“For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:8 NIV).

Today’s devotional is by Robin J. Steinweg. Robin’s life might be described using the game Twister: the colored dots are all occupied, limbs intertwine (hopefully not to the point of tangling), and you never know which dot the arrow will point to next, but it sure is fun getting there!

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