Benefit

Never turn down a job because you think it's too small; you don't know where it can lead - Julia Morgan.

How short is our vision of where an invitation might take us!  Any invitation.  Of one thing we can be certain, it offers an opportunity for making a choice, which means taking responsibility for who we're becoming.  Choice-making is growth-enhancing because it strengthens our awareness of personal power.

Our lives unfold in small measures, just as small as they need to be for our personal comfort.  It's doubtful that we would handle everything the future has in store, today; however, we will be prepared for it, measure by measure, choice by choice, day by day.  We need not fear; what is meted out to us in the invitations offered for our benefit.  We are on a pathway to betterment.

The thrill of making choices.  When we've opted for a life that's passive, all too often, we become increasingly aware of, and often depressed by, our self-imposed powerlessness.  Free at last!  We are free at last to fully participate in our lives.

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I will be grateful for the many options to act tugging at me today.  Every choice I make strengthens me.

K. Casey

~ * "Real" GOLD ? ! * ~

Someone has said, "Sunshine all the time only makes a desert." We need the clouds, the dark days, the storms, and the rain just as much as we need the sunshine. And God, who is molding our lives, seeking to make us like the Lord Jesus Christ, knows what is best for us.

We hear Job saying: "But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold" (Job 23:10). Notice that Job does not say, "I know the way that He takes," but rather, "He knoweth the way that I take."

We would like to know what God is doing. We would like to pull aside the veil and see the end from the beginning. We would like to know the way that He is taking. But if we did, and if we could see, we would not need faith to believe and to accept God's way!

So Job, in the midst of all his deep afflictions, found comfort, not in the fact that he knew the reason and the answer for all of God's dealing with him, but in the truth that God knew what He was doing. "He knoweth the way that I take," he said confidently, and then his faith leaped over every barrier; and as he looked into the distant future, he cried, "When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold." ...

This tells us that we are to rejoice in the hope and the confidence that God's purpose is being accomplished in our lives. M.R. De Haan