Tag: Psalms

Posted in Grace, life, prayer, priorities, Scripture, spring, Uncategorized

Good Morning!

Posted on by Dewayne Taylor

 “This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.”  Psalm 118:24 

Good morning, Sunshine! Ok…that might be an overstatement…especially as I get a little older.  But, regardless, I love mornings…especially the early mornings. All my adult life I have been an early riser—like 4:30 or 5:00 am early. With few exceptions, I don’t use an alarm clock and after a wake-up ritual, I am ready to go. 

As you probably know older people tend to lean toward two extremes. One group is sleeping in—they revert back to their teen times. The other group wakes up before the crack of dawn—they revert back to when they were babies. That is me. I normally wake up when the first number is a four or five. I say good morning to the bathroom and head to my favorite room in the house—my man-cave or home office. I usually spend an hour or so with the door closed—it is my domain. You might wonder, “what do you do in there?”

Well, here is a look into the inner sanctum. First, I turn on the lights—all of them.  I found out a long time ago the best way to jumpstart your brain is to flood the room with light.  So, I do. Then, I make a cup of coffee with my Keurig. We are very close friends.  It took me a while to become friends because he had expensive tastes.  But when Sam’s started offering cheaper coffee—we buddied up. Next, I also turn on the electric fireplace, regardless of the season, light a candle and sit back for a few minutes of news and weather.

After those preliminaries, I pull out my iPad and open YouVersion and read several devotionals.  If you are a Jesus follower or a Jesus searcher, you really need to go to your app store and download YouVersion—it for free.  Whether you are growing in Him or searching for Him…it is a go to place. After YouVersion, I read several email devotionals to get some more insight for the day. I also read some scripture—either for study purposes or just to read. Then, either at my desk or back in my chair I usually pray thanking God and asking Him to watch over the one’s I love and the upcoming day. So, there you go.  This best part of waking up is a little coffee and a little more of God.

Mornings are my most productive time. Almost all of these stories are written early in the morning. My most productive study time is early in the morning. Most of my sermons were born then. If exercise is going to happen—it has to happen in the morning. Truth be known, half of my day happens in the first three or four hours of the new day. I often find what didn’t make sense at 4:00 pm makes plenty of sense at 5:30 am. What’s seemed overwhelming at 7:00 pm is no problem at 6:00 am. 

Another of my favorite morning things, if the season is right, is to go out and sit on the patio and watch the sun rise—for the dawn to break and for the day to begin. I have never ceased to be amazed at creation—the birth of another day. As darkness gives way to dawn, as night slips away to day, it is a visual promise from my Dearest Daddy that He is not done yet.  Psalm 118:24 says, “This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.” His job is to make them, and our job is to enjoy them.  Even the more difficult days have lessons to learn…He’s not a waster…He is a provider.

Well, out on the patio I finish my last cup of coffee and sit back and take it all in.  A new day, a fresh promise, another opportunity to enjoy my Dearest Father.  So, what is your fresh start like?  It really doesn’t matter if it starts with a four or a nine.  It doesn’t matter if it is coffee or tea (but I can’t imagine that). It doesn’t matter if it is rain or sunshine…just make sure you know and remember that as you stroll with Him today…He’s got this.  Bro. Dewayne

Posted in Christmas, Family, food, friends, Grace, gratitude, Holidays, life, love, loving others, priorities, Scripture, thankful

Chocolate Delight

Posted on by Dewayne Taylor

Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4

It is rapidly becoming one of my favorite desserts.  Recently we had our annual deacon’s fellowship on Sunday evening.  While I was ordained a deacon a long time ago, I wasn’t there in that capacity. I was there because I have the privilege of working alongside this great group of men as the pastor of our church.  Our fellowship consists of a load of storytelling, some bordering on stretching the truth like a good fishing story, and of course a boatload of good food. Among that food was a smaller boatload of food called “desserts” and among those was something called chocolate delight. Mmmm.

What is chocolate delight, you ask?  Well, it is a layered masterpiece that starts with a crust (of some sort—and I’ve never had a bad one). That is followed by two more layers of heaven, and I’ve seen them interchanged—cream cheese, whipped and sweetened (someone say hallelujah) and a layer of chocolate pudding.  Then, there is an additional layer of cool whip or whipped cream and finally some sprinkling, like grated chocolate.  It is so cool, so light and oh so yummy.

Then, on the Wednesday after Sunday, we had a big fellowship at our church. It is called, “Extreme Christmas” and it consists of a wonderful meal and then some great homestyle entertainment—all provided by the church family. I love it because it reminds me of days gone by when the heart was more important than perfection. Well, before the show was the meal and there were three long tables of desserts—each one from someone’s kitchen and let me just tell you we have some fine kitchens and cooks in our church.  And there it was—not one but a couple of dishes of chocolate delight and they were delightful.

Now let me tell you another thing I like about this dessert. The flavor can be changed by simply changing one of the layers. You know, lemon instead of chocolate, butterscotch instead of lemon or maybe strawberry instead of butterscotch. It turns out the flavor of the delight can be changed anytime, and different flavors favor different people.  The beauty of this is you can choose your delight. Choose.Your.Delight!

What’s true in desserts is also true in life.  We can choose what delights our lives, our souls. I was reading a devotion today and the writer used one of my favorite verses.  Tucked away in the Old Testament part of the Bible in Psalms, it says, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” In other words, just like the chocolate flavors the dessert, let the flavor of your life be the Lord and trust me, when He is the flavor of your life, life will be sweeter.

When the verse says He will give you the desires of your heart, that doesn’t mean you have a blank check.  It does mean that when the Lord becomes our delight then His desires become our desires and His desires are always, always, best for us. So let me encourage you to find your delight in the Lord and I think you will find that He is better than the best dessert you have ever tasted. You will find out that His, “I’ve got this” is exactly what you needed.  Bro. Dewayne

Posted in fear, forgiveness, Grace, gratitude, life, love, loving others, missions, prayer, Scripture, thankful, Trials

Not Visiting — But Moving In

Posted on by Dewayne Taylor

Let the Word of Christ dwell richly among you.” Colossians 3:16a

I once read a story about a seminary professor who was studying in the Holy Land and met a man who claimed to have memorized the entire Old Testament in Hebrew. Knowing that would be quite a feat, the professor asked the man if he could give a demonstration. The man agreed, and the two met at the man’s home.

The professor took out his Hebrew Old Testament and the man asked, “Where shall we begin?” The professor loved the Psalms, so he suggested “Psalm 1.”  And beginning with Psalm 1, the man began to recite from memory while the professor followed along. For two hours, the man continued without a single mistake. Needless to say, the professor sat very impressed.

Well, when the demonstration was over, the professor discovered something about the man that shocked him. He wasn’t a Jew nor a Christian and in fact was an atheist. He knew the Scriptures better than many Jews and most Christians and yet they had done nothing to change his life. The reason why? He simply didn’t believe them.

What a tragedy…to know the most precious truth in the world so thoroughly and not allow it to touch you.  But I wonder if that tragedy hits closer to home than we want to admit?  How many of us listen week after week as teacher after teacher shares from the Word of God and yet fail to allow it to change our lives?  You see, it really isn’t enough just to be present and hear…we need to hear with the intent to allow it to change us.

In Jonah 3 we read that the king of Nineveh heard the message of God that Jonah preached. It so impacted his life that he led the citizens of that city to repent and turn from their sin.  And that impact changed God’s mind about their impending doom.  Remember it isn’t enough to hear…we need to hear with the intent to apply and change. Paul said it this way, “Let the Word of Christ dwell richly among you.” That simply means we don’t need to allow the Word of God to pay our lives a visit…we need to allow it to move in.  I know sometimes truth can make us just a little uncomfortable but don’t worry.  The God who wrote it and gave it to us is the God who wants us to know, “I’ve got this.”  Bro. Dewayne