He offers us His wisdom

The last sentence in the devotion I just posted a link to really rang true for me. Recently I've been grappling with an issue in my life which many Christians spend lots of time giving their opinions about. In my head I knew where I stood, but my heart wanted to convince me otherwise.

Thankfully God has placed wise people in my life who have been able to give me good advice. One reminded me of Proverbs 3:5-6, where God promises to guide our paths as we seek Him. The verses always make me think of a song we taught at Crusaders Winter Escape years ago. Anyway, it didn't happen as quickly as I would have liked, but God did make my path straight - He very clearly guided me as I kept coming to him, doubts, concerns, emotions and all. Here's the sentence from the InTouch devotion for today:

'God assumes responsibility for offering His children sought-after wisdom and enabling them to keep walking on the right path (Prov. 3:5-6).'

How to walk wisely

Just read this great devotion. Daily Devotional

Answered Prayer

'Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.' Proverbs 3:506

I love God's promise to make our paths straight. I love that He answers our prayers, not always in the way we expect, but in the BEST way. I love that His wisdom rules supreme over my thoughts and feelings. I love that He is a faithful, loving, Sovereign God.

Though I don't understand why, I see a God who loves us immensely and who is 100% reliable, As a wise old friend told me recently, if we keep seeking God and asking Him for guidance, He will guide us - that's what He says in His Word. and He has. I can say with confidence, God does guide us, one step at a time, in His perfect timing. He makes our paths straight. :)

Email and new friendships

I'm starting to wonder how helpful emails are in building friendships. For friends you have an existing relationship with that has been built over a significant period of time, it's different - they know you relatively well (hopefully!) and should have a fair idea of how to interpret what you've written. You can pretty much just be yourself.

But with new friends I find myself in a different place. Initially I'm all gung ho and happy to be myself, then after a little while I start thinking too hard about everything and worry about offending them, or asking too many questions, or sharing too much... I write and rewrite and rewrite, delete, rewrite, delete, and then after clicking send I think more about what I wrote and wonder whether I should have included bits I deleted, or deleted bits I included.

I'm thinking emails are not such a helpful tool for me to build new friendships, but I'm not sure how to get around it as email is such a big part of how we do life and interact and organise everything now.

Any thoughts?

Friendship

I've been thinking a fair bit about friendship lately - particularly friendship between males and females. Friends have the potential to teach us so much, to share life with us, to help us grow, to support us, to tell us hard words that we may need to hear at times... They are people who accept us just as we are - yes, we may frustrate and confuse them at times, but they still stick by us and continue to walk through life with us.

But when it comes to the opposite sex, friendship can be confusing... but I remember speaking to an older lady about it last year, and she reminded me of the importance of enjoying and appreciating the here and now, of seeing the value each friend brings to my life now, and the value I can bring to theirs. It's pretty special really. I'm very thankful to God for new and old friends, so many people who continue to shape me and support me, who can help me learn to relax and who I can enjoy life with. So many memories yet to be made. :)