Alice's Restaurant ~ Dishin' Up Food for Thought: A Little Encouragement from God this morning.

I can't believe it is

already!!!

What a busy week we have had.

Lots of work and yet found time to play a little.

Yesterday we spent about five hours working on the apartment. The bathroom carpet was pulled up and surprise there was linoleum underneath so that came out. All the faceplates were taken off in the bedroom and bathroom and both rooms are taped and ready for some paint. Can't wait to get started on that...not sure when that will happen but I know it will be soon.

I found myself a little disgusted with myself this morning when I stepped on the scale...I had been doing so well while we were in Kansas and it seems since we have been back in Missouri that my focus on me, my health, eating and drinking healthy has kind of been pushed aside.

Oh, I am doing okay, not binging or anything like that, just not being intentional in my eating and exercising. Some days are better than others.

And then I opened my Bible.

and I just started crying...

Lord you are my strength, my strong tower

and I need to remember I can't do this on my own.

I need you!!!

And then to reinforce those thoughts

He focused me on

Deuteronomy 8:7-18

and I like how The Message reads:

So it’s paramount that you keep the commandments of God, your God, walk down the roads he shows you and reverently respect him. God is about to bring you into a good land, a land with brooks and rivers, springs and lakes, streams out of the hills and through the valleys. It’s a land of wheat and barley, of vines and figs and pomegranates, of olives, oil, and honey. It’s land where you’ll never go hungry—always food on the table and a roof over your head. It’s a land where you’ll get iron out of rocks and mine copper from the hills.After a meal, satisfied, bless God, your God, for the good land he has given you.

Make sure you don’t forget God, your God, by not keeping his commandments, his rules and regulations that I command you today. Make sure that when you eat and are satisfied, build pleasant houses and settle in, see your herds and flocks flourish and more and more money come in, watch your standard of living going up and up—make sure you don’t become so full of yourself and your things that you forget God, your God,the God who delivered you from Egyptian slavery; the God who led you through that huge and fearsome wilderness, those desolate, arid badlands crawling with fiery snakes and scorpions;
the God who gave you water gushing from hard rock; the God who gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never heard of, in order to give you a taste of the hard life, to test you so that you would be prepared to live well in the days ahead of you.

If you start thinking to yourselves, “I did all this. And all by myself. I’m rich. It’s all mine!”—well, think again. Remember that God, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that he promised to your ancestors—as it is today.

It is so easy in the "good" (fill it in...busy, hectic, stressful) times to try to do things on my own and forget to seek God for his help, his guidance, his promises, to lose sight of his many blessings, his power, his strength, his love...God sees and knows everything about me...I just need to focus on him each and every day, ask Him to be with me, to help me in each activity I do, each project I engage in.

I need to remind myself each day I am not on this journey alone, that God is with me to help me do things all the way, with an enthusiasm and eagerness that comes from God.

Thank you Lord for your Word this morning, reminding me