Yesterday’s journey did go well.  Thank you for lifting a prayer for the couple we met with.  It was a God meeting and He was glorified in it.  I am most grateful for His leadership,  wisdom and timeliness.

Two things really stood out to me this morning as I was having my devotions.  Neither are new items, but the reminders are truly timely.  The one reminder is to live in the new creation Jesus gave us when we accepted Him as Lord and Savior.  In my one devotional, “Every Day in His Presence”, it says, “If you still see yourself as a sinful individual, then you’ll likely act like one.  But if you accept your identity as a completely new person in Christ, then you can behave as His blameless, beloved child.”  Maybe in this human flesh I will always have moments of struggle with seeing myself as the abused, sinful man I was–thinking I am still him.  I love these reminders however of who Christ made me to be.

Secondly, my scripture reading this morning was the concluding chapters of II Samuel.  In it King David had his army leaders go throughout the country taking a census of the people.  As it turned out there were 1,300,000 able army men between Israel and Judah.  When this information was given to David he was stricken with guilt because he realized he had replaced his trust in God with statistics/hard data.  This hit me right between the eyes.  I like to believe I am a man of trust.  However, when push comes to shove, I will always have my data with me.  This was a good reminder that when my trust is only built around what I “know for sure” I’ve just replaced trust no different than when David did this.  Somehow, a new creation in Christ should find trust as a natural thing to do.  I’ve got to keep this right in the forefront of my thinking as I move forward on this journey.

OK, it is raspberry picking time!  I’m going out to pick the first picking of the season!  Yeah!