Saturday, January 28, 2017

Prayerful Thoughts for Today - Saturday, January 28th - I often think of the scripture Matthew 6:5-6 when I take my daily walk combined with my quiet and prayer time. 

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Well, since I'm by myself enjoying the great outdoors, I picture our private surroundings as my "closet" since no one is around other than my dog (s)...and of course, my God.  As I've mentioned before, we have this private trail on our place called the Buggy Trails that winds around a hill next to the creek.  What I like about it is the total solitude that it allows me.  I've even been so bold as to start going over the hill instead of around it.  The Firey family calls that part on top of the hill "Bone Ridge" because of the rocky terrain with boulders and lots of rugged trees.  The only problem is that things have changed since the trail was last fully cleared and I've gotten lost a time or two over the past few days trying to find the way back and forth.  My husband helped me mark the path just today so getting lost won't be an issue.  But when I'm on my daily excursions, the Lord teaches me things when I listen to Him.  In getting lost a few times over the past few days and maneuvering around the boulders, etc., he tells me that sometimes the path we should go is hard to see.  And even when you can see it, sometimes that path goes through hard places, but if we follow the winding path set before us, we will come out on the other side.  I also appreciate the rugged beauty on top of the hill that is different than the terrain around our house.

Besides the obvious great exercise and great feeling from being outdoors for an hour per day, I'm also able to pray in my "closet" with great instrumental music playing softly over my Bluetooth headphones.  I listen to the 100 Hymns Instrumental Radio on Pandora.  It's a station with traditional hymns with many fresh arrangements and a few praise and worship instrumentals mixed in.  I find that sometimes I recall the words of an instrumental hymn or song playing and it sometimes is totally in step with what I'm praying about.  So when connecting with God, I'm also thankful I can connect otherwise with technology to hear the great streaming music from my smartphone Pandora app.

Thanks for reading this "still learning my way around" blog.    

   

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