Grateful for the everday and the eternal

Our life here on Buhlaland is rarely high excitement. Our days are a steady pace of working, resting, enjoying what is given us to maintain or improve and anticipating our eternal work. We appreciate small joys like this week's appearance of hosta shoots in the garden, the sweet care of young does for their first babies, the palette of colors on trunks of oak trees or golden light of a new day - we are grateful for our everyday life.

Today's devotional from Back to the Bible was needed by my heart so I trust someone else will be blessed by it also. On the right side a picture shows some of our does waiting expectantly for a good treat. They trust us to treat them well, do what is best for them and look out for their well being.

Do we accept gratefully the blessings of hot water, friendships or first shoots of spring growth? How about accepting disease, pain, or separation from those we love? Our Heavenly Father does know what is eternally good whether our earthsuit perspective can see the good. Do we live trusting Our Father; following the excellent guidance from Paul to the church at Thessalonica to "Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 ?

I am well aware of falling short of Paul's standard for how we are to live, but without a guidepost how do we know which way to walk?

It is good on Buhlaland- a little overcast and chilly but that too is good.

What follows are the words of Elisabeth Elliot:

Sometimes when I was a child my mother or father would say, "Shut your eyes and hold out your hand." That was the promise of some lovely surprise. I trusted them, so I shut my eyes instantly and held out my hand. Whatever they were going to give me I was ready to take. So it should be in our trust of our heavenly Father. Faith is the willingness to receive whatever He wants to give, or the willingness not to have what He does not want to give.
I am content to be and have what in Thy heart I am meant to be and have. --(George MacDonald, Diary of an Old Soul)
From the greatest of all gifts, salvation in Christ, to the material blessings of any ordinary day (hot water, a pair of legs that work, a cup of coffee, a job to do and strength to do it), every good gift comes down from the Father of Lights. Every one of them is to be received gladly and, like gifts people give us, with thanks.
Sometimes we want things we were not meant to have. Because He loves us, the Father says no. Faith trusts that no. Faith is willing not to have what God is not willing to give. Furthermore, faith does not insist upon an explanation. It is enough to know his promise to give what is good--He knows so much more about that than we do.

(Content from All That Was Ever Ours, Keep a Quiet Heart and Love Has a Price Tag by Elisabeth Elliot)