The Lord has been urging me lately to focus on Philippians 4:8. As a reminder, here’s that verse, “. . . whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.”
It’s so easy, isn’t it, to do the exact opposite! There are so many false, dishonorable, wrong, polluted, ugly, deplorable, etc. things that surround us. It doesn’t take but thirty seconds of watching the news for my spirit to plummet.
So should I bury my head in the sand and ignore the bad things? I confess I did a little of that over the last several years. I refused to watch any news and would move away if people started talking about current events. Now I truly thought that this was the best way, but I was wrong.
By ignoring what was going on around me, I was left out, ignorant of the real events that were happening. Worse, my ignorance kept me from praying about things and people who needed it. And even more than that, without facing the difficulties that were going on, I wasn’t getting the chance to grow in my faith or get stronger.
It’s a balance. Jennifer Rothschild, in her Bible study, TAKE COURAGE, suggests a biblical wisdom approach. She urges that we must be aware of the harsh truth of our reality, but we don’t need to live in the mire of despair. The situations are real, “but they aren’t real estate.” We do need to accept the truth of our circumstances, but God gives us directions to be encouraged by His presence and keep moving forward.
“Moving forward” to me has become a challenge. I have a number of projects on my plate right now, but I can’t help feeling like having a place where some of those right, true, noble, lovely things can be shared would be an excellent thing itself. So I’m inspired, and somewhat nervous about it. I will be posting from time to time – as often as possible – to share those things from Philippians 4:8 upon which we are to dwell.
What are you keeping your mind on right now?
Is there anything worse than searching for a place only to find a detour that makes it practically impossible to access? I dealt with that very situation last month as I drove around a group of teenagers on a photo scavenger hunt. FYI, the Horses of Las Colinas are 
I love the tradition of, through prayer and meditation on scripture, finding a word to focus on through the new year. Last year, my word was 
I saw a post the other day on Facebook. I don’t remember by whom, but all I saw was, “Lessons from a Christmas tree.” I chose to read no further, for the title alone sparked all sorts of ideas for blog articles. So far, I’m at 5 posts and I think I’m done writing them. But who knows? They’ll be spread throughout this month. Please chime in with your own thoughts! Here are the links for the other articles: 
Marji Laine 