A job well-done

I Kings 4:7 Solomon had twelve offers over all Israel, who provided food for the king and his household.  Each man had to make provision for one month in the year.

When I read this verse this morning, my first thought was, so they had a job.  What is the importance of that?  They are not different than the millions of people through the years who had had responsibilities.  Granted, it was a big job.  Solomon’s household was large and his need for provisions was huge (re: v.22-26).  For one day alone, his need was for 180 bushels of flour (that is over 5400 a month!), 360 bushels of meal, 10 oxen, 20 cows, 100 sheep, plus numerous other protein sources.  Not only people in the palace needed food.  Solomon also had 4000 stalls of horses and 12,000 soldiers to feed.  In other words, the job of those twelve men was an enormous one.  And they took their job seriously.  We know that because this chapter says they provided faithfully every month.  They let nothing be lacking (v.27).  They even brought barley and straw for the horses (v.28).  I think it is also worth noting that the job they did was commendable enough for their names to be recorded for history’s sake.  

 Ben-hur, Ben-deker, Ben-hesed, Be-abinadab, Baana, Ben-geber, Ahinadab, Ahimaaz, (another) Baana, Jeshoshaphat, Shemei, Geber.   

This list has been my reminder today that if I remain faithful to whatever job I have, even if it is a mundane, ordinary job, if I take my responsibilities seriously, that is a notable and honorable memory I will leave.  Just as those twelve men, my name will be on the list of faithful workers.

Befriend faithfulness

Psalm 37:3b … befriend faithfulness.

I do not know how I missed this phrase in the past!  It is so picturesque and eye-opening as to how I can “run after” God.  I am to befriend faithfulness … “to become friendly with,” “to act as a friend to,” faithfulness.  I do not see faithfulness of any kind displayed in the world around me very much these days, so it is not going to come naturally for the most part as a response to life in general, nor spiritually.  When I looked up the synonyms of “befriend” I saw many word pictures of my pursuit of faithfulness; for example:

*welcome: faithfulness is something I must want in order to have.

*get chummy with, take up with: faithfulness is something I have to decide to exemplify as a part of how I live.  It is my choice.

*encourage: with God’s help, I encourage faithfulness in my life.  I do what I can to develop it and keep it active.

*side with: this is another picture of the role I play in my faithfulness development.

I want to welcome faithfulness, take up with faithfulness, encourage faithfulness, and side with faithfulness… I want to befriend faithfulness.

Three flowers

I have been wanting to use a die that I've had in my supply for some time and then I saw the challenge at Freshly Made Sketches


I knew right away what I wanted to do!  And here is my card:

I chose to not put the sentiment over the pretty ends of the die.  I really like that frilly look and did not want to cover it up.  Although it is not really evident in the photo, the dark background is a glistening midnight blue and it really seems to set off the purplish-pinkish flowers.  I made the card into a square card because I did not want the bulging centers of the die cut to be too close together.  All in all, I am pleased with the result.

Using new cutting dies

It never ceases to amaze me at the creativity of people who come up with ideas.  Take for instance whoever came up with the idea of how to make a simple machine and metal dies to cut images out for paper crafting.  I recently purchased a flower die that makes a really pretty cut out, and the die is deceivingin that you can't really tell what the image will look like when cut.

See what I mean?  If you look carefully, you can see the image, but I am amazed at what you get when you put it to paper!  I made several cards this week using this die, and each card looks totally different based on the paper or style I used.  Here's what I mean:

I cut this one out of white cardstock and backed it on black.  I think it is really stunning.  And the design of this die makes it easy to cut into four parts, which is what I did for the inside of the card:

My next effort was cutting it out of dark paper and backing it with a different colot... a totally different look.

Well, that turned out so well, I decided to make a multicolored flower but I cut the die with black card stock this time and I think the result is my over-all favorite of all I made with this die.  See if you agree.

and the inside of that card:

I made one other card but for some reason it won't download.  For it, I cut the die with double-sided sticky paper then sprinkled it with gold and silver glitter flakes.  I put it on a turquoise back and it it shiny and beautiful.

I have just received several other new dies that I purchased on sale, so I'm looking forward to doing some other interesting cards in the next few weeks.

Confident prayer

Psalm 86  David’s Confident Prayer  

    His Request                                               His Reason for Confidence

Incline Your ear and answer            v.1            I am poor and needy

Preserve my life                               v.2            I am godly

Save me                                            v.2            I trust in You

Be gracious to me                             v.3            I cry to You

Answer my prayer                            v.6            I call on You

Teach me Your way                         v.11           I want to walk right

I give thanks to You                         v.12-13     Your love is great, and,

                                                                           You have delivered me

David prayed confidently expecting answers because he knew why he could ask God for these requests, proven by the reasons he included in his prayer.  In fact, at the end of the prayer, in v.17, he says he knows that those who hate him and wish him ill will see God’s answers and be put to shame.  He did not yet know how that would happen but he was confident that it would.  I want to pray as confidently as he did.

Give thanks to the Lord

(I wrote this several days ago and never posted it.)

I Chronicles 16:8-12 Oh give thanks to the Lord …

Top Ten Ways to Give Thanks to the Lord:

1. CALL upon His name (v8)

2. MAKE KNOWN His deeds (v8)

3. SING praises to Him (v9)

4. TELL of all His wondrous works (v9)

5. GLORY in His holy name (v10)

6. REJOICE in your heart (v10)

7. SEEK the Lord (v11)

8. SEEK the Lord’s strength (v11)

9. SEEK the Lord’s presence (v.11)

10. REMEMBER His wondrous works, His miracles, and His judgments (v12)

I must admit that I had never thought of some of these acts on my part as actually giving thanks to the Lord as my act of worship, but here they are!  Even when I call on Him I am showing my appreciation for who He is and what He can do.  When I look to Him for help or strength, it is an act of thankfulness.

Masculine cards

It is always a challenge for me to make a really masculine-looking card because I make so many more cards for women than I do men, but this week I got busy on three cards I needed, all for men this time, and I am pleased with the results.

I have seen the idea on Pinterest quite often for making what looks like a man's shirt with a pocket so I decided it was time to try it for myself.  The pocket has a tag in it that says "Happy Bithday."  I added the placket for the buttons on the front and also attached a button-down collar.  Inside the card I made a small pocket in which you can put either a little note or some money.  Here is a close-up of the card:

For quite some time I have toyed with making some masculine cards using metallic paper since it seems so appropriate for some reason (who knows why??).  So I got out my silver and copper mettalic papers and started playing around with them.  Here is the first card I came up with:

The silver paper has a linen-look and the copper paper was a matte but otherwise plain look, so I embossed the copper paper with the honeycomb design to give it a little extra "character."  I added two little screw brads to add some masculinity and I really like the outcome.  It is a design I think I'll try again with some feminine color schemes.  I have lots of pinks, purples, blues and golds in metallic papers that may look really pretty.

Anyway, I used the same silver and copper papers for a totally different design:

On this one I embossed the silver with a grid design.  If you look closely, you can see it.  It totally changed the look of that silver paper!  I die-cut the word in silver and in black so I could offset the effect on the white banner.

All in all, it was a very productive and fun week for me and card-making!

Home is where the heart is

This weekend I made a card that I am entering in the Freshly Made Sketches challenge for the week.

Here is my entry

 

I like the little heart smoke coming out of the chimney.   I kept this card really simple and let the little house and heart smoke speak for themselves.

Desert turned into pool

Psalm 107:35 He turns a desert into pools of water, a parched land into springs of water.

This verse is such a beautiful picture of what God desires to do in my life.  When I read this verse, my mind immediately went to two other scriptures that support this claim of what God does for the believer.  The first one is Psalm 1:3 when the psalmist says that the person who walks with God is like a tree planted by streams of water.  Such a person does not wither.  I am planted in a desert-turned-pool, so as I walk with God, I will be fruitful and flourishing.  Then I thought of my life verse in Isaiah 58:11 where my promise from God is that not only will He guide me, but I will be like a well-watered garden with an unending spring.  God has turned the desert of my life into a pool of water that produces a green and fruitful life.  This is my promise from God and what an encouragement it is, keeping me walking with Him.

Prepared for service

I Chronicles 12:38 All these men of war, arrayed in battle order, came to Hebron with a whole heart to make David king over all Israel.

I keep being drawn to this chapter in the history of the reign of King David.  It seems to be rich in spiritual lessons for me.  I know I have journaled about it before, and here I am again!  As I read through this listing of the groups of men coming to fight for David, I found some of the information about them to be inspiring.  They all came “arrayed in battle order” because they recognized the possibility of actually having to fight to make this happen.  They had no disillusions about this … they knew there might be some difficult days ahead so they came prepared.  For example, 6800 men from Judah came “bearing shield and spear” (v.24) and Zadok brought twenty-two commanders from his own father’s house (v.29).  The Benjaminites switched their allegiance over to David and came to fight for him and the Ephramites left their own fame in their area to be a part of this large army.  Evidently, helping this cause of David on a wider scale was more important to them than being a “big frog in a little pond.”  That says a lot about them, and serves as a great example of humble service, I think.  Then there were the 18000 men from the tribe of Manasseh.  I find it very inspiring to read that they had been expressly chosen to represent their tribe.  There were not just joining for themselves … they had a higher, more noble goal, if you will.  The representatives from Issachar had a special ability that would be of particular importance to this new army.  Verse 32 says they had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do.  I can imagine how important such skill would be when facing war.  The army from Zebulun was seasoned men and single minded in their sense of purpose.  They knew exactly why they were there.  Finally, the Danites, the Asherites, the Reubenites, the Gadites … all came equipped and ready for battle.  I see all of these men (340,000 by my calculations) as purposeful, prepared men, men who serve as my example of how I should serve my heavenly King Jesus.