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What’s on Your Mind, Julie?
By Julie Kilgore Joyner
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What's on your mind, Julie? (That is the question
facebook poses to me every morning.) When I opened my eyes today, in that place between sleep and wakefulness, a table was on my mind. A table in the wilderness. It was a strange and comforting sight to see. There's no doubt that we all find ourselves in a
wilderness from time to time, for various reasons. Sometimes by our own making; sometimes through no fault of our own. We go through long stretches of feeling distant from God and/or others, worn down by the cares of the world and the circumstances of life.
"Can God really spread a table in the wilderness?" (Psalm 78:19) It is so encouraging to know that, at any moment, we may
round the corner and find a feast for our soul and our spirit, waiting to sustain us there in the wilderness.
"He prepares
a table before me in the presence of my enemies." (Ps. 23:5). This table just around the corner must surprise our enemies as much as it surprises us. Certainly we would all prefer not to be in a wilderness at
all, yet somehow, in the middle of it, He makes the desert bloom. "The desert and the dry land will be glad and the wilderness will rejoice and blossom." (Isaiah 35:1). So, whatever you are dealing with today...Maybe it is a dire, seemingly hopeless circumstance
as is the case all across the country of Ukraine right now...surrounded by overwhelming devastation and an enemy seeking to overrun you.
A violent desert, where such a table of provision would
seem unimaginable. Or maybe it's a quiet desert, where you just feel flattened by the mundane of life, discouraged and isolated, when you don't see or feel God's goodness. Whatever the case, help us Lord, to round the corner and see the table that you have
prepared for us.
"And the Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your desire in scorched and dry places, and give
strength to your bones. And you will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail." Isaiah 58:11
"He will never leave you or forsake
you." Deut.31:6
Julie
Kilgore Joyner