grace upon grace

COFFEE with my Lord God
.
LORD
a sweet morning...
a little tired and worn out from returning to my world of responsibilities in such fullness and at such full speed...
but thank you Precious Heavenly for this sweet moment
for your love beyond measure...
and your grace beyond grace...

I am sometimes reluctant to go to my strong places in You. Afraid somehow that I have or will simply put some kind of religious practice/habit/experience on repeat like I do with a favorite song (listening to it over and over and over and over) and that my life and growth within You and Your Spirit would go in circles ... that in doing this I would refuse to move forward.

But you have shown me in my study and prayer time focusing on the New Year that it is both pressing forward leaving all things behind and yet living up to that which we have already obtained.

So this morning, I have circled with You back to a strong place in You. A morning with music that honors and reveres You, and strengthens me at the reminder that although I am weak, You live in me and You are strong. Though my lips betray me showing the evil that is in my heart and I hang my head in shame, I can turn to you and rest in confidence and strain forward because You (the Light, Truth, and Love) live in me, and if I abide in You Your Words will abide in me and Love with spring from within me and my lips and actions will bear it's fruit. If anxiety and doubt overtake me, that these places of strength and hope are at all times available to me because you never leave me nor forsake me, yea, you are always with me, and when I take these moments to sit down with you, coffee in hand, in the quiet of the morning, to turn on music with lyrics that praise you, my spirit is lifted and I am restored. You Lord are my strength and my peace. I will pour my anxieties and weaknesses out to You and look to You and I am reminded that ... no... it is more than reminded... I am reminded of You, your Name, your Character, in this/as a result of this, it is a going home AND a moving forward.

Thank you Lord for both - and this morning I thank you especially for this peace and this sweet moment alone with You. I love you. I really love you! I am so grateful that You, The Mighty God over everything, love so abundantly, incessantly, and persistently. I rest in who You Are. I choose you again today moment to moment again and again.

(12) Not that I have obtained all of this, or have already been made
perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of
me. (13) Brothers I do not consider myself yet to have taken
hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind (ref
to Phip 3:7-11 for what is behind) and straining toward what is ahead,
(14) I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called
me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (15) All of us who are mature should
take such a view of things. And if on some point you think
differently, that too God will make clear to you.

(16) Only let us live up to what

we have already obtained.

Philippians 3:12-16