Dear Lord; Happy Meditations Monday Father!<\/p>\n
First off Lord, I want to begin the week by thanking You for all the Blessings You granted us this past weekend.\u00a0 The medication the veterinarian put Merlin on seems to have abated the seizures, and although the effects are still taking their toll, he\u2019s made a marked improvement.\u00a0 Saturday night Shannon got to go out with her mother and uncle to see a musical production of \u201cKiss Me Kate\u201d<\/em> held at Longwood Gardens<\/a>, and the boys and I got some time to \u201chang out\u201d<\/em> and do some fun cooking with friends.\u00a0 And Sunday after church we delivered Jonathan to Kay\u2019s Kamp<\/a> for his week away, and then spent the rest of the day relaxing together at home.\u00a0 All in all Father, it was a wonderful weekend\u2019s respite and I thank You for that time!<\/p>\n Today\u2019s Meditations Monday<\/span><\/em> Scripture comes from Paul\u2019s Epistle to the Ephesians, Chapter 4:<\/p>\n Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. \u2013 Ephesians 4:29 (NIV)<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n You got me this morning on this one Lord.\u00a0 Driving into work I was running a little behind and the car in front of me was crawling along a bit under the speed limit\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cI wish these people would learn how to drive!\u201d I exclaimed.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cPhil\u2026 You know better.\u201d You whispered back.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Busted.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve actually been correcting me along these lines quite a bit lately Father, and it\u2019s been humbling as to how often I find myself saying or thinking unkind or unflattering things about other people.\u00a0 I allow personal frustrations such as being a little late for work to set the tone in my head, and like a weed in a flower bed the negative feelings spread to the rest of my thoughts.\u00a0 Little moments like this morning\u2019s outburst, although no one was there to hear it (except You of course\u2026), still serve to poison our spirit and can further affect other parts of our lives.<\/p>\n Thankfully, Your gentle reminders to keep my mood in check have helped me to make a positive change in that respect.\u00a0 There is however, certainly still room for improvement, as this morning\u2019s experience displayed.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n Heavenly Father, as we begin this new week please help us to shine Your Light to those around us, not mire them in the grey clouds of our own inner conflicts.\u00a0 Our words are powerful influencers Lord, and I pray that You guide our usage of them to best encourage and support Your Children.<\/p>\n My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry,\u00a0because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. \u2013 James 1:19-20 (NIV)<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Amen.<\/p>\n ~Phather Phil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Lord; Happy Meditations Monday Father! First off Lord, I want to begin the week by thanking You for all the Blessings You granted us this past weekend.\u00a0 The medication the veterinarian put Merlin on seems to have abated the seizures, and although the effects are still taking their toll, he\u2019s made a marked improvement.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[168,419,12,182,1540,286,132,219,43,915,259,1681,967,611,173,619,228,24,858,110,1671,1679,966,1653,686,1670,593,916,180,51,1402,1680,1213,116,374,1668,1674,345,1669,1667,206,1325,141,203,506,582,1677,1525,123,1673,517,1676,577,1678,445,538,572,217,1682,1318,881,727,591,629,1358,1658,1675,227,1684,1683,117,631,114,40,730,1245,481,565,379,1672,348],"class_list":["post-1238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-bless","tag-blessing","tag-blessings","tag-boys","tag-brothers-and-sisters","tag-child","tag-children","tag-church","tag-courage","tag-dear-lord","tag-driving","tag-encourage-and-support","tag-ephesians","tag-experience","tag-father","tag-feeling","tag-friend","tag-friends","tag-frustration","tag-fun","tag-fun-cooking","tag-gentle-reminders","tag-god","tag-gods-light","tag-guide","tag-hang-out","tag-heavenly","tag-heavenly-father","tag-helpful","tag-influence","tag-inner-conflict","tag-inner-conflicts","tag-james","tag-jonathan","tag-kays-kamp","tag-kiss-me-kate","tag-late-for-work","tag-learn","tag-longwood-gardens","tag-marked-improvement","tag-meditation","tag-meditations-monday","tag-mind","tag-moments","tag-morning","tag-negative","tag-negative-feelings","tag-niv","tag-oncology","tag-pauls-epistle-to-the-ephesians","tag-personal","tag-personal-frustrations","tag-poison","tag-poison-our-spirit","tag-positive","tag-positive-change","tag-powerful","tag-pray","tag-quick-to-listen","tag-respect","tag-respite","tag-rest","tag-righteous","tag-saturday","tag-scripture","tag-seizures","tag-set-the-tone","tag-shannon","tag-slow-to-become-angry","tag-slow-to-speak","tag-son","tag-sunday","tag-thank-you","tag-thankful","tag-thoughts","tag-veterinarian","tag-week","tag-whispered","tag-wonderful","tag-wonderful-weekend","tag-word"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Hand-Reaching-Towards-the-Sky-1-Cropped.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-jY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1238"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1241,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238\/revisions\/1241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}