The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life. ~Robert Louis Stevenson
Do you miss the simple things in life? Some of us are old enough to remember them and wise enough to want them back. This evening on my way home I was thinking about life and how simple it used to be. We didn't lock our doors at night. We could play until after dark and still make it home without our parents worrying about what happened to us. You could walk to your friends house a mile down the road and no one thought twice about it and you rode your bicycle everywhere. The whole family ate dinner together and you didn't even turn on the TV or eat on a TV tray.
Evenings in the summer were spent playing hide-and-seek in the dark, walking in the woods behind the house, floating in the creek on an innertube, chasing fireflies and putting them in a jar. You played with your brothers and sisters because you didn't live close enough to anyone else. You learned to share, you didn't watch TV much because you only got 3 channels and they weren't HD or transmitted by satellite or dish. You got up on Saturdays and helped mow the yard and haul firewood and you didn't know what a video game was so it didn't bother you when your Mom told you to go outside and play.
You rode the bus to school or walked and didn't worry about if your kids got there. You didn't have a bus monitor because you didn't need one. Do you remember the statement "If you get in trouble at school it will be twice as bad when you get home." So guess what? You didn't go to the principals office, kids didn't shoot each other, and 7 year olds didn't get caught with a gun in their backpack.
When I listen to the news each morning or evening, I long for heaven where there will be no sorrow, no pain, and especially no tears.
Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, this world we live in is in trouble. Our children are in crises and I pray for each of them. I pray that you would protect them and I pray for parents as well. That they will take the time out for their children and teach them the way they should go by spending time with them.
Evenings in the summer were spent playing hide-and-seek in the dark, walking in the woods behind the house, floating in the creek on an innertube, chasing fireflies and putting them in a jar. You played with your brothers and sisters because you didn't live close enough to anyone else. You learned to share, you didn't watch TV much because you only got 3 channels and they weren't HD or transmitted by satellite or dish. You got up on Saturdays and helped mow the yard and haul firewood and you didn't know what a video game was so it didn't bother you when your Mom told you to go outside and play.
You rode the bus to school or walked and didn't worry about if your kids got there. You didn't have a bus monitor because you didn't need one. Do you remember the statement "If you get in trouble at school it will be twice as bad when you get home." So guess what? You didn't go to the principals office, kids didn't shoot each other, and 7 year olds didn't get caught with a gun in their backpack.
When I listen to the news each morning or evening, I long for heaven where there will be no sorrow, no pain, and especially no tears.
Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, this world we live in is in trouble. Our children are in crises and I pray for each of them. I pray that you would protect them and I pray for parents as well. That they will take the time out for their children and teach them the way they should go by spending time with them.
Scripture: Acknowledge and take to heart this day that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth below. There is no other. Keep his decrees and commands, which I am giving you today, so that it may go well with you and your children after you and that you may live long in the land the Lord your God gives you for all time. Deuteronomy 4:39-41
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