Thursday, May 8, 2025

Spiritual Reveille

Reveille: 1. : a signal to get up mornings.
 2. : a bugle call at about sunrise signaling the first military formation of the day.

Getting up every morning is not for the faint of heart, 
but being properly equipped is the key to success!

And behold, I am sending the promise of My Father upon you.
But remain in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit
is given for the common good.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.

For God has not given us a spirit of fear,
but of power, love, and self-control.


Without God's Spirit within,
without His word hidden in our hearts
so we do not sin against Him, (Ps.119:11)
how often we would fall prey to sight
rather than walking/living by faith.
How often we would make choices
based on logic deduced from a human standpoint
rather than simply *obeying God
and trusting Him for the consequences.

God gifts us with abilities to use for His purposes and glory!
May that be our whole-sole-soul goal today!

Wishing you a day filled with joy only His Spirit can instill,
as we trust He who is able in all circumstances!

Without His Spirit it is impossible for us to do well 
in life's greatest callings, 
such as training up a child in the way they should go...





Come, all who love and fear the Lord, with holy hunger pray
To be a suit of working clothes His Spirit wears today
To be a vessel filled with Light no circumstance can dim
To be, in humble human form a glorious glimpse of Him

Come, all who seek and trust the Lord, believing in his Word
Pour out your heart in earnest prayer for all who have not heard
Who do not comprehend the Light that shines into the dark
Who, like in days of Noah, scorn the safety of faith’s Ark

Come, all who follow and obey the Lord; do not despair
But be the hands and feet of He who keeps us in His care
Put on His suit of armour, like a soldier who prepares
To head into a battlefield suffused with deadly snares

Come, all who love and fear the Lord, with worship’s yielded awe
For purposes infallible; for timing without flaw
For His glory and by his grace, with holy hunger pray
Then be the suit of working clothes His Spirit wears today

© Janet Martin

2 Tim.2:3
You therefore must endure[a] hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

Galatians 3:3
Are you so foolish? After starting in the Spirit, 
are you now finishing in the flesh?

I ask that out of the riches of His glory He may strengthen you 
with power through His Spirit in your inner being,

I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.


Romans 8:9
You, however, are controlled not by the flesh, but by the Spirit,
 if the Spirit of God lives in you. 
And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, 
he does not belong to Christ.

You can't 'work out' disobediences to God.
It doesn't work!
-Charles Stanley from the message HERE 






Tuesday, May 6, 2025

Because in a Sense It Is Always Planting Season...


Like buds, morning breaks
hours unfold 
bearing noon-blooms
that fade and fall,
like so many flower-petals
to strew the dust of dusk

The petals of days to weeks to months to years
scatter seasons of life in their wake...

We are here for such a small 'season'
in light of eternity;
an eternity that begins
in the moment awaiting every single one of us,
when we close our eyes,
never to open them again on earth!

No matter what season we are in
we are students in its 'classroom'
with still so much to learn...

1 Tim.6:11-12
But you, O man of God, flee from these things (the love of money)
 and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, 
love, perseverance, and gentleness.
 12Fight the good fight of the faith. 
Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called 
when you made the good confession before many witnesses.

spring, summer, autumn, winter twirls
a kind of carousel
that often startles boys and girls
with hello's swift farewell
as childhood drifts from carefree streams
as adolescence sails
into a world of hopes and dreams
where Reality hails
with that which life is bound to bring
as the years come and go
a very sacred harvesting
for we reap what we sow
where autumns and winters accrue
bearing the telling yield
of seeds we strewed while dashing through
springtime and summer's field 

Janet Martin

Though we cannot turn back the clock
and undo what is done
or un-plant what is planted
this is a new day the Lord has made!
We can rejoice and be glad in it
and ask Him to help us to be mindful of the seeds we strew today,
for, in a sense it is always planting season
and no one lives to see the full extent of the harvest
for better or worse.
Oh, pray we plant for the better today!
Seeds of righteousness, godliness, faith, 
love, perseverance, and gentleness.


A lot of thought goes into spring planting because
every gardener and farmer knows
we cannot reap what we do not sow!


Last week the first teeny-weeny start on this year's garden-planting!
No! this is not all my garden!!
Beyond the grass strip is the farmer's field!
He has lent me a corner of his field so I am able 
to have a larger garden than I could otherwise enjoy!



Monday, May 5, 2025

Thou Art With Me (No Sweeter Words)




Yesterday a friend asked me where I turn, in scripture, 
for comfort, esp. in the wake of losing a sister I dearly loved. 
I hardly knew what to say at first because many Psalms have comforted me,
 as well as many of Jesus words in the gospels such as John11:24-25, John 14 
and Paul's words of comfort to the church..1 Cor.15, 1 Thess. 4:13-18, 
 but Psalm 23 is a living prayer in my soul...
each verse a ministering breath of Heaven

1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: 
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
3 He restoreth my soul: 
he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
4 Yea, though I walk through the valley 
of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; 
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
5 Thou preparest a table before me 
in the presence of mine enemies:
thou anointest my head with oil;
 my cup runneth over.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: 
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.



Before feet touch the floor each morning
what sweet comfort to whisper
'I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me'...

***

'Thou art with me' no sweeter words 
My mortal tongue can boast
(Save this 'for God so loved the world
He gave his uttermost)

'Thou are with me' no sweeter peace
Can drive dread fear away 
Thy rod and staff will never cease
To be my strength and stay  

'Thou art with me' no sweeter joy
Can comfort sorrow's tear
In vain foes rally to destroy
Faith's confidence and cheer 
  
'Thou art with me' no sweeter Friend
Can help or hear my prayer
No purer knowledge can defend
The path from here to There 

'Thou art with me' no sweeter song
Can fill my heart with praise
Goodness and mercy suffers long
To keep me all my days 

'Thou art with me' I shall not want
Whatever comes my way
Thy Presence thwarts the tempter's taunt
Of 'did God really say?' 

'Thou art with me' to gently lead 
Me to faith's sacred goal
Life's ups and downs cannot impede
The Shepherd of my soul

Janet Martin



And Now the Hills Are Greenly Gowned ...

Eccles.3:11
He has made everything beautiful in its time. 
He has also set eternity in the human heart; 
yet no one can fathom what God has done 
from beginning to end.

and now the hills are greenly-gowned...




and now with universal tongue, dusk's slow-paced majesty 
spills heaven's masterpieces, hung where everyone can see...


The last two evenings drew many a marveling gaze and gasp!









and now the hills are greenly-gowned, now gnarly, naked limbs
with nature's softest wreaths are crowned in blushing blossom-hymns
and heady haze of half-blaze lamps; bud-wicks begin to gleam
with the enchanting ambience of once-upon-a-dream
as earth's vault, birth and beauty-lined, bursts with faithful 'ahoy'
from God, who richly grants mankind life's good things to enjoy

and now with universal tongue, dusk's slow-paced majesty 
spills heaven's masterpieces, hung where everyone can see
the evidence of He whose glory no one can deny 
(pity the one who cannot see, but with the naked eye) 
and cannot sense the holy ground that trembles with God's touch
where now the hills are greenly-gowned in hues we love so much 

and now once more the birds return, that fled winter's chill climes
and from last-autumn-felled filled urn flower-resurgence chimes    
the earth is charged with petaled bells, and bird-song friendliness
until the dullest of hearts swells with holy happiness
where worship knows no brooding bound, in worlds brimming with bloom  
where every hill is greenly gowned with May, from mercy's loom

the earth and its fullness thereof is like a fount restored
or, like a letter penned with love by our gracious Lord 
Once again, God has not withheld creation's let-there-be
now, gratitude and gladness meld in humble harmony
to He who clothes the tree, soft crowned in diadems bespoke 
and the hills that are greenly-gowned in the Creator's cloak  

Janet Martin 

now gnarly, naked limbs
with nature's softest wreaths are crowned in blushing blossom-hymns
and heady haze of half-blaze lamps;...









Saturday, May 3, 2025

A Sober Petition (or, An Earnest Appeal)


Today, there’s a surplus of noise in our lives,
 yet God still speaks in a quiet voice 
through the Scriptures and by His Spirit. 
Taking time to prayerfully focus our attention on God 
will help us tune in to His comforting, guiding voice.
 (Daily Bread Devotion-Listening for God's Voice)

My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, 
but in deed and in truth.
1 John 3:18

Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, 
that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
Ps.90:14

***
Lulled by this world's noise
oh may it not be so
Deafened and blinded to the joys
Only God can bestow

***

We live in an age of unprecedented distraction!
Oh God, protect me/us from senses dulled
by constant appeal...
The prayer below is a sober petition
inspired in part by my dream last night
when I learned I only had a short time remaining to live,
and in part by the awful reality 
of the regard/disregard of the Word of God
as if it were the word of man! 





Grant me not peace where sin resists
Repentance, with Reason’s clenched fists
Where surrender is ‘but in part’
Rather than fully yielded heart

Grant me not joy where pride defends
Choices of disobedience
Convict me where sly snares invade
Lest ‘faith’ becomes a masquerade

Dear loving, gracious, holy God
While I behold but the façade
Whereby judgement is oft inclined
You see my heart and soul and mind

Then, grant me not dull hopes unfurled
By prospects of this fleeting world
But rather guard with watchful eye
The place where true affections lie

And grant me not, where sin still reigns
A false sense of its broken chains
Forbid that I should be deceived
By erring rationale believed

Lord, grant me meeker, purer thirst
To seek you and your kingdom first
Then, help me live each day of grace
Prepared to meet Thee, face to face

In Jesus' name I pray,
Amen

© Janet Martin





Thursday, May 1, 2025

May Happy-Dance


A two-fer today
to celebrate the first day of May,
possible in part because it is raining and in part
because its the first 'free' morning in a while...

So it's a happy-dance under an umbrella😊😊



(most of the lines in this poem
are still 'eager anticipation'
so no photos...yet!)

Happy, happy greens and golds
Branches, blossom-kissed
Happy buds that burst with holds
Pink and amethyst
Happy sun-warm afternoon
Picnic getaway
Happy harbinger of June
Happy, happy May

Happy planting season’s prime
Praying that it grows
Happy hope and dreaming time
Picture-perfect rows
Happy tulip’s regal cup
Set on grand display
Happy raindrop-fill-’er-up
Happy, happy May

Happy silver zephyr-sass
Azure heaven-vault
Dandelion-dappled grass
Laughing summersault
Happy good-and-perfect-gift
Robin’s lusty lay
Cumulus schooners adrift
Happy, happy May

Happy hint ‘o-heaven dells
Lilac lavished bars
Lily-of-the-valley-bells
Forget-me-not stars
Wildly blushing apple-trees
Countryside’s nosegay
Rambling brookish melodies
Happy, happy May

Happy longer-days-again
Happy riverbanks
Hosting happy fishermen
Happy, humble thanks
For woodland’s shy, half-leaf haze
Nature’s hip-hooray
For earth’s million hymns of praise
Happy, happy May

For vim, rested and renewed
After winter-spent
For gladness of gratitude
Daffodil content
Happy carefree, barefoot child
Happy work-and-play
Happy worship, wonder-wild
Happy, happy May

Kick off shoes, kick up your heels
Happy young-always
Happy everything that steals
Our breath and gaze
Happy song and happy-dance
Happy livelong day
Happy people, pets and plants
Happy, happy May

© Janet Martin

Happy buds that burst with holds
Pink and amethyst...




Preludes to Amen... or, Today

Happy, Happy green, gold and blossom-pink
month of May!



This cheery. warbling songster enticed me from my cozy slumber to greet the day and May!



Have you ever longed to rush the ways
 of wisdom or nature;
to become wise overnight
instead of weathering/suffering growth
like a tree or a child?

In order for a flower
to mature into full bloom
it cannot skip one step of the development
and unfolding;
so too with faith and wisdom

***
Last fall my cousin  gave me some money as a gift to buy
a keepsake plant in memory of Lucy.
I chose a few 'special' peonies.
(in memory of my peony/flower-loving sister)
I wish I could hurry them into
big, beautiful bushes of full bloom,
but I cannot.
\



we cannot hasten growing things..
a tree,
a child,
the wisdom
that experience brings

better to live with patience then
rather 
than push
or try to rush
God's gracious hand
*Amen~

© Janet Martin

God does not give us surplus strength
we can store up for tomorrow,
nor knowledge that usurps faith,
nor detours, shortcuts or bypasses
to His commands in his Word
in an attempt to hurry the gain of His blessing...

...and as thy days, so shall thy strength be.
Deut.33:25
 
*My, how very special and sacred then, is Today
because by each 'amen' lifetimes are born! 

Sometimes, in the heat of hello 
and farewell's beck and call
Of morn-to-eve-tides ebb and flow 
in seamless rise and fall
Where sun and shadow ups and downs 
Like friends and strangers meet
And bittersweet, its artwork crowns
Both triumph and defeat

...sometimes we tend to overlook
or undermine the way
These fill the pages of life's book
Entitled thus, Today
And, how each Good we wish would be
is worth the work/wait, though hard
 As faith believes, but does not see
As love learns no holds barred 

So, better, than to analyze
details of dust-to-dust
 Or air the grievances of 'why's
better turned into trust
Pray, we press on with humbler heed
to what we do and say
Because the fruit of scattered seed
begins again, Today 

What universal, noble cause
anoints each morn-to-morn
Hark! mercy breaks dawn's seal of gauze
As new Today is borne/born
From God to man and back again
filled with responses, where 
Pray, preludes to today's 'amen'
are filled with thankful prayer 

© Janet Martin

Rom.13:8-14
8 Owe no one anything except to love one another, 
for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. 
9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,”
 “You shall not murder,” 
“You shall not steal,” 
[b]“You shall not bear false witness,”
 “You shall not covet,” 
and if there is any other commandment, 
are all summed up in this saying, namely, 
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor;
 therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

11 And do this, knowing the time, 
that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; 
for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. 
12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand. 
Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, 
and let us put on the armor of light. 13 
Let us walk [c]properly, as in the day, 
not in revelry and drunkenness, 
not in lewdness and lust, 
not in strife and envy. 
14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and make no provision for the flesh, 
to fulfill its lusts.

Monday, April 28, 2025

Break of Day Hymn or Election Day Hymn

It is Election Day in Canada

Ps.113:1-4
Praise, O servants of the Lord,
Praise the name of the Lord!
2 Blessed be the name of the Lord
From this time forth and forevermore!
3 From the rising of the sun to its going down
The Lord’s name is to be praised.

4 The Lord is high above all nations,
His glory above the heavens...

Ps.112:1&7
Praise[a] the Lord!
Blessed is the man who fears the Lord,
Who delights greatly in His commandments...
He will not be afraid of evil tidings;
His heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord.

Ps.111:1-4&10
Praise[a] the Lord!
I will praise the Lord with my whole heart,
In the assembly of the upright and in the congregation.
2 The works of the Lord are great,
Studied by all who have pleasure in them.
3 His work is honorable and glorious,
And His righteousness endures forever.
4 He has made His wonderful works to be remembered;
The Lord is gracious and full of compassion...
10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
A good understanding have all those who do His commandments.
His praise endures forever.




Breaking of day is brief; soon heaven's blushing grandeur pales
To workaday backdrops; where duty's common demands press
With weighted musts/mists of creature care and Future's un-blazed trails
Compelling us not to proceed without God's promises

The theater of dawn rings, rife with birdsong-orchestras
Praise He who cups and overflows the fountain of today
No matter what befalls Our God is worthy of applause
He is above all nations; nothing can His will dismay

...then do not be afraid because the Lord is on His throne
His goodness and mercy sustain all who call on His name
From rise to set of sun, pray, we will make His praises known
And love each other well till we return from whence we came 

Time's turn of leaf is brief where breaking of day-to-day tolls
Eternity is chief; let's set our minds on things above
While living here below, let's trust the Saviour of our souls
For all we do not know, then treat our fellowman with love

...for break of day is brief; time's turn of leaf soon filled and stilled
Eternity is chief; not this world's fleeting, noisy roar  
The works of God are great; seek His pleasure and be fulfilled
His everlasting righteousness endures forevermore 

Janet Martin

The theater of dawn rings, rife with birdsong-orchestras...