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The New York stock exchange’s trading pit has nothing on viciousness compared with my living room the day after Halloween. I had thought that the children would have all slept in after being up so late the night before and because they had a day off from school. Nope. They were up bright and early, ready to trade.

The older ones were running the trading for the most part. I’m not sure how well the younger ones faired, but I guess it really doesn’t matter as they will eat just about anything with sugar in it! As brutal as all this may sound, the children thoroughly enjoy it and everyone eats far more candy than is good for them.

It did make me think though. As excited as my kids were to receive all the candy, they were not satisfied with just enjoying their own candy. The candy in their siblings’ bags looked a little better. Aren’t we as adults the same way? Instead of enjoying my life and the blessings God has given me, my eyes are on someone else and the blessings they appear to have.

We even have sayings to illustrate this point: “Keeping up with the Jones’.” And, “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.” There are several problems with this. As I said, it keeps me from truly appreciating all that I have. Also, we don’t ever really know what is going on in someone else’s life. Things look good on the surface sometimes, but there might be some big struggles underneath. Another thing, if I am not grateful for what God has given me, how can I share it with others? God does not usually give us gifts just for us to keep all to ourselves.

So while my children enjoy trading candy, I think I will focus on being thankful for what I have been given. God has chosen to give these gifts to me, and I wouldn’t trade them for the world.

“Don’t be deceived…Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” James 1:16-17

I think this phrase holds a negative connotation for most of us, as it was the title of a thriller-type movie back in the day. But what is underneath doesn’t necessarily have to be scary.

This past week was a rough one at my house. As I mentioned in my last post, not only did I have the flu, but we were also dealing with the power outage as I’m sure a lot of you were. As a result, most of the week my home looked like a train wreck. However, the mess was mostly on the surface. Underneath the schoolwork strewn across the table was a Fall colored tablecloth and some pumpkin decorations. The walls still had a bright garland of leaves. And even though there was a pile of laundry waiting to be sorted in the living room, there were still our comfy pillows and my mother’s rocking chair.

I know I can get very caught up in worrying about things lurking just under what I can see. Most of the time I assume that what I can’t see must be something bad. But what if I’m wrong?

What if what I can’t see is how God is working just under the surface, using what looks like a mess to me to do something amazing and wonderful. What if His plans include power outages and the flu and a messy house? And if He is doing that in my life, maybe He is doing it in yours too. Beyond us, maybe He is also working in that stranger who looks grumpy, or different, or even a little scary…on the surface.

In so many situations, only God knows what really lies beneath. God is the one who knows our hearts, intentions, hopes, dreams, fears, worries, and so much more. He is the one we can trust with everything, even what we can’t see.

“The One Who examines the thoughts and emotions is a righteous God.” Psalm 7:9

I have heard the story my whole life, the very earliest performed for me by kind Sunday School teachers on flannel boards. We got a little deeper into the theology behind the tale by the time I was in Junior High and High School, learning about doing what was right even when it was hard and went against the crowd. I have even done an in-depth Bible study on the entire book of Daniel as an adult.

However, in all that time, it never, until about a week ago, occurred to me how I would behave if thrown into a lions’ den. I knew that Daniel had been totally full of faith. He had to have been because he had continued to pray with his windows open even after it became illegal. Even right there is where old Daniel and I might part ways. As faithful as I hope I am, would I really have kept my windows open? “Um, I’m praying on the inside God, you can hear my prayer thoughts…”

But if I were to be thrown into the den, I realized I would most definitely not be as calm as Daniel. I know this because of other experiences in my life. I will have God tell me in some way to trust Him, that He is going to take care of me and the circumstances I am in. Do I joyfully say, “Great God, glad I don’t have to think about that anymore!” No, I tend to continue to fret, thinking through every possible scenario and outcome with some anxiety thrown in for good measure.

And so that is the picture I have of myself in the lions’ den. Instead of cuddling up to a nice furry lion and peacefully sleeping, I would be huddled in the corner continually checking to see if the lions had changed their minds. But what I am really asking is if God has changed His mind.

I am so grateful that God does not change! He is always with us, no matter how sharp those lions’ teeth, how dark the night or how fierce the enemies. It is up to me to choose to believe Him, and even then He promises to help us believe. My goal is to get to the place where I can rest secure wherever I may be, whatever the circumstances of my life might be, even if it is sleeping in the den of lions.

“At the first light of dawn, the king got up and hurried to the lions’ den. When he came near the den, he called to Daniel in an anguished voice, ‘Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to rescue you from the lions?’ Daniel answered, ‘O king, live forever! My God sent His angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions.'” Daniel 6:19-22

As many of you know, I am a piano teacher. I have been teaching a long time and one of the things I constantly have to remind my students is that they have to slow down to go fast. At this point I have taught hundreds of students of all levels, ages and abilities and I have yet to meet one who does not try to play a piece too fast right away.

I explain the process of muscle memory, how if you play slowly and deliberately, measure by measure, your muscles will “remember” the notes even while your mind is learning them. I tell them this might feel as though it takes more time, however it will actually take less because they will not have to unlearn the mistakes they allow their finger muscles to learn.

I know this is the same for pretty much all of us in other areas of life too though. I am not sure if it is just an American trait or a human one, but I have yet to meet the person who gets excited about going extremely slow through a learning process. Especially the painful ones.

For whatever reason, this is usually how God chooses to teach us or refine us. I know for myself, when I am going through a stretching and growing time, I get impatient and want to just jump to the end. I will question God about how long the experience or trial is going to last. I will come up with all kinds of ways that He could shorten it for me. But when I finally get through the time, I can usually look back and see some of what God was doing, how He was using the painful circumstances to sand off some of my rough edges and bring me closer to Himself. This has not made me any more excited about hard times, but it has increased my faith that God is faithful to bring me through and that He does work all things for our ultimate good.

And, true confession, I also play piano pieces too fast right away!

“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” Romans 12:12

Don’t you just love apples in the Fall? There are so many fun, yummy varieties. Sweet, mellow Golden Delicious; tart, crisp Granny Smiths; delightfully crunchy Honeycrisps. All are apples, yet they are quite distinct from each other. It would be hard for me to choose a favorite.

It is kind of like us people, we are all humans, yet we come in a wonderful variety of personalities and characters. And guess what? God has chosen a favorite–you! Did you know that you are the apple of His eye? In the book of Psalms in the Bible, the psalmist talks about God keeping us as the apple of His eye. This actually refers to the pupil of the eye, or what we see everything through, which means you are always in God’s sight.

Another thing about our eyes, is how we protect them. Our vision is very precious and we do everything we can to protect it. God also protects us this way. In another verse, in the book of Deuteronomy, it talks about God protecting His people as the apple of His eye, “He, (God) shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of His eye.” Deuteronomy 32:10.

It is so amazing, that even though there are billions of people in the world, we are each God’s favorite. It is like my children, one night at dinner a friendly argument broke out because each child was claiming that they were my favorite! (Must be doing something right I guess!) However, if you do have more than one child, you can understand a little how it is possible for each of us to be God’s favorite. Each of my children are my favorite, just in different ways.

So the next time you are feeling a little down, just remember how important you are to your Heavenly Father. He sees you and He loves you. He guards you and He protects you. After all, you are His favorite!

“Keep me as the apple of Your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.” Psalm 17:8