Return-Five Minute Friday

I have returned for another week of Five Minute Friday. SO many directions I could've gone with this week's prompt, but after spending a few hours in quiet reflection, I felt inspired to consider what return should look like and mean at this point in life. I hope you are equally challenged.

Return......

Year after year, I return to the same places to work partly because it's familiar. It reminds me of the theme song from the 80's sitcom, Cheers. "You want to be where you can see, our troubles are all the same. You want to go where everybody knows your name." (Gary Portnoy & Judy Hart-Angelo). 

All of us want to go there, but what happens if we return to the same place of testing as Israel did at Meribah and also return to the same patterns of behavior as our parents did? They grumbled against God and wished they had perished with their parents forty years earlier. Because they couldn't see any water, they concluded surely they were only brought there to die. Surely the promises of a promised land flowing with milk and honey were a bunch of bunk. Surely, there is no hope then.

STOP

Psalm 95:8-11 "Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, As in the day of Massah in the wilderness, 'When your fathers tested Me, They tried Me, though they had seen My work. For forty years I loathed that generation, And said they are a people who err in their heart, And they do not know My ways.Therefore I swore in My anger, Truly they shall not enter into My rest."

Joel 2:13 "And rend your heart and not your garments. Now return to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and compassionate , Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness, And relenting of evil." (NASB)

To see what others returned to do this week, check out www.fiveminutefriday.com