philip's musings

Maybe I should be looking at another old war movie…  “A Bridge Too Far”… I may just have over-done it yesterday…  I have been totally out of it all day… Ellen got back around noon and never stopped until she finished cleaning up after a later dinner… she finally ground to a halt…  I think we are both done for the night so I’m not even going to attempt to write till tomorrow.

For some reason she did not want me to take a picture of her tonight… oh… now who is that in the background?   hmmmmmm…..

I love this lady…..

🙂

Ellen is at our son’s place doing a sleepover, since she has an 8:00am appointment for her cataracts in Burlington…. makes for a much easier start in the morning… this will be her last post-op check-up…. the surgery has gone very well… she has 20/20 vision and no longer needs to wear glasses… picked up some reading glasses at the Dollar Store….   🙂

Indiana Jones also left so Philip is here alone again, which we all know is dangerous.  I did get to Skype with Bodie though, which always helps to make the old fella a little less dangerous. Anyway all you get tonight is little old me….

…. and  “ME”  seems to be looking kind of serious… which is what I am about all this stuff the Lord has been showing me… very serious… so I have been working at sticking in a little humor here and there…  🙂

I have decided to take it in bits and pieces and then put it out in bite sized chunks… reminding those who are following along, that these are just Philip’s stories about what he is experiencing… this will not be a formula of some kind for others to follow… or a doctrine of some sort to believe in… or agree with… anything I ever share, I ask you to take what you are hearing and ask the Lord about it…  OK?

Some things will be things I have have said many times before… the Lord has just taken me another level deeper in my own experience of it.

I hope to begin on the ‘morrow!

🙂

I can never see what I need to see until I see what I need to see in order to see what it is I need to see…  sorry…  that even made some sense to me….  🙂    🙂   🙂

Then…  when I finally see what I need to see…  I then need to learn to walk in what I see before I try to communicate to someone else what I see if they happen to have some interest to see what I needed to see.

Ya see?    🙂

Don’t worry about a thing… my old friend Indiana Jones is flying out to help me with my issues.   Should be here shortly…

Thanks for coming Indiana!

Thinking about these 3 things the Lord just said… not sure there is a progressive order even… just hoping that He has finally brought me to this place of total weakness... sure seems like He has… I felt truly  “helpless”  for the past 5 days without Ellen here.. it’s like she waits on me hand and foot… His provision for me…

” I am not waiting for you to become strong, Philip…  I am waiting for you to become weak… to see that your weakness is what I am looking for… not your strength… for my strength is released in your weakness…  I can do nothing when you are operating in your own strength.”

“You  ARE  my Caleb… you  HAVE BEEN  my Caleb for years and years… because you have wholly followed the Lord your God and trusted only in Me to bring my will to pass…”

“I want you to be the  FIRST ONE  on every battlefield and the  LAST ONE to leave… I want you to  LEAD  every charge…”   

I am continuing to ask Him about this new direction for my life…

I saw the battlefield this morning…  I led the charge… I was the first one on the field… I have not yet left the field… I am watching to see what He does with each battle… also seeing the part that I need to play in each battle… it has been more than just interesting…

I have not yet left the battlefield… hmmmmm…

🙂

There simply is nothing else for Philip to muse about tonight… ellen arrived here safely mid-afternoon  (2:17pm actually… not that I was clock watching or anything)…  🙂     it’s been sooooo great ever since… she has returned totally exhausted, of course… but has been able to get things pretty much together down there in Wenham… and we are ready for our next move… around the middle of October…. when we shut down here at the Lake and take off to enjoy the family and our new apartment.

She did have enough energy left for a picture….  welcome home Ellen…!!!

I kept struggling with not being able to be His Caleb…  not that I didn’t understand what He was saying about  “weakness”  … that fits right along with everything else He has been showing us… you know… like we  never arrive… we never  “get there”… we die in order to live… there is  always more to see... about  everything  …. forever…  He just keeps taking us one step at a time.

But Caleb… like I said… that was a struggle… maybe there was a missing piece here.. I had always been so sure that  “Caleb”  was where He was taking me…. so I went back and started to talk to Him about it some more…  ending with  “… but Lord, I had always thought that I would be your Caleb….”

He said these words and Philip turned to mush…

“You are my Caleb… you have been my Caleb for years and years… because you have wholly followed the Lord your God and trusted only in Me to bring my will to pass…”

I was once again undone and looked again at Joshua 14… how many times these words are here in these 10 verses…

“6Then the people of Judah came to Joshua at Gilgal. And Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, “You know what the LORD said to Moses the man of God in Kadesh-barnea concerning you and me. 7I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land, and I brought him word again as it was in my heart.8But my brothers who went up with me made the heart of the people melt; yet I wholly followed the LORD my God. 9And Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land on which your foot has trodden shall be an inheritance for you and your children forever, because you have wholly followed the LORD my God.’ 10And now, behold, the LORD has kept me alive, just as he said, these forty-five years since the time that the LORD spoke this word to Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness. And now, behold, I am this day eighty-five years old. 11I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming. 12So now give me this hill country of which the LORD spoke on that day, for you heard on that day how the Anakim were there, with great fortified cities. It may be that the LORD will be with me, and I shall drive them out just as the LORD said.”

13Then Joshua blessed him, and he gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for an inheritance. 14Therefore Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this day, because he wholly followed the LORD, the God of Israel. 

🙂

Ellen left shortly after breakfast on Wednesday…. with  her truck  filled from front to back  (our 2008 Ford Escape)…  🙂      not to mention  Uncle Bill’s  pick-up and trailer… once again totally packed out for the trip to Wenham.  Ellen won’t be heading back to Shadow Lake until Sunday… so… all I can …  “Muse”   about is Ellen… how much I miss her and… how far away Sunday seems to be at this point….  🙂

She has been one very busy lady down there… setting up our apartment… thought you might enjoy some pictures of our new place….  🙂