A New Year to Not Waste Time

1Thessalonians 4:11  Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before. 5:6, 8, 16-22 So be on your guard, not asleep like the others. Stay alert and be clearheaded. ...  But let us who live in the light be clearheaded, protected by the armor of faith and love, and wearing as our helmet the confidence of our salvation. ...  Always be joyful.  Never stop praying.  Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.  Do not stifle the Holy Spirit.  Do not scoff at prophecies,  but test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good.  Stay away from every kind of evil.

Lord, it is already the end of the first week of January and new Years Resolutions are being broken.  How very sad.
Today in Thessalonians, Paul urges me to pray without ceasing, be thankful always, and to praise you continually.  All my "spare time" should be used for these purposes.  Help me, Lord to do just that today and for the rest of my days, not as a New Years resolution, but in a way of life.  This is quite a to do list that should keep me busy in a good way all year and for the rest of my life.

In our day we are prodded to go here see this or that, go there and do this or that, buy this, play that, work at this and that.  If you can't do it in person, do it digitally.  Some one told me once, "If Satan can't make you sin, he'll make you busy."  That is so true, Lord.

Today after my time with you I made cookie dough, went to the store, came home and took care of the groceries, rolled out and baked and decorated the cookies,  sat down in the living room with Dick and ate lunch, went back out to the kitchen and decorated the rest of the cookies, and worked on the scrap books.  I finally took the CD player into the kitchen to listen to hymn music while I worked.  It was a salve for my soul, but also a conviction that I do not spend enough time praising You even while I am doing other things.

Lord, I had not sung those hymns in years and could not remember all of the words.  I praise you that I have a hymn book and can look them up and read the words again, and I will do so.   I need Your help to remind me to STOP, Think, Thank You, Pray, Praise, and be JOYFUL!