Minion

This is the beginning of my favorite time of year. Thanksgiving combines Family, Friends, and Food. (I have three pies just out of the oven, and will have two more by the end of the day! Not to mention all the OTHER yumminess that I will be cranking out in the next couple days! =)) Next will be my birthday, and the birthdays of several of my favorite ladies. And then Christmas. This time of year has always meant extra moments with my family, and lots of fun-- if exhausting-- activities with my church family. But for me, and many others I know, it can also be a time of extra STRESS. How do you juggle time with all the family? What gift to buy for that hard-to-shop-for person (or persons) on your list? Or in these tighter economic times, how to AFFORD gifts for those on your list? How to keep your priorities straight in this highly commercialized culture?

I've been thinking for a few weeks now about how to stretch our budget. Our candy business will be gearing up next week, and I've been praying that it will be a good year. But this morning as I was doing my devotions, I had the strangest thought flit through my head. I tend to be very much like the little yellow minions in "Despicable Me". They wander around running into things, getting into random mischief, and chattering unintelligibly. As the "things to do" ramp up, I just tend to get worried. And worry is worthless.

"No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
Matthew 6:24-27

So rather than worrying, today I'm going to try to think about the One who is Worthy of praise.

At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal. And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!" And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, "Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created."
Revelation 4:2-11