I have balled my eyes out all day as I have finished the 5th Chapter of James. Not because of the answers it provides, but these questions:

– What is the line between hoarding and saving? I’ve watched the TV shows Hoarders and Extreme Couponing. One looks messy and the other has some sort of order to it. One is usually a result of a hurt or loss. The other a result of wanting to do something good. One makes me hurt inside. One makes me wonder.

– If I grew my own food, would I be more patient? I recall watching episodes of Little House on the Prairie when Pa and the family were anxious every time bad weather came for fear of what it’d do to the crops.  The many references to a agricultural life throughout the bible cause me to do more research, because it’s not what we do today.   But haven’t we all spent time “between the rains” of God’s blessings?  Some call it a wilderness time.  Others call it a desert time.

– What should I do when I am in trouble?  I grab a girlfriend-in-the-Lord and I pray.  I confess to seasons when staying in bed was my preference, but I keep practicing to “count it all joy (James 1:1)”  How else will I ever know what He’s going to accomplish if I don’t have seasons of “living by faith, and not by sight?”  More importantly, how will Satan otherwise be proved a liar in my own head?