Fourteenth and Central: Stop, Consider These Things

By Donna J. Hall Nobles

Fourteenth and Central by Donna J. Hall Nobles is a collection of devotionals that invite you to stop and consider various aspects of your faith. Through short, friendly vignettes that combine stories with Scripture, Donna uses a personal touch to inspire and uplift readers.

Each of these devotionals is like sitting down with a cup of coffee to chat with a dear friend about everythingfrom the tiny joys and disappointments of everyday life to the big events that make or break us. In all situations, we are invited to stop and consider God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Inspiring Voices
• Release date: Jun 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781462409495

Donna J. Hall Nobles

Donna is a graduate of Benton Harbor High in Michigan and Anderson University Anderson, Indiana. She’s been a teacher, minister’s wife, and is now a retired caseworker. She has a son, daughter, and four grandchildren. She’s active in the Worship Arts Program of Madison Park Church of God, Anderson, Indiana.

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 Donna J. Hall Nobles.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Unless otherwise noted, scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, Copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture noted NIV is taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission. NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® and NIV® are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Use of either trademark for the offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent of Biblica US, Inc.

Scripture noted KJV is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture noted RSV is taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright ©1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Speartoons by Kevin Spear–kevinspear.com

Inspiring Voices books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

Inspiring Voices

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.inspiringvoices.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Cover photos and design by Terry R. Hall

ISBN: 978-1-4624-0948-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4624-0949-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014907272

Inspiring Voices rev. date: 05/29/2014

Contents

STOP TO CONSIDER GOD

Fourteenth and Central

Voyager

Five Beautiful Words

Comfort

Hide and No Seek

Symphony of God

STOP TO CONSIDER THANKFULNESS AND PRAISE

You Can’t

The Promise of Spring

Cowslip Isle

Cowslip Isle

Those Birds

Spring Turns into Summer

He Came Back

Autumn Time

Home Again In Indiana

Witness

Satisfied

STOP TO CONSIDER OBEDIENCE

Why?

Jeremiah’s Letter

Not a Secret Message

So Innocent

Please Pass the Offering Plate

A God Pleaser

Frogs, Worms and the Forty Year Line

Bible Course: In a Pickle #101

Dead for Alive

Vision of Satan

STOP TO CONSIDER OTHERS

Cloaking Device

From Head to Toe

The Party Dress

Louie

Here Comes Another One

STOP TO TELL OTHERS

On Any Given Day

On Any Given Day

Heavenly Fish

Right Here in River City

Without a Fork?

Happiness Is?

Five Stones

Just the Two of Them

STOP TO HANG IN THERE

Holding On

Parable of the Carrot

Whatever

Where’s My Blender?

You Have to Understand

STOP TO CONSIDER GRIEF AND HEALING

Mushrooms?

I Came To Your Yard Today

Sittin’ On the Creek Bank

The Rest of the Story

STOP TO POWER UP

Powerhouse Nine

Hope

Prayer for Our Cities

Five or Six Times Tapping

The Answer is a Question

A Toddler Speaks

STOP TO GROW TOWARD GOD

Feathers in the Sky

Eleventh Easter Time

Moonbeams

The Welcoming Table

Intersections

Acknowledgements

I credit Scripture and the Holy Spirit without which there are no songs in the heart and no pages in this book.

I thank Guidepost for the book contest and the judges for their evaluation and the opportunity to publish Fourteenth and Central.

I am thankful to Inspiring Voices for their encouragement, their knowledge and expertise.

I especially thank Terry R. Hall for designing the cover.

My thanks to Dianna Mosedale, Amy Boone, Marti Gillespie, Lynn Clark, Kevin Spear, Madison Park Writer’s Group, friends, family and church family who have helped make this book possible.

Stop to Consider God

We humans who are designed and sculpted in the image of our Creator have a feature not truly given to other creations: we have the power of choice. We choose over and over again each day. Our mind-set or what we are focused upon does influence those choices and does make all the difference. To consider God, from world’s unknown to a baby’s cry, sets the stage to enact the stops, turns and moments of decision.

Fourteenth and Central

Finally brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy meditate on these things. Phil. 4:8 (KJV)

Let me explain: Central is a one way street north, and Fourteenth Street is an east-west street which intersects Central. My route was straight on Central past 14th Street. You know how you’re sometimes bothered but can’t quite put your finger on it? Well, I finally got it! I always got the red light at14th and Central.

I made a game of trying to catch the green light, but no matter what I had to stop and wait at the intersection.

Even when I drove east on 14th and waited at the signal there, no traffic on Central crossed without first getting the red light.

One day when I was running a little late, I had to accept I could not mount up with wings like eagles over a train. The long, lonesome train whistle, clanging crossing gate and flashing lights were more than inconvenient. I meditated on all the wonderful places those boxcars would pass in a day’s time.

When both the moments of meditation and the train passed, the arms lifted, and I beheld the green light less than a block away. Yes, the light was green—but not when I reached the intersection.

So-o-o, I had a secret. When some driver on Central appeared anxious, gunning his engine and looking at me as if I were the last of the dinosaur-mobiles, I grinned. I knew 14th Street was just ahead. They thought they would leave me in the dust—ho, ho, ho. As I coasted in next to them, I couldn’t help thinking; here we are all together at the great equalizer, 14th and Central.

Sometimes, fellow drivers looked sheepish; it was probably a look like mine when those I had passed drove up beside me. Do you know how humbling it is to weave through traffic, to calculate speed, to leave the slow drivers behind and to arrive at 14th Street only to wait while everyone from behind catches up?

Traffic signals regulate our goings and comings on the road. Actually, a red light indicates possible danger and is meant as a protection from cross traffic. How often are we confronted with circumstances in life which require us to stop before continuing a course of action? I daresay decision-making is not a small amount of our daily existence.

This book is a collection of thoughts which have given me pause on my journey. I make no apology for spiritual applications to even the most mundane of circumstances. We are spiritual beings. My hope and prayer is these pages will provide pausing-moments which lead to the foot of the cross - our station, our strength and our salvation.

Voyager

On September 12, 2013, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, reported the Voyager 1 probe had left our solar system. Launched in September 1977, it took 36 years to reach interstellar space. Voyager is over 18,912,600,000 km or 11 billion miles from earth. The NASA website has a continuous scroll of its progress—16 km per second.

If you have seen the Star Trek television series or movies, you might be familiar with the phrase: going where no one has gone before, referring to the starship Enterprise. Well, we are not aboard the Enterprise, but we on earth are traveling where we have never gone before. Check out this bit of information: the earth spins on its axis at 1040 miles per second while it orbits the sun at 18.5 miles per second and orbits around our Milky Way at 155 miles per second. Are you dizzy yet? The Milky Way itself is moving within its local group of galaxies at 185 miles per second. In other words, we are moment by moment moving into space where we have never been before.

Beyond our solar system and the Milky Way are absolutely numberless planets within countless solar systems within incalculable galaxies. It is mind boggling. If reaching far into the night sky is too much to consider, then let’s think about much smaller ideas.

The Hadron Collider in Switzerland is 574 feet underground and 17 miles long. It was constructed to answer questions regarding deep structure of space and time—to find the absolute smallest thing in the universe. On July 4, 2012 physicists claimed to have found it—the Higgs boson or God particle.

As a disclaimer, I know little about physics and get lost thinking of protons and neutrons. My only point is to say we humans are only beginning to discover how immense is immense and how minute is minute in creation.

The Psalmist shares his thoughts in Psalms 8:1, 3, and 4:

O Lord, our Lord, the majesty of your name fills the earth!

Your glory is higher than