Jackie's Journey "A Blink of Time!"

My Birthday is this month (there is no turning back the clock!) and I have stumbled across some verses on age this week, as I’m reading through Psalms.  “Teach us  to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom”.  I really want that heart!  (PSA.90: 14) “Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet, the best of them is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away...”  (Psa. 90: 10)

 In the next chapter (PSA. 92:14), the fruit of obediently numbering our days is given…”they will STILL bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green, proclaiming,  ‘The Lord is upright; He is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in Him.’” 

 Numbering our days is making every day count for the cross of Christ!  Our Creator, Owner, Leader, Sustainer, Savior and Successor is actively pursuing us with ministry and opportunity to reflect glory back to Him.  We are called and commissioned…”For my days vanish like smoke.  (James 4: 14) says ‘life is but a vapor!’”

 No time to lose!  Make it count!

 “We do not know what will happen tomorrow.  For what is your life?  It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away”!  Living, knowing that your life is just a vapor is different than just living.  Things here are passing away.  You’ve got to hold to what will stand.  Savor what matters.

 Finding our delight in the eternal with a heart-longing for HIS presence is permanent.  Life is short.  Eternity is Long.  We need to be living like it matters!  We will exist forever.  You and God are both in the universe to stay…either as friends on HIS terms or enemies on your terms.  Two seconds and we will be  gone.” (John Piper)

 Time is precious.  We are fragile.  Life is short.  Eternity is long.  Eternity lives outside of time. Every minute counts!   Let’s be busy…”redeeming the time”.  (Eph. 5:16)

 Never sacrifice the permanent on the altar of the immediate.

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey " The Four 'D's'"

It is Winter, but it feels like Spring. The rains have brought blankets of blooming flowers on the hillsides and an early garden is in the offing.  From my upstairs  window,  I recently observed what I thought was an injured bird but realized it was a little chubby gopher being chased by his identical twin.  Round and round they went, scurrying through the flowers and planting boxes of my garden!

 The pair of squirrels that return each spring also made their first appearance and I watched them run across the deck, “be-lining it”, to check out the hole they had made in the garden mesh last year that gave them total access to everything yummy and nutritious.

 Sooo…I started thinking about the dogged commitment these little fluffy mammals have.  There is no double-mindedness here…there dedication is 100% all in!  They have David Livingstone’s mind-set when he said,  ”I am determined never to stop until I come to the end and achieve my purpose.”

 Life is a continuous series of exchanges based on wise or unwise decisions.

Decisiveness is focusing on our destination, rather than focusing on distractions. And there are always distractions!  Double-mindedness is the opposite of being decisive.  James says, “… a double-minded man(mom) is unstable in all her ways and cannot receive from God. 

 We build decisiveness when we refuse to reconsider a decision that we know is right. Difficulties are overcome when our hearts are ready to harmonize with God’s will…over our own! 

 Daniel, a captured slave in Babylon, predetermined that he would choose to do what was right in God’s eyes…whatever the cost.  Have you decided who you will serve?  God has set before us “life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore,  choose life, that both you and your seed (children) may live”.

 Here’s a suggestion when at the point of decision:

 1.    DON’T – If it is the responsibility of others, let them do it.

2.    DELAY – If it should be done at a better time, wait.

3.    DELEGATE -If others can do it better, let them.

4.    DO IT – If none of the above apply, do it!

                                      Dr. Glen Heck

 Have a great week!

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "A Heart Matter"

This Saturday is Valentine’s Day!  It seems appropriate to address things of the “heart”…the “seed of our emotions”. Reading in Psalms 90 this morning, I crossed the verse that tells us to “number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom”.

 John Eldredge in the Journey of Desire wrote: “We are at war, and the bloody battle is over our hearts.  I am astounded how few Christians see this…how little they protect their hearts.  We act as though we live in a sleepy little township during peacetime.  We don’t.  We live in the spiritual equivalent of a war-torn country.  Act like it.  Watch over your heart.  Don’t let just anything in; don’t let it go just anywhere.  What’s this going to do to my heart? Is the question that I ask in every situation.”

 As we celebrate a day dedicated to the heart, let’s be alert to the fact that we are being stalked by a deadly enemy. Do you remind yourself that you are in a spiritual battle?  That the decisions you make today effect your future? Do you guard your daily time with the Lord in His Word?

 Are you intentional with your daily use of time or do you carelessly let it “slip by” with the lost opportunities? We are in the cross hairs and at a continual crossroads of decisions and our days are numbered…let’s determine to make those days count and “gain a heart of wisdom”.

 What is this decision going to do to my heart?

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "It's Not About Me!"

The New Year is a wonderful time to put our busy lives back into Scriptural perspective.  We just celebrated the coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ…the One who gives us everything we need to live a godly life. (II Peter 1: 3) The year 2025 has closed its doors…we are in week three of 2026.  How did you do in your surrender to Him last year?

 Genuine Christianity is an unconditional surrender to His Lordship.

 While attending the University of Arizona, I was invited to join Kappa Alpha Theta, a national sorority.  I had a sense of acceptance and grew to love the girls and the accountability.  After a semester of pledging, we had a night of mild hazing that culminated in stepping, individually, behind a veil for the final step of becoming a Theta.  As the “pledge of loyalty” was read and the words were spoken to me…I was asked to repeat them…

 A few months earlier, over Thanksgiving holiday, I had attended a church service and heard for the first time in my life that I could know God in a personal way through His Son, Jesus Christ.  Now, standing behind that veiled curtain in the Theta House, listening to the call to Theta loyalty, I was profoundly struck and realized I had already given my total allegiance to the Savior that we celebrated last week!  When He walked into my life, everything changed…I had no more allegiance to give.

 Time has tested on life’s stage that unconditional surrender

I made to my loving Savior and Sovereign Lord, in those college days.

 Commitment was the turning point in my life when I seized the moment and it became an opportunity that altered my destiny. When we talk about total surrendering of our lives to the Lordship of Christ, we are talking about yielding all our rights and expectations! 

 What…?

 Wait a Minute!

 Don’t we run from the people and circumstances that call us into total commitment?  It is much easier to go with the flow as the secular, ungodly world dictates to us woke, relativity, independence and “I have MY rights!”  The world’s motto: “Strength only, show no weakness!”

 The human struggle wants HIS POWER TO DO OUR WILL…no humility here.

 Is humility a position of strength or weakness, in your opinion?

 God says: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses,

so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake,

I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.

 For when I am weak, then I am strong.”  (II Cor. 12: 9-10)

 Humility is me…seeing the contrast between my spiritual condition (a sinner) and HIS holiness and then receiving His grace to live Christ-like, not Jackie-like!  Grace flows in our weakness. Grace is doing HIS WILL WITH HIS POWER! (Phil. 2: 13)   It is acknowledging His presence and His power to live the Christian life. Victory is living in that truth!

 Have you surrendered your life to His Lordship?

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "The Real Test!"

I have never been a fan of reptiles!

 Panama is the home to some of the biggest and most frightening snakes on the planet.  Our corner of the dense Darien jungle was full of boa constrictors, pit vipers, fer-de-lance (this snake bears 60 live babies at a time!), etc.  We were cautious not to poke under rocks or fallen branches, always scanning for any slithering menaces.  Behind our house there was a massive tree that extended its immense roots out into the river shoreline where the girls and I bathed and swam.  The thick mangrove swamp harbored snakes that would lie in the hollow places of the trunk of that tree. 

More than once I cried out Psalm 16:1

 “Keep me safe, Oh Lord, for in you I take refuge.”

Fear is no stranger to me.  I am habitually challenged to walk through the door of fear.   I was told during Missionary boot camp that courage was not the absence of fear, but the conquest of it.  Years ago, while reading “Hind’s Feet in High Places” I had no difficulty in identifying with “Little Much Afraid”!  Although I have grown in my areas of “unbelief” over the years, I am still susceptible to the “fear” test!

 “The highway of fear is the shortest route to defeat”.  William L. Brownell

 Ralph had built a screened-in back porch to the house.  It became home for our gasoline-run wringer washing machine.  The Indians thought the machine was the most ridiculous apparatus they had ever seen!  It was noisy, the water had to be carried from the river (or in rainy season, we could utilize the convenience of the roof rain barrels).   The agitator was a mystery (why would you jerk clothes around in dirty cold water when the river is running and clear!); however; the wringer was another story…it worked really well.  Hand wrung clothes could not match that wringer!  I had to agree with them on all other accounts! 

 While I washed, Kim, just a few months old, would play on a blanket or crawl around the porch.  The floor was slightly elevated, lined with wooden planks roughly cut and loosely fit together.  It was not quite finished and as I gave attention to the wringer, I saw Kim crawling toward something moving under the slats.  I turned off the deafening machine, snatched Kim up into my arms and yelled for Ralph!  Right under our feet, only a few inches away, was a 5’ venomous snake! He had quite possibly been a houseguest for “who knows how long” before we noticed him! Let me repeat…I am not a fan and I intensely dislike reptiles!

 Arturo, our nearest neighbor had heard me scream and came running, He quickly surveyed our predicament, raised his machete and removed the head of that reptile with one swift blow.  He held it up like a prized Marlin…its length was above his head and its tail draped to the muddy ground!

 This story could have had a much different ending, were it not for our Sovereign God, His plan and the life-lessons He was busy teaching me!  School is always in session,  if we have eyes to see it. The need to grow and mature will never end on this side of eternity. Fear has been my biggest challenge.  I am to fear the consequence of sin, not snakes.  Easy truth, until put to the test!

 “Be strong and of a good courage, Fear not, nor be afraid of them (in this case…snakes); for the Lord your God, He it is that does go with me;

  He will not fail me nor forsake me.” 

Deuteronomy 31: 16

 “I sought the Lord and He heard me and delivered me from all my fears.”

Psalm 34:4 

What do you fear?

Let’s welcome this New Year of unknowns

with determination and bold trust…

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "Tyranny of the Urgent"

“Never Sacrifice the Permanent on the altar of the Immediate!”

 We are five days into a New Year!  “Our greatest danger in life is in permitting the urgent things to crowd out the important.”  Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. used to say, “Never sacrifice the permanent on the altar of the immediate.” 

 Everyone receives an equal supply of time.  The only difference between us is in the way we spend it.  Each week brings us 168 golden hours.  We spend approximately 56 hours for sleep and recuperation.  We spend approximately 28 hours for eating and personal duties.  We spend approximately 40-50 hours for earning a living.  We have 30-40 hours left to spend just as we wish.  But how do we spend them?  How many hours for recreation?  How many hours for family communication?  How many hours for the regular worship of God (devotion, fellowship, meditation, etc.)  How many hours for personal service in the name of Christ?  Will we rob God and the time He has given us?  We can and we do! 

 Perhaps we may be very busy with good things, yet too busy for the best things.  The great question is:  Have we made wise use of our time as good stewards of Christ?

 Henry Clay Trumbull said, “Today is, for all that we know, the opportunity and occasion of our lives.  On what we do or say today may depend the success and completeness of our entire life struggle.  It is for us, therefore, to use every moment of today as if our very eternity were dependent on its words and deeds”…

 What is this New Year’s challenge?

 Are we focused on the permanent (eternal)

or the immediate (temporal)?

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "Time to Give Thanks!"

FROM MY FRONT DOOR TO YOURS!

 Thanksgiving is not a season.  It is a posture of our hearts.

 “Oh, give thanks to the Lord!  Call upon His name;

Make known His deeds among the peoples!” I Chronicles 16: 8

 LET US GIVE THANKS…

…for God’s grace and forgiveness

…for God’s blessing in our lives

…for the freedom to worship as we see fit

…for God’s promise of provision in response to our giving

…for the modern technology which enables us to receive and share the Gospel

…for the guidance of God’s Word, the Bible

…for the work of the Holy Spirit directing our paths day- by- day

…for the sustenance, the shelter, even the clothing which we so take for granted

…for the strength to carry on

…for the “hope of glory” (Colossians 1: 27)

“Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!  For His mercy endures forever.”

I Chronicles16: 34

Examining the posture of my heart…what about you?

From the heart of our home to yours…we are thankful for each of you!

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "On Guard!"

Our friends have a five-year-old Downs Syndrome boy who was having a fabulous time at Sea World.  In an instant, his parents realized he had wandered off, and in a panic, they began to run in every direction, calling his name.  After a few minutes others joined in…frantically searching the vast pools of deep water filled with every aquatic fish imaginable. 

 Finally, after a series of hopeful leads, he was spotted…head to toe, dripping wet and muddy…running to his dad, who scooped him up in relief and hugged him reassuringly! Upon arriving home, they bathed him and tucked him into his cozy warm bed and proceeded to get his wet clothes out of his over-stuffed backpack.  In disbelief and total amazement…out popped the cutest little live penguin they had ever seen! (Story shared by Yvonne Foust)

.Our little ones can certainly identify with this little happy and excited boy…I know I do!

 We are sometimes like that little boy.  We see or hear something that captures our total attention.  We get caught up in the exciting moment and throw “caution to the wind”.  The something may not be bad, but the distraction keeps us from following the best.  God has given our children a safety net in times like these by giving them…US!  Parents carry the responsibility of protecting their children.  They make sure these little ones are taught and learn to choose to stay close to where mom and dad can see and hear them.  Hence, they sense protection and security. 

 Alertness is the awareness that we are being stalked by a deadly enemy.( I Pet. 5: 8)   Listening and obeying…especially when we are in new places…keeps us alert to danger!  When little ones slip away where they cannot be seen or heard, they not only hurt themselves…they hurt others.  That little boy’s daddy and mommy were afraid because they love him.  That little boy had been in water somewhere and could have been in great peril!  That little boy took something that wasn’t his (his friend penguin). That little boy took iniative and made a bad decision on his own…without asking permission from his parents.  That little boy made the circumstance life-threatening for the baby penguin and himself!

 We need to stay alert under the umbrella of protection.  Our authority keeps the rain and pain of life from hitting us and gives us peace and security, IF we stay under its shelter.  When we choose NOT to listen and go off on our own, we walk away from our safekeeping.

 This, of course, is true for us, adults, too…

Do we remind ourselves in these busy days that we are in a spiritual war?

Do we maintain and guard our daily time with the Lord and His Word?

Do we see the need to be on guard to the subtle dangers

creeping into our lives and homes?

 Let’s be alert this week to our spiritual condition…

and  aware of what is taking place around us

so we can have the right response.

HAVE  A HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "Distractions!"

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and the anticipation of family and friends gathering Is a welcoming reality.  We will embrace the time given to those who arrive by plane, train and car to celebrate a season set aside to giving thanks together for God’s daily blessings.

 I pulled into John Wayne Airport last week to pick up my youngest daughter, arriving from a week’s visit in Texas with her best friend.  As I waited patiently, in my car, I observed scurrying individuals attempting to make their connection with those of us in a long line, each of us scouting for our peep!  Without exception, every single person had phone in hand.  Some were talking, some were listening, some were seated playing a game…but all were distracted and pre-occupied with something more important than the task at hand.

 It occurred to me that distraction had become the enemy.  The TSA workers were being hindered in their job of keeping the line moving by boarders consumed with the more important priority of a disrupting phone conversation!  How can one be attentive to the task at hand and distracted at the same time…it is an impossible conundrum! “A wise person will hear and will increase learning.”

 Attentiveness is showing the worth of a person by giving undivided concentration to his words. How many times do we call the name of our child and have them not respond?  Who gets priority when your husband calls your name and you are on the phone?  What about your quiet time?  Do you take the interruption and answer your phone or do you give a “hearing heart” and listen to the voice of God speaking to you through His Word? Those who listen best (undistracted) learn most. “Attend to my words, incline your ear to my sayings.” (Proverbs 4:20)

 Thanksgiving  gatherings are premier occasions for our laying all distractions aside and showing support to those we value by looking at them when they are speaking to us, leaning forward into the conversation showing keen interest, sitting and standing up straight to show we value and respect the opinion of others and then, asking as many questions as we can (listening carefully to the answers).

“A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he knows something!”

(Wilson Misner)

 I need to be more attentive this week…want to join me?

There is no time for distraction!

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights. 

Jackie's Journey "Haste Makes Waste!"

In my garden I have multiple butterfly bushes that are amazing to watch in the spring.  The butterflies come and the garden comes alive with activity.  When the chrysalis of a butterfly finally splits open, the butterfly must quickly free itself.  The pressure of this struggle inflates the butterfly’s wrinkled wings with vital fluids.  Without the struggle, a butterfly’s wings harden into misshapen stubs!

 It takes patience to wait and watch the entire process of butterfly reproduction.  In life we dodge the difficult situation, rather than just simply accepting it patiently, without giving God a deadline to remove it.  Those who wait on the Lord through great loss experience great gain. “Never think that God’s delays are God’s denials.  Hold on; hold fast; hold out.  Patience is genius!” (Buffon)

 “No one will ever know the full depth of our capacity for patience and humility as long as nothing bothers us.  It is only when times are troubled and difficult that  we can see how much of either is in us.” (St. Frances of Assisi)  How do we view the sovereignty of God? Do we joyfully endure pain and suffering?  Are we patient to wait on God and His timing in times of turmoil? James tells us to “welcome trials as friends”!  We are commanded to “run with patience the race that is set before us.”(Hebrews 12: 1)

 Most of us will have an opportunity to see this proved out in our life, as the holiday season takes on expectations and new challenges that call for endurance,  renewed strength and hope.  The promise is that ”they that wait upon the Lord will renew their strength; they will mount up wings as eagles; they will run, and not be weary; and they will walk and not faint”.(Isa. 40: 31)  

 The test of our maturity is how long we can wait between achievement and reward.

Have a great week!

~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America.  Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California.  My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights.