My Week in a Few Words - 8/4/11

Traveling. Hotel. Bible. Tired. Buckit week. Prayer. Fellowship. People. Games. Evangelism. Parables. Learning. Notes. Cults. Church.  Plans. Sitting. Sessions. Food. Tea. E-Sword. Sunshine. Fun. Ideas. Ish.

30-Day Bible Challenge

In May I attended a day-long conference geared toward equipping and encouraging young people to share the gospel. While I was there, one of the speakers gave a challenge: For 30 consecutive days, read 2 Bible verses in the morning and evening, and meditate on what you read. I read the Bible each day anyway, but I still decided to take the challenge, and along with meditating on what I read, write down some of my thought about the various passages.

Even from day 1 I felt encouraged and refreshed by the Word of God all over again! I think that actually writing down the things I learned about the verses that I read really gave me the desire to explore them further and dig deeper into the truths that they contained. Certain things just seemed to "click" as I pondered the verses, how they applied to me, and how I should live in light of them. Just goes to show that the Bible is a living book, and you can never fully plumb its depths!

So here's the challenge.
For 30 days, read 2 Bible verses (it can be more!) in the morning and in the evening, meditate (think about) what you read, and jot down some of your thoughts about the verses. I hope you take the challenge, and if you don't already read your Bible daily then I hope you make it a habit!


If you decide to take the challenge, then please comment! Also, if you want to share any of the thoughts that the Lord brings to your mind along the way, then feel free. I would love to share some of thoughts He's blessed me with.

Our prayers, God's answers

"God always answers our prayers. The answer might be yes, no or wait. It might take us out of our comfort zone. But it's God's answer in God's timing nonetheless. So let us "pray without ceasing; [and] in everything give thanks". 1 Thess. 5:17-18"

100th day of the year!

Yesterday, April 10th, was the 100th day of 2011. Do you know what today is? (I'll give you a hint: You can find it in Psalm 118).

Running, Walking and In Between

After waking up, breakfast, quiet time and general puttering around in the kitchen, I was finally ready to go for a run. I had gotten some brand new running shoes the day before, and I was dying to try them out. My old sneakers were retired from running, as they had seen better days.

Now, I'm not a 'runner' if you think of a runner as someone who does marathons as a hobby, but if you think of a runner as a person who attempts to move both feet in a forward motion while clomping them up and down, then I'm a runner through and through. I'm persuaded that to runners, I looked funny, to non-runners I looked funny and to those in-betweeners at my level I certainly didn't look inspirational. In fact, I felt rather like a shire horse trying to do dressage. :-) Thankfully I had no observers save the few drivers that drove by me on my otherwise private route.

The sun was warm, the breeze was welcome and the surface of the road was just the right texture; firm enough to not be muddy, and soft enough for a bit of cushioning. A rapidly disappearing layer of snow still lay under the trees on either side of the road. I felt like my feet were pounding, thumping and thudding the ground; all of the things that they shouldn't have been doing! Oh well. I was enjoying the fact that I was able to be where I was with the strength and health that God gave me, along with all the added blessings of a sunny, warm day and a safe road to run on.

I had brought my mp3 player with me with a playlist of inspirational instrumental/vocal songs to keep me going. I decided that on the way down I would not use it, but that I would rather enjoy nature.
On the way back, however, I turned it on and began my run back. I decided that some of the most inspirational music to run to is the soundtrack from 'The Man from Snowy River'. I'm not a fan of the movie, but the soundtracks are great. Andrew Peterson's 'Pillar of Fire' is one that it's hard not to run to! Especially since I was "homeward bound". I began walking once I had reached my goal of running over 3 miles. Andrew Peterson's "Just as I Am" began playing as I neared the entrance of my road. I'm so glad that "He loves me, He does." Just as I got back to our house, "Rocky Top" started to play. I had to smile. There "ain't no smoggy smoke" near my house, and it just may always be "home sweet home to me".

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I feel so privileged and blessed! Just last night I was reading Ephesians 5:1-21. I've been learning lately just how important it is to heed the exhortation given in verses 15 and 16:

Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil.

In Ephesians chapter 5 we have three different verses that talk about walking.

• Verse 2 says to "walk in love".
• Verse 8 says to "walk as children of light".
• Verse 15 says "be careful how you walk".

Then  in Hebrews 12:1-2 the author compares living out the new life Christ gives (2 Corinthians 5:17, Romans 6:4) to running a race.

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 

Here it says "let us run with endurance the race that is set before us". The race that it talks about in that verse is our lives. At the finish line is a reward in heaven from God (2 Timothy 4:7-8). Are you 'entered' into the race? Jesus said "I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved...". John 10:9. The only way to be right with God is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior from your sins: That we stood guilty before God, that Jesus died to take the punishment we deserved for our sins, and that He lives again.

I know I don't fully comprehend or follow the commands of all of these verses. It is my prayer that I will learn to walk more and more the way God wants me to every day. But I do know this: Whether I'm walking or running, I have a reminder from the Bible to

• Walk in love
• Walk as a child of light
• Be careful how I walk
• Run with endurance

I'm thankful to the Lord who gives me the ability to enjoy His creation by walking and running in it, but I'm even more grateful for the fact that I'm His child. It is my strong desire that I would

...Walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. Colossians 1:10

(photo credits: Microsoft images)

What We Think Matters!

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. 

Philippians 4:8

Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. 

Colossians 3:2

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. 

Romans 12:2

We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ...

2 Corinthians 10:5

Some advice... :-)

This last week I went to Buckit Week. Buckit stands for Bible University Christian Knowledge Intensive Training. It went from the evening of August 15 through the afternoon of August 20th. It was a wonderful time of good, solid Bible teaching, reading and study, and it was also a great time of fellowship with other believers!

One of the two Bible teachers, Mr. Wilson (all the way from Down Under!) spoke a bit on how not to study the Bible. When some people study the Bible, they take things out of context, read things into the text or misconstrue it in some way so badly that all one can really say is... well, watch this video and you'll find out! :-)  

Stars

I didn’t know there would be a meteor shower until I saw an article about it on a news website. I thought it was very timely, since I would soon be leaving to go to New Hampshire, and from there, Connecticut, and from there, Maryland. Watching a meteor shower would be a nice way to wind down the evening after a day of packing, laundry, errands and general pre-trip business.

---

I put on a light jacket and slipped on my sandals. It was chilly outside, but I didn’t feel like putting socks on. This is the kind of temperature I like. It’s too cold for mosquitoes, but not too cold for me. Fall is my favorite time of year, and what with the cooler days and chilly evenings we had had recently it seemed closer than ever. Time to break out the winter clothes! Well, not quite, but soon. Perhaps mid-September or so.
I went outside on the front deck for my little star-gazing experience.  I was well aware of the skunk in our barn, as he was both a frequent visitor there and since he was also there when I went in to shut one of the outside doors we had left open. He didn’t both us, but our cats seemed to know that he wasn’t someone they should become close friends with. Our smallest cat, Tucker, knew this especially well. He was probably glad to smell normal again after a day or so of trying to get away from himself. :-)

I pulled one of our deck chairs into the center of the deck so I could get a better view of the stars. My view of the sky was clear, unpolluted and expansive. As soon as I stepped out onto the deck I was almost overwhelmed by the vastness of the sky and the countless number of stars. Of course, I was used to seeing the stars and the sky at night, but tonight seemed to refresh my memory and remind me of just how big it was. That wasn’t the only thing I was thinking of, though. I was also thinking of the One who created it all; God. The same God who made the stars, Milky Way, planets, galaxies and universe was the same God who sent His only begotten Son so that we could have a relationship with Him. It made me feel amazingly small yet extremely privileged. I didn’t deserve a relationship with God, nor did I deserve this extraordinary view of the heavens that He created. “He made the stars also”: five little words that almost seem like an afterthought in the first chapter of the first book of the Bible. Even from the beginning, God knew exactly where He wanted each star. The Psalms say that He has ‘ordained them’ and that ‘He gives names to them all’. And I can’t even name all of the constellations!

I sat outside on the deck for about forty-five minutes or so. A couple of my cats took turns being lap warmers and distractions, but I didn’t mind. Two owls were whoo hoo hoo hOOing in the woods down across the neighbor's field in front of our house. It was only about three quarters of the way through my star-gazing that I noticed the repetitive sound of the crickets and other night insects.

It was a very pleasant evening; even if I hadn't seen any meteors that night it would have been worth sitting outside just to enjoy the cool air, see the beautiful sky and hear the night noises. I saw a bunch of meteors, one being so bright and long-lasting that it left a tail for about 3 seconds after the white-hot particle's light died out!

I saw more than meteors that night. I saw a glimpse of power, majesty and mercy that can’t be measured, counted, exhausted or explained fully.  The stars are in the sky are there whether we like it or not, and there are too many to number. There are too many unexplored galaxies that also have countless numbers of stars. There’s simply no way we can tally up the entire amount of stars in our universe. But from what we can see there sure is a lot of ‘em! It’s a bit like God, actually. We can appreciate what we can see of His character as shown in the Bible, revealed in His Son, and shown in creation, but we simply can’t understand all there is to know about Him. But with His help we can get to know Him better and become more and more conformed into His image.

By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.
Hebrews 11:3

...that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God...
Colossians 1:9b-10

To whom then will you liken Me
         That I would be his equal?" says the Holy One.
    Lift up your eyes on high
         And see who has created these stars,
         The One who leads forth their host by number,
         He calls them all by name;
         Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power,
         Not one of them is missing. 
              Isaiah 40:25-2

The Mighty One, God, the LORD, has spoken, and summoned the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. Psalm 50:1

God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. Genesis 1:8

I am the LORD, and there is no other; besides Me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known Me; that men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that there is no one besides Me. Isaiah 45:5-6

They who dwell in the ends of the earth stand in awe of Your signs; You make the dawn and the sunset shout for joy. Psalm 50:1

Who? Whose?

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.

Proverbs 3:5

Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God ...

2 Corinthians 2:5

 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?

1 Corinthians 6:19

Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. 

Romans 12:16

      Know that the LORD Himself is God;

         It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;
         We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.  
Psalm 100:3

 
For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:6-8

 

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich. 

2 Corinthians 8:9

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 

Romans 5:10

 

My soul, wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be shaken. On God my salvation and my glory rest; the rock of my strength, my refuge is in God. Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us. 

Psalm 62:5-8 

 

... Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 

1 Corinthians 15:57 

 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ .... 

Ephesians 1:2 

 

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy,  to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. Jude 1:24-25
 

1 Thessalonians 4:13-17

Psalm 37:25

"I have been young and now I am old..."

Psalm 37:25a

;-) 

Psalm 8

                                         Psalm 8

     

O LORD, our Lord,

       How majestic is Your name in all the earth,

 Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens!

  

From the mouth of infants and nursing babes 

You have established strength

Because of Your adversaries,     

    To make the enemy and the revengeful cease. 

       

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
       The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;

  

What is man that You take thought of him,
  And the son of man that You care for him?
    Yet You have made him a little lower than God,
   And You crown him with glory and majesty!

      

You make him to rule over the works of Your hands;
 You have put all things under his feet,

All sheep and oxen,
         And also the beasts of the field,
    The birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea,
    Whatever passes through the paths of the seas.

 

   O LORD, our Lord,
      How majestic is Your name in all the earth! 

Some close-up photos

A couple weeks ago I experimented with some close-up book photography. They're not incredible photos, but here they are!

Oh, and before I forget, the concert on the 16th went pretty well. :-)

To live is Christ...

"For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain."
Philippians 1:21

If to live is Christ: We have everything. [Romans 8:32]
Ephesians 1:3 "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ..."
If to die is gain: We have even more. [Revelation 22:3-4]
John 11:25-26 "Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?"

"Yet it must be: Thy love had not its rest
Were Thy redeemed not with Thee fully blest.
That love that gives not as the world, but shares
All it possesses with its loved co-heirs."

John N. Darby

Thanksgiving

Today is the day that is commonly called Thanksgiving. I looked up Thanksgiving on Wikipedia and it said: "While perhaps religious in origin, Thanksgiving is now primarily identified as a secular holiday."

I'm not sure who or what the people that are celebrating it as a secular holiday are thanking! I'm sure glad that we can thank the Lord for all of the blessings He has given us, and especially for His Son Jesus Christ!

I looked up the words 'Thanks' and 'Thanksgiving' on Bible Gateway. It came up with a lot of passages!

Whether or not you celebrate a certain day of the year particularly for giving thanks, we should be sure to give thanks to God every day for what He's given us!

Here's a link to another post I wrote about being thankful.

Exchange and Commitment

Salvation is the great exchange: All for nothing. Romans 8:32
The Christian walk is the great commitment: All or nothing. Luke 9:23

An Instrument of Righteousness

My recent experiences in learning to play the violin can, I think, be paralleled with my recent experiences in growing in my walk with the Lord.

As my violin teacher has put it, "Playing the violin is an exercise in multi-tasking." It most certainly is!

Both your left hand (which plays the notes) and your right hand (which holds the bow) have their own jobs to do. Both of their jobs are important; without the bow, you won't have any sound. True, you can pluck the the strings (pizzicato), but that doesn't give you all the sounds the violin can give. It's only one sound. Without the fingered notes, you won't have a melody. True, there are four open (non-fingered) notes you can play, but that only gives you a preview of what the violin is really meant to sound like.

How does that compare with the Christian walk? Well, two things that are equally important to
growing in the Lord are:
Reading His Word and prayer. You can pray without reading (or meditating on) the Bible, and you can read the Bible without praying. But think about this. The Bible has everything that God wants us to know in it. What's He's done in the past, what He's doing now, and what He'll do in the future. They all correlate. We can learn from the past, know what He wants us to do right now, and learn how that related to our (and the whole earth's) future. I for one would certainly want to read about that!

The God of the Bible is a personal God. He wants us to get to know Him and follow Him and serve Him out of love. One of the privileges we have as believers in Jesus Christ as our Savior is that we have the ability to speak to Him whenever we need to. Paul says in Colossians 4:2 "Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving;". In James 4:16 it says "The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much." Jesus Himself prayed often to His Father. In Luke 6:12 it says "It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God."

We have the same ability to communicate with our Heavenly Father directly as Jesus did! I think that's quite an honor.

So you may be able to see how prayer and reading the Bible go together.
God communicates to us through His word.
We communicate to Him through prayer, which His word commands us to do without ceasing.
They go hand in hand (no pun intended!).

Now back to the violin analogy. There are many small things that you (in general) need to think about while you play. Left hand: Your arm position, thumb position, finger position,
intonation and the various techniques that you use when doing exercises or playing a piece. Trills, shifting, slides and grace notes are just a few of the things your fingers have to do. Right hand: Adjusting the pressure on the bow for the different volumes, keeping your hand flexible and getting the right bowings (up bow or down bow) are a few of the things that your bow hand is responsible for.

Why? They all add to the sound, ease of playing and overall smoothness of playing the instrument. I would be the first to say that it's not easy! At least for me, anyway. I'm certainly not "there" yet. But I'm striving to discipline my ears, arms, hands (and my left thumb!!) to play the right way. There's a lot to it, but it's worth it'll be worth it in the end.

Do you see where I'm headed? The apostle Paul talks a lot about discipline.
1 Timothy 4:7-9 says "On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness;
for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come."

In the same way I need to control my body and make my hands and fingers do the right things when playing the violin, and I need to discipline myself for the purpose of godliness.
But the passage says that godliness golds promise for the life to come as well as the present life. It sounds like it's more worth disciplining myself for!

Of course that type of discipline sure isn't easy, either. Hebrews 12:11 says "All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it,
afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness."

It's not always enjoyable for me to practice the violin. But I want to become a better violinist, so I keep on trying. In the same way, growing in the Lord can be a slow process. But it sure is worth it!

So anyways, I just thought that it was neat how learning to play the violin sort of parallels learning about growing in the Lord. I don't understand everything about growing in the Lord, and I doubt I ever will, but I know that the He will keep on being patient with me, like He has been all along. :-)

"When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word,
What a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do His good will, He abides with us still,
And with all who will trust and obey." - John Sammis

2 Corinthians 3:18 - But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

Little things

It was a small series of events that inspired this post.

It started with me going into our kitchen to get my Dad a piece of homemade chocolate cake that my Mom had made.
I was going to put it in a bowl, heat it up and then put some strawberry ice cream on it (I don't know why I heated it up, but anyway... :-). So, I heated it up in the microwave.

It wasn't until after I had nuked it a couple of times to get it hot enough that I noticed the puddle of butter on the the bottom of the microwave. And it just so happened that some of that butter puddle had attached itself to the bottom of the bowl in which I was preparing the heretofore mentioned home made chocolate cake. So I wiped that off both the bowl and the bottom of the microwave. That was the first small thing.

The chocolate cake and the strawberry ice cream were both sitting in the bowl, ready to be delivered to Dad. I then decided that I would eat the last portion of the apple crisp that my Mom had also made. I had taken it out of the fridge and was on my way to taking a spoon out of the drawer, and on my way there the 50 pound back of Act II popping corn decided to partially tip over. Thankfully the tip wasn't as bad as it could have been; only about 2 cups of the kernels spilled.

While I was scooping up handfuls of the little yellow kernels (not the activity I would have chosen as an after supper/pre dessert enterprise), Psalm 37 came to my mind.

"Rest in the LORD and wait patiently for Him;
Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way,
Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.
Cease from anger and forsake wrath;
Do not fret; it leads only to evildoing."

I don't know why those particular verses popped into my head; maybe the Lord was reminding me that melted butter and spilled popcorn isn't something to get frustrated about. I did end up getting to my apple crisp, and it was well worth every puddle and kernel.

I just realized something, too... butter and popcorn go very well together. :-)

The Workers and Elders Conference

The Workers and Elders conference was a wonderful time of teaching, fellowship, sharing and prayer. It was wonderful to see old friends and meet new ones!

You can listen to the messages on the Waterbury Christian Fellowship website, which can be found here.
http://waterburychristianfellowship.org/WTBT.htm

The main topic that stuck out to me was working together with other believers. Unity is very important when it comes to the Body of Christ. With different personalities, ideas and backgrounds it can get challenging for us as believers to work together in harmony. But when we grow closer to the Lord, we will grow closer to each other. :-)

----------------

"So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God's household,
having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone,
in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord,
in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit."
Ephesians 2:19-22

"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!"
Psalm 133:1