Have YOU heard?

Norman Borlaug We should know this man.

Pictures

I've been wanting to post some pictures of our honeymoon for a long time, and I just haven't gotten around to it. In the mean time my family went on a weekend vacation to Kentucky, so I thought I'd throw some of those pictures in too. The captions go with the picture directly above them.

















This is the beautiful setting for our honeymoon. (Naples, Florida)


















This is me inserted into previously shown beautiful setting. :-)























I don't know how well you can see it, but this is a live crab. One pincher was as big as his body and the other one was much smaller.























This is me on a part of the beach that was literally covered in shells. You can see the difference between where my feet are and where my hands are. I'm picking up handfuls of broken shells.


















This is me acting brave and getting a close look at an alligator.


















This is Heidi actually being brave and holding an alligator!

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Now switch over to our Kentucky mini-vacation. We went to the Kentucky Horse Park for the day on Saturday.

















They had an Arabian Horse competition going on in the main arena.


















This is a Paso Fino. It's gait is beautiful to watch. It has the smoothest ride of any breed.


















This is some of my family petting a Tennessee Walker. My family owned some of these back in the days when I was small (around 20 years ago).



















One of the few pictures of my adorable niece smiling for a camera!

Kinda fun

It's water & it costs 55 bucks!

*sigh* Sometimes I really wonder about us.

Wow

Unworthy

Philippians 1:6
Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

An unknown author has written: "Longfellow could take a worthless piece of paper, write a poem on it, and instantly make it worth thousands of dollars -- and it's called genius. Rockefeller could sign his name to a piece of paper and make it worth millions of dollars -- and it's called riches. A mechanic can take material worth only five dollars and make it worth five hundred -- and it's called skill. An artist can take a fifty-cent piece of canvas, paint a picture on it, and make it worth thousands of dollars -- and it's called art. Jesus Christ can take a worthless, sinful life, wash it in His blood, put His Spirit in it, and make it valuable to God -- and that's called sanctification. The Lord is in the business of taking rough, raw material and using it -- transforming men by His power to be the extension of His work in the world."

Do we stop to think of the awesomeness of sanctification? Christ, through His shed blood, can take our worthless pathetic sinful lives and turn them into something pleasing to a holy perfect sinless God.

We are so unworthy, we can't even comprehend it. Yet God loves us beyond measure and desires a relationship with us.

Often times we are tempted to try and sanctify ourselves. We strive to somehow reconcile ourselves to God through our piety and our good works. If we work hard enough, we'll please God. If we do enough good, God will be pleased. We minimize, or forget, that it's Christ that has begun the work of sanctification in a believer and that He will continue it until the end. That's a promise.

Praise Him.

wow

Life's Not Fair!

Putting 'Unfair' in Perspective

Have you ever caught yourself complaining, "It's not fair.." about something that actually was pretty trivial? For example, "It's not fair that my kid doesn't get to start on his tiddlywinks team." It's not fair that that couple was waited on before us. We got to the restaurant first."
Sometimes the cry of "unfair" is over a more significant issue. "It's not fair he got the promotion I deserved." It's not fair they lied about me and got away with it." "It's not fair that my loved one has cancer at a young age."

OK, so there's a recurring theme - life's not fair. Here's a handful of perspective though about how unfair life is.

It's not fair that I get to sleep in a comfortable bed every night free from the fear of attack while people in other parts of the world live in fear. It's not fair that my kids get three square meals a day while children are starving elsewhere. It's not fair that we have medical options to help cure virtually every health problem there is when somewhere there's a person living in pain with no recourse for relief. On and on that list could go.

Are we as disturbed by how good we have it compared to the less fortunate as we are over the inequities we think we've suffered? I would suggest to you that reflecting on what the Lord has done for us serves as a wake-up call to sensitize us. No one who has received the "indescribable gift" (2 Corinthians 9:15) of salvation in Jesus Christ can justify the pathetic refrain of "It's not fair...."

Christians are those who are kept from being punished for their sins due to God's Son having accepted the penalty for them. The sinless One suffering on the cross - that was unfair! It takes a lot of nerve for us to expect that but then be so adamantly opposed to any subsequent inconvenience in our lives.

Forget for a moment all the advantages the majority of us have in the western world (to which we feel so entitled) compared to deprived people elsewhere. That's enough right there to rebuke our self-pitying for a lifetime. When you add in the benefits of eternity though, for those who are heaven bound due to having received Christ by fair and thereby being forgiven of their sings, any complaining truly becomes outrageously inappropriate.

Redirect the energy you'd otherwise use to pretest your own grievances toward appreciating all you have, and toward bettering the lot in life of someone else who is genuinely in need. In so doing, your gratitude will grow. Then, Thanksgiving won't be limited to an annual holiday. It'll be a daily reality.

"Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For you with the measure you use, it will be measured to you" (Luke 6:38)

"And be thankful" (Colossians 3:15)