Still Evolving

Greetings to all in the name of the Lord!

My blogger "guru" helped me add a few sidebar features that I hope you will enjoy.

Take a few minutes and browse the Study Helps. They are pretty self-explanatory and relatively easy to navigate. Classic Bible Commentaries features the writings of several different writers, greats such as Matthew Henry, Charles Spurgeon, etc. Bible Gateway will allow you to search for phrases and verses in multiple translastions and paraphrases. Blue Letter Bible has much of what the other two have but you can also do word studies in Hebrew and Greek.

You'll also notice a section called "From Great Minds" where I will be posting random quotes and tidbits that I have found meaningful or just simply entertaining. Thank you, Landon, for the first post!

As always, I welcome your comments and thoughts. Simply click on comments at the end of the post and share your insights. (The first time in you will need to establish a username and password, but it's very quick and easy.)

Allow me to share this parting thought: "This is the day the Lord has made" (Ps. 118:24).

Thanks for stopping by and until next time . . .



Memento Vivere!!!! (remember to LIVE!!)

What do you see?

"The question is not what you look at, but what you see." Henry David Thoreau, August 5, 1851

Most weekdays I'm usually on the highway, headed east, just before the sun peaks over the horizon. Some mornings my mind is racing through the day ahead, with varying degrees of "have-to-ness", while trying to safely navigate traffic complicated by highway construction. (For those of you who have driven Wise County highways, you know "traffic" carries it's own connotations!)

On other mornings, I travel the same highway, at the time time, contending with the same traffic mingled with construction, but the drive is very different. Why? I'm mostly "looking" at the same things but on those particular mornings I "see" something else. It's always there but often missed. I "see" the morning canvas of the Master Painter! Blues and purples and greens and yellows and pinks and oranges all perfectly splashed across the horizon into one huge masterpiece!

Even more amazing is the fact that having made that drive almost every weekday for 28 years, I've never seen the same painting twice!

Remember, it's the beginning of the day. Who knows what more there is to "see" if I will do more than just "look" at what God places before me.

O Lord my God! When I in awesome wonder
Consider all the works Thy hands have made,
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy pow'r throughout the universe displayed.
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!
~ Stuart K. Hine, 1899 -

(I think God just got up from His easel. Let's go see what He painted today)

Memento Vivere!

(Note: This image was taken in Wasilla, Alaska this past summer. We were there for summer solstice, meaning the sun just dipped below the horizon for no more than a couple of hours each night. Never did we experience darkness. We bought aluminum foil to cover the windows of our cabin so we could sleep!)

Unexpected Blessing

Happened into a good friend yesterday who has recently married and moved away.

Our visit was brief, barely more than minutes, but it only takes a moment in the presence of a saint to be blessed. (I'm sure she would blush at the title, but a saint is, in contradiction to worldly connotations, one set apart for the service and glory of God.)

Only a few short years ago her world crumbled around her but, rather than become discouraged or bitter, she tenaciously hung onto her faith in the Lord to see her through. And that is what God did, He saw her through. No, He didn't remove the circumstances or pain, He didn't take her around them, under them or over them, but walked her through them.

I can only imagine how difficult the trip must have been during the darkest of days but from the darkness has emerged an even more beautiful heart and spirit, and ever stronger child of God. Her countenance literally radiates the glory of God.

Yes, our visit was brief, but the witness of her spirit to mine? Timeless. Walking away I was reminded of the amazing promise of Romans 8:28: "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."

Oh, gracious God, loving and faithful in all Your ways, not one of Your promises have, or will, ever fail.


Memento vivere!

Former things or new?

"Do not call to mind the former things, or ponder the things of the past. Behold, I will do something new...." (Isaiah 43:18,19, NAS)

Things of the past, whether good or bad, are just that ... things of the past. Today is new, pregnant with opportunity and purposed by God. If I am living in the past, not fully present in the now, I am certain to miss what God is doing today.

Look again at what He says: "I will do something new." It's a certainty. God's up to something and He invites me, and you, to be a part of it.

I'd rather be part of the adventure. How about you?


Memento vivere!