Happy Thanksgiving…

 

Happy Thanksgiving, all. I pray that your day today is filled with love and laughter, bellies full of good food, hearts full of fellowship. I lift up all your families to God, may His face shine upon you.

It’s hard today, in our hustle and bustle, to stop and actually be thankful. We are constantly moving from this thing to that, from this moment of want and need to the next. We rush about, trying to find the time to get everything in that we think just HAS to be done.

Might I offer a suggestion?

Stop. Just stop.

Take a minute; shoot, take ten, and look about you. TRY to see what He has done for you, with you, and/or through you. See the reality of His hand in your life today. Take a minute and bask in His presence, in His love. If there is strife, let it rest. If there is darkness, see the light. If there is pain, look for the healing warmth of Him.

We are so very blessed every day, even when it seems to be its worst. He stands with us in every moment of our days, good AND bad, holding us up by the wonder of His will and in the glory of His power. His love surrounds us in everything we see, and if we will take a moment and focus, we will see it for what it is.

May God richly bless you today, may His tender mercies be evident in ways you have yet to experience.

Father,

Touch those that need You today…ALL of us .

Heal hearts and fill spirits. May Your presence today be the overwhelming moment of clarity and grace that we all need. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Grace and peace,

Tony

Heavy thoughts today…

Psalm 14:1

1 The fool says in his heart,
“There is no God.”
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
there is no one who does good.

I found out something troubling yesterday. It appears that my estranged brother is an atheist. And not just an atheist, but one that is involved enough to be part of a group of “free thinkers”.

Because evidently, we who have faith aren’t free. We must be chained to some sort of antiquated and silly superstitious ideology. We cannot think freely on our own, we are incapable of a reasoned approach to God and the truths that He has revealed. Note that I say this with sarcasm, but also with a heavy heart.

A prayer analogy….

Why is it that people that can’t drive in the snow always pick the days I have to get to work through it to try? It took me about 40 minutes to go about 5 miles this morning. Trucks and cars spun out all over the place, and while I admit that driving in the snow and ice makes me a bit jumpy, it’s really not that hard. There’s one important rule when going up in snow and ice- DON”T STOP!!!!!!!

If you can keep moving, you can keep the traction between your tires and the snow or ice, it can even be a crawl, but if you stop, others behind you are hosed.

Unless you have a front-wheel drive like mine . I putted right along, have been for the last 12 years. Haven’t gotten stuck yet.

But, while I was trying to get around the van that had forced me to stop, spinning a bit I will admit but got around anyway , I thought about how this was a pretty good reflection on prayer.

I’m tired…

I’m tired of the constant judging of God.

Not His judging, our judging of Him.

We take a giant license that I think we all need to reconsider. He is God, He makes the rules, He does as He sees fit. He does not answer to us, as much as we might like Him to.

This excessive judging of His word and His actions has led to some very interesting theological ideas.

I had a section typed out on Universalism, but I erased it because I am tired of hearing it.

God is God. Period. He will do as He sees fit, and if that means judging those that fail to come to Christ, then that is His right.

“I can’t follow a God that would do that. I can’t follow a God that would condemn people to an eternity of suffering.”

Interesting. Do you have a biblical stance for this or is it a feeling? Is it the idea that since you cannot grasp how He could do that, you refuse to accept that He will? Is it because someone in a fire and brimstone church beat you over the head with it, so you refuse it? Is it because you know some folks that refuse to acknowledge Christ, so they stand in the condemned line?

Oh the wonders…

That new baby smell.

That new puppy smell.

That new car smell.

The uncontrolled laughter of a five year-old that thinks farts are funny, and laughing with him because I think they’re funny too.

A rainbow that stretches from one end of the horizon to the other.

An eagle gliding high above.

Vultures in their circling dance.

The thunderheads as they move in, dark and gray.

A heat-lightning storm at night, bolts crawling across the sky.

An apology to women…

I am issuing an apology on behalf of the men that have helped perpetuate the idea that women are never good enough the way they were created.

My wife and I were watching some TV and eating our dinner last night when a hair color commercial came on. The woman was highly distraught that her hair color was so drab and lifeless. and then a magic lady came out of her mirror and gave her some sort of hair dye.

I looked at Mickie and asked her, “Women can’t ever be happy with themselves can they?”

“No,” she said, “Because as soon as we fix something, the world tells us something else is wrong with us.”

I’m listening…

I heard on the news that coffee is good for you.

On another channel it is bad for you.

Chocolate good. Chocolate bad.

Exercise good. MORE exercise better, no LESS exercise better.

Buy this to get healthy!!!

Buy this to get rich!!!!

Watch this, listen to that!!!!

We are inundated with voices, and we listen.

Far too often, the voice we hear isn’t one that we should be listening to. The voices we listen to weave into our minds, they cause us to see images; they cause us to think thoughts.

“Duh, that’s how it’s SUPPOSED to work. MAN, I don’t know why I keep coming back here!”

(Because car crashes are the best part of the race. )

I’m tired…

I’m tired of the fear and worry.

It surrounds us, on TV, on the radio, in movies and books. According to the world, we should fear everything in one way or another. And if we’re not afraid, then we should be worrying.

And Christians buy into it far too often.

We are afraid, afraid of disease, afraid of not having any money, afraid of losing our jobs, afraid of our spouse leaving us, afraid for our kids, afraid OF our kids, afraid of the government’s involvement, afraid that the government isn’t involved ENOUGH. We worry and we fret, we rant and we rave, we point fingers and we judge.

And the world watches. They see that we are exactly as they are, and while the idea that they can relate to us is not a bad one, seeing that we have nothing to answer the fear that we share with them doesn’t speak very well for being Christian.

I mean, if we have the very God of the universe on our side, shouldn’t we have some sort of different view of things?

I’m being knapped!!!

No, not kidnapped, knapped. I know what I meant.

Knapped : to break with a quick blow; especially : to shape (as flints) by breaking off pieces.

While having a conversation with God on my commute this morning, He used something that I had read about years ago to speak to me.

In the Earth’s Children series by Jean Auel, the most recognizable book was the Clan of the Cave Bear (good book, HORRIBLE movie), she covered how early man would use the skill of knapping to shape tools for use. It involved various other stones of harder material that you would then use to hammer flakes off of the flint to form whatever tool you were making; knives, spears, etc.

The start of the process was to take a large piece of flint and begin reducing its size with a large hammerstone, this involved strong, precise strikes to get the larger size pared down. During the process, flakes of the flint would fall off, some already basically useable as knives and such.

As the process continued, smaller and more controlled techniques and tools would be used to further shape the flint to the desired item. The result could be as varied as an axe head to an arrow head. It is a very precise skill, requiring concentration, skill, and artistry.

I have heard it explained that people that sculpt in wood or stone say that the shape that they bring out of the material consists of simply removing all that is NOT the shape they see.

All this to say that God showed me that He is in the process of knapping me.

Lip service

I didn’t want to hear this, and I definitely didn’t want to write about it. It may sound sanctimonious, demanding, and place a burden of guilt on someone that they don’t deserve.

We have a tendency to pay Christ lip service. We call Him “Lord”, we call on Him to be the Master of our lives, and yet we don’t DO the things that He expects us to do.

“WORKS!!!!FOUL!!!!!!HERETIC!!!!!!”

Yep, I am talking about our works.

We treat each other like we treat everyone else; we make little to no distinction between brothers and sisters in Christ, and the world. No, that’s not true, a lot of the time we treat each other WORSE than we treat the world.

And yet we are called to a different standard.