Tamale Time

We didn't plan on doing it but after stopping by a friends house and and eating some home made tamales, we felt we didn't have a choice.....we HAVE to make a batch for ourselves. Yesterday we bought all the stuff and today we prepared several dozen. And by the way..., they are VERY GOOD.
I know you've heard the term,"roll out", If we're not careful the next time we leave the house we'll roll out--literally.

Forgive

The Fruit of Forgiveness Conference season starts soon. The schedule of these life changing conferences will be posted soon.

www.fruitofforgiveness.org

Things I've Learned

The following list is from a devotion of John Piper's. As we close out this year and look forward to a new one, here are some things to consider:

Things I Have Learned

1. The right road always leads to the right place; therefore, get on the right road and go as far as you can on it.

My father was totally persuaded that wrong means do not lead to right ends. Or, more positively, he was persuaded that living in the right way — that is, doing the right things — are means that inevitably lead to where God wants us to be. This is why he told me, when I asked about God's leading in my life, "Son, keep the room clean where you are, and in God's time, the door to the next room will open."

2. There is only one thing to do about anything; that is the right thing. Do right.

This is what one might say to a person perplexed by a difficult situation whose outcome is unknown. The person might say, "I just don't know what to do about this." It is not useless to be told: Do the right thing. That may not tell you exactly which good thing to do, but it does clear the air and rule out a few dozen bad ideas.

3. Happiness is not found by looking for it. You stumble over happiness on the road to duty.

My, my, my. How was John Piper born from this? I would never say this. The main reason is that the Bible commands us to pursue our joy repeatedly. "Rejoice in the Lord, and again I say rejoice." "Delight yourself in the Lord." I think what he meant was: 1) Joy is always in something. Joy itself is not the something. So we seek joy in Christ. Not just joy in general. 2) When duty is hard and we do not feel joy in doing it, we should still do it, and pray that in the doing it the joy would be given. But what we need to make plain is that duty cannot be contrasted with joy, because joy is a biblical duty.

4. The door to success swings on the hinges of opposition.

Remarkably, this saying implies that opposition is not just a natural accompaniment or antecedent of success, but that it is a means by which the door opens. One can think of many biblical examples. The opposition of Joseph's brothers opened the door to his leadership in Egypt. The taxing of the empire opened the door to getting the Messiah born in Bethlehem, not Nazareth, and thus fulfilling prophecy. The betrayal of Judas opened the door to the salvation of the world.

5. God in the right place in my life fixes every other relationship of life (Matthew 6:33).

I wonder if this was tucked away in my mind so that unknown to me it controlled my analogy of the solar system to our many-faceted lives. If God is the blazing center of the solar system of our lives, then all the planets will be held in their proper orbit. But if not, everything goes awry.

6. It is never right to get the right thing in the wrong way — like good grades, wealth, power, position. Don't sacrifice your principles.

Again, he hammers away at don't use bad means for good ends. Be a principled, not a pragmatic, person. O how we need to hear this today. Churches need to be principled, not endlessly adapting to culture. Persons need to make a promise and keep it no matter how much it hurts.

7. It is a sin to do less than your best. It is wrong to do [merely] well.

"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might" (Ecclesiastes 9:10). But be careful. Sometimes the "best" is a B+ sermon and spending time with your child. In other words, "best" always involves more decisions than the one you are making at the moment. That one means many other things are being left undone. So "best" is always the whole thing, not just the detail of the moment.

8. It is wrong to be yoked to one who refuses the yoke of Christ.

Don't marry an unbeliever (1 Corinthians 7:39). Not all relationships with unbelievers are ruled out. Otherwise we could not obey Jesus' command to love them and bless them. But "yoke" implies a connectedness that either governs where we go or constrains where they go. And you cannot constrain faith in Jesus. It is free.

9. The part of your character that is deficient is the part that needs attention.

This is the counterpoint to the advice: Go with your strengths. There is truth in both. Yes, be encouraged by every evidence of God's grace in your life, and use your gifts and graces for his glory. But you will become smug and vain if you do not keep your deficiencies before you and work on them.

10. Don't quit. Finish the job. God can't use a quitter.

Warning: "He who endures to the end will be saved" (Mark 13:13). Promise: "He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6).

11. Anything you do that hinders your progress for God is wrong.

O how thankful I am that this was the dominant way my father pressed me to pursue my sanctification. He did not mainly impose lists of don'ts on me, though we had them. And they were clear. Mainly he said: Maximize your progress in knowing and serving God. That ruled out a hundred foolish behaviors, some bad and some uselessly innocent.

12. Beware of any society in which you feel compelled to put a bushel over your testimony.

This implies that you can go into a group of people who are evil if you are willing to open your mouth and take a stand for Jesus and righteousness. Nevertheless, 1 Corinthians 15:33 stands: "Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company ruins good morals.'"

13. It isn't enough to be good. Be good for something. The essence of Christianity is not a passionless purity.

This is what I have meant in talking about a merely avoidance ethic. Don't just think of righteousness or holiness in terms of what you avoid, but what you do. As my father said in another place: Don't be a don'ter; be a doer.

14. Positive living produces negative effect[s].

This is wise counsel that affirmation of the good always implies negation of the bad. If you think you can live your life without negating anything, you have lost touch with reality. "Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good" (Romans 12:9). You cannot love without hating what hurts the beloved.

15. Learn to be sweetly firm.

This was what he said to my mother over the phone when she was exasperated with her one disobedient son: Be sweet and firm. I think she succeeded.

Teach me Your way, O Lord........
        Ps. 27:11a

jim 

'Tis The Season

It's the most wonderful time of the year
With the kids jingle belling
And everyone telling you "Be of good cheer"
It's the most wonderful time of the year
It's the hap-happiest season of all
With those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings
When friends come to call
It's the hap- happiest season of all........

Christmas is season with many facets. For some it's a joyful and loving time when family and friends get together, old relations are rekindled, gifts are given and received and children look forward to seeing what Santa left under the tree.
For others it's a lonely, stressful and depressing time. Job loss, foreclosures, family issues, no close relationships are a few of the contributors that make this a less than desirable time of the year.

More importantly, the reason we celebrate Christmas is not the reason we should celebrate Christmas. It's all about the 'Stuff' and when we are in the center of either of the extremes of having all or nothing, the significance of Christ is diminished. And, there is a growing group of people that just don't like Jesus.

When we look at Jesus' it is amazing to realize that many people want to remove Him from Christmas. In fact they want to eliminate from society the One who gives them every breath, who keeps their heart beating, who created the world in which they live. Why would they want the Creator of the universe purged from their midst?
Jesus often represents everything they despise: morality holiness, decency, and the authority He has to tell them what to do. They miss the part about the joy and peace that could be theirs in abundance or want. They choose instead to rebel against the God who loves them. This behavior indicates how blind people can be, and how unwise it is not to investigate Scripture to learn who Christ is.

My hope is that we break the cycle of dismissal....don't miss the time of your visitation.

saying, "If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. "For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, "and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation." (Luke 19:42-44)

Goin' Home

There are days when when It's nice just to take it easy, that was my plan and it could have happened .....If I'd kept my mouth closed, but instead I agreed to help with a "small repair". What should have taken an hour took the entire day......so much for taking it easy.  Oh well, maybe next time.

Cisco Kid

Learning to Let it Go

The Louisburg Baptist Temple will hosy The Fruit of Forgiveness Conference this coming Saturday, October 28th 2011. Keynote speakers will be Peter Loth & Rosie Hill.
Below is an article from last Wednesday's Herald.


Holocaust survivor to speak
Louisburg Baptist Temple to host conference

Peter Loth has seen the most atrocious crimes committed by humans.

And he witnessed them all as a child.

Loth was born in a concentration camp during World War II in Germany, which is now part of Poland. Even after the war ended, he was beaten, abused and had to scrounge for food on a daily basis.

Loth will present his story Oct. 29 for the “Fruit of Forgiveness” conference at Louisburg Baptist Temple, which will also feature an array of speakers celebrating and focusing on forgiveness.

At times, Loth’s story of forgiveness is hard to stomach, but his lesson is undeniable.

Loth was born Sept. 2, 1943, in Stutthof, the first Nazi concentration camp built outside of German borders. The camp was completed in 1939, and when Loth’s mother was arrested by the Gestapo, she was three months pregnant with him.

“Stutthof was known as the camp where children were killed,” Loth said. “Many children were used for experiments, and they would check on my mother often to see if she’d had me yet. Typically, when the babies were born they would be killed or burned.”

But Loth was spared, and his mother, Helen, also survived to tell him the tale of how he was born. Confusion occurred after prisoners were made to board a train headed for Auschwitz, while others went on a death march to the Baltic Sea. Loth said he and his mother were on a train and, when the track was blown, the women fled. Being half Polish and half German, Loth was by all intents and purposes Jewish, so without German identification papers, his mother did the only thing she could.

“There was a Polish woman at the train station, and she went to her and said, ‘Take this child and I’ll be back for him with his papers.’”

From there, Loth said, his mother fled to Berlin with the rest of the women from the camp.

Although the Soviets had liberated the concentration camp Loth was in, he said the war for him went on for several years.

At age 5 he was still living with his Polish mother, whom he affectionately calls “Matka,” which is Mama in Polish, when the KGB arrived asking for his papers. From there he was put in a prison and a children’s orphanage, and that’s when the abuse began.

When the orphanage was raided one day, all of the children were taken to a train station.

“The only thing you heard as you approached the station was pistol pops,” Loth said. “The Russians were executing orphans one by one by blowing their brains out by putting a pistol in their mouths.”

When it came time for Loth’s turn, a pistol was placed in his mouth, but his Matka stopped the shooting by offering herself to be raped. The ploy worked, and to this day Loth knows what his Matka had to put herself through in order to save his life.

WWII wasn’t the only war Loth had to fight in to stay alive. Several years later a U.S. Army base located his mother who had married an African American GI. By this time Loth was 15 and still had not been in school or learned English.

“It broke my heart,” he said, “meeting my mother for the first time, and you don’t know the language she speaks.”

It was 1959 when Loth arrived in Georgia in the U.S. with his family where they lived. Although he had survived the Holocaust, the Civil Rights movement was just beginning in the U.S. and it was an uncertain and terrifying time to be in the South living with a black family, he said.

“Racism was everywhere,” he said. “People would spit on me and my sisters, and we couldn’t go to school because we’d get beaten.”

It wasn’t until growing up and much reflection that Loth realized forgiveness was the key to a happy life.

“It’s not about me, it’s about you,” he said. “Who do you need to forgive? Every person has issues with forgiveness. Can you forgive yourself? We blame ourselves.”

Although it was hard, Loth has revisited the concentration camp he was born in several times, as well as other memorable places in Europe. In order to write his book “Peace by Piece,” he had to conduct years of research. The book was released in 2008, and he dedicated it to his Matka or his Polish mother, Julianna Szczepanska, as well as a little girl he met in the orphanage he knows as Star.

Now Loth travels the world telling thousands his heart-wrenching story and how he has learned to forgive.

“For many years I couldn’t speak about it because it was too emotional,” he said. “I’d start crying or just walk away.”

But having learned from his own past, Loth has become passionate about spreading the word of forgiveness to others.

“I hate to see people suffering and be bitter and angry and hateful,” he said. “You can see the life changes if people let themselvees be free. Forgive the ones who hurt you — the world would be a much better world if we knew how to do this.”

For more information about Loth and his book, visit http://www.forerunnerministries.org. For more information on the Louisburg Baptist Temple’s “Fruit of Forgiveness” conference, which begins at 9 a.m. Oct. 29, call (913) 837-2979. Louisburg Baptist Temple is located at 6961 W. 271st St.
www.fruitofforgiveness.org

How To Get Rid Of Your Pastor ;-)

Are you at odds with your pastor? Here are a few ways to help him out.

• Look him straight in the eye while he's preaching and say AMEN once and a while and he will preach himself to death in a few weeks.
• Build him up and encourage him on his good points and he will work himself to death by the end of the year.
• Dedicate your life to Christ and ask him to give you a job to do, preferable some lost person you could win to Christ and he will drop dead immediately of heart failure.

Oleaginousspoon

I don't know if this happen to you, but every time we want to try a new restaurant nothing comes to mind. I read reviews, seen adds, heard of interesting places on the radio, suggestions from friends........
Now it's Sunday, we're leaving church and the question is asked, "Where would you like to eat?" Something happens to mind when this question is asked. I think the synapse widens to such an extent that the ability to think ceases, so after several rounds of this, I heard, "Where is that soul food restaurant you mentioned last month"?
It's in the city, about 25-30 minute drive, and since we can't think of another place, we head for KC. I'm hoping that when we get there it's not packed and the food is picked over (It's a buffet) fortunately our timing was good.
There only a few patrons eating when we arrived.

It was our first time there and we didn't know what to expect, but we were not disappointed, It was wonderful. Lots of comfort food. If you like brisket, fried chicken, grilled fish, grilled chicken, corn, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, pork chops, green beans, mac & cheese, great salad, collard greens, cabbage, cheese cake, peach cobler......I may have missed a few things but you get the idea.
The Names of the restaurant is The Juke House and I think it's worth the drive.

Distracted

A few days ago in the early morning hours I heard a number of emergency vehicles go by. For some reason I assumed they were headed to a fire. I also remember thinking how well I can hear the sirens inside the house but when I'm in the car I can't hear a thing. Anyway, I left the house a couple of hours later and that's when I found out what all the commotion was about. It was a terrible accident just down the street from me and from the condition of the car, I'm certain there were injuries. The car appeared to have been broadsided buy a pick-up truck, which was being loaded onto a tow truck as I passed the scene. I spend  a lot of time in the car and the one thing I notice more than ever before is: people are MWD (multitasking while driving). It seems that driving has taken a back seat to talking on the phone, texting, reading, eating, changing clothes, checking the GPS, taking videos..........
I don't know the cause of this accident but someone was distracted for some reason and the result was unnecessary injury and auto damage.

My Voice

America the Changed

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord . . . .
Psalm 33:12a

Recommended Reading Acts 4:27-31

In an 1892 U.S. Supreme Court decision, the majority opinion cited numerous examples and proofs of America's Christian heritage. In 1954, California Governor Earl Warren, who went on to become the chief justice of the Supreme Court, said that America is "a Christian land governed by Christian perspectives." But in 1992, when Mississippi Governor Kirk Fordice referred to America as a Christian nation in a speech at a governors' conference, the media outrage was so strong he was forced to retract his statement and apologize a few days later.

Somewhere between 1892 and 1992, it stopped being acceptable to refer to America as a Christian nation. Yes, constitutionally America has no established religion. Nor is America a theocracy. Yet the Judeo-Christian principles of the Bible have characterized this nation since its founding--though it is considered politically incorrect to say so today. Jesus called the Church to be salt in the world to preserve goodness and create a thirst for God (Matthew 5:13).

If you are a Christian, do not be afraid, let your voice be heard in the public square lest it become illegal for it to be heard it at all.

A devotion of David Jeremiah.

Come

(Matthew 11:28) "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 

Easy

I was watching a segment on TV this morning about sports/athletic shoes and all the claims that are made. Depending on the particular shoe they will: help you loose weight, tighten and shape your buns, strengthen and tone your legs, look like one of the models (implied) and a host of other benefits. All you have to do is buy their shoe, at a premium price of coarse, and your life is instantly better.
That's the heart of the matter. We want it quick, now, instantly and it has to be easy. No effort on our part, no strain or willingness to work at what really works. We want a pill or shoe, a band or bracelet and let the magic begin.
It started me thinking about our relationship with God. As we look back through the history of the bible, it's very clear that God wants a relationship with us, an exclusive one where He is the object of our affection (Mt. 12:30) and when we consider what God has done for us (Rm. 5:8) we should strive to please Him in every way. But for some reason:__________________, fill in the blank with your own reason, our affection seems to find another object or we think that God is available to do whatever we want Him to do and we are likely to get upset when He doesn't come through.
Our goal should be to worship God and live righteously, knowing that there is a cost associated with living a life that is pleasing to God, (2Tim. 3:12) there are no short cuts, no easy button, no yellow brick road. This is the way in which the bible describes the road on which we travel:
(Matthew 7:13-14) "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. "Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. 
We don't like narrow and difficult, but would rather have wide and easy.

Below is part of daily devotion I get from David Jeremiah entitled: The Nourished Soul.

The Nourished Soul

...nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine which you have carefully followed.
1 Timothy 4:6b

Recommended Reading 1 Timothy 4:6-11

In his 1729 Christian classic, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, William Law gave us the secret to a spiritual and productive life. "Nourish (your soul) with good works," he wrote, "make it wise with reading, enlighten it by meditation, make it tender with love, sweeten it with humility, humble it with penance, enliven it with Psalms and Hymns, and comfort it with frequent reflections on future glory."¹

The normal Christian life is one of constant and continual revival. While longing for a global revival to sweep the earth or a local revival to touch our church, we can personally nourish our soul every day. We can grow wise by the reading of God's Word, become enlightened by meditating on memorized Scripture, learn to treat others with the tenderness of agape love, and display the sweet traits of humility and confession. We can bolster our spirits with hymns and songs, and we can comfort and strengthen our hearts by reflecting on heaven and on things above.

For renewal to take place, we have only to study God's blessed Word and let it do its work in our lives.

Hope Faith

Hope-Faith is a an organization that feeds hundreds of people every day. They provide a place where the homeless or those out of work can come and get a meal, clothes, toiletries and a safe place to relax.
On any given day you'll see clients getting hair cuts, taking advantage of the game room, watching TV, playing ping-pong or reading a good book. Hope-Faith provides this at no cost, everything is free to any and all. The organization relies heavenly on donor contributions, from money to mowers. They will even send a truck to your home if you have large items to donate.
There are numerous volunteer opportunities. Just show up and they will whisk you back to the kitchen, warehouse, or a large room where clothes are sorted and sized.
Serving at Hope-Faith is a great opportunity to get out of your comfort zone for a few hours on a Saturday and help those that are a lot less fortunate.

HOPE: Hope unbelieved is always considered nonsense. But hope believed is history in the process of being changed.  ___JW
FAITH: Real works are the natural products of faith taking it's next step. __PG

There are many opportunities waiting.........for you. 

A New Man

An Amazing story of how Jesus Christ changed the life of one man.



Tass Saada will be one of the speakers and will facillitate several workshops at the Fruit of Forgiveness Conference October 7&8, 2011 at Grace Church 8500 W. 159th in Overland Park, KS 66221.
Register Today: www.fruitofforgiveness.org

Before and After

Something to consider:
The folly which we might have ourselves committed is the one which we are least ready to pardon in another.
____J.R.

 October 7-8, 2011
Friday 5:30pm to 10:00pm & Saturday 7:00 am To 2:00 pm
Grace Church  8500 W. 159th St. Overland Park, KS 66223

Break Free Today...
Register Today: www.fruitofforgiveness.org

The Beauty of Jesus

If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
___Mt. 6:14-15

Peter Loth will be one of the Keynote speakers at the Fruit of Forgiveness Conference, October 7 & 8 at Grace Church in Overland Park, KS 66223. Register online: wwwfruitofforgiveness.org

An Arafat Man

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.           __Ephesians 1:13

On October 7 & 8th, Grace Church in Overland Park will host the Fruit of Forgive Conference. We are very pleased to  have Tass Saada join us in this life changing event. Below is a short bio and class description. I encourage you register early as class space is limited.
www.fruitofforgiveness.org

Class Title: From an Arafat Man to Forgiven Man    Taysir (Tass) Saada

Bio

To glorify God by reconciling Arabs and Jews to the Father, then to one another through the love of Jesus Christ

From Anger to Love

Taysir Abu Saada (Tass) knows first-hand what it means to be gripped by hopelessness. Born into a Muslim family in the Gaza Strip in 1951, his parents immigrated to Saudi Arabia shortly after his birth. After the humiliating Arab defeat in the 1967 war with Israel, Tass joined the “Fatah Forces” (PLO under Arafat). In Fatah, Tass was trained as a sniper to kill Jews. He also trained children to fight and kill Jews. 

After several years with Fatah, family circumstances drew him back home. Then, desperate for a change, Tass moved to the United States in 1974, married an American girl (Karen), and became successful in business. He gained American citizenship in 1979, and in 1993 he had an amazing conversion from anger to love, which is covered in his book, Once an Arafat Man.  Although he enjoyed his life in the US, Tass realized the people of his homeland were still trapped in a cycle of violence, poverty and despair. In response, he and his wife founded Hope for Ishmael, a 501(c)(3) religious organization intent on making a difference, one life at a time, in Israel and the West Bank.

“We recognize that the way to provide a better future for the people of Israel and the West Bank is to physically instill hope into their communities,” explains Tass. “By providing basic needs such as nutritious food, education and jobs, we can show them a more profitable way of living. By coming alongside them, we can establish working, peaceful communities that give hope where once there was none.”

Class description:

  Tass will share his background as a Palestinian who was displaced and thereby encountered bitterness and anger so much so that he became a terrorist. Come prepared to be challenged to set free from the bondage of unforgiveness. Dr Jeff Adams pastor of Graceway put it this way. “Like Saul of Tarsus, he sincerely thought he was doing God and his people a favor by killing the enemy.Tass’s account will take us into his journey to faith in Christ. “Learn to achieve the level of forgiveness he acquired that transcends to all of us regardless of the magnitude of the atrocities we have committed against others or ourselves.

Morning Coffee

As I sipped my morning cup of coffee, which is a wonderful blend of Cinnamon Pecan, Hazelnut and Cafe Bustelo (an expresso), and listened to a radio program I leaned back in my chair and took note of my cluttered bulletin board replete with pictures, notes, cartoons, business cards..........

I noticed a wall hanger with a message about love and it's delicate nature, it said in part:
Love is a strange thing
it is a flower so delicate
that a touch will bruise it
and so strong that nothing
will stop it's growth.

There is an old stock performance chart that showing 15.9% (that when I had some money).
I have an old picture of TJ Hoover which I took when he had no front teeth but a great smile.
A clipping entitled The Things God Does Not Know, I'll let your mind swirl that around for a while.
Of course my bb would not be complete without a picture of my sweetie, it's not my favorite but I like it.
But what really caught my eye was a hand written note about friendship:

TRUE FRIENDSHIP

Arabian Proverb

A true friend is one to whom one can pour out all the contents of one's heart,

chaff and grain together,

knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it,

keeping what is worth keeping and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.

My hope is, is that there is someone in your life whom you call a friend and that in turn are showing yourself to be a friend.   

R U Second?

Last Thursday I went to an event at the Union Station. It was the the kick-off for I AM SECOND, KC.

This ministry/program began in the Dallas/Ft-Worth area as a conviction in the heart of Norm Miller, Chairman of the Board for Interstate Batteries. With this scripture resonating in his mind, Norm started looking for ways to "life up Christ" across the Dallas Ft-Worth area so that He might draw all people to Himself. That thought led to conversations with various groups but one group in particular, e3 partners proved to be the turning point. Out of those meetings was born an integrated outreach campaign with a website where visitors could experience the stories of transformed lives, hear the Gospel and connect with local churches.
I AM SECOND is now in our area, and the hope is that it will be as successful here as it is in Texas.
To date there have been over 3.5 million visits to the website, from all 50 states and 214 countries. There are numerous I Am Second small groups, thousands of churches using the videos in various ways and close to 800 churches/ministries have officially linked arms in partnership with this movement. More than 60 stories have been filmed, including local celeb's: Whispering Danny, Tyrone Flowers, Wayne Simien, and Brian Summer and there is a complete set of small group tools available on the website.
This ministry has proven itself to be a great evangelistic tool. Please take some time to check out the website: iamsecond.com

Hand in Hand

It's well known that there are certain things that go hand in hand: 

• Peaches and Ice Cream
• Peanut Butter and Jelly
• Mash Potatoes and Gravy
• Pencil and Paper

You get the idea. There are some things that are a natural fit, like husband and wife or ham and eggs. OK enough about food, I'm starting to feel like one of Pavlov's dogs (slurp).
There are a few pairings that I take exception with, mainly:

• Driving and Texting
• Eating and Driving
• Reading and Driving

Multi-tasking behind the wheel is proving to be hazardous to one's health. I spend a lot of time driving and it's becoming more and more frustrating trying to get from one place to another. I saw a knuckle-head just miss rear-ending the car in front of him after sliding about 20-25 feet and this after sitting at the previous light taking care of some important business that required the use of his phone which I believe was solar powered considering the way he was holding it. I've been run off the road. I sit at green lights.....waiting. I have to pay careful attention to drivers in front, back, and on each side and they propel their offices down the highway.

The last straw for me was today. It was just a routine trip to the grocery store, until.......out of nowhere comes Texting Tom, and I almost run him over. Maybe it's me but I just don't think a busy parking lot is the best place to have your eyes glued to a phone pushing a basket with your forearms and not paying attention where you are going. But I'm Old School, perhaps a little behind the times, a Dinosaur, A Single Tasker. 

OK, I've sniveled enough for one day.

Sign Up Today and Receive.........

• If you are a member of AAA you get hotel and car rental discounts, oh, lets not forget the FREE maps.
• If you use certain credit cards, you get discounts or bonus miles for free travel.
• There are certain perks associated with working for large corporations, free game tickets, meal and parking discounts.
• If you are a clerk at JC Penney an employee discount on clothing

Many people think there are comparable "exclusive membership benefits" if they associate with God. They think there is some providential protection that surrounds everyone who believes in Him They believe a guardian angel guarantee will protect them from trouble, tragedy, and turmoil. Whatever you join, it pays to read the fine print especially in the celestial contract.
The fact that God does not insulate those He loves from pain and suffering should be evident. Let's take for example, Jesus. I think it's safe to say that Jesus had a very close relationship with God and God allowed Jesus to suffer. You might recall Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of Christ, in which you see the horrible way in which Jesus is treated.
But Jesus wasn't alone in His suffering. According to the bible many followers of God endured many hardships including torture and death. The book of Hebrews highlights many of the triumphs and tragedies of OT saints. We are told that by faith Abraham, Moses & Rahab prevail in some circumstances, while others:

were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented-- of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. (Hebrews 11:35-38)

• Stephen and Matthew were martyred.
• John the Baptist was beheaded.
• Peter and Simeon were crucified.
• Mark was dragged to death.

All these men and women loved God. But if you were God's P.R. agent, these are not the stories you would put in a recruiting brochure. Their treatment runs contrary to our notion that God shelters those He loves from harm. Well, the text show us notion is flat out wrong. Our tendency is sugar coat our concepts of God with thoughts of love and peace and blessings. Don't get me wrong, God is about all those things, but that is a one dimensional understanding of His nature. If we don't expand our understanding, we'll never come to the realization that God considers trouble, pain, and suffering a blessing. Consider this:

• Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. (Romans 5:1-5) 
• My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. (James 1:2-4)

God doesn't want us to rejoice in suffering simply because He has a perverse sense of humor. He wants us to realize that our struggles drive us closer to Him. Difficulties are a necessary component as we strengthen our faith muscle. Trouble cause us to seek God, because we might otherwise tend to ignore Him in tranquil circumstances. They impress upon us our need for God. They expose our lack of self-sufficiency, and we become convinced of our dependency on Him.

Remember:

• Easy times may make you spiritually indifferent, but tough times make you spiritually dependent.
• Satan wants your life to be easy, but God loves you too much to allow that to happen.
• Loving God doesn't exempt you from troubles, but it does ensure that you can find meaning and purpose in them.
• God comforts us in our tribulation, and we, having gone trough the situation are able to comfort others with that same comfort we received from God.
• Last but not least, remember, there is no testimony without a test.

Find What You Love and Do It

Stanford Report, June 14, 2005

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.

A Brief Look

A brief look at the world around us.

paper.li/jimmz45

God Will Take Care of You

As I look at our prayer list week after week, I know that each request is a petition to God that He would somehow, and in some way answer, please answer. I see those who have sustained some injury, there are cancer victims, the need for transplants, prayers for salvation, families in need of financial assistance........
I hope that we will look beyond the limits of reason and into the realm of faith. Martin Luther said, "Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has: it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not, struggles against the Divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.

You have a mighty arm; Strong is Your hand, and high is Your right hand. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; Mercy and truth go before Your face. Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound! They walk, O LORD, in the light of Your countenance. In Your name they rejoice all day long, And in Your righteousness they are exalted. For You are the glory of their strength, And in Your favor our horn is exalted. For our shield belongs to the LORD, 

You've Got A Friend In Me

Eliphaz, speaking gently and profoundly, seeks to comfort Job with these words although he didn't have a clue as to what was really happening.
"Remember now, who ever perished being innocent? Or where were the upright ever cut off? Even as I have seen, Those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same. By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of His anger they are consumed.
Now a word was secretly brought to me, and my ear received a whisper of it.

Then I heard a voice saying: Can a mortal be more righteous than God? Can a man be more pure than his Maker?" (Job 4)

A word spoken is past recalling
--John Clark

Two Eighteen

It's 2:18 am and I CAN'T SLEEP! I'm watching 'The Lady Killers', starring Alec Guinness (1955). I've seen this one and the more recent production with Tom Hanks a number of times but anytime one of the versions are on I'll watch. If you haven't seen them, put them on your must watch list.
I hate it when I wake up this early in the morning, which seems to happen because I go to bed early. I was trying to read last night but because I was tired, I fell asleep, and when I fall asleep sitting up, I humm, and when I humm, I sound like a Yak in labor. Well, I startled myself awake and tried to read some more but the cycle repeated itself and so, reluctantly, I decided to hit the hay, and as usual, I sleep a few hours and wake up.
I'm sure it couldn't have been the coke I drank earlier, to stay awake, or the trail mix, salted peanuts in the shell, or the apple, or the two servings of Chicken Gumbo I ATE, nooooooo I'm sure none of this comes into play.

Try as I may, I could not becken the Sand Man back. The only thing that came was a flood of thought. I started thinking about the heifer, goat, ram, turtledove, and pigeon God told Abram to bring to Him, and why did he cut them into. Why didn't He cut the birds into. Why did He put Abram to sleep. Why, why, why?

My thoughts ran to the Christmas lights that come on promptly at5:09 pm and bath the house in house in a warm glow of white and red, at least, half the house. I noticed that the lights on the east side have thrown in the towel, consequently that side of the house is cloaked in darkness. This is the main reason I don't like turning the lights off. Once they are turned off the house looks like a huge lump of coal.
We are the hold outs on our block every one else has turn off and put put up although as I was leaving home tonight I noticed the house on the corner across the street was aglow in light....a fellow kinsman, a brother in arms or maybe a brother-in-lights.

I can't seem to get yesterday's Focus on the Family program out of my head. I can still hear Florence's remarks regarding her father and mother-in-law. Each had dreams and desires that were killed by the words of someone close.

Well, The Lady Killers has gone off and Your past is Showing is now playing and I've started to yawn again so...I think I'll sit on the sofa and let the TV watch me for a while.
YAWN

Silver Boxes With A Bow On Top

Silver boxes with a bow on top is how one little girl described our words. It reminds me of the scripture:
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold In settings of silver. (Proverbs 25:11 NKJV)
Florence Littauer spoke today on Focus on the Family about how important our words are and the impact they have on others. THIS IS A MUST LISTEN. Please take some time out of your day and listen as Florence shares some remarkable truths.
www.focusonthefamily 

Blessed are They That Mourn

I read this article earlier today and thought you might enjoy it.

There is a somewhat aging caricature of masculinity that turns weeping into a source of shame, as though someone who cries lacks courage or the integrity to hold himself together. On the other side of the gender line, the caricature is of the hysterical, emotional and irrational female, who weeps senselessly and at anything. However, aside from the flawed notion of the Stoic male repressing emotion, or the implied sexist assumptions of the out-of-control woman unable to contain herself, grief and even weeping are not shameful, but are necessary for healing and expressing authentic human empathy and emotion.
As in the case of being materially poor, merely grieving is not virtuous itself, but the end to which it is directed, and the substance of that which we mourn over, imbues our grief with meaning. The primary sign of mourning is weeping, but why do we cry, if we cry?
In the Beatitudes as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus claims, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." This is an outrageous statement on the surface, and even, unless we are fully informed, an apparent contradiction, contrary to our experience of life. Happy are they who grieve?
Some might think that weeping itself is a manipulative trick, a childish ploy and shedding tears can indeed be exactly that. It is disgusting to see the crocodile tears of emotional manipulators -- whether it is done for religious or political purposes by either a Jimmy Swaggart or a Glenn Beck. Such deceit is repugnant to us because true weeping is an act that comes to us in moments of grief that embody the exact opposite of the pretensions of cynics and con artists, actors with ulterior motives who may play it off well and fool the gullible in the public eye, or others who are a little more obvious who may just want to extract sympathy from you and me for some other end. Fake tears turn us off because we intuitively know that real tears embody transparency, humility and the breaking down of walls.
A person who is filled with grief and is weeping and in true mourning is not concerned with what other people think of him, isn't trying to hide behind a mask, or to be involved in the egocentric pursuit of keeping it together. It is at that point of authentic and transparent exposed human personality, the juncture where mutual grief occurs, that we have an opportunity for communion, empathy, love and healing. But I think it is the nature of the ego, speaking of the ego as a false construct that isn't integrated with one's deepest sense of selfhood and is motivated by fear, to be afraid of exposure, afraid of tears, afraid of what others might think, afraid of communion, and afraid of healing, and so we have the cultural trope that describes tears and weeping as weakness. I think we are often deeply afraid of the threat of pain that is a path of healing.
If we do not know how to grieve, there is something unreleased and festering in our psyche, and we become angry; stagnating anger brews depression, and this leads to numbing habits, addictions, the occlusion of real emotion or feeling, constant criticizing of others, strife, endless complaints and a lack of peace.
Jesus speaks words of consolation to those who are in difficult situations or circumstances, who have suffered loss, since no one usually grieves without reason, and again, it turns out that the difficulty itself is the path of salvation. Not only that, but grief is transformed into an interior predisposition that brings us to God, a blessing that has its own implicit promise.
For those who do mourn, weeping itself is not virtuous. We might cry because we are in pain that we have brought upon ourselves, and we feel sorry for ourselves, filled with self-pity, the same kind of despair that sent Judas to his death. Or we might cry because we have insatiable hungers that we can never fill, so we mourn our lack. We might cry because we have no money. Or because we have few friends. We might cry because we can't pay the cable bill. There is weeping that leads to death, as Saint Paul writes to the Corinthians, self-centered sorrow that is really comprised more of fear, anger and bitterness than of grief in its most profound expression. In any case, whatever we grieve over reveals what we value.
So if someone who is poor in spirit mourns, what does she grieve over? What does she value? I think the possibilities are multitudinous in terms of specifics living in a fallen cosmos, a world where the table is never really set and prepared for the meal, but is always constantly being tipped over. There is, simply, a lot over which to mourn. Maybe that state of upendedness, of separation, death, decay and disintegration is the primary root of all authentic grief. Jesus himself embodies the attribute of those who mourn when he mourns death through the death of his friend Lazarus, whom he tells his disciples, is 'sleeping', which seems to be a euphemism that they do not apprehend. The sister of his friend, Martha, comes to him and meets him after he arrives, letting him know that he is too late, that Lazarus has died. Jesus rebukes her softly, and they have an interesting but revealing conversation, as Jesus weeps in the face of death, just as we are called to weep and mourn.
Jesus promises that those who mourn not only their own sins, but the sins of others, will be comforted. There is not only forgiveness for sins, but comfort given. The 19th Century Russian St. Seraphim of Sarov writes,

'"When the Spirit of God comes down to man and overshadows him with the fullness of His inspiration, then the human soul overflows with joy, for the Spirit of God fills with joy whatever He touches. This is that joy of which the Lord speaks in His Gospel: 'A woman when she is in travail has sorrow, because her hour is come; but when she is delivered of the child, she remembers no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. In the world you will be sorrowful, but when I see you again, your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you' (Jn. 16:21-22). Yet however comforting may be this joy which you now feel in your heart, it is nothing in comparison with that joy of which the Lord Himself by the mouth of His Apostle spoke: 'Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for them that love Him' (I Cor. 2:9). Foretastes of that joy are given to us now, and if they fill our souls with such sweetness, well-being and happiness, what shall we say of that joy which has been prepared in heaven for those who weep here on earth?"

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. The person who is poor in spirit mourns over her own sins, the sins of others, and even the fallen condition of the cosmos. In other words, we grieve over the condition of death, the reality of death and decay, and our tears themselves work to cleanse us, to wash us, and to bring us relief. Moreover, Jesus Christ, who has overcome death through His incarnation and His cross, brings us comfort, consolation and joy now, and will bring us laughter in the kingdom of God.

By Eric Simpson

Being in Control

Control: To exercise authority or influence over.

With the New Year comes new approaches.