“These candidates’ statements, news stories and opinions that you have heard today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”
Psyche…
now go back and read this:
Deuteronomy 6:6-7 NIV
Friends, PC users, Windows 7-ites, lend me your ears…I come to bury windows 10, not to praise it.The evil that Windows did lives after it.
My documents were interred within the read-only depths of the system; so let it be with 10.
The noble Gates hath told you Windows was ambitious: if it were so, it was a grievous fault, and grievously the upgrade has answered it.
And Gates is an honorable man, but his Window hath brought all my documents into the captivity of Administrator rights, which for some unknown reason I no longer possess.
And the faithful CNET was at a loss to expound on the settings and rights that could and should be changed yet to no avail.
But here I am to speak what I do know… Windows 7- you did love it once, not without cause: what cause withholds you then to mourn for it?
My judgment then? Re-install, yea, re-install Windows 7 and restore your files to their former glory and restore your rights Administrator!
For those of you who have Windows 7 and struggle with Shakespeare-a-la-PJ, here is the Cliff Note version:
Do NOT install Windows 10! If you have, you have 30 days to restore 7. 10 makes all your folders read-only and will not give you permission to change settings. It will OWN you!
This performance was possible by viewers like you. Thank You.
Some of you know that Tara’s iphone was stolen at school last Wednesday. We have been praying for recovery, not only of her phone but her faith in the students.
So here’s the rest of the story. Going back to Tuesday, when she called me from school asking for prayer, not for herself, but for her students who felt their lives didn’t matter after the Baltimore situation. They were agitated and shared how hopeless they felt. She was crying for them.
On Wednesday here phone was taken during a fire drill.
On Thursday she informed her students that her phone was “lost” and if anyone “found” it please place it on her desk – no questions asked. Many of the students laughed, knowing her phone would never return. Surprisingly the “gang” kids, were upset. One young man, a boy that has challenged her all year, summed up everyone’s feelings, saying it was unfair because she never hurt anyone and she respected the students. He told her she’d get her phone back Friday morning. Other students were sharing that they might know where it was and would find out for her.
Well Friday came. Apparently someone turned her phone on and the app vaguely located it in a high-school district some miles away. No phone appeared on her desk on Friday. She had to give the serial number and location to the resource officer and police. Apparently many phones were taken that week. She activated her old flip phone and kept believing God would change hearts and deliver her phone to her.
Fast forward to Monday morning. She’s helping in another classroom when she is called into the office. The secretary, grinning, asks, “Is this your phone?” She delivered the phone into Tara’s hand. Apparently, one of the toughest students, whom all agreed was most likely to be a career criminal, not even one of Tara’s students, took it to the office and said he “found” it on the floor.
When Tara shared the story with the other teachers at lunch, they all teared up. No teacher has ever received their phone back. Later the gang member in her class asked her if the other kid returned it yet? He must have been persuasive after all.
That, my friends, is what happens when we live a life of salt and light. She didn’t preach, scold or threaten. She just kept her love on and believed the best of these children and God. There is no telling what this testimony will do for the students at teachers at school. But I know Holy Spirit touched many, including me.
Isaiah 41:10, 13, 20
So this past week I drew this in my journal while thinking about how He has made me Brave because I rest in Him and see circumstances through His sacrifice. But I couldn’t put my finger on a scripture to go with it. Until Rebekah Jones posted Isaiah 41:10 on her Bible Art Journaling page this morning. Perfect!
What I love about this verse is how I rest in His Right Hand (vs 10, 13) with no worries and v 20 says I will see what His Hand has accomplished on my behalf.
A few weeks ago, as I was worshipping I heard the Lord say, “As in the days of Noah.”
Then He showed me individuals who had sought Him daily, such that they were full of His Living Waters. All were like deep cisterns, bottled up.
As more people sought His face and were filled, we all came together and worshipped Him.
Suddenly the fountains of the deep inside each person were broken up and burst forth. And, in response, the Lord opened the floodgates of heaven and poured forth His Glory. Then a mighty flood covered the earth, but not to the destruction of man, but the washing by His Spirit to carry the harvest in.
His Church must get these points : We must KNOW Him and WE are the hope of Glory for the world. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
I am called by His name, I will humble myself and pray, seek after the Lord’s face, and turn from my own wicked ways. He will Hear and Heal when we each do this individually and then corporately.
2 Chronicles 7:14, Genesis 7:11, Matthew 24:37, Romans 8:19-23, Colossians 1:27
What if every time I felt the tension of a trial come up, I chose not to run away from it, but, instead, recognized that tension as an invitation to be humbled and perfected.
That emotion or expectation indicates that I have an opportunity to be changed from glory to glory and remember who I saw in the mirror one minute before that trial walked into my day.
Read James, he’ll tell you all about it.
Is Angry Birds even a thing anymore? 
I have never been a video game person, but when I first started playing Angry Birds a few years ago, It didn’t take long to get addicted. I found short bursts of time to annihilate those nasty pigs and their ridiculous structures. Oh the joy in watching every stick and stone in those structures crumble while I racked up stars! The problem arose when short minutes became long ones because I couldn’t defeat those ham hucksters in the first round. I had to replay the level until, whalla, defeat came to those porkloining, err purloining, pigs.
Oooh, then they came out with Star Wars Angry Birds! My geekdom was complete, I had crossed over to the dark side. Not only did I need to destroy structure and Pig Vader, but I had to overcome the physics of outer space. Anti-gravity and gravity, centrifugal force, momentum and everything else that Sir Newton could throw at me, with a little Einstein on the side. Sometimes I spent a round just to spy out weaknesses or gain tools and power points.
As the challenges became harder I sought help. I discovered angrybirdsnest.com, a site full of cheats. I learned about structural weaknesses, hidden tricks, and the best shot angles for annihilation. Even so, leveling up became harder and harder, really just too much work for a mere game. After months, I gave up and haven’t touched the game in years.
I was stumped at the numbers of children, and some adults, that are addicted to video games. They joyfully go back day after day to repeat their trials at the same level, just so they can move up a new level to defeat the same evil foe again on another playing field. Why?
Well, I read James 1:2-5 for the thousandth time the other day. Consider it wholly JOYFUL, my brethren, whenever you are enveloped in or encounter trials of any sort or fall into various temptations. Be assured and understand that the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience. But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be perfectly and fully developed [with no defects], lacking in nothing. If any of you is deficient in wisdom, let him ask of the giving God who gives to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly, without reproaching or faultfinding, and it will be given him.
Wait just a second… New perspective time. What if I took a gamers’ attitude towards real life? Every day there is a temptation, trial or foe. They don’t stop coming at me or putting obstacles in my path just because I won’t play the game. In fact these trials are supposed to keep me from playing, make me hang my head and quit.
If I recognize the trial up front, before I confront, I can run to my Daddy for His cheats, the Wisdom Toolbox that He prepared just for the big hairy green guy blocking my path. This isn’t about how smart I am or how brave. It’s about Father’s wisdom only. I’ll end up stuck on the same level fighting shadows till I get that one fact straight. His wisdom helps me defeat That temptation. Either way I can’t quit half way through. I must endure until I’ve won that level. I might want to run from the trial, bury that temptation, or bury my head. But it won’t go away. That thing WILL come back.
Why? God isn’t sending the temptation, it comes out of the unfinished parts of me. If I don’t confront it it will stay inside of me as an obstacle in my race. I must face it joyfully expecting my opportunity to level up and start another chapter.
God actually wants me to be the victor. He desires that I know my own faith is real, that I become fully developed, crown included. (I would like to have one of those so I’ll have something to throw down at his feet someday.)
Note to self:
See the trial’s purpose
Get Wisdom
Tear down that obstacle
Become more complete in who I am in Christ
Level up
New trial, no sweat, He’s got this, until I receive that Crown of Life.
Anyway, what’s a good adventure without an antagonist?
Let us learn from the ever so wise emperor Kuzco:
Pacha: [eyes widen] Uh-oh.
Kuzco: [resigned] Don’t tell me. We’re about to go over a huge waterfall.
Pacha: [also resigned] Yep.
Kuzco: Sharp rocks at the bottom?
Pacha: Most likely.
Kuzco: …Bring it on. [As they go over] Boooooo-yaaaaahahahahahahahah!
So a joyful Boo-ya to you too.
I can really learn a lot from the younger generation.
Anyone who has been in Southern churches for a while has probably become at least loosely familiar with the various “Spiritual Gifts Surveys” that are floating around the small groups and leadership meetings of churches across the South. Before I say anything else I will go ahead and say this:
You don’t need a survey to discover your spiritual gifts. More than likely you already exercise it all of the time although you may not have ever named it. An apple tree doesn’t need to take a survey to find out that it bears apples. An evangelist doesn’t need to take a survey to find out that she has a heart for reaching the lost. You know what you are passionate about. You know what you produce.
That said, I guess that sometimes a few of us need these types of things just to remind ourselves that we do in…
View original post 1,068 more words
Cool breeze slips past closed eyes, whispers caught for a second – soaking slowly into my soul.
There
He kisses me lightly on the cheek
You are my Beloved
Rest from your labours
Strive to enter My Rest
The Sabbath that I am
I have a wearable yoke that does not chafe or strain
This burden you are Called to bear is as light as a feather to you
If you only strive to enter My Rest
Today, I move my beautiful youngest daughter to Boone. As she starts this next chapter, or rather the first chapter in the second book, of her life, I watch proudly yet nostalgically. Proud of all the chapters when she bravely endured conflict and created beautiful resolutions. Proud of her character development and creativity.
Favorite scenes flood my mind: LEGO building together, train track set ups, sisters dreaming, shopping, meaningful dialogue, laughing, crying, waiting for “The Walking Dead.”
Nostalgic, feeling a little splinched, I don’t want to let go as she moves on, but I know I need to.
I experience every emotion in one paragraph of my own story, excitement, pride, anxiety, sadness, etcetera, etcetera etcetera.
In the end I mainly feel pride and joy. Excited to see how this sequel turns out, I also begin writing the first chapter of the new book in my own series.
So off to Appalachian State University we go… She goes.
Nothing But A Mist 