The Presence that brings Power

Psalms 97:5- "The hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth!"

(...And to think that I have that very same presence within me; protecting and enabling me to live a victorious life. So encouraging!)

Getting to the Source

"Faith does not elliminate questions...but faith knows where to take them."

You didn't know we were this talented, did you?

Pippi Longstocking? Jordan the "Friar in Training"Its flipper!
My Personal Favorite...
And you thought the bills with Al Gore on them were scary!
We tried to take a decent one but somehow...our natural faces didn't look much different!
Ah, such fun times.... I think the most funny part is to watch those who are getting their picture taken. Though the camera naturally distorts your face on its own, the faces being made, in order to make the picture look even more distorted, are far from normal!

Off the record- My mom was thoroughly embarrassed and has begun to question what she has given birth to. (However, she laughed just as hard as we did, to the point of tears and uncontrollable laughter)

I love my family.

Finding "Home"

Psalms 91:7- "A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee."

I read that verse...and re-read it...and re-read it again. Thousands shall fall, "but it shall NOT come nigh thee." I want to claim that verse as my own, but there are still times in my life where I think about how much I mess up, how I've strayed from God and how quickly I could be back to living a life of sin and rebellion against Him. It doesn't take much. Not only does my natural flesh constantly remind me of that, but I've also seen people, who I once admired for their faith and consistency in following after God, turn 180 degrees and head in the opposite direction. It leaves you feeling utterly disappointed and let down. Yet, whats to keep me from doing the exact same thing? How can I be one of the few who will still stand, when the thousands around me have fallen? How could the Psalmist so confidently say that "falling away" wasn't an option?

..."Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation." (Vrs. 9)

The answer, as always, comes in the Lord. Make Him your habitation. (Home, dwelling, a place to live.) The more that I thought on that verse the more the implications of it began to dawn on me. My home is a place that, almost without fail, I go to every single day... I go home after a long day of work. I go home after shopping. I go home after a vacation. Its at home that I can find rest and that I can truly be myself. Now, if I'm to make the Lord my "home" then, almost without fail, I need to go to Him every single day. I need to find Him in/after all the things I do each day. I need to rest in Him and be truly honest before Him.

However, the best part is that God has not left us alone in this endeavor to keep Him first; to make Him our habitation. He knows the battles are often hard and that we are much too weak. He knows that we will fall and that we need more than a human's strength to lift us up. If we have desired to make God our dwelling places and have put our effort into doing just that, he promises that "He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone." (Vrs 11-12) What a comfort the Word of God brings! You thought your battles were unbearable? Just think of what you have been spared of!

So don't be discouraged when you see yourself falling in areas you thought you'd already gotten the victory in. Instead, see it as God's way of reminding you that you are NOT God and that "because he (you) hath set his love upon Me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known My name. He shall call upon Me and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him."

Be encouraged.... It not because of our perfection that we are delivered, but rather its because we've recognized our need of God and in return, love Him all the more for His help.

Anyways, I've been thinking on these things for the past week or so and just today I read the following quote in a book on the life of Amy Carmichael. Somehow it just seems to sum everything up.

"To be like Christ. To displace self from the inner throne, and to enthrone Him; to make not the slightest compromise with the smallest sin. We aim at nothing less than to walk with God all day long, to abide every hour in Christ and He and His words in us, to love God with all the heart and our neighbor as ourselves...It is possible to cast every care on Him daily, and to be at peace amidst pressure, to see the will of God in everything, to put away all bitterness and clamor and evil speaking, daily and hourly. It is possible by unreserved resort to divine power under divine conditions to become strongest through and through at our weakest point."

The Succinctness of Life

During my senior year of highschool I took a Creative Writing class (which for the most part I thoroughly enjoyed!) and one of the things we had to do was write "blog posts" through the school...and we had to do it almost every single day. Usually I'd just write fun family memories, random thoughts, something that I had been learning and occassionly I'd try my hand at poetry. Anyways...all of this writing resulted in a lot of saved documents on my laptop and now its fun to go and look through some of them from time to time. I'll probably end up using some of them on here again, but for now I thought I'd share these thoughts.

"I don't really know what made me think of this, but the illustration randomly popped in my mind this morning and I thought it was worth writing down. I remember thinking it was a wonderful illustration when I first saw it and then also found myself sharing it with others afterwards.

It was the summer before I was heading into the eighth grade and I was attending a week of camp at Servants Heart Camp Ministries. We were having Directors Hour (a time where the director of the camp would give a short challenge, using some sort of object to teach the lesson.) and Mr. Fry was leading the way down to the creek. A long string of teens followed behind as we headed down the winding trail. We finally reached the bank of the creek and spread around Mr. Fry, ready to pay attention to what he had to say. However, instead of speaking right away, he pulled a measuring tape out of his pocket and proceeded to measure about two feet of the bank right next to the water. He also pulled two ping-pong balls out of his other pocket before finally turning to look at us.

'Ok, I want you teens to look at this creek and imagine that the two feet I've just measured is your life. The rest of the creek is eternity.' He paused for a moment, watching for our reaction. We too waited, wondering where this was leading. He turned to face the creek. "I'm going to throw these two ping-pong balls into the creek and I want you to watch how quickly they pass through these two feet." He directed and we moved closer to get a better view.

With a quick toss, the ping-pong balls were in the water and on their way down the stream. The current picked the balls up easily and in a matter of seconds they had had passed through the span of two feet and were continuing to head further downstream. One of the other workers went to retrieve the balls, while Mr. Fry turned back to us, his face serious.

'Teens, I don't want you to forget what you've just seen. Our lives are short. You saw how quickly those two balls went through those two feet. The rest of that stream is long. Its the rest of eternity.' He paused again, searching the eyes of the teens before him. Then he continued, 'But teens, those two feet will affect the path that the rest of your eternity will take.'

It was all so simple. Just a little illustration that involved two ping-pong balls and some water, but it was enough to drive the point home. I distinctly remember walking away from there feeling very impressed with how short our lives really are and wanting to do everything in my power to make sure that my two feet and three seconds of life counted for something worthwhile."

Sorry, it just doesn't work!

"A man who clings to his own righteousness is like a man who grasps a millstone to prevent himself from sinking in the flood." (C.H. Spurgeon)