The W-H-A-T in the Sand?!

A new twist on a worn-out poem. Enjoy.

One night I had a wondrous dream,
One set of footprints there was seen,
The footprints of my precious Lord,
But mine were not along the shore.

But then some stranger prints appeared,
And I asked the Lord, "What have we here?"
Those prints are large and round and neat,
"But Lord they are too big for feet."

"My child," He said in somber tones,
"For miles I carried you alone.
I challenged you to walk in faith,
But you refused and made me wait."

"You disobeyed, you would not grow,
The walk of faith, you would not know.
So I got tired, I got fed up,
and there I dropped you on your butt."

"Because in life, there comes a time,
when one must fight, and one must climb.
When one must rise and take a stand,
or leave their butt prints in the sand."

~ author unknown

Happy Odd Day

Today is May 7, 2009 ..... or 05/07/09.

Happy Odd Day! A day made especially for guys like me.

The Vitality of Love

"The day we stop burning with love, people will die of the cold."
~ Unknown

The Constant Call of God

This is one of my absolute favorite passages of Scripture:

1In the year of King Uzziah's death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple.
2Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
3And one called out to another and said, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory."
4And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke.
5Then I said, "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts."
6Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs.
7He touched my mouth with it and said, "Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven."
8Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here am I. Send me!"
~ Isaiah 6:1-8

Imagine walking into your church on a Sunday morning and finding the scene Isaiah depicted here. It wasn't just good music or an inspiring sermon Isaiah saw and heard. It was the Lord! It was a scene straight out of the throne room of heaven. What would you do?
I'm guessing we'd all do just what Isaiah did: We'd fall on our faces and cry out, "Woe is me!"

After his sins were purged, Isaiah heard the voice of God, saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?"
Most scholars say that this was the of Isaiah's call to ministry. I disagree.

Read it again. This wasn't God calling a man named Isaiah. It was a man named Isaiah hearing the call of God. So what's the difference?
It's simple. This call of God goes forth from His throne all the time. God is constantly calling out for a response from a man willing to go. Isaiah heard it and responded with, "Here am I. Send me!"

Have you heard His constant call? How will you respond?

Obituary of Common Sense !

Today, we mourn the passing of an old friend by the name of Common Sense.

Common Sense lived a long life, but died from heart failure at the brink of the Millennium. No one really knows how old he was since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He selflessly devoted his life to service in schools; hospitals, homes, factories and offices, helping folks get jobs done without fanfare and foolishness.
For decades, petty rules, silly laws and frivolous lawsuits held no power over Common Sense. He was credited with cultivating such valued lessons as to know when to come in from rain, the early bird gets the worm and life isn't always fair.
Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn), reliable parenting strategies (the adults are in charge, not the kids), and it's okay to come in second.
A veteran of the Industrial Revolution, the Great Depression, and the Technological Revolution, Common Sense survived cultural and educational trends including feminism, body piercing, whole language and new math.

But his health declined when he became infected with the "if-it-only-helps-one-person-it's-worth-it" virus. In recent decades, his waning strength proved no match for the ravages of overbearing federal legislation.
He watched in pain as good people became ruled by self-seeking lawyers and enlightened auditors. His health rapidly deteriorated when schools endlessly implemented zero tolerance policies; when reports were heard of six year old boys charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; when a teen was suspended for taking a swig of mouthwash after lunch; when a teacher was fired for reprimanding an unruly student. It declined even further when schools had to get parental consent to administer aspirin to a student but couldn't inform the parent when a female student is pregnant or wants an abortion.

Finally, Common Sense lost his will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband, churches became businesses, criminals received better treatment than victims, and federal judges stuck their noses in everything from Boy Scouts to professional sports.
As the end neared, Common Sense drifted in and out of logic but was kept informed of developments, regarding questionable regulations for asbestos, low-flow toilets, smart guns, the nurturing of Prohibition Laws and mandatory air bags.
Finally, when told that the homeowners association restricted exterior furniture only to that which enhanced property values, he breathed his last.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son Reason. His three stepbrothers survive him: Rights, Tolerance and Whiner.
Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.

Refusing Fear

Have you turned on the news yet this morning? If so, you know there is a new panic sweeping the world: Swine Flu! That and salmonella from eating raw alfalfa sprouts (although I'm not sure why anyone would eat raw alfalfa sprouts to begin with.) But the big concern, the one that has governments issuing travel advisaries and warnings of epidemics and pandemics, is swine flu.

I'm not quite sure quite how we ought to react to the dire warnings I'm hearing this morning. After all, these are the same people who were absolutely certain a few years ago that bird flu was about to ravage the world's population. And do you remember the Y2K panic, and all of the other public scares that have failed to materialize?
It seems to me that we have numerous governmental and other various public agencies and organizations, including the media, who work to keep the public in a state of fear, or at least elevated concern about something all the time. Maybe it's all about headlines, or public funding, or ratings. I don't know.
But I'm making a choice this morning. I'm choosing not to participate in the "Great Swine Flu Panic of 2009". I'm choosing the promise of God that has stood the test of time longer than any of these public fear frenzies.

You shall not be afraid of the terror by night,
Or of the arrow that flies by day;
Or of the pestilence that stalks in darkness,
Or of the destruction that lays waste at noon.

A thousand may fall at your side,
And ten thousand at your right hand;
But it shall not approach you.
~ Psalm 91:5-7

My Earthday Tribute

It's 'Earthday'.

There's a lot of hype these days concerning the earth and how we can and should maintain it. But there is a danger we tend to fall into. As human beings, we don't seem to be able to keep things in their proper perspectives. In the case of today's "enviro-hysteria", we have fallen into that trap once again. The Apostle Paul described it like this in Romans 1: "Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and creeping things."

The creation should never be our priority. The Creator should. That's the way it was intended to be. The creation is intended to glorify the Creator, God. As God's agents on this earth, we do have a responsibility to care for it. After all, God did give us charge over it all. The Bible says: Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." (Genesis 1:26)

It's simply a matter of proper perspective. We must keep in mind what the Scripture says in Pslam 24:1, "The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof." It's all His. Not ours.

So here's what I believe Earthday ought to be all about (of course, from God's Word in Genesis 1):

1In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.
3Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.
4God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.
5God called the light day, and the darkness He called night And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
6Then God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters."
7God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so.
8God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.
9Then God said, "Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so.
10God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good.
11Then God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them"; and it was so.
12The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good.
13There was evening and there was morning, a third day.
14Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years;
15and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so.
16God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also.
17God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth,
18and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good.
19There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.
20Then God said, "Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens."
21God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good.
22God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth."
23There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.
24Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind"; and it was so.
25God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good.