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Showing posts from 2017

When God says "Wait"

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Desperately, helplessly, longingly, I cried; Quietly, patiently, lovingly, God replied. I pled and I wept for a clue to my fate . . . And the Master so gently said, "Wait." “Wait? you say wait?" my indignant reply. “Lord, I need answers, I need to know why! Is your hand shortened? Or have you not heard? By faith I have asked, and I'm claiming your Word. “My future and all to which I relate Hangs in the balance, and you tell me to wait? I'm needing a 'yes', a go-ahead sign, Or even a 'no' to which I can resign. “You promised, dear Lord, that if we believe, We need but to ask, and we shall receive. And Lord I've been asking, and this is my cry: I'm weary of asking! I need a reply." Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate, As my Master replied again, "Wait." So I slumped in my chair, defeated and taut, And grumbled to God, "So, I'm waiting for what?" He seemed then to kneel, and His eyes met with mine . .

As a Father Pitieth

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Last week, my inquisitive, four year old son, found that the handle on the piano cover was loose. Being curious, he turned the knob this way and that, until all at once it fell off in his hand. Uh oh. He quickly tried to put it back on but the screw had sunk back into the wood! He tried pushing and twisting it but to no avail, it would not stay on. Now what should he do? He probably shouldn’t have been pulling on it so hard. And even though he knew he was not to play with the piano, he knew he should not be messing around it either! So he ran to find his big sister, who, after careful examination, decided that the problem would best be solved with copious amounts of tape to hold the knob in place. They fixed it there as best as they knew how, and hoped that it would go unnoticed, which it did for a few days. Last night, I saw the knob was missing and wondered what had happened. My wife said she had bumped against it and it had fallen off so she picked it up and set it on the top o

What a day may bring forth...

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Yesterday my father had a heart attack for the first time.  Just saying that makes me realize that life is moving on at an incredibly fast rate and things that only older people need to be concerned about now apply to my parents and that is a bit shocking to think of them in this light.  But in all of this, we were reminded and blessed by the fact that life is not about what is lived here, but only the preparation for what is to come in the life hereafter. Yesterday after lunch, Daddy laid down for his afternoon siesta and within a few minuets started feeling a tension and pain in his chest.  It kept getting increasingly stronger and he wondered if it was something that he had eaten as a doctor friend had told him once that indigestion can mimic a heart attack.  So he took some enzymes and decided to try and tough it out for a while.  After about an hour and half of intense pain (level 8 of 10), difficulty in catching his breath, and shooting pains down his arm, it finally sta

To be Delivered Up

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Last week I was attending the Shepherd's Institute and thus was not home with my family for our normal morning Bible study and the words of Jesus in Mark 10:33-34 stood out to me; “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise.” Actually, it was the word "delivered" that really caught my attention that morning.  Why delivered?  The basic meaning of the original word means "to hand over, to give into the charge of another".  We know that Judas betrayed Jesus into the temple's hands, but is this what Jesus was referring to?  Did Jesus feel that Judas had "possession" of Him?  Could it be that Jesus felt that it was His own Father that would hand Him over to a cruel humanity for His mutilation and death?  As