Perseverance

Your life is short, your duties many, your assistance great, and your reward sure; therefore faint not, hold on and hold up, in ways of well-doing, and heaven shall make amends for all.

~Thomas Brooks~

No Man Is An Island

No man is an island. ~John Donne~

I've been thinking about this a lot recently. God has made relationships because they are so very important. In Nathan Zacharias' article on Boundless Webzine, he says this,

We're not meant to go through this life alone. As Marcus states at the end of the movie, "you need backup." God uses friendships to help bring happiness when all seems right, and to help hold us up when all seems wrong. Certainly, there are risks involved. Will was right; if you open yourself up enough to where people can make you happy, then they can make you unhappy too.

None of us is perfect, and friends are likely to let you down from time to time. And sometimes a person you thought was your friend may even betray you in a very painful way. Yes, letting someone in to your life can open the door to heartache. But Marcus was right too; living a life where you keep everyone at arm's length and avoid caring about anyone other than yourself causes you to miss out on one of the greatest sources of happiness.

(Read the whole article here- it'll probably make a little more sense :) )

The American lifestyle is not extremely conducive to close and open relationships inside families and much less outside of families. We don't like to rely on others, ask for help, reach out of our comfort zones, or sacrifice our precious time, but relationships are the entire reason we weren't zapped up to Heaven the moment we placed our trust in Jesus Christ. Relationships are the only way we can reach the lost, hurting world. Religiousness doesn't endear us to anyone, but when we take time and energy and invest ourselves in others' lives, that is when the opportunities present themselves to talk about the One we are here to glorify. Let's not live by rules and regulations, but by relationships (which by the way, gives us the desire to honor with obedience to rules and regulations) with the pain filled world and with our God. Show your care. Show your love. Show the world who Christ is.

Yes, Lord

I can't remember where I originally got this, but I have had it posted on my bulletin board for years. It's funny how when you see something so often, you eventually don't pay very much attention to it anymore. But I saw it today and reread it. It was absolutely a wonderful reminder. I, for one, am going to try to say "Yes, Lord" a whole lot more often than "No, Lord, I have a better idea," or, "No, Lord, really you can't be serious." I encourage you to do the same. No matter what the circumstances, I am so glad that God never, ever, ever changes.

Yes, Lord, I will trust in You even in the dark.
Yes, Lord, I will believe Your Word even when I feel confused.
Yes, Lord, I will obey what I know You are asking me to do.
Yes, Lord, I will continue to commit my every step to You.
Yes, Lord, I will continue to grow in spiritual understanding.

Photos from Callaway Gardens

I was gone over the weekend to Callaway Gardens with my mom. It was a good chance to get away from all the hustle and bustle of everyday life, and my mom and I were able to do some catching up. I really needed a getaway like that. Here are some pictures from the butterfly center.

The Power of Friends

Ecclesiates 4:9-12

It's better to have a partner than go it alone.
Share the work, share the wealth.
And if one falls down, the other helps,
But if there's no one to help, tough!

Two in a bed warm each other.
Alone, you shiver all night.

By yourself you're unprotected.
With a friend you can face the worst.
Can you round up a third?
A three-stranded rope isn't easily snapped.

Yes, we very much need each other. God didn't make mankind to be loners. He created the church body for our good. We all work as a unit, and none of us can function properly without the other parts. Don't ever neglect friendships and relationships, they are what every aspect of life is truly about. Remember, "With a friend you can face the worst."

The Way of Love

1 Corinthians 13 (The Message)

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

Not exactly a typical American (emotionally driven) definition of love, is it? Notice that 1 Corinthians 13 never once mentions the emotional accompaniment to love. Let's remember what God says love is this Valentines Day.

Education

Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.

~C. S. Lewis~

Caring For the World

The world doesn’t care what you know until they know that you care.

~David Havard~

"Choosing Us"

This article is just sickening. I can't even find the words to describe it. That a couple could do that to their child and then look back and not have a regret is disgusting. I guess we have to do what we have do for our own comfort and ease in life, right? It frightens me really. I hope that God will have mercy on our land.

Kids Will Be Kids

The other day when I while babysitting, the 4 year-old managed to pull the shutters out from the window when I was out of the room. I came back in, immediately stopped her, and began an attempt to fix it. They were a little bit confusing and I couldn't figure out how to make them go back in, so I asked her, "How did you do this?". Her reply in complete seriousness while demonstrating with her arms, "With my strong muscles".

You always get the answer you were looking for, right?

The Tale of a Butterfly

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared, he sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no farther. So the man decided to help the butterfly, he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.

The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.

What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were God's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If are allow go through our life without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been. And we could never fly. So have a nice day and struggle a little. : )

Taken from: "The Mind's Retreat"

It's not something we enjoy or even like, but sometimes the greatest struggles of our life are the opportunities to come forth into a stronger and a more beautiful masterpiece. God uses diffucult times, seasons, and situations to develop our lives into a glorious picture of His power and love. So when you are struggling, hang in there, He has a reason and you will be stronger for it.

When I was little, I used to raise butterflies. I always enjoyed seeing the cute, fat caterpillars turn into beautiful, graceful creatures. This story rang true for me because sometimes my butterflies' wings would not properly develop and they would be unable to fly. It would break my heart to watch them struggle and fight, but in the end, they were unable to ever fly.

After the intense battle they experienced while hatching, they would have to hang and wait patiently for their wings to fill with the fluid from their body and dry. If they did not wait and began to crawl around, their wings couldn't properly develop. That also gave me the picture of how God deals with us. Sometimes, we just need to be patient, be still, wait, and allow Him to turn our shriveled up, ugly parts into something that is wonderful, beautiful and will enable us to fly. Don't rush things just because you are anxious to fly. It takes time to grow. Let God do His work in His time. Sometimes we need healing, sometimes we need time to develop, or sometimes we just need a rest and that is okay.

He will use our weakest areas for great things if we let Him. We don't need to spend our lives struggling and fighting our hurts, pains, and weaknesses. We need to sit at His feet, allow Him to fill our wings with His strength, and be prepared for something absolutely amazing. After all, struggles aren't for nothing.

Dependence on the Lord

How shall I depend on Him for raising my body from the dust; and saving my soul at last; if I distrust Him for a crust of bread, towards my preservation?

~Joseph Hall~

Love of Money

All the evils in the world come not because our desires for happiness are too strong but because they are so weak that we settle for fleeting pleasures that do not satisfy our deepest souls but in the end destroy them. The root of all evil is that we are the kind of people who settle for the love of money instead of the love of God.

~John Piper~