Faith, Hope and Love

Sometimes, when we are recovering from something in life that has afflicted us, we wonder why the recovery process is so slow and painful. We wonder why God wouldn't work faster and bring about the change quicker. Deuteronomy 7: 17-24 is an encouragement from the word of God that He is always there, and a call to have the faith that the Lord knows what is best for us and that He will make us complete in His image in due course. You may say to yourselves, "These nations are stronger than we are. How can we drive them out?" 18 But do not be afraid of them; remember well what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt. You saw with your own eyes the great trials, the miraculous signs and wonders, the mighty hand and outstretched arm, with which the LORD your God brought you out. The LORD your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear. Do not be terrified by them, for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a great and awesome God. The LORD your God will dri...

A certain man planted a rose and watered it faithfully, and before it blossomed, he examined it. He saw the bud that would soon blossom and also the thorns. And he thought, "How can any beautiful flower come from a plant burdened with so many sharp thorns?" Saddened by this thought, he neglected to water the rose, and before it was ready to bloom, it died. So it is with many people. Within every soul there is a rose.The God-like qualities planted in us at birth grow amid the thorns of our faults. Many of us look at ourselves and see only the thorns, the defects. We despair, thinking that nothing good can possibly come from us. We neglect to water the good within us, and eventually it dies. We never realize our potential. Some people do not see the rose within themselves; someone else must show it to them. One of the greatest gifts a person can possess is to be able to reach past the thorns and find the rose within others. This is the characteristic of love, to look at a...

My dog Bernie. A photo album has been started for him and you can view it from the links at the sidebar.

Endless inventions, endless experiments, Brings knowledge of motion but not of stillness... Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? (T.S. Eliot) "I thought of a rather cruel trick I once played on a wasp. He was sucking jam on my plate and I cut him in half. He paid no attention, merely went on with his meal, while a tiny stream of jam trickled out of his severed oesophagus. Only when he tried to fly away did he grasp the dreadful thing that had happened to him. It is the same with modern man. The thing that has been cut away is his soul." (George Orwell)

No matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love. (1 Cor 13:3, The Message) Because God is love, the most important lesson he wants you to learn on earth is how to love. It is in loving that we are most like him, so love is the foundation of every command he has given us. Love is expressed in the form of relationships. Often we act as if relationships are something to be squeezed into our schedule. We talk about finding time for our family or making time for people in our lives. That gives the impression that relationships are just part of our live along with many other tasks. But God says relationships are what life is all about. All the ten commandments are about relationships – with God and with people! So why do we allow our relationships to get the short end of the stick? When our schedules become overloaded, we start skimming relationally, cutting back on giving the time, energy, and attention that loving relationships require. What’...

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.