Ecclesiastes 12:10

  This time of year we think about ‘counting our many blessings’. It's easy to look at all of our stuff all our friends and family, our homes, our jobs and understand the need to be grateful.   Yet do we realize that our greatest blessing might just be what we don’t have? If we are free from disease. If we are not at war. When we don’t suffer physical persecution for our faith. When we don’t have fear of our government. When we don’t have toxins in our water or poisons in our food.   When we don’t have crimes overrunning our streets. When we don’t have want for food or supplies.   We have it so good because we don’t have so much that others do. And for that we should be thankful.     Thankful and generous. One can’t truly be grateful for what he has if he is not willing to share that with those that do not.     If we count what we have and all the things we are not burdened with, it would be asinine not to realize tha...

    Thomas Midgely was a mechanical and chemical engineer that had over 100 patents in his career. He has won the Priestly Medal the highest award of the American Chemical Society, was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences and hold two honoree degrees because of his work. He also might have done more damage to the atmosphere than any person that ever lived.     You see, Midgely is the man responsible for both leaded gasoline and Freon.  While both products had wonderful uses, they both had deadly consequences. Leaded gasoline is linked to all kinds of long term health problems. Freon was found to destroy the ozone layer. By 2018, both products made the Time’s list off worst inventions of all time.     At least with lead gasoline, he should have known better. The plants that manufacture the stuff had serval deaths attributed to lead poisoning, workers had bouts of insanity and hallucinations because of exposure to i...

  Before we all had phones to distract us, if you were bored had something to write on and a friend you might have played a game of Hangman. It was a word game where you had to guess a word or phrase letter by letter. Each time you picked the wrong one, a little stickman had a body part added to the gallows. If you didn’t figure out the answer before the man was assembled, he’d swing from the rope.     Recently I read a post that suggests building a snowman instead. You see the act of hanging a man was deemed too violent with too many racial undertones. So instead you assembly a snowman piece by piece. Not only was it less gruesome, it also had the benefit of having more steps and made the game less trying for children. If you lost it was not a tragedy, you made a nice little friend.     I guess we have all the other problems in the world solved so we had to get onto fixing Hangman.   Isn’t it funny how much we want everything in the wor...

  I was recently watching a show that gave the chilling scene. It was dashcam footage of a police officer making a seemingly routine traffic stop.   The officer, after asking to man to step outside the vehicle and go to the safer side of the highway, begins to ask some routine questions. The man’s response is odd given the situation so the officer asks if he can search him. He agrees but right as the officer looks down, the man draws a firearm and unload several rounds point-blank in the officer chest.    Because of the position of the camera, you gracefully don’t see the aftermath, yet you hear the cries of the officer for help. It was an unnerving series of events.   However, the officer did have a great advantage. He had backup. As soon as he goes down other a dispatcher on his radio hears his cry. Other officers in the area are alerted. Quickly one arrives and starts immediate aid. More arrive and secure the area. Others search for the suspect. The ...

  If you think learning is weighted to the side of the instructor you probably are not going to learn much no matter how good the instruction is.   We say it like this, ‘I didn’t get anything out of that sermons’ or ‘the teacher is too boring to keep my attention’, or ‘that person just can’t relate to the audience’. They are all are ways of saying the same thing. The failure to learn is not the fault of the learner   However, let’s consider this scripture: A scoffer seeks wisdom and finds none, But knowledge is easy to one who has understanding . Proverbs 14:6   Notice the difference?   Those that are quick to judge the process never seem to find anything at all. But for those wanting to learn, there is plenty to find. If we are too busy judging the lesson, it removes the possibility of getting the lesson (James 4:11).   Don’t think I’m saying there are not needed improvement in our teaching, there absolutely are! What I’m...