Ecclesiastes 12:10

  I often find myself stressing about things I don’t have much control over. National politics, the price of gas, church strains, decisions made by others far removed from my control. Sure, I can control how I respond to these things, yet that doesn’t always seem to help reduce the anxiety.  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once said, “For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining, is to let it rain.” Trying to control the uncontrollable is a fool’s errand. Things will come or they won’t. We can patch the roof or carry an umbrella but we can’t make the clouds stop leaking.   People make themselves (and others) miserable when they think they can control everything. We can’t now and we never could. I think Job understood this. When the storms of life were pounding him, He simply responded “ The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD ” (Job 1:21).  Sometimes all we can do is wait for the rain to stop. Of sure we can compla...

    I n Psalms 37:1  we read, “ Do not fret because of evildoers, Be not envious toward wrongdoers ”. It’s a good warning because that is exactly what we do.   Think about it. How many times do we see folks that are beside themselves about worldly shenanigans? They obsess about the evil they see to the point they make themselves miserable.     On the other side of the coin, we have those that feel like they are missing out. They look at a world that does what it wants when it wants and deep-down wishes that could be them. Forget about the consequences. They feel they are suffering because they can’t live like the world.   Yet both of these reactions are not faith responses. Consider what said the next few verses down; “ For evildoers will be cut off, But those who wait for the LORD, they will inherit the land. Yet a little while and the wicked man will be no more; And you will look carefully for his place and he will not be there ”. When we fret ...

  A typical microwave oven consumes more electricity powering its digital clock than it does heating food.  While heating food requires as much as 100 times the power as running the clock does, the microwave heats food less than 1% of the time while the clock is typically always running. Therefore, in total, the clock uses up more electricity.   There is a lesson there.  Many of use a lot more of our resources (time, energy, effort, money) in the mundane things of life rather than in our real intended purpose.  It doesn’t seem like much but often it is the little things that add up to keep us from being fruitful in the Lord kingdom. “but the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful .” Mark 4:19   These trivialities become common excuses for many Christian. I just don’t have the time. I’m just so busy. When things settle down. When I've go...

  You may remember the saga of the Morbo 4000 from a few years ago.  It was a garbage barge that was set to take it load of 3000 pounds of refuse from New York City to North Carolina.  The problem was they didn’t want to take. So the boat tried to sail back to New York but it wasn’t allowed there either and thus it‘s saga began.  The longer it roamed the worse it got.  Rumors that the barge was carrying all sorts of hazardous materials made the situation more difficult to resolve. The barge would be rejected by over a dozen places, even being chased away with warplanes on two occasions, and traveled over 6000 miles looking for a place to unload.  Eventually, the company owning the boat went bankrupt and the boat was destroyed with it's cargo.  Nobody wanted all that garbage.   Places are getting stingier about accepting garbage. I know my folks have had a time getting rid of bigger trash items since the live in the country and the area lan...

   We live in uncertain times. Threats of war, economic collapse, high energy prices, and worries about the future leadership of our country all cause us tension. It seems every news report contains stories of some threat, from cell phones causing cancer, to toxins in our water supply or terrorist in our midst. So what should the Christian do?     Well, Proverbs 3:24-26  When you lie down, you will not be afraid; When you lie down, your sleep will be sweet. Do not be afraid of sudden fear Nor of the onslaught of the wicked when it comes; For the LORD will be your confidence And will keep your foot from being caught .      No matter what calamities man may create, God is still here and in control. We may not see the solution but He does. All these problems that we all get bent out of shape over are in His hands.  Even if this world falls apart, We can be secure in the knowledge he was something better prepared f...

Monday Morning Scatter shooting while wondering why people who say they don’t care what people think are usually desperate to have people think they don’t care what people think     Ok, everybody calm down!  I feel the need to say that fairly often.  People get so worked up about everything anymore.  Any action, decision, or event must be debated in the public arena.  And all the indignation that comes to those that didn’t do things the way in hindsight I seems how they should have been done.  We have to have an opinion on everything that happens in the world.  Well, I’m done.  I only going to care about the things, I can shape and control.  Luckily for me I serve a God that knows all and sees all, so instead of getting worked up about everything, I’ll let him take care of it.  All these national crises and world cataclysms( Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkn...

            I always had a great admirer of the Boy Scouts.  Maybe it’s the motto, “Be prepared”, an idea that I believe in.  It could be the nature of a scout; he’s loyal, trustworthy, helpful, thrifty.  I sure it has to do with the oath they take to “do my duty to God”.  It could just be the young men I know that were scouts turn out pretty well. (Did you know that 11 of the 12 Americans that have walked on the moon were Boy Scouts?)  I think that is why the recent controversy involving the national Boy Scout Organization has me so upset.  If you are unfamiliar with the issue, the Boy Scouts are being pressured to remove the longstanding ban on homosexuals in their organization. Even in their own ranks, great amounts of political and public pressure are on the organization to abandon the policy.  This isn’t’ the first effort to do so.  In 2000, the Scouts were sued to force them to acc...