#NaturalandSupernatural

Most every day at CSCo, I would remind our teams that their job was to make that office or home look better than when they arrived, to make it look like no one had ever been there messing up. That is my desire every day, whether at work or home - to make it better.

I wish to declutter minds today or straighten things up with words. Words can paint pictures and for me, helps me see and understand precepts better, for instance, conception. We know that a mature egg or ova is bombarded with seed or spermatozoa and just one of these seeds can penetrate the skin of that egg and it becomes fertilized or given life. It then floats around in the prepared womb until it finds a resting place and becomes rooted in to receive the nourishment it needs for the nine months ahead. Keep that picture in mind and just change the egg or ova into a mind, a person's mind, and change the seed or spermatozoa into the Word of God.

An individual's mind is constantly receiving words or thoughts and has the ability to accept or reject each one. When the Gospel is heard and received, it becomes the seed that has penetrated the mind and upon being received, has fertilized or given life to it. This life is not natural, but supernatural, because it is God's eternal life now residing in mind and as the natural fertilized egg floats till it becomes rooted in, that 'spiritualized' mind must become rooted in to God. The verse in John 1:12 says it clearly; "as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become a child of God, even to those who believe in His name." This newly fertilized egg has no chance of surviving unless it takes root in Jesus, the Word become flesh. A natural egg cannot choose, but a person has to and we are given the authority to do so and if we do, we then become God's child, a developing fetus taking in nourishment to develop us into that new creature who resembles his or her Father God.

#PromisesPromises

She was born in 1979, a little church with about 25 believers trusting Psalm 115:1, "not to us, O Lord, but to your name be honor and glory". She thrived for about ten years with good Bible teaching and many coming to know and follow Jesus, but the unthinkable happened and she died. Google will give three references, but there is no information because she died and only lives in the memory of a few.

Seventy years ago as of May 14 the nation of Israel was born. The nation was destroyed in 70 A.D. and for 2000 years Israel appeared dead. There was a remnant, always a remnant, and it seemed impossible that she would ever become a real nation, but it did happen. God had promised to restore His people to their land and today she is thriving. We have been witnesses to the fulfillment of promise God made in Isaiah 66:8 that in one day a nation would be formed and Isaiah 35:1,2 that the wilderness shall blossom abundantly. There is another promise made to everyone by God in Genesis 12:3 that He will bless those who bless His people and curse those who curse them. He will keep that promise, for sure.

We cannot count on most things lasting forever, even good things established with prayer and trusting God's Word. God raises up and puts down at His good pleasure and our task is to make sure we are in His good pleasure at all times. His plans need to be sought after. This is His universe after all and as owner He has the perfect right to have His desires met. Yes, He loves us extraordinarily and we are important to Him, but we are not the center of the universe with everything revolving around us. His Good Will Be Done!

#Curiosity?

It had been about 320 years that the offspring of Abraham were held in Egypt as slaves when Moses was born and through unusual circumstances was raised in Pharaoh's palace. His birth mother was given the first few years to nurse him and, because she believed in her father's God, Yahweh, she taught Moses about Him. When he was 40 years old he witnessed an injustice to one of his people and murdered the offender, but was discovered and had to run away to save himself from punishment. He ran to the wilderness to hide and kept sheep for another 40 years. One day, just strolling along in his flip-flops, he passed by an unusual sight. A bush was on fire and yet, not being burned up. He could have just glanced at it out of the corner of his eye while texting on his phone and not given it much thought, but he became curious and turned to look. The really interesting thing to me is what the text in Exodus 3:4 says about this. It specifically says that God waited to see what Moses would do and when He saw that Moses turned to look, then, He spoke to Moses.
God was testing him to see if he could see that God Himself was involved in this unusual circumstance. In the palace were magicians able to perform unusual events and he could have been cynical with the unusual, but because of what his mother had instilled in him, he could see God's involvement and was curious to find out more.
God may be trying to get your attention by some out of the ordinary circumstances in your life. He tells us in 1 John 4 to test the spirits to see if they are of Him. We can't just accept the unusual as of God because we may be fooled, but we can test them against the Scripture to see if they align up with the truth of God's word. God may be waiting for you to check out the unusual and if you do, He will reveal more of Himself to you. Just being curious about God and wanting to know more can be the beginning of so much more. Moses was honored by being made the leader of his people out of slavery to the edge of the promised land because he turned and looked.

#Cars,Cats&Toasters

Two weeks ago we had our third snow of about three inches and I let my son take my car to work, since it was safer to drive in the snow than his. He put the brake on when he parked in our sloping drive. The next morning I warmed the car and remembered to release the brake and took off. As I rounded the corner I heard this awful sound like a flat tire. No indicator lights were on, but I pulled over to check the tires. Nothing looked wrong but the sound continued as I pulled into the parking lot at work. I prayed that God would take care of it and get me home safely. He did and the sound disappeared. It might have been frozen snow packed near the wheel. I love my car and besides reading the instruction book when new, I have gotten to know it. I know how it will turn at corners and respond to pressing on the accelerator and how hard to press my foot on the brake. I have great delight in my car. I take care of the maintenance regularly and try to keep it clean so I can enjoy it for a long time.
I know my cat, Sophie, and crack the door only a little bit to check if she is there first, because I know she will dart out if given the slightest chance. She loves to have her chin scratched and doesn't care to have her tummy scratched. I have gotten to know her and I have gotten to know my toaster. I learned which setting works best for bagels and which for bread. I paid attention after I burnt some toast to make sure the settings were correct.
Remember that song - "Getting to know you, getting to know all about you. Getting to like you and hope you like me"? How important is getting to know God, to you? There are good reasons for getting to know your Creator. Just as I learned about burnt toast or gotten scratched by Sophie because I scratched her tummy, there are consequences for not knowing God. There are serious consequences that impact your life now and eternally. God has said, "Delight yourself in Me and I will give you the desires of your heart." That in itself was enough for me to start trying to get to know Him, by reading His word and checking out how He was involved in Abraham's and Joseph's and David's lives and by appreciating His creativity and how He answers prayers. I have just begun to scratch the surface, since He is infinite and, fortunately, I will have eternity to get to know Him better and delight in Him.

#HopeSpringsEternal

Well, I sure hope so. The last verse in 1st Corinthians 13 says that - "now abides these three, faith, hope and love, but the greatest is love." Faith finds its resting place and for a believer or a 'faither' that resting place is in Jesus as Redeemer. Love is eternal for even in heaven, the eternal home of the believer or 'faither' there will be love. Hope does have its end when that for which you hope finds its fulfillment. There will be no reason for hope in heaven. But when your hope is gone in this earth, when you have exhausted your ability to hope, when you have hoped so very long and it looks still looks hopeless, you will become despondent. You will give up. All three of these qualities are important to richness of life. Life without love is cold. Life without faith is hard, but life without hope can only go so far.
John Milton, in 1634, is credited with the phrase 'every cloud has a silver lining'. Your life may be totally covered by a big humungus black cloud for days. But all clouds have a beginning and an end and if you wait just long enough the end of that big black cloud will be edged with silver because the sun will be behind it, ready to peek through. That is a picture of hope. There is no need to allow yourself to become hopeless because there is an end to black clouds and the sun will shine again.
Each of us needs encouragement and we hardly take time to get a sense of others state of hope  Its, "Hello," "How are you?" and "Fine, thanks." and we move on. Perhaps there is no time to delve into others lives and perhaps they don't want it all to hang out, but we can say a short prayer and ask God to shower them with His loving-kindness.
Wouldn't that be fun, to go around all day and shower everyone with whom we have contact, with a big bundle of God's loving-kindness?

#BeingHonest

Being an unknown author is an experience. Your relatives and friends are proud of you and even buy your book and say nice things to you about your book, but the public is totally unaware of your work and could care less. There have been a couple of people that thought "The Treasure is the Trip" to be of some value that they bought extra copies to give away. That thrilled me.
I have requested some readers to write three or four reasons why they liked my book to give it some credibility. Two have come in, one from my boss and one from my grandson. The one from my boss is on my web page. My grandson wrote that he enjoyed reading of my journey and how God showed me that He was in control and I could trust Him and relax. He finished by saying he was going to try that, also. He got the idea. That was the main reason I wanted to publish the book, so that others could see how wonderfully involved God is in His children's lives and that He can be trusted to take care of us in the best possible way as we turn to Him and we can relax. His remarks will be on the web page, soon.
The press release printed by the Beloit Daily News was good, but I had to call them and ask if they got the notice. Of all the papers this release was sent to not one has responded to the offer by WestBow that they will send a copy of my book to any editor or book reviewer when requested. I am an unknown commodity and just as serious, I do not know 'people'. As I said to Hillary, "Except the Lord build it, they that do so, do it in vain". God gave me the story. It is rightfully His book. If He wants it built, it will be built. We can watch and see what will happen and give Him the Glory He deserves.
For sure, I will keep you posted!

#TheNitty-Gritty

He was sitting in a wheel chair in the hospital and his dad was sitting next to him. It had been about two weeks since he waked up after being in a semi-coma for four days. The head-on collision had caused an enclosed head injury, a Traumatic Brain Injury. All the pieces of the puzzle composing the picture in his brain had been tossed up in the air and had landed in disarray. His dad asked him what was he sitting in and he could not remember the right words. He was floundering in an enormous sea of forgetfulness. When he got home after being in rehab for four months, he would sit in front of his computer trying to communicate with someone and always a dictionary was at his knee. When you can't remember a word,  where do you start looking in a dictionary? Perhaps you have an idea what letter the word begins with, but there are hundreds of words that begin with that letter, so, then what?
You just look and look and try different avenues to get there. It takes time and effort to put the pieces of the puzzle back together and get the picture right. It gets gritty.
In my book "The Treasure is the Trip" I tell the story of my son's accident and unusual circumstances surrounding it that caused me to know that it was no 'accident', that God's hand was working. God is good. The goodness of His character is unquestionable. He has a plan for each of us, a plan for good and not evil. It may appear evil or hurtful at times, but God has the long view in mind and the temporary is just that 'temporary'.
When I was a lab technician working in a hospital lab, we did bleeding and coagulation times on brand new baby boys before circumcision to make sure they were not bleeders. Their tiny heel had to be stuck with a lancelet and of course it hurt. There were some who didn't want to do it because they didn't want to make the baby cry. I would volunteer because I knew their safety was at stake. They needed the hurt to make sure they wouldn't bleed to death.
You can bank on this - God knows exactly what you need and even though it hurts for a while, it will reap good in the long haul as you trust Him over the nitty-gritty.