East is from the West

New Living Translation (2007) Psalm 103:12
He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.

It's funny how God works. I wonder how the author choose east and west, and not north and south. In a world that you believe is flat, there would be no difference. Yet us in the 21st century understand the world as round. So we can mark the distance between the south pole and the north but can you mark the distance from east to west.

I find God sometimes uses the subtle hints to show his power, his leading in peoples lives such as this author. It's like a treasure that is buried until we discover the truth but the world.

That reminds me of something I heard from someone I look up to. We live in a world that is a fine line.
We live in a world where it is possible to believe that there is no God, but it is impossible to do so.

This verse highlights that. It could be just chance that the author picked east and west.

God lead us to green pastures
God bless us with your presence
God help us shine for you
God protect us from all who oppose you

Born Again

It seems to me over and over again that Jesus is about rebirth.

John 3:5-7
5Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.'

Jesus calls us to give up our flesh. A rebirth from the old to the new. I dislike rebirth, it seems that I like the old familiar ways but everything I see in our world is about destruction and rebirth. It's written into every part of our lives.

Jesus I believes calls into all parts of our life wanting to create a new life. He wants to be so much more than just an addition to us humans. He wants to create new life a rebirth.

It seems that sometimes I would rather drag the whole world into how I believe the world should be rather than transform myself into what God calls me to be.

It's been summer!

Sorry I've taken so long to send a post, but well ... it's been summer.

Recently at a bible study we go to we watched a video about samson. He pointed out a few interesting points that I'd like to pass along.

Background:
Philistines had control over the Israel. They were called sea people who had immigrated from the north. They had advanced culture, science, and buildings. Israel was still in tents, and it appears that philistine culture was invading the culture of Israel.

God blesses a son and he is told to be a Nazirite. Someone who doesn't shave, doesn't drink, and doesn't touch anything dead and so on (appears very rough and backwards to me when compared with the Philistines). Samson is very strong, he steals the gates from the philistine city and carried them a long distance, kill many Philistines.

But then Samson breaks the commands of the Nazirite, is caught and held and eventual dies. You can read the full story in Judges 13-16.

It seems to me God was painting a picture. God's people then and today are like Samson. We are not the most cultured, smart, artistic ... people but we are like Samson with God's power we can and do great things.

But once we start fitting God into our life instead of giving God rule our life we fall apart.

I wonder sometimes if I am trying to be cultured, smart, ... instead of letting God rule my life. I believe if I do what God he calls me to do whether it's culture, science, art ... and so on no one can stand in the way of God as Samson shows us.

In the Beginning God Created Freedom

I think one of the marvelous creations by God is the creation of freedom. If God is in everything and created everything imagine trying to create something that can do something separate from God. In a sense ignore the God that created it. He gave this freedom to many things not just humans, He gave it to the angels.

But the trouble with freedom is that it comes with responsibility. If you are free to do what you want, you are now free to cause pain. Free to limit other peoples freedom. Free to cause other people pain. God isn't going to limit this ability all the time because then we wouldn't be free.

So what does God do about this tragic situation was not his intention when he created freedom. He doesn't change the rules of freedom, but rather He gives every believer the ability to overcome. He gives every believer everything that they will need.

I believe God had in his mind, beings that out of there own free will would trust God, Worship God, and serve God. I believe He is still intent on seeing His plan through.

Those are my thoughts for today!

God bless us,
God lead us,
God protect us,
God lead us to green pastures.

Footprints in the Sand

Footprints in the Sand
One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord. Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.
In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were two sets of footprints, other times there was one only.
This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life, when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat, I could see only one set of footprints, so I said to the Lord,

“You promised me Lord, that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life there has only been one set of footprints in the sand.Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?”The Lord replied, “The years when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when I carried you.”

Mary Stevenson, 1936

Sorry I have no pictures of steps in the sand

I pray your having a great week!!

Recently I have been re-introduced to the concept of chaos.

Lets go back many years right to genesis 1:1+2
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters."

Once I was told that people in the middle east, especially in the past didn't understand water as we do. We go to the beach, jump in the water. But people in the past thought about water as chaos. That is where boats where lost, and things disappeared beneath the water line.

So God hovered above this chaos. This destructive unlivable environment and created life.

We are the anomaly, we are the divine inspiration that God breathed into existence from the deep waters.

How great how awesome is our God.

God you are creator and ruler of this world.
God help us,
God lead us
God be with us.

Many Members

1 Corinthians 12
 12The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

14Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 16And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 17If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

21The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

I find this is the hardest thing for us to do. Many times I think the hands are saying to the feet why don't you be more like a hand. I guess the trouble comes from how do we determine that is an action that is lead by God and one that isn't. Is it possible for a hand to know what a ear should be and shouldn't be doing?

I guess this is where we have to read verse 18, and pray to God for guidance that he we exalt what he has planned and stop everything else before it gets started.

Transforming

I've been amazed recently at several old testament stories. How Abraham was promised to be the father of many nations yet didn't have a child till he was much older. How Joseph had dreams about his brothers bowing down to him yet he spent many years as a slave and in jail. David promised king of Israel spent many years as a hunted rebel.

It's as if God in control finds putting people in important places is the easy part. It's the transforming people that takes time.

I find a common them amoug all those people is that they tried their best to serve God wherever they were (though they all had short commings).

A Generation Gone

So last week my grandmother passed away. Though I still have a grandmother on my mom's side, but for the most part the children of the pioneers here in Manitoba are fast disappearing. The world is changing once again.

I spent allot of time with her when I was younger. She was my babysitter, she feed me supper every day after school.

It's funny how this world works. Death though painful and destructive creates new life. This cycle of life that keeps on going. At her funeral I could not help but feel happy. I know she is going to heaven and is enjoying life ever after with Jesus.

God lead us.
God bless us.
God be with us
God bring us to green pastures.

Non-Violent Action

So I am reading "I have a dream". The best part of the book for me is "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"

Here are some of the things that stick out for me.

Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.

We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with.

One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."

Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will.

Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime--the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment.

Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators."' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated."

For modern day examples check out Christian Peacemaker Teams