Friday Night Sleepy - Day 255

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure. ~ Mark Twain

Lol. Tired... Zzzzz..

Thankful Thursday - Day 254

Today I'm thankful for trees. They're majestic. They provide us heat during the winter and shade during the summer. They provide homes for birds, squirrels, insects, etc. And then we cut them down and they provide us a home. ^_^

Enjoy the Journey - Day 253

Life is a journey. There are mistakes that are made. There are blessings that are had. There are trials that you walk through. Enjoying the journey is important. You can't whine about your place in life. You need to enjoy the place where you are at. Of course, be proactive. But enjoy it! Otherwise, you'll be a whiny stressed person. Don't think of yourself as being, "behind" someone else. Maybe you aren't married at 18 like some guy you know. You didn't make a million bucks by twenty-four, etc. Don't compare yourself with others. Don't stress because you aren't as smart, wise, and "successful." Enjoy life. Enjoy being with friends. Love others more. And love your God more. We serve a good God. All he does will work out for good. You don't need to stress about it. :-)

Love one another - Day 252

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.~ John 4:7

Willing to Sacrifice? - Day 251

What are you willing to sacrifice for your friends and family? It's a question I ask myself a lot. After pondering it for awhile, I decide that I'm willing to lay down my life for them. And 10 minutes later I walk through a door with them following behind me and just let it slam in their face.  Nice..

I don't think you can expect to sacrifice in a big way if it's not engrained in you through the little things. When you're under pressure you're going to react the way that you've trained to react. And if you don't sacrifice in the small things, you will not be willing to sacrifice in the big things when the pressure is applied.

Sunday Verse - Day 250

"Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.” ~ Deuteronomy 31:6

Saturday Sayings - Day 249

Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Vision with no Discipline - Day 248

Big picture is great. People need to have a vision for their lives. If you don't, you'll wander around wondering what's happening to you and where you're going. But at the same time you need to focus on the day to day. Otherwise, you're going to be overwhelmed. I'm amazed at how just working day to day I accomplish things. If I spent my entire time sitting back and looking at the project I would be overwhelmed. But as I complete part by part it becomes a reality and I don't get overwhelmed. ^_^ It takes 10s of thousands of steps to run a marathon. But you just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Thankful Thursday - Day 247

Today I'm thankful for flowers. They're pretty and smell good. They add sparks of color to the world. They are brought to hospitals, weddings, funerals, mom on Valentine's Day, etc to help bring more happiness. They are always happy and smiling. But they do remind us that when they are pulled from the ground they slowly wilt and lose their beauty. Just like when one ignores the Word, neglects to pray, and forgets the worship of God. We wilt and die..

Power of the Press - Day 246

In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever. ~ Oscar Wilde

Why? - Day 245

Why do you do what you do? Why do you decide to make one choice over another. Every single choice leads to a consequence. It could be a choice like choosing to skip the second helping of dessert, or it could be choosing a spouse.

Each of our choices are going to lead us down some sort of road. Some decisions will lead to eternal pain and others to everlasting bliss. Try to be purposeful in what you do. Because at some point you're going to have to show the master what you did with his talents he bestowed upon you.

Reality Dating? - Day 244

Last year I was watching a reality tv show. It was a finding love sort of show. And one thing that really struck me was how selfishly most of these people approached relationships and marriage. It was all about them. They were always criticizing others and complaining about how the other person/or people were rotten, horrible, and selfish. They personally never did anything wrong unless they messed up their game plan. 


There was plenty of tears. Tears that felt, in the context, to be selfishly poured out. So and so hurt me and now I'm going to cry. It was never remorse on their part. I'm sure some of the perceived conflict and anger was escalated by the editors, and I only watched one episode, but still.. I later looked up statistics on the show, in regards to the marriages that have happened and such, there was somewhere around 5%* of the couples who ended up getting married. Many of them got engaged, but many of those broke off.


Looking through the list of them, one thing that did interest me was how many couples just decided to try it. Take a test drive. There wasn't a commitment made. They were treating the relationship like a new toaster that you could take back without any consequences. Yet, every single one of those relationships that was treated in that way broke off and was quite messy. 


The problem that I see with todays culture is we're very selfish and want everything to be good for us. We want to have sex without marriage. We want new friends who are better and more entertaining. We only cry when someone hurts our pride. We want the perfect life without any real hard work or commitment. As I understand it, marriage is rough on your flesh. Men and women both have to be incredibly unselfish to make it work. But all good things are difficult to achieve. It's the bad ones that come easy. 


I think ultimately as a non-Christian it's going to be impossible to not worship oneself. It's because the ultimate belief as a humanist is that you are god. Therefore you must honor yourself. And that's why you can't do things without some sort of selfish desire. Even though what you do may be good, the whole idea of seeing yourself as a god means you must treat yourself as one and therefore everything you do has to be done in self-promotion or with selfish desires. 


As a Christian, we are given much. We are able to worship God. We can look to God who honors himself and then we follow him, love him, and honor him. Who greater to honor and love? And as the verse I posted yesterday says, "If ye love me, keep my commandments. ~ John 14:15" Then in Luke 10:27 it says "And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And there we see that in obeying God we must love our neighbor as ourself. And who is our closest neighbor? (For those who are married) Your husband or wife would be your closest neighbor. And now, finally we know that when one is unselfishly loving ones wife/husband we are loving God.


P.S. I saw this video a couple weeks ago and thought it kind of ties into this..

*Part of this has been sitting in drafts for awhile, my stats may be off now..

Sunday Verse - Day 243

If ye love me, keep my commandments. ~ John 14:15

Saturday Sayings - Day 242

In marriage do thou be wise: prefer the person before money, virtue before beauty, the mind before the body; then thou hast a wife, a friend, a companion, a second self. ~ William Penn

Friendly Friday - Day 241

Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing. ~ Benjamin Franklin

Thankful Thursday - Day 240

Today I'm thankful for caffeine. Driving at night without caffeine = horrible. With caffeine = incredible.

On second thought everything's better with caffeine..

Cool Head - Day 239

Keep cool; anger is not an argument. ~ Daniel Webster

Living the Psalms - Day 238

Today I felt like I lived a psalm to some extent. We went rafting today and we sort of did the wrong rapids. Wrong means bigger. ;-) Hopped into the boat, very excited, prayer of Thanksgiving. A few small fun rapids: prayers of praise. Big rapid: epic. Fall out of boat: not so much.. Prayers of intercession happened there. Back in boat: prayer of praise. Go over small waterfall and fall out: prayer of intercession. Back in boat: prayer of thanksgiving. Lose one of the paddles: prayers of intercession. Walk on shore for a long ways..... Imprecatory prayer upon all the brambles and sharp rocks. Get back in two boats: prayer of thanksgiving. Find lost paddle a mile and a half down: prayer of praise. Walk around even bigger rapid and get torn up by rocks and brambles: Imprecatory prayer. Get back in boat and float through a bunch of rapids: prayer of praise. Find person with cellphone: prayer of thanksgiving. Get in car with family: prayer of praise. Amazing dinner: prayer of thanksgiving. Overall an amazing day and the best time I've had rafting. Yay! I want to go do it again. :-D

Funday Monday! - Day 237

You may delay, but time will not. ~ Benjamin Franklin Sorry for the lack of real posts. I've just had Internet on my phone. :-\

Sunday Scripture - Day 236

He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity. ~ Ecclesiastes 5:10

Saturday Sayings - Day 235

You must submit to supreme suffering in order to discover the completion of joy. ~ John Calvin

Fun Stuff - Day 234

People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing. ~ Dale Carnegie

Thankful Thursday - Day 233

Today I'm thankful for the change of seasons. I appreciate the warmth of summer, the cool of autumn/the beauty, the snow of winter, and the beautiful new life of spring.

Yay! - Day 232

Fall's in the air. w00t!

I drove all night.

That's all. 

Really.

...

New Life - Day 231

New life is amazing. Our cat had kittens today. The little ones who are conceived from tiny little particles meeting one another and growing in the womb and eventually coming out as fully functioning creatures can be hard to get my mind around at times.

We don't appreciate life enough today. In a culture where abortion and survival of the fittest nonsense is mainstream it can be hard to remember how amazing it truly is. We would not be here if it weren't for the incredible way that God created the human body and its means to reproduce. There is absolutely no way that over a trillion years the body would evolve to ever be able to reproduce. Without the many different things that must happen in order for someone to emerge from the womb we wouldn't be here. It's an incredible process and is incredibly fine tuned. Our God is truly amazing.

Support - Day 230

I think in our culture it's easy to forget that being a grand important leader is not the only role in life. The message that is told to us is that being selfish is the way to roll. It's really all about you. But I was reminded today of this when I was cheering on the sidelines of the marathon my sister ran today. At first, I didn't really want to cheer. It was weird. But I noticed that it was because I was full of myself and self conscious. And then I decided it was about others. And I immediately noticed that I was able to interact and encourage people as they ran by. And let me tell you something, I got much more from it while at the same time they appreciated it much more than if I were to just stand there staring. You don't know how much encouragement means when you're running a race. When someone yells at me to keep going, I get that little adrenaline rush and realize that people care for me and it helps me to keep running. But this doesn't just apply at running races. It applies to the race of life. It applies in everyday life. When you compliment someone, when you send them letters of encouragement, when you clap and cheer for them, when you're there for years, etc. you'll never know how much this helps people. Sometimes just those little words of complimenting someone will change the course of their entire life.


We need to stop falling in love with ourselves. It's not about us. It's about others. Stop getting so offended when your personal pride is stepped on. I'm glad it was stepped on. You shouldn't be proud. <_< The instant that you stop giving you're going to start getting offended and uptight about every little thing. I'm telling you from personal experience. Virtually the instant I stop giving to others is the moment that I start getting all mad about things. You can't be ambivalent. You're either going to be giving of yourself or becoming selfish. Why do you think it's so hard to find people who have been close friends for 40-50 years? Probably because they've been told to follow their hearts and dreams. Feel free to throw your friends under the bus as a bonus. And then at 80 their sitting in a nursing home because their children hate them. They tossed them into the public education system as soon as they could, because they hated having them around. Their life was all about money. They would move at the drop of a hat for a thousand dollar raise in another state.

We need to be more grateful for others. People are created in the image of God. We need to stop treating them like trash in our words, in the way we interact with them, and how we debate with them on the internet. It's time to take that cold little grinch heart and start loving others and supporting them.

Sunday Verse - Day 229

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Saturday Quote - Day 228

"Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow." ~ Mark Twain


Exactly

God's Blessings - Day 227

Today I attended a filmmaking class. I learned many good things. But something that really stood out to me was that we need to be purposeful with what we do. We need to have wisdom with what we do. We can't really drift through life in a naive way. We need to be connected and think critically about everything. We need to have plans. We need to be visionary. We need to trust God. And everything we do needs to be done with a purpose. We need to be focused on obeying God. We make films, or write books, or build businesses that honor God. Why? Because we love him and we love his laws. 

We need to take dominion. And taking dominion means many different things. It means adopting children. It means taking care of widows. It means making films. It means keeping the house clean. It means cleaning up diapers. It means building big businesses. It means raising chickens. It means being faithful in your Walmart job. But if your attitude isn't right then it's all in vain. It must be focused on glorifying God and obeying his commands. And God will bless the work of our hands. 

"And thou shalt return and obey the voice of the LORD, and do all his commandments which I command thee this day. And the LORD thy God will make thee plenteous in every work of thine hand, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy land, for good: for the LORD will again rejoice over thee for good, as he rejoiced over thy fathers: If thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, and if thou turn unto the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul." ~ Deuteronomy 30:8-10

Thankful Thursday - Day 226

Today I'm thankful for love. Loving people, loving animals(okay, kind of...), and a loving God.

Love: A word that's easy to say. Doing - Not so much..