Today Josh got his driver’s permit. I cannot believe that he is actually able to drive. It seems like yesterday that he learned to ride a bike. This afternoon, I allowed him to drive me to Lowe’s. It was a little tense, but he did a fine job of driving. We are proud of you, Son!
Last night, Hannah and I were on the back patio watching the lightning bugs light up the dark night. There were dozens of them glowing in the back yard and after a lucky grab, we caught one. Hannah likes bugs. She says she likes to pet spiders and even though she is timid, she will let bugs (not spiders) crawl on her hands. She caught a doodle bug the other night and named him Muscles.
After our catch of the lightning bug, she decided to name him Muscles after her lost doodle bug, but finally settled on the name Lightning. We got a jar, punched a couple air holes in the lid, put some grass in it and made the new home for Lightning. Lightning made it through the night and Hannah still has her pet. She woke up and said she was going to feed it little pieces of cheese and crackers. What do Lightning Bugs eat?
All of this ordeal has me puzzled, though. Why is it that when they are little girls they like bugs and let them crawl over them, and then when they grow up they are all of a sudden afraid of bugs?
Have you ever had a light bulb experience?
This is one of those experiences that the Lord shows you something, and it is like a light comes on. It is nothing profound but rather simple, and you wonder why you couldn’t see that a long time ago. A couple of years ago, I had light bulb experience #176. In the midst of a discouraging, frustrating time in my life, I began to cry out to God. All of my inadequacies, struggles, failures, and responsibility were weighing heavy on me. I had vented my frustration and discouragement to others but not to God. At the end of the day, the weight was more than I could bear. I cried out to God. As I was praying and seeking the Lord for answers and help, I cried out "Lord, I am losing my grip!" There went the light bulb and the Holy Spirit in his gentle manner spoke and said, "It is about time, I will take over from here." WOW! Can I say that again? WOW! As long as I had a grip on the situations and on the ministry God had given me, I lacked dependence on Him. Venting my frustrations was my way of keeping in control. God has been waiting for me to let go of it and let Him handle it. That night, I received a breakthrough. The Light came on, and the weight was lifted off my shoulders.
The battle is the Lord’s, not mine. The ministry is the Lord’s not mine. I am a steward over what He has given me, but the dependence has to remain on God.
I Peter 5:7 says, "Casting all of your care on Him for He cares for you."
The problem is we attach strings to our cares. We cast them on God, but we hang on to that string. You see, as long as we are hanging on to something, we feel more confident that God will work. The fact is that God works better without you hanging on to the string. I challenge you, LET GO AND LET GOD! Lose your grip and get in His grip.
I am sorry for the sporadic posting lately. We started our building project and it has consumed much of our time. Although the building seems torn apart, we already see signs of progress. Tomorrow, we have another workday to frame the new drum cage and also paint the foyer and other various projects. Looking forward to the finished product.
Has God Promised You Anything?
I recently experienced firsthand a broken promise. A young man I know sat with me and told me that he would do something and then turned around and stood me up. I was a little irritated because a promise should be a promise. But this is the fruit of human fallacy.
Maybe you have experienced something similar. A promise not kept in a relationship. A promotion that you were promised on your job. A promise made isn’t always kept. BUT with God all His promises are kept.
As I was reading through the book of Joshua I stumbled over a verse that completely intrigued me. Joshua 21:45, "Not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass."
If God speaks it, it will happen. Everyone of His promises are true and they will come to pass. As a matter of fact Paul said it this way, "All the promises of God are yes!" What God has promise you will come to pass. Joshua said, "Not a word that God spoke failed." That means that every promise from cover to cover of the Bible will happen for you. Every promise that God has spoken to your heart will come to pass.
Maybe it is the promise that your loved ones will be saved. It could be that miracle you need in your finances. It could be that open door you need to get where you are going. ALL will come to pass. Not some but ALL! God doesn’t just tell you what you want to hear. If He says something you can take it to the bank.
Hang on to those promises! Don’t let go of what God has spoken to you. All will come to pass. You can count on it!
"LETTER" FROM FACEBOOK
By Peter Chianca
Dear Facebook member:
It has come to our attention that certain users have raised concerns over our privacy policy. We’d just like you to know that here at Facebook, it’s extremely important to us that your information is kept private, to be shared only among your friends, networks, fans, people who "like" the same things you do, and users of applications you don’t realize you’ve signed up for.
It’s true that it’s in our best interests, for growth and advertising purposes, to make as much of your personal information as possible freely available over the Web. But we make a promise never to share what’s on your profile unless you have expressly authorized us to do so by not un-checking an arcane series of hard-to-find boxes, some of which don’t exist.
So just to make sure you understand your privacy rights as a Facebook user, we’ve put together the following easy-to-follow guidelines:
1) Default settings. Just to make things easier, our default settings make your personal information, photos and videos accessible to everyone on the Web, including your mother, your second-grade teacher and the guy who, at this very moment, is photoshopping the heads of strange children onto the bodies of centaurs.
2) Photos. We understand why you might have concerns over who can see photos of you that you’ve posted, or that are posted by your friends, or by an old boyfriend or girlfriend. But the rumors that embarrassing pictures of you are automatically visible to your boss and your pastor are entirely untrue. Assuming you’ve checked and/or unchecked the right boxes, they can only be seen by friends, friends of friends, friends of friends of friends and all the other people who play Farmville.
3) Instant Personalization Pilot Program. This is the program that allows other websites, like Yelp and Pandora, to access your profile information. However, you can opt out of this program – at this very moment we have a team of engineers trying to determine how one might go about doing that.
"But Facebook, why would you ever presume that we’d want you to share our information with other websites without our permission?" you might ask. To which we’d respond: "Shut up and play some more Mafia Wars."
4) If you’re embarrassed about people seeing your "Like" list, maybe you should stop liking things like Barry Manilow and "Jersey Shore." You know who you are. And so do we.
Finally, we want to remind you that, if you’re that concerned about people seeing the information you somehow thought would remain private just because that’s what we told you when you signed up, you always have the option of deleting your account.
Good luck figuring out how to do it.
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Copyright 2010 Peter Chianca. Permission is granted to send this to others, with attribution, but not for commercial purposes.
This morning, Justin Taylor’s blog shared an awesome resource to help our kids (and parents) memorize Scripture. Seeds Family Worship puts verses of the Bible to song. The songs are written straight from Scripture. The best part of these songs are that they are not cheesy. They are actually pretty cool songs. This is a great tool for families as well as individuals who want to memorize more Scripture.
Life of a Pastor Blog 