Sonya and Hannah were helping me work around the church yesterday, or should I say, Sonya was helping me and Hannah was doing her own thing.  We went to check on Hannah, who had escaped to the nursery, only to notice that she had climbed into a baby toy.  Now understand that Hannah would never play in one of these when she was smaller.  When she is too big for it, however, she thinks it is a cool toy.  She was reverting back to her early childhood.

How often are we the same way in our lives?  We seem to grow until we decide that we would like to revert back to spiritual childhood.  We should be more mature but we react or act in ways that are from our early days.  Most all of us have had times when we have found it easier to be spiritually immature than to take the road of maturity.  We see this in our relationship with God, with others and with this world.

There are spiritual maturity tests that we can use to evaluate our lives.  Am I growing in the Word and Prayer?  Am I faithful to the church and ministry?  Do I respond to others with love and compassion rather than anger and frustration?  Are the fruit of the Spirit evident in my life?  Is my speech worthy of being used in a conversation with Christ?  Are the things I am involved in the result of small compromises or would they glorify God?,

So many times, the longer we are saved the more revert back to the old days.  The newness of our salvation wears off.  We begin slipping in our Bible reading and prayer, then soon our path leads us away from Him instead of to Him.  Are you maturing or have you been taking one step forward and two steps back?

I have been reading through the book of Joshua and am intrigued by the story of Israel’s crossing the Jordan river.  God told them to cross the Jordan.  He commanded them to set the priests and the Ark of the Covenant at the front and when the priests stepped in the water, it would roll back.  The priests obeyed and God responded by parting the Jordan as He had done with the Red Sea.

After Israel crossed, Joshua commanded the heads of the 12 tribes to get a stone and stack them in the midst of the Jordan, to be a monument of God’s miraculous provision.  Since the Jordan overran its banks for 2 months of the year, the Israelites could only see  the monument when the water was low or when the rain was withheld.  The water was at a lower level for ten months of the year, which allowed this monument to be visible.

The intention of this monument was to remind Israel of God’s power over nature and over their enemies.  This was in place so the fathers of Israel could show the monument to their children and they could re-tell the story of God’s provision. 

In our lives  there are things that God has done for us that we should build some monuments for.  Salvation, healing, miracles, being filled with the Spirit and many other things are momentous occasions in our lives.  It is those monuments that we build that allow us to tell others of God and His power.  It is these things that we look to and remember when the rain seems to stop and drought enters our lives.  The monuments become visible and we can cling to those things to help get us through until the rainy season.

Are there any monuments you can build in your lives?  Or is there one of these that you are clinging to while you are going through the drought?

Today on our day off we drove to Gentry, Arkansas to the Wilderness Drive-thru Safari.  It was a great surprise!  I have been to a few of these types of safaris that brag about all these exotic animals, but I usually leave disappointed.  Not so with this one.  It was the best Safari I have seen.  It had hundreds of exotic animals that could be seen through a four mile drive thru on their property that sprawled through the beautiful country of Northwest Arkansas.  The animals were out in the open where you could actually see them (unlike the zoo).  The park had a petting zoo that had many types of animals including, turkeys, kangaroos, zebras and prairie dogs.

There was a pony ride for Hannah.  The first time we went to the pony ride it was only $3.00.  As we were walking through one of the workers invited us to help ourselves to ride the pony (horse) as much as we wanted at no charge.  We had a picnic while there.  We brought our own food, but their concession stand was very reasonably priced.  By far, going to this safari allowed us to have fun as a family without breaking the bank.  It was well worth every penny.

You can check out the safari here.

Sunday afternoon, we drove to Devil’s Den State Park.  Don’t really care for the name but you could not question the beauty of our Creator there.  Before leaving for Devil’s Den, we took an afternoon nap.  When Hannah woke up she said, “I want to go climb a mount.”  So we took a trip to climb a mount.

It was a beautiful day with perfect weather. 

We had a good day yesterday.  The crowd was a little down but we still broke 100.  It seems that God is doing great things at RFA.  The worship went well and you could sense the presence of the Lord.  We talked about being more fruitful in our Christian lives.  Fruitful in our character (fruits of the spirit), fruitful in good works, and fruitful in our witnessing.  The response was tremendous at the altar time.  It appears that as believers, we all want to be more fruitful and make a difference for the Kingdom of God.

While Sonya and I were at District Council this week, my parents kept Josh and Hannah.  My dad has been looking for a new pistol so he took the kids to the armory in Springdale.  Josh said they had thousands of guns to look at and there was a lot of people shopping there.  At some point during the shopping trip, one of the workers gave Hannah a balloon.  A balloon in a gun shop, mind you. (I guess they were trying the kid friendly gun shop approach). Now, let me remind you that a gun shop carries ammunition and weapons; things that make loud noises when they fire.  Do you see where I am headed with this?

As my parents are walking around with Hannah, she steps on the balloon and it pops.  POW!  Josh said at once everyone jerked around, startled, to look because they thought somebody had shot a gun in the store.  Leave it to Hannah, that’s my girl:)

We drove through Petit Jean State Park on our way home from Little Rock.  It was a little out of the way but it was well worth the drive.  I forgot our camera but I was able to use my Blackberry camera.  Not the best but good enough.  The beauty was incredible.