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I think that's the name of the group...? 

 Yea, we had fun back in the day...looking forward to many more "blooper" days ahead.  I think the kids should hear all of these one day!

....

Ladies and Gentleman, I give you: The Laugh Song

Survival Music

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I like Hillsongs...but sometimes my spirit needs more.  This girl sang her heart out, and anointed thousands of other hearts in the process.

 More than that, this song and version of it carried me over some of the most terrible, monstrous mountains and darkest, friend-forsaken valleys over the years.  It was true then, and it remains a familiar truth now.  May it be an encouragement and provocation to go forward, dear reader!

The race is not given, to the swift, nor to the strong…

But to the one that endureth, until the end!

They’ll be problems, and sometimes you walk alone.

But I know, that I know, that I know…things will work out, yes they will...

            ...For the good of them who loves the Lord!

Eyes have not seen, and neither have ears heard.

The things God has prepared for them that love Him!

Sometimes you may have to cry,

sometimes you may have to walk alone.

But I know, that I know, that I know, things will work out, yes they will...

            ...For the good of them who loves the Lord!

No matter what the problem, you can’t solve it.

They will come, but don’t you worry!

It will work out, for the good of them who love the Lord. (x2)

 

God's Constant Position Towards Us

...taken at the Esplande...

The eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those

whose hearts are fully committed to him. (2 Chronicles 16:9)

Truly, the Lord's hand has not become short, so that he is unable to give salvation;

and his ear is not shut from hearing. (Isaiah 59:1)

Thank God for God.

The Power of Names

Adam's first attempt at naming the animals. Notice the horse's expression, not to mention God's...

So I'm preparing slides for a bible study I'm starting soon, and I came across this picture.

I have a friend who enjoys naming...well, things.

Lest she think this is weird (I don't, and I'm sure she doesn't, but sometimes age does something to ones enjoyment of the simple pleasures in life), I submit this photo as a reminder: man was given the power to name everything around him! So, name your thumbdrive boldly! Laptops, beware the forthcoming surname! Pencils, expect to be bestowed with a name above every other name given to a writing utensil!

Haha...this photo's for you sis!...(I shall not name names)

The Power Of Words

Lord knows I'm not there yet...but I'm trying....I'm aiming....I'm trying.

Speech is the mirror of the soul; as a man speaks, so he is. --Publilius Syrus

The trouble with talking too fast is you may say something you haven't thought of yet. --Ann Landers

Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of a witness. --Margaret Millar

We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them. --Abigail Adams

We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. --Mahatma Gandhi

But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned. –Jesus Christ (Matthew 12:36-38)

When you are arguing with a fool, make sure he isn't doing the same thing. —Unknown

I am annoyed by individuals who are embarrassed by pauses in a conversation. To me, every conversational pause refreshes. --George Sanders

Great minds talk about ideas, Average minds talk about things, Small minds talk about other people. --Unknown

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.--Harriet Beecher Stowe

Never miss a good chance to shut up. –Will Rogers

Can you tell I love kids...

Some shopping center in Singapore when a super famous singer was signing her signature about some song she sang on a CD that was selling fantastically swell. I didn't buy one.

A first grade teacher collected old, well known proverbs. She gave each child in her class the first half of the proverb, then had the children complete the phrase.
As you shall make your bed so shall you……mess it up.
Better be safe than…….punch a 5th grader.
Strike while the…….bug is close.
It’s always darkest before…….daylight savings time.
You can lead a horse to water but…….how?
Don’t bite the hand that…….looks dirty.
A miss is as good as a…….Mr.
You can’t teach an old dog new…….math.
If you lie down with the dogs, you’ll……stink in the morning.
The pen is mightier than the…….pigs.
An idle mind is…….the best way to relax.
Where there’s smoke, there’s…….pollution.
Happy the bride who……gets all the presents.
A penny saved is…….not much.
Two’s company, three’s…….the musketeers.
Laugh and the whole world laughs with you; cry and…….you have to blow your nose.
Children should be seen and not…….spanked or grounded.
When the blind leadeth the blind…….get out of the way.

On a more serious note, a defining quote for the moment in my life:

About all you can do in life is be who you are. Some people will love you for you. Most will love you for what you can do for them, and some won't like you at all.
Rita Mae Brown

Please Study Your Bible, Thank You

There is a way of reading the Bible that seems to leave God far away, off in the shadows somewhere. It is all information and technicalities and knowledge, but it feels like you're sitting with your back towards God. You come up against a difficulty or question, and you go to books, you ask pastors, friends, strangers on the internet, anyone but Him. Gradually God gets smaller and dimmer. --Unknown

Here, then, is the real problem of our negligence. We fail in our duty to study God's Word not so much because it is difficult to understand, not so much because it is dull and boring, but because it is work. Our problem is not a lack of intelligence or a lack of passion. Our problem is that we are lazy. --R. C. Sproul

You may as well quit reading and hearing the Word of God, and give it to the devil, if you do not desire to live according to it. -- Martin Luther

Spouting scripture has no magic to dispel the devil. Scripture has phenomenal power but unless you submit your mind to its inerrant truth, its power is largely lost to you. --Martha Kilpatrick

The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts.-- A. W. Tozer

One of these days some simple soul will pick up the Book of God, read it, and believe it. Then the rest of us will be embarrassed. --Leonard Ravenhill

Jesus Alone Did It

A photo sent to me by a friend who is studying architecture. I'm going to ask her to design my house like this. My bed will be that big eyeball thing in the middle.

In other words, what Jesus meant when He cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" was that he had taken the place of sinful man on the cross and was suffering the full punishment for sin. There was no abatement of suffering because of His deity. Since all have sinned (Romans 3:23), and the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), all mankind (except for the sinless Christ) deserved to die. Chirst took our place and sufferred the death that we deserved (Romans 5:6-9). Jesus was more than a courageous martyr like Stephen and more than an Old Testament sacrifice, because He died in our place and experienced for a time the death we deserved. On the cross He tasted death for every man (Hebrews 2:9). This death was more than physical death; it also involved spiritual death, which is separation from God (2 Thessalonians 1:9 ; Revelation 20:14)

No one alive on earth has felt this spiritual death in its fullest degree, because all of us live, move, and have our being in God (Acts 17:28). Even the atheist enjoys many good things such as joy, love, and life itself. Every good thing comes from God (James 1:17), and all life originates from Him and is upheld by Him. But, Jesus tasted ultimate death - the separation from God that a sinner will feel in the lake of fire. He felt the anguish, hopelessness, and despair as if he were a man eternally forsaken by God. So the human nature of Jesus cried out on the cross as Jesus took on the sin of the whole world and felt the ternal punishment of separation for that sin (I Peter 2:24).

-David K. Bernard, The Oneness of God

Now tell me again why we need someone to remind us to worship Jesus? If after reading this you (or, more to the point, I) go to the house of the Lord and not praise, worship, and shout to the Lord with everything in me....shame on me. If I have to wait for the worship leader, the pastor, or other individuals to direct my worship...shame on me. If there is nothing else that I can think of to pray or talk to God about, the account above is enough to fill the rest of my prayer times with thanksgiving.

Jesus, you did it all. Thank you, Lord.

Thank God for the book of Psalms

In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion. Deliver me in thy righteousness, and cause me to escape: incline thine ear unto me, and save me. Be thou my strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort: thou hast given commandment to save me; for thou art my rock and my fortress. Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man. For thou art my hope, O Lord GOD: thou art my trust from my youth. By thee have I been holden up from the womb: thou art he that took me out of my mother's bowels: my praise shall be continually of thee. I am as a wonder unto many; but thou art my strong refuge. Let my mouth be filled with thy praise and with thy honor all the day. Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth. For mine enemies speak against me; and they that lay wait for my soul take counsel together, Saying, God hath forsaken him: persecute and take him; for there is none to deliver him. O God, be not far from me: O my God, make haste for my help. Let them be confounded and consumed that are adversaries to my soul; let them be covered with reproach and dishonor that seek my hurt. But I will hope continually, and will yet praise thee more and more. My mouth shall show forth thy righteousness and thy salvation all the day; for I know not the numbers thereof. I will go in the strength of the Lord GOD: I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only. O God, thou hast taught me from my youth: and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works. Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have showed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come. Thy righteousness also, O God, is very high, who hast done great things: O God, who is like unto thee! Thou, which hast showed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth. Thou shalt increase my greatness, and comfort me on every side. I will also praise thee with the psaltery, even thy truth, O my God: unto thee will I sing with the harp, O thou Holy One of Israel. My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing unto thee; and my soul, which thou hast redeemed. My tongue also shall talk of thy righteousness all the day long: for they are confounded, for they are brought unto shame, that seek my hurt. (Psalm 71:1-24)

Thank God this Psalmist was human. Topics like these comprise almost 1/3 of the Psalms. There are too many super-Christians (a.k.a Christians who know not the power, blessings, and gift of lonliness & suffering) nowadays. I once thought Psalms like these that were read in days of youth would one day give way to the other 2/3 part of Psalms that speak of joy, peace, and blessings. How silly that thought. As I said, forgot, and was reminded by a friend: it takes both rain and sunshine to make a rainbow. In fact, you can't even see a rainbow without rain. Hence as long as we live in this world, suffering will be a reality. Unless, of course, you are a super-Christian.

I Dig My Family: Part 1

My great grandparents. She was a pastor, he was a deacon, and they were suuu-per cool.

Our pastor just had his 50th birthday. I say...

"Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter."
Mark Twain

Blow 'em up!

Our pastor was saying that if we want to get extreme about reaching out to people for the gospel we need to overcome our fear!
 I should find the phone number of this guy...he might be able to help me. 

Forgive us teachers, o ye students...

~ 50 points to whoever can guess where this is in Singapore~

This is not a work of scholarship. I am no Hebraist, no higher critic, no ancient historian, no archaeologist. I write for the unlearned about things in which I am unlearned myself. If an excuse is needed (and perhaps it is) for writing such a book, my excuse would be something like this. It often happens that two schoolboys can solve difficulties in their work for one another better than the master can. When you took the problem to a master, as we all remember, he was very likely to explain what you understood already, to add a great deal of information which you didn't want, and say nothing at all about the thing that was puzzling you. I have watched this from both sides of the net; for when, as a teacher myself, I have tried to answer questions brought me by pupils, I have sometimes, after a minute, seen that expression settle down on their faces which assured me that they were suffering exactly the same frustration which I had suffered from my own teachers. The fellow-pupil can help more than the master because he knows less. The difficulty we want him to explain is one he has recenlty met. The expert met it so long ago that he has forgotten. He sees the whole subject, by now, in such a different light that he cannot conceive what is really troubling the pupil; he sees a dozen other difficulties which ought to be troubling him but aren't.
- C.S. Lewis, from the Introductory of his "Reflections on the Psalms " book

Gullible.info

This was the expression on my face the first time I saw posters in the men's public bathrooms here in Singapore giving instructions on how to...er...aim - complete with bulls-eyes.

There's a website called, "Gullible.info" No explanation needed, but I do offer some extracts:

• Elephants don't have ankles.

• Despite two extreme outliers -- Oregon on one side, New York City on the other -- an average American bathes more often than an average person of any other nationality.

• Over forty-five years of space exploration, no fewer than six dogs, eleven cats, four thousand mice and an aquarium-full of crickets are believed to have been stranded in low Earth orbit.

• More people are burned by toaster ovens than by regular ovens.

• May is national Toaster Oven Safety Awareness month.

• One in five people carries with them a key for which they have forgotten the use.

• "Toyota" is a conjugation of the Japanese word for "War Machine."

• Boston University researchers found that people separated from their cell phones for two days showed signs of withdrawal.

Whether any of these are true or not, I don't know. But they make you go, "hmmm..."

Does Prayer Work?

Singapore when feeling European...a little.

For up till now we have been tackling the whole question in the wrong way and on the wrong level. The very question “Does prayer work?” puts us in the wrong frame of mind from the outset. “Work”: as if it were magic, or a machine – something that functions automatically. Prayer is either a sheer illusion or a personal contact between embryonic, incomplete persons (ourselves) and the utterly concrete Person. Prayer in the sense of petition, asking for things, is a small part of it; confession and penitence are its threshold, adoration its sanctuary, the presence and vision and enjoyment of God its bread and wine. In it God shows Himself to us. That He answers prayers is a corollary – not necessarily the most important one – from that revelation. What He does is learned from what He is.
-C.S. Lewis, taken from The World’s Last Night

Who You Followin'?

the side of my house...the back of my car...the face of nostalgia

But do not forget this. At first it is natural for a baby to take its mother's milk without knowing its mother. It is equally natural for us to see the man who helps us without seeing Christ behind him. But we must not remain babies. We must go on to recognise the real Giver. It is madness not to. Because, if we do not, we shall be relying on human beings. And that is going to let us down. The best of them will make mistakes, all of them will die. We must be thankful to all the people who have helped us, we must honour them and love them. But never, never pin your whole faith on any human being: not if he is the best and wisest in the whole world. There are lots of nice things you can do with sand; but do not try building a house on it.
-C.S. Lewis, from Mere Christianity

It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.
Psalm 118:8
Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.
His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.
Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God:
Which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth forever:
Psalm 146:3-6

Just some food for thought lest any of you out there would seem to have dropped your gaze from God to man when it comes to weighty and eternal matters of the soul.

The Painter and Paintbrush

Taken in Australia, 2003

In my conclusion, I'd like to say this: you graduates, indeed all of us, are growing, questioning life, and concerned over the future. The battle between good and evil, right and wrong, wise and unwise is not waged in the natural world, not in the situations we experience everyday, per se. Rather, the war for your eternal destiny lies within your heart, mind, and soul. For those who have obeyed Jesus, the battle is already won! It is important to love Jesus with every area of your life. As a painter who stands before a blank canvas creates whatsoever his heart and brush tell him, so too must you and the Lord paint the story of your life on the canvas of your heart. Go into your secret chamber of your heart, paint brush in hand and let God show you what colors to choose, what lines to make. Be not afraid of what others think of your rough draft. God will continually work with and in you. As you move into adulthood, take on jobs, families, remember who it is who gave you life, purpose, meaning. Forget not the simple things in life. Find God everyday: in the rising sun, in the cleansing rain, in the breeze that cradles the tree leaf. Transform your mind and heart to be sensitive to the spirit of God. As you decrease, Jesus will increase in your life and thus a beautiful picture painting will emerge. And on that day when we all stand before our most faithful and loving creator, the Lord Jesus, He will open the book of life and find an extraordinary picture of a beautiful, strong tree that symbolizes your life. And He will say, "Well done thou good and faithful servant."
-Graduates speech written by db, copyright 2000

Where do your roots lie? At the end of all things it will be only you and God standing face to face. What picture will He see in the Book of Life on that day? A portrait born of your own hand? Will you cringe on that day when He shows you the picture that could have been? Will you weep at the gate of the place where just beyond tears will be known no more? Which choice in your life now stands in competition to the victory, the eternity, the magnificent wonder and promise of immortality with He who gave His life for yours?

Or...

Will there be a mutual smile on your face and His when all the painful sorrows, the shed tears, the seasons of turmoil and trama reveal themselves as the varied colors resident on the symbolic canvas of your life that God will present to you on that day? Will you today push aside all that you think you know, all that you thought you knew, and pursue Him who pursues you daily? Him who has you as the apple of His eye? Him who will never, ever, ever give up on you?

Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, and has not stood in the way of sinners, and has not sat in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is only in the Law of Jehovah; and in His Law he meditates day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivulets of water that brings forth its fruit in its seasons, and its leaf shall not wither, and all which he does shall be blessed.
(Psalm 1:1-3)

A note written to me on a piece of crumpled up notebook paper from one of the children in our kids church:

"Do not walk ahead of me, I may not know the way to follow...
Do now walk behind me, I may not know the way to lead...
Just walk with me...AS FRIENDS FOREVER."

(In the lower left corner I see a hand drawn picture of what I think to be a car with a headband and a smile.)

"P.S. DOG CAR, Isnt' it cute?"

Actions do speak louder than words

A view from a room in my American house.

Put right out of your head the idea that these are only fancy ways of saying that Christians are to read what Christ said and try to carry it out as a man may read what Plato and Marx said and try to carry it out. They mean something much more than that. They mean that a real Person, Christ, here and now, in that very room where you are saying your prayers, is doing things to you. It is not a question of a good man who died two thousand years ago. It is a living Man, still as much a man as you, and still as much God as He was when He created the world, really coming and interfering with your very self; killing the old natural self in you and replacing it with the kind of self He has. At first, only for moments. Then for longer periods. Finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge, and eternity.

-C.S. Lewis, "Let's Pretend", from Mere Christianity