Match

I struck a match this morning (I don’t smoke for the record) watching how fast it burned and was gone made me think of few scriptures. The first one is Psalm 39:5 You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man's life is but a breath. The other one was 1 Peter 1:24 For, "All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall.
I guess since I’m at the halftime of my life (the 40s) I’m realizing how fast our lives do pass. Something God has really impressed on me the past few months is best said in the words I heard Dr. David Jeremiah use, he said: “Everything we go through here on earth is temporal and because we have Jesus none of it can effect what we have in him as it is eternal”. That may not be the exact quote, but I think you get the message I hope.
Our Pastor preached this past Sunday on Heart and Soul (check out his Monday morning blog on the subject by hitting the link) about misplaced passions. What hit me was how much emphasis I tend to put on temporary things. While Dr. Jeremiah’s words were meant to encourage us when we’re going through trials here on earth. I can see that temporal also applying to those passions my preacher preached about, those that I/we think are so important and go to extremes just for the moment. Yet that which is eternal I seem to want to put it on the back burner. God thank you for the peace and hope I have in you of an eternity that is unimaginable and Father forgive me when I get caught up in the temporal stuff, help me to focus on the eternal.

True Friends

I use the word friend a lot the time to describe an acquaintance of mine. I had an experience last night that got me to thinking about friends and actually how many true friends we have. I know I have had plenty and you have probably to that I thought were friends , but when things got ruff they were no where to be found.
There is this guy that I do consider one of those true friends, that has a friend who has cancer and is in the final stages of his battle with it. My Friend asked some us that have been praying for his friend to go over last night to his house and pray for him. On the way over my friend keep sharing experiences he and his friend have had over the years and there was no doubt about the closeness of their relationship. I’ve told a few people today that I have felt like I needed to pray for forgiveness for jealousy because I wished I could have had him as a friend also.
Hearing about their friendship got me to thinking about a few of my close friends and an experience we had back in 2005. One of my buddies got tickets to a practice round for the Masters Golf tournament. For those of you who aren’t into golf this is the Super Bowl, the World Series, the Final Four, the NBA Finals of golf. You can’t just buy tickets you are in a lottery and my friend had been in it over ten years before his name was drawn and can you believe he picked me for one of the four tickets he got. Ok back to the story I was getting fired up thinking about it. We went over a couple of days early to pick up the fourth of our foursome that worked as a house parent at a children’s ranch just north of Atlanta.
We were spending the night at the ranch, that afternoon after we had played a round golf our buddy gave us a tour of the ranch. We stopped by their small chapel (the above picture). We were inside just looking around and we started to talk and before you knew it we each had opened up and shared some tough struggles we each were going through individually. We prayed for each other, encouraged each other. I’ll have to stop there because I do not have the words to describe the experience it was one of the spiritual moments that are indescribable. Let’s just say, man this is hard to say, that experience that happened in that little chapel on Chestnut Mountain in Georgia towered over the Masters. It was the highlight of the trip.
Those true friends are blessings from God, let your true friends know how you fill about them today don’t wait till tomorrow, we are not guaranteed tomorrow.
As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Proverbs 27:17

Sentenced

With my new job I get to see folks who have been charged of a crime, those you have been sentenced and those who have been found not guilty every day. A few days ago I had an experience with one individual that has really stuck with me. He was sentenced and was just waiting in our facility to be moved and serve his sentence. He got frustrated and made some statements to the effect of just move me I’m ready to go to prison and used other expressions to describe our facility that I won’t use here. The very next day I got a call that he was to be moved the next day. I called him in to tell him and the expression on his face was indescribable. It clearly showed disbelief and fear. I was selected to do his transport the next day and during the whole 4 hour trip he was speechless which was totally out of character for him. It was so evident that the reality of sentence was upon him and he was not ready to deal with it. Even though he had made statements he was ready and tried to be tough about it, when the reality set in he was full of fear and defiantly not ready for it.
I couldn’t help but think of the sentence that I have been given as a man. Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned. Romans 5:12. Then I couldn’t help but think of the amazing grace of my God, and the fact that I will not have to serve that sentence. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

Oh Father, be with those who know of our sentence as man, but do not take it serious like the guy I talked about above. Father forgive me when I take the “pardon” for granted and lose sight of your amazing grace that let’s me know I will not have to serve my sentence. Amen

Why am I up?

Why am I up at 2:21 AM on August 2, 2007? I’m not really sure. My wife got a call this afternoon that they don’t think her Grandmother will make it through the night. She is staying up there tonight with her family. I’m not sure that may be what is keeping me up. While I have been lying in the bed I couldn’t help but think back to the night my Ma Jack died. She had Alzheimer’s and had been sick for a while. What really amazed me through her last years (literally years) was her faith in God, her mind would go and there were some days I would go by to see her and she wouldn’t know who I was. She never forgot who God was though and what he did for her. She loved to sing and I would go by and sing with her, there would be days her mind would be bad, but once we started singing she would remember all the words. In her last days she would talk about going home. I can’t help but think about the song Beulah Land. I know her body was tired, but oh how her spirit must have been so hungry to see Jesus. My mom said many nights she would hear her saying the lords prayer out loud when she was having trouble sleeping. The night she died we sang with her, she didn’t have the strength to sing, but she held her hands up has high as she could. Oh to have that desire that longing to see Jesus to use all the strength you have. God forgive me when I get things messed up and lose focus of what is real.

John 14:3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

The picture is of the mailbox at my Grandmother’s house