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Getting somewhere requires effort, it takes
faith to push on, it's easy to screw up,
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Thursday, August 8, 2013
Regretting regrettable regrets?  “Many
of us crucify ourselves between two thieves - regret for the past and fear of the future.” ~ Fulton Oursler
We screw up
sometimes don’t we?
Some of us may even feel we screw up most of the time. Then some of us toss and turn at night trying to figure out
what we should have said or done as opposed to what we did say and do.
Anguish can arise as we think of
past actions words and attitudes.
Regret!
It stains our lives and pulls us downwards and yet there is such an easy way to let go of this weight and rise up to contentment and a place of joy
with God.
Why do so many of us struggle with regrets and is it even Christian to struggle with regrets?
Consider psalms in the bible. So many of these
are laments about what people have done wrong and now need God’s help. Consider the cries...
My faithful God,
answer
me when I call out to you.
Give me rest from my trouble.
Show me your favor. Hear my prayer.
Psalm 4
When I was in trouble, I called out to the Lord. I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard
my voice. My cry for help reached his ears. Psalm 18:6
I was afraid and said, “I’ve been
cut off from you!” But you heard my cry for your favor. You heard
me when I called out to you for help. Psalm 31:22
We may not do everything right!
We
may have to turn to God for forgiveness! We may have to forgive ourselves(perhaps the hardest part)
Yet God is with us to help us move on. He pours out love on us, builds us up. His
forgiveness is not withheld if we forgive others and trust him having faith in what Jesus has done.
Let’s realise everyone has regrets! It started with Adam and Eve when they realised
what they had done and continues as a thread through the lives of everyone. We have choices however. We can allow regret to
overcome us, stealing the joy of life from us and tormenting us, or we can push it aside and reach for God’s forgiveness,
admitting we screwed up but knowing we are forgiven and moving on.
The joy of being a Christian is we don’t have to
carry these false burdens around. Being forgiven means that if we are carrying them, we are doing so needlessly. Instead we should be looking to the
joys of life and living in Christ. Again a lot of this is described in psalms. Perhaps there is a lesson there. When we let
go of regret, we enjoy praising God, getting into high spirits and being victorious in life.
So today, let’s cast aside regrets and
move forward with the confidence that God is with us.
Have a great blessed day!
Thu, August 8, 2013 | link
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Tired and sore, and now what... Ever had that tired, sore feeling when waking up in the morning? When it feels as if the night was just a temporary interlude
from the strain of the prior day ?
At these times even the sleep we had was disruptive and sleeplessness with gyrating thoughts interspersed
those periods of welcome oblivion. Then to end it, the day looms big, full of activity and in some ways not really very inviting. :(
Ever been there, and wished you hadn’t?
I
guess most of us have had this happen at one time or the other.
Those mornings where we have to
pick ourselves up and motivate ourselves for the day, or nothing would happen.
It’s so easy to turn over and want to reject the day on
those days isn't it?
Yet that is not the healthy option and we know that, don’t we?
Psalm 90:12 says “Teach us to realize
how short our lives are. Then our hearts will become wise.”
We have very little time to do life on this earth.
Some trees live longer than we
do. Time fly’s on by and is gone before we know it, so on the days when the getting going is tough, let us remember
that to give in to them is to waste our life's time. It’s a false belief that life is meant to be good all the time
and have no problems.
Life is often problems to be conquered! Life provides opportunities to grow past our own inadequacies and flow in God’s
power (maybe because our power meter is running on empty).
I think that we need to identify with the psalmist, who says...
Lord, please stop punishing
us!
How long will you keep it up?
Be kind to us.
14 Satisfy
us with your faithful love every morning.
Then we can sing with joy and be glad all of our days.
15 Make us glad for as many days as you have made us suffer.
Give us joy for
as many years as we’ve had trouble.
16 Show us your mighty acts.
Let
our children see your glorious power.
17 May the Lord our God show us his favor.
Lord, make what we
do succeed.
Please make what we do succeed.
We may have done wrong things but let’s ask for forgiveness.
God says he will forgive us. Jesus came here to
make that possible, so we know it’s true. Let’s be satisfied with God’s love for us each morning.
Tired we may be, soreness may be an experience of our bodies, but our souls can rise above this to walk with God in
heavenly places.
Joy is not dependent on circumstances as any who have asked God for joy will know. Praying for joy
is almost certain to bring on hardships as God can only teach joy through hardships. His presence gives joy. He fills us when
we are empty.
Only with God can we succeed, in our own strength there is limited capability. We all know it, but some of us think it’s best to ignore
it. This is the wrong attitude. Our attitude needs to be one of humble submission to almighty God and requesting his assistance
which he provides with power and love.
Then, independent of how we feel, we take on our day knowing
God is with us so who can be against us. That’s a great feeling for a difficult day!
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Psalm Power As music of the
lyre or songs sung to a harp, psalms are established to be sung or recited, evoking emotions, power, and spiritual forces
that embrace the baseness of life, while lifting one into the depths of the universe with their careful
communications with our loving creator.
A psalm is poetry written with the purpose of communicating to God and man.
This means that we need to be careful in reading psalms and we
need to understand that they use a lot of figurative language.
When it says God will “break them with a rod of iron”
it does not mean a huge iron rod will appear in the sky and beat the offending people to a pulp. No, it means they will be
destroyed by God using various means, but will not have any way out and will be as surely destroyed as if they had been beaten
with an iron rod.
In
psalm 91 when the writer says “he will cover you with his feathers” we are not to assume that God has feathers,
but rather that the writer is likening the protection of God to that of a hen that covers her chicks with her wings willing
to take the pain herself as she protects her chicks.
With this understanding, one can read the psalms for the powerful tools they are.
A
person once said to me that the psalms are the warfare shouts from the bible…I agree!
The words resound with immense power and strength! They pick us
of, build our courage and direct us to victory. They take no prisoners but march us directly into the forefront of God’s
army equipping us to take on each day in spiritual power and strength.
How about psalm 1 (I use NIRV)
Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with
the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
2 but whose delight
is in the law of the Lord,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
3 That person is like a tree planted
by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do
prospers.
4 Not
so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not
stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
6 For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked leads to destruction
I love that it starts with “blessed”.
Can you feel how that speaks of our place
with God in one word? The
hen protecting the chicks, the king giving gifts, the warrior guarding the nations is established in this one word as God
gives us freely for our own good.
How perfect to start the book with a word that encompasses God’s love for us and his protection
of us against evil.
The fact he makes us holy and consecrates us to himself.
Our part is to not follow the wicked! God’s blessing do come with warnings and instructions to best
be used. When we unwrap his gifts, we need to read the manual. A power saw is a a fantastic tool capable of doing amazing
things. Yet, if we fail to follow the instructions and end up catching out hand in the spinning blade, is it the power saw
creator that is to be blamed if we didn’t read the instructions and follow them?
Hardly!
In the same way if we do not follow God’s guidelines, we do so at our own risk.
We need to keep
from following sinners, the wicked, or mockers.
I find it interesting the psalmist takes little time to explain who these are. He assumes we know and we
do don’t we? Everyone knows evil for what it is, even if we try to kid ourselves we don’t so that we can sample
pleasures it thrust on us as bait to the unwary fish about to die gasping out for help.
We need to avoid evil. Yet, avoiding is a negative pastime.
The way we are to do
this is to delight in God’s law day and night. It feeds us, nourishes us, builds us
up, enables us to grow in spiritual stature. It gives us the ability to have a purpose that extends to greater
distance than we ourselves can reach. We prosper in God’s presence.
This is the God we love and want to obey, this is the God who sent Jesus to die so
that we could be empowered by Holy Spirit and live wonderful, complex, beautiful and God inspired lives.
This is the God who today will be with us,
throw down the evil that tries to block our way and enable us to powerfully fufill our purpose.
Praise his name!
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If you want to see a short blog describing a perspective on what I believe click here
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Rift in Evil
By Ken
X Briggs - Published: September, 2010
- Format: Perfect Bound Softcover(B/W)
- Pages: 208
Size:
6x9 - ISBN: 9781450250894
Available from Barnes and Noble, Amazon, iUniverse. |
Credit cards are acceptable on sites having Ken's books: 
:)
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| Ken's book covers are displayed below. . . | |  This
suspense thriller centers on Kiara, a beautiful young woman pursued by a murderous group of people, who relentlessly and ruthlessly
hunt her and her sisters. Kiara has no idea why she is being targeted! When Kiara and her family turn to the law for help,
this fails. Her pursuers’ powers reach deeply into the political and law enforcement world. Family support for her dwindles
when they too have to flee her pursuers. Can Kiara escape the clutches of both the law and dishonest big business? With the
media broadcasting that Kiara and friends are dangerous and subversive, can Kiara clear her name and bring her pursuers to
justice?
| | | | | To purchase Kiara's Pursuer ebook
@ $1.99 kindle version click here, To contact the author contact Author@KenXBriggs.com | | | | | | | | The town of Zinaville is dropped into a spiral of evil causing a young man and a beautiful but abused woman
to launch into an investigation that unveils an evil conspiracy. A horrific mining accident results in Joshua
Robyn's father being killed. Joshua struggles both with himself and his townsfolk as he tries to make sense of an incomprehensible
situation. Is it an accident or a murder? Why is there a seeming link to evil? Why is his work environment suddenly threatening?
What is the conspiracy about and what are they trying to do? As action moves dramatically from exotic African grasslands to
the heart of North America's cities, the plot unfolds and the pace quickens. Will there be time? Why is a beautiful abused
young woman in the center of this plot? Evil tendrils tighten on their lives and the interplay between the visible
and invisible world shows opposing forces at work. Will there be a rift in evil? Will they be able to stop the
evil in time? | | - Published: September, 2010
- Format: Perfect
Bound Softcover(B/W)
- Pages: 208
Size: 6x9 - ISBN: 9781450250894
Available
from Barnes and Noble, Amazon, iUniverse. Chapters | | | | |
| Frugal Eating Advice |
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| Good advice for students living on limited $'s. Click on the image! |
May you be blessed today!
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