In the Morning When I Rise

...means that we get to choose. But what will we choose? When I think about my own decision making I can become, um, shy , when I consider how many of my decisions are self serving. How often do I seek to do the things that I think will make me happy. It makes me think of the scripture "T o humans belong the plans of the heart, but from the LORD comes the proper answer of the tongue." Prov 16:1, or even better from the NLT: " We can make our own plans, but the LORD gives the right answer."  Does that mean that freedom is null and void? Do we really not have a choice, because the best choice is following what God says, whether we feel like it or not? Romans 6:17 (NLT): " Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you." The power of freedom becomes all the more powerful when you willfully choose the greater good. There is power in that. But I will show you a more excellent way (1 Cor 12:31). ...

I've always been fascinated by the intuition displayed in the early part of Genesis, especially around nakedness. There was a time in our life, as infants, when we felt no shame for our nakedness. Somehow we did not feel vulnerable, and we were blissfully unaware of social norms. But as soon as selfishness entered, then came vulnerability. We now had something to fear... getting caught! That word, "naked", is such a loaded term, conveying both beauty and vulnerability. Nothing to a man is more beautiful and compelling than the naked female body, and I pray that the body of his wife is chief among those (*blush*). And neither is there much more a vulnerable state to be in, than naked. This state of beauty and vulnerability becomes a metaphor: naked, stripped down, unadorned, bare.  There is hardly a more desirable state to be in. There is hardly a less desirable state to be in.  Can we find a way to be unashamed? Dear Lord Jesus, did You not come to desp...

If you want something you've never had, y ou must be willing to do something you've never done. ~Thomas Jefferson (attribution). I'm not certain that Jefferson really said this. But I am sure that it is true. It's also uncomfortable. We get so comfortable treading the same old paths, and that's not a bad thing, but it's limiting... sometimes that's the point. Yesterday we had Emmy and Steven over for dinner. Got to talking with Steven about the South, how it differs from the North. I played him an excerpt from Rick Bragg's My Southern Journey, to help me better explain what I saw as stereotypical romanticized southern way of life. He agreed that Bragg was indeed a Southern gem and went on to tell me about his own sensibilities:  You grow up seeing these things, seeing your parents, being in the woods, making meals for everyone, you see this kind of life, and when you get to be an adult you say, well, now it's my turn to do all of those th...

Missionaries are servants, not bosses. Dr. Frank Rosser (see the article:  The Greatest is Servant of All ) The last few months have been like a state of sleep. I closed my eyes mid-August and am now waking up again. There was a break somewhere in that time (October), but I'm not sure what happened in it. I think there was a camping trip. When you are asleep, you do not take stock of your circumstance for the day. You recuperate. That's what you do in sleep. Today, I feel somewhat awake, so I'll take stock: I'm about 210 pounds I'm having about as difficult time as I can remember at work. We are preparing our house for selling. I'm working on finishing SeedProjx: Backyard Botany (which I think has a lot to be desired) I'm in kind of an in-between churches state I find that somehow, though I have gentlemen that I can reach out to, I'm not in regular communion with anyone other than my wife. As I look for a common theme of the above bullets, I see each a e...