Do you fast? Have you ever even thought of it being something that you should do? How about keeping the Sabbath - taking a day to rest from work? What images come to mind when you think of these things? Do you see them as having value in our lives today? Or as something that was just required for the Israelites in the Old Testament?

The other day a friend told me this story about the best way to trap a monkey and it struck me so let me tell you.  Place a peanut in a jar (or something else more desirable) and tie a rope around the jar.  When the monkey comes he puts his hand in the jar and grabs hold of the peanut, with a tightly closed fist the monkey tries to pull his hand out.  But his fist with the peanut won’t fit through the opening of the jar.  The monkey won’t let go of the peanut even though if he let go of it he would be free from the jar.  The jar that holds his treasured peanut is what is trapping him and holding him hostage.

I was thinking about this story and wondered to myself how often do I grasp so tightly to my treasures or things that I want out of life that I don’t realize that just by grasping so tightly to the treasure, traps me.  What would happen if I always held my treasures (whatever they are … dreams, jobs or careers, possessions, relationships) with open hands and let God be in control of the giving and taking.  It seems this is a lesson that He constantly has to teach me.  Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever learn some of these lessons!!

Kathryn Stoneman

So a couple weeks ago I wrote about Living with intentionality and I challenged you to ask God everyday to give you a specific purpose for the day. I also took on this challenge and have to admit that it was hard some days to ask Him first what his plan was rather than making my plan primary.

It was interesting to see the things and be active in pursuing what God had directed me in for the day. One day I was told to spend time with my family, another day was to clean the house. Some of the time they were active very direct activities and other days were very free kinds of things like “Worship Me all day”. I look back on the last 2 weeks and think about what I did and a lot of it was really relaxed and other things were things that I had put off and procrastinated about. I can see that everything he gave me to do had value either to myself to others or to both, including cleaning the house!

Overall I think this was a valuable experience and I will continue to do this. If you didn’t try this little experiment I encourage you to!

Kathryn

Are there places in your life where you are walking as close as you can to the edge of what is acceptable? Are you playing with fire, so to speak, in some areas of your life? Have you grown cold? Have you been wandering?

Do you ever look back on your day and wonder what you did or “where the day went”?  The other day I came across a phrase that triggered a thought.  It was “live with intentionality everyday” and I’ve been thinking about what that means in my life.  Every morning I get up and get myself ready for the day, you know, shower, eat breakfast, do my hair, brush my teeth.  Then I go off and do the things that I’m committed to doing like going to work, or meeting friends, or seeing my family.  Before I know it the day is over and I think to myself, wow! the day went by without being significant in any way.

Do you ever wonder why God made us when the majority of our days are hardly even memorable to us that lived them?  How many times do I just fill my day with “stuff” and not live each day intentionally?  It’s especially easy in the summer to just watch our days wash past us.  What would happen if I asked God each day when I woke up to give me a specific purpose or goal for the day, what He wants me to do!   So I think I’m going to try it!  I’m going to set a time limit of 2 weeks and try this out.  Each day when I get up I’ll ask God to help me live intentionally and to show me what his purpose and priorities are for the day.  And to help me walk in his purpose and priorities!  I challenge any of you who read this to join me and let me know what happens!

Kathryn 

Have you ever thought of people who get paid to work at a church or another Christian organization as being the ones who get to serve God in all that they do? Do you see serving God as something that you do at church, but no where else?

All stories have beginnings.  The origin of the world is no exception.  But what that beginning looked like, who was involved, and how long it took are questions that seem to be beyond any semblance of agreement.  The camps are divided between those who say the universe was an uncaused accident, and those who say it was the intentional work of an intelligent, personal, creator.  Those who line up on the side of a creator are further divided by His means of creation, and the length of time He took to create. 

This paper (written for a master's class) is designed to look at that second question, providing an analysis and evaluation of the views concerning the length of the creative days.  Are they to be interpreted as seven, literal, 24 hour periods that we are familiar with today?  Or do we understand Genesis 1 as speaking of seven undisclosed, but presumably long, periods of time?  Read more here Days Of Creation - Literal Or Figurative.  I'd love your feedback.  Pastor Mike