Welcome to my randomized study & miscellaneous thoughts about the Awesome God of the universe, who He is and what He wants us to be.

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Verse of the Day

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge -- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3:17-19/NIV
Verseoftheday.com

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Today's Quote “If ours is an examined faith, we should be unafraid to doubt....There is no believing without some doubting, and believing is all the stronger for understanding and resolving doubt.” —Os Guinness Quotemeal | Subscribe by Email | Heartlight®

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Priorities

I was thinking about priorites in my life just now. I'm not much of a handyman. I also don't enjoy working in the yard. Much more of a coach-potato or reader or internet junkie I'd have to say. But today was a little bit different.

We all slept in this morning...some longer than others. The beautiful wife and sonny-boy went to Blockbuster^tm last night and rented some DVDs and a couple of games for the GameCube^tm...so guess who was up first playing games! :-)

Anywho, sonny-boy spent most of the day playing games and the beautiful wife (tbw) cleaned the kitchen, made us lunch and then spent the afternoon relaxing and watching a couple of the movies. She said that she just felt like taking a relaxing, mommy-day! And she deserves it. I on the other hand got some kinda bug up my behind and spent the afternoon working on a house project. Very unlike me I must say. But after it was all said and done, I was certainly glad that I did it. I was working outside on the back porch and would come in for water, sweat breaks and to take a break every so often - it was 109^o F outside after all. But the point is, that this project had become a priority to me today...I did sit with sonny-boy and watched him play a few times, even to my turn at the controller twice. And I spent a bit watching bits of the movies that TBW was watching. But I kept coming back to the project that I was working on. And in the end, it was completed.

Often, we find that the things that we make a priority in our lives turn out to be not so important after all. We have choices in our lives to place our priorites on. The Bible tells us a better way to do this:

Matthew 6:30-34

^30-33 "If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. ³⁴ "Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.

The Message

Luke states it another way:
Luke 12:30-32

³⁰ These things dominate the thoughts of most people, but your Father already knows your needs. ³¹ He will give you all you need from day to day if you make the Kingdom of God your primary concern. ³² "So don't be afraid, little flock. For it gives your Father great happiness to give you the Kingdom.

New Living Translation

So, an answer is for us to seek God's Kingdom first and foremost. I read that to mean God's priorities and His ways. And from Jesus' mouth that would seem to be (1) love God with all out heart, mind and strength and (2) love our neighbors as ourselves (care for them as we would care for our own bodies.)

~ Give peas a chance ~
scribbled with crayon by dr. larry at 7:05 PM