Tuesday, March 19, 2013



Midnight misery, night terrors, these come to children when we are not
cautious of what we expose them to. The following piece says it well. 


“Pathetic stories soften the heart; but legends of terror breed midnight misery;
Fairy fictions cram the mind with folly, and knowledge of evil tempts children 
to imitate the evil:
Be not reluctant to curb imagination, nor be fearful that truths will depress it;
And for evil, he will learn it soon enough; don’t be the devil’s envoy.” 
Fenelon, Painting by A.J. Frena 

Poor in spirit




  James Dobson had a guest on today and she made a comment about Matt. 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” that I hadn’t considered as an application. I think it’s clear that it refers to those of a repentant and contrite heart, but her application applies to those that are downtrodden in spirit, the poor inner city single mom who has little hope that her children will break out of the cycle of poverty; the child who has suffered abuse and has lost his way and lives in dejection and despair; the desperately poor in developing countries that live with hunger, lack of medical help and despair; the drug addicted that lives in a cloud or confusion without hope. The spirit of dejection, which sees no end in sight. I have met many in my Christian walk that live in utter hopelessness and are overcome with a “poor spirit.”

Jesus was anointed to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon, and those who dwell in darkness.” Surely this defines those with impoverishment of spirit.  

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Reconciliation


The following piece is about losing the closeness of a child, and practical means to restore it.


“Alas, -- and bitter is the loss, when the parents and the children,
Who, having loved all through their lives, have missed the outcome of friendship.

Perhaps, it grew from a careless life, for years go swiftly by;
Or perhaps, too much carefulness, that drank up all the streams of joy:
Perhaps, sullen disappointment came and quenched the fire;
Perhaps, sternness, or misrule, crushed or warped the feelings.
Then with ill-combined tempers, they failed to learn about each other;
The growing child grew out of love, and drew the breath of fear;
Or the youth, ill-trained, renounced his fears and made a covenant or league with cunning;
And so those hardened men became foes, which should have been chief friends.

Where was the cause, the mutual cause? O hunt it out to kill it:
And what is the cure, the simple cure? --- A mutual flash of love.

For dull estrangements’ daily began to freeze up those early sympathies
By cold continuance in apathy, or the cutting winds of blame;
It was a slow process, which at any fleeting hour could have been melted;
But every hour duly came, and passed without the sun.

Caution, care, and dry mistrust, obscured each other’s minds,’
Till both of those gardens which were rich to yield, became rank with many weeds:
And doubt, a hidden worm, gnawed the root of their relationship.
They each, lacked mutual confidence, and lived in mutual dread.

Now judge me, many fathers; and hearken to my counsel, many sons;
I come with good in either hand, to reconcile contentions;
For a better friend can no man have, than those whom God has placed in family,
And he that despises this gift, thinks ill of that which he has no understanding of.

And you, sons, be wiser, and win paternal friendship,
Cultivate their kindness, seek them out with honor, and be like Japheth, who covered his father’s failings:

And now fathers, gain again your relationship,
Cherish their reasonable views and opinions, and look not with coldness on your children.
For the friendship of a child is the brightest gem set upon the circle of all society,
A jewel worth a world of pains --- a jewel seldom seen.”
 Martin F. Tupper

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

We preach Bible



 As some of you know I began working with Prison Fellowship a month ago. I go with two brothers and we have an hour to talk with about 30 inmates about the Bible and matters of faith. The amount of Bible understanding is very limited with most, many not knowing the difference from the Old and New Testaments, way of salvation or really, what the Bible is about.

Now, last night Tom, the leader, asked me to open by giving a brief explanation of who we are and what we do. This morning I thought about that more and decided to write a little poem about the Bible.
Here goes ---


We preach Bible

Thunder, lightning, pillar of fire
 Evils captive, caught in the mire

Prophets, priests, and warring kings
Mystery, marvels and magic things

Devil, demons and dragons clash
Follower’s teeth that grind and gnash

Sorcerer’s mystery trying the knot
Woman of faith receives what’s sought

Staff changed to a serpent, Bitter to sweet
 Blind man’s sight received on the street

Proud and vicious, road to perdition
Straight and narrow souls of contrition

Skeptics weeping, dead man’s plight
The humble and poor’s heavenly flight

Poem, prophet, proverb and prose
Born to die, being dead He rose

Bear and lions, terrors of the wild
Tamed and gentle, led by a child




Monday, March 11, 2013




Charisma, intrigue, depth of personality, are all things we are drawn to and captured by, whether the person is male or female, good looking or not, there is a well balanced individual that on rare occasion we meet and leave with an indelible mark left on our minds. A true flowering of virtue, God's greatest portrait. 

This following piece is a description of such a woman that Frederick W. Robertson writes about to a friend. It humbles me and challenges me to become more; more Godly: more engaged in life: less impressed with myself.  

   "I have never met any thing that came near what I dreamed – a being not conventionally right, nor correct by rule, not stiffened into propriety by a little hoard of maxims, but moving often in new worlds, amidst relationships and spheres of feeling where others would be bewildered, and left without chart or compass, and yet guided unerringly by a kind of sublime instinct, as the bird of passage is, in its high flight for the first time through fields of air, where the sound of wings was never heard before. The more I see, the more I honor that marvelous heart, the more I feel it is unlimited and incalculable; in this way possessing that of the infinite, without which I suppose it would be impossible to feel towards any thing with perfect security of permanence. Her character is a living one, inexhaustible.