I hope everyone is having a good winter and has been safe and warm or cool if you live where it’s warm. One blessing for us during this mild winter is that this is the winter that the heat pump decided to break. So that was a blessing for us, not because it broke, but because it broke during a warm season in a mild winter. Sometimes God works in small ways to bless us. We just need to look. For those who may think that  a heat pump breaking is not a blessing, remember that heat pumps break from time to time. They are mechanical and as such will break down and need repairs. The fact that it happened during a warm spell is the blessing.

Now, here’s a which came first type question. Did God make the heat pump run till the weather warmed up or did he warm the weather up when the heat pump broke? I honestly don’t know, but somehow He worked it out and it broke at a good time and now it’s repaired ready for cold weather again. I just choose to look for the little blessings that God provides.

Have a great day and God bless you!

While I don’t get the killer shots that come from the big glass lens that I use with the Nikon D300S, I am impressed that I could get a video of this quality with my phone. Still find that hard to believe for reasons I stated earlier. (See Post below) It’s just amazing what we have the ability to do today with our phones.

Higher Ground Sanctuary

Now to our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen. Phillippians 4:9

Higher Ground Baptist Church

That reminds me of another time at work. I was going outside for a break and there were a few of the guys sitting there trying to “read the signs” and determine if we were going to get some snow. They were going over all the signs and someone mentioned smoke rising from a chimney.  They couldn’t remember what it meant when the smoke was rising straight up, snow or not. It was about this time that I walked up and one of them said “we’re trying to figure out if it’s going to snow. What’s it mean when the smoke rises straight up out of the chimney?”. I told them I wasn’t too sure about the snow, but I did know how to read the smoke. It got quiet and I said, “If the smoke rises straight up out of the chimney, it means for sure that the wind ain’t blowing.” This made a couple of them laugh out loud and made a couple more mad. Funny how things like that can do that. Bless some and curse some.

Come to think of it, that’s the way it is with Jesus. To some, He is the door that opens to heaven. To others, He is the door that closes and keeps them from entering. Which one is Jesus for you? The open door or the shut door? It is your choice.

Revelation 3:20
Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.

What happens is I make good plans, then get sidetracked. Probably because of my ADD which won’t let me keep focused on anything for very long. Like when I go downstairs to get the check book and then check my facebook and then go back upstairs without the check book. Then later, I realize that I need the check book and I’ll be in town and of course it’s at home. So whatever bill I was going to pay or whatever item I was going to buy gets put off because I don’t have the check book. Not because I wanted to put it off, but because I can’t stay focused. And then the other side of that is that I think of something and for some reason, my brain “thinks” I actually did the something I thought of. For instance, I’ll think of a bill that needs to be paid. Then I’ll get sidetracked and a few days later, my wife will ask if I paid the bill and I’ll say “Yes” when I didn’t. This isn’t lying, because my mind thinks it did. Then we find out, usually just in time to pay it before it’s late, and she’ll say I put it off. In reality, my mind is the culprit. So, it’s not really procrastination. I suffer from a disease that is so rare, it’s not been discovered yet. It can’t be “willful procrastination”. There must be some other thing happening  that is way beyond my control.

Now that I have made my case for the late preparations for Christmas, I must leave here and go shopping. (and I will as soon as I finish _________). I only have this evening and half of tomorrow to find this years presents. I know they are out there somewhere, I just need to find them. Have a great day and…………

M E R R Y    C H R I S T M A S ! ! ! !

As I type this the Redskins are leading the Giants in the fourth quarter. I am pleasantly surprised about this game. Its been a while since they have looked this good. Makes me wonder why they couldn’t have been playing like this all year. It’s really strange. A touchdown was just reversed, then the Giants scored and that was wiped out by a penalty. Haven’t seen any Redskins look this good in a while.

If this works there should be a photo here of our weird Christmas Village. If not, I’ll fix it later.

Good job Redskins. And, Merry Christmas!!!

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But let the grand-kids come down, and then it’s a different story. Like a couple of weeks ago. They were here and in a matter of a couple of hours the tree was up, the Christmas Village was started and the Lionel Christmas Train was making it’s rounds. Much to the amazement of the grand-kids. And to me. I was surprised that it still ran.

Today, I am going to try to finish the village as best as I can. It’s a temporary setup that we are trying and I can’t be sure how it’s going to work, but we’ll give it a try. Who knows, may even have some photos here later if all goes well.

How about you? Do you decorate less now that you are older?

Last Sunday night the children’s ministry at Higher Ground Church gave their Christmas presentation “The Great Christmas Giveaway”. The kids all did a wonderful job singing and telling the story of the birth of Christ. You can view the play here and it’s about 50 minutes long. There are also other videos from Higher Ground there also.

Gotta go for now. Hopefully I’ll be back soon. At least I want to………

Jasiman brought with her a sack full of coloring books and other children paraphernalia to help keep her occupied. This worked for a while and she was content to amuse herself, but she eventually did get around to the what, when, where, why and how come questions that kids always ask. And that’s ok, kids have to learn somehow.

Mark is working in Morristown and sometimes during the day, he will have to get something from a computer here in Rogersville. He uses an on line service to access his computers. He logs in and is using the computer remotely. This isn’t that big a deal unless you have an eight year old spending time with a guy who likes to have fun. I told Mark to keep working the computer, called Jasiman over and “helped” her to see that the mouse was moving and the computer seemed to be working by itself. Her eyes got big and she didn’t really know what to think. Being October, I suggested that it was a haunted computer. Then, as if on cue, Mark opened up Microsoft Word and began to type a note to Jasiman.

You should have seen her eyes as this computer wrote her a message and even used her name. After a few moments, she started to try to figure out how I did that. She’s a little suspicious of me because of other pranks that she thinks I had a hand in making happen. I wish I had video taped this but it all happened so quickly that I didn’t even think of doing that. It was one of those times that is forever frozen in my mind, but not captured for all to see.

God works in really strange ways sometimes though. That little joke gave me an opportunity to share with Jasiman that I believe in God and that my belief in God doesn’t allow for haunted computers. We had a short talk about ghosts and stuff like that and I explained that while those stories could be  fun and sometimes it’s fun to get scared, our belief in Jesus doesn’t include a belief in ghosts. Except for the Holy Ghost of course. I simply cannot believe that someone could get caught between worlds and end up haunting places, people and things.

In Luke 16:19-31, we get a glimpse of two people who died. One was a poor man named Lazarus and the other we know only as a  rich man. It tells us of the differences in the way that the rich man lived and the poor man lived. The rich man was dressed in purple and fine linen and he would feast lavishly every day. The poor man would long to be filled from the pieces of food that fell from the rich mans table. But instead the dogs would come and lick his sores. It says that the poor man was left at the gate of the rich man, letting me know that he had to pass by Lazarus to come and go from his lavish house.

Then the scriptures tell us about the day that both men died. Notice the difference in the description of these two men. When Lazarus died, we are told the angels carried him into the arms or side of Abraham. Then all that is said about the rich man is that he died and was buried. For me that has always been a big part of these verses. It highlights the difference in the two men’s death as much as day and night, darkness and light. Then we go on to read the rich man was in torment.

So we have one in paradise with Abraham, and one in torment. Notice that we aren’t told that Lazarus could see the rich man, but the rich man could see Lazarus. Maybe that’s part of the torment. Seeing what his lifestyle and decisions have kept him from enjoying and having to experience the torment. But for this particular post, notice that neither one had the option of coming back to earth. You find this all through scripture. When we die, there’s only two places we can go.

Jesus and two others died on Calvary. One cried out to Jesus to remember him when he came into his kingdom. The other one did not. Jesus answered the one who cried out “today you will be with me in paradise.” He said nothing to the other one. Notice how this parallels the rich man and Lazarus. Two people, two destinations. Nothing in between and nowhere else to go.

That’s why I don’t and can’t believe in things, places or people being haunted. At least by other people who have died. But like the rich man, we can be haunted by our decisions.

If you were to die today, where would you spend eternity? Heaven or Hell. It’s your choice.

Here’s the story about how this prayer ended up on this photo. First I wanted to try to capture the scene as the sun went down over the Friday night football game. This is what I call small town USA Friday nights. This year at the first home game and for the first time ever, they had a “moment of silence” at the start of the game instead of the traditional prayer. This upset some of the local people who responded by quietly and reverently reciting what we know as “The Lord’s Prayer” during this moment of silence. I haven’t been at the game when this has taken place but I understand that several people take part in reciting the prayer.

So, that was the inspiration for adding the prayer to this photo. And I think it turned out great. I will admit I am partial to the photo and the prayer. So I love it.