Holy Bible not a Novel

   Busy last few days at work as they change some things to help make us more proficient. I want to do the same at home in my life, also. When I cook, I cook for several days now so I can take less time each day to do cook due to preparing several at on time to eat later.

     Yet, if I rush, I find I miss things and make mistakes. I would rather not admit to some cooking mistakes I have done in trying to rush.   Yet, I find that I can't rush some other things either. XangPastor suggested a group with a wonderful idea to read the Holy Bible in 99 days starting on 09/09/09. I started on  09/11/09 for several reasons. I am falling behind on the reading schedule due to I just can't read the Holy Bible as a novel.  Yet, the challenge is still wonderful even if it will take me a few weeks/months longer. It has been awhile since I have read it from Genesis to Revelations. Years have passed so that I can relate to these examples of faith people lived or didn't live out in different ways. I understand more in ways, yet realize how the world can view it more interesting also. Yet, my past study over my life just adds to it more as I will go back to reread passages. I'm thankful to this challenge!

     Friday I took my cat to the Vet for his yearly shots. Each visit he has become more interesting to the point they treated him as a wild kitty for their own protection. Today, they gas him for the first time before they would touch him as he is 12.5 lbs of strength and stature. He is not a fat appearing cat but has strength and determination in what he does. He sounds like a wild beast at times! Yet, this visit is for his own good to keep him safe from what is out there in this world. Yet, he does his best to fight it all.  I realized myself how I also will fight what is going on in my life not realizing God also has His best in mind for me also. Things that can seem bad to me at the time, I find later has helped me help other that I meet later. This challenge is changing some of the study I have been doing and allowing me to read the Bible at a quicker pace as a whole which has been very beneficial to me at this time.  Praise the Lord for God's plans for our lives even though we don't understand it all at the time we are living it.

Apple crisp/pie

     It is nearing the time of the year when chili is going to sound so good!  Yet, I picked up a bag of apples and could not resist turning them into something less healthy than eating them alone. I could not make up my mind so I made a combination of both.

     I wanted an apple pie but not the flour mess to clean up. Yet, an apple crisp sounded good too. So, I pressed the pie crust into the bottom and sides. For the top, I did the crisp cover. Oh, it smelled wonderful baking!!!!

     Plus, to make it less damaging, I divided the pie up into making it in four smaller Corningware dishes so some of it could be frozen to eat at a later date. Okay, it was possible to freeze for later if it is possible to be left alone long enough. Yet, freezing it for a later date is better than it going bad on me or in the fridge!

Busy weekend

     This last weekend was busy! Yet, if one is around people, there are ways to learn. Last week, through a Xanga blog, I learned about a website encouraging people to read the Holy Bible in 99 days. The blog who mentioned it has been one of many that encourages me in sincere ways.

     There is much going around in our lives but making time for the Word of God is crucial for strength in living strong for eternity with our Lord Jesus. Yes, if spend time reading through the Holy Bible, it will take time from other things I may be doing but believed it is going to be worth it. Besides, I have a new Bible I'm using for over a year and it is time to read it from cover to cover. If I do it to other books, why not the Word of God?

     So far, it has been great some days where I do extra which helps for days that are more interesting. Yet, I can reread a passage I have read for years and still get more out of it. Genesis was fascinating to me again. The older I get the more the Bible can be an example to me in different ways. As a youth you view the world one way compared to a mid aged adult. I pray in 10-20 years, my faith is even stronger as I live for the Lord and able to encourage others more toward living with Jesus for eternity. There is one lesson I learn that is sticking with me for days later.

     Nutshell of a few lessons, God uses people in different ways to encourage others as He is not into cookie cutter ministry to people. Yet, how many other people thought they worshiped God when Noah was shut up in the ark with his family?  How many others go their own way to God like Cain? How many of a generation wiped out before, the next generation entered the promise land?

Using bad into good

     This week I went to a movie called "Bandslam". It was just one of those things that I walked into a second run theatre to see something as it just happened to be starting. It had a nice rating of PG so I thought it would be safe. I had no idea who was in it or what it was about. I knew for the little price I paid for it, I could walk out without much regrets of the price. It was just one of those spur of the moment ideas to do.

    It was about a high school students with the lead moving to a new town in hopes of starting over from a bad lingering past in his old town. He was able to start over and did quite well from his previous interest. Yet, jealousy hit from another at this new school in this new town so the jealous one sought to find the scoop from his old place to use against him.

    It almost worked due to the frustration hit him as it started to come out in ways to try to destroy what he had been doing. He wanted to crawl in bed and be sick to avoid what the past could do to him at his new place.  Yet, did he let it happen? Almost.........

    How many ways can we be attacked by the enemy? How many ways our past can try to destroy our future if we dwell on it? I walked out of that movie with such conviction and encouragment at the same time to realize how God can turn bad into good for HIS Glory if we chose to let HIM.  That was not a Christain movie label.  It had other good themes in it that I will not go into. I'm not one that likes to spoil a movie for others. It was basically clean for a movie these days.

     Yet, the message this week that keeps pounding me, it not to let your frustration cloud your focus in what God is capable of doing. Our frustration can hurt us as it is takes our focus from Jesus being the Lord of our lives. Frustration shifts our focus off of God and displays our doubt in what God can do next if we chose to let Him. Our attitude can destroy us.

     Yes, bad things will still happen in all sorts of ways around us as we live in this world. Yet, those with sincere faith in Jesus Christ has something the world does not have which is the knowledge which must be followed by action that Jesus can work things out for His glory when we chose HIM and not the ways of the world in dealing with things. That is so much easier said than done.  Yet, if we can chose to do it in keeping our focus on our Lord Jesus Christ, He can turn we seems to be a frustrating situation that can defeat us into a blessing for us as long as we are patient in Faith of our Lord Jesus Christ.

A time to learn instead of writing

     It has been awhile. Yet, sometimes to learn one must be quiet. Modern technology can take too much of our time despite it being designed to save us time.

     There are times in life to be less busy with busy work of sorts. Our pride in doing things can blind us so from what we really need to be doing. We think we need to do something but we do it instead of doing what we are convicted to be doing. We can put things off so well at times. 

    We can think we are in the right but be so wrong. Pride can blind us until our eternal death.

     My Father could talk with a total stranger while I was standing next to him as I would think they were old friends by the way they talked. As I have become older, I find myself doing the same thing with people I meet during a day. It is amazing how we can open up with each other. God puts people on our paths that we can encourage and they encourage us.

     The letter I wrote for the guy in the previous blog, I don't know how it made a difference but he did get to keep his job after things in limbo till June. I learned things from it in many ways. I know if I did not write it, I would be have regrets for a long time in not writing it.  It would have been easy to justify not doing but I would have been living on my agenda if I had not.

     I can learn so much from others. It is amazing how one conversation I can have with one stranger / friendcan help with another stranger/friend to encourage them later! A person I have never met before gives me information to help another!!! That is a cool time when that happens, and especially in the same day!

      If I spend too much time on line or "too" busy, I seem to miss out other things I should be doing which is seeking Jesus Christ and HIS direction each day, not my own agenda despite how I can justify doing it. 

How often do we get sidetracked on our own agenda?