42 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 11-8-12”

  1. Maybe this is something we should all think about:

    A while back we read about an expert on the subject of time management. One day, this expert was speaking to a group of business students and, to drive home a point, used an illustration I’m sure those students will never forget. After we share it with you, we hope you’ll never forget it either.

    As this man stood in front of the group of high-powered over achievers, he said, “Okay, time for a quiz.” Then he pulled out a one-gallon, wide-mouthed mason jar and set it on a table in front of him. He produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar.

    When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, “Is the jar full?” Everyone in the class said, “Yes.” Then he asked, “Really?” He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. Then he dumped some gravel in and shook the jar causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the spaces between the big rocks.

    Then he smiled and asked the group once more, “Is the jar full?” By this time, the class was on to him. “Probably not,” one of them answered. “Good!” he replied. And he reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in, and it went into all the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel. Once more he asked the question, “Is this jar full?”

    “No!” the class shouted. Once again he said, “Good!” Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim. Then he looked up at the class and asked, “What is the point of this illustration?”

    One eager beaver raised his hand and said, “The point is, no matter how full your schedule is, if you try really hard, you can always fit some more things into it!” “No!” the speaker replied. “That is not the point. The truth this illustration teaches us is: If you don’t put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all.”

    What are the ‘Big Rocks’ in your life? A project that YOU want to accomplish? Time with your loved ones? Your faith, your education, your finances? A cause? Teaching or mentoring others? Remember to put these BIG ROCKS in first or you’ll never get them in at all. So, take time to reflect on this short story. Ask yourself this question: What are the ‘big rocks’ in my life? Family or business? And remember to put those in your jar first.

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  6. QoD: This quote is from an Egyptian friend: ”
    Yesterday night I got the shock of my life when a salafi sheik: his name Abou Yehia said in a TV program that girls could be married at the age of 6 to 8 years if they will enjoy sex and want it.
    Really it kept awake all night not thinking about him or getting angry with him (although I am) … But thinking about those girls whom he describe as (sex machines) … Their feelings that will become numb, their aspirations that will be raped, their innocence that will be shattered, their view to life that will be obscured and darkened with all satanic intentions, their bodies that will bleed but not more than their spirits …. And at the end their children who will be the fruits of a destructive sexual abuse for a child and what their attitude can be if they have a chance in the future to lead a country or even a company …. They will pay back the abuse of the years driven by many physiological diseases …Of wanting to control to hide their insecur
    ities … Of wanting to lead by fear because they were never loved … Of being liars to reach what they want and hide their weaknesses… Of abusing more children to live the loose-loose mentality and the Whole community will be like this ….
    I am afraid that what I described above could be the Egypt of the coming years! I am afraid that innocence will be killed forever! I am afraid that people won’t realize the destructive minds and paradigms that are leading to a world dark as hell, bloody as the devil’s thoughts and Lost forever

    My heart was darkened by all these thoughts until I read these words that washed me: 1Corinth13: 4Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. .

    Thank to God that he gave us the Power to crack the gates of Hell open and proclaim His Love.”
    I do not understans the mentality of men who abuse women and children as non-human for their own sexual perversion.

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  7. I have not been on here for days because I am co-teaching a conference on sports ministry. The participants are from many countries, Japan, Australia, Coloumbia, South Africa, Ukraine, Russia, Uzbek, Moldova and watching them watch our election process made me very grateful for the freedoms we still have here.

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  9. I’d seen that rocks in the jar demonstration before, too.

    So did anyone ever hear from NJL?

    We had some rain overnight which we needed. But now they’re getting hit with some snow in NJ — and with some of the power still out, that can be dangerously cold for people without heat.

    How’s BG? Did the $80 antibiotics work? 😉

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  10. QoD- the way they think that I can understand their way of thinking without their saying what they’re thinking in a way I can understand them.

    And if you can parse that sentence then you think like a man.

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  11. Our eleven year old, who arrived unable to talk and not expected to get beyond single digit addition and the most simple of reading, is in the other room diagramming sentences, doing three digit multiplication and two digit division and fractions. God is amazing. She tells me all about it and loves to talk about God and what He has done and is doing.

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  12. I like Star Trek but not the Three Stooges.
    QoD; Reading in the bathroom. Channel surfing, inability to operate a clothes hampers lid, watching sports on TV with their eyes closed and a fascination with things that stink and the desire to share it with others. I’ve actually seen guys pass a stinky thing around the room…more than once.

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  13. Mumsee, I tried to post a link you might like yesterday but there is one bad word in it and it wouldn’t let me. If you have a chance go to You Tube and find the “Where the H*ll is Matt Harding 2012” video. There is something Mike will like at about 2:38.

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  16. I saw the doctor yesterday and got medicine to cut down the stomach acid which was making me nauseous. Apparently even once the original cause of the nausea was gone, it became self-perpetuating because the stomach was irritated so it produced acid which irritated it more so it produced more acid…

    I’m feeling pretty good today. However I can’t celebrate by enjoying a good meal now, because I had already scheduled a colonoscopy (routine once-every-10-years screening) for tomorrow, so I’m on clear liquids only until late afternoon when I start the less pleasant phase of the prep. I’m amazed, though, how filling apple juice and orange jello can be.

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  19. Hey, if one is allowed to do product recommendations on here (in which I will profit nothing), I had an unsatisfactory print reproduction job from an online company I’ve been using, and so I did some research to find a better one to replace the photos that weren’t good enough, and possibly place more orders in the future . Several review sites put snapfish as number one, but I’ve had two really bad experiences with them and won’t use them again; shutterfly is also highly rated and I’ve been very pleased with them. (I haven’t ordered much from them, but I have ordered a photo book and some snapshots, and was highly pleased with both.)

    But another site I’d never heard of came up high in some ratings (#1 on one site) and I went to that site and saw they had a “try us for free” package for new customers: you get 50 prints and pay only 99 cents shipping. But their normal print price is only eight cents (and is now on sale for six) and they have one-price shipping (which I think is regularly only that same 99 cents, but I’m not sure of that). Well, I got my photos today, and I’m impressed. They’re better than the ones I was replacing from the other company (I had my husband point out which he thought was best in each case, since I knew which was from each company and he didn’t). Some of them have just a tiny little extra white on the right edge, not visible once it’s in a photo album, but they’re printed on Fuji Crystal Archive paper, they’re cheap, they’re fast, and they’re good. Granted, I was comparing the bad photos from the other order with these; I didn’t reprint the ones I was happy with. Two of the brightest ones (sunlit) are just slightly over-saturated (washed out) and I didn’t think to have any printed of people to make sure they do well with people shots. But with my landscape shots, they did an excellent job, and with 50 free sample prints you can try them with the kind of shots you like to take, and see if they do equally well there.

    The company is Winkflash, winkflash.com. Worth a try for anyone with some photos you’ve been meaning to get printed.

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  20. Mumsee @ 2:34: Praise the Lord for her progress. A little attention and encouragement may get her functioning normally.

    KBells, @12:41. My wife once said, “I don’t see how a guy with a master’s in engineering can’t put a roll of toilet paper on the roller correctly.”

    I had no idea there was a right/wrong way to put it on the roller. Sometimes men and women have completely different ideas about things.
    The channel selector was made for the purpose of surfing. You have to keep them used.
    I have learned something though. I realize commercials are timed to appear on all channels at the same time. No need to surf to avoid them. What I learned is that football time-outs and other breaks are timed to coincide with other channel’s commercials.
    It’s true, check it out.

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  22. Hi, all. Popping in with a quick hello. Things are going well on the family front, praise the Lord. Hope all is well with you, too.

    Blessings! 🙂

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  23. 6 Arrows,

    That’s good news! And we will continue to pray for you and yours.

    Cheryl,

    Sure, you can, just don’t SPAM us. But recommendations are permitted, just no more than 2 links per post.

    KBells,

    I’m sorry. I feel like such a prude, and I’m not. But I don’t want to offend anybody either, hence the zero tolerance policy. It’s also why even in the stuff I link, if there’s any cussing, I give a content warning so folks know in advance. Again, my apologies.

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  24. Chas, I’ve often said that my husband the Broadcast engineer who can operate any piece of equipment in a production truck can’t seem to operate a hamper lid.
    AS for channel surfing, the show producers go to a lot of trouble to put a beginning, middle and end into each show. You are suppose to see them all to get the point. 🙂

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  25. AJ, you are not a prude. There is really no point in putting the one cuss word in that video. It would work fine without. It is Matt Harding’s fault.

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  27. I just read in today’s edition of World that “Three percent of New Yorkers identify themselves as churchgoing Christians?.
    Amazing!
    I knew it was small, but didn’t realize how dead the city really is. If you had asked me, I would have estimated in the teens or twenties.

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  29. In another life I was the lead inspector in an electronics firm. The only way for other workers to get into the shipping/receiving dept. was for me to buzz the door open for them, but to get out again they just had to turn the doorknob as one normally would.

    Without exception, the only people to ask how to get out were the male engineers.

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  32. I mentioned in the comments about Winkflash that I thought they had one-price shipping. Apparently they used to; the first review of them I read said that they did. But they don’t anymore. (BTW, in comparing sets of prints, it seems they do well what apparently Fuji paper does really well–remarkably good greens. My photos were of the Smoky Mountains and streams full of mossy rocks, and the other company washed out the greens miserably and they got them sharp and vivid. But the sky and clouds don’t have as much detail. Reds seem to come out about the same, no less vivid and possibly more, though realistically I didn’t have much red in the prints I did. But for greens, apparently it is true that Fuji does them better than Kodak. (I remember reading that years ago and wondering if it was true.)

    I have long wondered why companies don’t order one-price shipping. It really seems like a “no-brainer” to me. Yes, the company pays the difference in shipping costs if you place a huge order, but then they have the benefit of the huge order! It certainly makes more sense to charge only one price for shipping than to charge based on price and not weight . . . so something heavy that’s on clearance costs less in shipping costs than something light that isn’t. But if you charge six dollars for shipping no matter how much a person orders, they might be inclined to order more, since they have to pay for shipping anyway. I would. And several times in my life I’ve crossed an item off an order form because it takes me to a new shipping price and it just isn’t worth an added two bucks to ship that item. Maybe I’m unusual that way, but for me, companies that have one set fee get more business from me, and larger orders.

    I have one company I occasionally order from, Figi’s, but only occasionally, because its actual prices are so high, and once I talk myself into ordering something in spite of their prices–because I really do like what they sell–I see their shipping costs, and they have two different fees, one price for the whole order plus an additional three dollars for each address to which you send merchandise, including the first one. And I just can’t bring myself to pay pricy shipping on top of expensive merchandise, so two times out of three I talk myself back out of ordering. When you order the first time, you often get a coupon for free shipping on your next order–within a limited time, of course–but I just can’t talk myself into their prices again. So they get one order from me every four years or so, a lot less than they’d get if they offered cheap shipping to make up for their high prices. This Scottish lass can hardly stand to be overcharged once, and won’t stand for it twice in the same order.

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  35. Hello. After traveling across Canada by train, flying into Maine, and traveling back across America by Amtrak, we are home. I have a vague memory of having a striking a deal with Ree. I would read a couple of books demonstrating the wisdom and veracity of Christianity and she would read a book about Roger Williams, and then we would fail to persuade each other of anything whatsoever. As I am slipping into senility, I have lost passwords to my main email accounts, and have forgotten the titles of the books I am supposed to read, but I think one or both were by C. S. Lewis.

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  37. Thanks all for your continued prayers. I do believe that God is doing a mighty work here. It is certainly not us though He is using us for His purposes. Again today, the counselor of the boys (he sees them once a month for a few minutes as per regulation) shook his head saying he had nothing to say but he wished all the other adoptions would go as smoothly as this one appears to be going. All of the social workers involved ask how we do it and we just say we have a lot of folks praying for us and God is doing a wonderful thing and we hope He continues.

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  39. Did you encounter the storm?

    Aside from a bit of rain and wind as we drove a rental car from Halifax toward the airport at Yarmouth (in Nova Scotia) where we flew in a tiny airplane toward Portland, Maine (where my wife bravely hid her terror) in calm skies, we avoided all the storms. I thought, if there is a God, why does he not strike me out of they sky with thunder and lightning? But perhaps he is saving something even more spectacular. Anyway, thank you for your concern, mumsee.

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  40. By the way, several states have approved homosexual marriage. Apparently (though it’s still very close, so perhaps too soon to gloat about the depravity) including my Washington state. What kind of . . . ? etc.

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  41. Random,

    Glad to have you back. I hope you had a good trip and that you didn’t run into any trouble with Sandy.

    You agreed to one book by C.S. Lewis called That Hideous Strength and one book by G.K. Chesterton, either Orthodoxy or The Everlasting Man. I finished the Roger Williams hagiography just a few days ago. I actually very much enjoyed it, despite its clear bias, despite the usual slanders against Calvin, despite the misrepresentation of Calvinist theology, etc. Although I was familiar with the broad historical outlines, the details helped to flesh out some things for me. It took me about three weeks to read it, but I looked forward to picking it up every day. If there’s anything in particular you wanted to discuss about it, I’d be happy to do that.

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  42. Ree, thank you for replying so quickly. It looks as the books I will most likely to be able to get quickly and inexpensively are That Hideous Strength and Orthodoxy, but I should not count those chicks before they arrive on my hold shelf at the library. Thank you also for reading the Williams “hagiography.” When I started reading it, I emailed the author, who replied promptly. It may take a few days for the conversation about these three books to get going, but I am looking forward to it.

    My wife’s favorite hen is moulting, so she and her two sisters (the elders of the five hens) spent most of the day inside the hen house shivering on their perches, instead of scratching and pecking outside in the “chicken run,” like the two black junior hens. As usual, my wife was not much amused by my suggestions, such as knitting little sweaters for cold hens, or setting up their perches with heating. (My brother, whom I visited in Maine, has heated floors.)

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