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Our Daily Thread 3-11-13

Good Morning!

I hope everyone has adjusted to the time change.

The amount of early morning bird noise has picked up considerably in the last few days. We saw Crocuses on our walk yesterday, and some other flowers starting to bloom as well. Spring is springing. 🙂

Quote of the Day

“I’m not an economist, and we all know economists were created to make weather forecasters look good.”

Rupert Murdoch

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For music, we were just talking about him, and it is his birthday………

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Lawrence Welk and his orchestra. 🙂

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QoD

What was your Pastor’s sermon about yesterday?

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48 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 3-11-13”

  1. Our Pastor is preaching a series on the life of Abram/Abrahm. Yesterday’s was on the sin of not trusting God’s promise and using Hagar to have a son. It was a powerful sermon, as they all have been in this series.

    I kidded our Pastor that I thought it was cruel of him to select the Psalm for the day that included the verse “The Lord grants sleep to those he loves” on the day after we all lost an hour.

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  3. Sermon was “Walk Forward” Jeremiah 7:21-29
    Forward movement is hindered by:
    Ritual
    Stubborn Inaction
    Ignored Warnings 7:25
    Increased Evil v. 26
    Forward movement enhanced by obedience V. 22-23

    😦 7:20 & still no daylight.

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  4. Okay, it’s totally NOT FAIR. So, I haven’t yet been to bed, because I’m working on a huge program for the Shakespeare plays my kids are participating in this coming Saturday. And, all of the sudden, it occurs to me that — as someone on the West Coast — I might actually be able to be first for once, since I’m up anyway. 🙂

    Well, fat chance! We’ve got the early birds in other parts of the country already posting! SIGH

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  6. Yesterday there were verses from Joshua about the Isrealites eating their first non-manna meal in the promised land, then the Parable of the Prodigal Son, then 2 Corinthians chapter 5.
    Some of us were born in the wilderness, some in the Promised Land, and some were born to parents who were way back in Egypt. God made a provision for us all. We can be like the Prodigal but when we come home God rejoices. The sermon was also on how hard it is as parents to see our children fail and make the wrong decisions but sometimes letting that happen is the fastest way for them to return to God.

    He made a lot more sense than I am making.

    I was very musically frustrated in church yesterday. The music director will put something like Just As I Am in the program but will not sing it. There were two songs yesterday I really wanted to sing but we mostly sing that modern worship music. Also the opening music lasts almost 15 minutes. We stand that entire time. Sometimes I just go ahead and sit down and quit singing. Especially when he starts combining songs.

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  8. I’m getting new furniture today. 🙂 They said they would be here between 7 and 9, so I prepared as though they would be here at 7am so of course it will be 9 tonight.

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  9. Kim, Music is very important to me in worship. I could not attend a church where I wasn’t comfortable with the music. We are blessed to have a wonderful Music Director and musically astute Pastor so ours is always perfect. Someone told me that we are the only PCA church in Maryland that hasn’t gone happy-clappy. I am NOT saying that music should be that important to everyone but it is to me so I really sympathize with your frustration.

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  11. We are going through 1 Corinthians and covered 1 Cor. 13:4-13

    From the notes I have the title of the sermon: Is It Really Love?

    Questions the pastor posed to ask (which go along with the scripture):

    Am I patient with others?
    Do I choose the kind approach?
    Do I keep my ego in check?
    Am I rude? Do my actions cause embarrassment or shame to me and those around me?
    Do I always ask, “What’s in it for me?”
    Am I easily angered?
    Do I keep records of wrongs suffered?
    Do I seek the truth?
    Am I just a “fair-weather” friend?

    Good questions for people in relationships (all of us) to consider.

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  12. Kbells, Yay! New funtiture sounds like fun. What are you getting?

    I’ve mentioned that we’re putting an apartment in the basement of our new house and I’m getting excited about picking out stuff for it. The kitchen will be along one wall (and a little around the corner) of the “great room” and right now I’m thinking of keeping it light and soft with almond appliances, matching cabinets with a countertop that is almond speckled with some light blue thrown in, and a short tile backsplash that picks up the almond and light blue. To match it, I’m looking at a dinette set that has butcher-block tops (table top and chair seats) and Williamsburg blue painted legs. Thoughts?

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  14. We are getting a sofa and love seat for the living room. We lost some stuff in the tornado but used the replacement money to make improvements on the house. We have just gotten around to replacing the furniture.

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  15. QoD: The sermon was on the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32, and also included verses 1-3 for context). We sang an arrangement of Psalm 32 for the Old Testament lesson, and the New Testament lesson was from 1 Corinthians 1:18-25, which was rather timely, I thought, in light of the discussion on Our Daily Thread this weekend:

    18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

    19 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

    20 Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

    21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

    22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:

    23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;

    24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

    25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

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  16. We too had the Prodigal Son as trhe topic of the sermon. Pastor spent the entire sermon on it, but he chose to speak of the father in the parable, likening him to God the Father.

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  17. Rahab. Our pastors are preaching along with the History Chanel’s The Bible.

    He warned us, however, the show is rated PG-13.

    We didn’t see it; no cable.

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  18. QoD: Our pastor interupted a series in Genesis, to start a series that will lead up to Good Friday and then Resurrection Sunday. Yesterday was from 2 Samuel 6, bringing the ark into Jerusalem.

    Our music is all over the place depending on who is leading. We have a music professor who plays cello and Andre Previn’s daughter on violin sometimes. We sometimes have guys who play in a Celtic Rock band and so when they play it has a very Celtic flavor. Sometimes it leans bluesy or country. Oddly enough when the Switchfoot boys play–the Foreman boys father is our pastor–it is very quiet, deep and reflective.

    Yesterday we had acostic guitars–save the bass–piano and drums. It was very contemporary, very doctrinial, very excellent.

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  19. Kim, there is nothing wrong with sitting down if the worship in song is too long for you. I’ve done that, although I usually try to keep singing and if not that then I close my eyes and sing the words in my head to God. Whenever there is a worship team or song that I don’t particularly enjoy, I try to think that there was someone else in church today who need to hear/sing that particular song or needed the long singing time to get right with God. It’s very difficult to do sometimes, but it does help to keep me in the right frame of mind. I, personally, would love to have at least 30 minutes of worshipping in song, but then it would also need to be songs that I like and have meaning to me, which then makes it all about me, when it is actually all about God. I hope that made sense. 🙂

    I really enjoyed the music worship time in our church yesterday. It’s so neat to see a father/son collaboration/sharing of the leading. Pastor preached on 1 Cor 15 – if the dead don’t rise then Christ didn’t rise and there’s no point to what we’re doing.

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  20. Three of our children sang in church yesterday. They wanted to do a special. How could they possibly be my children and want to do that? But they did. They practiced together and the piano lady joined them. They were not great but it sounded great to me and I suspect the Father enjoyed it as well. The people did too, it appeared. They sang “Come Thou Fount” as it is S’s (yes, Chas, that S) favorite song. They each sang a verse alone and sang the chorus together.

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  22. We’re still in Romans (of course; I think it took us 4 years to get through all of Matthew); “A Sign and a Seal” Rom. 4:9-12. In part, the sermon stressed the importance of the sacraments in our receiving nourishment from (and experiencing closeness to) God.

    They are a testimony of God’s faithfulness and mercy to us (not really so much “our” testimony).

    There are two dangers in the church: one is making the signs unimportant (the tendency among many Protestants today); the other is making them too important (assigning undue power to them).

    Among the hymns we sang was one of my favorites, “Be Thou My Vision.”

    Love Sunday mornings. And this morning I read through Ps. 91 and also a section from John Bunyon (Abominations of my heart — sounds like a downer, but how wonderful to read these words from believers who have gone before, how true they are to us today).

    He bemoans his tendency toward unbelief, toward forgetting Christ’s love and mercy, toward relying on works, toward “wanderings and coldness” in prayer, forgetting “to watch for that which I have prayed for;” murming “because I have no more and yet a willingness to abuse what I have.”

    And yet, he goes on, it is God who orders these things for our good so that they keep us from “trusting our hearts” and remind us that we need always to “fly to Jesus.” Amen.

    Linda, I think I’d love your table and chairs. 🙂

    Enjoy the new furniture, Kbells.

    Off to work. Another week.

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  24. Mumsee, when I was a teenager I sang in a choir. And we were going to a small country church for some of those years. In my teen years I sang in a trio and a duet (once each) and sang one solo (only once I think, and at a different church, though I partly think I sang one solo at that church as well). Somewhere in there I realized I wasn’t a good enough singer to do any of that stuff except choir.

    Well, in my twenties I visited that church I’d attended as a teen, and where I had sung some “special music.” They had a new pastor I’d never met, and his teen daughter sang a solo, easily the worst I’d ever heard. But I heard so many adults after church saying “Wasn’t she great?” (and they weren’t being sarcastic) that I knew in a deeper way than I knew as a teen that it was a good church in which to be a teenager.

    As a teen I taught Sunday school, helped with VBS, sang in the choir, and served on the music committee. Theologically I now think a lot of those things should be done by a church’s elders and not by teenagers, but I think that having the teens as a vibrant part of the church (not off in a youth group) is invaluable for everyone. If the teens and old people are loved and valued in a church, that chruch will be a good place for everyone of all ages.

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  25. Good afternoon – The sun and wind are scorching hot by midday, so everyone retreats inside or beneath the thick foliage of the mango or cashew trees. I hear drums playing in the distance – a favorite afternoon pastime for children and adults alike.

    Our church music is supplied by my violin, a couple of guitars and occasionally a recorder, while the rest sing in harmony. We sing both new choruses and old hymns. I can honestly say that I have never heard anything more beautiful in a church in North America. It is like cold water to a thirsty man.

    I played my violin for a group of villagers today and they liked it. They have a similar instrument, with only one string, and one of them found a recording of it on the radio so that I could hear what it sounded like.

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  26. No sermon for me yesterday, So I took advantage of Janice’s contribution as a check list for myself:

    Am I patient with others? No.
    Do I choose the kind approach? No.
    Do I keep my ego in check? No.
    Am I rude? Do my actions cause embarrassment or shame to me and those around me? Yes.
    Do I always ask, “What’s in it for me?” Yes.
    Am I easily angered? Yes.
    Do I keep records of wrongs suffered? Yes.
    Do I seek the truth? Yes.
    Am I just a “fair-weather” friend? No.

    My self score (obviously inaccurate, for who can evaluate him or her self accurately)?? 2 out of 9 tolerable answers. My brain is rusty on basic division, but I think that’s slightly over 20% correct. Does that mean I have an almost 80% chance of going to Hell? Maybe if I seek forgiveness from Jesus’ sacrifice for me?

    Or is this a works vs. faith thing?

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  27. Speaking of which, who will be chosen to be Pope? Or does it not matter. Will the Catholic church clean up its act in regard to sex abuse? Was one of the real reason for the Protestant Reformation the theological issues raised first by Luther, then by Calvin and others sexuality, including sexual abuse of children?

    For example, one document one document on the history of sexual abuse states “The sexual abuse of children in the Roman Catholic Church is not a modern scandal. Records indicate that it is an age-old problem – almost as old as the Church itself.”

    So perhaps one of the real reasons for the success of the Reformation was that clergy were allowed to get married, relieve their sexual needs, and thus less likely to engage in revolting behavior such as abusing children?

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  29. I’ve just finished reading Damascus Count Down by Joel Rosenberg.
    It’s an interesting novel. You can learn a good bit about modern CIA technology from Rosenberg’s books. But if you haven’t read The Twelfth Imam and The Tehran Initiative, you don’t want to start this. This is the last of a trilogy.
    I won’t tell anymore about the story, except the good guys win, but it takes 485 pages to do it.

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  30. I learned of a couple free Kindle titles available at Amazon today (and possibly only today that they are free) that some of you may be interested in: Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo, and A.W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God.

    You don’t need an actual Kindle to read these. There are free apps you can download from Amazon on which to read them. I have a “Kindle Cloud Reader” that allows me to read my Kindle books on my computer browser. It’s one of the coolest things I ever saw. 😉 I can bookmark where I am for when I come back to read at a later time, and there are a bunch of other things I can do that I haven’t fully explored yet. Sometimes technology is so cool. 🙂

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  35. 6Arrows…Thank you!!! I just downloaded the two books on my Kindle..for free! I have been reading Les Mis….the Kindle is easier to read…and tote around 🙂 And, I have Tozer’s book…somewhere…in a box…unpacked since our move here three years ago…
    Our foot of snow has melted tremendously today…we love the moisture sinking down into the earth…and the deer love it too…two herds have been hanging around here all day….this time change is kicking me…I’ve been off all day yesterday and today….ugh! But, the house is clean and all the drawers and the pantry have been cleaned and rearranged 🙂

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  36. Forrest’s weekend trip to Pennsylvania took a toll on the little guy. He & Emily arrived home yesterday evening. He wanted to see Mimi & Papa right away. Then, while Papa had to go to bed (he gets up at 12:30), he wanted lots of attention from Mimi (that’s me).

    Then today, Emily, Chrissy, & Forrest went on a hike, then went off to the nearest Costco, which is about half an hour away, for some items. As they were on their way home, a tired Forrest kept crying over & over again, “Me wanna go home!”

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  39. I did hear that we had an earthquake, but unless they’re really significantly over a 5 (or we’re sitting right on top of it), we often don’t feel them. I didn’t feel this one, not sure where it was centered but it did seem to be within our general area.

    I interviewed some artists today for a story on their upcoming exhibit opening this weekend. I’ve done these kinds of stories before and always have trouble with them. I don’t particularly understand or appreciate abstract art/sculptures, etc. (indeed, I often find it all rather goofy and I’m afraid I tend to be mocking about it when I get back to the newsroom).

    So I’m always struggling to find a common-man approach that will work for a story — that we average folk can read and understand. 😉

    And we started using our new computer operating system today, so we had super early deadlines (a precaution in case the entire thing fell apart). We’ll see if it all works, I guess. Like anything new, it’s all very confusing, of course. 🙂

    Sometimes I miss the old typewriters. Yeah, I’ve been in the business that long.

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  40. NancyJill, glad you could make use of those Kindle books. I hadn’t read either of them in any format, and am glad to have them now, too. 🙂

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  41. Donna, I remember typing on my mom’s old manual typewriter, then going to high school and typing on a Selectric in typing class — much easier than the manual! If I missed a key on the manual, my finger would plunge into the gap between the keys. Ouch 😉

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  43. Yes, we had selectrics in high school, too, they were great. But the first newspaper I worked for after college was a little weekly that operated on a shoestring and so they still had those huge, clunky manual typewriters.

    KBells, congratulations on the new furniture. 🙂 Do you love it??

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  45. 🙂 I know how you feel. After having furniture destroyed through the years by dogs, I decided to buy (what I hope may even be) my last set. I always wanted leather furniture, so I headed for the Arizona Leather store in town.

    I began maybe 8 years ago by buying the sofa (on sale); a few years later adding the love seat (on sale); and finally finding an (almost) matching chair maybe 1-2 years ago at the store’s outlet for half price (the outlet is nearly an hour’s drive but I’m sorry now I didn’t start with them; you may not get exact matches, but the prices are deeply discounted).

    All of it is kept heavily under wraps and the dogs are forbidden to get on it.

    It’s all surviving so far.

    Of course, it still feels like I don’t have leather furniture since I never actually see it or touch it for all the slipcovers and throws. 🙂 As you said, it simply was “too nice” for around here. 🙂

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  46. Donna, I had a really nice couch in Nashville. It wasn’t leather, but I bought it at the advice of my sister, who used to sell furniture. It was a quality piece, off white with lovely flowers. I owned it for eight years before I moved, and it looked brand-new. (That same sister got it.)

    If dogs don’t get on the furniture at all, and one doesn’t own cats, then furniture doesn’t have to be covered. It can be used and enjoyed. And Misten doesn’t know the difference, having never been allowed on it. (Now she does know the difference between being allowed to sleep beside her owner’s bed and not being allowed to–and that little change led to a night of pacing the house all night after I got married. But that didn’t kill her either. And she thinks that overall it was a good thing to add a man to our household.)

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  47. Keeping dogs off furniture when you’re home is easy.

    Once you leave the house? A strategy is required. Luckily a few carefully placed books tend to keep my dogs off the furniture when I’m gone. It’s a small price to pay.

    Cats? Well, cats pretty much go where they want to go. But Annie’s easy on furniture, she uses her “cat tree” to scratch. Still, the covers help there as cats’ claws naturally come out when they jump.

    I suppose you could set up electrical charge wires on your furniture, though …

    Have enough dogs (or kids) over the years, someone’s gonna someday wreck a couch or a chair somewhere along the way.

    It’s a fallen world. 😉

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  48. And my dogs & I are all sufficiently fallen — not to even mention the cat! — that furniture covers are actually a very good idea for us. 🙂

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