Our Daily Thread 7-25-13

Good Morning!

On this day in 1587 Japanese strong-man Hideyoshi banned Christianity in Japan and ordered all Christians to leave.

In 1759 British forces defeated a French army at Fort Niagara in Canada.

In 1850 Harvard and Yale University freshmen met in the first intercollegiate billiards match in Worcester, MA..

In 1866 Ulysses S. Grant was named General of the Army, and was the first American officer to hold the rank.

In 1946 the U.S. detonated an atomic bomb underwater for the first time at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.

In 1978 Louise Joy Brown, the first test-tube baby, was born in Oldham, England.

And in 1998 the USS Harry S. Truman was commissioned and put into service by the U.S. Navy. 

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Quote of the Day

“Were an energetic and judicious system to be proposed with your signature it would be a circumstance highly honorable to your fame . . . and doubly entitle you to the glorious republican epithet, The Father of your Country.”

Henry Knox

From a letter to George Washington, urging Washington to attend the Philadelphia Convention.

As the General’s right hand man, he was instrumental in getting him to attend the convention where Washington was unanimously voted the first President.

His military career included numerous battles with Washington. Also the role he played in training, development of artillery troops, and manufacturing of weapons earned him the honor of being the second Secretary of War, and having a base named after him. He played an essential roll in this country’s independence and defense.

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This movie was released today in 1962. 🙂

Today in 1969 Neil Young made his first appearance with C,S, and N..

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Anyone have a QoD for us?

36 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 7-25-13

  1. Good evening Jo. 😉
    I could have slept in on a Thursday, but couldn’t go back to sleep.
    So? I’m up, had breakfast, took the trash out and the paper hasn’t come yet.
    And no QoD. i heard a silly song I can’t get off my mind. “You don’t ever call me darlin’, darlin’. You don’t even call me by my name.”
    It really says that.

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  2. I’m up.

    I have to get ready for company coming later. We are dog sitting a sweet lady dog named Belle for the weekend. We’re already hamster sitting too. Maybe I should start a pet sitting service?

    It’ll be weird since it’s been a while since we had a dog in the house. Hope the cat cooperates. 😯

    🙂

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  3. Good Morning all,,,, I guess “I’ll hang around as long as you will let me…”

    Yesterday I was reading a book on real estate. The author was making his point that a lot of people have lived before you, it isn’t necessary to re-invent the wheel every time, you just need to listen to what has worked for others and build on it. For an example he said to ask a young person the meaning of life and you would get a long speech on rainforests, polar ice caps, being good caretakers of the land, etc. He said to find an older person and you would get a shorter version of to love and be loved.

    So, What IS the meaning of life for you?

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  4. Good Morning….the house is quiet…grandchildren still sleeping…they are still on CA time…gotta love that hour difference! Our dogs are a bit traumatized having little children chasing them around…they are trying to find a hiding place most of the time…Babe is older and more congenial about it all…Fly just wishes they would go away!
    Crosby Stills Nash and Young….just brings a smile to my face…thanks for that one AJ!!

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  5. Kim’s QoD: What else can I as a Christian say, but to paraphrase an old catechism answer: “The meaning of life (chief end of man) is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”

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  6. Good question Kim. I started writing a dissertation on the meaning of life. But it got too long and involved. So I deleted it.
    Restated: Why am I here?
    1. The Lord chooses to have me here for some reason. I serve Him in whatever location and capacity I find myself.
    2. Elvera needs me. I keep her car running. Also, without me, she would be in assisted living in Greensboro.
    I meant to raise a family to love and serve the Lord. I have been blessed in that respect in that Chuck has done a fine job with his children.
    III John 4 has taken on great meaning for me.
    “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in the truth.”

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  7. I was going to give Peter’s answer. Also, To love God and to love others in His name (basically how Jesus summarized the first and greatest commandment, and the second, which is like it–the Ten Commandments).

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  8. Westminster Shorter Catechism is my answer, too. 🙂 Brilliant stuff is so few words.

    So lots of animal trauma this week with dogs visiting (chasing?) cats, kids visiting (chasing) dogs … So does the hamster just run around on his wheel the whole time? I never had a hamster. Poor things, that can’t be a very rewarding existence.

    Although I guess you get fed & cooed at, so maybe not so bad after all. Some days that’s about all I’d ask for.

    I made coffee this morning. 🙂

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  9. That is a question everyone should ask themselves. We show what we believe about the meaning of life in our actions, although we may not realize it.

    I like Chas’ answer, in addition to the catechism response. Number one is true of all of us. Number two varies in each of us and includes far more things in it than we will know in this life. Sometimes we see how we affect others, but often we miss seeing them. We certainly cannot see what lasts for generations or reverberates around the globe.

    This goes along with the “God provides until he provides” saying. It seems to me to imply that in one thing God is REALLY providing and in others, not so much. Yet, it is all his provision and all necessary, in some way. We may never see the why of it in this life. Frankly, I doubt that we are capable of seeing much of it.

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  10. I am not much of a jewelry person, but I have a question for anyone who is in the know or has an opinion. I prefer the yellow gold, but it seems it is not as fashionable these days. An office mate said people have the yellow gold treated to make it be white gold. She told me the name of the substance used, but I can’t remember what it was. Anyway, I said it just makes it look like silver to me, but she said no, that it makes it look like platinum. So why is it that I am thinking this is just another way our current society is engaging in falseness? I hope I am not offending anyone by saying that. Perhaps I am missing something. If so, please help me out with this.

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  11. JaniceG, it would like like silver to me, too. 🙂 I would have no idea how “white gold” or platinum would look different, but I’m hardly a jewelry connoisseur.

    http://www.jewelrynotes.com/can-you-turn-yellow-gold-into-white-gold/

    I’ve always liked silver. It’s cheap. 🙂

    Now I have to buy nickel-free jewelry in silver or titanium. That’s harder to find but is getting more common. Apparently our society’s penchant for multiple piercings in recent years has caused nickel allergies, always somewhat common, to increase.

    Is anyone familiar with “rose” gold? I don’t think it’s that common but I saw a rose gold ring at an antique store once and thought it was really pretty.

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  12. Ephesians 4:25 Therefore, putting away lying, “Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,” for we are members of one another. 26 “Be angry, and do not sin”: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, 27 nor give place to the devil. 28 Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need. 29 Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. 32 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.
    —-
    Why does it seem that the Church in America are more concern about the views of society versus the views of God? Why does it seem that people who claim to be Christian and part of the Christian Church are willing to tolerate people who are filled with lies, bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking? Why are we so afraid of speaking the truth of God’s Word because society says it is wrong? Why are we willing to surrender to society views of the Church and not God’s view of the Church? Can someone grieve the Holy Spirit of God and not know they are doing it? We must come to an understand as to what it means to grieve the Holy Spirit of God. We must come to an understanding of what it means to be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave us in relationship in addressing sin. With must come to an understand on how God desires us to address the truth of people’s relationship with Him versus society views of people’s relationship with Him.

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  13. Hi Charlie,
    (An email to Chas)

    June was a run of bad luck for the Buckles. We ran out of cars!

    On 2 Jun 13 my # 1 son, Rick, and I were driving in North Dakota to look for a job for him in the Bakken oil field. He drives a truck delivering fuel oil, diesel and gasoline in Oregon along the coast. His 15 year old daughter lives in Las Vegas with her mother, his wife left him for another man and he only has a cat for company. Isn’t this the recipe for a country song?

    Well, anyhoo, I was driving to the first office to deliver Rick’s first job application. The GPS said to turn left. It should have said right. We turned onto a dirt road. We passed a farmhouse and then took the road down to a slough. The road became muddy so I tried to keep the left front wheel on the center of the road and the right front wheel on the drier right shoulder. The left wheel slipped off the raised center, I put my foot on the brake, the back right brake had some traction so it held, started to slide on the mud, we went broadside and the tires gained some traction. We went right into the slough!

    As we were going in Rick said to the secretary he was talking to “We are having an accident. We just went into a lake. Can you call a tow truck?”

    About an hour later, the tow truck arrived. It stopped at the top of the rise. When it came down I asked the driver if he stopped and laughed. Of course he did. But he knew more than I did. After positioning the truck, he had to go into that cold water to hook up the car. All the way under! All wet!!

    He pulled out the car, without flipping it I might add. He was good. When he towed it the 2 miles to his shop/yard he gave us his Dodge 3500 dually to drive to the motel for the night.

    The next morning he, his father and his mother allowed us to take the big Dodge to Minot to the hotel his mother booked for us near the Minot airport. As we were unloading our stuff and taking it in to the hotel the father drove up and loaded the pickup onto his flatbed to take it home. The cost? Nothing! They just said, “Take it, use it. There are no rental cars in Stanley, ND.” They didn’t charge us for the tow either. We flew home from Minot ND Airport. I am sure you must have flown into Minot AFB some time or other.

    Did I say at the beginning that the Buckles ran out of cars? “And now for the rest of the story.”

    On 27 Jun 13 my wife was taking 4 grandkids to see the Great Cats animal attraction about 60 miles away in Oregon. A couple of miles from the place a big buck deer jumped out from beside the road and hit her car!

    No one was hurt in either accident but both cars were totaled. We were carless! Luckily my brother had just bought a new car for their daughter so I borrowed one from them to pick up the kids and my wife.

    Since I had been looking for a replacement car for my wet car and we had actually looked at Fords, Toyotas and Hondas we only had a couple more things to look at, Chevys and to take several bird cages and boxes of show cages to see if they would fit.

    They ft in the Chevy Sonic and also in the Toyota Prius C. When we drove into the Toyota dealer in Grants Pass, Oregon, Mary Anne looked at an orange Prius C and said, “Who would want that color?” Then she said, “You would never lose that in a parking lot.”

    Even though it was in the used section of the lot, we ended up getting it. A 2012 Prius C, Habanero (orange to you and me) with 8,000 miles on it for $20,000. That is $4,000 less than the same new one we saw on the other side of the dealership.

    I just thought I would let everyone know why I have been gone so long,

    Bob Buckles

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  14. Yikes Bob!

    As bad as that sounds, at least you’re all safe. And it sounds like you met some great people. Isn’t it amazing how God puts people exactly where they need to be for “such a time as this”? Sometimes I think stuff like that happens just so you meet someone you need to, or they, you. That could have been a whole lot worse were it not for that family. Talk about a Good Samaritan huh? What a blessing in such a bad situation. 🙂

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  15. Well the real,

    I now know that “Travel Mercies” are real!

    I need to send that family some frozen Ling Cod as a Thank You! Ling Cod is just as good as Salmon, in my opinion but not as common,

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  16. Done reading my book! Now to look over the News and Daily Threads I missed the last few days.

    I’ve read the prayer threads and have prayed for the needs expressed. Also, Chas, yes, that Psalm 127 is a definite favorite of mine, especially the “as arrows are in the hand of a mighty man” part. 😉

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  17. I came across this quote this week (don’t know who said it originally):

    Sometimes God calms the storm. Sometimes He lets it rage and calms His child.

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  18. Welcome back 6 arrows, glad you got the book finished.

    OK, here’s a joke:

    How many Christians (term used rather loosely here) does it take to change a light bulb?

    Charismatic: Only one. Hands already in the air.

    Pentecostals: Ten. One to change the bulb and nine to pray against the spirit of darkness.

    Presbyterians: None. Lights will go off and on at predestined times.

    Roman Catholic: None. Candles only.

    Baptists: At least 15. One to change the light bulb and three committees to approve the change and decide who brings the potato salad.

    Episcopalians: Three. One to call the electrician, one to mix the drinks and one to talk about how much better the old bulb was.

    Mormons: Five. One man to change the bulb and four wives to tell him how to do it.

    Unitarians: We choose not to make a statement either in favor of or against the need for a light bulb. However, if in your own journey you have found that light bulbs work for you, that is fine. You are invited to write a poem or compose a modern dance about your light bulb for the next Sunday service, in which we will explore a number of light bulb traditions including incandescent, fluorescent, three-way, long-life and tinted, all of which are equally valid paths to luminescence.

    Methodists: Undetermined. Whether your light bulb is bright, dull, or completely out, you are loved. You can be a light bulb, turnip bulb or tulip bulb. A church-wide lighting service is planned for Sunday. Bring a bulb of your choice and a covered dish.

    Nazarene: Six. One woman to replace the bulb while five men review the church lighting policy.

    Lutherans: None. Lutherans don’t believe in change.

    Amish: What’s a light bulb?

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  19. Got a good chuckle out of that joke, Donna. 😉

    Alright, I guess it’s confession time now. 🙂 The book I read this week? Well, I didn’t read the whole book. 😯

    But I read a good portion of it! There were at least two dozen chapters, and seven of them were for husbands to read (wives were invited to read along if they wanted to, but I skipped them). There were also seven chapters for the wives (with a similar invitation to husbands to read). Those chapters were rather late in the book, and I’d noticed quite a bit of repetition of the things the author was speaking of (the book was entitled Love and Respect, and was based on the NIV version of Ephesians 5:33 — “However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”). The bulk of each chapter in the wives’ section was mainly telling stories of couples the author had counseled, and since a lot of the book had already been that way, I just read the bullet points summarizing each of those chapters’ concepts.

    The rest of the book I read in its entirety. It was pretty good, and doctrinally sound, I thought. A lot of marriage books aimed at women address submission, but this one focused mainly on respect in the parts addressing the women, which was a nice change from the usual.

    However, with all the stories the author included about couples he’d counseled, it started to feel a little like a never-ending advertisement of the program he developed.

    Still, though, I learned a lot, and overall I’d say it was worth the time I spent on it.

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  20. Finished my first week, 3 days, of school. I even went to the weight room afterwards today. I had the room to myself then it started filling with guys. I like the quiet of being there alone, but then realized that every guy there, young and old, would be willing to do whatever it took to protect me, if anything ever happened. A nice feeling

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  21. It’s a blessing to be in the presence of men of integrity who take seriously their duty to protect and defend.

    Nice to be done with that first week of school, isn’t it? The kids always started back to school on a Wednesday, also, when I was a school teacher. Easier on both the students and the teachers when the first week was a partial week rather than a full week for the students.

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  22. Fort Niagara! We’ll be there tonight for daughter’s soccer game. A beautiful New York State park surrounds the Fort, on the shores of Lake Ontario and the Niagara River.

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