Jesus, My All

I can’t go through the Christmas season without being amazed by it all. Lord God Almighty, Creator of all the galaxies, Sustainer of all life and matter, Ruler of heaven, King of all kings, timeless and eternal, the whole universe unable to contain Him, yet He chose to be wrapped in a seven or eight pound package. God’s gift to you and to me. Unspeakable. Who is this? The One in Whom all fullness dwells. The One Who cried to take His first breath. The One Whom angels proclaimed, terrifying the shepherds. The Baby lying in a manger. The One Whom, a short time before, those same angels (mighty, warring spirits) worshipped and fell down before in the grandeur of heaven. The One Whom Joseph took in his arms and fled to save his life. A fugitive from a king determined to kill Him. The One Who heals people. The One Who frees people. The One Who raises people from the dead. The One Who forgives. The One Who has reconciled us to God. The One Whose death I effected. The justice of God requiring His blood for the forgiveness of my sins. The One Who conquered the grave, holding the keys of death and hell. The Risen One. The One to Whom God the Father has given all things. The One with Whom I am a joint-heir.
Jesus, I need to know You more. I need Your spirit to speak to my spirit. I need to know in my heart that You are near. I need Your presence to surround me, envelope me, consume me so that all of me is lost in You. You are All, Lord Jesus.
Who am I that You are mindful of me? I am weak, mortal, bent by and toward sin. Ruined. The only worth that I have is found in Your love. You love me, my Lord and my God, my Savior, My Redeemer, my Brother , my Friend. I don’t think I’ll understand why until I see You face to face and maybe not even then. But Jesus, I accept Your love. I rely on it. I need it. In Your love I find strength. I find life. I find forgiveness. Will my needs be met in You.? In Your love? Will my cup be filled if I hold it under Niagara Falls? Completely, generously, abundantly, extravagantly.

Obedience and Intimacy

Who is God? Do I know Him? How would my life be different if I didn’t know Him? Let me reword that question. Is it evident by my lifestyle that I know God? Do I want to know God and know Him more?
As human beings and as inhabitants of earth, God has given each of us a taste of Himself, who He is, and what He is like. Romans 1: 18-20 makes this very clear. God has revealed Himself to all people through His creation. While everyone has received a taste of God it should also be said that some of us, through no merit of our own have had a larger helping doled out to us. This doesn’t mean that someone who has received a lot of biblical teaching about God is better than a person untouched by Christian influence. It doesn’t even necessarily mean that a person saturated by Christian influence is better off than another person. If it means anything it’s that a person who has been given more is responsible for more.
What have I done with the taste I‘ve been given? Did it invoke awe, reverence, adoration, gratitude, love, humility, praise, worship, a thirst for more? God, our Father, wants to give more; a second helping, and thirds, and fourths, fifths… . Besides creation, God reveals Himself through His Word, the Scriptures, through His Son Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:1-3), and through the Holy Spirit (John16:12-15).
God’s primary objective in revealing Himself to us is to cultivate intimacy with me, His child. It always comes down to love. As a Christian my first priority must be intimacy with God. My relationship with God must take precedence over all things. It must take priority over evangelism, over teaching Sunday school, over being a nice guy, over leading worship, over serving on the church board, over volunteering at the downtown mission, over being a missionary in Africa.
How do I get closer to God? You know all the stuff. Read your Bible. Pray. Volunteer in church. Yeah, yeah, and I suppose that the list could go on and on. How about this one? Listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit and obeying everything, no matter what. That’s pretty easy to say and even easier to write. The way I see it, this is the most important thing a person can do to grow closer and closer to God in the love relationship that He wants with you and that you never even dreamt was possible. The Holy Spirit must be listened for and obeyed. Period.. It doesn’t matter at all how small or insignificant it might seem. He must be obeyed. It doesn’t matter how huge or impossible it might seem. He must be obeyed. If there is anything that is urgent in life, this is it. This, by the way, comes from a procrastinator. How does one learn to listen for and obey the Holy Spirit? The best way I know of is practice.
Start with the small and insignificant. The fact is that it is neither small nor insignificant. Each step of obedience is necessary. In a staircase each step relies on the step before it and after it. In a chain each link is vital. If we’ve obeyed the Holy Spirit in the first thing He has required of us, He is free to go on with the next step in His agenda. That’s one of the keys: His agenda, not mine. Can I trust God to carry on with His agenda?
For most of us this is a heavy stone that has dropped on our foot and may seriously effect our lifestyle. Watch your other foot, here comes another one. God’s Word, the Bible needs to be obeyed just as the Holy Spirit needs to be obeyed. The Bible is no less God’s Word to me than the voice of the Holy Spirit. Do you want to be close to God? How can you be close to someone if you’re not following them? If there is sin in your life, the Bible is telling you to do something and you’re not doing it, or the Holy Spirit told you something and you ignored Him, and you’re wondering why God seems distant. I know in my life it usually isn’t that hard to figure out.

Papa and Seth Intently checking on the summer essentials

Owen

Owen and his favorite blanket

Long time no blog...

Well August was really busy and September slipped right by... We managed to remember how to work after our trip and then had a few weeks of company visiting us. I managed the clinic alone for the month of August... It went well enough but I sure do hate to work without Darlene! Now the colors of fall and the morning frost warns us that winter is coming. We have enjoyed a few visits with our adorable Grandsons Seth and Owen. I will post a few pictures to prove my point. John and I have been waiting for a group of young adults to begin a small group in our home. We were very much looking forward to starting and had our fist get together last Saturday. I am just stinking excited to have people in our home again! This bunch barely eats anything and are very clean... weird concept after our last group... Maybe they will eat more and break things when they get used to us... That is not a request, just a comment. I have been reading a book by Dallas Willard called The Great Omission... I am going to write something about what I am thinking after I finish processing it.

Giving God my Heart

I felt the Holy Spirit telling me to post part of a prayer I prayed a few months ago. It's quite personal and a little difficult for me to do. I trust that this will be helpful to someone reading it and be for the praise and glory of God.
My Lord, my God, You have shown me a glimpse of Your heart and I am amazed. What love, what affection, what burning, unbridled desire to hold me tight to Your chest. You have loved me since before You placed the stars in their orbits. I know that You are beyond time, but it seems that You have waited over the millennia for my appointed time to be born. I can see the smile that was on Your face on Oct. 29, 1965. Since that day (and before as well) You have pursued me, longed for and fought for my affections. Yes, I gave You lip service, acknowledging You as Lord, confessing my sin, and accepting Your salvation. They called it "giving You my heart" but I hadn't given You my heart. I hadn't realized in You the Source of all love and the One to Whom I could open my heart and give all my love to, imperfect as it is. Yet, You chased me. I was cold to You, yet Your love for me boiled within You. I was self-absorbed, yet You wanted to drench me with the flood of Your love; to overwhelm me in the tsunami of Your passion. Over and over again You poured out Your love on me. Over and over You showed me Your goodness, Your faithfulness, Your power, and Your unrelenting, persistent, tenacious, enduring, perfect love. I may have acknowledged You verbally, but not from the depths of my heart. I need Your patient and persistent love. For decades you poured oil on my cold, hard heart, messaging it, infusing Your love and life into it. I love You Lord God, my Father, my Dad. I pour my heart out to You. It is Yours, only Yours, all Yours. You are my Lover and I am Yours. I know that there are millions of Your children, but when I am alone with You I am Your son, the one You like, Your favorite. The relationship between us two is the center of all things. I praise You for Your graciousness, Your mercy, Your love never ending.

Well, it's Sunday morning and our holiday is over. We're Helena, Montana and we need to get home tonight. Lorna's slavedriver will be expecting her in the morning. I could probably pretend I'm at work for a couple of more days. Ahh, probably not. So, on Friday morning we left the Grand Canyon, stopping at viewpoints on the way out not wanting to leave but knowing that we had to tear ourselves away. We headed north through Utah. There was beautiful scenery but we didn't take pictures. I think we wore out our camera at the Grand Canyon. We were in Salt Lake City Friday night. Yesterday we drove up through the southern part of Idaho into Montana. We stopped at a museum on the way. We had seen billboard ads for a Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit so we checked it out. Very interesting. The scroll fragments they had on display honestly didn't look much different than burnt corn flakes but they also had on display Bibles that were printed in the 1500's. Amazing! There were exhibits about people such as John Wycliffe, Tyndale, and Luther, people who gave so much, even their lives so that we could have and read God's Word in our own language. It was a good stop to make.
Well we're going to get some breakfast, do a little bit of shopping, and head home. This will be our last post of our holidays but we will continue to update the blog. Keep checking us out.

Wow!!! It is completely amazing! You walk up to the edge and it doesn't even look real. It doesn't compare to anything you've seen before so it somehow loses credibility. I guess that makes it truly incredible. It's like a painting that's been ridiculously overdone. If seeing the Grand Canyon is not on your list of things to do it needs to be. I've already put "seeing it again" on my list. As I stood there trying to take it all in (and this will probably sound whacked) it was far more than a canyon. I didn't know what, but I knew it was a metaphor. It was far too deep, far too vast, far too intricate to be merely a geographical feature. I was thinking about it more today and I think it's a metaphor of God's extravagance. God wants to give us so much more than we imagine and ask for. I push the limits of my imagination and faith and I ask God for a piece of clay with a little divot pushed into it with my finger and He says "No, I want to give you the Grand Canyon. Just listen for My voice and follow Me and I'll show you." His ways are infinately vast, deep, and beautiful. He wants to give us so much more. That's His love and goodness, His desire to be closer to us.

This place is cool, no guardrails. Don't worry Darlene, I wasn't in danger. It's not that far down.

We took Helicopter tour. It was great. Lorna didn't throw up. She's incredible.

WaTonight we went out for dinner at the Outback Steakhouse. Delicious... This is what we saw when we walked to the parking lot. So, tomorrow we're off to the Grand Canyon. Wahoo! ( Hey, why aren't you guys leaving comments?)

This is the largest piece of the Flagstaff meteor that has been found.

This is the meteor crater east of Flagstaff, Arizona. That's one huge hole. Can't imagine the impact.

Cambridge Ohio...

Hello! We survived New York... And we didn't get too lost getting out of there either! Today we drove through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, a little of West Virginia and into Ohio. The southern part of Pennsylvania is nicer than where we were before. There are several 24 hour Starbucks along the road. We took a hotel with a pool that was only a little bit scummy. Just catching up on some pictures for you and now we are hitting the hay. Tomorrow we will do a long drive. It is REALLY hot here.

OOoh, I just remembered...

Remember Clint telling about the kid that gave him a concussion? Well this is him and his Mom. He is a great guy, aside from knocking our dear Clinton out... Anyway he is trying to get together enough $$ to go to a Military School in Texas to help him get ahead in life... He wants to be a cop. If you want to put $$ into something worthwhile we can hook you up with the guy who is setting things up for Jorge. If you want to put some money into something not so worthwhile give it to me!!!

This scene happens so often... And yet it never ceases to amaze us. This happy shopper was tying up a fair amount of traffic on Interstate 70... Note the back of these Queen size Mattresses are held on by Carefully tied string! Brilliant!!

On the road again - Cowfiguring the GPS

Clint & Laura Duh-Getting Married

The Cow wating for the ceremony to begin

The Cow helping to decorate

Central Park

Clint and Laura took us to Central Park for a picnic. We stopped close to the park at a Deli and got our choice of food. It was cool to be there. The subway is an interesting experience...I think it was really good for us to experience life with Clint and Laura. What ever needs doing has to have a big plan... I saw a guy who just came out of the Target store, He had a few folding chairs(like the kind that go with a card table) they were strapped with string to his back, he was carrying some pillows under one arm and a big square fan in the other hand and trying to catch the subway. We are going to grab some food, more later...

Central Park

July 2

Today we marked off a lot of mileage. We drove from South Dakota to Indiana. While refueling in SD we met the voice of Mater in Cars. We started talking to a very friendly, old man,telling him where we were all going. Read this next part out loud in Mater's voice. "You're going all the way over there and all the way over there. That sounds like fun!" He was very friendly. Cow liked him. There wasn't a whole lot of scenery today. Wisconsin was nice. Lots of trees. We ended the day driving through Chicago. We wanted to get through it so we wouldn't have to deal with all the traffic in the morning. The expressway is just a little different than what we're used to in Calgary. Big highway, multiple toll booths, and a McDonalds right in the middle of the expressway. They are serious about there fast food. John started getting into the Chicago driving. A quarter of the way through Lorna decided to start smoking. Just wait till we get to New York.
Yes we are still having fun.

Sunday, July 1

After spending the night in Sheridan, Wyoming we drove to Belle Fourshe, South Dakota and had lunch with Lorna's Uncle John & Aunt Evelyn. We had a power visit and hopped back in the car and went through a bit of the Black Hills, and toodled by Mount Rushmore. Starbucks have been few and far between, we found one on the way out of Sheridan... Here is hoping for one early in the day tomorrow.

Yellowstone to Cody, Wyoming

The cow met some cool people. When we were driving out of the park we saw a van on the side of the road with a distraught lady beside it. We turned around to see if we could help. Another couple did the same. We ended up taking the lady and her three standard poodles in our very packed car to Cody. The other couple who stopped used to live there so they knew where we could bring her for help. We ended up having a little church service of sorts while waiting for the tow truck guy. Kaleb, Makayla and Grace along with their Grandparents shared their wonderful testimony with us... Its bookworthy. If you are ever in Cody, Wyoming you gotta hear Kaleb's story. This kid loves God so much it oozes out of him. We were blessed.

Saturday June 30th

So today we went through Yellowstone National Park. It was absolutely amazing. A forest fire went through a huge amount of the park in 1988, it is really awesome to see how the new growth has come in. We spent a bit of time walking along a board walk looking at some geysers and "paint pots" (bubbling mud) . We drove about 1/2 way around Yellowstone Lake, it was soooo blue and huge, every once in awhile steam could be seen spewing up from a hole in the ground or between some rocks at the edge of the lake. We did see Old faithful, had to wait an hour for her but it was worth it...

Saturday June 30th

Hey there, John is just loading the car so we will be off to see Old Faithfull etc pretty quick. Last night we stayed at the Brandin' Iron Inn in Yellowstone. Nice place. Clean, Friendly, Quiet except the bed in room 221 is pretty squeaky.
The cow wanted pizza for supper, if you are ever here order from the Wild West Pizzaria. I think it is probably the best pizza we ever had. The Cow made friends with the delivery guy.
Its hot here.

The Road Trip Begins

Well, we left home in true John and Lorna fashion...about 4 hours later than we had wanted to. Of course we had to swing by to say goodbye to our Grandboys! Seth was fast asleep and Owen was happy as usual.
There was some pretty fantastic lightning going on as we headed toward the border.
We got to Great Falls at about midnight. The hotel was pretty pathetic, we had booked it before leaving home...Yeah soooo... don't stay at the Super 8 there eh!
For those who know, we brought "The Cow" And we will be posting pics of his exploits as we go along.For those who don't know who The Cow is,Several Years ago Clint,(our friend whose wedding we are headed to in New York) snatched this cow from our house and took him on a road trip taking 4 rolls of pictures along the way. This began a tradition. Since then this widely traveled bovine has been to many far off places.He has traveled to Greece,Amsterdam,London, Poland,Rome,Spain,Germany and even a Missions trip to Seattle.Since Clint started the whole thing it only stands to reason the The Cow attends his wedding.