Separated, Social Distancing, What Ever You Want To Call It.

Ever since this pandemic began back in March, we've been told that one way to help stop the spread is to social distance or be separated from each other by at least six feet. Health professionals thought that, that distance was far enough away from each other so no one could pass the virus along by breathing on them, or coming in physical contact with them.

So with that being in place all of a sudden the one way aisles started showing up in grocery stores. Little red x's were placed six feet apart by the checkout lanes. At work they put lines on the floor six feet apart of where we were supposed to stand while waiting to punch in. They removed a whole bunch of chairs, limiting the number of people who could sit at lunch tables. They even separated the tables apart from each other. Then if the table could have two people sitting there, they put little x's where each person was aloud to sit. Now they have allowed more people to sit at each table, but now they put up little dividers to keep everyone separated.

Then of course there is the mask issue. My work place requires us to wear them all day long, as long as we are not eating or drinking at break or lunch. So that separates us from seeing each others faces. To see smiles or frowns, whatever kind of facial expression that someone is making. All we can kind of really see are their eyes.

So with all of the separating and social distancing going on, there is one thing that I implore you not to do. Do not separate yourself from God. Or social distance yourself from The Holy Spirit. In this season that we are in now, we need to get closer to God, not further away. It even says it in His word.

James 4:8 English Standard Version

8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. 

We need to be in constant contact with The Father. Reading His word, communicating with Him through prayer. We need to really press in and see what God has for us. Although the world around is changing by the hour it seems with this pandemic and what the "authorities" are telling us, one thing will never change. And that is God. 

Hebrews 13:8 New Living Translation

8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

No matter what the government is trying to mandate about this, trying to keeping us away from our family and friends during this time, God still desires to have a relationship with us. He still loves us. No matter where we are at, He is there with us. The government can't make Him separate from us, or social distance Himself from us.

Joshua 1:9 Amplified Bible

9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not be terrified or dismayed (intimidated), for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

God bless you all!!

Promises.

 Have you ever meet someone or known someone who makes a promise to you and keeps it every time? So much so that the next time that they promise you something, you are pretty sure that they are going to keep it. Not to many people are like that. Mostly promises are broken, or not fulfilled. It takes credibility away from that person. You don't trust them as much as you used to. Well you do trust them in away. You trust them not keep their promise.

I know a person who has kept every promise that He has ever made, and His name is Jesus. The Bible is filled with promises that He made to us. 

Promises about His goodness. Promise to be with us. Promise of provision, protection. Promise of answering prayer. The promise of salvation. The list goes on and on.

The one promise that He hasn't fulfilled yet is His imminent return.

Titus 2:13 Living Bible

13 looking forward to that wonderful time we’ve been expecting, when his glory shall be seen—the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

That is the hope of all believers. The return of Christ to call us all home to Him. We will spend eternity with Him. No more pain, no more sorrow, no more sadness. Hallelujah! 

But, there is this also.

Matthew 24:44 New Living Translation

44 You also must be ready all the time, for the Son of Man will come when least expected.

Are we Christians living in a way that is ready for the return of Christ? Are we doing what he commanded us to do until He comes back? Are we living God fearing lives? Are we serving each other with the love of Christ? Do we show peace, kindness and hospitality to our neighbors?

His promises are yes and amen. He is going to come back for His church and His people. We just don't know the hour or day that it will happen. 

My question to you is,

Are you prepared!

Annoyance!

The place where I work, I am the only shipping and receiving person. That means that I am responsible for every shipment going out and every shipment coming in. We have an R&D department that gets a few incoming packages a day. It seems like every time I turn around there is a package from UPS, Fed Ex Express or Fed Ex Ground. I call it nickel and diming me. Why can't they just all come at the same time? Or better yet, why can't they just all come on the same carrier? I'm trying to unload full trucks here. Each truck has at least 20 pallets on them. I don't have time for that nickel and dime stuff. Uh, gets to be very annoying. 

How many times do we think that our prayer isn't big enough for God. That we annoy Him with what we think are small piddling prayers. I mean come on. There are people that have huge prayers of healing from God, and here I am praying that I have enough battery life left in my forklift to unload this truck.

Here's the thing. All prayers are important to God. None of them are insignificant. Not one is to small or to big for God. He can handle them all.

Jeremiah 32:17 Amplified Bible

17 ‘Ah Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! There is nothing too difficult or too wonderful for You.

That's right. God can handle anything that you petition Him in prayer. 

Jeremiah 29:12 The Message

12 “When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I’ll listen.

God loves you and cares about what happens to you. The big stuff and the little stuff. He doesn't have a filing system for prayer. Filing one under important or urgent, and another as not as important. They are all important to Him.

1 John 5:15 Amplified Bible

15 And if we know [for a fact, as indeed we do] that He hears and listens to us in whatever we ask, we [also] know [with settled and absolute knowledge] that we have [granted to us] the requests which we have asked from Him.

So, I say come to Him. With what ever kind of prayer you have. Big, little, doesn't matter. We are God's children and He wants to hear from us. He will not consider us an annoyance!

The Ultimate Sin!

The Ultimate Sin was an album released in 1986 by Ozzy Osbourne. The reason that I mention this is because a radio station that I stream at work was playing a song off of this album. It started me thinking, "what is the ultimate sin?" 

The Bible tells us that there is one sin that God will not forgive. That is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, or speaking against the Holy Spirit. (Mark 3:22-30.)

My question is this. Is there an ultimate sin? One sin that is worse than any other? Is there a level of sin? To me, murder would be the greatest sin that a person could commit. Taking someone's life, I think would be very high on the list. As opposed to say, stealing a piece of candy from a store. To me, that would be very low on the sin list.

God doesn't prioritize sin. Each one is as bad as the other. 

Romans 3:23 New Living Translation

23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.

In Proverbs 6, God gives us 7 sins that He hates. But it's just a list. Not one sin listed is worse than the other. All on the same level with God.

Ecclesiastes 7:20 New Living Translation

20 Not a single person on earth is always good and never sins.

So you think that a sin that you are committing is something small and insignificant compared to what someone else is doing. You would be wrong. Murder, lying, heart that plots evil, adultery, etc. etc. It's all the same to God! He detests it all.

Come to find out, there is an ultimate sin after all. If you don't believe in, or you reject Jesus and the forgiveness that He offers. That is the greatest sin!

But there is hope!

1 John 1:9 New Living Translation

9 But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.

The Bible gives us a way to avoid such sins.

Psalm 1:1-2 New King James Version

1 Blessed is the man

Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,

Nor stands in the path of sinners,

Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;

2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord,

And in His law he meditates day and night.

Lord, I pray that every sin I commit, I repent of and accept Your forgiveness, and seek to become more like You!

Shaming (Fat, Body, Etc. Etc.)

 Lately as I've been scanning through celebrity news, I've come across a lot of stories of popular celebrities being shamed in some way or fashion. Not that I really follow these people or know what they do, it just amazes me that fans can shame an artist (or anyone) just because they did something that they didn't like. Or looked a way that they didn't like. 

Take the artist Lizzo. She is a singer who is very popular right now. She was fat shamed because of her popularity. A commentator was saying that she is only popular because of her weight. Not because she is a good singer and writes good songs. No that can't be the reason. It has to be because of her weight.

Another example is singer Billie Eilish. She is only 18 years old and already has been body shamed because she was photographed wearing a tank top and a pair of shorts. People where saying that it wasn't appropriate for her to wear that type of clothing with her body type. She already wears very baggy clothes to cover up so no one can body shame her as it is. If they can't see her body, they cannot comment on it.

My thought on this is, who cares. I mean who cares what someone writes or thinks about you and your body. It's real easy to hide behind a keyboard and shame someone for the way that they look or dress. I'm sure that these people who are tweeting out these mean statements are not the best looking or the most physically fit person either. It's real easy to judge someone else on their appearance.

Genesis 1:27 New Living Translation

27 So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

So when I hear people shaming other people because of their appearance, to me they are shaming God who created them. God doesn't make mistakes. These woman are both beautiful & talented. I'm sure that there are plenty more that I am not aware of, but these two always are the lead stories.

Luke 6:41-42 The Message

41-42 “It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,’ when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this I-know-better-than-you mentality again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your own part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.

Another type of shaming I am reading a lot about is mom shaming. Mom shaming is when a mom does something different or unconventional than what another mother would/might do with their children. I was actually dad shamed before this even became a popular term. I let me daughter do things that a conventional parent might not let their kid do. I let her eat with a fork. I let her ride the escalator by herself. The looks I got. Some of the comments I heard. "You can't let her do that." "Why not?" "She needs to learn."

So again I say to the moms/parents being shamed for the way that they are raising their children. Who cares? Raise them the way that you want. They are your children! As long as they are not put into any danger, or causing a ruckus. Of course your idea of a ruckus and my idea of a ruckus might be two different things.

Proverbs 22:6 New Living Translation

6 Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.

So my challenge is this. Live your life. No regrets. Don't let people shame you into doing or becoming something that your not! You do you!

God Bless!

Prideful Anger!

The company that I work for has an attendance bonus that you can receive if you punch in and out on time everyday of the month. Before covid, you used to have to punch in and out for breaks and lunch in addition to punching in and out for work. Now they just expect you to punch in and out at the beginning of your shift and at the end. Sounds pretty easy right. Think again (well at least in my case). Two weeks ago, in the middle of the week, I was switched from one of our facilities to the other. Now anyone who knows me well, knows that I am a creature of habit. So my whole habit was upended. I've worked the other place before, but it had been many months since I had been over there. So basically relearning everything all over again.

One day, a truck was running late to deliver some product. I really don't want the overtime and was kind of mad that they expected me to stay. My pride was getting in the way. "How dare they ask me to stay to unload a truck". "Don't they know that I have things to do?" "I don't live to work here." So long story short, I did stay and unloaded the truck even though I wasn't happy about it. So with my pride being hurt, and being ticked off, I failed to punch out when I went home. Because of my prideful anger, I just lost $150.00. That is the monthly bonus amount.

Proverbs 16:18 New Living Translation (NLT)

¹⁸ Pride goes before destruction,
    and haughtiness before a fall.

So because of my pride and haughtiness, I destroyed my paycheck by $150. Because I thought that I was more important, I let my anger get the best of me, and it cost me.

Proverbs 14:17 The Message (MSG)

¹⁷ The hotheaded do things they’ll later regret;

It wasn't until the next morning when I realized that I hadn't punched out. My boss emailed me to ask, and I told him that I was sure that I did. But then I started thinking about it. In my anger and being upset because I had to stay late, I just grabbed my stuff and headed right out the door, bypassing  the time clock. In my hotheadedness in the moment, I regretted that I just had blown my bonus for the month! We depend on that extra money each month. It was easy peasy to attain. Punch in, punch out. Pretty simple, right!

 The company doesn't always ask me to stay late, but sometimes they do. I can't ask God to provide money for our bills and then He provides overtime and then I get mad about the overtime. Who am I to question God and His provision.

Proverbs 19:11 Amplified Bible (AMP)

¹¹Good sense and discretion make a man slow to anger,
And it is his honor and glory to overlook a transgression or an offense [without seeking revenge and harboring resentment].

I pray this verse the next time something like this happens!
    

 

    

    

    

Proverbs 16:18

Memorial Bench.

 

 

When my mom passed last December, family, friends and loved ones generously gave us money in her honor. We were overwhelmed with the generosity shown to her (us). We were trying to figure out what to do with the money and how to honor her memory. We thought about putting a flag pole out at the pond in Maple Park. We decided against that. Then we thought, "why not a memorial bench?" So that is what we decided on. We contacted a local stone company to make this bench for us. We gave them all the specifics that we wanted and they said okay, we'll get started on it. We could not have been happier

with the final result. Red, white and blue boards on the back. All white boards to sit on, and a plaque with her name on it and two flags on either side.

  

 

 

Now the decision on where to put it. We again thought about that pond in Maple Park. Others had placed theirs out there. No, we didn't think that would be the best place for it. Then we had a epiphany. Why not place it at the old school building. Right by the ball diamonds where she spent hours upon hours and years watching me and my two brothers play ball. Perfect. As an added bonus there is a picture of her Dad's (our Grandpa's) gas station on the side of the building. So her memorial bench is right by the ball fields underneath the picture of her Dad's gas station. How neat is that?

 

So thank you to all who gave to make this bench a possibility. We love it, the family loves it, and I pray that whom ever sits on it will enjoy it watching whomever play's ball there.

 

                                                 

 

 

John 15:1 Amplified Bible

¹³ No one has greater love [nor stronger commitment] than to lay down his own life for his friends.

 

My mom never laid her life down for anyone. Not saying that she wouldn't have. But she sure put her life on hold or pause for many of us. She was there for me on so many occasions, as I'm sure that she was for a lot of you. Family, friend, didn't matter. If you needed her, she would be there. It didn't matter what she had going on, she would drop it and help out where and when needed. Because of this attitude that she had with her family and her friends, it showed with the outpouring of generosity to us during her passing. This what this bench means. It is memorial to her, but a reminder of what she meant to everyone that knew her.

 

God Bless you all!