In the meantime

All my questions that are unresolved don’t change the wisdom of Your will.  In every trial and loss, my hope is in the cross, where Your compassions never fail. When my fears come with no warning, in Your Word I put my trust.”  ~ Out of the Depths, Sovereign Grace Music _____________________ “Hold them [husband and children] loosely, as if you’re not holding them at all.”  ~Piper, This Momentary Marriage _____________________ “Oh taste and see that God is good to us. Taste and see His never failing love.  Our God is good.”                                 ~ Taste and See, Sovereign Grace Music ____________________ “Be a ‘there you are’ person instead of a ‘here I am’ person.”  ~Carrie Sandom, in a talk on Romans 12:14-21 _____________________ “In Your love, I know You allow what I cannot grasp, to bring You praise.  In my uncertainties Your Word is all I need to know You’r...

>>A Psalm of Degrees<< 1 Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD. 2 Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. 3 If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? 4 But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. 5 I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope. 6 My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning. 7 Let Israel hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. 8 And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities. God hears the cry that comes from the depths of our soul.  He hears the plea that rises out of heart-wrenching sorrow and anguish.  His mercy sustains us and His character is the substance of our hope.  His written WORD is the primary source for the comfort that He promises, for it is the Word that reveals the charac...

I finally finished up our last bountiful basket so it was time to get another one.  It looks like this basket is going to make us eat our salads and fruits!  There are several kinds of fruit this time: apples, watermelon, cantaloupe, mangoes, pears, kiwis, and also some kind of orange/tangerine thing. For vegetables, there are cucumbers, zucchini, romaine lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and something that reminds me of the Veggie Tales’ story of Daniel.  Can’t you just see Daniel’s enemies dancing around as they plot and sing of Daniel’s coming demise?    Any idea what these green, leafy things are and how to eat them?  They look like lettuce, but have a thicker texture than lettuce—they almost have the same plastic feeling that cabbage has. At the same time, their stems resemble celery. Maybe they are in the collard greens family. I haven’t tasted it yet, but my guess is that they are pretty mild-flavo...

He is our Father.  But we were His enemies.  For Him to be our Father, we had to be made sons and daughters.  How did He become our Father? Romans 5:6-8 calls us without strength , ungodly, sinners, enemies.  Nothing we do can make us His children.  Rather, it is Christ’s death for us at the time when we were most helpless and estranged from a holy God that has made it possible for us to be His children. 1 John 3:1  declares our adoption as sons being entirely because of God’s love toward us. What was the incredible demonstration of God’s love that has made our adoption possible?  Christ’s death and resurrection was the payment that made it possible for us to go from being God’s enemies to being His children.  His blood satisfied the Father’s righteous demands for the punishment of sin.  How do we become His children?   John 1:12 says we become the sons of God by  believing on the name of...

I came across a 3-song preview of Caroline Cobb’s album, The Blood + The Breath a few days ago and basically, I just need to get the whole CD!  The theme of the CD is  Songs that tell the story of Redemption,  with each song based on a specific Scripture passage.  At times, the lyrics are taken almost directly from the passage. The preview songs talk about Christ’s prayer in the garden from Mark 15:26-52, Pentecost in Acts 1 & 2, and finally, a challenge to wake up and listen for the trumpet sound, based on 1 Corinthians 15! To download the free preview of the album, as well as view a video of her song  The Passover Song, you can find them  HERE  . Check it out!  Praise God for His work of redemption!

  Out of the Ordinary  blog is doing a series on The Church during the month of April.  I appreciate what has been posted so far.  Hope they are a blessing to you as well!

A while back, I started a series of posts called “Describe Him A-Z”—a post for each letter of the alphabet focusing on aspects of the character of God, Christ, and the Spirit.  I only got as far as D.  Here are the previous posts on A through D: Advocate ,  Beginning ,  Comfort ,  Doctor .  I’ve decided to work on completing this series, so here goes!   As the title already shows, the Bible presents Christ as our example.   In Philippians 2:5 we find Christ’s mind as the model for where  our mind should be: thinking and being like Christ are requirements for every believer.  As the passage in Philippians 2 goes on to show, Christ humbled Himself, became a man, and gave His life for the world.  How does this aspect of Christ’s life give us an example to follow?   Dr. Courtney, a pastor in Oklahoma and one of my teachers from Cornerstone, made several important points about this passage: -...

My mind [and life] is working through a dilemma… And while it isn’t something often discussed, I’m sure other Christians deal with the same problem. I’m talking about the consistent disconnect between what my heart and mind desires as a Christian and what I actually do as I go about life. In a sense, it is the “Romans 7” scenario where “ what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.” (Romans 7:15b)   Except in a more specific situation.  I keep thinking about about how rarely things—GOOD things—spill over from my heart and mind into my interaction with people in my every day life. I want to encourage other people in their Christian walk.  I want to discuss how God has been working in my life.  I want to share my faith with my unbelieving coworkers.  I want to be a student of the Word.  It just doesn’t really seem to ever happen.    It seems oh, so hard to turn that want...

Growing up, we would often have a meal that we called “Ham Cured Chicken."  It is chicken marinated for a couple days in a ham-brine and then baked like a regular beef roast with lots of potatoes, carrots, and onions.  The result is some amazing ham-flavored chicken and vegetables! A few months ago, I wanted to make this dish,  but I didn’t have the recipe or the special ingredients for the brine.  So I decided to try my hand at figuring out a cheater version of it using only one main ingredient: Morton’s Tender Quick: Home Meat Cure.   It is available in the grocery store next to regular table salt. Yes, all you do is use  1 Tablespoon of Tender Quick for every pound of  chicken, rub it all over the chicken, and then let it marinate for at least half an hour.  If you have time, letting the chicken marinate for several hours or overnight is even better.  The longer the meat marinates, the more seaso...

Personal Bible study is important to spiritual growth.  Yet sometimes it seems dry and tasteless.  Or I don’t feel motivated to do in-depth word-studies or make a list of detailed observations from the passage… So usually I end up just reading the Bible. (Which, by the way, isn’t at all a bad thing!) However, I recently came across a new approach to reading and  breaking down a passage that I’m finding to be quite enjoyable and profitable! It goes by the self-explanatory name of Phrasing. In its most simplistic form, phrasing is just taking a set of verses and visually identifying each phrase and the relationship each phrase has to the phrase next to it. Let me show you what I mean:  I’m working through doing a few verses each day from 1 Thessalonians.  Here’s how I phrased 1:2-3:   2 We give thanks to God always                       for you all,            ...

Despite my {sarcastic} rant against quinoa and EVOO in a previous note, I really have been working on eating healthier.  The main way that has been happening has been by ordering a Bountiful Basket (a $20 box filled with 3-5 different fruits and 3-5 different kinds of vegetables)! All said, it is probably a good 10-15 pounds of produce that needs to be consumed in some way! The last two baskets have filled our refrigerator with apples, pears, oranges, a pineapple, green, yellow, red, and orange peppers, squash, zucchini, onions, tomatoes—cherry and regular, 2 avocados, 3 heads of lettuce, celery, beets, 2 cabbages, radishes, carrots, and asparagus. (And I feel like there were a couple other things, but I can't remember what they would be.) Because it is a lot of fresh produce for the two of us to eat, the key to making sure we’re not wasting our money is to make sure that we don’t let it rot in the refrigerator… Sooo, the responsibility...