To good not to share

Nugget of the Week
Adopt the Pace of God
By John Mason
September 20, 2007
God is a planner, a strategist. He is incredibly organized and has a definite pace. More like a marathon runner than a sprinter, He has our whole lives in mind, not just tomorrow. Remember God is never late. Never try to hurry God. "He that believeth shall not make haste," the Bible says in Isaiah 28:6. Urgent matters are seldom urgent. Pressure usually accompanies us when we are out of God's pace.

Proverbs 16:9 says, "We should make plans, counting on God to direct us." Proverbs 16:3 tells us, "Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed." Cowards never start, and the lukewarm die along the way. God is the original's hope and the copy's excuse. Is God your hope or your excuse?

Adopt the pace of God; His secret is patience. There is no time lost in waiting if you are waiting on the Lord. The road to success runs uphill, so don't expect to break any speed records. All great achievements require time. Happiness is a direction, not a destination.

Abraham Lincoln, during the darkest hours of the Civil War, said in response to the question whether he was sure God was on his side, "I do not know: I have not thought about that. But I am very anxious to know whether we are on God's side."

Walking in the pace of God helps establish us on the proper foundation. Nothing is permanent unless it is built on God's will and God's Word. "Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it" (Ps. 127:1).

Every great person first learned how to obey, whom to obey, and when to obey. A famous anonymous poem says, "The place I choose, or place I shun, my soul is satisfied with none; but when Thy will directs my way, 'tis equal joy to go or stay."

God has your whole life in mind when He directs you...
-John Mason, from the book You're Born An Original - Don't Die A Copy! I had planned to post this Sunday but "life" just got in the way. Our ladies group at church is starting a craft night, I will try and post some of the results....if nothing else it should be a lot of fun. BE BLESSED

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JKBee

First you need a new gown, (Designs by W.G.) and then it's off to the party. There will be music, and dancing in the streets. What is the occasion ? IT'S JANET'S BIRHTDAY Yeah !!!!!! And for a true gypsy spirit there is only one mode of tranportation:
Yep, you guessed it a real gypsy wagon. Now I'm off to find the horses, or maybe unicorns.
See you at the party.

CELEBRATE CELEBRATE CELEBRATE CELEBRATE

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JANET

Common and not so common

What a wonderful surprise this little beauty was. Why a surprise you might ask, the answer, I did not plant it. I did plant all of the other plants in the circle around this tree, however I did not plant this red one. I noticed the stems coming up and thought that it was strange as I did not recognize it but decided to leave it alone and see what might happen. Can you believe it has taken it three years to show up? Maybe I have little fairies coming in the night and planting? And the other beautiful thing I have to show you is this picture of a flower that someone sent to me.

Have you ever seen a flower like this before?

It really does look like a parrot...........

Last craft porject

I have a granddaughter that LOVES horses. She has a birthday coming up soon so I had to put on the thinking cap and see if I could come up with something. I collect wallpaper books whenever I can get them and when I saw the pictures of the horses I knew it would have to be a project for Mia, so that was the source of my pictures. The tin on the left was picked up at a thrift store for .50 and the Kleenex holder was a whole .25. It just so happen they were the same color. If you click on the picture you will probably be able to read the letters on the tin.....they are MB, which in this case stood for the maker of the cookies, however MB just happens to be Mia's initials. This was a blessing I did not even notice until I started to clean the tin. (God is so good, yes I am one of those that believe God is in control, He knows what we need, He desires to bless us, and the footsteps of the righteous are ordered by the Lord, I do not believe in coincidence.) The picture covered their add, the plaque with her name I made out of clay. The inside I covered with felt. I think it is fairly obvious what I did to the Kleenex box. So there you have it. It is a wonderful 67 here this morning so I must get busy in the yard.

Current Project

As you can see, I have a "helper". Her name is Salu, which is a Hebrew word that means, God restores. She has a hearing problem but I know God can fix it. She is a good cat that found us when she was a small kitten, we think she followed our big black and white cat we call Buddy. We think we know where they USE to live but when I went over there to ask if they were missing a black & white tomcat, they swore he WAS NOT THEIRS. Well with about 40 cats running around why would you miss one ? So we adopted them, had them fixed, and they are very healty and happy here. Our current count is 1 in the house, 4 outside, 1 of which came up here with us and is 23 years old and the other 3 are the ones that "found us".
So back to the project. This top picture with Salu is a new path that leads to our well. When I finish with it, it will have pine bark and big rocks on both sides. The bottom picture is going to be a new path that will lead out to the area where you see the rocks...there is a BIG hole there, the path will step down, the sand that is being removed from the path will go into the hole to help fill it part way up. The idea is to finish with a sunken garden. Thanks to my friend Janet, after some brain storming she said, "why not do a sunken garden"? So there you have it and now you know what I will be doing over the next few months. This morning I cleaned off the craft table, and do not think I will be starting anything new for awhile. I am finishing up with two things I made for my granddaughter, Mia that just might be my next post......till then, BE BLESSED

Interview with Rick Warren

This is an absolutely incredible interview with Rick Warren, author of "Purpose Driven Life". His wife now has cancer, and he now has "wealth" from the book sales. In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said: "People ask me, "What is the purpose of life?" And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven. One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body--but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity. We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense. Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one. The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort, God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ's likeness. This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer. I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountain top, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore. Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life. No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for. You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems. If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, "which is my problem, my issues, my pain." But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others. We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her. It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people. You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life. Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy. It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease. So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72. First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases. Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church. Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation. Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free. We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)? When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better. God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do. That's why we're called human beings, not human doings. Happy moments, PRAISE GOD. Difficult moments, SEEK GOD. Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD. Painful moments, TRUST GOD. Every moment, THANK GOD. " Hope this blessed you as much as it did me.