Marching Forth!

For some time now I have noticed a blue tongue lizard that likes to sun himself near my garage door.  When approached from the outside with the door closed, he retreats through a gap into my garage.  Curious where he scurried off to, I observed a small depression in the concrete where he crouched close against the exterior wall.  Well, as long as he stays there it shouldn't be a problem, I thought.  Blue tongues eat snails, which we have outside our house in abundance.  Because of his small size and usefulness I saw little need to block off the gap. But then I started thinking:  if a blue tongue lizard can easily crawl into my garage, there is nothing to keep destructive pests like mice and rats from sneaking in as well.  I decided to purchase some wood to fill the gap.  Yesterday by our freezer, I saw an large amount of fluid and solid waste - the size of a pinky finger.  Uh oh, I thought to myself.  That is unmistakably reptile dro...

As I walked from the bus stop today, evidence of spring was all around.  Nearly every tree and shrub had bunches of fresh, new growth at the tip of every branch.  Tender green foliage was noticeable everywhere I looked.  Trees that shed their leaves during winter are now cloaked with bright green, and even our sad lemon and mandarin trees have shoots of new growth.  Last year I trimmed back both trees and was disappointed with the result.  They did not grow, bud, or fruit.  But what a difference spring makes! My lemon tree has been the source of many good object lessons for me.  It was evident right from the start that a former tenant had taken upon themselves to trim the tree.  It was an utter disaster:  the top was chopped, suckers below the graft were allowed to remain, and it had been neglected.  Insects had ravaged the leaves.  Not only was the tree fighting pests and poor pruning, the location was awful.  Tucked away in...

In the New Testament, sin is sometimes compared with leaven.  Even as a small amount of leaven will leaven the entire lump of dough, sin allowed to remain in a life or a church will permeate and corrupt it.  Leaven is not always a direct reference to sin, however.  Jesus refers to doctrine as leaven.  Doctrine means " instruction, teaching ."  Matthew 16:6 states, " Then Jesus said to them, "Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees ."  The section concludes in Matthew 16:12 :  " Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees ."  As there is sound doctrine, there is also bad doctrine.  The doctrine or teaching to which a man holds will influence his life, even as leaven permeates and changes the consistency of dough.  Jesus told His disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, for adherence to it would...

I saw an advertisement today about a new iphone.  Apple promotes this product as a ingenious marvel of design, perfectly fitting in the human hand.  The thing I find highly ironic about this commercial is we marvel over advances in modern technology but miss the timeless engineering of the human hand!  What is harder to create:  an ergonomically designed phone, or a hand to effectively use the phone?  There is no way a glass and metallic box of circuits and a battery is more complex than a hand created by God.  The voice over in the ad says concerning the customised screen, " That's either an amazing coincidence, or a dazzling display of common sense.  Pretty sure it's the common sense thing ."  Obviously. Without God, there would be no common sense.  No logical sense comes out of sheer randomness.  No operative systems manage to develop either in the government or in the human body without the control of intelligent beings.  N...