Marching Forth!

" Consider the work of God; f or who can make straight what He has made crooked? 14  In the day of prosperity be joyful, b ut in the day of adversity consider:  s urely God has appointed the one as well as the other,  s o that man can find out nothing that will come after him ." Ecclesiastes 7:13-14 Written by the wisest king who ever ruled, Solomon affirmed the sovereignty and goodness of God.  God allows the rain to fall upon the just and the unjust, and He allows situations we view as good and bad.  Though God's ways are higher than ours, He can be known by all as the loving, compassionate, gracious, and awesome God He is.  Knowing He is in everything and can redeem it for our good changes the way we view prosperity and adversity, for He has appointed one as well as the other. It is erroneous to assume "bad" things which happen are of the devil, and that good things are the product of our deserving them.  God created our bodies to feel...

I have been reading through A.W. Tozer's A Cloud by Day, a Fire by Night , a short compilation of selected sermons by James L. Snyder.  Tozer enjoyed poetry and hymns, and last night I read a poem by Oswald J. Smith titled "Deeper and Deeper" on page 107: Into the heart of Jesus Deeper and deeper I go, Seeking to know the reason Why He should love me so, Why He should stoop to lift me Up from the miry clay, Saving my soul, making me whole, Though I had wandered away. The key to appreciating the sentiments of this poem are found in the first line:  it is Jesus we are to seek as we relish His grace and love.  It does us no good to look to ourselves to see why we are worthy of God's compassion, deliverance, and salvation because in our flesh no good thing dwells.  The world looks at Jesus through many lenses of unbelief, seeing no beauty in the One crucified on Calvary.  But those who have received His love and redemption through faith in Jesu...

In all seasons of life God provides opportunities to walk in humility before Him.  Today I saw a video of a young teen playing baseball who hits home runs with ease.  That was always a dream of mine in Little League:  to hit a home run over the fence.  Though a proficient player and coming close several times, it was a goal I was never able to achieve.  I bounced balls off the fence, but never hit one out. A high degree of skill or below-average ability in sport both have ways of exposing pride and our need for repentance and humility.  The trouble about being good at something is we begin to have high expectations of ourselves we never had when first starting out.  As my bowling average rose with practice, so did my expectations of better scores.  Games I would have been pleased with years before when I was just "having fun" became a source of frustration.  But it wasn't 10-pin bowling, my team, my poor technique, or the score which was t...

" Train up a child in the way he should go, a nd when he is old he will not depart from it. " Proverbs 22:6 When I was an apprentice, a big part of my training was following the example set by my foreman concerning how he wanted work done.  Over many years I spread my time between several different foremen and they all had different standards and expectations.  My conduct was a mix between standards of quality established in the classroom as well as in the field on the job among my peers.  I was required to switch gears quickly between tasks and multiple job sites, remembering how particular bosses wanted duct wrapped, chillers covered with rubber, or how exposed metalwork should be completed.  I benefited from working under and receiving training from journeyman who had different specialities. Solomon exhorted parents to train up children in the right way applying knowledge of God's wisdom and truth.  Being a proverb, however, this is not an absolute...