What Makes "Good" Soil Good?

(from Sunday's teaching on Mt. 13, btw)


farmers & scientific types tell us that soil good for growing crops (often called "loam") contains a mixture of

1. clay (40%)
   
2. sand (40%)
   
3. silt (20%)
   

clay helps retain moisture;
sand helps release moisture;
silt is the result of water or rock grinding out just about everything but the really fine flour-like particles of soil ("dust in the wind" - thank you, Kansas).

our lives likewise must retain (hold fast) certain things, release (turn loose) certain things, and mix in certain things.

what i see the Scripture telling us to hold fast to (retain) is:

1. the Word (1 cor 15:2)
   
2. our Hope (1 tim 6:12)
   
3. His Name (rev 2:13)

what i see the Scripture telling us to turn loose of (release) is:

1. the early stuff (heb 6:1)
2. every weight (heb 12:1)
3. the sin (heb 12:1)

what i see the Scripture telling us about mixing in is

1. it's all good (rom 8:28)
2. He's making something out of us (1 pet 2:5)

ok, that's my $.02. what else do you see the Lord telling us to lay hold of, turn loose of, & mix into our lives?


chime in!

Susan Boyle - Loving Mercy

perhaps you've already seen the clip of susan boyle, the 47-year old singer who stunned the audience & judges (notably simon cowell) on "britain's got talent" - the UK version of "american idol."

she was getting zero love from the judges & audience until she began to sing - jaws dropped, eyebrows were raised, and soon the audience was on its feet.

here's the clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxPZh4AnWyk

i'm struck by a couple of things...

first - human nature is so piggish - no one cared about her until they saw what she could do. it's as if she really wasn't a person of worth until people saw she had great vocal talent. then, and only then, was she "worth" something. i'm so glad the Lord is just the opposite, aren't you? he values us, sees us as worth something - not because of what we can do, but rather, in spite of it.

second, Micah 6:8 tells us that God wants us to "love mercy." oh, we all love mercy when we are on the receiving end (as in when the officer says he/she is letting us off with a warning!). but giving out mercy (the Bible often translates the same word as love) is another story.

when susan boyle stepped out on stage, she got no love - no mercy from anyone. i'm not sure any of us would have been any different had we been in the audience. i'm sure most of us would have been rolling eyes & shrugging shoulders with simon & the audience.

the point is this, growing up in the Lord means that we need to grow in loving to show mercy - just get it. how to do that? 1) ask for His help & 2) go out & practice it!

"Crown of Thorns" Galaxy - (Hubble Picture)

the hubble space telescope has just given us this image - called, appropriately, the "Crown of Thorns" galaxy...



from foxnews (article here):

An unusual large galaxy with a shape bordering between spiral and elliptical has been spotted by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

NGC 7049 sits in the southern constellation Indus, and is the brightest of a cluster of galaxies, a so-called Brightest Cluster Galaxy (BCG). Typical BCGs are some of the oldest and most massive galaxies, which provide excellent opportunities for astronomers to study the elusive globular clusters lurking within.

The halo, a ghostly region of diffuse light surrounding the galaxy, is composed of myriads of individual stars and provides a luminous background to the swirling ring of dust lanes surrounding NGC 7049's core.

Small faint points of light sprinkled throughout the galaxy represent globular clusters, which are gravitational groupings of several hundreds of thousands of stars. They contain some of the first stars to be produced in a galaxy.

NGC 7049 has far fewer such clusters than other similar giant galaxies in very big, rich groups. This indicates to astronomers how the surrounding environment influenced the formation of galaxy halos in the early universe.

Hubble captured this image using its Advanced Camera for Surveys, which is primed to hunt galaxies and galaxy clusters in the remote and ancient universe. The space telescope recently imaged a group of colliding galaxies chosen in an online voting contest.

Psalm 19:1-3 "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.

Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge.

There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard."

jonah found a boat

jonah found a boat to take him the opposite direction the Lord had asked him to go.

isn't that always the case? any time we run away from God, it's amazing how a boat (ie, a relationship, a substance, an activity) will be waiting to take us there.



but jonah also found something else: there was a price to be paid for hiring that vessel. running away from God always comes with a price. relationships fail & bring heartache, substances imprison, activities become expensive & empty.

haven't we found that running to God is always better than running from Him?