Category: life lessons

Perpetual Motion

Like anyone, the idea of “perpetual motion” (PM) mildly intrigues me (emphasis on “mildly.)  PM inventors are a strange lot. They are kind of like “flat-earthers.” They deeply and sincerely believe they have invented something that runs off its own productive energy, requiring nothing to keep it working.  However, there is undisputed scientific consensus that perpetual motion would violate the first law of thermodynamics.

There is a great deal of manipulating and posturing among those who believe in PM.  Their inventions somehow require secrecy, and than a real “step-of-faith” on investors and supporters.  I have seen blueprints and illustrations of PM machines, and I can see the attraction.  But it seems that there is also an ingrained arrogance among  the inventors.  They believe they have accomplished the ultimate.  They have invented something so awesome that everything pales in significance.

Among believers there can exist a belief in a “faith” that cannot contain a deep sense of what is true and real.  Yielding to PM and its variations delivers us into a mistaken and tricky reality.  What we think and feel cannot be verified or supported.  I guess that’s one of the reasons a lot of significance is put on illustrations, and blueprints.  A picture of a PM apparatus has a deeper “wow factor.”

Within a disciple’s life, there can be a profound quest for perpetual motion.  We come to the place where we start imagining a spiritual walk that is always going forward.  We feel we can fly on auto-pilot of the Spirit,   we switch it on and than we leave the cockpit to visit with the passengers.  There are no conflicts, sin, issues or hardships.  We are living the “victorious Christian life” after all.

But the stark realities say otherwise.  No matter how positive we try to become, we face situations that threaten to dismantle our faith.  There comes a realization over time, that there is no yellow brick road.  The song birds don’t serenade us, and everything doesn’t click into place and fit nicely.  Life does not come with a teflon coating.  It is a struggle, a wrestling match.  We would be wise to understand this. 

Related articles

Classic Spotlight CCM–Amy Grant

“El Shaddai” is a wonderful song.  Amy has represented our Lord God in a wonderfully sincere way.  The Church owes her a deep debt and a considerable degree of blessing.  This song was recorded in 2004, at a live concert.  “She has been referred to as “The Queen of Christian Pop”. As of 2009, Grant remains the best-selling contemporary Christian music singer ever, having sold over 30 million units worldwide.”

“Grant has won six Grammy Awards, 25 Gospel Music Association Dove Awards, and had the first Christian album ever to go Platinum.  Heart in Motion is her highest selling album, with over five million copies sold in the United States alone. She was honored with a star on Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2005 for her contributions to the entertainment industry.”

During an interview with CBN.com [in 2010,] Grant says, “…my hope is just for those songs to provide companionship, remind myself and whoever else is listening what’s important. I feel like songs have the ability to connect us to ourselves and to each other, and to our faith, to the love of Jesus, in a way that conversation doesn’t do. Songs kind of slip in and move you before you realize it.”

In 2007, Amy was inducted into the Christian Music Hall of Fame.

Quotes taken from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Grant

Mothers, They Need More Than One Day

Motherhood Quotes

 

A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.  ~Tenneva Jordan

 Some mothers are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together.  ~Pearl S. Buck

An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.  ~Spanish Proverb

The formative period for building character for eternity is in the nursery. The mother is queen of that realm and sways a scepter more potent than that of kings or priests. ~Author Unknown

If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands?  ~Milton Berle

Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible.  ~Marion C. Garretty

Grown don’t mean nothing to a mother.  A child is a child.  They get bigger, older, but grown?  What’s that suppose to mean?  In my heart it don’t mean a thing.  ~Toni Morrison, Beloved, 1987

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.  ~William Makepeace Thackeray

A little girl, asked where her home was, replied, “where mother is.”  ~Keith L. Brooks

God could not be everywhere, so he created mothers.  ~Jewish Proverb

Insist on the Light

I’m starting to raise my voice now.  Please, in regards to your discipleship.  Please insist on the light.  Demand–don’t try to live without it!  There will only and always will be sore regret and dark confusion if you move through your life, “sleepwalking.”

We need for people to “shock” us and guide us to the certain truth of the Gospel.  This world system impedes us, and blocks our progress.  It is a deep dark mist that separates us from the light.  The darkness is a confusing presence.  It is most difficult to deal with.  Our race (the human race) is most crippled and handicapped by the presence of evil.  It scatters us and than it seeks control of us.

The one thing that can save us is to insist on the light.

“He will use every kind of evil deception to fool those on their way to destruction, because they refuse to love and accept the truth that would save them.”

2 Thessalonians 2:10, NLT

 

The battle is fierce and it is long.  Someone is hunting us.  Satan‘s great strategy is too bring us into even more confusion than we are even now experiencing.  His specialty is to lead us right into the dark.

I have many brothers that have been drawn into the dark.  They’ve now grown accustomed to it, and they say they were just going “through a phase.”  I’m deeply saddened, for Kelly, and Allen, and Jonathan.  They were, and still are my brothers.  I am ripped up inside because of their apostasy.  I know they can’t be happy.  And, part of me waits for them to rejoin the faith they once professed.  It has been 30 years since we worshipped together.  I miss them.

We must insist on the light.  We really can not compromise on anything less.  His light guides and delivers us into his hands.  Second Thessalonians speaks about having “a love for the truth.”  Could that be the reason so many have stumbled?  To “love” someone of something implies devotion or committment.  We are to become “lovers” of everything that is true.

The dark is sticky.  It more or less grabs you, and you can’t get it off your hands.  The love, power and blood of Jesus is the only thing potent enough to remove it.  Since we go through this life “hurley-burley” and a bit confused, we will need to rely constantly of God’s remedy to cleanse fully.

I exhort you most deeply and certainly, love the light.  Welcome it and seek its control over you.  Abolish any attempt on finding another way.  Be illuminated and throughly affected by the light’s presence.  There will be many who violate and distort the light.  Do not believe them.