Monday, February 11, 2008

123 Meme

Ed, over at cross the road, tagged me. So here goes:

Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. No cheating!
Find Page 123.
Find the first 5 sentences.
Post the next 3 sentences.
Tag 5 people.

No cheating, Ed said, so from the book closest to me at this moment, The Ryrie Study bible, NASV, red letter:

All the people perceived the thunder and the lightning flashes and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood at a distance. Then they said to Moses, "Speak to us yourself and we will listen; but let not God speak to us, or we will die." Moses said to the people, "Do not be afraid; for God has come in order to test you, and in order that the fear of Him may remain with you, so that you may not sin."So the people stood at a distance, while Moses approached the thick cloud where God was.


If there are still five of you reading this blog consider yourselves tagged.

Saturday, February 02, 2008

Be Careful what you ask for

Late last week and in the early part of this week my prayers focused on servant hood. Specifically, I prayed that I could be more of servant to my wife and kids. That said, Jared, the younger Kayos kid, came down with a case of the pukes while at school on Monday. His older brother Jake, came down with a nasty flu-like virus on Tuesday. By Wednesday, Jared shook the pukes and was back at school. Come Thursday morning the kid had a 103 temp and had caught whatever Jake had and was home for the duration of the week. Jake made it back to school for Friday. Meanwhile, Gail was getting slammed with school work as she pursues her masters. Yikes...I didn't really have a choice, serving was my only option.
The previous week I had been praying for opportunities to share God's love with someone who might need it. Out of the blue a casual acquaintance, and I do mean casual, like I met the dude once, casual, emailed me, asking if we could talk. It turned out he had a pretty crappy couple of weeks and a friend suggested he call me. So he did. We hung out a bit, traded some emails and are supposed to get together again. Someone who was hurting tracked me down. Again, I didn't really have a choice.
Every once in a while I will drift through these "Does prayer really do anything?" phases. I'm glad God isn't above smacking me in the back of the head to get my attention.
Jesus was matter-of-fact: "Embrace this God-life. Really embrace it, 23 and nothing will be too much for you. This mountain, for instance: Just say, "Go jump in the lake'--no shuffling or shilly-shallying--and it's as good as done. 24 That's why I urge you to pray for absolutely everything, ranging from small to large. Include everything as you embrace this God-life, and you'll get God's everything. Mark 11:22-26