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Category: Devotional

Friends Are the Ones Around When it Rains

Friends Are the Ones Around When it Rains In high school we got sick of the M. Smith song, “Friends are friends forever.” Real life teaches you it isn’t true. Those you thought were friends for years can forget you and even turn on you if you don’t live up to their expectations. And it hurts. I used to use the teaching tool: A true friend C.A.R.E.S. when teaching kids: C = challenges you to be a better person A = accepts you just the way you are, they don’t reject you when you mess up R = respects you, they don’t do things to hurt or damage you, they don’t ‘get even’ E = encourages you – they are there when you need them most S = sticks with you, no matter what A genuine friend who was in town this week said something that I wanted to post here: “A friend is someone who runs in when everyone else is running out.” I just wanted to say thank you to those who have been a genuine friend to me in the past several months… there have been many, and often not the ones I would have expected. God…

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The Love of God is Overwhelming

Today I was amazed that my devotional reading was perfectly exactly what I needed today. Then, as I shared it with my wife, she noticed that I was actually off by a day… I’m not sure when I missed a day and as I expressed my disappointment that I “goofed” somehow and got off in my Oswald Chambers Journal, my wife pointed out, that if today’s message was exactly what I needed, then God actually had me get off somehow so that I would “accidently” read today’s today, instead of when I supposed to. All that to say, even in our mundane mistakes, God is at work. Today was a difficult day in my private journey as a pilgrim of Christ. I’ll leave it at that as far as details go, but enough to say, of all the difficult days I may experience in life, today will always be one of the most difficult I ever had to face. And yet God’s peace was evident and his mercy flowed freely and his grace was abundant. My passage today (accidently) was “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” (Romans 8:37) I’d like to share…

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Slow Down. There is beauty that is often missed.

I was in Orlando last week for the Children’s Pastor’s Conference and will be posting more about that on Kidology.org, but I wanted to post some pictures from the Coranado Springs Resort where I stayed. But I have to tell you something about myself… I don’t take the usual pictures! I like to see what others walk right past. All of the pictures below (and it was hard to narrow down the ones I wanted to post) were taken right off the path at the resort. Behind a bush, down by the water, over a bridge, beside a building, etc. At my new slower pace of life I am taking more time to slow down and open my eyes to the beauty around me, and it was actually fun to be stopping and taking close up pictures of nature in a very ‘man-made’ place with people scurring past me in a hurry to get to the amusement park or other activities. Several times people stopped and asked, “What are you taking a pictures of?” surprised to see me kneeling or hunched over where there didn’t really appear to be anything worth the effort… but I think these pictures prove that…

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A Walk in the Garden of GOD

NOTE: All images in this post are clickable for wallpaper size. “Thou art the God of the early mornings, the God of the late at nights, the God of the mountain peaks… but my God, my soul has further horizons… higher than any mountain peak… Thou who art God of all these, be my God.” (Psalm 139) While I was in Colorado I got to take a day to do the one thing that “re-creates” me most deeply, spend time alone, with God, in nature, with only a camera and an iPod loaded with worship music….. ahhhhhhhh The place was “Garden of the Gods” but I prefer to call it the “Garden of God.” It’s a place I often visited as a young boy living in Colorado, so it was so nice to visit again decades later! There is just something powerfully refreshing to walk around a place that is so ageless, it somehow puts your life in perspective… God is not in a hurry. He takes his precious time to do His work, and it is always a master peice. The view from the highway heading in. I love to climb, but was not equipped to rope climb on…

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2006 – A Year of Dramatic Change

2006. Wow.   There is no way to summarize last year. 2006 contained more change than any year I’ve ever experienced. 2006 was a year that was filled with the happiest and yet the hardest times in my entire life. When we look back we tend to want to focus on the worst… and yet, even in the midst of extremely difficult times, it is good to remember that God never fails to bring joy in the midst of suffering… if we take the time to look.I started this blog, kidologist.com, in April of 2005 when I went on sabbatical in order to chronicle my adventures during those fantastic six weeks, but I’m so glad the habit stuck. Any time I am down and wondering where is (or where was) God, I can simply click through the archives of my blog and am flooded with memories of great times and great memories, super friends and special kids, especially when I miss most of what was once my daily life. Indeed, 2006 brought a lot of changes, and at times, more than I could handle, and I failed miserably in keeping on top of everything, and yet in that brokeness God…

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