Hi, Mara.
It was a chilly walk/jog that Mama Becki and I did up the hill this morning. But, at the same time, it’s fun to be outside in the expanse of God’s creation. I particularly enjoy doing that routine along with my college sweetheart.
My day yesterday took a course I was not previously expecting. It just occurred to me that I still had one day left on the TRIP PERMIT for my boom truck, and that Thano did not work at Safeway today, so we could follow through with a long-standing commitment to remove a group of pine trees for the same farmer that has given a bunch of standing trees to Thano as a firewood resource. So we did it. Two things went wrong in that little venture: Thano dropped one of those trees onto my boom truck cab. The driver door was open so it was pretty badly damaged. The other mishap is that one of my favorite Stihl 038 chainsaws gave out. Not sure what has gone wrong inside. I’ll have it checked out. Just for the fun of it, I’ll stick on a photo that offers a glimpse of that setting. Thano is back behind the truck up on top of a log cutting off limbs. And if you look careful, you can see big beautiful Mt. Hood on the horizon.
I better get on with my big list of objectives.
Blessings, love—Tua.
That’s a pretty clear order. But please understand, Samara, most people don’t get it! There are a lot of people out there who are all goofed up in their dirty little sinner hearts—with totally crazy thinking (read 3:7 again)—really believing that they are wonderful people who deserve heaven simply because they exist—that the only reason God exists, if He exists, is to bless them and give them what they want—even getting mad at Him if He doesn’t—never considering the Biblical fact that the only reason they exist is to bless God, to honor Him, to love Him, and to serve Him.
Please understand this too: Corrupt thinking doesn’t end there with unconverted sinners—it can actually spill over into half-converted Christians who still go to church but live a form of luke-warm contaminated Christianity. They are the deceived kind who try to get as close as they can to sin and worldliness, but reserve enough room in their duplicity to still call themselves “Christian,” and still get in on heaven. I have to regard that as a very risky and stupid way to live—definitely NOT why Jesus died on the cross so as to rescue us from sin and its eternal consequences.
Therefore, in view of these Biblical realities, the better part of WISDOM is not to see how close we can get to sin and still be saved, but to see how close we can get to totally pleasing our Maker/Redeemer. Duh!