I can hear that song from the Movie Annie, where she sings about tomorrow. How everything will be all right tomorrow. The only problem is that tomorrow never comes. When tomorrow comes it is today. We need to dream and hope for the future. It is an important part of our life. Without it we would became dissolute and depressed. Without hope life would became worthless. That is when people take their lives. There is more to life than that. What are you looking for? What is your goal and can you achieve it? I am all for thinking big. Wanting to do something worthwhile. I hate to ever say it because it would seem that there is no hope. I have seen a person who made a 6 on their ACT test become a dean in a college. I have seen people take what little resources they had and make into a thriving business. There is nothing impossible for God to do. On the other hand, it is impossible for any man to change into a righteous person before God. Everything that we have coincides with the work of God. Now I have seen people take what God gave them and turn it into a pile of trash. It is unfortunate it happens more often than not. Man thinks that he is large and in charge of his own destiny. It is the exact opposite. God is the only one who is large and in charge. And when He shares His life with us we become winners. All this hoorah about crystals, pyramids, or every other supposedly god-like object is garbage. There is only one God and He is ready for you to come His way and live.
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Looking into the New Year, I wonder what will happen to me. It is the unknown that has always been scary to me. Whether or not I would make it until tomorrow. As you strive to achieve in this world, you build and establish what you want to happen. Which at any given moment can be taken away by death. Do you treasure the things of earth more than heaven or vice versa? Then what do you do when it requires your life. Do you stand up and be counting or not? People have reality shows but they aren’t about reality. Reality is something that most people don’t think about. What is reality in your life? Is it just the mundane? Are you just about food, clothing and shelter or do you see beyond that? It is so easy to get caught up in working for a living and see nothing else. But there is so much more to life than your existence. Growing up I always felt a higher calling. Not that people don’t want to achieve things in their lives. I felt that there was more than just my life at stake. I would always get glimpses of things I was supposed to do. It excited me and terrified me at the same time. The most spectacular thing that I have ever than is not for public consumption. When you get to heaven ask God. He tell you the story. It scare me almost to death. And I literally mean death. When I came out on the other side I felt almost invincible. I had to be careful about that because pride goes before the fall. God used me in His work on earth and gave me the credit. He still has things for me to do. I am baulking at it. Because on the one hand I am terrified. On the other hand I am very excited about the work. If you wish to help pray. Thanks.
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After watching 12 hours of college football and eating, I am fully disgusted. I am too full of food for sure. Also I am disgusted at lop sided football games. There was nothing else decent to watch on TV. All the cable channels had the same old same old stuff. I can remember when there were good shows on television. And I am not talking about 50 years ago. It is like they stopped trying to produce quality shows. I don’t know if they are disgusted or just gave up on trying. I always thought that trying to improve oneself was a good goal to strive for. The betterment of oneself and the work that you produce was an achievable goal for anyone. It just seems that people have become mercenary. I sorry but some of the sponsors for the bowl games seem to come out of the woodworks. Then there were a dozen more sponsors on the same game. If there weren’t signs everywhere for the cameras to see, there were commercials enough to choke a horse. Then every player’s jersey was a billboard for the sponsor of the game. Are people really hurting that much for money or they just trying to pile it up in their corner. It is a sad state of affair for amateur sports to be so heavily invested in by corporate America. Again maybe it is just a sad state of affair for man. I am all for helping young people receive an education, but what is the real cost for each individual. Sometimes I think it is way too heavy a price to pay for these young men and women. There is still more football games to come. So I’ll tell how it goes after another day in the neighborhood. Have a blessed day.
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As the song says another day older and deeper in debt. What does the New Year hold for you? Are you excited about the prospect of another year? There is always hope for the future. You never know what it hold for you. I was glad when I was given several days off from work during the holidays. I ate too much and I am going to be cooking today and watch football games on TV. Some people are recovering from the party last night. In which they indulge too much in alcohol. I gave up the alcohol so long ago because I didn’t want it to control my life. I found that I could have fun with people without booze. You know there are no guarantees for our life in the coming days. We as a people have to walk it all out, step by step, inch by inch and mile by mile. It depends on whether you are the glass half full kind of person. Hope is a fragile thing. It can be taken away by well-meaning people. You have to believe in what you are doing to make a difference. Then you have to take this belief to the ninth degree. I guess life does require fanatical belief in your life. Wanting to better yourself and your family’s lives. Why else would people get married and have children. I applauded people who pursue life with their hearts wide open ready for anything. It truly is the only way to live. It is true your heart will get stomped on and trampled under foot. But if you truly believe what is there to stop you. The pain is not the point of the whole exercise. It is how you live your life. That is what counts in the end. It is believing in what is true and trusting to make it into the next world. Happy New Year.
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When the Bowl Games were announced, it was printed on one whole newspaper page. There is a bowl game every day during the holiday and twice on Sunday. There are 50 or 60 bowl games. And every one is commercially sponsored. I wonder who would sponsor the toilet bowl. It’s the bowl for last place and the runner-up. It doesn’t matter what your season has been like. The only criteria for being chosen for a bowl game is if you can draw a crowd and make money. It is a sad state of affairs when you win/lose record doesn’t count. There are only 3 games that actually count for the national championship. I guess you can’t blame TV companies. Their programing is so bad they have to do something to make money. I have cable and about 90 channels. There are 5 TV shows that I will watch. Then I have to keep the remote handy to mute all the commercials. It used to be that television shows would run all year. Now they only make 12 or 13 show per season. That is why there are so many re-runs. And if there is one reality show there is a million. Everything has to be a reality show. It started with singing, then dating, then camping, then boating, then trapping, then swapping wives, then it got a whole lot dumber than that. The cable networks ought to called stupidity center. But what is worse than that is there are sponsors. Are business so hard up for money that they will sponsor anything? It is just sad to look at grown people producing trash after all the money they spent on school to learn a trade. It seems they forgot what is real and what isn’t. We are coming to a new year and hopefully things will get better. But I know as long as man is in control it will not get better. I’m praying.
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What is your favorite new year’s resolution? My personal favorite is losing weight. There are so many that have been broken. His are a few good ones. They are losing weight, quit smoking, learning something new, eating right, saving money, more time with the family, travel to new places, less stress, volunteer and drink less. Most of these are a habit that we formed years ago. Now seems it is hard to break the habit. The formula for breaking a habit is quite simple. It takes about 30 days of work. If you stop doing whatever for 30 days, it will break the habit. The opposite is just as true. Did you know that there is a name for most every generation? There is the GI Generation (WWI), Silent Generation (1920-45), Baby Boomers (1946-64), Generation X (1965-80), Generation Y (1981-2000) and the Boomlets. No matter what generation you belong to, all of these New Year resolutions have been broken by you. Improving yourself is a quest that we all have been on. Working hard for the first week and quitting because it is just too hard. Having a good self-image is important. But you have go after it the right way. The problem is that money can’t buy you a good self-image. It isn’t drinking, smoking or sex that improves your life. People search the world over looking for the magic formula that will change them into the right person. In 1983, the United States Congress declared the Year of the Bible. No nation had done this since Israel did, 2000 years ago. Gallup poll survey Americans and asked them what the 3 most important things in their lives were. To everyone’s surprise the 3 things that they choose were Love, Joy and Peace. These are gifts from God that He to His children. Keep trying those New Year’s resolution. I wish you success.
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Your heart is a peculiar thing. It can beat a million times and just keep on going. If it is interrupted you can die. It seems to last forever but doesn’t. It controls the rest of the body. Without it you are dead. And it is the most neglected part of our body. It causes more diseases than anything else. So why don’t you protect it more? Most people relate your human heart to your spiritual one. As if they are interchangeable. I’ll tell you a truth, they are related to each other. What happens to your spiritual heart does affect your human heart. Have you ever lost a true love? The pain in your heart is spiritual but you human heart hurts like hell. They are tied together just like your body and your spirit. Your spirit is who you are. Your mind, will and your intellect are spiritual. This is what is the image and likeness of God. Your body is made from the dust of the earth. Remember, dust to dust, ashes to ashes, is how your body will go. Most games and TV shows have killing and violence. It always shows the people not being affected by all of it. This is a lie out of the pits of hell. There is nothing that we do that doesn’t affect our lives. And in turn affects our heart. So how can you stop the pain? You can’t but you can slow it down. Because of sin in this world there is pain. That will never change until the very end when Jesus arrives to reign and rule over this earth. But what you can do is to give your spiritual heart to Him. And allow God to take you on this journey that He plan for you in the first place. There are ways to protect yourself and Jesus is His name.
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I can remember when I was young how our family gathers at our home or our aunt’s. My grandmother, mom and her 2 sisters would gather the family together for Thanks giving, Christmas and Easter. It was always a big production. The women of the family cooked before each holiday. Then they would bring the food and family together. Sometimes it was a lot of fun. We were nine 1st cousins, all boys. We were about the same age. We were within 5 years altogether. We live near each other. We played on the same football, baseball and basketball teams in elementary school. But in high school, we were on different teams. It was a wonderful time for us. This past year we buried our last aunt. Then we buried my younger brother. We always talked about the older generation. Now we are the older generation. We all gather together at my youngest brother’s house this year for Christmas. My older brother lives in another state. We called him to wish him a Merry Christmas. We all talked to him. But it is not the same. Most of our family was missing. Either they are dead and no longer here or they live elsewhere. I know I can’t go back to that time again. But I miss my parents and my younger brother. Sometimes it is very hard to go on when so much is missing in my life. My family was sometimes the most irritating people on earth. But I wouldn’t trade them for anything. What I wouldn’t do to have them back again. That is why this is a lonely season for me. Cherish your family because God has given you so little time with them. Don’t waste it on nonsense. Let you family know that you care about them. God gave us a family to make us whole. Then it won’t be a lonely season.
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I can remember when I was young how our family gathers at our home or our aunt’s. My grandmother, mom and her 2 sisters would gather the family together for Thanks giving, Christmas and Easter. It was always a big production. The women of the family cooked before each holiday. Then they would bring the food and family together. Sometimes it was a lot of fun. We were nine 1st cousins, all boys. We were about the same age. We were within 5 years altogether. We live near each other. We played on the same football, baseball and basketball teams in elementary school. But in high school, we were on different teams. It was a wonderful time for us. This past year we buried our last aunt. Then we buried my younger brother. We always talked about the older generation. Now we are the older generation. We all gather together at my youngest brother’s house this year for Christmas. My older brother lives in another state. We called him to wish him a Merry Christmas. We all talked to him. But it is not the same. Most of our family was missing. Either they are dead and no longer here or they live elsewhere. I know I can’t go back to that time again. But I miss my parents and my younger brother. Sometimes it is very hard to go on when so much is missing in my life. My family was sometimes the most irritating people on earth. But I wouldn’t trade them for anything. What I wouldn’t do to have them back again. That is why this is a lonely season for me. Cherish your family because God has given you so little time with them. Don’t waste it on nonsense. Let you family know that you care about them. God gave us a family to make us whole. Then it won’t be a lonely season.
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What do you call a person that gives their lives to a cause? What do you think about this person? As you look around this world you find all kinds of people who have done this very thing. Some call them fanatics, zealots or just plain crazy. But there is something about them that is fascinating. Some are amazing at the amount of work that they have accomplished. Some have never been recognized as actually doing the work. Yet there are many people today that are willing to give their lives in causes. I have known many people just like this all through my life. They have inspired me into action. One person was Corrie Ten Boom. She was from the Netherlands. She was sent to the concentration camp because she hid Jewish people from the Germans. She survived a German concentration camp in WWII. Another person was T.L. Osborn. He went to the Far East and Africa after WWII. David Wilkerson, who started Teen Challenge in New York City in the 1950’s. Hubert Linsey, who was the very 1st Alfalfa in the Our Gang series. His exploits are legendary. Bernard Johnson who went to Brazil when no one else would. At the time he went there were estimated 16 million abandon children on the streets in Brazil. He began to work with children. I didn’t know this man but Horatio Spafford , business man in the 19th century, helped rebuild Chicago after it burned down. Then went to Jerusalem and opened a medical clinic in the Arab section. And it is still open today. There are many people that you just hear about who have given their lives for the betterment of man. God has these people to do the work on this earth. If you ever meet them, stop and talk to them. Let their lives inspire you to work for the Lord.
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