Art
All the stuff I remember about my dad and mom
Aspen trees
Being called “Papa”
Books
The Broncos
Characters in my story
God
Dee Dee
Katie
Michael
Addi
Linc
Brendan
Emmy
Plus plenty more . . .
Including antagonists
Coffee
Creativity
Dirt roads
Dr Pepper (even though I don’t drink it often)
Elk
Emotions
Fall
Fatherhood
Fiction
Friends
56 years
Great conversation
Hiking
Hunting
Intelligence (such as it is)
Jesus
Kissing Dee Dee
Laughing
Mountain Biking
Mountains
Music
My faith community
My writers’ group
Nissan Titan
Omelets
Poetry
Quiet times
Reading glasses
Second chances
Smashburger
Stories
Today
Tomorrow
Type 2 Diabetes
Unconditional grace
Vertigo
Weird people (of which I’m one)
Westerns
Writing
Χριστός
Yawning
Yesterday
Zealous love from my family
365 more days to be thankful
… and so much more! … God Bless! … (-:
In our mundane and practical and systematized and “rational” (even “electronically saturated”) scientized worldly ways, we may never even think or speak of “spiritual things”,… or if we do, it may be in vague mysterious terms, implicating a bizarre and possibly suspicious alternative universe, where natural laws can be suspended, or turned on their head, at will, and an unseen disobedient and capricious force can take over at any moment,… and it may not even be friendly or desirable,…
Without a relationship to God, “natural man” doesn’t know much more than this about his supernatural environment,… As a pagan, he built altars and made sacrifices to “placate” the implacable “gods”, or to gain favor, and received nothing much more than a hit-or-miss kind of existence for his misplaced efforts,… There IS a capricious force desiring to undo us, but it is not God,… and it is God’s and our subversive enemy,… To attribute his dark, misleading and nefarious ways to our loving and personally caring Father God, is to make a big mistake,…
To think of God’s Blessings is to enter a zone of Infinity and the Eternal and Purpose and Creativity, the majestic and the incredibly small all working together in Harmony and Oneness of Spirit and Humility to be part of and submitted to the Divine Design,… where Love flows, even burns, and Life continually springs forth in Newness as a testimony to the Overcoming Power of Him Who has “overcome the world”,…
John 16:33 “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
Exodus 15:26 “And said, ‘If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD that healeth thee.'”
Isaiah 40:11-13
11 “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.
12 “Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
13 “Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him?”
We are so blessed that our God is a Very Good God.
I hope God fills the holidays with holiness and goodness and grace for you, G-A.
Thank you, Eugene!,… Happily, we have a lot to be grateful for, & it all just makes me love and appreciate God’s faithfulness to us throughout the years ever more and more,… I was thinking recently about how we really aren’t able to love (others, someone else, God, Creation, ourselves, and probably especially our “enemies”, but sometimes it’s even our friends!) beyond our ability to understand and receive the love God that has for us,… so I’ve been praying for that awareness to be increasing everywhere,… little by little, I think we’re growing in these things,… (& I found your list & photos very inspiring in that way too, btw!),… little pieces of God’s love manifesting as such beautiful gifts to us,… packages of joy,… I think some “old (outworn) habits” of humanity are getting ready to dry up and blow away,… we don’t need to hide ourselves behind “protective” personality shields and ingrained customs quite as much, maybe,… Having maintained the unabashed heart of a “Jesus freak” all these years, growing into the fullness of God’s Love is about the most wonderful thing I can contemplate,… hopefully I am seeing the joyful signs!
Revelation 21:5 “And he that sat upon the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’ And he said unto me, ‘Write: for these words are true and faithful.'”
2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
God, our unfailing, everlasting source of Truth, Beauty and Love,… it doesn’t get better than this! (-:
Thinking a little further on these things,… a question for the atheistic-scientized in our midst:
If someone were to assert that to describe YOU, all they needed to do was to calculate and map every single sub-atomic particle in its detailed relationship to all the other particles, atoms, molecules, and complex formations that your body is composed of — including the spontaneous chemical reactions that use and produce energy — would this ever be a complete description of Who You Are? And, if not, Where does the rest come from?
Just wondering,…
G-A: I think it was Davinci who began dissecting live animals to discover how they worked. But they always died in the process. A whole is always more than the sum of its parts. Eugene
Exactly!
What also strikes me, is how very differently any description or characterization of themselves, that people might come up with, would sound from the scientific quantitative molecular version,…
How does “my favorite color is blue” fit in with such things?,… or “I love to sing God’s praises!” and look at pics of my grandchildren, knit baby blankets, and cook food for my neighbors, and think about “who am I?”, and listen to great classical music?,… to mention just a few,…
Thanks for posting your thankful-list! It brightened my day. How uplifting and what a good reminder to note our blessings and cherish them.
You are welcome and I am thankful that you take the time to read and reply. God bless.