Lichens on a Rock

Lichens are living organisms adapted to living in a hostile environment.

Psalm 91 Explained

He that by faith who chooses God for his for their protector will find all in him that he needs or can desire. And those who have found the comfort of making the Lord their refuge, cannot but desire that others may do so. The spiritual life is protected by Divine grace from the temptations of Satan. Which are the snares of the Fowler, and from the disease of sin, which is noisome of pestilence. Great security is promised to believers midst of the danger. Wisdom will keep them from being afraid without cause. And faith will keep them from being excessively afraid. Whatever is done, our heavenly Father’s will is done; and we have no reason to fear. God’s people will see, not only God’s promises fulfilled, but his threatenings, Then let sinners come unto the Lord upon. His mercy-seat, through the Redeemers name, and encourage others to trust in him also.

Psalm 91; 9-16

Whatever happens, nothing will hurt the believer, though trouble and affliction befal, it will come, not for his hurt, but for good, though the present will not be joyous but grievous. Those who rightly know God will set their love upon him. By praying constantly call upon him. He promises is that he will be in due time deliver the believer out of trouble. The Lord will manage all his worldly concerns, and preserve his life on earth, so long as it will be good for him. For encouragement in this, he looks unto Jesus. He will live long enough; until he has done the work he was sent into this world for and is ready for heaven. Who wouldn’t wish to live a day longer than God has work to do. A man may die young, yet be satisfied with living. But wicked man is not satisfied with a long life. At length the believer conflict ends; he has done for ever with trouble, sin, and temptation,

The Laws Of The Lord.

God has three kinds of laws in the Bible.

First, are civil laws. These were specifically given for culture, which included everything from murder to restitution and dietary restrictions.

The second, are ceremonial laws. This literally stands for the customs of a nation. These would have included sacrifices of perfectly good animals, a d rejection of good food sources such as pork and rabbits. These laws we’re specific for the Jewish people.

Third, are God’s moral laws. They relate to justice and judgment. They are based on God’s own Holy nature. Such as, these ordinates are Holy, just and unchanging.

Moral laws encompass regulations on justice, respect, and sexual conduct. All people will be held accountable to these laws.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 deals with God’s moral law. Saying that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. This includes: fornicators, idolatry, adulterers, effeminate, ( transgenders) homosexuals, thieves, covetors, drunkards, revealed (gossiping), or extortioners. But, the good news is in verse 11 you can be sanctified and justified.

Just because someone believes in the Bible, that does not make them haters, homophobic or heretics. It just made a person who believes God’s word.

You Are More Powerful Than You Think You Are.

If you want to be tougher mentally, it is simple. Be tougher don’t meditate on it. These words of a friend helped me to just do it, don’t think about it. Being tougher was more than anything be tougher starting with your next decision.

A superhero who can fly, become invisible or turn dirt in to pancakes. In tools of Titans.

Why would choose to that?

We could ask ourselves the same question because that is you and me. Okay, I admit we don’t have those particular superpowers. but we do have enormous power to change your mood day and life. We don’t always use it because we forget about it and fall into old routines of passiveness.

They Say Passive Minds Can’t Break Free

I was passive for years, I would let everyone to what I could do, so I would make any mistakes or cause an accident. It only made for depressed and anxious.

Stop thinking about what you’ve done wrong. Stop thinking about how you can’t exercise or improve your skills because you too undisciplined. Stop thinking they you should be in a better position than you currently are. Stop believing that you’re stuck- there a wide-open lane to your you just have to decide to take it.

Psalm 139- 14 says: King David said I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it well.

The superpower we have is a choice. Even as you read that, you’re probably understanding it.

You know that thing you’ve been struggling with? You know that huge frustration in your life that you can’t seem to get over? You know that thing in your life? You know that thing you’re supposed to be doing haven’t been doing?

You can choose to conquer it, and try doing so, you will.

Like the quote at the first of this article, if you want to be mentally tougher, decide to be mentally tougher. If you want to be able to exercise, decide to do it today. If you don’t want to procrastinate decide to work. You are mentally and physically capable of doing these things, but you will struggle mightily if you let yourself go with the flow of your thoughts, circumstances and feelings.

I was the President of a Veterans Organization until the drama of the members became to mush to handle and I wasn’t enjoying it anymore. When resigned. I became a Chaplin for another organization. If you would have asks me 4 years ago I would have said ”No Way, I can’t do that.

I have came a long way from where I was then. You just have to decide your not going to do this anymore. You are more powerful than you think you are. And you are beautifully and Wonderfully made.

Those who think passively believe they are weaker than they actually are. With a small shift in perspective they can really that control of their minds.

People always say why you are so strong. And I tell them I wasn’t always this way. It took me to hit rock bottom, before I decided to choose not to be weak anymore. I knew God loved me and wanted what’s best for me. I choosing to be strong, because I knew even if it didn’t work out, God was for me and not against me.

The Bible is encouraging to me

because I can Stand on the scriptures as God’s promises are true and do not change.

Choose to Change today.

improve Your Power Of Observation

We see but do not observe.

Do you ever feel, like your , living in your own bubble and that you give barely a thought to the world outside.

We all get lost in our thoughts sometimes of go through our days on autopilot. However, when we do so, we lose out in the amount and quality of information we absorb, in the potential to be inspired or intrigued, and in our ability to engage with people, places and situation around us.

Fortunately, developing your powers of obsecation isn’t difficult if you know what to do.

Hereis an easy way to practice.

When you’re observant you use your senses to examine something that you’re curious about and you evaluate what you experience.

Observing is not the same thing as seeing. Seeing is passive. For example, you see everything around you as you go to the store, but you rarely look for anything specific or write down information to use later. Observation, however, is a process of paying attention, intently, and actively so that you can gather specific information to assess.

Get Over Yourself

It’s easy to work yourself into an insane frenzy of paranoia and depression about the current state of affairs. You have a lot of debt, jobs are hard to find, you’re not getting paid enough, you feel lied to by every authority figure to ever come into your life from the age of five. Guess what so does everyone else. Friends, cousins even put together looking strangers you pass on the street is facing the same realities. Few people manage to find an amazing job after graduation and live in great houses that are well decorated and go out to nice restaurants for dinner every night. But those are few and far between. And I know they won’t stop rubbing in our faces on Facebook. It’s unfortunate. But just ignore those people, because stressing about how inferior you are isn’t going to suddenly make their lives any less awesome. For 99 percent of the rest of us we’re all struggling to figure this out, and you’re slogging it out doing data entry or working waiting tables for 5 kids that don’t even leave a tip. Don’t let yourself think that your the only one having trouble making ends meet, living pay check. Realizing your dream of being a ballerina, astronaut, mermaid, and you feel the rest society is laughing a you. We all have trouble in this world even the ones who have amazing jobs.

Understand that people like.y aren’t talking about you, their probably not even thinking about you.

We have this strange tendency to believe that those around us think about us/ what we’re doing/ who your sleeping with or what you are for dinner. It’s so narcissistic even if coated in a thin layer of insecurity and self-deprecation. If we let ourselves, we’ll construct entire alternate realities in which our friends are talking behind our back, that girl we work with has it out for us, and the guy at the coffee shop hates us. Honestly, we probably don’t cross their minds and when we do it’s likely in passing. We are so quick to blame malicious things that are often done out on inattention or thoughtlessness, and though it’s nice to be occasionally, forgotten about, it’s certainly preferable to being acutely detested by the universe at large. At the end of the day, no one thinks about us more than we do, and it’s better to accept that reality that we’re all too consumed with ourselves to think that much about anyone else.

Don’t Ever Trade Respect For Attention.

Don’t ever do anything just because it will give you attention because it won’t.

People might walk all over you, use you and make you look like a fool. Don’t let people manipulate you and make them look stupid. It shows how you feel about yourself.

If we don’t respect ourselves, how can we expect anyone else respect us. If we value attention we tend to do things we don’t want to do.

To many people want attention and not enough people want the respect they should by demanding because earning respect takes longer than attention does.

I made a vow to myself to seem respect, not attention because it lasts longer a d make me feel better about myself.

Attention is nice, but respect is more important are if they respect you they will give you the attention you want. They will admire you deeply, way past what you will take pride in who you are as a person. They will stand by your side a d they won’t ever intentionally make you look like a fool. They will like you because of who you are because you respect your, and therefore they will give you the right respect and attention you deserve.

Don’t compromise who you are because you want their attention more than your respect.

Common Sense Thinking

We have minds that are ready to notice cause and effect. There are examples all around us: if we let go of an object it will fall to the floor; if we press a switch the lights come on; if we pour water on something then it becomes wet. If you watch young children exploring their world you can see them learning about the effects of their actions. By the time we’re a bit older the rules of cause and effect has become so natural to us that it just seems like it’s common sense.

The rules of cause and effect describe the world around us very well.

The problem is though: this simple cause-and-effect of thinking doesn’t work so well when we apply it to our feelings. Our common-sense way of thinking about the world tells us that it is situations that make a feel a certain way. For example, if a friend walks past you on the street without saying hello, we become worried and upset that we have done something wrong.

That example might seem okay on the surface, but it can’t be how the world really works. If events always led directly to feeling then everyone would be affected in the same way by an event – we would all like the same movies and dislike the same foods. This is obviously not the case. When one football teams wins a game only one set of fans are happy, and if your asked a group of people to sing in front of an audience some would feel excited whereas others would be horrified. Clearly things are not as straightforward as the seem.

In today’s world some people that hate what’s going on and others who love it. There will be cause and effect. Most people don’t think about the consequences any more they just act. It makes the world a very dangerous place. And with neither one see the circumstances clearly. It only seems that God is the only way out of the situation we are in.

It how we interpret events- the meaning that we give to them- that gives rise to our feelings. This explains why two people experiencing the same event can react in completely different ways.

The idea of how we interpret events matters is not new. Nearly 2000 years ago the Greek philosopher Epictetus said:

Men are disturbed, not by things, but by principles and notions which they form concerning g things.

Shakespeare said something similar in 1602:

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

It may not be a new idea, but it is a powerful one. It explains why some people are pleased when given an opportunity to sing in front of a crowd when other people would be terrified at the prospect. It can explain why some people often feel very anxious ( perhaps they have a habit of interpreting situations as threatening) or very sad (perhaps they have a habit of interpreting situations very negatively.

We may not be able to change the situations we find ourselves in or the people we meet, we are in charge of how we interpret events. The attitude we bring to the situation and the perspective we choose to take, determines how we feel. Victor Frankl, a survivor of the Nazi death camps, said this most powerfully:

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms- to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

The Tongue Has The Power Of Life and Death.

My Father gave me a piece of advice when I was a young teenager. He said, “Never say mean words out of anger because you can say your sorry, but you can’t take it back.

Satan can use your tongue to cause division putting others down, bragging, false teaching, exaggeration, complaining, of just flat out lying. It only takes a few words to hurt someone.

I’m sure we all know what it feels like to hurt, why would you want to hurt anyone like that?

Your words can speak life, or your words can speak death. Our tongues can build others up, or tear them down.

Words kill, words give life that are either poison or fruit you choose.

The church that James was writing to win James 3: 1-12 was full of people who gossiped about each other and tore one another apart with their tongues. Were quick to avoid the sins of murder, and stealing, but we often assassinate people and leave a trail of destruction by what we say.

Husbands have stabbed their wives with words as sharp as daggers.

Wives have lashed out at their husbands that slice and dice.

Parents have devastated their children with repeated venom.

And children have exploded at their parents with words that have leveled the entire family like a bomb.

Sadly all of the above sentences a d what we do, has led to a cursed world. Spewing hate and death from their mouths. They aren’t just words they a weapons.

In James: 1-19 it says ”You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen and slow to speak, and slow to anger. Verse 1-26 in James says if anyone of you are religious, and do not bridle your tongues but deceive their hearts, the religion is worthless.” If you , launch verbal, destruction, those words have devastating consequences on others.

Proverbs 21:23 says He who guards their mouths and keeps His tongue keeps himself from calamity. (disaster).