Thoughts and Quotes to Ponder

Wherever there is a mountain, there is a life giving river running through it, and ultimately the river is stronger, so do not fear the mountains you face.

"Beauty is created with purpose....Beauty is created. It's intentional." - Lisa Wingate 

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"It's funny how what you are used to seems right even when it's really bad."  

That quote by a 12-year-old river gypsy spoken to her friend as she is helping her flee a very abusive home she is reluctant to leave in the book "Before We Were Yours" is profound. It explains how so much evil has overtaken cultures throughout history. Even God-fearing freedom fighters like George Washington who accomplished so much good for others could not see slavery for the evil that it is because slavery had been common practice around the world for thousands of years.

It explains how Hitler used propaganda and of the natural human longing to belong to a group to brainwash his people and build the cult of Nazism.

It's why Americans allowed the sexual revolution of the 1960's to take over our culture, destroying marriages and families.

It helps us understand how our nation can courageously stand for freedom, spending billions of dollars and sending our most courageous heroes into battle to rescue the oppressed while at the same time allowing and even funding via tax dollars the brutal dismemberment and brain sucking slaughter of millions of unborn babies. Instead of calling abortion the most evil form of genocide throughout all of human history, we call it a woman's right worth defending because evil seems good if you hear it, belong to those who support it, and are around it enough.

Open our eyes, Lord; give us spiritually discerning sight. Just because something is familiar doesn't make it right. Just because our people say it, do it, or defend it doesn't make it legit or good, nor does it mend it. Anchor us in Your word which shows us right from wrong. Help us stand on the Rock, upright, steady, and strong. (Isaiah 5:20, ESV)

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If we can't post the 10 Commandments on or near government buildings anymore, could we post this convicting verse instead to help temper our political discourse?

"The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks." (Luke 6:45)

Throw Pillows

After I asked my literal, logical child to stop tossing my decorative pillows around the room and to place them back on the sectional where they belong, he replied, "They are called throw pillows after all."

 Mom: 0, Kid: 1

What Love Is

This list by Paul Tripp is my belated Valentine's Day challenge and provides 23 more reasons why I need God's power and grace in my life:

1. LOVE IS being willing to have your life complicated by the needs and struggles of others without impatience or anger.
2. LOVE IS actively fighting the temptation to be critical and judgmental toward another while looking for ways to encourage and praise
3. LOVE IS making a daily commitment to resist the needless moments of conflict that come from pointing out and responding to minor offenses.
4. LOVE IS being lovingly honest and humbly approachable in times of misunderstanding.
5. LOVE IS being more committed to unity and understanding than you are to winning, accusing, or being right.
6. LOVE IS a making a daily commitment to admit your sin, weakness, and failure and to resist the temptation to offer an excuse or shift the blame.
7. LOVE IS being willing, when confronted by another, to examine your heart rather than rising to your defense or shifting the focus.
8. LOVE IS making a daily commitment to grow in love so that the love you offer to another is increasingly selfless, mature, and patient.
9. LOVE IS being unwilling to do what is wrong when you have been wronged, but looking for concrete and specific ways to overcome evil with good.
10. LOVE IS being a good student of another, looking for their physical, emotional, and spiritual needs so that in some way you can remove the burden, support them as they carry it, or encourage them along the way.
11. LOVE IS being willing to invest the time necessary to discuss, examine, and understand the relational problems you face, staying on task until the problem is removed or you have agreed upon a strategy of response.
12. LOVE IS being willing to always ask for forgiveness and always being committed to grant forgiveness when it is requested.
13. LOVE IS recognizing the high value of trust in a relationship and being faithful to your promises and true to your word.
14. LOVE IS speaking kindly and gently, even in moments of disagreement, refusing to attack the other person’s character or assault their intelligence.
15. LOVE IS being unwilling to flatter, lie, manipulate, or deceive in any way in order to co-opt the other person into giving you what you want or doing something your way.
16. LOVE IS being unwilling to ask another person to be the source of your identity, meaning, and purpose, or inner sense of well-being, while refusing to be the source of theirs.
17. LOVE IS the willingness to have less free time, less sleep, and a busier schedule in order to be faithful to what God has called you to be and to do as a spouse, parent, neighbor, etc.
18. LOVE IS a commitment to say no to selfish instincts and to do everything that is within your ability to promote real unity, functional understanding, and active love in your relationships.
19. LOVE IS staying faithful to your commitment to treat another with appreciation, respect, and grace, even in moments when the other person doesn’t seem deserving or is unwilling to reciprocate.
20. LOVE IS the willingness to make regular and costly sacrifices for the sake of a relationship without asking for anything in return or using your sacrifices to place the other person in your debt.
21. LOVE IS being unwilling to make any personal decision or choice that would harm a relationship, hurt the other person, or weaken the bond of trust between you.
22. LOVE IS refusing to be self-focused or demanding, but instead looking for specific ways to serve, support, and encourage, even when you are busy or tired.
23. LOVE IS daily admitting to yourself, the other person, and God that you are unable to be driven by a cruciform love without God’s protecting, providing, forgiving, rescuing, and delivering grace.

-List by Paul David Tripp