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Question & Thought for the last day of September 2016!!!

Question & Thought for the last day of September 2016!!!
See Ya September!
1, Question – Do you start your day with morning Scripture and readings from devotionals? I’d like to share what came to me this morning.
2. Thought – From John Baillie, A Diary of Private Prayer for Day 30/Morning:
Creator Spirit, who broodest everlastingly over the lands and waters of the earth, enduing them with forms and colours which no human skill can copy, give me to-day, I beseech Thee, the mind and heart to rejoice in Thy creation.
Forbid that I should walk through Thy beautiful world with unseeing eyes:
Forbid that the lure of the market-place should ever entirely steal my heart away from the love of open acres and the green trees:
Forbid that under the low roof of workshop or office or study I should ever forget Thy great overarching sky:
Forbid that when all Thy creatures are greeting the morning with songs and shouts of joy, I alone should wear a dull and sullen face:
Let the energy and vigour which in Thy wisdom Thou has infused into every living thing stir to-day within my being, that I may not be among Thy creatures as a sluggard and a drone:
And above all give me grace to use these beauties of earth without me and this eager stirring of life within me as means whereby my soul may rise from creature to Creator, and from nature to nature’s God.
O Thou whose divine tenderness doth ever outsoar the narrow loves and charities of earth, grant me to-day a kind and gentle heart towards all things that live. Let me not ruthlessly hurt any creature of Thine. Let me take thought also for the welfare of the little children, and of those who are sick, and of the poor; remembering that what I do unto the least of these His brethren I do unto Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen.
From Colossians – Chapter 4 v. 1&5: “Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart.” “Live wisely among those who are not believers, and make the most of every opportunity.” (Paul)
Have a great weekend and break. Don’t text and drive. Drink some water and put some sliced lemons and cucumbers in it for flavor as a friend taught me.
rem – “I’ve never let my schooling interfere with my education.” (Mark Twain)
Question & Thought & ANDs.

Question & Thought for September 29th, 2016!!!

Question & Thought for September 29th, 2016!!!
Good Thursday Morning!
1. Question – Do you trust our government?
2. Thought – In a corrupt country, trust is a rare commodity. That’s America today. Only 19 percent of Americans say they trust the government most of the time, down from 73 percent in 1958 according to the Pew Research Center. Sadly, that is a rational response to the way things are. America is a different country today, and a much nastier one. For politically engaged Republicans, the figure is six percent. That in a nutshell explains the Trump phenomenon and the disintegration of the Republican establishment. If the people don’t trust the government, tinkering with entitlement reform is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. (Imprimis, Sept 2016, Vol. 45, Num 9, by Frank Buckley)
Our government should be entirely and purely secular….So our fathers said: “We shall form a secular government…” The Declaration of Independence…denied the authority of any and all gods….[They] agreed that there should only be one religion…and that was the religion of patriotism. Our fathers founded the first secular government that was ever founded in this world. (Robert Ingersoll, a member of the National Liberal League, also he is known as the national evangelist for atheism. [from the Founder’s Bible, by David Barton])
rem – “I’ve never let my schooling interfere with my education.” (Mark Twain)
Question & Thought & ANDs.

Question & Thought for September 24th, 2016!

Question & Thought for September 24th, 2016!
Good Saturday Morning!
1. Question – Why doesn’t the Holy Spirit fill us like it should?
2. Thought – Some of us are troubled, wondering why the Holy Spirit doesn’t fill us. The problem is that we have plenty coming in but we are not giving out to others. If you will give the blessing you have received, planning your life around greater service and being a blessing to those around you, then you will quickly find that the Holy Spirit is with you. He will bestow blessings to you for service, giving you all He can trust you to give away to others. (Steams in the Desert, daily devotional for September 23rd, yesterday, by L.B. Cowman)
“Where is your brother Abel?” (Genesis 4:9)
rem – “I’ve never let my schooling interfere with my education.” (Mark Twain)
Question & Thought & ANDs.

Question & Thought for 18 September 2016!

Question & Thought for 18 September 2016!
Good Sunday Morning!
1. Question – What book gives us insights into sex, anger, management, slander, wealth, welfare, business ethics, intoxication, pride, and subtle human fissures as relevant as tomorrow’s blogs?
2. Thought – In the early part of his forty-year reign, Solomon collected wise sayings and pored over them. Presumably when the collection reached critical mass, he winnowed them into a book that appears now in the Bible’s Old Testament under the literal name of Proverbs.
In my estimation, of the Bible’s sixty-six books, Proverbs is the most provocative. More than two dozen centuries before Sigmund Freud and psychological profiling, this compilation of thirty-one chapters outstrips human understanding with insights into sex, anger, management, slander, wealth, welfare, business ethics, intoxication, pride, and subtle human fissures as relevant as tomorrow’s blogs?
Proverb is a Hebrew word meaning “to rule or to govern,” and the only thing better than reading Proverbs is reading it routinely.
To arouse your appetite for Proverbs, you might do well to sample it, which I’m pleased to provide; but before that, a warning: do not be deceived by the simplicity of a proverb.
Proverbs 1:5: “Let the wise listen and add to their learning.” [Ladies and gentlemen, to acquire information, much less wisdom, one’s lips cannot be moving.]
Proverbs 6:19: The Lord hates “a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.” [Ever seen a group or an office where one person plants friction between others?]
Proverbs 16:18: “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” [How you handle loss says one thing; how you handle success says more.] (The Little Red Book of Wisdom by Mark DeMoss)
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” (Proverbs 29:18)
rem – “I’ve never let my schooling interfere with my education.” (Mark Twain)
Question & Thought & ANDs.