Stand and Fight

This . . .
I didn't write this, but I wish I had.

That . . .
Randy Bohlender did.
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This is That . . .
I’ve always been interested in the varied ways that people respond under pressure. Pressure, danger, peril….it has a remarkably condensing affect on people. Their bravado, their facade, it all collapses together in to one dense ball of what they are.
And there you have it….the essence of them. Some are full of steely resolve. Others are full of hot air. It’s hard to tell who’s who when life is all sunshine in the park, but a well placed lightening strike can make the distinction in a nanosecond.
In being intellectually and spiritually honest, you cannot think too much about life without thinking about death, and you cannot think to much about this age without anticipating the next. To focus on life while not dealing with death or to be consumed with this world at the expense of preparing for the next is to admit your thoughts and emotions are half baked.
I’m pained with watching the tight grip the church has on the here and now, living lives largely no different than their neighbors…maybe a little more moral (though not necessarily) but surely reflecting the same meta-values for self preservation and delaying pain, often at the expense of growth.
Jesus knew we’d struggle with this…being afraid of all the wrong things and being brave about things that demand no bravery at all….when he said the words recorded in Matthew 10:27
“…do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.”
So what are you afraid of anyway? What causes a quaking within you? The thought of a premature death….or the thought of a life you failed to live? The ironic part is that those who cling to this life with a death grip really don’t get to keep it anyway. They die as dead as the rest, perhaps a few years later….but just as dead, and often more so, having died inside long before the shell stopped moving.
Revelation 12 speaks of a group of overcomers…those who conquer evil by the work of Jesus and the purity of their spoken creed. It seems counterintuitive, but those He singles out as overcomers actually lose their lives….yet they win it all, and they win because they do not love their lives to the point of being afraid to die.
The man who is not afraid to die is truly free to live. Cower now and you’ll cower for eternity. Stand and fight - even unto death - and you’ll stand forever.

God and his servant Lia.

This . . .
is about a little girl, Lia, who gave a really great speech about life.
.
That . . .
The article about it.
The mother of a 12-year-old girl whose pro-life speech has become a hit YouTube video says her daughter's passion for the unborn is genuine.
Lia is a preteen from Canada who decided to speak out against abortion in her school's speech contest, despite teachers and school officials who encouraged her to pick a different topic.
"What if I told you that right now someone was choosing if you were going to live or die? What if I told you that this choice wasn't based on what you could or couldn't do, what you had done in the past, or what you would do in the future? And what if I told you that you could do nothing about it? Fellow students and teachers, thousands of children are right now in that very situation," she says in her speech.
Kimberly, Lia's mother, says Lia was told by school officials that if she chose the topic of abortion, she would not be allowed to participate in the speech contest. But both were surprised when Lia's pro-choice teacher had a change of heart. "Her teacher was really impressed by this speech and perhaps moved by it, and therefore her teacher kind of was a real supporter of Lia winning for the class," Kimberly notes.
"And she had to go through a couple of hoops and get clearance from a couple of other teachers before she could be declared winner of the class."
Another controversy erupted when the panel of judges had a supposed big disagreement and one stepped down. Initially Lia was disqualified, but later the panel declared her the winner.
She was asked to take out this portion of her speech: "Fetuses are definitely humans knit together in their mother's womb by their wonderful Creator who knows them all by name." Kimberly says after Lia was told to remove that portion of her speech, she took time to think about her decision and ultimately decided to leave it in.
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This is That . . .
The speech.
Lia also competed in a regional speech competition but did not win. However, her speech has been viewed by over 200,000 people on YouTube.
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Go, Lia - Go, God!
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Prayer Time - Prayer List

This . . .
It is hard to imagine a
$1 trillion dollar stimulus package.
How long is one trillion seconds?
How tall would a stack of one trillion dollar bills be?
If we divided up
$1 trillion dollars among every American,
how much would each one get?
.
That . . .
I know what time I get up in the morning.
I know when I go to work.
I know when I eat lunch.
I know when I get off work.
I know when I watch TV every day.
I know what time I go to bed.
When do I pray?
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This is That . . .
Well, I do spend time in prayer every day, but it is not really set in stone.
And I am not very focused on what to pray.
If I was me, here is what I would do.
1. Set apart a designated hour every day.
2. Use a prayer list.
I,ve got the time. I've got the list.
The national anthem has been sung.
It's gametime.
.
3,200 years.
Half way to the moon.
$3,300 each.
I think if the government would give every
American $3,300 that would stimulate the
economy "much more better" than what
they currently have planned.
What if they required the $3,300 to be used to
reduce any personal debt before being used for
any other purpose?
Hmmmm.