Proof Through The Night

T-Bone Burnett won songwriter of the year in the critics poll in Rolling Stone Magazine in the eighties for his album, Proof Through The Night. Two of the most notable lyrics follow here:

PRESSURE

I was once obsessed with being cool being no one's fool
Breaking every rule winning every duel
I tried to hide behind my pride and so I lied
Even when I told the truth
And it's a lot of pressure
From behind

There are those who loom somewhere in doom and they presume
To tell you what to do - they would run your life for you
And at times they've made me so afraid that I was plagued
By doubt and grew confused
And it's a lot of pressure
From all sides

But I will hold on to this hope
That life is not some gruesome joke
That love is not some wretched lie
Oh! How I cry! Ay Ay Ay

I can't ask you to measure whether you can weather
This storm that beats the shore by some means of keeping score
Cause filled with dread I've heard it said "Only the dead
Have seen the end of war"
And it's a lot of pressure
From below

SHUT IT TIGHT

I find it hard sometimes to say the way that I feel
I do the very things I hate to do
I act like a child and I'm afraid of what is real
And so I try to cover up the truth

I stumble like a drunk along this crazy path I walk
I have a hundred thousand questions too
I'll go to any length to prove that nothing is my fault
Then later on I will deny the proof

I don't like to win but then again I hate to lose
And in between is something I can't stand
I don't care what you think and I hope that you approve
I am just an ordinary man

Sometimes I want to stop and crawl back into the womb
And sometimes I cannot tell wrong from right
But I ain't gonna quit until I'm laid in my tomb
And even then they better shut it tight

http://www.tboneburnett.com/

Buster the Cat

Here is a photo of Buster the Cat on a better day for him.

Here by popular demand: Buster the Cat

There is no point to this photo, spiritual or otherwise. It is just our neighborhood cat, Buster, who is normally a tough guy of a cat, kind of like a biker cat, but here he is humbled by a loving little boy who coaxed him into a rather silly position.

He used to be very jumpy like he was used to running for his life in the neighborhood and it took a while for him to trust us.

If God Created Love, Did He Make It For Everyone?

If God created love, did he make it for everyone?

So many people feel unloved. The question above gets asked continually as it was by the rock group Cold on their recent album A Different Kind Of Pain. (http://www.coldonline.com/)

The answer that God gives to this is both reassuring and shocking:

God did not create love. G o d i s l o v e !

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. "

1 John 4:7-21 NIV

Nobody has love in himself except God and all those who are capable of love get that capability from God alone.

We have to be the recipient of God's love given through his Son in order to be able to love. You can't give something you haven't received, but perfect love drives out fear and once you know that love, you know that nothing can touch you or harm you. Read Romans chapter 8 to confirm this.

Did He make it for everyone? He didn't make it - He is it. Know Him, know love.

Springs of Living Water

The perpetual motion machine is a myth.

The Fountain of Youth proved to be beyond the reach of DeSoto.

A spring that will never run dry? Maybe.

On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice,

"If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

On hearing his words, some of the people said, "Surely
this man is the Prophet." John 7:37-40 NIV

When they said he was "the Prophet," they meant the prophet who was to come one day that would be like Moses. As Moses hit the rock in the desert and streams of water came out, so this Prophet has abundant water to give to the people.

Alabama Wildflowers

If this is how God clothes the plants in the field that are here today and gone tomorrow, how much more will he clothe you and take care of you?

Do not worry. 

More Than A Map

Do you know where this is?

This is Allegan County, Michigan.





This is where I grew up from age 13 to 21.

I rode my bicycle from Allegan to Fennville and back. I rode it from Allegan to Lake Michigan and my parents picked me up in the car. I rode with my brother, Ernest, around the loop from Allegan to Martin and then back through Plainwell and Otsego.

I went swimming in the lakes and hiked the trails. This isn't just a map to me.

What about you? When you read the Bible is it somewhere you have lived or does it seem like a foreign place to you? You have to spend time there (live there) to know it well and then it becomes more than a map to you.

What Counts

A voice says, "Cry out."And I said, "What shall I cry?"

"All men are like grass,and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the LORD blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever."
Isaiah 40:6-8 NIV

We are not much different from a plant that is here today and gone tomorrow.

Is there anything that will last? Can we really do anything that will leave a legacy?

There may be no more important question than this.

We cannot leave any kind of legacy on our own. We just don't have the power or wisdom.

God does have something to say about this, however.

John 6:62-63
The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.
NIV

1 Cor 7:19
Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God's commands is what counts.
NIV

Gal 5:6
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
NIV

Gal 6:15-16
Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation.
NIV

Circumcision represents something we do in our own strength, like some good work we think will make us good enough to please God on our own. God is not pleased with that attitude. He will change us on the inside if we let him and becoming a new creation through God's Spirit is often referred to as being circumcised in our hearts by God. He does the good work in us.

It takes something eternal from God (His Word) to create a new person in us who is spiritually alive in order to bring about eternal life in us. This truly counts forever.