Insane Attachments

Posted on January 17, 2015 by joseph elon lillie under Pastor Wrinkles

“Contemporary culture lacks both the inward reality and the outward life-style of simplicity. We must live in the modern world, and we are affected by its fractured and fragmented state. We are trapped in a maze of competing attachments. One moment we make decisions on the basis of sound reason and the next moment out of fear of what others will think of us. We have no unity or focus around which our lives are oriented.

Because we lack a divine Center our need for security has led us into an insane attachment to things.- Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline/ Simplicity

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: You Are My Sunshine!

Posted on January 13, 2015 by joseph elon lillie under Photography

Cee has challenged us to photograph lyrics from songs! This week she has asked us to display YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE in pictures

Here we go…

YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE

The twinkling waters of Galway Bay

MY ONLY SUNSHINE

YOU MAKE ME HAPPY

WHEN SKIES ARE GRAY

YOU’LL NEVER KNOW DEAR HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU

PLEASE DON’T TAKE MY SUNSHINE AWAY!

Check out other Fun Foto renditions of this song at

http://ceenphotography.com/2015/01/13/cees-fun-foto-challenge-you-are-my-sunshine-chorus/

2014 in review

Posted on December 31, 2014 by joseph elon lillie under For Family & Fun

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 13,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 5 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Heaven Pt. 160: You Are What You Praise

Posted on December 30, 2014 by joseph elon lillie under Pastor Wrinkles

Not to us, Lord, not to us
but to your name be the glory,
because of your love and faithfulness.

²Why do the nations say,
    “Where is their God?”
³Our God is in heaven;
    he does whatever pleases him.
⁴But their idols are silver and gold,
    made by human hands.
⁵They have mouths, but cannot speak,
    eyes, but cannot see.
⁶They have ears, but cannot hear,
    noses, but cannot smell.
⁷They have hands, but cannot feel,
    feet, but cannot walk,
    nor can they utter a sound with their throats.
⁸Those who make them will be like them,
    and so will all who trust in them…

May you be blessed by the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

¹⁶The highest heavens belong to the Lord,
    but the earth he has given to mankind.
¹⁷It is not the dead who praise the Lord,
    those who go down to the place of silence;
¹⁸it is we who extol the Lord,
    both now and forevermore.

Praise the Lord.

Psalm 115: 1-8,15-18

Our God is in Heaven! He came to Earth for a time but even then he was not fashioned by the hands of man but by the hand of God in the womb of a woman. He was not fashioned out of wood or stone. No Pinocchio is our God. He was born. He walked among us for a time as a man. He lived. He breathed. He did miracles. He taught. He died. He atoned. He rose again. And He ascended to the right hand of God the Father where today He is making intercession for us. Our God is in Heaven and He has offered us the Earth.

The good news of the gospel is not just that Jesus did all those things historically but that today those things He did can affect us personally; They can change us and give us powerful lives. They can affect us, that is, if we will put away the things that draw us away from our created purpose, which is praising the Lord. They can affect us and change us if we will give up our idols.

Psalm 115 draws a pretty clear line between praising God and worshipping idols. Those who praise the God of Heaven are given the Earth to rule (remember Jesus said the meek will inherit the Earth). Meanwhile those who put their praise towards idols become just like them: mute, blind, deaf, nonsensical, unfeeling and ineffective.

Now on my side of the pond we haven’t yet gone back to melting gold into gods but that doesn’t mean there aren’t things here in the States we value, or worship more than Jesus.

Paul the apostle wrote, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

5Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.” Colossians 3:1-5

Here we just don’t give our gods names. I’m not sure that makes us more righteous than the ancient Greeks or Polynesians. Maybe it only makes us less creative. At any rate as I look to 2015 I am seeking the Lord and asking Him to show me anything I worship, value or fear over Him. That third item is interesting because I find that in fearing things I can also come to worship them.

Pray with me will you?Let’s together put our trust in the God Who is in Heaven and Who would give us the Earth!

My Year In Books

Posted on December 30, 2014 by joseph elon lillie under For Family & Fun

I have often heard it said that good writers are good readers. Reading is for the soul what food is for the body. So in 2014 I decide to keep track of what I read:

Here is my 2014 reading list

The Revelation of Jesus Christ- St. John

Isaiah- Isaiah

The Navigator- Clive Cussler

The Runes Of the Earth- Stephen Donaldson

The Gospel According to Matthew- Matthew

The Artisan Soul- Erwin Mcmanus

Ezekiel- Ezekiel

Toward Daylight- Tracy Lee Karner

The Gospel According to Mark- John Mark

The Gospel According to John- St. John

A Divine Revelation Of Hell- Mary K. Baxter

A History Of Silence- John Boyne

the Seal- Adriana Koulias

The Book Of Psalms

The Hawk Of May- Gillian Bradshaw

The Gospel According To Luke- Luke

1 Peter- Peter

The Book Of Hebrews- Author Unknown

Astonished- Mike Erre

Colossians- Paul

2 Peter- Peter

Philippians- Paul

The Kingdom Of Summer- Gillian Bradshaw

Humility- Andrew Murray

In Winter’s Shadow- Gillian Bradshaw

Totem Book 1: Scars- C Michael Lorion

The Thwarted Queen- Cynthia Sally Haggard

The Book Of Proverbs- Solomon

Prophetical Priestly Ministry- Darius L. Salter

Ecclesiates- Solomon

Resistance- Martin Lake

Wasteland- Martin Lake

Song Of Solomon- Solomon

Broken Pieces- Charles Hamlett

Jeremiah- Jeremiah

I Will Be Near To You- Erin Lindsay McCabe

Don’t Go- Lisa Scottoline

So tell me what are you reading?

The Daily Prompt and All Grown Up

Posted on December 29, 2014 by joseph elon lillie under The Stories

The Daily Post has asked us…”When was the first time you really felt like a grown up (if ever)?”

I can actually remember this one quite clearly. I did not feel grown-up at eighteen when I registered for selective service or to vote. I did not feel grown-up when I married at nineteen just before my twentieth birthday. The grown up feeling did not arrive with the birth of my son or my daughters. I really expected to feel like an adult at these major junctions of life but somehow they just left me feeling more like a kid than ever. The sense of “am I ready for this?” And “Wow! I have no idea what I am doing.” really popped out big in each of those moments and made me feel decidedly un-grown up.

All those years I wanted to feel “grown-up”. I hungered for the feeling but no matter how hard I tried I just could not drum it up. I worked. I provided. I acted like a grown-up (mostly). I just never felt like one. Then on my thirty-fifth birthday it hit me. It came unbidden without fanfare or any kind of life-changing event. I blew the candles out on my cake and just knew. “I’m a grown-up” or maybe it is better to say I just knew, “I’m not a kid anymore.”

Strange to say, from that day forward I have wanted nothing more than to return to childhood. Funny how that works isn’t it?

The Daily Prompt And Hindsight

Posted on December 28, 2014 by joseph elon lillie under Pastor Wrinkles

The Daily Prompt has given us what I consider a huge challenge today!

Now that you’ve got some blogging experience under your belt, re-write your very first post.

Holy Cow! That was four and a half years and a whole different blog ago. Still I suppose certain truths are timeless even if most words are momentary. I am choosing to rewrite my second blog since that was actually about something other than my personal story.

I remember the first piece of blogging advice I ever got. It was from my daughter… “Dad be brief.”

So in brief here it is:

Hearing And Listening:

God doesn’t listen to everyone. Does that shock you? I have to admit it jars me a little. No matter how disconcerting it might be, though, it is the truth.

There are some people who think that as long as we pray to any god, rock, tree bush or lightbulb the real God will somehow hear and answer by proxy…. BUT… The whole idea that it doesn’t matter who you believe in, only that you believe in something, is absolute drivel.

I do believe that God does hear every prayer that goes up from the mouths of humans. But there is a grand bit of difference between His hearing and His listening. You don’t have to look very far in Scripture to find this truth:

God said these words to the prophet Jeremiah when the children of Israel had sinned grievously against Him. “Do not pray for this people nor offer any plea or petition for them, because I will not listen when they call to me in the time of their distress.” Jeremiah 11:14 NIV

AND

Peter warned the men of his day that there was a condition of heart which would stop their prayers dead cold. “Husbands in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.” I Peter 3:7

More examples could be given but in this short space let me just say that God Hears every prayer but He only Listens to some of them. According to Scripture, the way you live affects how effective your prayer life is.

Now that is shocking!

Gosh I was a little flame thrower back then. Even edited this is a little “Ravenhillesque”. I am not sure I would write this piece today and honestly I cannot decide whether that is good or bad thing. It certainly has me thinking.

To view hindsight through other eyes go to:

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/hindsight/