For you are all children of the light and of the day; we don’t belong to darkness and night. So be on your guard, not asleep like the others. Stay alert and be clearheaded. Night is the time when people sleep and drinkers get drunk. But let us who live in the light be clearheaded, protected by the armor of faith and love, and wearing as our helmet the confidence of our salvation.
-1 Thessalonians 5:5-8 NLT
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: beauty, Bible, Christianity, faith, God, Italy, Jesus Christ, life, light, love, nature, photography, salvation, survival
At home: Pour peanut oil into a small plastic bottle. Place mango and ginger in zip lock bag.
On the trail: Fill a pan 3/4 full of water. Place on stove over medium heat. Place chocolate in a metal cup or small pot in pan (this prevents chocolate from burning). Pour in peanut oil. Stir until chocolate melts. Dip mango and ginger slices into chocolate, eating as a fondue.
Makes 2 servings
Posted in Backpacking Recipes | Tags: backpacking, chocolate, food, hiking, life, personal, recipes, survival
“In medieval times, if someone displayed the symptoms we now identify as boredom, that person was thought to be committing something called acedia, a ‘dangerous form of spiritual alienation’ — a devaluing of the world and its creator.”
-Richard Louv
Posted in Nature Writer Quotes | Tags: beauty, books, conservation, earth, enviroment, literature, nature, photography, spirituality
We must forgive those who hurt us. The reason is simple: Bitterness and unforgiveness are claws that set their hooks deep in our hearts; they are chains that keep us held captive to the wounds and the messages of those wounds. Until you forgive, you remain their prisoner. Paul warns us that unforgiveness and bitterness can wreck our lives and the lives of others (Eph. 4:31; Heb. 12:15). We have to let them go.
Forgive as Christ has forgiven you. (Col 3:13)
Now – listen carefully. Forgiveness is a choice. It is not a feeling – don’t try and feel forgiving. It is an act of the will. “Don’t wait to forgive until you feel like forgiving,” wrote Neil Anderson. “You will never get there. Feelings take time to heal after the choice to forgive is made . . .” We allow God to bring the hurt up from our past, for “if your forgiveness doesn’t visit the emotional core of your life, it will be incomplete.” We acknowledge that it hurt, that it mattered, and we choose to extend forgiveness to our father, our mother, those who hurt us. This is not saying, “It didn’t really matter”; it is not saying, “I probably deserved part of it anyway.” Forgiveness says, “It was wrong. Very wrong. It mattered, hurt me deeply. And I release you. I give you to God.”
It might help to remember that those who hurt you were also deeply wounded themselves. They were broken hearts, broken when they were young, and they fell captive to the Enemy. They were in fact pawns in his hands. This doesn’t absolve them of the choices they made, the things they did. It just helps us to let them go – to realize that they were shattered souls themselves, used by our true Enemy in his war against femininity.
-John Eldredge, Captivating, 102-103
Posted in Ransomed Heart | Tags: books, Christianity, faith, forgiveness, God, Jesus Christ, John Eldredge, literature, love, nature, photography, Ransomed Heart
“You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.
-Matthew 5:14-16 NLT
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: beauty, Bible, Christianity, faith, God, Jesus Christ, life, light, love, mountains, nature, photography, salvation
At home: Combine everything, except the Parmesan, into a quart size freezer zip lock bag.
On the trail: Bring 1 1/2 cups of water to a boil. Add the polenta and simmer until cooked and creamy. Top with the Parmesan cheese.
Makes 1 serving
Posted in Backpacking Recipes | Tags: backpacking, bacon, food, hiking, life, local, recipes, survival
“An environment-based education movement–at all levels of education–will help students realize that school isn’t supposed to be a polite form of incarceration, but a portal to the wider world.”
-Richard Louv
Posted in Nature Writer Quotes | Tags: beauty, books, children, earth, enviroment, life, local, mountains, nature, photography, spirituality, travel
We know a time will come for us to look back with our Lord over the story of our lives. Every hidden thing shall be made known, every word spoken in secret shall be uttered. My soul shrinks back; how will this not be an utter horror? The whole idea of judgment has been terribly twisted by our enemy. One evangelistic tract conveys the popular idea that at some point shortly upon our arrival in heaven the lights will dim and God will give the signal for the videotape of our entire life to be played before the watching universe: every shameful act, every wicked thought. How can this be so? If there is “now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1), how is it possible there will be shame later? God himself shall clothe us in white garments (Rev. 3:5). Will our Lover then strip his beloved so that the universe may gawk at her? Never.
However God may choose to evaluate our lives, whatever memory of our past we shall have in heaven, we know this: It will only contribute to our joy. We will read our story by the light of redemption and see how God has used both the good and the bad, the sorrow and the gladness for our welfare and his glory. With the assurance of total forgiveness we will be free to know ourselves fully, walking again through the seasons of life to linger over the cherished moments and stand in awe at God’s grace for the moments we have tried so hard to forget. Our gratitude and awe will swell into worship of a Lover so strong and kind as to make us fully his own.
-John Eldredge, The Sacred Romance, 190, 191
Posted in Ransomed Heart | Tags: books, Christianity, God, Jesus Christ, John Eldredge, life, literature, love, mountains, nature, Oregon, photography, Ransomed Heart, salvation, survival, travel
Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
-1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 NLT
Picture Credit: Jason Taylor
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: beauty, Bible, Christianity, faith, God, Jesus Christ, life, local, love, nature, Oregon, personal, photography, salvation
“There is something beautiful about a billion stars held steady by a God who knows what He is doing. (They hang there, the stars, like notes on a page of music, free-form verse, silent mysteries swirling in the blue like jazz.) And as I lay there, it occurred to me that God is up there somewhere. Of course, I had always known He was, but this time I felt it, I realized it, the way a person realizes they are hungry or thirsty. The knowledge of God seeped out of my brain and into my heart.
-Donald Miller
Posted in Nature Writer Quotes | Tags: art, beauty, books, earth, enviroment, God, life, literature, love, personal, photography, salvation, stars, survival, travel
hiking2christ 