Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win! All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing. I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified.
-1 Corinthians 9:24-27 NLT
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: beauty, Bible, Christianity, faith, God, Jesus Christ, life, love, nature, personal, photography, salvation, survival, travel
“We need sometimes to escape into open solitudes into aimlessness, into the moral holiday of running some pure hazard in order to sharpen the edge of life, to taste hardship, and to be compelled to work desperately for a moment at no matter what.”
-George Santayana
Posted in Nature Writer Quotes | Tags: art, beauty, books, conservation, earth, enviroment, life, literature, local, mountains, nature, personal, photography, poetry, spirituality, survival, travel
Every era has its problems when it comes to knowing Jesus. One of ours is this: Having lost all confidence in the noble, the heroic, even the consistently good, we have come to celebrate the neurotic. Really. The heroes of our novels and movies are antiheroes, broken characters riddled with addiction and self-doubt. In fact, doubt—masquerading as humility—has become a condition for acceptance in our times. People of strong conviction and bold claims are suspect. We fear them. They might be a terrorist, or a Christian. Skepticism has become a virtue.
This has quietly shaped a popular version of Jesus as a man not so much heroic as humanitarian, not a warrior operating behind enemy lines but just a humble man trying to do good in a hurting world. A man stuck in his personal Gethsemane. If he is doubting and uncertain, we feel better about ourselves. Now yes, yes—Jesus had his dark night of the soul. He didn’t live there, nor did he stay there. It was an abyss through which he passed. Through which he was able to pass, because of something much deeper within him.
-John Eldredge, Beautiful Outlaw, 142-43
Painting By Ron Di Cianni
Posted in Ransomed Heart | Tags: beauty, Bible, books, Christianity, faith, God, Jesus Christ, John Eldredge, life, literature, love, personal, Ransomed Heart, salvation, survival
Yes, we know that “we all have knowledge” about this issue. But while knowledge makes us feel important, it is love that strengthens the church. Anyone who claims to know all the answers doesn’t really know very much. But the person who loves God is the one whom God recognizes.
– 1 Corinthians 8:1-3 NLT
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: beauty, Bible, Christianity, faith, God, Jesus Christ, life, love, mountains, nature, personal, photography, salvation, travel
“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”
-G.K. Chesterton
Posted in Ideas & Input | Tags: life, local, love, peace, personal, photography, survival, war
“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”
-G.K. Chesterton
Posted in Nature Writer Quotes | Tags: art, beauty, books, Christianity, conservation, earth, enviroment, flowers, God, hiking, life, local, love, mountains, nature, personal, photography, poetry, salvation, spirituality, survival, travel
Over the years we’ve come to see that the only thing more tragic than the things that have happened to us is what we have done with them.
Words were said; painful words. Things were done; awful things. And it shaped us. Something inside of us shifted. We embraced the messages of our wounds. We accepted a view of ourselves. And from that we chose a way of relating to our world. We made a vow never to be in that place again. We adopted strategies to protect ourselves from being hurt again. A woman that is living out of a broken, wounded heart is a woman who is living a self-protective life. She may not be aware of it but it is true. It’s our way of trying to “save ourselves.”
And, we also developed ways of trying to get something of the love our hearts cried out for. The ache is there. Our desperate need for love and affirmation, our thirst for some taste of romance and adventure and something to be wanted for is there. So we turned to boys or to food or to romance novels, we lost ourselves in our work or at church or in some sort of service. All this adds up to the woman we are today. Much of what we call our “personalities” is actually the mosaic of our choices for self-protection plus our plan to get something of the love we were created for.
The problem is, our plan has nothing to do with God.
The wounds we received and the messages they brought form a sort of unholy alliance with our fallen nature as women. From Eve we received a deep mistrust in the heart of God towards us. Clearly, he’s holding out on us. We’ll just have to arrange for the life we want. We will control our world. But there is also an ache deep within, an ache for intimacy and for life. We’ll have to find a way to fill it.
-John & Stasi Eldredge, Captivating, 74-75
Posted in Ransomed Heart | Tags: books, Christianity, faith, God, health, Jesus Christ, life, literature, local, love, nature, personal, photography, Ransomed Heart, salvation, spirituality, survival, woman, Women
For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations. He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups. Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death.
Ephesians 2:14-16 NLT
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: beauty, Bible, Christianity, faith, God, Jesus Christ, life, local, love, mountains, nature, personal, photography, salvation, survival, travel
Please watch this video to learn how to measure your torso to find the right backpack for you.
http://www.backcountryedge.com/video-how-to-measure-your-torso-for-backpack-fitting.aspx
There’s certainly a number of factors to consider when selecting the appropriate backpack for your next outing or adventure. That can include size capacity, pack weight and you intended usage of that pack. When it comes to fit however, the starting point really should be taking your torso measurement and making sure you’ve got a pack with the appropriate torso fit range. Taking your torso measurement is not difficult; in fact it’s pretty easy. It’s that much easier if you employ a second set of hands. Standing upright as you would as though you just put on your backpack and are ready to take off, lower your chin towards your chest. When you do that a vertebra will protrude from the top of the shoulders to the base of the neck, can’t miss it; Right here. Using a flexible tape measure, and that’s important, follow the spine, the contours of the spine, right down to a point that is even with top of the hip bones, the iliac crest. That’s important; the top of the hipbones and not further down the leg. As Liz is doing here, pointing her thumbs inward, that helps me identify exactly the point I should be measuring at the bottom of the spine and see a 17 ½ inch torso. Keep in mind that torso sizing can differ in regards to backpacks in relation to torso measurement as it might be spoken of with clothing. Men’s torso lengths with backpacks often fall between 17 and 21 inches. Women’s, on average, maybe 14 inches to 18 inches but that range can differ dramatically, we’re all different. It’s important to actually take that measurement. Height feels like it should be a determinant and isn’t necessarily so. You could be 6’ 6” and be all legs with a short torso; 5’ 2” and have a longer than average torso measurement. Again, important to actually take that measurement.
Courtesy of http://www.backcountryedge.com
Posted in Weekly Survival Skill | Tags: backpacking, hiking, life, local, nature, personal, survival
“Keep close to Nature’s heart…and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”
-John Muir
Posted in Nature Writer Quotes | Tags: art, beauty, books, conservation, earth, enviroment, God, hiking, John Muir, life, literature, local, love, mountains, nature, personal, photography, salvation, spirituality, survival, travel
hiking2christ 