“Love the animals. God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Don’t trouble it, don’t harass them of their happiness, don’t work against God’s intent.”
-Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Posted by: jakinnan | September 28, 2012
God’s Intent
Posted in Nature Writer Quotes | Tags: animals, art, beauty, books, conservation, earth, enviroment, literature, local, nature, photography, survival
Posted by: jakinnan | September 28, 2012
A Journey Toward Heaven
Where do we go from here? “This life,” wrote Jonathan Edwards, “ought to be spent by us only as a journey towards heaven.” That’s the only story worth living in now. The road goes out before us and our destination awaits. In the imagery of Hebrews, a race is set before us and we must run for all we’re worth. Our prayers will have been answered if we’ve helped to lift some of the dead weight so that your heart may rise to the call, hear it more clearly, respond with “eager feet.” Our final thoughts echo the advice found in Hebrews 12:2-3:
Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed-that exhilarating finish in and with God-he could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls! (Eugene Peterson’s translation from The Message)
Jesus remembered where he was headed, and he wanted to get there with all his heart. These two themes, memory and desire, will make all the difference in our journey ahead. Without them, we will not run well, if we run at all.
-John Eldredge, The Sacred Romance, 196-97
Picture Credit: Dave Allen
Posted in Ransomed Heart | Tags: art, beauty, books, God, heaven, Jesus Christ, John Eldredge, literature, local, love, mountains, nature, personal, photography, Ransomed Heart, salvation, travel
Posted by: jakinnan | September 28, 2012
09/28/2012 Scripture
Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. 17 And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.
-Colossians 3:16-17 NLT
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: Autumn, beauty, Bible, faith, fall colors, God, Jesus Christ, life, love, nature, North Carolina, photography, salvation
Posted by: jakinnan | September 27, 2012
Home to Nature
“A long time have I lived with you
And now we must be going
Separately to be together.
Perhaps I shall be the wind
To blur your smooth waters
So that you do not see your face too much.
Perhaps I shall be the star
To guide your uncertain wings
So that you have direction in the night.
Perhaps I shall be the fire
To separate your thoughts
So that you do not give up.
Perhaps I shall be the rain
To open up the earth
So that your seed may fall.
Perhaps I shall be the snow
To let your blossoms sleep
So that you may bloom in spring.
Perhaps I shall be the stream
To play a song on the rock
So that you are not alone.
Perhaps I shall be a new mountain
So that you always have a home.”
-Nancy Wood
Posted in Nature Writer Quotes | Tags: art, beauty, books, conservation, earth, enviroment, literature, local, love, mountains, nature, personal, photography, poetry, spirituality, travel
Posted by: jakinnan | September 27, 2012
The Company of Women
For many centuries women lived in close fellowships with other women – gathering at the well, down by the river, preparing meals – many occasions for femininity to just sort of naturally pass from older women to younger women. Our intuition, our keen eye for relationship, our ability to grasp matters of the heart made any sort of formal “passage” into femininity unnecessary. Nowadays those opportunities are nearly gone. When we meet as women, it tends to be in high-stress situations – corporate meetings with deadlines, ministry meetings with agendas, PTA meetings with concerns. The home is the only place left for this vital transmission of feminine identity.
The way you see yourself now, as a grown woman, was shaped early in your life, in the years when you were a little girl. We learned what it meant to be feminine – and if we were feminine – while we were very young. Women learn from their mothers what it means to be a woman, and from their fathers the value that a woman has – the value they have as a woman. If a woman is comfortable with her own femininity, her beauty, her strength, then the chances are good that her daughter will be too.
From our mothers we receive many, many things but foremost above them all is mercy and tenderness. When my sons were young and got hurt, their dad would say something encouraging like “cool wound.” I would cradle them in my arms and tend their injury. Our mothers show us the merciful face of God. We are nurtured at their breasts and cradled in their arms. They rock us to sleep and sing us lullabies. Our youngest years are lived within the proximity of their apron strings and they care for us in all the meanings of the word. When we get hurt, moms kiss us and make it better.
And as for our Question – that is primarily answered by our fathers.
Little girls need the tender strength of their fathers. They need to know that their daddies are strong and will protect them; they need to know that their fathers are forthem. Above all, a little girl learns the answer to her Question from her father.
From them, we learn that we are delighted in, that we are special…or that we are not. How a father relates to his daughter has an enormous effect on her soul – for good or for evil.
-John & Stasi Eldredge, Captivating, 61-62
Picture Credit: Michael Anderson
Posted in Ransomed Heart | Tags: art, beauty, books, Father, God, Jesus Christ, John Eldredge, life, literature, local, nature, personal, photography, Ransomed Heart, Women
Posted by: jakinnan | September 27, 2012
09/27/2012 Scripture
I am shocked that you are turning away so soon from God, who called you to himself through the loving mercy of Christ. You are following a different way that pretends to be the Good News but is not the Good News at all. You are being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ. Let God’s curse fall on anyone, including us or even an angel from heaven, who preaches a different kind of Good News than the one we preached to you. 9 I say again what we have said before: If anyone preaches any other Good News than the one you welcomed, let that person be cursed. Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant.
-Galatians 1:6-10 NLT
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: Autumn, beauty, Bible, faith, fall colors, God, Jesus Christ, life, love, nature, photography, salvation
Posted by: jakinnan | September 27, 2012
09/26/2012 Scripture
Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.
-Colossians 3:14-15 NLT
Picture Credit: Olegas Kurasovas
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: beauty, Bible, faith, God, Jesus Christ, love, nature, photography, salvation
Posted by: jakinnan | September 26, 2012
Following the Light
“Whether in the intellectual pursuits of science or in the mystical pursuits of the spirit, the light beckons ahead, and the purpose surging in our nature responds.”
-Arthur Stanley Eddington
Posted in Nature Writer Quotes | Tags: art, beauty, books, conservation, earth, enviroment, fall, fall colors, literature, local, nature, personal, photography, poetry, travel
Posted by: jakinnan | September 26, 2012
Cultivating Beauty
Every woman possesses a captivating beauty. Every woman. But for most of us it has been long buried, wounded, and captive. It takes time for it to emerge into wholeness. It needs to be cultivated, restored, set free.
How do we cultivate beauty? How do we become ever more beautiful? By tending to our hearts with great care, as a master gardener tends to her work.
My mother’s sons were angry with me
and made me take care of the vineyards;
my own vineyard I have neglected. (Songs 1:6)
Yes, life is harsh on a woman’s heart. It has been so on your heart. The assault on our beauty is real. But Jesus is urging us now to care for ourselves, watch over our hearts (Prov. 4:23). The world needs your beauty. That is why you are here. Your heart and your beauty are something to be treasured and nourished. And it takes time. Every gardener knows this. In our age of instant makeovers and microwave meals, we don’t like to wait. But a newly planted rose’s presentation in its first year is nothing compared to its second. If properly cared for, its second year’s display doesn’t hold a candle to its third. Gardens need to become established; their roots need to go deep, through summer rains and winter frosts. A garden’s beauty does not diminish with age, rather it takes years for it to become all that it can become.
Our hearts need to feed on beauty to sustain them. We need times of solitude and silence. We need times of refreshment and laughter and rest. We need to listen to the voice of God in our hearts as He tells us what we need.
Contrary to what the world claims, Beauty does not diminish with time; beauty deepens and increases. “Your latter glory will be greater than your former.” True beauty comes from a depth of soul that can only be attained through living many years well.
-John & Stasi Eldredge, Captivating, 144-145
Posted in Ransomed Heart | Tags: art, beauty, books, John Eldredge, life, literature, local, love, nature, personal, photography, Ransomed Heart, salvation, travel
Posted by: jakinnan | September 25, 2012
An Unfathomable Honor
We’ve all heard the story and missed the miracle—God begins his greatest work by including us. Even though we bungled it so badly the first time, back in Eden. Once again he shares in the excitement. Come with me, you have a part in this—the re-creation of the world.
Everyone who hears about Jesus hears about “the Twelve,” and can probably name Peter, Matthew, James and John, certainly Judas. Jesus and “his disciples” go hand in hand. Right here from the start, he acts like it’s not all about him. He shares the stage, shares the spotlight. He shares his glory: “I have given them the glory that you gave me” (John 17:22). He even shares his suffering. The crown of thorns, the cross—is this not the noblest part of his whole life, the very thing we most worship him for? Even in this he offers to us, “the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings” (Phil. 3:10). It is an honor I cannot begin to fathom.
-John Eldredge, Beautiful Outlaw, 132-133
Picture Credit: Mike Putnam
Posted in Ransomed Heart | Tags: art, beauty, books, God, Jesus Christ, John Eldredge, life, literature, love, mountains, nature, personal, photography, Ransomed Heart, salvation
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