Posted by: jakinnan | September 3, 2014

09/03/2014 Scripture

OC

Light is sweet; how pleasant to see a new day dawning.

When people live to be very old, let them rejoice in every day of life. But let them also remember there will be many dark days. Everything still to come is meaningless.

Young people, it’s wonderful to be young! Enjoy every minute of it. Do everything you want to do; take it all in. But remember that you must give an account to God for everything you do. So refuse to worry, and keep your body healthy. But remember that youth, with a whole life before you, is meaningless.

-Ecclesiastes 11:7-10 NLT

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Posted by: jakinnan | September 3, 2014

09/02/2014 Scripture

BL

Just as you cannot understand the path of the wind or the mystery of a tiny baby growing in its mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the activity of God, who does all things.

Plant your seed in the morning and keep busy all afternoon, for you don’t know if profit will come from one activity or another—or maybe both.

-Ecclesiastes 11:5-6 NLT

Photo: Alicia Daniel

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Posted by: jakinnan | September 3, 2014

09/01/2014 Scripture

MSS

Don’t let the excitement of youth cause you to forget your Creator. Honor him in your youth before you grow old and say, “Life is not pleasant anymore.” Remember him before the light of the sun, moon, and stars is dim to your old eyes, and rain clouds continually darken your sky. Remember him before your legs—the guards of your house—start to tremble; and before your shoulders—the strong men—stoop. Remember him before your teeth—your few remaining servants—stop grinding; and before your eyes—the women looking through the windows—see dimly.

Remember him before the door to life’s opportunities is closed and the sound of work fades. Now you rise at the first chirping of the birds, but then all their sounds will grow faint.

Remember him before you become fearful of falling and worry about danger in the streets; before your hair turns white like an almond tree in bloom, and you drag along without energy like a dying grasshopper, and the caperberry no longer inspires sexual desire. Remember him before you near the grave, your everlasting home, when the mourners will weep at your funeral.

Yes, remember your Creator now while you are young, before the silver cord of life snaps and the golden bowl is broken. Don’t wait until the water jar is smashed at the spring and the pulley is broken at the well. For then the dust will return to the earth, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.

-Ecclesiastes 12:1-7 NLT

Photo: Mike Robinson

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Posted by: jakinnan | September 2, 2014

08/31/2014 Scripture

meadow

Kiss me and kiss me again,
    for your love is sweeter than wine.
How fragrant your cologne;
    your name is like its spreading fragrance.
    No wonder all the young women love you!

How beautiful you are, my darling,
    how beautiful!
    Your eyes are like doves.

You are so handsome, my love,
    pleasing beyond words!
The soft grass is our bed;
fragrant cedar branches are the beams of our house,
    and pleasant smelling firs are the rafters.

-Song of Solomon 1:2-3 & 15-17 NLT

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Posted by: jakinnan | September 2, 2014

08/30/2014 Scripture

RMNP

Like the finest apple tree in the orchard
    is my lover among other young men.
I sit in his delightful shade
    and taste his delicious fruit.
He escorts me to the banquet hall;
    it’s obvious how much he loves me.
Strengthen me with raisin cakes,
    refresh me with apples,
    for I am weak with love.
His left arm is under my head,
    and his right arm embraces me.

Promise me, O women of Jerusalem,
    by the gazelles and wild deer,
    not to awaken love until the time is right.[b]

Ah, I hear my lover coming!
    He is leaping over the mountains,
    bounding over the hills.
My lover is like a swift gazelle
    or a young stag.
Look, there he is behind the wall,
    looking through the window,
    peering into the room.

-Song of Solomon 2:3-9 NLT

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Posted by: jakinnan | August 29, 2014

08/29/2014 Scripture

ocs

One night as I lay in bed, I yearned for my lover.
    I yearned for him, but he did not come.
So I said to myself, “I will get up and roam the city,
    searching in all its streets and squares.
I will search for the one I love.”
    So I searched everywhere but did not find him.
The watchmen stopped me as they made their rounds,
    and I asked, “Have you seen the one I love?”
Then scarcely had I left them
    when I found my love!
I caught and held him tightly,
    then I brought him to my mother’s house,
    into my mother’s bed, where I had been conceived.

Promise me, O women of Jerusalem,
    by the gazelles and wild deer,
    not to awaken love until the time is right.

-Song of Solomon 3:1-5 NLT

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Posted by: jakinnan | August 28, 2014

The Thwarter

Thwarter

It seems at times that God will go to any length to thwart the very thing we most deeply want. We can’t get a job. Our attempt to find a spouse never pans out. The doctors aren’t able to help us with our infertility. Isn’t this precisely the reason we fear to desire in the first place? Life is hard enough as it is, but to think that God himself is working against us is more than disheartening. As Job cried out, “What do you gain by oppressing me? . . . You hunt me like a lion and display your awesome power against me” (10:3, 16 NLT).

I want to state very clearly that not every trial in our life is specially arranged for us by God. Much of the heartache we know comes from living in a broken world filled with broken people. But there are times when God seems to be setagainst us. Unless we understand our desperate hearts and our incredible tenacity to arrange for the life we want, these events will just seem cruel.

When we lived in Eden, there was virtually no restriction on the pleasure around us. We could eat freely from any tree in the Garden. Our desire was innocent and fully satisfied. We had it all, but we threw it away. By mistrusting God’s heart, by reaching to take control of what we wanted, Adam and Eve set in motion a process in our hearts, a desperate grasping that can be described only as addiction. Desire goes mad within us. Gerald May observes, “Once they gave in to that temptation, their freedom was invaded by attachment. They experienced the need for more. God knew that they would not—could not—stop with just the one tree.”

Our first parents are banished from Paradise as an act of mercy. The thought of the human race gaining immortality—eating from the Tree of Life—in a fallen state is too horrible to imagine. We would be evil forever.

– John Eldredge, Desire

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Posted by: jakinnan | August 28, 2014

08/28/2014 Scripture

JGard

You have captured my heart,
    my treasure, my bride.
You hold it hostage with one glance of your eyes,
    with a single jewel of your necklace.
Your love delights me,
    my treasure, my bride.
Your love is better than wine,
    your perfume more fragrant than spices.
Your lips are as sweet as nectar, my bride.
    Honey and milk are under your tongue.
Your clothes are scented
    like the cedars of Lebanon.

You are my private garden, my treasure, my bride,
    a secluded spring, a hidden fountain.
Your thighs shelter a paradise of pomegranates
    with rare spices—
henna with nard,
     nard and saffron,
    fragrant calamus and cinnamon,
with all the trees of frankincense, myrrh, and aloes,
    and every other lovely spice.
You are a garden fountain,
    a well of fresh water
    streaming down from Lebanon’s mountains.

-Song of Solomon 4:9-15 NLT

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Posted by: jakinnan | August 27, 2014

Driven into the Darker Regions of the Soul

StormRoad

I hope you’re getting the picture by now. If a man does not find those things for which his heart is made, if he is never even invited to live for them from his deep heart, he will look for them in some other way. Why is pornography the number one snare for men? He longs for the beauty, but without his fierce and passionate heart he cannot find her or win her or keep her. Though he is powerfully drawn to the woman, he does not know how to fight for her or even that he is to fight for her. Rather, he finds her mostly a mystery that he knows he cannot solve and so at a soul level he keeps his distance. And privately, secretly, he turns to the imitation. What makes pornography so addictive is that more than anything else in a lost man’s life, it makes him feel like a man without ever requiring a thing of him. The less a guy feels like a real man in the presence of a real woman, the more vulnerable he is to porn.

And so a man’s heart, driven into the darker regions of the soul, denied the very things he most deeply desires, comes out in darker places. Now, a man’s struggles, his wounds and addictions, are a bit more involved than that, but those are the core reasons. As the poet George Herbert warned, “He begins to die, that quits his desires.” And you know what? We all know it. Every man knows that something’s happened, something’s gone wrong . . . we just don’t know what it is.

– John Eldredge, Wild at Heart

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Posted by: jakinnan | August 27, 2014

08/27/2014 Scripture

garden

I have entered my garden, my treasure, my bride!
    I gather myrrh with my spices
and eat honeycomb with my honey.
    I drink wine with my milk.

Oh, lover and beloved, eat and drink!
    Yes, drink deeply of your love!

-Song of Solomon 5:1 NLT

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