I try to read the morning devotion written by Charles Spurgeon every day. Every one seems to speak to an important aspect of how we think and what our importance is in the BIG scheme of God’s will. Today’s speaks to me about the importance of being where He puts me and not where I want to be, thought I would share it…

“They shall go hindmost with their standards.” — Numbers 2:31

The camp of Dan brought up the rear when the armies of Israel were on the march. The Danites occupied the hindmost place, but what mattered the position, since they were as truly part of the host as were the foremost tribes; they followed the same fiery cloudy pillar, they ate of the same manna, drank of the same spiritual rock, and journeyed to the same inheritance. Come, my heart, cheer up, though last and least; it is thy privilege to be in the army, and to fare as they fare who lead the van. Some one must be hindmost in honour and esteem, some one must do menial work for Jesus, and why should not I? In a poor village, among an ignorant peasantry; or in a back street, among degraded sinners, I will work on, and “go hindmost with my standard.”

The Danites occupied a very useful place. Stragglers have to be picked up upon the march, and lost property has to be gathered from the field. Fiery spirits may dash forward over untrodden paths to learn fresh truth, and win more souls to Jesus; but some of a more conservative spirit may be well engaged in reminding the church of her ancient faith, and restoring her fainting sons. Every position has its duties, and the slowly moving children of God will find their peculiar state one in which they may be eminently a blessing to the whole host.

The rear guard is a place of danger. There are foes behind us as well as before us. Attacks may come from any quarter. We read that Amalek fell upon Israel, and slew some of the hindmost of them. The experienced Christian will find much work for his weapons in aiding those poor doubting, desponding, wavering, souls, who are hindmost in faith, knowledge, and joy. These must not be left unaided, and therefore be it the business of well-taught saints to bear their standards among the hindmost. My soul, do thou tenderly watch to help the hindmost this day.

May your day be blessed!

David

…. You don’t know it ’till you see it. Here is what I needed to see today! Thought I would share it.

David

Charles Spurgeon’s Daily Devotional

http://www.blueletterbible.org/devotionals/

February 4th
Morning Reading

“The love of the Lord.” — Hosea 3:1

Believer, look back through all thine experience, and think of the way whereby the Lord thy God has led thee in the wilderness, and how He hath fed and clothed thee every day—how He hath borne with thine ill manners—how He hath put up with all thy murmurings, and all thy longings after the flesh-pots of Egypt—how He has opened the rock to supply thee, and fed thee with manna that came down from heaven. Think of how His grace has been sufficient for thee in all thy troubles—how His blood has been a pardon to thee in all thy sins—how His rod and His staff have comforted thee. When thou hast thus looked back upon the love of the Lord, then let faith survey His love in the future, for remember that Christ’s covenant and blood have something more in them than the past. He who has loved thee and pardoned thee, shall never cease to love and pardon. He is Alpha, and He shall be Omega also: He is first, and He shall be last. Therefore, bethink thee, when thou shalt pass through the valley of the shadow of death, thou needest fear no evil, for He is with thee. When thou shalt stand in the cold floods of Jordan, thou needest not fear, for death cannot separate thee from His love; and when thou shalt come into the mysteries of eternity thou needest not tremble, “For I am persuaded, that neither death; nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Now, soul, is not thy love refreshed? Does not this make thee love Jesus? Doth not a flight through illimitable plains of the ether of love inflame thy heart and compel thee to delight thyself in the Lord thy God? Surely as we meditate on “the love of the Lord,” our hearts burn within us, and we long to love Him more.

Amen

It is a good thing that most people don’t know the angst that professional exams create for those who take them.

The exams often have little to do with the actual practice of the profession I have taken Bar exams in two different states for the purpose of becoming licensed to practice law in each state. The relation between what is tested and what is required to practice law effectively has little if any similarity. The ability to be a good lawyer and your Bar exam test score is also something that has no correlation. The bottom line is that these test are part of the hurdles that the professions set out in front of hopefuls for the purpose of culling out those who don’t want it bad enough. Maybe I am bit cynical but I am not alone.

Tomorrow, 1/29, my daughter Emily is taking the MCAT. The first of several hurdles that the establishment place in the path of hopefuls for Medical School enrollment. She has taken the multi-week prep course by one of the well known vendors. She has done many pre-tests. She has given up Facebook and text messaging (I knew she was serious when she did that). She is in the last hours prior to the test watching some cheesy movies. She is ready!

If the thought comes to mind tomorrow during the day, raise her in prayer. Her target score is 31.

Thanks for your prayers.

David

The boiling water to ice show. This is really true. We have done it ourselves.

Well, maybe not this messy. But here is my point. I have been taking chunks of time since the first of January and doing as much as I can in a finite amount of time and then I quit and move on to something else. The day or so I come back to the “mess” and do another finite chunk of time and so on and so on. I have been absolutely amazed at the amount of work that happens after two or three of these 20 to 30 minute chunks is completed. It certainly appears to me that I am getting more done in these chuncks than if I were to start the project and go until I was finished. Better said, I feel that I am to be more efficient and effective with what I am doing. It is a good feeling.

So far with this approach, during the 26 days of the month so far, I have straightened out the tack room in the barn. It really had had little done to it, in the way of cleaning for a number of years. I cleaned out an area in the main part of the barn that was a bit of a mess when we moved on to the property in 2003. I straightened up, organized, cleaned out about half of a single car garage next to the barn that is storage building for lawn mowers, tools, rakes, fencing, etc, etc. Then I moved into the garage attached to the house and straightened up an area along one of the long walls of the garage taht had been ignored for awhile. My current project is de-cluttering and throwing away and organizing my home office.

I have to say that I am more amazed than I was just by writing this all down. AMAZING!

Attack the mess. Destroy the clutter in bite size pieces and you will overcome the seemingly overwhelming problem before you.

Have fun!

David

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Easy to say and hard to do!

Discipline is not the discipline of spanking, deprival, and punishment. It is the commitment to see things through.  To carry through even it would be way easier to do nothing.

David

Growing up in the UP of Michigan during the 1960′s was living in Packer heaven. Bart Starr, Paul Hornig,  Jim Taylor, and coach Vince Lombardi were every day names even among non-football people like my mom.  Green Bay was one of the 2 shopping destinations for shopping starved women on the “thumb” of the UP, the other destination was Duluth, MN. We may have been from Michigan but we were Packer fans!

Today the Packers rose to glory again by beating the hated Chicago Bears.

In two weeks they play the hated Pittsburgh Steelers, you see I grew up, age 2 to 14 years, in Harrisburg, PA and I was NEVER a Steeler Fan!

GO PACK!

David

Hey to all of you! This mornings temperature was 27 degrees warmer than yesterday. Yesterday was -28 and this morning it was only -1. Now for you warm weather folks, before you go off on the “-1 degrees is still too cold” routine, consider this take your low temperature from yesterday morning and add 27 degrees to it and what would you think about the change? For example, Miami’s low for Friday, January 21, 2011 was 68 degrees (Accuweather data). If Miami’s low today would have been 27 degrees warmer it would have been 95 degrees F for the LOW!  Think about it!

Owning horses can is not always scooping poop. Jasper got his front hoof stuck last night in between two sections of a round pen. (see picture) It took a neighbor, Emily and me all working together to get his hoof out. The vet came cleaned up the wound and bandaged him up and is coming back Sunday AM to see what going on when the some of the swelling is down.

I don’t have tell any jokes because here is a picture of the thermometer outside our kitchen window this morning at 6 AM (Jan 21, 2011)

-28 F Degrees below zero