Sun Days

Our sun is a moderate sized star 864,000 miles in diameter, that's 109 times bigger than earth.  That does not seem moderate but compared to other stars it is.  It's surface is around 25 million degrees F and it consumes 657 million tons of hydrogen every second.  Remind yourself of that the next time you pay your gas bill. 

We have nothing to worry about though because our sun will burn for another 4 or 5 billion years.  Take the sun burning out off your worry list for 2014.  But what does that leave on your worry list for this new year?

Perhaps thinking again about the sun can help, or better yet, the sun's creator.  If God is able to make something of that magnitude, strength and duration -as well as all the other suns in our universe - how big and how strong must He be?  How vast are His sources of strength if He equipped our sun with that kind of power?

Though we can see the sun, we cannot see His infinite strength where we will need it in our future but we can be sure that it will be there because He will be there.  This Sunday - no pun intended - we will look at the source of this verse, "The Lord watches over you...the sun will not harm you by day nor the moon by night."

Do you know where that verse is?  Join me Sunday and we will look at that along with all the other promises that orbit around it.

for the journey...

Tim

Carrying a Load

In my recent travels of going to and from Houston to help my in-laws after their house fire and then a recent trip to Garland to move my oldest daughter, I have been hauling a lot of things in my pickup.  I made a realization, my truck rides better when I am carrying a load.  Pickups were made that way and designed to haul something.

In the last week, listening to Andrew Heard's testimony and seeing how he is bearing up under the load of advanced stage cancer I made another realization.  It was confirmed on another day last week when I had back to back meetings with two different members with two very different hardships in their lives, yet each were taking their trial and turning into a ministry.  My realization is this - Christians are made to carry a load.  God has designed us to "run" better when we are trusting Him to help us in the trials of life.

When we depend on God to turn our hardships into opportunities to minister to others, it is amazing how strong we become.  Of course, it is not our strength but His "power made perfect in [our] weakness" as Paul said in speaking of his "thorn in the flesh" in 2 Corinthians 12:9.

I have a lot to learn from these people about following God through hardships and how to  know His strength in my weakness, but I am glad I have seen what God can do in them.  Where is someone around you bearing up under a load and making it into a ministry opportunity?  I think there probably is someone in your life you can learn from - even if you don't drive a pickup.

For the journey...

Tim