What are they?

The ways of God.

Have you ever rehearsed God's promises to you or to His people, declaring what your heart knows God to be?

Have you ever reminded God that He Himself said that faithfulness was an essential part of His being at all times; that the heavenly assemblies are constantly praising Him for His faithfulness; that generations have made His faithfulness known to the next generation for hundreds of years; that His faithfulness is established in the heavens---unchangeable and perpetual?

Have you ever reminded God that He said He will not allow his faithfulness to fail, to lie and be false?

Then have you seen a sudden, apparent contradiction to all these facets of faithfulness in the God you love when it appears that He is casting off and rejecting His very own or just forgetting their cries?

Psalm 89 is all of this in writing, but I can say that this is a writing I see in my own life.

Apparent Contradictions...

Jesus, the Beloved Son encountered such. The persecuted church has faced this through the ages. Is it because we live in "time" that it seems thus?

God, the Infinite One, sees the beginning from the end and knows that He cannot be false to His very Own nature. There are no contradictions with God in the scope of eternity. However, through our finite glances, our "looking through a glass darkly"  into all the largeness of God and His purposes, we encounter these seeming contradictions of God.

Look at Jesus, friends! God Who became man. What was His response?

What did He pray the night it seemed His Father, yes, our Father, was "full of wrath against [His] anointed?"
"Father, not My will, but Thine be done."

The gold's response to the heat determines the outcome, yet, at the same time, the one who places the gold under the frightful heat takes full responsibility for its testing and purifying and rejoices when he can see his face reflected in the now thoroughly purified metal.

I love the picture below which my friend, Julie, took a few mornings back about 40 min. from our home.
How could something so lacking in definition, so filled with the clouds of morning fog be so exquisite?
God's apparent contradictions in your life and mine are the same. The light of His presence, like the morning sun in this picture, brings life and dimension to the most difficult circumstances we find ourselves in. Thus, people are able to see how exquisite HE is!
Glory!

Dear Faithful Reading Friends,

As many of you know, I just returned from a recent excursion/adventure to Nome, Alaska!  (Let's here it for Nome!)

A place so full of ironies. To look at it at the outset, it doesn't seem very beautiful...3 wks. there changed my perspective!
This is a view from my brother and sis-in-law's kitchen window---you're looking out at the frozen Bering Sea!


A snow-machine likely coming back into town after checking crab pots.

You never know what you'll find in Nome! :D

A raven-kind of bird with landing gear down at "Subway Hill", the last climb on the Iditarod before the Finish Line.


A wintry sunset from the window in my room. Ahh...you should see the colors of the sky there in the winter!

One day while my adventure-lovin' brother and I were out on the snow-covered tundra by way of snow-machine, we saw this classic little western cabin on the backside of a mountain. If you look close, you can see the drift around the building to the right. I was standing on probably about 4-5 feet of snow...I walked gingerly away from the snow machine, hoping I wouldn't fall in suddenly! Snow shoe country for sure!

Alaska King Crab! We're about 1.3 mi. out over frozen ocean with Nome in the background. You just don't think about it. :)

It was so amazing...after working for about 10 min. the men broke through their previously established crab hole and my brother started pulling on a yellow rope, up, up, up, and finally....ta-daa!

My little manly nephew loved holding the starfish that had attached themselves to the crab basket! I was going to bring some home as souvenirs; alas, I didn't know you needed to bake them first! Poor things. I'll have to try again someday.

Here's a random photo shot of the window at my brother's front door entrance.

On the snow machine, we saw some little black "dots" on a distant mountain peak. My brother said, "Let's go see if we can catch them!" He was pretty certain they were a herd of muskox. We took off and I held on!
Sure enough, as we crested the top, we weren't disappointed!

Musher 3 or 4 of the 13 I had the joy of seeing or hearing come across the Iditarod Finish Line! Notice the booties on the dogs. The dog handlers threw them out to the crowd from time to time. To my delight, I caught one. Amazing to think of the approx. 1,100 miles they covered in just a little over 9 days!


My brother and his wife had longed to share Iditarod with family members being that it's such a vital part of their community/culture each year. The dream came true as Carlee's mother, father and sister were able to be there as well!

Remember how Jesus prayed in Jn. 17:24 "Father, I will that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold my glory..."

As excited and animated as I might try to be in explaining to you how awesome and electric this experience was for me, you won't really know it unless you experience it for yourself!

Jesus knows that about His "culture" called Heaven! What a place! As much as we can read about it, ponder it, long to be there, it won't be till we actually get to, as Jesus prayed, "be with Him where He is" that we'll be able to know the significance of that prayer.

Isn't that just like salvation? You can be around people who have been born again, talk about it, even sit under steady preaching and teaching about it, but until you really come to know the love of Christ for yourself, you just don't know it!

May He be your heart's greatest pursuit, your tongue's most incessant praise, your tireless devotion and your greatest declaration to others!

He wants Heaven to be FILLED with worshipers!

By the way, if you think of Nome, it's probably because God put it on your heart! Truly a place of great need spiritually!

Blessings in Christ, friends!