The Ugly Dog Next Door

Greetings

The ugly dog next door was a constant annoyance for me when I was growing up. I didn’t like the dog because he was ugly and always wanting attention, but my friend, the owner of the dog loved that dog with all his heart. They went virtually everywhere together and they played together constantly.  I thought, I could never have an ugly dog like that, there would be no way I could love something that ugly.

One day my friend showed up at my house looking like the world had come to an end. I asked him what was wrong and he told me his dog had been run over and died, it was only at that moment I realized his dog wasn’t at his side. A part of me was relieved I wouldn’t have to put up with that ugly dog any longer, but there was a part of me that was sad for my friends loss.

After a few years and we went our own ways, I became consumed with life and a family and the past drifted farther behind me. It was then fate dealt me an opportunity to understand my friend’s compassion for his ugly dog. I acquired my own small ugly dog one day, it was as ugly as any dog can get, but the dog grew on me and I became attached to the dog as one can be to an animal. I took that dog everywhere, when you saw me you saw the dog. It was only then I could fully appreciate my friends love for his dog, his companion in life. It was only then I saw my short sightedness and it was then I saw for the first time how we must look in the eyes of God.

We aren’t dogs in his sight, but the love he has for us is sometimes hard to understand in human terms; we may find ourselves thinking sometimes, “How could God love someone like that?”  How can we understand his love unless we put ourselves in his shoes, For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son. It makes you sad to think we’ve lived on this earth as long as some of us have and we can’t even begin to understand that kind of love. What a better world this would be if we all loved others like we are capable of loving a small ugly dog.

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Finding Yourself

Greetings:

We hear all the time someone is trying to find themselves in this confusing world we live in. It also seems to be more of a phenomenon with the younger generations than the older folks because the older generation found themselves in the midst of several wars. There’s nothing like a few bullets whizzing by your head to help one find ones self, very quickly I might add, and you’ll never forget where you are again.

Those that seek to find themselves will take elaborate trips to foreign countries for extended periods of time, all in the guise of finding ones purpose in life. The expenses for this investigation into life’s revelations is most often at the expense of their parents, because most younger people haven’t had the time to build an account that can sustain a lifestyle abroad or anywhere else, for that matter. It seems finding ones self involves a sampling of all that life has to offer, drugs, booze and sex, what a better way to find ones self than  partying until your thirty at your parents expense. These seem to be necessary tools, ones mind must be fully explored for the challenges ahead, nothing like a little LSD to give one insight. One must, in addition, explore all the sexual fantasies one can envision before moving on to creating a family, wouldn’t want to have any regrets later in life, right?

But finding one self often comes with a greater price than many anticipate, drug additions, alcoholism, sexual diseases, and all the parties that took their exploration into themselves to new heights will bring them crashing back down to absolute reality. No family, no great life, no great job, just battle after battle with additions along with tons of regret.

Finding yourself actually starts with finding God and it’s not a cliché to believe that God gives you direction and purpose. God builds charter and strong minds; he builds families, and gives the kind of life and future we all desire. God’s truth is the foundation of the soul and we all build from there upwards. My advise to everyone, young and old, if you think you need to find yourself sometime in the future, look for God first; then, one day when your much older look in a mirror, both will be starring back and there will be no regrets.

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Where have all the Generals gone?

Greetings:

What’s happening with all the Generals these days? They seem to be falling under disgrace right and left. All of a sudden two of the highest-ranking generals are discovered to have had affairs within this last year and we are now just hearing about it. Isn’t it amazing, when you see corruption in the government trending towards Tierney you start to see those that could possibly stop the progression of an out-of-control government all of a sudden become discredited? It brings a whole new perspective to the condition of our government and its slow dismantling of our culture.

If we see more and more of these men falling to scandal and resigning for no good reason, we will soon begin seeing the wall of protection dissolving between government and the people. Getting rid of those that oppose you is a necessity, and dictators begin with the military, it has been the practice of power hungry men since the dawn of time.

We can believe it’s just circumstance and ignore any more changes in our military (howsoever slight they might be) or be vigilant over the next four years. The military can be a friend or foe, if this is a man on a power quest, we shall soon see the fruits of victory.

Maybe we have already begun seeing those fruits and we haven’t put the pieces together well enough to see the complete picture.

The bottom line is this, we are looking for Jesus Christ to come one day soon, but that can’t happen until certain key prophecies are fulfilled. As bad as this administration is, we know it will be worse before Christ can make it better. So, hang onto Jesus, the greatest general of all time and one Obama can’t disgrace

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You Own It!

Greetings:

Congratulations to the Democrats and Young People!  You now own it.  The next terrorist attack, you own it.  Can’t get a job after graduation, you own it.  Sky rocketing energy prices due to Obama’s EPA shutting down the energy producing states, you own it.  A nuclear Iran, you own it.  Bowing to the Soviet Union, you own it.  Another severe recession, you own it.  A volatile border with Mexico, you own it.  Trouble getting good health care, you own it.  Higher heath insurance costs and health care costs, you own it.  No federal budget, you own it.  Our allies mistrust, you own it.  Several more trillions of debt, you own it. More Benghazi situations, you own it.  No one willing to join the military, you own it.  Trouble getting a loan to buy a home, you own it.  More dependency on food stamps, you own it.  Trouble finding good employment, you own it.  Several part time jobs instead of a good job, you own it.  A World Government, you own it.  The UN governing the United States instead of ourselves doing it, you own it. A Senate that will not bring any legislation to the table rather it is “Dead on Arrival”, you own it.  China controlling our world trade trampling all over us, you own it.  Loss of our freedoms as we have known it in the past, you own it.  A dictatorship instead of a democracy that follows the Constitution, you own it.  Less take home pay and higher living costs, you own it.  Driving a car that looks like a toy, you own it.  More government corruption and lies, you own it. More toleration of extreme and fanatical Islamists, you own it.  Terrorist attacks called work place incidents, you own it.  Your revenge instead of love of country, you own it.  President George Bush is out of it now, and there is not another good man for you to vilify and lie about. In a way I am relieved that another good man will not be blamed when it was impossible to clean up this mess you voted for. Have a good day.  God bless the United States and Texas!  God is still our hope.

Author Unknown, forwarded by Bob Barrie.

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One Hundred Year Soup

Greetings:

            There is a story about the French farmers who were nearly starving early in the 1800’s. They were kept alive by what came to be called “The One Hundred Year Old Soup.” Each Week, to a pot which always simmered on the back of the kitchen stove, the farmer’s wife would add whatever was available: sometimes it would be a carrot, sometimes an onion, sometimes no more than dandelions. But each week something would be added with a little more water. The soup never stopped simmering. It was always there.

            When the oldest daughter left to set up housekeeping, included in her dowry was a little pot of soup, taken from the back of the stove and shared. When the French immigrants arrived on these shores, those from the southeast rural area of France carried their little pots of “One hundred year old soup.” Some soup consumed today in South Carolina among those of French descent derives from that one hundred year old soup.

The church of Jesus Christ has been on the stove boiling for two thousand years. Many ingredients have been added and many people have been fed. It is ever old, yet ever new, just like our savior Jesus Christ. The faith and truth he established when he was upon this earth became the soup of salvation and has been carried forth by each generation afterwards. It is the responsibility of every generation to add their labor over the oven’s of testing and do their part by adding into the holy pot the ingredients of faith; so each new generation can be filled with the nourishment of God.

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Jesus Wept!

Greetings:

The shortest verse in the bible is quoted as” Jesus wept” such a simple statement but a powerful one. He wept because of the sorrow he felt at that moment, not because Lazarus was dead and those about him were mournful, but because of their inability to recognize the power of Christ and the lack of faith that surrounded him at the moment.

The question was raised on the radio the other day, If Jesus went into an abortion clinic, would he accept what was happening within those walls? Would the fact a woman was raped or she became pregnant by incest make a difference with Christ and his acceptance of the people willing to destroy the life within them.  The debate soared to extreme examples of what Jesus would and would not accept this day and time in the form of social norms. Would Christ like our government, would he be in our churches, and what would he think about our schools? Would Christ be a Democrat or a Republican?

Jesus wept, we focus on what we think is socially acceptable and right according to our upbringing and the world that surrounds us, and we forget what Christ really stands for. He stands for truth; he never claimed to be of any political affiliation of his time. Christ was always mindful of the widow and orphan, but most of all….Life! Life of the vulnerable is the greatest responsibility of us all, and if we had his institutions in place for punishment, marriage and socially accepted activities, there would be very little rape and incest to contend with. Following Christ halfway never works personally within our society, one must commit 100%, even if we fail at times. Nothing works half way; you certainly wouldn’t get on an airplane that worked only 50% of the time; so why do we commit to God only halfway then sit around expecting a 100% in return. Do you think committing only halfway nearly all the time might make just make Jesus weep?

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