Life is like a patch-work. The next few days, we are going to share a little of the patches that make up Israel. Disconnected pieces, but put together they are our life here. Consider the joy at noticing and experiencing this for your self. Consider making the decision to come to Israel and become a Master Quilt Maker for life.
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| Arik Shoosberger 1908-2004 |
~~There is a unique pleasure in learning Hebrew. In having the song of the language around you. At seeing it printed everywhere and being able to read it. Being a beginner, I don't always understand what I read... but I can read it none-the-less. English is taking more and more of a place in the public eye. The sign to the right obviously got my attention. The interesting thing with this sign... the English is NOT the translation for what is written in Hebrew. ("private parking, car inside") The 2 Spies are wondering if only those that know English are likely to ignore the sign and park here?? ~~
~~Strolling past the memorial bench, laughing at the parking sign, I came around the corner to a lovely little cafe'. Israel is FULL of lovely little cafes each trying to be unique to draw you in. This cafe (don't remember the name) truly got my attention. On a table outside the front window was a table with milk crates full of old 33rpm records. Those are round plastic discs that are placed on a machine, called a record player. An arm with a needle is lowered onto the record and the music is then heard through the speakers. (That definition may not be needed but just in case...)
I asked the waiter if we were allowed to listen to them. Here you see him putting on my choice to play. I enjoyed a tasty lunch while listening to a bit of 'The Swingle Singers'.~~
Click here to enjoy the music Swingle Singers ~ Bach
~~ Last 'Bit & Piece' for today. An all too common site and one that we hope will disappear one day. Nuff said~~
December 23rd 2010 (32) 1/2
ReplyDelete“Though dead still speaks.”
It was way back on March 9th 1990, I know because I made a note of it in the margin of my small NIV Bible that I was using then, that I heard those words spoken to a small group of leaders of the Gwent Christian Fellowship’s Prayer Breakfast team. To explain: the GCF was a group of believers from the churches in S E Wales (UK). The grandiose name was simply those who sorted a venue and a speaker for our bi-monthly prayer breakfast gatherings (on a Saturday) where, after breakfast, we would worship the LORD, listen to His Word and minister as He directed.
That date in March, twenty years ago was a Friday night where our speaker, the following day, chatted to we of the committee. He spoke on Eccl 3:15 …
“That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past.” [KJV]
As our speaker, Mr Charles Preece, continued to expound on the scripture he made a telling statement, “The LORD hath need of the things that are past.” In short he simply said that the LORD can, and will, use those memories of events long since gone and words spoken by those who have gone to glory. He spoke of a gentleman, I have sadly forgotten his name, who uttered a telling statement many years before, yet that word still encouraged our speaker long after the former had died. The man who originally spoke those words … though now dead, still spoke powerfully into the life of Mr Preece.
Our words show the world two things:
(1) As scripture says, that out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. If we take in carnality and bitterness then carnality and bitterness will issue forth from our lips.
Steve Perry UK
December 23rd 2010 (32) 2/2
ReplyDelete(2) During a near 30 year career in teaching, some mid-days I would drive just 5 mins from school to anyone of a number of picturesque vantage points where I had a beautiful view of the valley below me for my lunch. On one particular day I had a tape playing in my car and during a song the words of Ps 37 really spoke to me:
“3 Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. 4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. 5 Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: 6 He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. 7 Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. 8 Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret--it leads only to evil. 9 For evil men will be cut off, but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land. 10 A little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look for them, they will not be found. 11 But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy great peace.” [NIV]
Those first seven words, “Trust in the LORD and do good;” hit me immediately. The LORD questioned me, I was going through a rather tough period in work at the time, “How can you do good if you are bitter inside, if you allow bitterness and anger to fester?” “LORD,” I said, “if there is anger and bitterness inside of me then anger and bitterness will be evidenced in my words and deeds.” “So what do you then need to do so that your words and deeds will be GOOD in difficult times?” “LORD,” I responded, “for my fruit to be good I have to give you my bitterness and anger, all that is negative, and ask You to replace it with Your love and peace so that my actions and words will be GOOD.”
Our words and actions remain long after after our lives. Let us, in these very difficult days, with the LORD’s help, speak and act in a way that honours Him, so that long after our days, it may be said of us in a positive sense: “Though dead still speaks.”
Steve Perry UK