Finding God

I missed the Harry Potter craze when it first came around but after seeing the preview for the latest movie I decided that I now wanted to read them. I just finished the second book and have to say that they are pretty enjoyable. I love that God is so evident in popluar culture, in music that is not labeled as "christian", in movies that may even have an R rating, and in books that some would consider "of the devil" do to witchcraft.

As I was reading the Chamber of Secrets I found a quote that I really loved. Dumbledore the great wizard who is head of the school of magic tells Harry Potter "It is our choices, Harry that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." I believe that this is often what God tells us as well. It doesn't matter if we feel we can or can not do something, it isn't if we feel we don't have the skills to do this or that, it is the choice that we make. Are we going to listen to God and do what He is calling us to do, or are we going to sit back on our behinds and ignore His calling because we feel we "Don't have the abilities to do that" God gave us gifts for a reason and in order to develop our gifts and skills we must use them. Isn't it nice to know that our effort counts for more than our ability?

Happiness Is...

"I have observed that when any of us embarks on the pursuit of happiness for ourselves it eludes us. Often I've asked myself why? It must be because happiness comes to us only as a dividend. When we become absorbed in something demanding and worthwhile above and beyond ourselves happiness seems to be there as a by-product of the the self giving."
-- Catherine Marshall (A Closer Walk)

What are we throwing ourselves into, what are we doing with our time, how are we serving God.What are we doing that is demanding and worthwhile, that is bigger than our self - centered lives, in order to earn our happiness dividend?

what were they thinking???

Last night Bobby, my brother and sister-in-law and I decided after dinner to go see Public Enemies. We all enter the theatre excited thinking that this movie will be really exciting. Then after watching 20 minutes of commercials (which I hate -- if I wanted to see commercials I would have stayed at home and watched a movie on TNT) and previews which I love (Bobby won the preview game last night by guessing 6, stupid me and my pick of 5) the movie finally begins. It starts out promising and then continues to drag on and on and on and on and...you get the picture. I mean how can you make a movie about bank robbing, death, and shootings bad? Well good job Michael Mann (the director) you did it. I mean honestly this movie should have been on the history channel I really kept expecting a voice over from Edward Herrmann (grandfather in Gilmore Girls who also narrates a lot of History Channel stuff). Johnny Depp did a great job and Christian Bale did well with what they gave him but I kept expecting his character to do something spectacular and it never happened they just didn't give him much to work with, I am really surprised that they chose to do this movie. Anyway that is enough my ranting, this is just my opinion so if you are dying to see it don't let me stop you but I really would say don't waste your money as all of us who saw it last night rated it as one of the worst movies we have seen in the theatre.

always wanting what we don't have

I came across this video today while I was working on my Sunday School lesson for my youth. http://www.tangle.com/view_video.php?viewkey=9d4d5f859286381ff764 Funny how what we have is never enough and how we are always wanting and wishing for more. It might serve us well to just be happy where we are with what we have, we might very well end up with what we want but in a place that we don't want to be in. Praise God for knowing what exactly what He is doing!