It’s funny how at the most unusual times the Lord brings a truth to mind. Yesterday, while driving home from a church fellowship event, ‘out of the blue’ the thought hit me: Every detail of our lives; where we live, what we eat, what we wear, where we get our money, how we get medicines when we are sick, how we will be able to buy or sell a house or car…God has already taken care of it. I mean, in His mind, it is already done, like it already happened. He has it all worked out.

Whatever your uncertainties today God assures over and over again in His Word that they are only uncertainties to you, not Him. He already worked out whatever your dilemma is long ago–an eternity ago, in fact.

If we by faith remember that all our uncertainties today are already certainties with God; we can rest in trusting that God’s certainties of the situation(s) become our certainties.

Leaning on the Everlasting Arms

What a fellowship, what a joy divine,
Leaning on the everlasting arms;
What a blessedness, what a peace is mine,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.

Refrain

Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms;
Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms.

O how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way,
Leaning on the everlasting arms;
O how bright the path grows from day to day,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.

Refrain

What have I to dread, what have I to fear,
Leaning on the everlasting arms;
I have blessed peace with my Lord so near,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.

Refrain
Words: Eli­sha A. Hoff­man, Music: Anthony J. Showalter



Posted: May 31st, 2009 under Devotions, Encouragement, Learning & Growing, Quotations.
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words fail me.
pray for Isaac.

Posted: May 30th, 2009 under Challenge, Persecuted Church, Testimony, World Missions.
Comments: none

I’m enjoying a perfect cup of coffee right now (actually, it looks almost identical to the cup in the picture!)  I love the taste and aroma of coffee.  I love the rich color, and I love that just enough half-and-half takes the acidity away and gives it a nice weighted body.  As I sip it, I’m reminded that the Lord gave it to us to enjoy, as yet another example of His good pleasure.

Earlier tonight my wife and I used a restaurant gift certificate a brother and sister at church gave me for my recent college graduation.  I”m thankful for them, and thankful for the delicious salad, breadsticks, bruschetta, and chicken parmesan I had too.

Tonight I will, by God’s grace, sleep under peaceful skies, in a quiet, air-conditioned and modern home with clean water, indoor plumbing and comfortable bed (of course, all of these are hardly “little things”, I realize.)

As I often say, I am simply over-blessed.

Posted: May 29th, 2009 under Learning & Growing, Potpourri.
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My friend, for anonymity’s sake I’ll call him Dave (his real name is Ed), was teaching me about satellites the other day, a subject I know nothing about.  He told me there are three main types of satellite orbits around the Earth: NEO, MEO, and GEO.  NEO stands for “Near Earth Orbit”, these satellites are about 100 miles above the earth and whiz around Earth super-fast, they’re only over the same spot for about 10 minutes every hour or so.

MEO stands for “Medium Earth Orbit”, these satellites are sent farther out away from Earth and generally around the same spot above earth for a somewhat longer time, but still move from that fixed spot.

Then there’s GEO, or “Geosynchronous Earth Orbit”, these satellites are sent a whopping to exactly 23,200 miles out away from Earth’s equator.  This is roughly three “earths” away from us–so wayyy out there.  GEO orbiting satellites are sent that far because the earth’s gravitional pull is less the farther out an object goes.  At exactly that distance an object orbits the earth at the same speed the Earth travels.  What’s so significant about that?  If you have a satellite over a fixed spot above the equator, as the Earth rotates around its axis, that satellite will also be traveling at the same speed.  So, in roughly 24 hours both the Earth and that satellite will be in the location as it was a day before. From yours and my persective, that satellite “didn’t move” from directly above us!

Now, here’s where my mind starts wondering “OK, God can use everything for His purposes, so what’s the spiritual application here? ”

Read this Bible story and see if you can guess who was “orbiting” at the right position:

Now it came to pass, as they went, that He entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard His word. But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to Him, and said, “Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? Bid her therefore that she help me.” And Jesus answered and said unto her, “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. – Luke 10:38-42

In your life, how’s your orbit around the Lord?   No, seriously!  Are you at “Martha Orbit”, going at things so fast that you’re getting ahead of God?  Are you so far away that you are lagging behind what He is doing, so that you’re out just wayyy out there beyond where you’re supposed to be?  Or, are you at spiritual 23,200 miles…the exact right orbit around the Lord so you can stay fixed on Him?

Posted: May 29th, 2009 under Devotions, Learning & Growing.
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As excited as I’ve been to start this blog again, I have faced some interesting challenges.  First, I got too busy with things going on and family in town.  Then, when I finally did have time to do some routine maintenance, the site crashed–big time.  I learned a lot in bringing it back, but it was a challenge.  Third, I have struggled for two days trying to come up with something “worthwhile” to post.  Let me explain:

So much of the blogosphere is cross-posts, links to other sites/articles.  That is not a bad thing, per se; I do it myself.  But we can fall into the trap that that is all we post–other peoples’ words.  Or there’s the other extreme.  We don’t post anything because we don’t feel we have anything worth saying; or it has to be so completely original and inspired that it had to be written first by the Lord on tablets of stone, given to me, then passed to you.  There is the temptation to post nothing because the internal voice of deception says, “You didn’t pray for hours, or study your Bible for hours, or look it up in the Greek…how can it be any good?”

Well, that’s the lie right there.  The truth is that absolutely nothing I post is worthwhile–if it comes from my own strength.  Even the worst post, with misspellings, run-on sentences, and bad grammar can be used of the Lord (a la D.L. Moody: not known for his eloquence, but used greatly by the Lord because he was willing).  Also, Scripture reminds us that there is nothing new under the sun.  To waste time coming up with “the greatest, most original Christian thought” is a) foolish b) ultimately rooted in pride (“Ah…what a great, spiritual post I write!  It would make John MacArthur jealous.”)

So, all that said:  Here is my post today:  Serve the Lord.  Love Him because He is good and kind and generous…and because He is most worthy.  Brother, sister, whatever your troubles are, whatever your joys are, count it all loss and strive to run the race today, tell others what Jesus has done in your life.

Love,

Your little-brother Christ.

Posted: May 27th, 2009 under Challenge, Encouragement, Learning & Growing.
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Well, that was interesting.  If you tried to get to the site since, oh, 9pm ET last night, you had no joy.  I assure you, there was no joy on the back-end either!  I needed to do some maintenance on the blogging engine and database, but then routine maintenance very quickly turned into open heart surgery.

Even IT guys don’t know everything, but obviously with more prayer than patience, things are back to normal.

More soon, but just wanted to let my ones and ones of readers know what happened.

-Anthony

Posted: May 24th, 2009 under Announcements.
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