River Depths 9

  Because we live in a fallen world, life will crush you. It’s a guaranteed. You may come out of the womb looking like a smooth uncrumpled piece of fresh paper, but you won’t stay that way. Maybe you will become sick or injured. Perhaps you will experience a divorce or the betrayal of a best friend. Then again, you might be the victim of abuse or robbery. Someone may have lied to you, or about you. These things come from outside, but we also do things to ourselves. We fall into addiction, wrong patterns of thinking, or sins like greed and lust. We wind up crumpled into a ball that seems only good for the trash can, BUT GOD! God loves us so much and is so amazing that He can and will take the crumpled mess of our lives and make something amazingly beautiful out of it if we will let Him. Try this. Take a piece of paper and crumple it. Smooth it out. Go over each crease with a dark pen. Then color the places the lines outline with different colors. You will wind up with a beautifu...

My granddaughter is reading Alice in Wonderland for school. It is more than just a crazy childhood fantasy; it is a metaphor for how the world works. The rulers of this world rule by threats, intimidation, and bullying. They strip you of your free will and identity. The motive of the spirits behind them is literally to crush your spirit and to drive you mad. How different is the rule of our God! [2Ti 1:7 KJV] 7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. [1Jo 4:18 AMP] 18 There is no fear in love [dread does not exist]. But perfect (complete, full-grown) love drives out fear, because fear involves [the expectation of divine] punishment, so the one who is afraid [of God's judgment] is not perfected in love [has not grown into a sufficient understanding of God's love]. WOW! God created us with free will. He values that and will not attempt to strip us of it. He empowers us. He heals our minds and emotions. Like a loving fa...

This morning, I was reading in Matthew 21 about how Jesus told His disciples to go untie a donkey and her colt and bring them to Him before He entered Jerusalem. Then He rode them to Jerusalem. This scenario brought up a lot of questions. Wouldn’t it be hard on the baby donkey for a full-grown man to sit on it? (The above picture is how I envisioned this.) How old is a donkey considered a colt for? Why was the mother brought along? To bring comfort to the colt? How did Jesus ride both the mother and her colt? Did he sit on the mother and put his feet on the colt? Maybe straddled both animals? The answers belie just how ignorant I am about donkeys! Jesus was not riding a baby donkey. A colt is a male donkey between the ages of 2 and 4. Generally, by the age of 4 or 5, a donkey is strong enough to bear weight on its back. The colt that Jesus rode was probably around 4 and ready to be broken. The reason the mother was brought along was because it was a hilly road from Bethphage to Jer...