couldnt resist
from the globe and mail site



caption said "Plastic masks made in the likeness of U.S. President Barack Obama lie on an assembly line at a costume factory in a suburb of Rio de Janeiro."

i mildly want one... haha

happy kill a turkey day!

Every year, millions of people celebrate and go out and kill a turkey, then stuff themselves with it. There’s stuffing, corn, cranberries, ham, pineapples, gravy oh the gravy! It is one of those feelings that just makes you feel “oh so good” inside (both literally and physically). I grab that turkey drumstick, and I think of the Flintstones where they have their huge dinosaur bones and they stick the whole thing in their mouth and it comes out clean. I want that feeling, I want turkey. I want happy kill a turkey day to be a monthly event. Where once or maybe even if you are lucky twice a month people gather together and give thanks for the turkey. Thank you turkeys for making each year just a little better.

This year – I will not have turkey. This year there is no turkey for me to eat. No stuffing, no corn or cranberries, ham and pineapples… and yes.. sadly… no gravy.

frig… I’m upset…I want my turkey (dark meat only please).

anger
i got angry a few time today. ok so angry might be an over statement, maybe upset, maybe frustrated are better words to describe. but it's ok. it turned out ok.

i looked it up today, and "slow to anger" is mentioned 9 times in the Bible. now, if anything has to be repeated that many times i figure it's pretty dang important. Each time it's referred to, it's in reference to God and how He is slow to anger.

Something that i found out that follows each and every verse with out fault is either and abounding in love or and rich in love.

God. slow to anger. abounding in love.

for the most part, when i get angry i try to keep it in, i've always found that there is no purpose in picking on all the little things in life and i prefer to live my life in happiness rather than arguing and picking fights about things that really won't matter a few days from the incident. I'm still quick to anger, i dislike it, but i'll admit it. i've had my occasional "loose cannon" moments where i've just burst out and said things that i knew the instant they left my mouth that i'd regret them. i pray that in time i will learn - "slow to anger"...

slow to anger. abounding in love. when you abound in love, it's to exist, but to exist in a great quantity (and quality). our love for individuals, our friends, families etc...why is it that we are always the "quickest to anger" with our families or our significant others...i've always thought of it as "because we expect more out of them"... but the point is that you have to have to be abounding in love to not be one to "quick to anger". it isn't that your love "depresses" your anger - because we all do... i guess it keeps us or at least me, in check that the love that i show to people has to be consistent, abundant, never ending - and therefore i'll learn to tame my temper.

The office and business world is an interesting place. There's this girl that works in my department. actually she's the only one other than myself and my manager. She use to be pretty cool and chill until she turned....there are no holy words for this...anyways..
She creates extra, and i mean extra work for me, blames me for things that are totally unrelated to anything that i do, blames me for her failure to take over her own responsibilities, talks about me behind my back, slacks and facebooks every other minute and the stories continue. They call her melissa. I call her monkey girl.

why "monkey" girl? because to be honest i could have a pet monkey to keep me entertained at my desk and i would get work done faster than with her around.

I got pushed to a minor limit the other day where i was angry. Just at all the things that she was incapable of doing, or maybe capable of doing because they are so absurd that no one would actually do these things with a rational mind. I wanted to go and take her cell phone and make some long distance calls, or maybe let the air out of her tires. I'm still feeling that way today, and i probably will for as long as i work in the same department as her, thankfully it's not much longer.

but

i was reminded of something today.
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is in the Lord Christ you are serving.
colossians 3:23-24


i really am the brighter crayon.

faith

it says - Romans 5
therefore, having been justified by faith, we have a peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Ad not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us

what's it mean
peace comes from our faith in God. Anger - which is diminished by understanding faith which has allowed us to have grace which should be given to others.
Tribulations --> struggles --> produces perserverence --> but must be accompanied by faith to create character and hope

me

The peace that we have or rather should have in our lives can only come from God. specifically, our faith in God draws this peace to our hearts. lets say (hypothetically of course) by nature i'm typically an angry person, i blow up when someone cuts me off on the highway, or the line at the store is too long or they make my drink wrong... that anger, frustration is fueled by something that ISN'T holy in any way, shape or form. our faith in God is what diminishes that anger and by understanding and living our faith in God out in our lives allows us to have a glimpse into what grace is, and the grace we should pass onto others. I thought of this as being a pushover at first, but then i realized that being a christian, living your life for God is in no way similar to being a pushover.

the tribulations, the struggles that we endure - as long as we have faith in God, it produces perseverance. paul never stopped praying, josh never stopped walking etc etc... no matter how hard it was.

ps: i had an awesome day =)

So, i've decided to dedicate the majority of the rest of these posts to my walk with God. We'll see how that goes =)

I learned this at passion07 when i went to atlanta. the shane everrett way to do devos.
three steps
1. what is it saying
2. what does it mean
3. what does it mean to me

Success

Through Him we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for His name... romans 1:5 nkjv

obedience to faith is the part of that that caught my attention. it was essentially what paul wanted his ministry to be defined as. To have obedience to the faith. Now faith being the typical substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, but to have obedience to that is so much more than just saying "i have faith in..." and you fill in the "..."

"obedience to faith" is the definition of success, sure there are so many qualities out there that can serve as a gauge for success such as, your job, wealth, friends etc, but the obedience to faith and to God is the only one that can define "success"
now, it is impossible, well not impossible but one may not have an obedience to the faith in the begging of their walk with God, or not even during a later phase of their walk, but the point is that success, real success, in the end, at the finish, is when we can say that we have an obedience to the faith. that we have followed, chased, earnestly after God.

i think to a degree, everyone is looking for that "success" factor in their life, something in which they can define themselves by. Being able to say "i've done this" or "buy the car of their dreams to signify their achievement - success". but they are all just so "f'show" if you get what i mean. do we really need to reward ourselves by spending the big bucks, or by "boasting" - even though it's not always boasting, because it is a good thing to rejoice in success (don't get me wrong on that point). I guess, it's just a little more difficult to see when we have real success, that it is because of God, it is because of God that we are able to enjoy the success and triumphs in life, so tip your hat to him. I've always found it hard to thank God first, for the successes in my life, let alone have the obedience to the faith in the first part. time to start there.

Good night =)