new teen paranormal romance‏tastic

If someone wrote a book about 19^th Century Russian Footwear few people would read it. How many different books about 19^th Century Russian Footwear would have to be produced and read in order to require its own section?

The picture below is an actual picture from Barnes & Noble showing a section of books labeled “New Teen Paranormal Romance.”

SO.MANY.QUALIFIERS!

Where to begin…

Why do teens need romance books? What good could possibly come from teens reading about other teens getting romantic with other teens?

Furthermore, how have so many young girls been duped into thinking a vampire would be a perfect soul mate to require a whole genre of literature devoted to it.

Beyond that, you’re telling me there is such an influx of this stuff that it requires a “NEW” section?

Where is the Old Teen Paranormal Romance section? You know the stuff that we used to read. The books with which we are now thoroughly bored.

Suffice it to say, I by-passed the NTPR section and found my way to the Old Middle-Aged Human Marriage section where I couldn’t find my book because Barnes & Noble did not have it in stock.

you can have all this world, give me Jesus‏

John 6:68-69

⁶⁸ Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, ⁶⁹ and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
 

If what you really want could be obtained from many different places, why follow Jesus around asking for it? Why not go somewhere or to someone who requires less of you?

What do you want?
Could you find what you want somewhere else?
Could anyone other than Jesus give you want you want?

Consider today what it is that you want and what it is that Jesus provides.

I am confident that if your heart’s desire is redemption, reconciliation and salvation you will find that ONLY Jesus can provide this to you. I expect your heart to be flooded with responsive joy, admiration, loyalty, sacrifice, determination, humility, courage, confidence, belief and faith by the contemplation of this reality.

John 14:6

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

If what you want from Jesus is that which He came to give, died to purchased, lives to secure and rose to assure; your heart will never turn to another.

Ever.

the united steaks of amoreica

 

I saw this on my friend Nate Gainer's (he's the one in front sportin' the tiny ukulele) facebook the other day.

 

Has our country been reduced to a meat market?

 

That was for you pun-lover.

Not lovers.

Just the one.

Other than me.

We are pun-lovers.

But I was talking to the other one.

 

So diatribe aside...

 

Why are Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine like pure fat?

 

Why is Alabama so bloody?

 

Because...it's a metaphor man (insert Tommy Chong inflection for more fun).

 

Too bad soo sad Hawai'i and Alaska.

 

NO MEAT FOR  YOU

it's ok. you can let go now‏

Ozzie dropped a biggity bomb esta manana.

Perseverance is more than endurance. It is endurance combined with absolute assurance and certainty that what we are looking for is going to happen. Perseverance means more than just hanging on, which may be only exposing our fear of letting go and falling.

Then there is the call to spiritual perseverance. A call not to hang on and do nothing, but to work deliberately, knowing with certainty that God will never be defeated.

Hanging on for dear life may merely be an act motivated mostly by fear. Courage sometimes is in the letting go. One of my favorite lines from the show LOST was Rose telling Jack, “You can let go now.”

But more than just letting go, Oswald points us to perseverance. People hanging in there and people persevering may outwardly look quite similar. The question is in the “why?” and the “what?”

Why are you hanging on?

Why are you scared of letting go?
What are you hanging on to?
What are you hoping to escape by hanging?

These are good introspective questions upon which to meditate..

I pray your answers reveal you relentlessly defending the character of God before your own fears and failures in order to escape the righteous judgment of God your fears and failures deserve. I pray you are at the end of your rope if that rope is what is keeping you from releasing it all to fall upon Jesus.

Don’t just “hang in there.”

Hang it up and depend upon Jesus.

Don't hang your hat on your heart's intentions.
Intentionally hasten to the One Who hung on the tree.

Being found in Jesus is to be free from the fear of falling any further because you acknowledge you have already simultaneously hit bottom and ascended to Heaven by grace through faith.

pastoral‏

I want to be a pastor because I am confident that God can do through me what He did to me through others.

I know He can.

I want to see if He will.

cedar valley sing-a-long

So Candeo is apparently big NEWS around the area.

thaddeus, me, nate, josh, walker, lute and todd rockin' out and raisin' fists for Jesus.

canis lupus, vulpes vulpes

 

me likes to rock the wolf-fist.

So just in case you missed it.