“Today if you dare, tell me how a worm infested hungry aids child in Africa experiences abundant life.”~priest

Jamie Longoria

ouch Archie!!  You have just inspired my prayers with a new purpose…just a thought, according to your definition of abundance “God’s perfect will and purpose in one’s life” is it possible that their illness and starvation is part of the abundant life..in that it calls the attention, breaks hearts and motivates God’s people into action so that we can be transformed by the impact. In this case, it wouls seem, dispite human logic, that abundant life really has nothing to do with happiness. Still contemplating though..thanks for the food..

I posted this comment to my status in Facebook and in wonderment received these replies.  Click on comments and enjoy the dialog…

Pray for my friend now, lest you forget…

I have a friend who is in intensive care at a local hospital.  He might have died today.  God chose otherwise.  This afternoon I visited my friend.  With difficulty communicating, he had but one request.  Pray.  So he, his wife and I prayed.

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He said many times people say they will pray, but never get around to it.  This was one prayer he didn’t want to miss.  What impresses me most about my friend is not that he asked me to pray, but that the request would be the same whether he was in ICU or dropping by for coffee.

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My friend is a believer.  My friend is a believer in God and the reality of prayer.

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I look forward to God continuing to authenticate His presence in my friend’s life and the struggle he finds himself in.  There are blinding God Spots on the horizon.

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Please pray for my friend.  He would ask you do it now, lest you forget.

God bless.

archie

Surf to: http://www.freshc.org for a Fresh Connection…

This may be the most important blog I have ever posted. What will you do with it?

How long does it take to write a blog post? After writing about a thousand. I don’t know. Sometimes the thoughts just kinda ripen with age. Other times they pop out of the microwave. This post is one that has been ripening with age. I’m not even sure what to write….

A few weeks back, a friend named Mike came in my tiny janitor’s office and began sharing about God’s love. It was one of several times our paths have intersected and we have talked about God’s love. I appreciate his passion. It’s not difficult for you that know Mike to figure out who I am talking about, when you put the word Mike and passion together. They fit.

Keep love in the forefront of your mind, but for a minute ask yourself the question: “Why love?” Consider from the beginning of time and before there was mankind. God was God and He likely did a pretty good job of being God. What was He thinking when he created you and me? For what purpose was the idea of mankind birthed?

The answer comes to me in a struggle. I have become aware that I do not know how to adequately express my appreciation for who and what God is. I believe my praise of God is inadequate. I want to tell God thank you for all His creations, but it doesn’t seem like that is enough. My inadequate expression of praise for the creator brought me back to my friends passion for God’s love.

I believe in a very limited way of understanding the makeup of God, that in the beginning of time and before mankind, God must have been bursting at the seams with love. He was like a balloon totally filled with love and stretched to the max. Love was the most important part of who He was. It was the essence of His being. He was bursting with Love and so passionately wanted to share in His experience. Even the rocks would cry out, but that wasn’t enough. It was time to give birth.

It was time for God to create mankind in His image. How else would His creation be able to experience the Love He so desperately wanted to share? Do you get it? God had this incredible thing called Love that He wants you to experience! It likely was the very reason you were created.

There is nothing more important in life than Love! Think on it. Dwell on it. Don’t just flippantly click to the next blog. You for a moment have been brought to a place at the feet of God and have been offered the opportunity to experience God’s greatest gift, Love. What will you do with it?

For me, Love answers a question. I now know the missing component to my praise of the Holy Father. Love.

surf to: http://www.freshc.org for a Fresh Connection…