The day we arrived at our Saugatuck cottage, I took several trips carrying everything down to the riverfront rental, locking the car behind me in the parking lot. After about one and a half hours, we headed out to drive to the downtown area to look for a restaurant. We buckled up in our car and I turned the key; and nothing happened! The transmission was locked in park and I couldn’t get the key out of the ignition. No power anywhere! I began looking around to see what may have drained a perfectly good battery in only 90 minutes. There it was: the GPS glowing brightly! We had forgotten to turn it off. But could that little GPS drain a 12-volt battery so soon?
I read through the Auto Manual and it said that if we connect unauthorized electronic gizmos to the cigarette lighter, we could do serious damage to the electrical system and void our warranty (Oh-oh). It also sounded like it could have been a failure of the security system in this car.
As it turned out, next morning we called a local auto repair place to check it out and they found the battery totally discharged, jumped it, and everything was fine. Apparently a six-year old battery will drain completely down to nothing in 90 minutes after all. Lesson learned, problem solved, and forty bucks out the widow!.
Have you ever been stranded far from home? Tell us about it.
Tags: battery, GPS, stranded
Sorry I haven’t blogged for the past week. Anita and I took a vacation trip to Saugatuck, Michigan. I took along my computer and intended to post daily blogs. However, I apparently have such great firewall protection on that thing that it wouldn’t recognize the server at our cottage. So, I had to just sit around and hope you would not get out of the habit of checking this blog daily.
Saugatuck is a port city on the Kalamazoo River, just a mile or so inland from Lake Michigan. Our cottage was located right on the banks of the Saugatuck Bay (a widening of the river formerly used for Lake Michigan ship traffic). Today it is largely a tourist place with a lot of quaint little gift shops, eating establishments, and cottages and motels. School had already started in many places, so the population was mostly older or childless.
My diet was hard to maintain at a place like that and we had to have my favorite ice cream (Butter Pecan) daily. I’m sure I’m going to have to lose a few pounds now that I’m back. But, we did have a restful time and experienced a few adventures, which I’ll recount this week if you haven’t given up on this blog yet. Its good to be back home where I can sleep in my own bed and watch my own TV.
All the “great” people of God modeled intercession: Abraham, Moses, Jesus. Since God loves sinners and wants to work through us Christians, it is imperative that we all step into the role of loving our neighbor and stepping into intercession. Anita and I missed the message, still being out of state on vacation. How did Pastor Adam do?
Did you know that one of the most popular aquarium fish is the shark? If you catch a small shark and confine it, it will stay a size proportionate to the aquarium. Sharks can be six inches long yet fully matured. But if you turn them loose in the ocean, the same shark will grow to their normal length of eight feet.
That can also happen to Christians. Some Christians are the cutest little six inch people swimming around in their artificial pool. But I know others that have gone out into the world system with their faith and then became Great Whites.
How large is your swimming hole?
Tags: growth, shark
New Zealand has a unique situation, with more flightless birds than any other country on earth. Among these are the kiwi and the penguin. Scientists tell us that these birds had wings but lost them. They had no use for them. They had no natural predators on those beautiful islands and food was plentiful. Since there was no reason to fly, they didn’t. Through neglect they lost their wings.
I see a likeness with Christians who were intended by God to soar above others. God’s people were meant to be the head, not the tail; the top, not the bottom (Deuteronomy 28:1-15). The keys to unlock the mysteries of the kingdom are all around us. But if we ignore the search, we neglect the promises. Through neglect we can lose our wings.
What is the most recent “key” to the kingdom of God you have discovered?
Tags: bird, flight, success
This weekend we examined The Cry of Deliverance from the story of Peter walking on the water, and then sinking, and then crying out for salvation. It is guaranteed that any Christian who is doing anything significant for the Kingdom of God will face the winds of adversity. And its good to know that Jesus knows where we are and wants to help us get to the other side. The winds create the waves in life. In the end, the fact that Peter sank but Jesus remained up there revealed to all the disciples Who He really was, God in the flesh.
What did you appreciate about the weekend celebration this week?
In the mid-1800s, Texas rancher Samuel Augustus Maverick refused to brand his cattle. When neighboring cowboys came upon a calf without a brand, they called it a “maverick.” The word entered the English language and came to refer to a person who takes an independent stand and refuses to conform.
Other names have become words that describe a person’s character and behavior: Judas and Benedict Arnold both mean ‘traitor’. An Einstein is a genius, while a Solomon is a wise man.
Few of us will have our names become a part of the language, but they do signify who we are and how we have lived. Solomon said, “The memory of the righteous is blessed, but the name of the wicked will rot…He who walks with integrity walks securely, but he who perverts his ways will become known” (Proverbs 10:7-9).
If your name became a word in English, what would you want it to mean?
Tags: character, name