Today is the final day of a two-week vacation. The excessive heat outside this past week made it impossible to do outside projects after noon, so I did get a lot done inside. One morning while working outside I was cutting down a tree in the back that was dying. I had the tree down and was trimming branches off to cut firewood when I got the bar pinched. While working to get it free I must have twisted the chain just enough that it wasn’t in alignment. When I finally got it free and revved up the engine, the chain came off the bar. There’s nothing scarier than to have the razor sharp teeth of a chain saw come flying off the bar. I had to have both the chain and bar replaced, for they were both damaged. However, I’ve spent the last couple of days thanking God that I wasn’t seriously injured by that free-flying chain.
Life is full of risks and close calls. Anyone who gets behind the wheel of an automobile and drives 70 MPH is taking a risk. Anyone who eats last year’s food processed full of preservatives is taking a risk. Anyone who falls in love and gets legally married is taking a risk. We will simply never accomplish anything without taking a risk.
Since we can’t prove God exists, and must take Him by faith, even trusting God requires a risk. But some risks are worth taking. Where would we be if we didn’t trust in God? Hopeless.
Tags: accident, faith, risks
Yesterday was my day off. I started out by mowing, then moved on to some other outside tasks. Finally, just before I went inside for my shower, I went raspberry picking. We have a lot of wild raspberry bushes in the fence-row and woods behind our house. The reason I waited til last was because of the poison ivy.
It seems that wherever there are raspberries there is poison ivy. Whenever I spray the poison ivy, the raspberries die. So I have to wade through thick poison ivy to get to the berries. Now that I think of it, there’s a life lesson in that. You have to wade through the negative stuff to get to the positive stuff.
You have to sow before you can reap. You have to ask before you can receive. You have to be in bondage before you can be delivered. You have to be lost before you can be found. The berries taste sooo good, but I had to risk the poison ivy to get to them.
God’s blessings are rich, but we’ve got to take some risks to make them ours. God’s promises are sure!
Tags: danger, gain, risks
The surgery I’m having done is a radical laproscopic prostatectomy, which means they will be surgically removing the entire prostate gland using robotic procedures through small incisions in my abdomen, rather than opening me up with a large incision requiring a lengthy recovery time. Great advances have been made in recent years with this new procedure and it tends to be much more accurate.
However, there are always risks involved with any surgery. The specific risks involved with prostate removal are that damage could occur to the surrounding muscles or nerves that could result in incontinence and/or impotence. My cancer is in the very early stages and is a 6 on the Gleason scale (medium aggressiveness), so the Dr. shouldn’t have to go into the surrounding tissue, but errors could always occur.
So I would appreciate your prayers for me next week. I don’t need weak and wimpy fear-filled prayers, but positive, faith-filled prayers asking God to intervene and guide the hands of the surgeon. In your prayers, be sure to refer to the blood of Jesus Christ (“By His stripes we are healed“) and pray in the authority of Jesus Christ. And, thankfulness is an important aspect of answered prayer, as well. So, tell Him what you’re thankful for.
By the way, what are you thankful for ?
Tags: authority, healing, prayer, risks