Bible Study Tool

The picture is a screen shot of how I’ve been doing Bible Study in my Quiet Time. The program is a Mac specific study tool called Accordance. I’ve had Accordance

Accordance screen shot of highlight tool.

for seven or eight years, and had a precursor program prior to that called Mac Bible. I’ve had to slow my reading each morning to do the color highlighting. Now that I am reading through four very long narrative passages in Jeremiah, Judges, Acts and Mark, my reading is taking close to an hour each day. My study notes take more time. At this stage of life, so much of the truth of God and  work in history is shining through the text in more vivid detail. I highly recommend the M’Cheyne Bible reading guide to get through the Bible in a year, and see so much of the vivid details and faith strengthening truths he wants you to see each day.

What’s good about this method is that I was losing my desire to read through the Bible in a year. I was becoming lethargic and did only cursory readings. I discovered this highlighting tool on vacation when my girls accidentally took my Bible with them back to Johnson City when we were leaving for Canada.

Now, if only someone could tell me where there is an electronic prayer tool!

The Interior Voice of the Spirit

by Francis Fenelon (Chapter 21 in Christian Classics, Fenelon, Talking with God, by Francois Fenelon. Modern English Version by Hal M. Helms. Paraclete Press, Brewster, Massachusetts, 1997.)

Our God is not Flat Stanley. Have you ever wondered why your God seems so blah? Read on and practice the presence of God in the inner sanctuary! Wow!

The Interior Voice of the Spirit

It is certain from the Holy Scriptures that the Spirit of God dwells within us. There he acts, there he prays without ceasing, groans, desires, and asks for us what we do not know how to ask for ourselves. The Spirit urges us on, animates us, speaks to us when we are silent, suggests to us all truth, and so unites us to him that we become one spirit. (1 Cor. 6:17)

That is the teaching of faith, and even those teachers farthest removed from the interior life cannot avoid acknowledging it to be so. To be sure, there are some who strive to maintain that in practice, we are illuminated by external law, or by the light of learning and reason, and that then our understanding acts of itself from that instruction. They do not rely sufficiently on upon the interior Teacher, the Holy Spirit, who does everything within us. We could not form a thought or desire without him. Alas, what blindness is ours! We suppose ourselves alone in the inner sanctuary, when God is more intimately present there than we are ourselves.

You may say, “What then! Are we all inspired?”

Novel Part 3: National Novel Writing Month

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

No super hero training school exists. Mom and Dad decided in fifth grade that I wouldn’t go back to public school. We lived in a small town of 5,000, but the world was getting closer. The internet came to town the year before, 1993. Mom and Dad hooked during my fifth grade. They knew that a lower profile was the only way to save me from the fascination of evil and touch hungry fans. We moved to Michigan. To the woods. To a place where Calvinism and Dutch puritanical instincts ran deep. Kent County. Neighbors take care of each other there. We found some good ones.

On a summer night that melted wallpaper, our neighbor, Gerrit Guikema, blasted his 12 guage into the night air. Shattering glass followed. Moaning and screaming came next. My dad picked up his pistol holster, carrying a Taurus PT 24/7 PRO, with twelve .45’s in the clip. Gerrit had intimidated a couple of goobers who had staked out our house. He said it was the third night. He didn’t trust them. He called the police, then fired his shotgun. At 75, Gerrit didn’t look criminal so the police let him go. The goobers? They had guns. Ex-felons. They were locked up for a couple more years. But who sent them? And what did they want? Simple! It’s always about money.

Dec. 1, 2008, Swim Workout

300 m warmup

6 x 50m on side for balance

6 x 50m rolling and kicking

6 x 50m rolling and stroke

15 min kickboard

3 x 50m

3 x 100m

100m cooldown

Time: 53 min.

Novel Part 2: National Novel Writing Month

As crazy as it sounds, I would love for my super abilities to get into some other folks. Around eight years old, I tried to give one of my mom’s friends a boost. She needed a hearing aid. I tried to explain the way to transpond. You don’t transpond through your eardrums. I sent her a few low frequency waves. She walked down the street and tried to hear the frequency. She just about died laughing at how silly it must have looked to the neighbors. She was yelling. I was yelling back. She closed her eyes and pushed on the spot behind her ears. We’ll never forget it, but she never got it.

Novel Part 1: National Novel Writing Month

They prodded and poked me until I leaked air. I let them take tests no other super human would ever allow. I wasn’t your normal super hero. I didn’t stay in a closet. I let people know what I did. Everyone knew my identity. The suspense around a secret identity seemed calloused so I started telling people about the age of six that I could do some pretty cool things. Scientists have wanted to investigate my powers my whole life. It has its advantages. I don’t have to work for a living. I charge for my services.

Last week I made about $25,000.00. That was a slow week.