A sheep's testimony

The Lord is my Shepherd; I don't think that I will ever be in want...  You see, He makes me lie down in the greenest of pastures and leads me beside the clearest still water.  All of this restores my soul.  He even gets me into the paths of righteousness, all because I claim His name!  I'm really enjoying life right now.  But I just happened to look ahead.  It looks really scary!  There's a valley up there that has the very shadow of death hanging over it!  Can I trust the Shepherd to lead me safely through?  I suddenly realize that I have no other option.  I realize that He has shown His love to me and He will never let me down.  I throw myself at His feet and promise to follow Him even through the valley of death.  So even as I walk through that valley, I am not afraid!  The Shepherd Himself is with me, and His rod and staff comfort me.

Now that my love and confidence in the Shepherd have grown and He has proved that I will follow Him wherever He leads me, He is able to prepare a banquet for me, right where all my enemies can see it.  He anoints my head with oil and fills my cup of joy to overflowing.  Goodness and mercy follow me for the rest of my life and I dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Friday Night

Here's a video I did on Friday night.  If you want to watch it in HD, you'll have to watch on Vimeo rather than here...


I just had a bug to shoot some video this evening, so I pulled out my Canon PowerShot SD980 IS and did some filming.  Then I went to the keyboard and recorded the music for it.  Hope you enjoy. :)



Instrument samples used in this recording are from the Garritan Personal Orchestra.

Truth and Error

We've been getting firewood for the last few days on Ft. Greeley.  It's burned over wood, so it is very hard and dry and burns very well.  Anyway, Mom pointed to two trees to cut down, and I cut down the first one and then turned to the second.  But Mom made motions to forget that one.  Wondering why, I looked up and realized that it was scarcely 6 inches taller than me!  Looking down towards the bottom where I would have been cutting, it looked like any other tree, but as I looked up, I realized that it was very short.  I immediately thought of a practical application.  The Bible warns us to be ware of false teachers.  But how can you tell who speaks truth?  A lot of things people say sound logical, but as we compare it with the Word of God and look up to Jesus, truth shines forth and falsehood stands out in all its bitter ugliness.

Later on, we were on the other side of the tree and I noticed something else.  The tree which looked so solid on the other side was actually hollow.  This reminds me that we should be careful that we don't just appear like good Christians while on the inside we are empty and worthless.  Let us each pray that God will fill us with His love and grace.  He is the Author and Finisher of our faith and will perfect us each until we are fitted to enter heaven.

Thoughts on trust...

"Trust Him when dark doubts assail thee,

      Trust Him when thy faith is small,

            Trust Him when to simply trust Him. . . 

                   Seems the hardest thing of all."

                               ~ Author Unknown

Set Me Free

This is an original skit performed by Delta Christian Drama Association, based on the songs "Set Me Free" by Casting Crowns and "It's a Beautiful Sound" by Geoff Moore.  It powerfully portrays a simple yet all too common story of bondage and yielding to sin that everyone can relate to, and yet at the same time brings to view the spiritual side that most people are totally unaware of.  There ARE demons and they ARE strong, but we have a Savior Who is stronger than all the demons put together!!!!



WARNING: Due to graphic portrayal of the battle between good and evil, this video is not recommended for young children to watch.  Parental discretion is advised.

Reminiscings...

I untied my belt and slid out of my robe for the last time, then hurriedly began taking down the curtains that make up the backdrop for the stage.  The "Set Me Free" skit was in the past.  We had performed it six times in front of a life audience at the fair and then filmed it 7 times.  But now it was over.  But yet, it wasn't over.  My mind went back over the priceless memories I had had over the last couple of months of rehearsals.  The fellowship that we as a cast had had.  The times when things were looking good and the times when Mrs. Hosier was close to pulling her hair out.  The time Philip demonstrated how to laugh using body language and had us all in tears we were laughing so hard.  There was the time Mr. Hosier had all the demons practice slinking around and cowering like scared dogs.  And the time that Caleb was in his hippy wig and stood behind the door scaring people as they came to practice.  Heidi running over to me every single time, grabbing my hand, and dragging me over to be ready to make our entrance a full ten seconds before we had to.  And then my famous line to Bekah as I handed her the keys for the next time through - "Here are MY keys I'm loaning to you".  The mad rushes back stage while everyone was struggling to get out on time.  These memories and so many more flooded my mind as I put everything away for the last time.

And then there's the message of the skit.  No matter where we come from or what problems we may have, God does not deem us as hopeless.  In fact, He will empty heaven to guard us from the demons that are constantly at our heels and to protect us from Satan who is always snarling in the background.  This is love, that God should send His only begotten Son to this earth so that whosoever should believe in Him should be saved.  “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.” John 3:17  This is the message of the entire Bible, the scarlet thread of redemption making it's way from the Garden of Eden clear through to the time when Christ Himself shall ride down the heavenly passageway attended by countless millions of angels to take His children home.  And that is the message of this skit.  It will live on and on until soon, very soon now, that day will come.  May He find us each faithful.




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If anyone is interested, this film should be uploaded to Vimeo and YouTube in the next couple of days, so keep your eyes open for a link.

Contrasts

For the last week and a half, our family has been on a trip through Canada and Washington.  Today we were driving through the northwestern part of Oregon and into Walla Walla, Washington.  As we were driving, the landscape drastically changed.  From tree-covered slopes and beautiful grassland, it changed to the brown of the high desert.  Now this is my favorite type of scenery.  I absolutely love the high desert, with it's sand and scrub brush.  As we were driving through it today, I was trying to figure out why I like it so much.  Is it just because it reminds me of warmth, and cowboys riding horseback and watching the cattle on the plains?  Or could it be the contrast that the brown has with the green?  I can't think of anything that looks more picturesque than a large, southwestern house, with large, beautiful, vibrant green lawns surrounding it, with sprinklers watering it, and beyond, the dry, brown, scrubby brush high desert.  It makes the green seem so much more green, the lush seem so much more lush, and beauty seem so much more beautiful.  That is probably the reason why I love this type of landscape so much.

And as I was thinking about this, something else came into my mind.  The world is so barren, so stark and dry and ugly.  But because of it's "brownness", because of it's death, because of it's ugliness, it makes the Christian stand out all the more.  It makes the "greenness", the life, and the beauty of the Christian so much more apparent and appealing.  And that's the way it should be.  We are called to be lights, set on a hill.  What makes the light so inviting but the blackness of the night all around?  So it is with the Christian.  The blacker the night, the more barren the landscape, the more brilliantly we will shine forth.  When the people of the world will see us, they will "take knowledge of (us), that (we) have been with Jesus".