diving into daniel [week 1]

For those of you who are doing the Daniel study with me,

are you ready to dig in?

WEEK 1

Let me post a few (or 15) of the points that stood out to me the most:

"The wind of the Holy Spirit blows so hard through some of these Scriptures,

you may have to re-fix your hair." (pg. 11)

Haha, love that Beth Moore.

1.  No greater tragedy could have befallen the people of God than to lose possession

of their God-given land.  He had warned them numerous times that if they turned to the idols of

the surrounding peoples, He would allow them--even appoint them--to be taken captive.

God is faithful to keep His Word even when it's a warning. (pg. 13)

(THIS rings so loudly in my ears of what we're seeing in America today.)

2.  "You have trusted in your wickedness and have said,

'No one sees me.' Your wisdom and knowledge mislead you when you say

to yourself, I am, and there is none besides me."  Isaiah 47:10 

GASP.

Go read the verses following that one.  Chilling.

May we never let our "wisdom and knowledge" mislead us.

3.  Tragically, their own disrespect and misuse of the holy structure had unknowingly

opened the doors of the temple to the enemy in the years preceding the siege.

I think it is clear that either the people of Israel did not know the Scriptures,

which was to their demise...or they simply ignored what 

it said, which is even more tragic. (pg. 15)

I can see how this directly applies to the Church today.  We don't know Scripture.

Little daily-devos alone give us our daily bread, or so we think.

It's a shame that we don't know the Word, it's a shame that so many ignore

the Old Testament.  It will be to our demise.

We need to BE IN THE WORD!

Dig deep, and learns lots.

Let's do it!

4.  Nothing is more dangerous than friendly captivity. (pg. 14)

For sure.

5.  Godliness is never accidental.  Neither is victory coincidental.  

Both step from up-front, daily resolve. (pg.25)

6.  They read the language of their culture with the lens of God.  Thereby, they became

culturally relevant without becoming spiritually irrelevant.  Against all odds,

they retained a God-centered worldview so that ultimately the world

could view their God.  Amazing. (pg.26)

I love that.

************

Okay, so what parts of this week's study spoke to you?

(If you watched the video, tell me how you liked that, too.)

Blessings, friends!!

daniel study!! [jump on board!]

Okay, so here's my *plan*...

For those of you who are interested in doing the Daniel study, 

let's get started tomorrow (Monday)!

If you've done a Beth Moore study before, you know that you watch the video,

then do five days of homework following the video.

So, if you have access to the videos (remember, you can buy each video session HERE),

you'll want to watch the first one, then do the first week's homework.

But even if you don't watch the videos, you'll definitely need a workbook.

(But REALLY, watch the videos if you can!!)

It will be a rather hefty investment if you buy both the videos and workbook 

(around $75...but not all at once),

but I can guarantee you, you will be richly blessed and will learn a ton!!

And....once you have downloaded the videos, they're yours forever.

:)

Let's meet up here next Monday for a little discussion.

Or if you can't hold your thoughts in that long,

send me an email and maybe we'll do a mini-impromptu discussion before that.

Really, girls...you will love this study.

Strap on your thinking caps and get your bibles and highlighters ready.

This is one INTENSE study.

If you have any questions,
please email me!

(Tomorrow is my birthday.)

(I just had to say that.)

(I'm such an attention-grabber that way.)

daniel

Hello, friends!

I hope your Thursday is turning out to be a fabulous day,

filled with rainbows and unicorns.

Actually, that sounds creepy.

Never mind.

It is a GORGEOUS fall day here in the midwest.

So very sorry to those of you who are buried in snow.

Gaaaah, that sounds awful to me right now.

Though I do love me a blizzard.

So I decided to dust off my Daniel Bible study and do it

for the third time.

Who of you has done this study?

Oh my, it is sooooo good.

And very, very, very applicable to what's going on around us today.

Well, everything in the bible is applicable to what's 

going on today, of course.

Anyway, I highly recommend it if you haven't done it.

You can even buy & watch the videos online HERE.

Let me know if you want to join me in doing it!

My at-home studies are highly sporadic...but maybe we could

have a little discussion throughout the study somehow.

:)

Well, that's all for now.

My afternoon of baking is about to begin!

Enjoy your day.

sold out

You know, as I was making my bread yesterday I prayed,
"Lord, help me to sell this bread."
Well, that was really only a half-hearted prayer because...
how was that going to happen?
I really didn't see how.
And I didn't give it a whole lot of thought after that.

Oh, ye of little faith!

All three loaves, SOLD.
In fact, I oversold.
I will now be baking on Saturday to take to my friend at church.


Oh, that God...He's pretty amazing at His job.




So this morning,
the littles and I are off to the new women's Bible study at church.


Oh, how I loves me some Beth Moore!
And fellowship with womens!

Have YOU done this study yet?



And then we're coming right back home to bake some bread.
Because I have none made (anymore) for my family.

That's a good problem to have, under the circumstances.





Happy Thursday, Everyone!!

GOD IS GOOD.


"She watches over the affairs of her household and does not
eat of the bread of idleness.
Proverbs 31:27

Esther study {join me!!}

I am so stoked that several of you want to do the Esther
study with me.

I still need to put the finishing touches on the details of how we will
make this run smoothly week to week.

But for now,
here's a quick overview of how a Beth Moore study
works and how we will attempt to make this
as cozy as we can, even though we won't actually be
meeting in person.
:(

1. Watch one video a week.
The videos (10 in all) are available online.
Each video is about one hour long
and are $5 for each.
(Click the "Related" tab on on the site I linked to see the list of videos..
and there is also an audio only option).

2. Homework.
For the week following the video there will be
five days of homework.
I won't lie, it's often a challenge to get it all done.
Beth (we're on a first name basis) doesn't skimp on digging
deep into God's word.
Just do it!
Oh, and the workbook can be downloaded for a fee
or you can buy an actual book at a Lifeway store.

3. Coming "together".
Ok so we will gather here at my blog
(I'll provide the coffee)
once a week to chat.
For now, let's plan on Tuesdays.
BUT, I don't want to necessarily wait until
our weekly gathering to talk about stuff.
If something strikes you during the week,
by all means,
send me an email or leave a comment and we'll
do a mini-chat about it.

From time to time we will stretch our gathering time
out to a two-week span in order to allow
any of us lagging behind to get caught up.
So, no worries.

Ok, I'll leave it at that for now so not to make this
more complicated than need be.

I'm not going to set a start date quite yet...although I'd love
to get started within a week or so.

Right now,
I'd like to hear from those of you who want to join me.
Leave me a comment or an email and I'll
put you on my list of participants!
And if you plan to order or go buy the actual workbook,
do that soon so we'll be all set to get started!

If you have any questions,
let me know right away so we can get this up and
running soon!

friday is here

Well Happy Friday, my sweet friends!

Personally, I really like Mondays.
So weird, I know.

But Fridays are pretty cool too.

Not much to say to ya'll at the moment.

I'm a little (hugely) frustrated because our dossier is
STILL at the consulate.
It's been well over a week now.

I just want that darn thing out of this country.

Anyway,
as I'm sitting here I'm realizing just how deeply I should
be coloring my hair right now.
My roots are ridiculous.

Ridiculous.

And not doing it
-- letting nature take its course--
is SO not an option for me,
so don't make that suggestion to me.

I don't even joke about things like that.

God didn't give us lovely hues and hydrogen peroxide for nothing, you know.




Well, I'm at the end of my cup of tea so that means
I simply must go get in the shower
to start my day.

Oh and I'm craving me a new Beth Moore study to do on my own.

I'm thinking Esther.

Your thoughts?

a tweaked recipe {for disaster}

Since Macy has been with us,
it's been my mission to find some really great
Chinese recipes.

So far, nothing has come close to what she ate in China,
but she DOES like my versions.


But the thing is...I keep trying to tweak my recipes so
that they are EXACTLY what we're craving.

Spicy, sweet, sour, savory.

So after much experimenting,
I have created the perfect sesame chicken recipe.

It.is.perfect.
Just the way WE (Macy and I) like it.

But the funny thing is...
as I glanced at the old recipe and then at all
the changes I made to fit our tasty desires,
I could clearly see that I had veered very
far from the original recipe.

In fact,
after making it twice and LOVING it,
I realized I had inadvertently forgotten the sesames...
in my SESAME chicken!

I kind of chuckled but the Lord immediately spoke to my
heart and showed me the interesting
parallel between my sesame-less sesame chicken
and what many Christians are doing to Christianity.

May I be so bold as to say that it seems to me
that we have taken our salvation...
and tweaked it to make it fit our own desires.

We've figured out what we want
and have strayed far from the original plan.

And have we in some cases even gone as far as to leave
out the MAIN "ingredient"?

JESUS.

Have we butchered the gospel so much that it
looks nothing like Christ?

That's a recipe for disaster.

Look, it's high time we get back to TRUTHT
in its purest form.
God's very word spoken to us.

It's time we put away the excuses and dig deep
into Scripture.

It's time to put away our sweet little devotionals
(not that there's anything wrong with devos!),
and take the time to search for the treasures in God's Word.

Personally, for many years I've followed a reading plan
that will get through the Bible in a year, in
chronological order.
I love this plan.

But for as many years as I've been doing it,
I don't think I've yet to get through it in a year.

But that's my challenge to myself...and to you.

HERE is just one of many reading plans to follow.

I literally get so excited to think about what would happen
if Christians all over our country got seriously serious
about studying scripture daily.


Revival.

Healing.

Marriages saved.

Families made whole.

Addictions severed.

Abundant Fruit of the Spirit.

Eternity changed forever.


The list could go on and on and on.

Let's put away our excuses.
Let's focus our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector
of our faith.



Let's stop tweaking our own Christianity,
let's stop straying from God's plans and purposes for our lives.


Let's get back to the original recipe.




Oh, but I do plan to keep my sesame chicken
recipe tweaked to my version.
:)
Heehee.

a big day yesterday

Sorry about another golf post.
To those who don't play,
it is extremely boring, I'm sure.

But it's the big news around our parts and since
grandparents and great-grandparents
read my blog,
I gotta milk it, folks!

This was a two day tournament and the first day
was COLD and RAINY.
But they played anyway.
The team stayed all night together w/ their coach
so the next day, the boys had to either play in their soggy golf shoes or....

Play barefoot.
Yes, Brenden played barefoot.
And loved every second of it.

And as for Nick...
the only dry shoes he had with him
were his basketball shoes.
And to add to the look,
he also wore his basketball socks.
Nice.
I have a feeling this will be his new look
being that he won and all.
*This was the winning putt on the 18th. Woo!

And here is the big winner and me
right after that great round.

*~*~*~*~*~*

But also yesterday,
we started a new women's bible study at our church.
I just love my little group of gals!!
They are the best!
We laugh a ton and thoroughly enjoy digging into
the Word together.

So ladies,
here is what I promised:
Do your homework...EVERYDAY!
And JUDY, I'm talkin' to you, girl!
Heehee.
Next time I'm posting a pic.
;)