31 Questions

While browsing my favorite blogs yesterday, I came upon this list of questions as posted by Sarah at Ampersand Photography.

I don’t do new years resolutions, but I do like the idea of reflecting on the year behind and on the year ahead and found these to be really helpful and encouraging.

Enjoy! And Happy 2012!

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Ten Questions to Ask at the Start of a New Year

1. What’s one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?
2. What’s the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?
3. What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year?
4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it?
5. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?
6. What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church?
7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?
8. What’s the most important way you will, by God’s grace, try to make this year different from last year?
9. What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?
10. What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in ten years? In eternity?

In addition to these ten questions, here are twenty-one more to help you “Consider your ways.” Think on the entire list at one sitting, or answer one question each day for a month.

1. What’s the most important decision you need to make this year?
2. What area of your life most needs simplifying, and what’s one way you could simplify in that area?
3. What’s the most important need you feel burdened to meet this year?
4. What habit would you most like to establish this year?
5. Who do you most want to encourage this year?
6. What is your most important financial goal this year, and what is the most important step you can take toward achieving it?
7. What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your work life this year?
8. What’s one new way you could be a blessing to your pastor (or to another who ministers to you) this year?
9. What’s one thing you could do this year to enrich the spiritual legacy you will leave to your children and grandchildren?
10. What book, in addition to the Bible, do you most want to read this year?
11. What one thing do you most regret about last year, and what will you do about it this year?
12. What single blessing from God do you want to seek most earnestly this year?
13. In what area of your life do you most need growth, and what will you do about it this year?
14. What’s the most important trip you want to take this year?
15. What skill do you most want to learn or improve this year?
16. To what need or ministry will you try to give an unprecedented amount this year?
17. What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your commute this year?
18. What one biblical doctrine do you most want to understand better this year, and what will you do about it?
19. If those who know you best gave you one piece of advice, what would they say? Would they be right? What will you do about it?
20. What’s the most important new item you want to buy this year?
21. In what area of your life do you most need change, and what will you do about it this year?

Written by Donald S. Whitney

if you have but five minutes today…

watch this.

let it sink in-

and know how much He loves you.

link to video: click here

To live out here…

is, when wondering which road to take home, consider which you would be the least likely to hit a deer on.

Driving home tonight from work, the dark night air swirled around the van as it forged its way through the damp fall weather.

No headlights, taillights in front of me, or in back.

Just dark. No street lights out here.

The whir of the engine and the glow of the dashboard the only things breaking this lightless silence. 

It kind of makes me twitchy, all of these ‘wide open spaces’.

I press the radio button and off the walls and into my ears sing praise songs, worshipful melodies.

See the faint glow of red up ahead of me, I release my shoulders a little.

I don’t care for country night driving.

But to live out here is to live in the country, and I think of all the times that I’ll be driving this route, high beams on and radio loud to keep my mind focused and relaxed.

So I take a deep breath and whisper scripture the whole way.

James 1, Romans 8:37-39,

and my all time favorite, 2 Corinthians 12:9- for when I need to remember that his grace is all sufficient.

And I pray like crazy that the reflectors I see in the ditch isn’t a deer.

And it wasn’t.

God is good.

Do Everything

Love this new song by Steven Curtis Chapman.

“Do everything you do to the glory of the One who made you…”

We drove a ways one day and while we were heading home, this song came on the radio.

Well, of course we all started singing along as soon as we picked up tune, and it has become my favorite song (so far) for the summer.

But I can’t find a video or download of the song to share with you.

So instead, until the album comes out on August 9th, we just have to read the lyrics.

:)

Enjoy!

Kaye

The Power of Words

The Power of Words video has come through my inbox for the first time, and I LOVE IT.

Care to watch?

click here…

Words have the ability to either build up, encourage, help, and strengthen, or tear down, take apart, and ruin.

This video was a poignant reminder to me that Christ calls us to only speak and use words that are “helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”

which is exactly what this video shows.

A girl who takes the time to use words to build another up and benefit those who can read them.

please take the 2 minutes to watch this.

It is amazing.

Kaye

and the world sits solemn

today the world sits

quietly

in the cloudy day here

good weather for today

Good Friday

When Christ paid the price for my salvation

so I could come to Him

“He was made in the world,

and though the world was made through him,

the world did not recognize him…”

“He came to that which was his own,

but his own did not receive him…”

“Yet to all who did receive him,

who called upon His name…”

“He gave the right to become the children of God.”

"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only,

who came from the Father,

full of grace and truth.”

(John 1: 10-12, 14)

a blessed good friday to you, my friends.

Kaye

when you can’t see the path

I was sitting up late.

Later than I ought to have been.

Praying and thinking, wondering and dreaming.

Where will the next years take me?

Where will I work?

What about college?

What could I do to further the Kingdom?

How can I glorify God in everything?

The questions weighed down, so I prayed them, and asked God to show me the path that I should take.

Prayed, closed the Bible and blue journal and went to bed.

The next night, two days ago now,

I sat on that same barstool at the kitchen counter,

later than I should’ve been,

and prayed.

First I read Matthew 5-7,

which got me thinking about Psalm 119,

the verse where it says

“How can a young man keep his way pure? By walking according to your word.”

So I started to turn the pages in that direction and was almost there when I saw, starred, highlighted, circled.

That verse I learned in preschool.

“Your Word is a lamp unto my feet,

and a light unto my path.”

And then it all clicked for me-

how could I have missed this, this verse I have known since a young age?

God’s word- the holy, infallible Word, inspired by God and totally true-

This Word gives the answers.

For the Word, CHRIST, was with God, in Him is LIGHT,

light unto my path.

In our woods

joyful, peaceful, blessings abound~

Kaye

What Life Is

“And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son…”  1 john 5:12

“Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life…” john 6:35

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me…” john 14:6

(to see the video, click here…)

may you love and know and find more joy in Him each day~

Kaye

Look at the Birds of the Air

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?

Look at the birds of the air;

they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Are you not much more valuable than they?

Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

And why do you worry about clothes?

See how the flowers of the field grow.

They do not labor or spin.  Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.

If that is how God clothes the grass of the field,

which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire,

will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?

So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.

Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matthew 6:25-34

Peace~

Peace I leave with you; 

my peace I give you.

Do not let your hearts be troubled

and do not be afraid.

John 14:27

The LORD is my light and my salvation—
    

whom shall I fear?

The LORD is the stronghold of my life—

of whom shall I be afraid?

Psalm 27:1

A Little Late

Blessings counted a little later in the week…

559. Starbucks hot chocolate on a bitter cold day

560. The light falling just so across the kitchen table

561. The Last Sin Eater by Francine Rivers

562. Exercising with L

563. Third Day’s new CD, Gone

564. Audrey Assad’s voice on the speakers

565. The fan in the kitchen to blow out the smoke of burned french fries… :)

566. Kira asleep on the couch

567. Perfect Peace…

567. Camels marching across the walls

568. warm honey sticks on the counter

569. The Wild Game

570. Mini donuts

Nehemiah 4:14

I arose and said to the nobles and the officials and the rest of the people,

“Do not be afraid of them.

Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome…”

Nehemiah 4:14

 

 

Remembering not to fear failure, but rest in His all-knowingness.

(kaye ann silver)

Isaiah 41:18-20

"I will make rivers flow on barren heights...

I will set pines in the wasteland...

so that my people may see and know,

may consider and understand,

that the hand of the Lord has done this,

that the Holy One of Israel has created  it."

Isaiah 41:18-20



Micah 1:2

“Look! The Lord is coming from His dwelling place;

He comes down and treads the high places of the earth.”

Micah 1:2

Staying Focused on the Light

 

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying,  "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

John 8:12

Finding Him Everywhere Today

Today I reach up to Him who holds the world in His hands that guide us continually,

for with Him standing with us always

all things are possible.

Nothing is impossible with God!

Philippians 4:13

(kaye ann silver)

Isaiah 40:28

Do you know?

Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary,

and his understanding no one can fathom.

Isaiah 40:28

Acts 2:28

“You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence.”

Acts 2:28

Colossians 3:23

Sitting in the basement, I stared hard at the book in front of me.

Focus. I need to focus!

Algebra and geography loomed overhead like the bright leaves ready to fall.

So often I think to myself- Oh, I'm fine. I can do this later and get it done then... no worries.

and yet every time I think that, I know that it is a lie.

For once I forget to do something, it stays forgotten.

So this school year to fight off those thoughts of laziness with His words. 

'Cause after reading Proverbs, the last thing I want to be is lazy.

I memorized a verse that God continually reminds me of and that keeps showing up everywhere-

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as though working for the Lord, not man."

Colossians 3:23

So I sit straight, thank the Lord for His word that continually convict and promise...

and I do geography.

thanking Him for His reminders this week...

#404-415

geography books

The constant reminding and patience of Christ

crunching leaves under feet

walking with my sisters



R's dedication!

the dedication dinosaur cake...

Betsy remembering the cake! :)

40! people come to celebrate what God has done for our family

our whole family standing behind us in the pews singing praises! What a blessing!

finding pictures of our trip to the north shore!

flowering kale in a vase on our table

chickadees finding their way to the basement window to wish me good morning

(kaye ann silver)

ps- would you all send prayers to Him who hears tomorrow at 8:30 am?

I am taking my driver's license exam...

Thank you, dear friends!