Friday, July 27, 2007

Summertime by the pool.


The girls and I on the pool deck in the backyard..last summer...This was before the pool deck weathered over the winter and peeled! :( The baby is my nephew Silas.
This was my devotional today...this guy thinks like me....
I wonder about all those little things that most people
don't even think of.
I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.






July 26 , 2006


'The Great Coffee Scandal'
by John Fischer

I'm sitting here this morning drinking my Starbucks

French Roast and thinking about what seems so remarkable

and complicated
about how

coffee came to be. I can just see some South American farmer sitting

next to a coffea plant one day and suddenly seeing visions of shelling

its red berries to get to the little bean inside. And once he saw that little

bean, he would immediately know to dry it, roast it, grind it up, and

pour hot water over it through a filter in order to get one of the most

popular beverages in the world. I'm sure that's how it happened!

Don't you ever wonder about stuff like this or am I the only one? And

doesn't it make you wonder how many other drinks or potions are still

out there undiscovered? Why did we find the ones we found? Were we

wired a certain way? Is it just random that we landed on coffee? Could it

just as easily have gone another way and suddenly we are all drinking

hot baba from the babao plant? (Don't go looking; I just made those up.)

All this tells me that we are not alone in not being an accident. That
little bean inside the coffea berry is no accident either. God has built all

sorts of beneficial secrets into his creation and then left us to discover

them and use them. And this comes with responsibility as well because

some of these secrets are harmful. That's all a part of the good and evil

around us that makes life such a challenge.

All of this makes me stop dead in my tracks and go, “God, you are so

awesome! To have plants, animals, natural resources, and an environment

in which they can all thrive together is one thing. The brains to make something

out of all these resources, and the potential to use what we make for good or for

evil are even more incredible gifts you have given your creatures. Who could

have thought up a God like you? Certainly none of us.”
So enjoying my coffee today has turned into an unplanned act of worship. It's

amazing how you can access thoughts of God through the simplest channels.

It's really not that hard once you start thinking down this road. That we can

go about our work and never give a thought to what's behind the world we deal

with every day is the real scandal.