If God was chocolate

If God was chocolate

(Inspired by - "A JOKE A FRIEND TOLD."

Scriptural References: (Romans 8:31, Is. 55:8, Matt. 6:25-34))

Lyrics:

I can feel Your presence in the summer breeze / I can see the distance between You and me / I can catch your fragrance from an April rose / Sure can hear your rhythms when the thunder rolls / But I can’t taste You; don’t think I’m s’posed to / But what would people do / /

Chorus: If God was chocolate; everyone loves chocolate / Everyone would want Him, want Him all the time / You can almost taste it; every godly visit, a party for the spirit, body, soul and mind / If God was chocolate – chocolate - chocolate / Mm-mm – chocolate – chocolate - chocolate //

Pray for an end to anger, you get a Hershey’s kiss / For each good deed a Snickers, I could get used to this / Pray they stop the fighting in the Middle East / and the battleground starts changing / to a chocolate fondue feast / The whole world over we’d discover a whole new hunger //

Chocolate - chocolate Chocolate - chocolate / Can almost taste You / but I think it all through / and I think it’s also true that God is broccoli, asparagus and herb tea / all that stuff that’s good for me that may not taste divine / But it makes a good start at building me a strong heart. So if you eat your broccoli / and you drink your herbal tea, finish your supper and you will see. You will see how it can be that // Chorus

God the revealer

All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.

Philippians 3:15

Cardboard testimonies

The Yoga philosophy (and other eastern religions as well)

A while back I started reading a book, just out of curiosity and as a response to my missing Italy at the time. In fact the book is the recount of a lady who spent 3-4 months in Italy, 3-4 months in India and the same time in Indonesia. It's kind of a spiritual journey journal. It has nothing to do with christianity, but I was still curious enough to want to read it. And I have to say that reading the Italy part was fun and satisfied want I was longing to read -- a candid description of my culture.
Well, once I read that first third of the book, I put it aside and practically forgot about it, since I knew it was going to go into some hindu/buddhism sort of endeavor and I really didn't feel like diving into that (the part of the book dedicated to Italy was about food.. could I resist??)

The other day I thought I would pick it up again and see if I could finish it. I read a couple of pages and.. uhm.. I already have a question. I wish I had more readers to this blog to see what they thought about it, but as it is there probably won't be much of a response to this question.
Nonetheless, I'll ask it anyway.

Premise.
I'll have to copy a "couple" of sentences about her explanation of the Yoga philosophy.

Here it goes:

The Yogis,.., say that human discontentment is a simple case of mistaken identity. We're miserable because we think that we are mere individuals, alone with our fears and flaws and resentments and mortality. We wrongly believe that our limited little egos constitute our whole entire nature. We have failed to recognize our deeper divine character. We don't realize that, somewhere within us all, there does exist a supreme Self who is eternally at peace. That supreme Self is our true identity, universal and divine. Before you realize this truth, say the Yogis, you will always be in despair, a notion nicely expressed in this exasperated line from the Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus: "You bear God within you, poor wretch, and know it not."

Now, my question is:

"How divine is a divine that doesn't know it's divine?"

Let it shine

People often ask me
Why do I sing
And I tell them
The same old thing
'Cause I know where I'm going
And where God brought me from
I sing because of Jesus
God's Holy Son

God has given me
Such a gift of song
Told me to sing
I'm singing from now on
I'm singing for my friends
And in the face of my enemies
Gotta let my little light shine
For the whole world to see

Let it shine for the world to see
Give God the glory
Shine
You gotta let it shine
(I gotta tell everybody everywhere)
Let it shine for the world to see
(Oh yes I will)
Give God the glory
Shine
You gotta let it shine

People often ask me
Girl, why do you sing
I look at them and I tell them
The same old simple thing
'Cause I know where God brought me
Where God brought me from
And one day soon
The Savior is gonna come
Oh yes He will
Don't let this moment
Pass you by
You gotta tell the world
That Jesus is alive
And please don't let it, don't let it no
Don't let it slip away
You gotta tell everybody everywhere
That Jesus lives today
He lives today!

Let it shine for the world to see
(Let it shine for the world to see)
Give God the glory
(You've got to give Him the glory)
Shine
You gotta let it shine
(You gotta let it, you gotta let it, you gotta let it)
Let it shine for the world to see
(I give Him the glory, give Him the honor, give Him the praise)
Shine
(Tell everybody how He's been so good)
You gotta let it shine
(How He's been so kind, oh come on and..)
Let it shine for the world to see
(Shine shine shine)
Give God the glory
(Give Him the glory)
Shine
(Give Him the glory, give Him the honor)
You gotta let it shine
(Honor, give Him the praise)
Let it shine for the world to see
(Shine shine shine)
Give God the glory
Shine
(Shine, shine, shine)
You gotta let it shine
Let it shine for the world to see
(Tell your boss, tell your family)
Give God the glory
(Tell your wife, tell your husband)
Shine
(Tell everybody everywhere)
You gotta let it shine
(Oh yeah)
Let it shine for the world to see
(I'll tell it everywhere I go)
Give God the glory
(I'll tell everybody)
Shine
...
I promise you I will let it shine..



Two years ago I fell in love with this song.
I couldn't find anything to download here for you to hear it.
I couldn't even find the lyrics, so I typed them while I listened.
But, just reading or writing it is not the same for me.
I fell in love with the whole song, music and words.
I am not doing it any justice, by writing it here, but I felt the need to do so tonight.
At least the words.

Just for myself.

Let it shine.

n

PS~ The song is by Tara Darnell.

Sculpture Scripture

A copy of this sculpture (or maybe even this very sculpture), by the artist Botero, was donated to the city of Florence, Italy, and placed by the city airport.
I've driven by it often over the years.

And every time it makes me think of this Bible verse:

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 important than food, and the body more important 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?
Mt. 6:25-26

The Father sure fed this one!

:-)

May 30.

Eight years ago yesterday I gave birth to my daughter.

Yesterday has been a fun, fun day. Over the course of it, however, Juni kept asking me details about her birth.

At what time was I born?
What were you doing before going to the hospital?
What was dad doing at this time?
Was it painful?

For some of those questions I didn't have an answer (I truly don't remember what I was doing 3 hours after she was born! My guess would be either sleep or nurse her!)

But there is one answer I most certainly can't forget:

Was it painful?

Absolutely yes.

It still amazes me, however, that something so painful can result in something so beautiful.

I know pain (at least, that pain) is the result of the curse, but yesterday I found myself wondering if the choice of the curse was a way for God to show us how He operates and how we should deal with pain.
Giving birth is probably the closest we can get to the "creative process". God, in a way, made us part of that process. And He chose to make it not an easy task (and it doesn't get any easier after we do give birth..)

Pain is not just part of the birthing process. Pain is part of all aspects of our lives. But maybe it has (or should have) the same result in every circumstance: new life.
Be it physical or emotional, pain results in something new. A new understanding, a new baby, a new view of life, a new peace.

Pain always means change. Sometimes it's for the better, sometimes it's not. And sometimes pain breeds more pain if we let it.
But God intended for pain to be the arrow that points to Him and to the blessings He wants to bestow on us.
It's like He's saying "I know what you're going through, but you'll find Me on the other side!"

Jesus Himself went through pain to get to the joy of sitting at the right hand of God.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

James confirms that when he says:

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds...

Or Paul, when he says:

Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.

Again.. pain should lead to life.
Life in Him. And when we find life in Him, all we can do is rely on Him and not ourselves.
Good grief! How could we rely on ourselves when we cannot even make one hair on our head white or black????

Anyway, I'm sure I am not saying anything of great depth or that any of you has not already thought about.

I just needed to be reminded, I guess.

navide

PS ~ Just a note. I am not saying in any way that we should look for pain. My point is to keep pressing on when we do face painful situations (and that's pretty much a given for everybody on this earth), and not "artificially" create them.

All the lumber

A fine line

Without realizing it, I have crossed many times a line that's easy to cross for us Christians.
That line is between believing Jesus and believing the Bible.
It's a given that both are extremely important and definitely interconnected.
My point here, though, is that we obtain salvation only thru our faith in Jesus, which is naturally accompanied by belief in the Word.
Sometimes, however, we confuse the idea of believing what the Bible says with salvation through the knowledge of It. We focus on studying and knowing the Bible and not as much on the relationship with our Lord, Savior, Master, our Jesus.

Our focus should be on the relationship with a person not with a book, as sacred and true as it may be. The Word sheds light on the person of Jesus.
The Word is nothing without the Spirit.
Knowledge of the Bible won't save you. It may point (and it should) to the person of Jesus. He's the One who saves.

Let's use the image that is often used to describe the Bible: God's letter to us.
Sure, good example. What we do sometimes, however, is focus on the font the letter is written in, the gramatical correctness, the spacing, the ink used, and the letterhead it's written on.. and we miss the message.
We focus so much on how it was written, that we miss what it was written about.

Who it is written about.

Jesus himself warned us about that danger:

"You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me" (John5:39)

May we never forget that we don't "believe" in the Bible. We believe in a God, a truthful (and faithful) God, who gave us a truth-full Bible for our own benefit and to point us to the real Savior.
The One who gave up His life for us.

He is the one we Believe for our salvation.

It only tickles when you do it.

It Only Tickles When You Do It


I revel in days of abiding great joy
Bestowed upon me by that one little boy
Well it's true that it smarts when he shouts in my ears
But the silence hurt more before he was here

Well he laughs til he cries as we flail on the floor
And he pleads with me "Stop!"
though he knows there'll be more
With an innocent whimsy he hasn't lost yet
Then he leads me to wisdom I'll never forget
When he says "Now daddy, you tickle yourself"
And I says "If I could I'd get to it
But it only tickles when you do it"


Now that my bonnie boy has grown inte a man
I am left all alone here with these idle hands
So they reach up to You who've been Father to me
And they're craving the joy that Your touch always means
I say this in not the most reverent terms
And pray You won't misconstrue it
But it only tickles when you do it


....and then the Lord speaks.... :
"I am God, I am happy in heavens above
I've had eons and ages of Myself to love
Still I found it amsuing to see Adam come
And the earth did seem greener, and brighter the sun
Well I may try to hide this from even Myself
But clearly you always knew it
That it only tickles when you do it
Yes it only tickles when you do it"

First and foremost.

This is my spin-off blog.

I realized I was writing in Italian a lot on my other blog, and neglecting my English, so much so that I've decided to create another blog. Even though both blogs will probably have mixed languages, I'll try to keep this one mainly in English and the other one mainly in Italian.
Plus, I wanted to experiment with a new template, but I didn't want to take the chance of losing all I had on the other blog.

So here I am, with a brand new baby blog.
And, as you can see, it's a girl..

Welcome and see you at my next post!