Just returned from visitation for Donnie Poore.  His was truly a life well-lived if number of people attending said visitation is any indication.  So many lives the man touched.  I have known him all of my life, because his home church was also my home church.  However, during the formative years of our lives I was not living in the Shelbina area where Donnie lived and prospered.  Obviously Donnie was not born the man he had become before his untimely death.  God had taken 69 years to mold him into the Donnie Poore which was so respected and loved by our little community.  He will be greatly missed by his wife, 3 children, siblings, grandchildren, extended family, and a host of Christian brothers and sisters.
 On a personal level, I will miss him, as he was the lead Sunday School teacher of the class which I will now be teaching.  Perhaps I have learned lessons in class growth from Donnie.  I saw how Donnie took an active interest in all those who attended the class; how he was able to make a person feel special.  He willingly gave  of his time, and thus of his life, to those with whom he came in contact.  He even embraced technology, which is omnipresent in our society today.  And that cannot have been easy for someone of his age. He was not afraid to get his hands dirty-literally-the man was a worker.
Now, Donnie has a time of rest until our Lord returns.  Our loss of his presence here on planet Earth is not easy.  But we need to realize that it is counted as gain for Donnie Poore.  Someday, his family will be reunited with him in Heaven.  That is the promise that we have from God.
Would that we could all have a faith such as Donnie exhibited in a life well-lived.  So long, my friend.  I will see you on the other side.  Maybe we can meet at the flagpole in Heaven-surely there is one.

A life well lived, Donnie Poore.  I was fortunate to have known you. You cared about people, Donnie.  You lived a life of service.  I am sure that you had to work at it-that kind of character is built by God one day at a time. The world of Shelbina, Missouri; and more especially, First Baptist Church-Shelbina will miss you and the ministry you performed here.  You were not born the person you died-God made you into him through the tragedies and triumphs of life-Donnie Poore is better off now-we, who are left, are mourning our loss-but it is gain to Donnie.

I suppose my question is:  What good do my thoughts do?  As in my thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families of the "Boston Massacre".  I do pray to my God for the victims; the families of those who have lost loved ones; the many who were traumatized by this terrorist action on an event which epitomizes human achievement, but how do my THOUGHTS or those of anyone else do any good?  I am assuming that when the word thought is used , it is a liberal's way of stating prayer, without actually using that word, because he does not, in his pride, want to acknowledge the presence of an Almighty God.  

Personally, I believe that until we, as a nation, acknowledge God, these kinds of actions will continue to be perpetrated on us.  We have drifted so far from the God of the Bible, that without Divine intervention, we will not return. 

The burning question seems to now be, what do we tell the children?  We cannot tell them that man is basically evil-that all mankind has a sin nature .  We cannot tell the children that mankind is unregenerate, that man will think and act on the evil which is in his heart-and most men(and women) are unsaved.  The Bible states that the way is broad and the path is wide that leads to death, and many are those who find it....and the path is strait and the way is narrow that leads to life and few there be who go therein.(not a verbatim quote)  

So we stick our heads in the sand; say there are just a few bad apples out there.  If we incarcerate them, everything will be all right.  But the Bible tells us to get the murderer out of our midst-to kill him, not put him in prison.  I would hope that we find the perpetrators soon-the President just called it an act of terrorism.  

Just got done commenting on some Facebook posts; then deleted them, rather than post, because of the sarcasm.  Many has been the time that I wished that life had a Delete button.  Stating "I'm sorry" may assuage my conscience; but even though the wound caused by my words may heal, the scar will be there as long as life persists.  Better to think twice, and speak but once.  I praise my God who has said that He has removed my sins as far as the east is from the west-even though I may have trouble forgiving myself, I  know because God's Word is unchanging, that He forgives me.  
Actually, this post was going to be about trust-and I suppose that the above is a good example of that.  I must trust the Word of God-He has said that the blood sacrifice which Jesus made almost 2000 years ago as a perfect(without any spot or blemish) sacrificial lamb is adequate to satisfy the wrath of God, if only I will believe God.  We are all saved the same way-from the first believers, to the last unnamed ones-we believe God, and He counts it to us as righteousness-Abraham is the original Biblical example.  He believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.  And how did he display that belief?  By willingly obeying the command of God, and sacrificing his son, his ONLY son, Isaac, as instructed.
I realize that Ishmael was the firstborn, but he was NOT the child of the promise; he was the child of the handmaiden, not of  the wife.  As a son of Abraham, he was to receive a blessing as well, but not the birthright.  Jesus Christ(like unto Isaac, totally obedient to His Father), became heir to the birthright-and all believers, by imputation of the righteousness of Christ, become co-heirs with Jesus.
Does my defense of the faith even make sense to an unchurched  unbeliever who happens across this post?  I believe the message of the Gospel is straightforward enough that anyone can understand it if presented in their heart language, but is this post adequate?
How precious is our trust of another human being?  Multitudes are searching for another person to trust-but having given up on the spouse of their youth-they have divorced, remarried; possibly divorced and remarried again.  How can trust be developed between two people when betrayal is so easy?  And make no mistake, divorce is betrayal-it is akin to murder-it destroys a God-ordained union.  It would seem to me that our culture, by making divorce so easy has done a tremendous disservice to its citizenry.  What was once considered a virtue in human relationships, trust; has been cast aside due to the ease of obtaining a divorce.  Without trust, created in a marriage through daily living, relationships can be easily broken; and are.  And when marriages are broken, we see the results in the culture at large.  Multitudinous problems appear-and no solution seems to be available.  The tragedy is, once the breakdown has occurred, it seems to be irreparable.  With God, all things are possible-but without Him, as far as I  can see, our society cannot repair itself.

How did frugality morph into hoarding?  I was raised by parents who had come of age at the start of the Great Depression, or shortly thereafter.  My mother saved everything-from string to bread twist ties-cloth sacks were actually made into clothing.  But somewhere along the way such actions, which were frugal or thrifty, and considered virtues, have become the vice of hoarding.  We have at least one television series(probably more) dedicated to the subject.

I would speculate that by diminishing the virtue of frugality which previous generations had revered we have become the disposable society you see today.  Our pollution problems, I believe, in large measure, are due to the loss of  thriftiness in our populace.  

May have to rethink the purchase of Korean built automobiles-North Korea is telling all foreigners to get out of South Korea, or take cover.  This situation seems to be deteriorating rapidly-is this President Obama's Waterloo?  Even the best laid plans sometimes go awry-instead of getting us out of all the military incursions left by his predecessor, he may have to get us involved in more.  Like life itself, shit happens to Presidents as well.  We could just ignore the problem if there were no treaties between the U. S. and Japan and South Korea, but we gave up our isolationist policy a long time ago.  I never served in the military, so I cannot give that perspective; but I sure do hate to see American blood shed in a regional conflict.  I would prefer that China dealt with this situation, but who knows what the repercussions of their intervention might be.(Ouch, little black ant just stung me...)
Other big news of the day seems to be the student in Texas who has stabbed 14 people on a college campus.  This will do nothing to advance the cause of the anti-gun lobby.  Evidently, the perpetrator used a knife or pencil to attack his victims.  The point being, as has so often been stated is: guns don't kill people, people kill people; and evidently, they don't need to have a gun to do it!
I am fairly certain that the anti-evangelical lobby will never admit that the underlying problem is not guns, but, ultimately, the sin nature of mankind.  And we all sin, because that is what comes naturally to us.  God has provided a cure for all sin-Jesus Christ.  How do we get this message of salvation out to mankind?