This morning I think I felt God speak to my heart more clearly than ever before…and it stung…
How many hours do I pour over books, and podcast, counseling, and phone calls…at this point I am not exactly sure…but at some point during the last several months I began scheduling God along with every other appointment…
God became my 6:05, or if I hit the snooze, or slept in a little, my 6:15…
I am in no way saying that it is wrong to set aside a specific time to engage God, I believe it is healthy to do so…what I wonder is how substantive that time actually is…what is the quality of it…
God spoke so clearly…”Don’t make me a part of your schedule…make me the focus of your life!”
This cut me to the core…what about you?
Filed under: Discipleship, Life, Spiritual Growth, Spiritual Journey
The Wood…what can I say, you were full of magic and wonder…mystery and surprises…I will miss you.
My last day at The Wood,
was primarily spent here… rockin out at the “Dreamland Drive Inn”
I must admit, that although this is not my first choice of musical genre, it was quite entertaining, and the cast was really cool…
here I am getting a cameo…
Show business for me, I think not…
I have to say…for all of the hanging meat…southern gospel shows…and domesticated wild life, The Wood is a pretty cool place, and it’s alright with me…
Here’s to you Dolly
Filed under: Family, Life, Random
Day two in the Wood began much as the first had…we were once again greeted by smiling faces, hanging meat, and funny hats…
Today we went on a deeper exploration of what the Wood had to offer…I don’t know how it is that we missed it, but Dolly has an entire county fair right there inside of the park…
thats right, relive the giant vegetables…odd animals…sticky food, and games you can’t win, for prizes
you don’t want…
But, these kids seemed to be having a good time…
I have seen many things in my life, but never the double double…theme parks hosting county fairs? What a crazy concept, but I guess it works…
Whats next, gum inside of a lollipop…
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Once we got into Dollywood, or, as I affectionately call it, the Wood, there was a surprising amount of things to do…but I only had one thing on my mind…a corn dog….
You see, Dolly’s corn dogs are renowned for their crisp and juicy perfection…I had to have one, so we made a b-line straight for the dogs…
After lunch, we were ready for a show…the Wo
od offers several shows, including gospel, country, and doo wop…I was not surprised to find that there would be no Hip Hop, and although my disappointment was tangible, I remembered my commitment to embrace where I lived…
so off we went to the Great American Country Show…although this is not my primary taste in music, I must say that the performances were good…and the cast enjoyed what they do at the Wood, or so it seems…
What came as a great surprise is how much my daughter enjoyed the show…she was screaming and bouncing the whole time…I guess my wish for her to be a soul sista has been dashed upon the rock of the wood and its mastery of country music…
Upon exiting the Wood on this first visit we went through the “General Store” What I saw next no one could have prepared me for…there it was…meat…hanging in the open square, right next to a t-shirt proclaiming ones love for the Wood…this place is full of surprises…
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On our first day visiting Dollywood was full of excitement and interesting things unique to the wood, but it all began with this open air trolley ride in , the young lady pictured here was very excited about the trip…she had been to the wood three times already this year…She was kind enough to take this picture of the family
After we exited the trolley we were greeted by two people who desperately wanted to take our pictures…but we weren’t buying, because of course we brought our own camera…
We were finally greeted by these two to gain access to this magical world of wonder….
So much to tell…so little time, tomorrow we continue…
Filed under: Uncategorized
So here it is…I have succumbed completely to the fact that I am no longer in the city…
I live in rural Tennessee…I have come to love the mountains…the open space…the quiet…it is no longer driving me crazy…I have relented…
So, in accordance with my new found submission to where I am, I am now doing a week long chronicle to the foremost attraction in the smokies… Dollywood…
This place draws people from, all over the south east…so here’s to you Dolly (Did I mention she has several hundred acres where she lives, only two miles from our condo)… and the rush hour like traffic you bring to county roads…
To be continued…
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Who knew that a bag of dirty diapers could be so heavy….seriously, I am a fan of the worlds strongest man competition, and they have an event called the farmers walk…
Very large men pick up two large weights in their hands and carry them as far as they can…
This is how my walk to the dumpster today felt…a gauntlet of poopy pain…
Bravo Eden…bravo for your productivity…
Filed under: Uncategorized
The scriptures…God’s personal message to humanity…but do we really hold it in that regard…
Evan Almighty paints a pretty clear picture that usually we don’t…again,this is a movie, not a theological well spring of knowledge…it just amazes me that pop culture has their fingers on the pulse of human behavior so much better than we (the church) do…
Back to the movie…Evan is receiving all of these messages that say 6:14…on his alarm clock…the news…his license plate…the list goes on…
Then it hits him…that it may be something from the bible, and so he asked the question that sent me on this trip… “Honey, do we have a bible somewhere around here?” That is a paraphrase, but it definitely captures the moment…
They find the family bible buried beneath mounds of junk…that picture is not so fictional…
There are 2.5 copies of the scriptures per household in America, and yet 90% plus do not engage it weekly…
What breaks my heart is to hear stories like those that take place in Sudanese prison camps where they write scripture verses on toilet paper and pass them around to strengthen each other, because they are not allowed to have the scriptures…
Or countries in South East Asia where they share one copy of the scriptures among one hundred people, because again, it is not accepted, and often not allowed to pursue Jesus there…but they hold the word in high regard….
Where and when did the scriptures loose their place in our hearts…our lives in America? When was the last time you let God speak through them to you?
Filed under: Discipleship, Life, Spiritual Growth, Spiritual Journey
This is not a deeply theological movie…but it really messed with me on several levels…
This movie chronicles a man told by God to build a gigantic boat…he loses his job…his family thinks he has lost it…and he fights it all the way, but eventually gives in to God and builds this boat…
It just really made me take a hard look at how we examine the scriptures…do we really believe what we say we believe…or do we too, like the disconnected, believe the bible to be a set of fictional stories…
Have we ever once placed ourselves in the shoes (sandals) of Naoh, Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Paul…the list goes on…
Have we once imagined what it would really be like to do something so crazy and off the wall that it had to be from God,and we had to expect people to think that we are crazy…but we did it anyway…
I hate to say that a “secular” movie, (if I could make those quotes any heavier I would), could have affected me so deeply…but then again, God speaks in crazy ways…to
tell us to do crazy things…or does He
Filed under: Discipleship, Life, Spiritual Growth, Spiritual Journey
