~pt.2 ~DONKEY TRACKS"
~~
from: The White Donkey Society
January
5, 2005
~TRAILS of LIVING~
A Year to Remember
âAlbert Mohler
The year 2004 is ready for
the history books--and it was a year that really made history. Janet Jackson
made the wrong kind of history at the Super Bowl while the private astronaut
Dick Rutan made the right kind of history in space--and the last civil war widow
died.
In America, citizens were obsessed with
the presidential election--and ended the year debating the meaning of red states
and blue states. George W. Bush began the year defying advice to run a plain
vanilla campaign and ended the year as TIME magazine's man of the year--with
four more years at the nation's helm.
Mel Gibson's movie, 'The Passion of the
Christ,' set new box office records while Rick Warren's 'The Purpose Driven
Life' hit the best-seller lists--and stayed there.
President Ronald Reagan
left us, and his death left us wondering if we would ever see his kind again,
while disaster in South
Asia reminded us just how
small we are. All in all, it was a year to
remember.
~TRAILS
of LIFE~
What Man Dared Not Dream
By Max Lucado
Santa. The
culmination of what we need in a hero. The fulfillment of our
desires. And
... the betrayal of our meager expectations.
What? you say. Let me
explain.
You see, Santa can't provide what we really need. For one thing,
he's
only around once a year. When December's requests become
February
payments, Santa's left the mall. And should July find us ill or
October
find us alone we can't go to his chair for comfort-it's still
empty.
You'd think we could do better. You'd think that over six centuries
we'd
develop a hero who'd resolve those fears.
But we can't. We give it the best we can, every benefit of every
doubt,
every supernatural strength, and, for a brief shining moment we have
the
hero we need-the king who can deliver Camelot.
But then the truth
leaks and fact surfaces amidst the fiction and the
chinks in the armor are
seen. And we realize that the heroes, as noble
as they may have been, as
courageous as they were, were conceived in the
same stained society as you
and I.
Except one. There was one
who claimed to come from a different place.
Those who saw him-really saw
him-knew there was something different. At
his touch blind beggars saw.
At his embrace empty lives filled with
vision.
During his final week he
summarized his claims with one question.
Speaking of himself he asked his
disciples, "What do you think about the
Christ? Whose son is he?" (Matthew
22:42)
It's the ultimate question of the Christ: Whose son is he?
Is he
the son of God or the sum of our dreams? Is he the force of
creation or a
figment of our imagination?
When we ask that question about Santa, the answer
is the culmination of
our desires. A depiction of our fondest dreams.
Not
so when we ask it about Jesus. For no one could ever dream a person
as
incredible as he is. The idea that a virgin would be selected by God
to bear
himself .... The notion that God would don a scalp and toes and
two eyes ....
It's too incredible. Too revolutionary. We would never
create such a Savior.
We aren't that daring.
But God did what we wouldn't dare dream. He did what
we couldn't
imagine. He became a man so we could trust him. He became a
sacrifice so
we could know him. And he defeated death so we could follow him.
*
~TRAILS
of SCRIPTURE~
"As a man thinks in his heart, so is
he"
(Proverbs 23:7).
For successful living it is
important not only to have a
positive attitude and to think positively but,
equally
important, to be a positive realist.
For example, I have read how
Admiral Jim Stockdale was
repeatedly tortured during eight years as a
prisoner of war
in Hanoi during
the Vietnam War--and survived.
Strange as it may at first seem, "In an
interview with
author Jim Collins, Admiral Stockdale commented that
the
optimists were the ones who were least likely to survive
the camps.
They refused to accept reality. They kept
predicting that they would be freed
soon. And every time
their predictions failed, they lost a little more
hope,
until one day the optimists died of broken hearts. They had
great
attitudes, but they failed to deal realistically with
their situation.
Stockdale remarked, 'You must never
confuse faith that you will prevail in
the end--which you
can never afford to lose--with the discipline to
confront
the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever
they
might be.'"1
To express it another way, if you've been hit by a
Mack
truck all the optimism and positive thinking in and of
itself won't
take the pain away. One needs to be a positive
realist who says to
him/herself, "Yes, I've been hit by a
massive problem. I've been hurt badly
and am in deep pain.
However, with God's help and any other help I need, I
will
do everything in my power to overcome my circumstances and
survive
triumphantly. â Dick
Innes
~TRAILS of PRAYER~
O Gracious God, I
know my sin has broken your heart and
offended your holiness. Words,
therefore, cannot communicate
my thankfulness to you. You were hurt by
my sin and yet
provided a sacrifice to redeem me from it and reconcile me
to
you. I praise you for your grace, thank you for your love,
and
promise to share your mercy. Through Jesus my sacrifice
I
pray. Amen.
~TRAILS
of a RIDER of GRACE~ .
I hope that you all enjoyed
holidays. I hope that this year can be used to glorify God and that you will
have good health and happiness throughout the coming year. I will
appreciate your continuing prayers. I spent New Year's Day, with bad
bladder spasms. Thank God , they have been doing much better. Thank you
again so much. In the Agape Love of Jesus Christ,
Jimmy
http://www.youens.com/mccoy/
"The White Donkey Society"
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