Drops Bible Quotes

When I hear that still, small Voice wooing me and asking me to drop everything and spend time with Him, I need to be willing to yield.

Sociologists argue that in contemporary Western society the marketplace has become so dominant that the consumer model increasingly characterizes most relationships that historically were covenantal, including marriage. Today we stay connected to people only as long as they are meeting our particular needs at an acceptable cost to us. When we cease to make a profit - that is, when the relationship appears to require more love and affirmation from us than we are getting back - then we "cut our loses" and drop the relationship. This has also been called "commodification," a process by which social relationships are reduced to economic exchange relationships, and so the very idea of "covenant" is disappearing in our culture. Covenant is therefore a concept increasingly foreign to us, and yet the Bible says it is the essence of marriage.

It has always been difficult for Jews to take Christians serious, mostly because Christians lack the fundamentals that religious Jews learn in their youth. It remains an embarrassing fact, that modern Jews can comprehend the New Testament better than modern Christians. There is no excuse for this. Christians have dropped the ball and should be anxious to remedy that neglect. Not only would they benefit themselves, but their community too.

At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came. One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Then, Paul remembered a Bible verse from 1 John. He said that John, in summarizing all that he’d learned about God, said this: “God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.” “When you are with God,” Paul said, “there is no darkness, ho hiding, no pretending. When you are with God, you have the freedom and courage to be yourself.

Cruelty is older than the Bible. Savagery beat its chest in the first human summer and has kept beating it every day since. The worst in men is commonplace. The best is a far rarer thing.

attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding: PRO5.2 That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge. PRO5.3 For the lips of a strange woman drop

Tragically, some people believe they are going to heaven when they die just because a few drops of water were sprinkled over their heads a few weeks after their birth. They have no personal faith, have never made a personal decision, and are banking on a hollow ceremony to save them. How absurd.

The neurologist and psychologist Maurice Nicoll told how he had once asked his headmaster about a passage in the Bible, and after he had listened to the answer for some time, he realized that the man had no idea what he was talking about. What I admire about Nicoll is that he made this discovery when he was only ten. It took me another forty-five years before the penny dropped: very, very few people have any idea what they are talking about.

I’ve learned to accept this paradox: a holy book that more often than not doesn’t act very much like you’d expect it, but more like a book written two thousand to three thousand years ago would act. I expect the Bible to reflect fully the ancient settings in which it was written, and therefore not act as a script that can simply be dropped into our lives without a lot of thought and wisdom. The Bible must be thought through, pondered, tried out, assessed, and (if need be) argued with—all of which is an expression of faith, not evidence to the contrary.

You really wanna take care of North Korea? I’ll tell you what to do: grab a couple of devout Christians and dress em’ up as Kim Jong-un and drop their asses into North Korea armed with Bibles and methamphetamines. They’ll either convert everybody or call em’ sinners and murder every last one of them. Problem solved.

At the top, he dipped the tip of his tongue in and tasted Caleb’s essence. Delicious. Another jewel-like drop appeared, as if by magic. Matt stole it as well.

Part of facing the unknown requires dropping an anchor of faith into the depths of God’s sovereignty.

NOT LONG AGO I WAS READING A PASSAGE IN THE Bible in which Jesus was praying for his disciples. He prayed that they would love each other, as he’d taught them to do. He prayed that they’d embrace a mission to teach other people to create communities that loved each other, as they’d experienced with him. When I read the passage, though, I saw it differently. He wasn’t just calling them into a life of sacrifice. He was calling them into a life of meaning, even the kind of meaning that would involve suffering. Suffering for a redemptive reason is hardly suffering, after all.

The warden always seems to know which book to bring. When the sun is gunslinger blue, the warden brings a western. When rain slates against the towers and the world has gone hopeless with gray, it is Bible stories. When the halls ring with the cries of riot and the bars of my own cell rattle with pain, the warden drops a soft book on the floor, solace in its pages: the collected poems of Walt Whitman. And oh, my favorites, like the tastes of childhood. Every few months the warden passes me The White Dawn, and for a few precious days I traverse the open heavens on hard-packed moonlit snow and see the blue splashing arctic lights, and I fill my belly with frozen seal meat and laugh with my Inuit friends.

Miss Maudie stopped rocking, and her voice hardened. “You are too young to understand it,” she said, “but sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of—oh, of your father.” I was shocked. “Atticus doesn’t drink whiskey,” I said. “He never drunk a drop in his life—nome, yes he did. He said he drank some one time and didn’t like it.” Miss Maudie laughed. “Wasn’t talking about your father,” she said. “What I meant was, if Atticus Finch drank until he was drunk he wouldn’t be as hard as some men are at their best. There are just some kind of men who—who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.” “Do

A Judge personality strongly believes in right and wrong, which is great, but they also believe they are the ones who decide right and wrong and lord it over others to maintain authority and power. Right and wrong are less a moral code than they are a collar and leash they attach to others so they can lead them around. When a Judge personality is religious, they’ll use the Bible to gain control of others. The Bible becomes a book of rules they use to prove they are right rather than a book that introduces people to God.

Through a diligent study of God’s Word, under the guidance of His Spirit, you’ll drop a strong anchor that will hold in the storms of life. You will know your God. And when you know your God, not only will you be strong, but you will do great exploits for Him (Daniel 11:32).

The astonishment soon passed off, the scales seemed to drop from his eyes, and the book became at once and for ever to him the great human and divine book, and the men and women, whom he had looked upon as something quite different from himself, became his friends and counsellors.

Tragically, some people believe they are going to heaven when they die just because a few drops of water were sprinkled over their heads a few weeks after their birth. They have no personal faith, have never made a personal decision, and are banking on a hollow ceremony to save them. How absurd!

For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: 4 But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword. 5 Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell. 6 Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.

In addition to these physical problems, sexually transmitted diseases are rampant among the homosexual population. 75% of homosexual men carry one or more sexually transmitted diseases, wholly apart from AIDS. These include all sorts of non-viral infections like gonorrhea, syphilis, bacterial infections, and parasites. Also common among homosexuals are viral infections like herpes and hepatitis B (which afflicts 65% of homosexual men), both of which are incurable, as well as hepatitis A and anal warts, which afflict 40% of homosexual men. And I haven’t even included AIDS. Perhaps the most shocking and frightening statistic is that, leaving aside those who die from AIDS, the life expectancy for a homosexual male is about 45 years of age. That compares to a life expectancy of around 70 for men in general. If you include those who die of AIDS, which now infects 30% of homosexual men, the life expectancy drops to 39 years of age. So I think a very good case can be made out on the basis of generally accepted moral principles that homosexual behavior is wrong. It is horribly self-destructive and injurious to another person. Thus, wholly apart from the Bible’s prohibition, there are sound, sensible reasons to regard homosexual activity as wrong.

I suppose you wish to know what I am going to say to President Roosevelt on my return,” he said. This was an understatement. Churchill was desperate to know how well his courtship of Hopkins was progressing, and what indeed he would tell the president. “Well,” Hopkins said, “I’m going to quote you one verse from that Book of Books in the truth of which Mr. Johnston’s mother and my own Scottish mother were brought up—” Hopkins dropped his voice to a near whisper and recited a passage from the Bible’s Book of Ruth: “Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” Then, softly, he added: “Even to the end.

The Bible forbids dabbling in those kinds of things.” “You knocked my shield spell down with a freaking baseball bat, man. That thing's tough enough to stop cars, and you're strong enough to drop it with a Louisville Slugger. You can sense 'evil' from people, and that ain't magick?” “Well, no,” he said, but his voice wasn't as confident as it was before.

Christ is all in the entire work of salvation. Let me just take you back to the period before this world was made. There was a time when this great world, the sun, the moon, the stars, and all which now exist throughout the whole of the vast universe, lay in the mind of God, like unborn forests in an acorn cup. There was a time when the Great Creator lived alone, and yet he could foresee that he would make a world, and that men would be born to people it; and in that vast eternity a great scheme was devised, whereby he might save a fallen race. Do you know who devised it? God planned it from first to last. Neither Gabriel nor any of the holy angels had anything to do with it. I question whether they were even told how God might be just, and yet save the transgressors. God was all in the drawing up of the scheme, and Christ was all in carrying it out. There was a dark and doleful night! Jesus was in the garden, sweating great drops of blood, which fell to the ground; nobody then came to bear the load that had been laid upon him. An angel stood there to strengthen him, but not to bear the sentence. The cup was put into his hands, and Jesus said, "Father, must I drink it?" and his Father replied, "If thou dost not drink, sinners cannot be saved"; and he took the cup and drained it to its very dregs. No man helped him. And when he hung upon that accursed tree of Calvary, when his precious hands were pierced, when: "From his head, his hands, his feet, Sorrow and love flowed mingled down," there was nobody to help him. He was "all" in the work of salvation. And, my friends, if any of you shall be saved, it must be by Christ alone. There must be no patchwork; Christ did it all, and will not be helped in the matter. Christ will not allow you, as some say, to do what you can, and leave him to make up the rest. What can you do that is not sinful? Christ has done all for us; the work of redemption is all finished. Christ planned it all, and worked out all; and we, therefore, preach a full salvation through Jesus Christ.

We Let the Boat Drift I set out for the pond, crossing the ravine where seedling pines start up like sparks between the disused rails of the Boston and Maine. The grass in the field would make a second crop if early autumn rains hadn't washed the goodness out. After the night's hard frost it makes a brittle rustling as I walk. The water is utterly still. Here and there a black twig sticks up. It's five years today, and even now I can't accept what cancer did to him -- not death so much as the annihilation of the whole man, sense by sense, thought by thought, hope by hope. Once we talked about the life to come. I took the Bible from the nightstand and offered John 14: "I go to prepare a place for you.""Fine. Good," he said. "But what about Matthew? 'You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.'" And he wept. My neighbor honks and waves driving by. She counsels troubled students; keeps bees; her goats follow her to the mailbox. Last Sunday afternoon we went canoeing on the pond. Something terrible at school had shaken her. We talked quietly far from shore. The paddles rested across our laps; glittering drops fell randomly from their tips. The light around us seemed alive. A loon-itinerant- let us get quite close before it dove, coming up after a long time, and well away from humankind

Near the end of the session, a slight, middle-aged man in a dress shirt approached the microphone. “I’m here to ask your forgiveness,” he said quietly. “I’ve been a pastor with a conservative denomination for more than thirty years, and I used to be an antigay apologist. I knew every argument, every Bible verse, every angle, and every position. I could win a debate with just about anyone, and I confess I yelled down more than a few ‘heretics’ in my time. I was absolutely certain that what I was saying was true and I assumed I’d defend that truth to death. But then I met a young lesbian woman who, over a period of many years, slowly changed my mind. She is a person of great faith and grace, and her life was her greatest apologetic.” The man began to sob into his hands. “I’m so sorry for what I did to you,” he finally continued. “I might not have hurt any of you directly, but I know my misguided apologetics, and then my silent complicity, probably did more damage than I can ever know. I am truly sorry and I humbly repent of my actions. Please forgive me.” “We forgive you!” someone shouted from up front. But the pastor held up his hand and then continued to speak. “And if things couldn’t get any weirder,” he said with a nervous laugh, “I was dropping my son off at school the other day—he’s a senior in high school—and we started talking about this very issue. When I told him that I’d recently changed my mind about homosexuality, he got really quiet for a minute and then he said, ‘Dad, I’m gay.’ ” Nearly everyone in the room gasped. “Sometimes I wonder if these last few years of studying, praying, and rethinking things were all to prepare me for that very moment,” the pastor said, his voice quivering. “It was one of the most important moments of my life. I’m so glad I was ready. I’m so glad I was ready to love my son for who he is.

I’m not condemning anyone’s personal beliefs. I honestly don’t care if they worship Jesus, Buddha, Allah or the Tooth Fairy. But if that faith tells them to do harm to others, I have a big fucking issue with it. Millions, hell, probably billions of people throughout history have been killed in the name of one religion or the other. Just because you put your particular brand of God on it or drop enough Bible verses into your hate-filled rants to convince people, doesn’t make your actions any more justified.

We flew out of the city and we landed on the page where Moses split the sea and the Jews marched between those suspended mountains of water, hovering, humming on both sides, and the poor expelled merchants wondered if Moses knew what the fuck he was doing. What if his hand got tired and he accidentally dropped his magic cane, or got distracted by a wet desert ass, or lost his sandals, or what if that lush single malt of a God changed his mind again and the fucking Red Sea closed in on them with its menstrual red liquid?

Well,” Hopkins said, “I’m going to quote you one verse from that Book of Books in the truth of which Mr. Johnston’s mother and my own Scottish mother were brought up—” Hopkins dropped his voice to a near whisper and recited a passage from the Bible’s Book of Ruth: “Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” Then, softly, he added: “Even to the end.” This was his own addition, and with it a wave of gratitude and relief seemed to engulf the room. Churchill wept.

The implication that the change in nomenclature from “Multiple Personality Disorder” to “Dissociative Identity Disorder” means the condition has been repudiated and “dropped” from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association is false and misleading. Many if not most diagnostic entities have been renamed or have had their names modified as psychiatry changes in its conceptualizations and classifications of mental illnesses. When the DSM decided to go with “Dissociative Identity Disorder” it put “(formerly multiple personality disorder)” right after the new name to signify that it was the same condition. It’s right there on page 526 of DSM-IV-R. There have been four different names for this condition in the DSMs over the course of my career. I was part of the group that developed and wrote successive descriptions and diagnostic criteria for this condition for DSM-III-R, DSM–IV, and DSM-IV-TR. While some patients have been hurt by the impact of material that proves to be inaccurate, there is no evidence that scientifically demonstrates the prevalence of such events. Most material alleged to be false has been disputed by someone, but has not been proven false. Finally, however intriguing the idea of encouraging forgetting troubling material may seem, there is no evidence that it is either effective or safe as a general approach to treatment. There is considerable belief that when such material is put out of mind, it creates symptoms indirectly, from “behind the scenes.” Ironically, such efforts purport to cure some dissociative phenomena by encouraging others, such as Dissociative Amnesia.

So spake our mother Eve, and Adam heard Well pleased, but answered not; for now too nigh Th' Archangel stood, and from the other hill To their fixed station, all in bright array The Cherubim descended; on the ground Gliding meteorous, as ev'ning mist Ris'n from a river o'er the marish glides, And gathers ground fast at the labourer's heel Homeward returning. High in front advanced, The brandished sword of God before them blazed Fierce as a comet; which with torrid heat, And vapour as the Libyan air adust, Began to parch that temperate clime; whereat In either and the hast'ning angel caught Our ling'ring parents, and to th' eastern gate Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast To the subjected plain; then disappeared. They looking back, all th' eastern side beheld Of Paradise, so late their happy seat, Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms: Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon; The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide: They hand in hand with wand'ring steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way.

In some circles, using the word feminist is the equivalent of an f-bomb dropped in church—outrageous, offensive. It’s likely some people saw this book sitting on the shelf and figured they knew what sort of author was behind the words written here: a bitter man-hater arguing that men and women had no discernable differences, a ferocious and humorless woman, perhaps, and so it’s no wonder they reacted at the sight of Jesus alongside feminist like someone had raked long fingernails across a chalkboard. Who could blame them with the lines we’ve been fed about feminists for so long?

Be prepared. You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You’ll need them throughout your life. God’s Word is an indispensable weapon. In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each other’s spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out.

In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse — your whole nation — because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the LORD Almighty. “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the LORD Almighty.

I’ve concluded there are four chapters missing from the working Bibles of all too many Christians, and these missing chapters are not some obscure ceremonial texts or dusty corners of the royal chronicles. Instead, they are the very bookends of Scripture: the first two chapters of Genesis and the last two chapters of Revelation. And to miss these chapters—the first two about the creation, the second two about the new creation—is to miss the whole point of the biblical story. When these chapters drop out of our functional Bibles, our understanding of culture, power and salvation itself is badly weakened.

Okay, question, I say to Morrie. His bony fingers hold his glasses across his chest, which rises and falls with each labored breath. “What’s the question?” he says. Remember the Book of Job? “From the Bible?” Right. Job is a good man, but God makes him suffer. To test his faith. “I remember.” Takes away everything he has, his house, his money, his family… “His health.” Makes him sick. “To test his faith.” Right. To test his faith. So, I’m wondering… “What are you wondering?” What you think about that? Morrie coughs violently. His hands quiver as he drops themby his side. “I think,” he says, smiling, “God overdid it.

What it means: The world focuses on what people look like on the outside. God focuses on what people look like on the inside. Do you put more time and effort into being pretty on the outside or the inside? As you get older, you will meet Christian girls who spend more time trying to find the perfect outfit, get the perfect tan, find the perfect lip gloss, and have the perfect body. While there's nothing wrong with wanting to look pretty, we need to make sure it's in balance. God would rather see us work on becoming drop-dead gorgeous on the inside. You know, the kind of girl who talks to Him on a regular basis (prayer) and reads her Bible.

There is something else I must confess about Tata Boanda: he's a sinner. Right in the plain sight of God he has two wives, a young and an old one. Why, they all come to church! Father says we're to pray for all three of them, but when you get down to the particulars it's hard to know exactly what outcome to pray for. He should drop one wife, I guess, but for sure he'd drop the older one, and she already looks sad enough as it is. The younger one has all the kids, and you can't just pray for a daddy to flat-out dump his babies, can you? I always believed any sin was easily rectified if only you let Jesus Christ into your heart, but here it gets complicated. Mama Boanda Number Two doesn't seem fazed by her situation. In fact, she looks like she's fixing to explode with satisfaction. She and her little girls all wear their hair in short spikes bursting out all over their heads, giving an effect similar to a pincushion (Rachel calls it the "haywire hairdo.") And Mama Boanda always wraps her pagne just so, with a huge pink starburst radiating across her wide rump. The women's long cloth skirts are printed so gaily with the oddest things: there is no telling when a raft of yellow umbrellas, or the calico cat and gingham dog, or an upside-down image of the Catholic Pope might just go sauntering across our yard.

Thinking “Beyond,” INTERCESSION. God reminds us that His ways and thoughts are unfathomably beyond ours. It’s good to remember that when we are interceding—for the lost, or for seemingly impossible situations. In that light, also remember: • Light is more powerful than darkness. • Truth is stronger than error. • There’s more grace in God’s heart than sin in men’s hearts. • There’s more power in the Holy Spirit to convict men of sin than there is power of satanic forces to tempt men to sin. • There’s more power in one drop of the shed blood of the Lord Jesus to cleanse men’s hearts from the stain of sin than there is in the accumulated filth of men’s sin since Adam and Eve.

One of the crucial pennies to drop in the minds of those who find their way to faith in their adult years is often the realization that, if there really is a God such as the Bible reveals him to be, then he is smarter than I am and his judgement is more reliable than mine: if he and I differ on a matter, and if he is really God and I am really a creature, then it is more than reasonable to assume that he is correct and I am mistaken. To reach any other conclusion would require a bizarre routine of epistemological gymnastics. Either God is God and I am not, in which case his judgement is to be trusted over mine, or else God is not God, in which case there is no reliable way of satisfactorily arbitrating at all between what is reasonable and what is not.

faithfulness  c put an end to them.     6 With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to you;         I will give thanks to your name, O LORD,  d for it is good. 7    For he has delivered me from every trouble,         and my eye has  e looked in triumph on my enemies. Cast Your Burden on the LORD To the choirmaster: with  f stringed instruments. A Maskil [1] of David.     PSALM 55  g Give ear to my prayer, O God,         and hide not yourself from my plea for mercy! 2    Attend to me, and answer me;         I am restless  h in my complaint and I  i moan, 3    because of the noise of the enemy,         because of the oppression of the wicked.     For they  j drop trouble upon me,         and in anger they bear a grudge against me.     4 My heart is in anguish within me;

Some incidents of facial profiling have been more inconvenient than others. I’ll never forget walking through airport security when I was flying to give a speech to a Christian men’s group in Montana. The Department of Homeland Security screeners obviously didn’t recognize me as “Jase the Duckman” from Duck Dynasty, and I felt like I was one wrong answer away from being led to an interrogation room in a pair of handcuffs! Hunting season had recently ended, so my hair and beard were in full bloom! The security screeners saw a Bible in my bag, and I guess they figured I was a Christian nut because of my long hair and bushy beard. Somehow, I made it through the metal detector and an additional pat-down, and I guess they couldn’t find a justifiable reason to detain me. But as I was getting my belongings back together, I accidentally bumped into a woman. She screamed! It must have been an involuntary reflex. It was a natural response, because she thought I was going to attack her. Once she finally settled down, I made my way to the gate and sat down to compose myself. After a few minutes, a young boy walked up and asked me for my autograph. Finally, I thought to myself. Somebody recognizes me from Duck Dynasty. Not everyone here believes I’m the Unabomber! Man, I could have used the kid about twenty minutes earlier, when I was trying to get through security! I looked over at the boy’s mother, and she was smiling from ear to ear. I realized they were very big fans. I signed my name on a piece of paper and handed it to the kid. “Can I ask you a question?” he said. “Sure, buddy,” I said. “Ask me anything you want.” “How much does Geico pay y’all?” he asked. My jaw dropped as I looked at the kid. “Wait a minute, man,” I said. “I’m not a caveman!” “What do you mean?” the boy asked. “I’m Jase the Duckman,” I said. “You know--from Duck Dynasty? Quack, quack?” It didn’t take me long to realize the boy had no idea what I was talking about. In a matter of minutes, I went from being a potential terrorist to being a caveman selling insurance.

In marked contrast to the relaxed, typically Latin attitude of the Dominicans the Protestant missionaries were still proceeding at full blast with the fight for souls. These North American evangelists of strictly fundamentalist inclination combined in a curious fashion strict adhesion to the literal meaning of the Old Testament With mastery of the most modern technology. Most of them came from small towns in the Bible Belt, armed with unshakably clear consciences and a rudimentary smattering of theology, convinced that they alone were the repositories of Christian values now abolished elsewhere. Totally ignorant of the vast world, despite their transplantation, and taking the few articles of morality accepted in the rural Amenca of their childhoods to be a universal credo, they strove bravely to spread these principles of salvation all around them. Their rustic faith was well served by a flotilla of light aircraft, a powerful radio, an ultra-modern hospital and four-wheel-drive vehicles -- in short, all the equipment that a battalion of crusaders dropped behind enemy lines needed.

What are all these?” Charlie plucked a book of psalms from the unruly pile on the desk. “Have you two robbed a church since I left this morning?” “No,” said Jackaby. “Not personally. We had to delegate that task. Pilfering parish property has fallen to Miss Cavanaugh this week.” Charlie rubbed his neck as he dropped the book back on the stack. “Because if there’s one thing New Fiddleham needs right now, it’s a bit more paranormal petty crime.” “If it makes you feel any better,” I submitted, “the pastor more or less asked us to. He was rather insistent that we should find something in one of his Bibles.” “You’re certain he won’t go storming into the station house tomorrow to tell the duty officer how he’s been robbed by a ghost?” I swallowed. “Not unless he is one himself,” said Jackaby. “He’s dead.” “What?” “Quite dead. He’s up in the attic if you would like to check for yourself.” “Why do you have a dead preacher in your attic?” “Because we found it easier to carry him up to the coffin than to maneuver it down to him.” Charlie looked suddenly very tired. “Enough about our morning,” I said. “You had a difficult patch yourself?

Honest to God, I hadn’t meant to start a bar fight. “So. You’re the famous Jordan Amador.” The demon sitting in front of me looked like someone filled a pig bladder with rotten cottage cheese. He overflowed the bar stool with his gelatinous stomach, just barely contained by a white dress shirt and an oversized leather jacket. Acid-washed jeans clung to his stumpy legs and his boots were at least twice the size of mine. His beady black eyes started at my ankles and dragged upward, past my dark jeans, across my black turtleneck sweater, and over the grey duster around me that was two sizes too big. He finally met my gaze and snorted before continuing. “I was expecting something different. Certainly not a black girl. What’s with the name, girlie?” I shrugged. “My mother was a religious woman.” “Clearly,” the demon said, tucking a fat cigar in one corner of his mouth. He stood up and walked over to the pool table beside him where he and five of his lackeys had gathered. Each of them was over six feet tall and were all muscle where he was all fat. “I could start to examine the literary significance of your name, or I could ask what the hell you’re doing in my bar,” he said after knocking one of the balls into the left corner pocket. “Just here to ask a question, that’s all. I don’t want trouble.” Again, he snorted, but this time smoke shot from his nostrils, which made him look like an albino dragon. “My ass you don’t. This place is for fallen angels only, sweetheart. And we know your reputation.” I held up my hands in supplication. “Honest Abe. Just one question and I’m out of your hair forever.” My gaze lifted to the bald spot at the top of his head surrounded by peroxide blonde locks. “What’s left of it, anyway.” He glared at me. I smiled, batting my eyelashes. He tapped his fingers against the pool cue and then shrugged one shoulder. “Fine. What’s your question?” “Know anybody by the name of Matthias Gruber?” He didn’t even blink. “No.” “Ah. I see. Sorry to have wasted your time.” I turned around, walking back through the bar. I kept a quick, confident stride as I went, ignoring the whispers of the fallen angels in my wake. A couple called out to me, asking if I’d let them have a taste, but I didn’t spare them a glance. Instead, I headed to the ladies’ room. Thankfully, it was empty, so I whipped out my phone and dialed the first number in my Recent Call list. “Hey. He’s here. Yeah, I’m sure it’s him. They’re lousy liars when they’re drunk. Uh-huh. Okay, see you in five.” I hung up and let out a slow breath. Only a couple things left to do. I gathered my shoulder-length black hair into a high ponytail. I looped the loose curls around into a messy bun and made sure they wouldn’t tumble free if I shook my head too hard. I took the leather gloves in the pocket of my duster out and pulled them on. Then, I walked out of the bathroom and back to the front entrance. The coat-check girl gave me a second unfriendly look as I returned with my ticket stub to retrieve my things—three vials of holy water, a black rosary with the beads made of onyx and the cross made of wood, a Smith & Wesson .9mm Glock complete with a full magazine of blessed bullets and a silencer, and a worn out page of the Bible. I held out my hands for the items and she dropped them on the counter with an unapologetic, “Oops.” “Thanks,” I said with a roll of my eyes. I put the Glock back in the hip holster at my side and tucked the rest of the items in the pockets of my duster. The brunette demon crossed her arms under her hilariously oversized fake breasts and sent me a vicious sneer. “The door is that way, Seer. Don’t let it hit you on the way out.” I smiled back. “God bless you.” She let out an ugly hiss between her pearly white teeth. I blew her a kiss and walked out the door. The parking lot was packed outside now that it was half-past midnight. Demons thrived in darkness, so I wasn’t surprised. In fact, I’d been counting on it.

As we trod up the front walk, Jackaby let out a thoughtful “Huh.” I followed his gaze to the transom ahead of us. It read, in clean, frosty letters: r. f. jackaby: exquisite frustration “Are you feeling exquisitely frustrated of late, Miss Rook?” he asked. “I wouldn’t put it as such, sir,” I said. “I don’t think that one’s for me.” Jenny materialized between Jackaby and the bright red door. “Ah,” said Jackaby. “Good afternoon, Miss Cavanaugh.” “I couldn’t find it,” Jenny said without preamble as we mounted the steps. “What? Right—the Bible. It’s fine. I’ll see to it myself. That church is a long way off. It was quite ambitious for you to even consider the trip. I shouldn’t reasonably have expected as much of you.” “I made it to the church just fine, thank you very much for your vote of confidence. Do you have any idea how many Bibles and psalm books and hymnals there are in a parish that size? You said to look for a shield, but none of them had anything obvious like that. If the shield is somehow inside one of them, it could be any of them.” “That’s all right, you did your—” Jackaby began. “. . . So I just brought all of them.” The door swung open to reveal a small hillside of books heaped on the front desk. “Hrm.” Jackaby grunted. He stepped inside and began to dig through the stack, picking up battered old books and dropping them back onto the heap. “Thank you, Miss Cavanaugh,” Jenny intoned behind him. “It was nothing, really,” she replied to herself. “I underestimated you, Miss Cavanaugh. Oh, I was just happy to help. You are special and precious to me, Miss Cavanaugh. Please now, Mr. Jackaby, you’re simply too much.” Jackaby paid her dialogue no mind, and appeared to have forgotten that anyone else was in the room at all. “I’ll just go fetch that bail money for Miss Lee, shall I?” I suggested, and excused myself.

You are my friend, Prairie Flower. If I tell you what is in my heart, will you promise never to tell?" Prairie Flower laid a hand on Jesse's shoulder, pulling it away quickly when her friend flinched in pain. "I will not betray my friend." Taking a deep breath, Jesse lifted her head. "When Rides the Wing comes near to me, my heart sings.But I do not believe that he cares for me.I am clumsy in all of the things a Lakota woman must know.I cannot speak his language without many childish mistakes. And..." Jesse reached up to lay her hand on her short hair, "I am nothing to look at.I am not..." Prairie Flower grew angry. "I have told you he cares for you.Can you not see it?" Jesse shook her head. Prairie Flower spoke the unspeakable. "Then,if you cannot see that he cares for you in what he does,you must see it in what he has not done. You have been in his tepee. Dancing Waters has been gone many moons." "Stop!" Jesse demanded. "Stop it! I..just don't say any more!" She leaped up and ran out of the tepee-and into Rides the Wind, who was returning from the river where he had gone to draw water. Jesse knocked the water skins from both of his hands. Water spilled out and she fumbled an apology then bent stiffly to pick up the skins, wincing with the effort. "I will do it, Walks the Fire." His voice was tender as he bent and took the skins from her. Jesse protested, "It is the wife's job." She blushed, realizing that she had used a wrong word-the word for wife, instead of the word for woman. Rides the Wind interrupted before she could correct herself. "Walks the Fire is not the wife of Rides the Wind." Jesse blushed and remained quiet. A hand reached for hers and Rides the Wind said, "Come, sit." He helped her sit down just outside the door of the tepee. The village women took note as he went inside and brought out a buffalo robe. Sitting by Jesse,he placed the robe on the ground and began to talk. "I will tell you how it is with the Lakota. When a man wishes to take a wife..." he described Lakota courtship. As he talked, Jesse realiced that all that Prairie Flower had said seemed to be true.He had,indeed, done nearly everything involved in the courtship ritual. Still, she told herself, there is a perfectly good explanation for everything he has done. Rides the Wind continued describing the wedding feast. Jesse continued to reason with herself as he spoke. Then she realized the voice had stopped and he had repeated a question. "How is it among the whites?How does a man gain a wife?" Embarrassed,Jesse described the sparsest of courtships, the simplest wedding.Rides the Wind listened attentively. When she had finished, he said, "There is one thing the Lakota brave who wishes a wife does that I have not described." Pulling Jesse to her feet, he continued, "One evening, as he walks with his woman..." He reached out to pick up the buffalo robe.He was aware that the village women were watching carefully. "He spreads out his arms..." Rides the Wind spread his arms,opening the buffalo robe to its full length, "and wraps it about his woman," Rides the Wind turned toward Jesse and reached around her, "so that they are both inside the buffalo robe." He looked down at Jesse, trying to read her expression.When he saw nothing in the gray eyes, he abruptly dropped his arms. "But it is hot today and your wounds have not healed.I have said enough.You see how it is with the Lakota." When Jesse still said nothing, he continued, "You spoke of a celebration with a min-is-ter.It is a word I do not know.What is this min-is-ter?" "A man who belives in the Bible and teaches his people about God from the Bible." "What if there is no minister and a man and a woman wish to be married?" Jesse grew more uncomfortable. "I suppose they would wait until a minister came.

You’re safe now,” he said, again. “I will not allow anybody to hurt you. I give you my word.” Eliza nodded. “I know.” Father Leo nearly dropped his bible. The priest recognized Eliza, her blonde hair and sweet voice. Yes, this had to be the princess – there was no mistaking it.

But a lot of Christians, especially American Christians, prefer instead, wild, futuristic stories about children vanishing out of their clothes, airplanes dropping from the sky, pestilence overtaking the earth, and a Democrat getting elected president—the stuff of paperbacks and Christian B movies. And I think that’s because Americans, particularly white Americans, have a hard time catching apocalyptic visions when they benefit too much from the status quo to want a peek behind the curtain.

If you drop a Bible from a height you can kill a field mouse; so maybe the Bible isn't all good.

In 2008, then-U.S. Senator Barack Obama told an audience, “Children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools, and twenty times more likely to end up in prison.

A mission of over abundant crops, it's a vision of mansions and Ferrari drop tops. Lay me in a tomb wearing a crown with a serpent on its midpoint; it's a symbol of perfect consciousness, a knowledge of my power as limitless. Take a look to the Bible and turn back to Yahweh standard of perfectionists.

Luther explained his philosophy this way: “I must let the literal words go and try to learn how the German says that which the Hebrew expresses…Whoever would speak German must not use Hebrew style. Rather he must see to it—once he understands the Hebrew author—that he concentrates on the sense of the text, asking himself, ‘Pray tell, what do the Germans say in such a situation?’…Let him drop the Hebrew words and express the meaning freely in the best German he knows.

Five seconds,” Hole announced. “Until what?” Geist asked. “That’s okay, we don’t need to know,” Wanders said. “Whatever is going to happen is going to happen.” “Yes, it is,” Hole said. “In three seconds.” The

The little woman was herself a sincere and earnest Christian. She rejoiced beyond measure over the fact that the lines had at last fallen to her in a Christian home. Morning and evening the son Richard, with the family gathered about him, read a few verses from the Bible and led in a heartfelt prayer for guidance and safekeeping. These daily gatherings were like fresh springs of comfort to Miss Stafford’s thirsty soul; she had so long been tossed about the world from hotel to boarding-house that to have dropped by what the world would call an accident, but what she hugged to her heart as a blessed providence, into the very centre of this sweet Christian home, was to her a daily cause for thanksgiving. She looked forward, only her own heart knew how sorrowfully, to the time, steadily approaching, when she must go out from it and find a new resting-place.

For the Hair   COCONUT HAIR CONDITIONING MASK   Ingredients:   1-2t coconut oil 5 drops of peppermint essential oil or any 1t honey 1 squeeze of lemon juice   Procedure:   -Get a small dish and put together the honey and the coconut oil. -Add a squeeze of lemon juice. (Optional) -Mix them well until pasty and smooth. -Place in a container, ready for use.  

You will be my wife, little one. My way or yours, in the end, it will be so.” Hunter drew to a stop before the priest. Loretta focused on the poor man, who was trembling so badly that he was about to drop his Bible. At the moment she was too preoccupied with her own plight to concern herself with his. “Father,” she cried in the most reasonable, calm tone she could muster, “would you please explain to this heathen that a marriage cannot take place without a woman’s consent?

Alyosha heard Shukhov’s whispered prayer, and, turning to him: “There you are, Ivan Denisovich, your soul is begging to pray. Why don’t you give it it’s freedom?” Shukhov stole a look at him. Alyosha’s eyes glowed like two candles. “Well, Alyosha,” he said with a sigh, “it’s this way. Prayers are like those appeals of ours. Either they don’t get through or they’re returned with ‘rejected’ scrawled across ’em.” Outside the staff quarters were four sealed boxes–they were cleared by a security officer once a month. Many were the appeals that were dropped into them. The writers waited, counting the weeks: there’ll be a reply in two months, in one month. . . . But the reply doesn’t come. Or if it does it’s only “rejected.” “But, Ivan Denisovich, it’s because you pray too rarely, and badly at that. Without really trying. That’s why your prayers stay unanswered. One must never stop praying. If you have real faith you tell a mountain to move and it will move. . . .” Shukhov grinned and rolled another cigarette. He took a light from the Estonian. “Don’t talk nonsense, Alyosha. I’ve never seen a mountain move. Well, to tell the truth, I’ve never seen a mountain at all. But you, now, you prayed in the Caucasus with all that Baptist society of yours–did you make a single mountain move?” They were an unlucky group too. What harm did they do anyone by praying to God? Every damn one of them had been given twenty-five years. Nowadays they cut all cloth to the same measure–twenty-five years. “Oh, we didn’t pray for that, Ivan Denisovich,” Alyosha said earnestly. Bible in hand, he drew nearer to Shukhov till they lay face to face. “Of all earthly and mortal things Our Lord commanded us to pray only for our daily bread. ‘Give us this day our daily bread.'” “Our ration, you mean?” asked Shukhov. But Alyosha didn’t give up. Arguing more with his eyes than his tongue, he plucked at Shukhov’s sleeve, stroked his arm, and said: “Ivan Denisovich, you shouldn’t pray to get parcels or for extra stew, not for that. Things that man puts a high price on are vile in the eyes of Our Lord. We must pray about things of the spirit–that the Lord Jesus should remove the scum of anger from out hearts. . . .” Page 156: “Alyosha,” he said, withdrawing his arm and blowing smoke into his face. “I’m not against God, understand that. I do believe in God. But I don’t believe in paradise or in hell. Why do you take us for fools and stuff us with your paradise and hell stories? That’s what I don’t like.” He lay back, dropping his cigarette ash with care between the bunk frame and the window, so as to singe nothing of the captain’s below. He sank into his own thoughts. He didn’t hear Alyosha’s mumbling. “Well,” he said conclusively, “however much you pray it doesn’t shorten your stretch. You’ll sit it out from beginning to end anyhow.” “Oh, you mustn’t pray for that either,” said Alyosha, horrified. “Why do you want freedom? In freedom your last grain of faith will be choked with weeds. You should rejoice that you’re in prison. Here you have time to think about your soul. As the Apostle Paul wrote: ‘Why all these tears? Why are you trying to weaken my resolution? For my part I am ready not merely to be bound but even to die for the name of the Lord Jesus.

Harem pants, one of the most costumey looks of the 1980s, sport a dropped crotch, which to me suggests you are wearing a diaper Do any of us think that’s a good look?

I’m a fool,” Will said suddenly, dropping his left hand from his earlobe. He looked up at Tom, who leaned in silent contemplation against the casement, frosting cool glass with his breath. “A fool and twice a fool.” Ben closed Kit’s Greek bible carefully over the ribbon and set it aside. “How a fool, Will?” “Because here we sit, invoking our brains on how to save Kit and thwart Salisbury, the Catholics, and the Prometheans, and the answer is in our very hands.

Now lift the sprung mass of the motorcycle up about 25mm and very slowly let it sink back down until it stops. Where it stops is L3. Again, if there were no friction, it would drop a bit more. The midpoint between L2 and L3 is where it would be without friction. Next average L2 and L3 and subtract that result from L1 to find static sag. Static Sag = L1 - ((L2 + L3)/2)

In the Bible, Jesus' disciples knew exactly who they were looking for, and when they found Him, they stopped 'searching' and dropped everything to follow Him. That seems like a wild concept; to just drop your plans in life and follow someone you have never met. But many of us do that all the time without even realizing it. We follow people on social media that we have never met and most likely will never meet, an we begin to change things about ourselves without even realizing we are doing it.

Pride is a gateway sin that offers an open doorway for our enemy to drop in and tell us just how great we are, and how we really don't need God.

This is my father’s story. I am writing it to find him. But to get to where you’re going you have to first go backwards. That’s directions in Ireland, it’s also T. S. Eliot. My father was named Virgil by his father who was named Abraham by his father who once upon a time was the Reverend Absalom Swain in Salisbury, Wiltshire. Who the Reverend’s father was I have no clue, but sometimes when I’m on the blue tablets I take off into a game of extreme Who Do You Think You Are? and go Swain-centuries deep. I follow the trail in reverse, Reverends and Bishops, past the pulpit-thumpers, the bible-wavers, the sideburn and eyebrow-growers. I keep going, pass long-ago knights, crusaders and other assorted do-lallies, eventually going as far back as The Flood. Then in the final segment, ad-breaks over and voiceover dropped to a whisper, I trace all the way back to God Himself and say Who Do You Think You Are?

He “loved the world that hated him: the tear That dropped upon his Bible was sincere; Assailed by scandal and the tongue of strife, His only answer was a blameless life

The point of apocalyptic texts is not to predict the future,” explained biblical scholar Amy-Jill Levine in The Meaning of the Bible; “it is to provide comfort in the present. The Bible is not a book of teasers in which God has buried secrets only to be revealed three millennia later.” Rather, she argued, apocalyptic texts “proclaim that a guiding hand controls history, and assure that justice will be done.”7 But a lot of Christians, especially American Christians, prefer instead, wild, futuristic stories about children vanishing out of their clothes, airplanes dropping from the sky, pestilence overtaking the earth, and a Democrat getting elected president—the stuff of paperbacks and Christian B movies. And I think that’s because Americans, particularly white Americans, have a hard time catching apocalyptic visions when they benefit too much from the status quo to want a peek behind the curtain.

In deepest January she’d given a tea for some neighboring widows, picking them up in her pristine Fairlane and dropping them off again before dark; back home she washed the dishes, read the Bible, wrote in firm script four thank-you letters and a grocery list, and died in her sleep, an end so satisfying it seems displaced in our age.

Flies represent demons in the Word, as do other animals. If you could see into the spirit world, many demons resemble animals. For example, the Bible said that when the seed of God’s Word is sown, the birds of the air come to eat it up (Matt. 13:4, 19). When Jesus said, “They will take up serpents” (Mark 16:18), He was referring to demonic powers. The Bible talks about treading on snakes and scorpions (Luke 10:19). David, in foretelling Jesus’s experience on the cross, said, “Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me” (Ps. 22:12). Those spirits came at Him, goring Him like bulls. Devils will start—you guessed it—dropping like flies! These demon spirits attach themselves to our lives as generational curses, bondages, strongholds of the mind, lust, perversion, and addictions of every kind. The problem with most churches is that we just swat at the flies for a few days when they are right up in our faces. They go away for a while, but they keep coming back. It’s time to clean house! It’s time for a scriptural season of cleansing. Devils will start—you guessed it—dropping like flies, not only those in your life and your generation, but also the future generation of demons that would be passed down to your children. Solomon wrote, “Dead flies putrefy the perfumer’s ointment, and cause it to give off a foul odor” (Eccles. 10:1). Flies would get into the special anointing oil. They’d get stuck in it, die, and spoil the fragrance. Flies hinder the anointing in your life. Your worship gets polluted by flies of lust and perversion. We are supposed to walk in that pure anointing that pierces hearts, breaks yokes, delivers from bondages, and heals the sick. It’s time to get rid of the “flies” in your business, your marriage, your mind, your house.

The time has come to revise this enigmatic and most important term “Aryan.” It need no longer be flagrantly and prejudiciously bandied by anyone wishing to claim exalted racial status. It need no longer be used as an appellation by those deviants brandishing pseudo-scientific ideologies, and by those who have long misunderstood the facts concerning the origin, identity and fate of the various Indo-European and Semitic races. Importantly, recent discoveries made by Jewish and Gentile investigators alike conclusively prove that the so-called “Israelites” (those arch-enemies of would-be Aryans) were not racially Semitic after all. Like the “Aryans,” they too were racially Indo-European. Their language, Hebrew, was identical with Egyptian. Therefore, in our mind, the term “Semite” must henceforth be dropped as a racial appellation for the Bible’s “Chosen People.” As we show in Volume Two, the terms “Israelite” and “Judite” do not denote races. The terms were religious and theological, and defined cult rather than race. Israelites and Judites were conglomerated groups closely affiliated with and probably blood-related to the Hyksos Pharaohs of old, a fact confirmed by top Jewish historians. Thanks to the researches of Sigmund Freud, Comyns Beaumont, L. A. Waddell, Ahmed Osman, Ralph Ellis and Moustafa Gadalla, the true identity of the Israelites has finally come out into the open. Obviously, the fact that the alleged ancestors of the Jews were racially Indo-European, and of the same racial stock as the antagonists defamed and condemned in the name of spurious racial superiority, has poignant ramifications. It assists us to immediately and swiftly restore the grievously abused term “Aryan.” The term has simply been dragged through the mud by perfidious fools of the same race as the “Israelites” whom they gullibly believe to be inferior. Now that the hydrochloric acid of reason has been applied, now that the term has been thoroughly excavated from its bed of filth, its unadulterated and original meaning may be discerned. They were not an ethnic group or a nation as such, but rather a social category with a common lifestyle – Robert Cornman and J. M. Modrzejewski (The Jews of Egypt: From Rameses II to Emperor Hadrian) Not until Jacob in a somewhat obscure manner was told to call himself Israel was that name adopted and accorded to his twelve “sons:” but if we accept the explanation of Sanchoniathon, a Phoenician of Tyre, Cronus “whom Phoenicians called Israel” was king of Phoenicia, and it signified that these Chaldeo-Phoenician tribes were worshippers of Cronus-Saturn...for Jehovah was a far later importation. The name Israel has subsequently been misappropriated, for those Biblical Christians who term themselves Israelites in fact label themselves followers of a pagan deity – Comyns Beaumont (The Riddle of Prehistoric Britain)

As we get older, aerobic capacity usually decreases, dropping by as much as 1 percent per year after age 25 in sedentary people.

If you love Christ and find yourself in desperate circumstances, stop for a moment and pray. Ask him what it is he’s trying to do with your desperation. He might be trying to make you grow, as he did in our case. He might be using those desperate circumstances so you’ll drop to your knees in prayer and call out, “Lord, help me!” (Matt. 15:25 NIV). It’s sad but true: We do some of our best praying and worshipping during desperate times. Maybe Jesus is using those desperate circumstances to get you to talk to him. He misses your company, and he’ll take advantage of anything to get you back into fellowship with him. Sometimes Jesus uses your desperation to reach others.

The Pharoah on Marriage The Hebrew Proverbs teaches us that a quarrelsome wife is like constant dripping on a rainy day. A noble wife is worth a price far beyond rubies. The Bible forgot to mention that even the most noble wife can nag and push your buttons and her value can drop like a hot potato, and even the most quarrelsome of wives can suck your cock like a Hoover and her mouth can be priceless beyond emeralds. The Pharoah has spoken. Such as the market fluctuations of the human heart. So let it be written, so let it be done.

...according to God's Word, we should not give a singe drop of evangelical consolation to those who are still living in sin. ON THE OTHER HAND, we should not address the slightest threat or rebuke to the broken hearted--but only promises delivering consolation and grace, forgiveness of sin and righteousness. Life and salvation.

It   is a horrible thing to pour out seed besides the intercourse of man and   woman. Deliberately avoiding the intercourse, so that the seed drops on   the ground, is double horrible. For this means that one quenches the   hope of his family, and kills the son, which could be expected, before   he is born.

My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:  DEU32:03 Because I will publish the name of the LORD: ascribe ye greatness unto our God.

I do believe she’s rather annoyed with us,” Miss Longfellow said before she brightened. “But she didn’t say she was washing her hands of us, so all hope hasn’t been lost just yet.” She caught his eye. “Would you be a dear and fetch my bag for me? The one I dropped when you knocked me over. It’s lying there all forlorn on the sidewalk.” Unable to remember the last time someone had call him a dear, and asked him to fetch something, Everett’s lips curled into a grin, and he ambled over to the bag and bent down to pick it up. Grabbing hold of the worn handle, he straightened . . . but wobbled when the weight of the bag took him by surprise. “What in the world do you have in here?” “Essentials.” “What type of essentials could possibly weigh this much?” “Well, if you must know, since I was intending on spending the next nine weeks employed by the Cutler family before I got unfairly dismissed, I had to pack enough reading material to see me through that extended period of time. In that bag rests a few of my favorite dictionaries, one thesaurus, my Bible, numerous works by Shakespeare, although I’m not exactly enjoying his writing, and two books by the incomparable Jane Austen.” She smiled. “Those I enjoy tremendously, but besides my treasured books, I also have a few changes of clothing, an extra pair of shoes, and, well, I won’t go into further details, since what’s left to mention will most likely embarrass us both.” Hefting

Geist? Any response from Colonel Leguin?” Motherboard asked. “You’re just trying to distract me from our imminent deaths,” Geist said. “I’d like to be distracted,” Wanders said. “Geist?

Many stories of the Bible tell of a person who prayed multiple times. Jesus himself prayed three times in the Garden of Gethsemane (see Matthew 26:36–44). Paul asked three times for his “thorn in the flesh” to be removed (2 Corinthians 12:7–9 KJV). And Elijah prayed to God seven times for rain before the drops began to pour from the sky (see 1 Kings 18). Perseverance in prayer is never nagging. God loves to hear your voice.

What did I want out of life? Only one thing, really. To make love to a beautiful girl before the Rapture. Which didn’t leave much time; according to Father, the End Times began the day they lifted Prohibition. Any minute now, Jesus was liable to come bursting out of the clouds on a white horse, sword in hand, ready to wreak some vengeance. My worst fear was that I’d finally find a girl, we’d tie the knot, and then, on our wedding night—just when she was about to drop her dress—Jesus would come riding in on that infernal horse and whisk us up to heaven, where we’d be like angels and never get to have sex.

And if we must take historical blunders in our stride, how will we cope with flat-out contradictions? Did Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb of Jesus see an angel of the Lord [Matthew 28:2] or merely a young man in white [Mark 16:5]? Or was it two men in shining garments [Luke 24:4]? Or two angels [John 20:12]? And how do we deal with the omission of pivotal events? Did Mary see Jesus himself near the tomb, at first mistaking him for a gardener [John 20:14-15]? Surely a sighting of Jesus is critically important evidence of the resurrection, the central mystery of the Christian faith. Yet the encounter at the tomb is mentioned only in the Gospel of John. How could Matthew, Mark and Luke have missed such a crucial point? Historical scholars, and most theologians, recognize that the authors who penned the ancient documents were doing the best they could with the sources available to them, writing in the traditions and expectations of their time, more concerned with presenting a coherent message than with precise historical accuracy. Some biblical scholars, however, even to this day maintain the inerrancy of scripture. They see the Bible as the Word of God, divinely inspired and supernaturally protected from error down the centuries. Unless one reads without comprehension (a distressingly common affliction), a belief in biblical inerrancy demands considerable mental gymnastics. Adherents typically construct a unified account of the gospel stories, not by resolving conflicts, but by adding together all the elements from the different narratives. Thus, Mary Magdalene visited the tomb several times, seeing the different combinations of divine presences on different occasions. For some inscrutable reason, God chose to drop the accounts of those visits into different gospels instead of presenting them logically in a single document.

Fear ye not, stand still.… —Exodus 14:13 (KJV) Help, God! I’m overwhelmed! In the middle of creating a real estate brochure, my computer paused for what seemed an eternity each time I dropped in a new photo. “Hmm,” said the technician when my computer reacted to his touch like a really slow-moving snail, “let’s check your apps.” The technician tapped my home screen twice, and a stream of intriguing icons appeared at the bottom of the page. He swiped them with his finger. There were my mailbox, weather, news, Google, Mapquest, calendar, contacts, two word games, solitaire, a poetry book. On he swiped, past real estate, camera, some magazines, alarm clock, dictionary, Bible. “You haven’t turned off your apps in a while,” he said. “I didn’t know I was supposed to,” I answered. “If you leave them on, there’s too much information vying for space,” he explained. “Then everything slows down. A computer is like a person…can’t handle everything at once.” Hey, God, have You brought me here to tell me something? The tech showed me how to turn off the apps I didn’t need. Now my computer was brochure-ready and humming at full speed. As I left the store, I was humming too. Standing still, I turned off all the extra programs in my head and focused on the task at hand! Father, in a complicated world, You bring me back to what’s always true: “Be still” and know…one thing at a time! —Pam Kidd Digging Deeper: Prv 3:5–6; Is 40:28–31

When a Judge personality is religious, they’ll use the Bible to gain control of others. The Bible becomes a book of rules they use to prove they are right rather than a book that introduces people to God.

I opened the most recent letter. The fool scheme in question was Dr. Pepper soda. “Dad—it says here that your original investment of twelve dollars is now worth fifteen thousand.” I dropped the letter in amazement.

26The Lord spoke further to Moses and Aaron, 27“How much longer shall that wicked community keep muttering against Me? Very well, I have heeded the incessant muttering of the Israelites against Me. 28Say to them: ‘As I live,’ says the Lord, ‘I will do to you just as you have urged Me. 29In this very wilderness shall your carcasses drop.

…That God will open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ.… —Colossians 4:3 (NAS) Because of a staffing snag, our church’s teen class on Sundays had dwindled to practically no one. I offered to step in as teacher. So began a string of Sunday morning “sit-ins.” Many times I waited alone. But there was the day a boy dropped by with two cousins in tow. The sisters’ troubled home situation in another state had them temporarily residing with their aunt. We discussed the story of the Bible’s “cutter”— a wild man living among the tombs who cut himself with stones—and how Jesus healed him. The girls absorbed every word of this account of things gone wrong made right. They needed such hope. Another morning there was one girl. We each created a “word portrait” of ourselves and then explored the Bible’s portrait of Jesus. For an hour we talked animatedly about ourselves and Jesus. Where we were like Him (in joy and caring and love for nature and children) and where we had work to do (in areas of trust and self-control). She liked that Jesus was outside the mainstream of His day. She, too, felt different from others and was encouraged in her authenticity. The weeks of showing up every Sunday “just in case” had a reason. God wanted to open doors in these young lives…and made me a doorkeeper. Father, what I do for You matters…even if it's to be a doorkeeper, waiting “just in case.” —Carol Knapp Digging Deeper: Ps 84:10; Mt 19:14; Jas 3:18

And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the Mount of Olives; and his disciples also followed him. And when he was at the place, he said unto them, pray that ye enter not into temptation. And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”  Luke 22:41-44

Despite an icy northeast wind huffing across the bay I sneak out after dark, after my mother falls asleep clutching her leather Bible, and I hike up the rutted road to the frosted meadow to stand in mist, my shoes in muck, and toss my echo against the moss-covered fieldstone corners of the burned-out church where Sunday nights in summer for years Father Thomas, that mad handsome priest, would gather us girls in the basement to dye the rose cotton linen cut-outs that the deacon’s daughter, a thin beauty with short white hair and long trim nails, would stitch by hand each folded edge then steam-iron flat so full of starch, stiffening fabric petals, which we silly Sunday school girls curled with quick sharp pulls of a scissor blade, forming clusters of curved petals the younger children assembled with Krazy glue and fuzzy green wire, sometimes adding tissue paper leaves, all of us gladly laboring like factory workers rather than have to color with crayon stubs the robe of Christ again, Christ with his empty hands inviting us to dine, Christ with a shepherd's staff signaling to another flock of puffy lambs, or naked Christ with a drooping head crowned with blackened thorns, and Lord how we laughed later when we went door to door in groups, visiting the old parishioners, the sick and bittersweet, all the near dead, and we dropped our bikes on the perfect lawns of dull neighbors, agnostics we suspected, hawking our handmade linen roses for a donation, bragging how each petal was hand-cut from a pattern drawn by Father Thomas himself, that mad handsome priest, who personally told the Monsignor to go fornicate himself, saying he was a disgruntled altar boy calling home from a phone booth outside a pub in North Dublin, while I sat half-dressed, sniffing incense, giddy and drunk with sacrament wine stains on my panties, whispering my oath of unholy love while wiggling uncomfortably on the mad priest's lap, but God he was beautiful with a fine chiseled chin and perfect teeth and a smile that would melt the Madonna, and God he was kind with a slow gentle touch, never harsh or too quick, and Christ how that crafty devil could draw, imitate a rose petal in perfect outline, his sharp pencil slanted just so, the tip barely touching so that he could sketch and drink, and cough without jerking, without ruining the work, or tearing the tissue paper, thin as a membrane, which like a clean skin arrived fresh each Saturday delivered by the dry cleaners, tucked into the crisp black vestment, wrapped around shirt cardboard, pinned to protect the high collar.

he guessed they all knew what he’d done and counted him foolish for blatantly going against their boss. Well, he reasoned as he dropped his jacket over the high back of his chair, there was a Bible verse about the world’s wisdom being foolish in the sight of God.

The gleam off the hull of the ship was almost blinding. “Ugh, it’s disgusting,” Wanders said. “No character at all. Where are the dings and the dents? Where are the scorch marks?” “It’s

Frag out!” I heard Mgurn call from behind the Skrangs and I dropped to the floor faster than a Lipian whore’s panties during Fleet week. More

Do you even know how offensive you can be sometimes?” “Sometimes,” Wanders replied and shrugged his shoulders. “Most of the time, I just say things and you all tell me after. It’s a system that’s worked so far.” The

Notice also, we are not saved by faith in general; we’re saved by faith in Christ. Some people trust in a past “decision,” but a “decision” will not pay for our sins! Some trust in baptism, a past emotional experience, or even their supposed “faith.” One elderly man who gave no evidence of true conversion, when asked if he was ever bothered by the thought of eternity, answered, “No, I’m not bothered at all, because the Bible says if you have faith you’ll be saved, and I have plenty of faith.” In what was this man trusting? Not in Christ or His blood, but in his own “faith.” The trust of a Christian is entirely different. If suddenly the floor were to drop out from under all of us at this moment, every true Christian would cry out “Lord Jesus!” None would cry out “My faith!

THE WRATH TO COME. — MATTHEW 3:7 I t is pleasant to pass over a country after a storm has spent itself—to smell the freshness of the herbs after the rain has passed away, and to note the drops while they glisten like purest diamonds in the sunlight. That is the position of a Christian. He is going through a land where the storm has spent itself upon His Savior’s head, and if there be a few drops of sorrow falling, they distill from clouds of mercy, and Jesus cheers him by the assurance that they are not for his destruction. But how terrible it is to witness the approach of a tempest—to note the forewarnings of the storm; to mark the birds of heaven as they droop their wings; to see the cattle as they lay their heads low in terror; to discern the face of the sky as it grows black, and to find the sun obscured, and the heavens angry and frowning! How terrible to await the dread advance of a hurricane, to wait in terrible apprehension till the wind rushes forth in fury, tearing up trees from their roots, forcing rocks from their pedestals, and hurling down all the dwelling-places of man! And yet, sinner, this is your present position. No hot drops have fallen as yet, but a shower of fire is coming. No terrible winds howl around you, but God’s tempest is gathering its dread artillery. So far the water-floods are dammed up by mercy, but the floodgates will soon be opened: The thunderbolts of God are still in His storehouse, the tempest is coming, and how awful will that moment be when God, robed in vengeance, shall march forth in fury! Where, where, where, O sinner, will you hide your head, or where will you run to? May the hand of mercy lead you now to Christ! He is freely set before you in the Gospel: His pierced side is the place of shelter. You know your need of Him; believe in Him, cast yourself upon Him, and then the fury shall be past forever.

ake an hour or so at a discount card shop or dollar store and load up on all kinds of greeting cards-birthday, anniversary, friends, and pets. Store them in a convenient place and use them as special occasions arise. You'll save a lot of time by having them when you need them. ave a "gift shelf" in your home. Load it up with boxes of stationery, stuffed toys, small items-whatever is useful and on sale so when occasions arise, you'll be ready. When grandchildren drop by, let them pick a little gift off your shelf he Bible says, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ" (Ephesians 5:21). The Bible also says we're to live in harmony and love. Here are a few thoughts to contemplate. • A good marriage is not a gift; it's an achievement by God's grace. • Marriage is not for children; it takes guts and maturity. • Marriage is tested daily by the ability to compromise. • Being a family means giving, and-more importantly-forgiving. • It's time for parents to take charge of their families and redeem them for the Lord.

The bad blood that pitted Archer and Ratcliffe against Smith had its beginnings in 1607, in Jamestown’s earliest days, when the three men served together on the colony’s ruling council. In the months when colonists were dying of hunger and illness, Smith discovered that the duo, along with a few others, were planning to steal supplies and a small boat they could use to flee Virginia for the safety of England. While Smith would almost certainly have been happy to see the last of the two men he thought of as cowards and traitors, he knew the colony could not survive without the boat and that the supplies the men were about to steal were sorely needed by the hungry colonists. Smith, in typical John Smith fashion, soon spiked those plans when he ordered several of the settlement’s cannon turned on the boat and ordered those on board to come ashore or be shot out of the water. Neither Archer nor Ratcliffe was the type of man to take such effrontery lying down, especially from a man they would have considered their social inferior. A few weeks later, the two saw an opportunity to even the score. At that time (it was after Smith’s rescue by Pocahontas, when he returned to Jamestown), Archer and Ratcliffe used the Bible as a legal text and charged Smith with murder under Levitical law. Ludicrous as it seems, the two argued that the “eye for an eye” verse made Smith responsible for the deaths of two of his men who had been killed when Smith was captured by the Powhatan people. It is a measure of Smith’s unpopularity with the “better sort” of colonists (not only Ratcliffe and Archer) that he was—within hours of his return to Jamestown—charged, tried, found guilty, and sentenced to die, with the execution scheduled for the next morning. That night (it was in early 1608), Smith was saved from death when Captain Christopher Newport, the man who later served as the Sea Venture’s captain, unexpectedly sailed up to Jamestown with a handful of new colonists and a shipload of food and other supplies. Newport, who recognized Smith’s value to the colony even if some of the other leaders did not and who, no doubt, saw the idiocy of making Smith responsible for the death of the men who had been killed by the Indians, immediately ordered him freed and all charges against him dropped.

I have brought you a Black Robe,” he said tersely, and nodded toward the waiting priest. “He will pray your God words over us, yes?” With that, Hunter grasped her firmly by the arm and drew her toward the central fire, never breaking stride despite Loretta’s attempts to slow him down. “I won’t marry you!” she cried frantically. He threw her a look charged with martial arrogance. “You will be my wife, little one. My way or yours, in the end, it will be so.” Hunter drew to a stop before the priest. Loretta focused on the poor man, who was trembling so badly that he was about to drop his Bible. At the moment she was too preoccupied with her own plight to concern herself with his. “Father,” she cried in the most reasonable, calm tone she could muster, “would you please explain to this heathen that a marriage cannot take place without a woman’s consent?” The priest’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. He slid horrified eyes to Hunter, and his face blanched. “M-my good young woman, perhaps it would be best to proceed. This man seems uncommonly determined, and I, for one, do not relish the thought of angering him.” Hunter turned to regard her, one dark eyebrow tipped upward in a measuring look. Eyes narrowed in defiance, Loretta jutted her chin and leaned toward him. “What have you done to this poor man? He’s terrified! Have you no shame?” Hunter could have reminded her that there had been a time when she had been equally terrified, but he chose to stay on course. Marriage was his goal, not a contest of tongues. He cast a compelling glare at the Black Robe. “Pray your words, old man.” The priest licked his lips and glanced fearfully at the crowd of savages around them. Perhaps it was the stark contrast of black robes against pallid flesh, but Loretta thought he was losing color at an alarming rate. Indeed, he looked as if he might faint. “Say the God words, old man!” Hunter snarled again. “Don’t you dare bully him,” Loretta hissed. “He’s a man of God, Hunter! You don’t roar at a man of God.

Quarreling [Prov. 17:14] Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam; so drop the matter before a dispute breaks out. [17:19] Whoever loves a quarrel loves sin; whoever builds a high gate invites destruction. [20:3] It is to one’s honor to avoid strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel. [22:10] Drive out the mocker, and out goes strife; quarrels and insults are ended. [26:21] As charcoal to embers and as wood to fire, so is a quarrelsome person for kindling strife.

MORE ON THIS TIDY STORY AS IT UNFOLDS “Here are your sheets, Mom, warm from the dryer. I’ll make us some lunch while you fold.” Elsie knew not to do everything for her mother because getting her mother active would help her blood circulation and help dispel the swelling in her feet. She dropped the armload of laundry on the ottoman beside her mother’s lounger. “I can’t fold sheets alone. Help me with these.” Of course. What was she thinking? Elsie turned to grasp a couple corners of her mother’s queen-sized fitted sheet. “I need to relearn how to fold these things, anyway.” Mother and daughter pulled and halved, tucked one corner inside another, and brought the ends together like partners in a square dance. Suddenly, Gail growled, “Oh!” Fed up, she grabbed the sheet from Elsie and wadded the whole thing into a roll. “I don’t remember how to do these things! Just stuff them into the linen closet, will you?” She laughed. “Okay. I was hoping you’d teach me how to do it.” “If you don’t know by sixty, daughter, it’s too late! My mom was always so good with linens. You should’a seen her linen closet. It was like the linen closets at Macy’s, all lined up. Mom took pride in her housekeeping, but I just don’t care anymore.” Elsie was noticing how she no longer cared about much of anything either. The proverbial rug had been pulled out from under her, and though she went through the motions of taking Gail’s vitals, dispensing her meds and massaging her feet, they often had little to say to one another. “Mom, why do you think the Bible says so often to remember this or remember that?” “Does it?” Gail gasped, “—talk about remembering?

Oh, how delightful!" cried Harry. "I am so glad you made me put away that tiresome book. I wonder why it insisted so on being read." Hugh read for an hour, and then made Harry put on his cloak, notwithstanding the rain, which fell in a slow thoughtful spring shower. Taking the boy again on his back, he carried him into the woods. There he told him how the drops of wet sank into the ground, and then went running about through it in every direction, looking for seeds: which were all thirsty little things, that wanted to grow, and could not, till a drop came and gave them drink. And he told him how the rain-drops were made up in the skies, and then came down, like millions of angels, to do what they were told in the dark earth. The good drops went into all the cellars and dungeons of the earth, to let out the imprisoned flowers. And he told him how the seeds, when they had drunk the rain-drops, wanted another kind of drink next, which was much thinner and much stronger, but could not do them any good till they had drunk the rain first. "What is that?" said Harry. "I feel as if you were reading out of the Bible, Mr. Sutherland." "It is the sunlight," answered his tutor. "When a seed has drunk of the water, and is not thirsty any more, it wants to breathe next; and then the sun sends a long, small finger of fire down into the grave where the seed is lying; and it touches the seed, and something inside the seed begins to move instantly and to grow bigger and bigger, till it sends two green blades out of it into the earth, and through the earth into the air; and then it can breathe. And then it sends roots down into the earth; and the roots keep drinking water, and the leaves keep breathing the air, and the sun keeps them alive and busy; and so a great tree grows up, and God looks at it, and says it is good." "Then they really are living things?" said Harry. "Certainly." "Thank you, Mr. Sutherland. I don't think I shall dislike rain so much any more.