O love the LORD, all you His godly ones!
The LORD preserves the faithful
And fully recompenses the proud doer.
Be strong and let your heart take courage,
All you who hope in the LORD.
– Psa. 31:23-24
A look back – Ronald Reagan
Extol – To lift up, to praise
Psalm 72:18-19a
Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel,
Who alone works wonders.
And blessed be His glorious name forever;
And may the whole earth be filled with His glory.
Just like king David of old, President Ronald Reagan understood the importance of this concept. Constantly he showed gratefulness, thankfulness, kindness, cheerfulness, love, mercy, grace, anything that might be associated with a Gentleman. These qualities are some of the most important qualities when working with people, either leading or following and is why President Reagan was so loved by his friend and feared by his enemies. He showed that one can be completely honest about your beliefs and yet still be respected by those who disagree with you.
So many of those who disagreed with him, media, communists and democrats tried extremely hard to make him look bad. Many stories rehearsed were about how he responded to these challenges. One thing he most understood was how to answer, specifically, how to answer foolish questions. Proverbs deals specifically with these topics in chapter 26 verses 4 and 5. It states, “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will also be like him. Answer a fool as his folly deserves, that he not be wise in his own eyes.” What a picture President Reagan painted in so many stories of these verses. One story related by President H.W. Bush at the funeral involved a Bishop Tutu from South Africa.
Bishop Tutu visited President Reagan in the White House. During his visit, he began vehemently listing his complaints against President Reagan. After meeting with President Reagan, Bishop Tutu left and began rehashing his complaints with the media outside the White House. The next day the media knowing full well how Bishop Tutu felt about the meeting tried to trap the President by asking him how his meeting went with Bishop Tutu. Recognizing the foolishness of this question, President Reagan replied replied “so so”. “Answer a fool as his folly deserves, that he not be wise in his own eyes.”
What’s That? A Pitpine?
What happens when a pitbull picks a fight with a porcupine?
Don’t click to read more if you are squeamish!
BTW, I’ve checked it out and confirmed it is true. Confirmed true by Snopes.com my favorite place to verify urban legends.
It looks like it looses.
This is just wrong. It hurts to look at it.
One more time!
Finished the last class before medical school and hopefully only one more test, the MCAT on Aug. 20th. Woohoo!
Diligence in all things
“Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge, etc.” –2 Peter 1:5, 6
If thou wouldest enjoy the eminent grace of the full assurance of faith, under the blessed Spirit’s influence, and assistance, do what the Scripture tells thee, ‘Give diligence’. Take care that thy ‘faith’ is of the right kind–that it is not a mere belief of doctrine, but a simple faith, depending on Christ, and on Christ alone. Give diligent heed to thy ‘courage’. Plead with God that He would give thee the face of a lion, that thou mayest, with a consciousness of right, go on boldly. Study well the Scriptures, and get ‘knowledge’; for a knowledge of doctrine will tend very much to confirm faith. Try to understand God’s Word; let it dwell in thy heart richly.
When thou hast done this, “Add to thy knowledge ‘temperance’. Take heed to thy body: be temperate without. Take heed to thy soul: be temperate within. Get temperance of lip, life, heart, and thought. Add to this, by God’s Holy Spirit, ‘patience’; ask Him to give thee that patience which endureth affliction, which, when it is tried, shall come forth as gold. Array yourself with patience, that you may not murmur nor be depressed in your afflictions. When that grace is won look to ‘godliness’. Godliness is something more than religion. Make God’s glory your object in life; live in His sight; dwell close to Him; seek for fellowship with Him; and thou hast “godliness”; and to that add _brotherly love_. Have a love to all the saints: and add to that a ‘charity’, which openeth its arms to all men, and loves their souls. When you are adorned with these jewels, and just in proportion as you practise these heavenly virtues, will you come to know by clearest evidence “your calling and election.” “Give diligence,” if you would get assurance, for lukewarmness and doubting very naturally go hand in hand.
Taken from yesterday’s Morning and Evening morning devotion
One way to get goosebumps!
Watch the shuttle launch!
And if that isn’t good enough, watch the all new shuttle tank camera all the way into space (yes, that is the Earth in the background)! 
Read more about the Return to Flight.
On another note . . .
Three older gals were chatting about the problems of aging gracefully. One said, “Sometimes I catch myself with a jar of mayonnaise in my hand, in front of the refrigerator, and can’t remember whether I need to put it away, or start making a sandwich.”
The second lady chimed in, “Oh yes, Ethel, sometimes I find myself standing on the stairs and can’t remember whether I was on my way up or on my way down.”
The third one responded, “Well, I’m glad I don’t have that problem; knock on wood,” as she rapped her knuckles on the table. . . Suddenly she said, “Oh, darn! That must be the door, I’ll get it!”
A Highway Patrolman waited outside a popular bar, hoping for a bust.
At closing time everyone come out and he spotted his potential quarry. The man was so obviously inebriated that he could barely walk. He stumbled around the parking lot for a few minutes, looking for his car.
After trying his keys on five other cars, he finally found his own vehicle. He sat in the car a good ten minutes, as the other patrons left. He turned his lights on, then off, wipers on, then off. He started to pull forward into the grass, then stopped.
Finally, when he was the last car, he pulled out onto the road and started to drive away.
The patrolman, waiting for this, turned on his lights and pulled the man over. He administered the breathalyzer test, and to his great surprise, the man blew a 0.00.
The patrolman was dumbfounded. “This equipment must be broken!” he exclaimed.
“I doubt it,” said the man, “Tonight I am the designated decoy!”
One day a man spotted a lamp by the roadside. He picked it up, rubbed it vigorously, and a genie appeared.
“I’ll grant you your fondest wish,” the genie said.
The man thought for a moment, then said, “I want a spectacular job — a job that no man has ever succeeded at or has ever attempted to do.”
“Poof!” said the genie. “You’re a housewife.”
The Parable of the Fishless Fishermen Fellowship
Here is another one of those unknown author tidbits that is really good. I first heard it in a sermon but just received it in an e-mail. Enjoy!
The Parable of the Fishless Fishermen Fellowship
They were surrounded by streams and lakes full of hungry fish. They met regularly to discuss the call to fish, the abundance of fish, and the thrill of catching fish. They got excited about fishing!
Someone suggested that they needed a philosophy of fishing, so they carefully defined and redefined fishing, and the purpose of fishing. They developed fishing strategies and tactics. Then they realized that they had been going at it backwards. They had approached fishing from the point of view of the fisherman, and not from the point of view of the fish. How do fish view the world? How does the fisherman appear to the fish? What do fish eat, and when? These are all good things to know. So they began research studies, and attended conferences on fishing. Some traveled to faraway places to study different kinds of fish with different habits. Some got doctorates in fishology. But no one had yet gone fishing.
So a committee was formed to send out fishermen. As prospective fishing places outnumbered fishermen, the committee needed to determine priorities. A priority list of fishing places was posted on bulletin boards in all of the fellowship halls. But still, no one was fishing. A survey was launched to find out why. Most did not answer the survey, but from those who did, it was discovered that some felt called to study fish, a few to furnish fishing equipment, and several to go around encouraging the fishermen. What with meetings, conferences, and seminars, they just simply didn?t have time to fish.
Now, Jake was a newcomer to the Fisherman?s Fellowship. After one stirring meeting of the Fellowship, he went fishing and caught a large fish. At the next meeting, he told his story and was honored for his catch. He was told that he had a special “gift of fishing.” He was then scheduled to speak at all the Fellowship chapters and tell how he did it.
With all the speaking invitations and his election to the board of directors of the Fisherman’s Fellowship, Jake no longer had time to go fishing. But soon he began to feel restless and empty. He longed to feel the tug on the line once again. So he cut the speaking, he resigned from the board, and he said to a friend, “Let’s go fishing.” They did, just the two of them, and they caught fish. The members of the Fisherman?s Fellowship were many, the fish were plentiful, but the fishers were few!
~ Anonymous
What’s That? An earthquake?
Ran across a report this morning discussing one of the ways they are researching the earthquake that spawned the Indian Ocean Tsunami on Dec. 26th, 2004. Using equipment installed to enforce the nuclear test-ban treaty, researchers at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory obtained the underwater sounds of the earthquake. It is incredible that the sound lasted about 8 minutes. The hardest part to fathom is that it is actually the earth ripping apart and not a shuttle launch or an airplane takeoff. Pretty eery sound when you think of what happened just minutes later.
Choice –
“If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to be a terrible warning.” – Catherine Aird