1 Chronicles 29:11 New International Version (NIV)
Proverbs 4:23 New International Version (NIV) — from biblegateway.com
23 Above all else, guard your heart,
for everything you do flows from it.
Romans 11:33-36 New International Version (NIV)
Doxology
33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
34 “Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay them?”
36 For from him and through him and for him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.
Deuteronomy 10:12-13 New International Version (NIV) — from biblegateway.com
Fear the Lord
(i.e., per DSC: respect Him, listen to Him, revere Him, give Him the credit that’s due His Name, to obey Him, to trust in Him, and to seek His counsel)
12 And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?
From DSC:
I started today (Friday, April 10th) out by reading the Verse of the Day from BibleGateway.com — Romans 5:6-8 (NIV):
6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless,
Christ died for the ungodly.
7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person,
though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.
8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
It took me a while to grasp why Christians call this day “Good Friday,” as it represents one of the darkest days in history. “What’s so good about it?!” I often wondered. For we Christians believe that our LORD Jesus Christ had to knowingly go forth into a very hostile situation, upset the power structures of the day, and knowingly and willingly journey into His own torturous, pain-filled murder. A murder that would pay a price, a debt that He didn’t owe. He paid for that price for us…for our sins.. for me…for my sins. It was our/my debt to pay, not His.
And what’s more…Christ, hanging on the cross, experienced the feelings that God had forsaken Him. If you’ve ever had those feelings and that experience, it is a deep, dark, lonely place. Everyone else and everything else feels like a million miles away. It’s a place of being in one of — if not THEE — harshest deserts that life can throw at us.
“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” (Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34)
But Jesus Christ did pay the price. He completed the work that He was sent to Earth to do. By doing what He did, Jesus Christ tore down the obstacles of us being in relationship with — and in direct communication with — our Heavenly Father.
So that IS good news. It’s because of what the LORD Jesus did on the cross that Christians say that this is a “Good Friday.”
Thank you LORD for YOU!
Thank you for your grace, courage, strength,
forgiveness, and for your extravagant love!
On this day we remember what you did for us.
And on Sunday, let us exclaim:
From DSC:
A reminder to myself, and perhaps it will help someone else out there as well…
Philippians 4:8 (NIV) — from biblegateway.com
8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
Not sure why, but Daniel Willingham’s words come to my mind:
“Memory is the residue of thought.”
Plus, I ran across this graphic as well:
Psalm 25:4-5 New International Version (NIV) — from biblegateway.com
4 Show me your ways, Lord,
teach me your paths.
5 Guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my Savior,
and my hope is in you all day long.
Isaiah 25:1 (NIV) — from biblegateway.com
Praise to the Lord
25 Lord, you are my God;
I will exalt you and praise your name,
for in perfect faithfulness
you have done wonderful things,
things planned long ago.
Psalm 34:18 New International Version (NIV) — from biblegateway.com
18 The Lord is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
Proverbs 17:9 New International Version (NIV) — from biblegateway.com
9 Whoever would foster love covers over an offense,
but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.
An Existential Crisis in Neuroscience — from by Grigori Guitchounts
We’re mapping the brain in amazing detail—but our brain can’t understand the picture.
Excerpt:
Neuroscientists have made considerable progress toward understanding brain architecture and aspects of brain function. We can identify brain regions that respond to the environment, activate our senses, generate movements and emotions. But we don’t know how different parts of the brain interact with and depend on each other. We don’t understand how their interactions contribute to behavior, perception, or memory. Technology has made it easy for us to gather behemoth datasets, but I’m not sure understanding the brain has kept pace with the size of the datasets.
From DSC:
The word “mystery” comes to my mind when I read parts of this thought-provoking article — as does the phrase “Glory to God!“.
As I’ve watched my mom slowly leave us due to Alzheimer’s (as did my grandma on her side) and as I’ve watched my good friend prepare to leave us due to cancer, I’m also reminded to be grateful for the people in my life when they’re still there. Plus, I’m reminded to be thankful for good health when I have it. It may be cliche, but it’s true. And I’ll end this posting with another one:
“One doesn’t know the worth of water until the well’s run dry.”
From DSC:
My brother-in-law sent me the link to the video below. It’s a very solid interview about racism and what some solutions are to it. It offers some important lessons for us.
A heads up here: There’s some adult language in this piece — from the interviewer not the interviewee (i.e., you know…several of those swear words that I’ve been trying since second grade to get rid of in my vocabulary! Sorry to report that I’ve not enjoyed too much success in that area. Thanks for your patience LORD…the work/process continues).
While I have several pages worth of notes (because that’s just how I best process information and stay focused), I will just comment on a couple things:
* A 10 year old boy has rocks thrown at him by adults and kids and rightfully asks, “Why are they doing this to me when they don’t even *know* me?!” That burning question lead to a decades-long search for Mr. Daryl Davis as he sought the answer to that excellent question.
I thanked my brother-in-law for the link to the interview.
Also see:
Healing Racial Trauma: The Road to Resilience— from christianbook.com by Sheila Wise Rowe
Product Description
As a child, Sheila Wise Rowe was bused across town to a majority white school, where she experienced the racist lie that one group is superior to all others. This lie continues to be perpetuated today by the action or inaction of the government, media, viral videos, churches, and within families of origin. In contrast, Scripture declares that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made.
Rowe, a professional counselor, exposes the symptoms of racial trauma to lead readers to a place of freedom from the past and new life for the future. In each chapter, she includes an interview with a person of color to explore how we experience and resolve racial trauma. With Rowe as a reliable guide who has both been on the journey and shown others the way forward, you will find a safe pathway to resilience.
From DSC:
As some of you may know, I’m now working for the WMU-Thomas M. Cooley Law School. My faith gets involved here, but I believe that the LORD wanted me to get involved with:
Along these lines…in regards to what’s been happening with law schools over the last few years, I wanted to share a couple of things:
1) An article from The Chronicle of Higher Education by Benjamin Barton:
2) A response from our President and Dean, James McGrath:
From DSC:
I also wanted to personally say that I arrived at WMU-Cooley Law School in 2018, and have been learning a lot there (which I love about my job!). Cooley employees are very warm, welcoming, experienced, knowledgeable, and professional. Everyone there is mission-driven. My boss, Chris Church, is multi-talented and excellent. Cooley has a great administrative/management team as well.
There have been many exciting, new things happening there. But that said, it will take time before we see the results of these changes. Perseverance and innovation will be key ingredients to crafting a modern legal education — especially in an industry that is just now beginning to offer online-based courses at the Juris Doctor (J.D.) level (i.e., 20 years behind when this began occurring within undergraduate higher education).
My point in posting this is to say that we should ALL care about what’s happening within the legal realm! We are all impacted by it, whether we realize it or not. We are all in this together and no one is an island — not as individuals, and not as organizations.
We need:
Still not convinced that you should care? Here are some things on the CURRENT landscapes:
Addendum — speaking of islands!
Palantir CEO: Silicon Valley can’t be on ‘Palo Alto island’ — Big Tech must play by the rules — from cnbc.com by Jessica Bursztynsky
Excerpt:
Palantir Technologies co-founder and CEO Alex Karp said Thursday the core problem in Silicon Valley is the attitude among tech executives that they want to be separate from United States regulation.
“You cannot create an island called Palo Alto Island,” said Karp, who suggested tech leaders would rather govern themselves. “What Silicon Valley really wants is the canton of Palo Alto. We have the United States of America, not the ‘United States of Canton,’ one of which is Palo Alto. That must change.”
“Consumer tech companies, not Apple, but the other ones, have basically decided we’re living on an island and the island is so far removed from what’s called the United States in every way, culturally, linguistically and in normative ways,” Karp added.
Psalm 90:12 New International Version (NIV) — from biblegateway.com
12 Teach us to number our days,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
From DSC:
Upon reading this scripture again…I couldn’t help but recall the scene from Dicken’s A Christmas Carol where Ebenezer Scrooge approaches his own gravestone and sees his own name engraved upon it. It is one of the last catalysts for his amazing transformation.
How might we change if each of us were to picture our own name on a gravestone on this very day? Would we do anything differently?
From DSC:
To those who celebrate it, Merry Christmas to you and to yours!
From DSC:
Before people start heading out of Dodge, I wanted to wish those of you who celebrate it, a very Merry Christmas! May you and yours enjoy some moments of deep peace this holiday season. And may you share some meaningful, wonderful time with those you love.
I’m grateful to our heavenly Father for His numerous gifts — especially for the gift of His Son, our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ!
