My June race

                             What happens if I run a 5K.


        I signed up for a 5K back in May that would take place in Dansville on June 8th. I figured I would stand at least some chance, since my best pace was 6:32 per mile. Well of course an issue arose, the race was on a Sunday at 9:00am, which is half an hour before church service started. So I calculated that I could get the race done in about 20 minutes, go get ready, and then be there just in time for service.

         Now the day of the race. I woke up at about 6:00am and there was rain and lightning.   :(  That, actually, did not stay around to long and left at about 8:20. Finally it all was about to begin; we all stood at the starting line, because standing anywhere else would be cheating. :) The race then starts with the people in the front speeding away, leaving me in the middle having to make my way up. I began passing the people in front of me with each opening, making my way up towards the front. As I finally pass second place the halfway mark drew near. At the halfway there was a cone that we would go around then head back the same way. The guy in first went around it with a wide turn. So I thought, "maybe I could make a sharper turn and catch up to him". I then come to the cone (not remembering it had just rained) slipped and got a few cuts when I hit the road. Quickly I returned to my feet and kept going. With a loss of energy from the fall I was just going to try to stay in second. Not to long after, a girl started catching up and then began to pass me! Even as tired as I was, I was not about to lose to a girl. My pride was on the line. :) The end got much closer and at the last 300 feet I boosted ahead, sprinted through the finnish and sat(more like fell) down.

            I came in second place. My time was 19:00 minutes! And I only have God to thank, because I borrow every breath, step and well, everything!






So this is the tale I lived to tell. :)

Snow

What happens if spring actually comes?



   There is some snow in the yard, under all the other snow, that has been there since one of the first snow days. And the shed is almost surrounded by a moat of ice. The snow may be really bad on the roads, plant life, our backs and well everything! But we must never forget Who controls it, knowing we should be thankful for the good days that we do get.




Oh and I caught a snowman trying to leave.  :)

Piano

What happen if I make a piano song?

The Race of life.

                                                                                                                                                  

 

 

 

  

       This is an example of what our lives are like, (it may not be perfectly accurate).

 

 We are people who are to run a race that is set before us by the perfect Judge almighty God, Hebrews 12:1-2, 1Corinthians 9:24-27, Galatians 5:7, Philippians 2:16 and Proverbs 4:25-26. The runners are judged by how well they run the race, (there are more than one winner in this race). Each person has a different end, some sooner than others, we cannot see the end, that is why we must run as best as we can every day in this race. The road (life) has some side paths that stay in the same direction but are dangerous to take, like the path of bitterness (holding a grudge against someone), or the path of holding on to a sin we don’t mind but we know is wrong, and so on. Right before we even start we are infected by the same disease the first runners were infected with (which is sin). This sin blinds us, therefore we cannot see the right way to go, which leads us off course and it makes us fail inevitably. "There must be something we can take to make this blindness go away". There are only two types of “pills” we can take, the pills of light (Truth) or the pills of darkness (false teaching). If we take the pills of light, our path will light up and our blindness fade (Psalm 119:105). If we take the pills of darkness, our sight would become worse (“but we would feel good”) and if we don’t stop taking them we will lose our sight permanently.  In order to succeed we need to take the pill of necessity (The Holy Spirit), and it would also be good if we took the pills of importance. The pill of necessity will give us enough sight to see the narrow path we are to take. The pills of importance are concepts like, how we ought to live, why we do what we do, what the world should think of us, how life began, etc. Taking more and more of these pills (concepts of truth) will improve our sight even more, making it easier to run correctly and we will stand out from the blind runners making them hate us or it will make them come to the truth so they can run better, Romans 2:19. Some people will try to make their own versions of the pills (adding what they want and taking out what they don’t want) which does not result in the same effect, making it a pill of darkness. Others will try to study the pills of importance to make sure they are the right ones (which is not wrong, it is actually what we should do), but they spend way too much time studying one pill forgetting about the other pills or they confuse other runners. We look for and study these pills because of the Holy Spirit, not because we are good people, Romans 3:10 "as it is written, 'There is none righteous, not even one'. “Why run? What will we win?”  Eternal life with God is our reward in Heaven, what else could we ask for? If we don’t run we spend eternity in Hell, which is very unappealing.

God's grace

 
What happens if we try to “earn” our salvation?




   To say “we need to earn it” takes away from God’s grace, making it not grace. This grace is unmerited favor- He saved us because we could not save ourselves Eph. 2:8 "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God". For us to work to obtain our salvation is to lessen the work of Christ for us. He died on the cross because we could not save ourselves by following the Law, Romans 5:20“The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more…” This grace is not a license to sin even though people say, “Does that mean we can sin because we are not under the law but under grace?” That is said to be wrong in Romans 6:15-23 and Romans 7:4-13. The works we do are a sign of our salvation, not a means to it. “Jesus paid it all,” not us. The law showed us that we could not keep it(our salvation could not be met), but that we needed the grace we have. Without God’s grace we deserve Hell; because of our sin. So, we truly have amazing grace and it is well with our souls.



 

Offense

 

What happens if we let ourselves get offended? Being offended at people would do us no good; letting ourselves get bitter would make us start to hate people. If someone offends us we must remember Romans 12:21 "Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good." In our lifetimes we are probably going to get offended, but that does not mean we stay offended. Some people may try to justify being offended by saying, "this person is deceiving people so they will not hear the truth!" Just because we want to help the people being deceived does not mean we should be offended at the person deceiving, but rather try to help them as well. If they do not accept the help we still do not need to be offended at them, but we should just move on (John 12:47-48). Not being offended at them does not mean that we agree with what they are doing or that we would not care about the listeners (Galatians 5:12), it just means we are not angry at them. We must remember to hate the problem (sin) and not the victim (the person). We must remember never to be offended at God for any reason. (Luke 7:23, "Blessed is he who does not take offense at Me.") We also do not need to be offended for His sake. Hebrews 10:30, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay." So we know now not to be offended at anyone, because we have no reason to be.

 

 

Thankfulness

What happens if we forget thankfulness?

 

      The first thing we should already know is that we would be disobeying God’s command for us as Christians, 1 Thessalonians 5:18 “in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” In Romans 1:21 the people did not honor God or give thanks and it said “their foolish heart was darkened.” We also must be sure not to pray like the Pharisee in Luke 18:11 who thanked God that he was not like the tax collector, because that would be condemnatory, which is not ours to do. Forgetting thankfulness is not a small issue that does not matter, but a huge one; because thankfulness shows that we had a need (it does not always need to be a great need) that was met and it shows that we appreciate it. If we were to not be thankful, we would become very selfish people, who few people would like, because we would be saying that we don’t need anyone’s help. That is also saying we don’t need God’s help which is deadly error, Titus 2:11, God’s gift of salvation will save us, not our own strength. Christ dying for our sins deserves our greatest thankfulness and we should truly “in everything give thanks”. This is why we should remember to be thankful.