Enjoying the Journey

I read a blog a few minutes ago titled, Enjoying the journey and I thought it a good title for this post. This is a great state of mind to reach, where life is a fun journey to travel on. I think about the teams that are playing basketball to reach the final four. They are on a yellow brick road which involves winning and to stay on that road takes determination, good coaching, and athletic ability. I played basketball in high school and remember when the coach would say to just enjoy playing the game. When you think about making a certain move with the ball and scoring points by hitting a three point shot, it is definately fun. I hope that I will be able to stay awake because it is late on a Sunday night and I had to work today. However, I have not wrote an entry and posted it to my blog for a week. The other blogs that I read this evening were from people that also like to exercise, like ride bike races, or run in triathlons or road races. There webpages had lots of cool pictures of the outdoors and a listing of events and training journals. This week I played tennis two days, when the high temps were in the 70's and the weather was great. I also hiked around Harris Lake park in southern Wake county on Saturday afternoon. I was thankful not to run into any snakes on the trails as spring time arrived at 1:32pm that afternoon. Several times I almost stepped on a black and a brown snake at that park while hiking and my bike wheel once caught one snake by the tail while mountain biking.
I have been reading a new Christian book this week that my parent sent in the mail. I am on chapter 4 now, reading about how to have direction and purpose in my decisions. This week has been challenging because I did my federal taxes. Because of my part time tech job I will have to pay over $230 back to uncle sam in taxes. This is when my bank account has got really low and now I am living paycheck to paycheck. I did get a free breakfast, when I attended a Men's breakfast at church on Saturday morning. Also, I used several clipper coupons that saved a few dollars on the lunch money this week. I attended a church service on Saturday evening and heard a message about the trials of Christ before Pilate, Herod, and the religious leaders on His journey to the cross. They were showing scenes from The Passion movie on the overhead projection screens during the service. Today I read discussion forum posts and articles from several end times prophecy websites. There were quiet a few posts about the Middle East peace process and speculations on what could happen in the near future. I didn't copy and save any of those webpages like I did last week. Well, it is 11:00pm tonight, and I am about to wrap it up for another day. Just got to wait until a batch of clothes finishes in the dryer and then fold them up to put away in my dresser. Oh, yeah, I had to take a product back to the grocery store tonight because it didn't have the product in the box. It was an empty box, but was completely sealed up. Don't be a lemon or bad product, have direction and purpose in you to make a difference in your world today.

Spring is almost here.

At the end of this week, March 20 is the official beginning of spring time. I think it is called the spring equinox, and there is more info about how the earth and sun are positioned on websites such as http://www.spaceweather.com/. I also read an article today about the true calendar that God gave to the Jews. It was based on Gen. 1:14, and the position of the sun and moon in relation to the stars that determined the start of the new year. Without explaining the details, the author did say that this April 14 will be the real start of the Hebrew new year based on the new moon. The trees, grass, and plants start to turn green very soon. It is like new life or resurrection is coming to the earth. This is an example of how it will be when I am in heaven and have a new body someday. Another example of resurrection happened on Easter Sunday over 2,000 years ago, three days after passover. This is when we celebrate Jesus rising from the dead, and coming out of the tomb. I am singing some songs from the church service this morning in my head as I type out this post. The glory of the risen king is a line from a song, that is the hope of Easter Sunday. There is important news in prophecy this week: they plan to dedicate a new temple in the Old City of Jerusalem on Tuesday. It seems that the Old Testament Jewish customs are becoming more an everyday part of life for those religious Jews in Israel. I read that they may even start to build the Third Temple soon, and that means the rapture could happen any day. On Thursday I attended a small group meeting for the first time in months. It was held at a small townhouse near Hope and about 8 to 10 people were there. I got an e-mail of prayer requests later in the week. Friday night was the monthly singles event and I attended that as well. I brought some popcorn and also enjoyed the other food on the table. This morning I attended the early church service and brought a monthly tithe to give. I got to talk with some of the pastors and others walking around the office between services. This evening I read a few chapters in the Christian book, The Principle of the Path. The author says that your direction or decisions that you make in life will determine your destination. My parents purchased this book and mailed it to me to read. Well, I need to make up an hour of sleep from the time change of last night, so goodnight now.

Beginning of the End Times shown in a movie?

Last night I rented the movie 2012 and watched it on my desktop PC while eating dinner. This movie starts with the sun becoming more active and sending more solar radiation to earth, which heats up the core, resulting in a destabilizing of the crust layer. I checked the Spaceweather.com website and the sun has indeed entered a new solar cycle that will have more flares and activity which will peak in 2012. Earthquakes have increased since 2009, and there were recent massive quakes in Indonesia, Haiti, and Chili that killed thousands. You can keep up with the latest tremors at the USGS website. I have also read about how a polar shift event could definately change the location of landmasses and could result in tidal waves that cover many cities and go inland very far like in this movie. I think that there is a strong chance that by the year 2012, these type of disasters depicted in this movie could really happen to the earth. Maybe I am kind of like that character in this movie that sits in an RV at Yellowstone park and warns people on a talk radio program. My hair is not that long, I just got a haircut on Saturday afternoon, and I don't wear those kinds of clothes. But the end times are indeed right around the corner and it is good to be in the ark and safe. Jesus said that like it was in Noah's days, it will be at the end. Noah built the ark for his righteous family and boarded 2 kinds of each animal. I read an interesting article that compares how the galactic alignment in the year 2012 maybe the same type that happened during the days of the Flood, and caused the huge tidal waves and springs of the deep, and the rainfall to flood the earth thousands of years ago. The science and technology involved with the Flood is fascinating and I like to learn more about it from the safety of an ark. I know that all true believers in the Lord Jesus will escape to the ark of heaven and miss the flood waters of the final seven years of tribulation that is coming to the secular world. On Saturday, I played cards with some Christian friends, one of them that is a strong supporter of Creationism. At church this Sunday the sermon was about the journey to the cross, which is a series that ends on Easter Sunday. After the service I said hi to some familiar faces, got a drink, and then helped out in the NOC room with the IT Support tech team. I replaced a failed video card, configured a user account security setting, and then setup a powerpoint desktop for slides during the services. I over heard a prayer for someone that is having a brain surgery this week while in the office at Hope. I pray that the Lord would be with him and provide healing to that problem. I also pray for my neighbors and friends that have various needs and requests. I pray that the government leaders will make decisions not in secret but based on the Word of God and in the interests of keeping everyone safe from natural disasters.  

My Recent February Travels and Views

I arrived home from a short 4-day trip to Florida last night. I was a passenger on an airplane flight down there on Feb. 26 and then back on Mar. 1. Looking out the window of the plane, since I was seated right beside it on both flights, was great. As the airplane gained altitude at takeoff, the cars, buildings, and trees became smaller and smaller. At over 30,000 feet, cars became too small to see with the eye, but roads and some structures, like nuclear power plants and office building were still visible. Large lakes, rivers, and various land patterns displayed the wonder of God's creation. It was peaceful, watching how the wind across the water causes little ripples of waves, and different shapes to form and quickly fade away. The sun was setting under high white sirrus clouds and reflecting calmly off the deep waters of a large lake in South Carolina and off the Gulf of Mexico. Farmers and others that own several acres of land divide it up so that exact squares of different shades of green and brown ground were clearly visible from the air. While in Florida, I enjoyed hiking around Saddleback park near Lakeland on Sunday. That 2.3 mile trail was offroad, consisting of dirt and sand, had a good elevation change and some high overlook locations of a small lake. Such wildlife as egrets, hawks, turtles, and one alligator were visible through my binoculars. On Sunday morning I attended church at Christ Community Church in Winter Haven, FL. The message was about how the Israelites crossed over into the promised land. While riding in a car on Monday morning, I listened to a Christian radio talk show. One of the speakers was taking about watching for the Lord's return and how to be prepared for it at anytime. Because one day Christ's church will cross over to heaven and leave behind the earth. Similar to my airplane flight, I believe that the world will become smaller as the church rises up to the clouds to meet the Lord in the air someday. This world still has sin in it, which causes those wildlife animals that I observed to have to attack and kill to survive, the curse of the fall. On Monday morning, I got to ride a bike for about an hour at Desoto park near St. Pete, FL. I had a short time of prayer and meditation at a brown bench on a nature trail the ran right beside the water. I realized the importance of a daily quiet time to re-gather my thoughts and focus. Without the Lord's help via the Holy Spirit sin will lead your life down the wrong path, one that will result in war not peace. The new month of March is here which includes the start of Spring on the 20th and Palm Sunday, then Passover on the 29th. The Bible verse on my wall calendar is Numbers 24:9- "May those who bless you be blessed..." I know that God will bless and protect His people.