Grumbling At God's Blessings

By Jason, M.Ed., M.A.R., Headmaster

Can you imagine what it must have been like to be fed miraculously by God? Every day, the Israelites awoke in the desert wilderness to divine provisions- manna from heaven. It must have been amazing to be so obviously guided by God through the pillar of cloud and fire and then provided for by God through daily manna – exactly what was needed each day. It must’ve been amazing, right?

Sadly, it seems to have been boring and unappreciated by the Israelites. Numbers 11 shows the people of God complaining about God’s blessing and longing for slavery. “Oh that we had meat to eat!” they said. “We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing.” (vv. 4-5) Cost nothing, really? Is being enslaved really “nothing”?

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Going "Toe To Toe" With Satan

Updated on Monday, August 3, 2009 at 3:09PM by MAD21

By Chuck (Sharing Compassion)

The other evening I was at a Christian coffee house to hear a friend play their music. The host did a short devotional on how Satan often tries to tempt us or trip us up in our walk with Christ. He told a story about how if we are being ignored by Satan then really maybe we aren't making a difference or a threat. This got me to thinking...how often do we face obstacles or hurdles in our lives and feel that God is ignoring us? How often do we feel we are doing a great job and are being effective and yet we feel stymied some how? God does not promise us as Christians we get a free pass for the rest of our lives. Even Christ was tempted before he began his ministry. I cannot think of one other Christian that has not faced trials or tribulations in their walk. We often face those difficult times or dry times and want to blame God. Yet I will submit to you that it is not God we should blame ( actually we should be thankful) but Satan.

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My Personal Struggle To De-callous My Life

By Mallory

So I don't know about you, but my feet are kind of gross. Since it's summertime and my feet are getting a lot more time out in public, spending a little clean-up time on them is a must. For me, it's callouses on the bottoms of my feet that I'm constantly trying to scrub off. I have some foot lotion from Bath and Body Works that I'm pretty sure is magical. (Heel of Approval--I recommend buying it on sale.)

While I’m being honest, I have to confess that my heart is sometimes calloused, too. You know what I mean? I think that sometimes it’s really easy to become hardened by things that hurt us. Right now I'm talking specifically about hurtful situations between people. It's so easy to hate someone who hurt or rejected you.

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Pirates, Knights and Credit Reports

By Renee, LSWA

"I'm singin' F to the R to the E to the E to the C to the R to the E D I T
RE to the PORT to the dot to the com, Come on everybody grab your bikes and sing along."

We all know the commercials and could probably sing every one of them, but do we really get it? Knowing what is on our credit report is crucial to everything we do from renting/buying a house, buying a car, even some jobs are looking at our credit reports. But beyond knowing what our credit report says, we need to be focusing on keeping our credit in good standing. I can not stress this enough. Get on a budget and keep yourself out of debt! I work with families every day whose only barrier to moving on from homelessness to self-sufficiency is poor credit. Landlords don't want to rent to someone who has a history of bad debt and/or foreclosures or evictions. Now I know that not all debt is the result of poor money management but the majority of it is.

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You Can Make A Difference..

By Chuck (Sharing Compassion)

Yes. You can make a difference.......

So often we don't think we can't so we don't. What if we could make a difference? What if each of us reached out just a little to a child in need and tried to make that difference. What if what we did changed the world in the next five years?

Welcome to my little fantasy (click to view):

Of course this is just a fun little video-but you know what? It could happen, you could make a difference- lives could be changed. Not just the child's but yours...will you consider it?

Blessings <><