Sunday Dispatch

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.782

Grieving, my soul thinks back;
these thoughts cripple, and I sink down.
Gaining hope,
I remember and wait for this thought:

How enduring is God’s loyal love;
the Eternal has inexhaustible compassion.
Here they are, every morning, new!
Your faithfulness, God, is as broad as the day.

~ Lamentations 3:20-23 (The Voice)

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.783

Have you ever studied Jesus's approach to talking with people? He didn't always fill the space with answers for them. Let's learn to do that with our fellow learners. Let's give them room to think and answer for themselves.

~ Charles R. Swindoll

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.784


If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware of God, one need not go far to find it.

~ Vincent Van Gogh

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.785

Christians were never meant to be normal. We’ve always been holy troublemakers, we’ve always been creators of uncertainty, agents of dimension that’s incompatible with the status quo; we do not accept the world as it is, but we insist on the world becoming the way that God wants it to be. And the Kingdom of God is different from the patterns of this world.

~ Jacques Ellul

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.786

The word 'Christian' means different things to different people. To one person it means a stiff, upright, inflexible way of life, colorless and unbending. To another it means a risky, surprised-filled adventure, lived tiptoe at the edge of expectation...If we get our information from the biblical material, there is no doubt that the Christian life is a dancing, leaping, daring life.

~ Eugene H. Peterson

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.787

God’s glory is on tour in the skies,
God-craft on exhibit across the horizon.
Madame Day holds classes every morning,
Professor Night lectures each evening.

Their words aren’t heard,
their voices aren’t recorded,
But their silence fills the earth:
unspoken truth is spoken everywhere.

God makes a huge dome
for the sun—a superdome!
The morning sun’s a new husband
leaping from his honeymoon bed,
The daybreaking sun an athlete
racing to the tape.

That’s how God’s Word vaults across the skies
from sunrise to sunset,
Melting ice, scorching deserts,
warming hearts to faith.

The revelation of God is whole
and pulls our lives together.
The signposts of God are clear
and point out the right road.
The life-maps of God are right,
showing the way to joy.

The directions of God are plain
and easy on the eyes.
God’s reputation is twenty-four-carat gold,
with a lifetime guarantee.
The decisions of God are accurate
down to the nth degree.

God’s Word is better than a diamond,
better than a diamond set between emeralds.
You’ll like it better than strawberries in spring,
better than red, ripe strawberries.

There’s more: God’s Word warns us of danger
and directs us to hidden treasure.
Otherwise how will we find our way?
Or know when we play the fool?

Clean the slate, God, so we can start the day fresh!
Keep me from stupid sins,
from thinking I can take over your work;
Then I can start this day sun-washed,
scrubbed clean of the grime of sin.

Psalm 19:1-14 (The Message)

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.788


October, baptize me with leaves! Swaddle me in corduroy and nurse me with split pea soup. October, tuck tiny candy bars in my pockets and carve my smile into a thousand pumpkins. O autumn! O teakettle! O grace!

~ Rainbow Rowell

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.789

Director Brian Baugh on his film ‘I’m Not Ashamed’
Selected from SFGATE, October 17,2016

When I got a call about doing a film on the life of Rachel Scott, the first victim of the Columbine shooting, I fully expected I would pass on the project. I started reading the script thinking it was going to be about some boring, sheltered, high school church girl who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was wrong.

Rachel’s life was a surprising, interesting, beautiful mess of teenage contradictions and struggles. Her faith led her to want to make a difference in the world, to be a light in her school, but she battled against her demons and temptations. She was just like me. There was a core to the story that was so accessible … so real.

However, because Rachel had a faith, the story got labeled as faith-based, and I didn’t particularly want to direct a so-called Christian film. I don’t consider movies Christian, any more than I think there are Christian bicycles, Christian hamburgers or a Christian piece of plywood.

Products and art don’t normally get described by the religion of their investors or creators, so why should films? Do we call Hugo’s “Les Misérables” a Christian play? Or Handel’s “Messiah” a Christian symphony? Or DaVinci’s “The Last Supper” a Christian painting? Does anyone label a Martin Scorsese film a Catholic film? I’ve never heard them referred to as such. To me, movies are just good, bad or somewhere in between. They either connect with an audience or they don’t.

So much to my surprise, after learning about Rachel’s life, I was willing to take the risk. She was a fascinating high school girl with a powerful story that could connect with audiences in a real way. She was a young artist who loved writing, drawing and acting. And she left behind these beautiful journals that told of her inner journey.

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.790

God does not need our good works, but our neighbors do.

Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.

~ Ephesians 2:7-10 (The Message)

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.791

F-E-A-R has two meanings: 'Forget Everything And Run' or 'Face Everything And Rise.' The choice is yours.

~ Zig Ziglar

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.792

God’s love is meteoric,
his loyalty astronomic,
His purpose titanic,
his verdicts oceanic.
Yet in his largeness
nothing gets lost;
Not a man, not a mouse,
slips through the cracks

~ Psalm 36:5-6 (The Message)

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.793

A cheerful disposition is good for your health;
gloom and doom leave you bone-tired.

~ Proverbs 17:22 (The Message)


Those who laugh often never grow old.

~ Benjamin Franklin

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.794


To us who face a day of calm
To us in the middle of a storm
a prayer

To us who are strong in faith
To us who are weak
a prayer

To us who walk forward in your commands
To us who have fallen
a prayer

To us who are healthy
To us in sickness
a prayer

To us whose table is full
To us with only crumbs

To our Father in heaven we pray this prayer
Forgive us our sins Lord

We thank you for your many blessings
We thank you for our salvation

Thank you Lord for your love and mercy
We thank you Lord this day

May our hearts be stronger
May our faith grow
May we continue trusting and following you
May your will be done in our lives

And Lord may we praise and give thanks always

In the name of Christ
We pray this prayer
Amen

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.795

Suddenly I heard the words of Christ and understood them, and life and death ceased to seem to me evil, and instead of despair I experienced happiness and the joy of life undisturbed by death.

~ Leo Tolstoy

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.796

Come down to the manger, see the little stranger
Wrapped in swaddling clothes, the prince of peace
Wheels start turning, torches start burning
And the old wise men journey from the East

How a little baby boy bring the people so much joy
Son of a carpenter, Mary carried the light
This must be Christmas, must be tonight

A shepherd on a hillside, while over my flock I bide
Oh a cold winter night a band of angels sing
In a dream I heard a voice saying "fear not, come rejoice
It's the end of the beginning, praise the new born king"

I saw it with my own eyes, written up in the skies
But why a simple herdsmen such as I
And then it came to pass, he was born at last
Right below the star that shines on high

~ Robbie Robertson


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5bKtRU0Q6c