There are many books that can give you fancy stitches for a variety of looks. My favourite is
Sometimes it’s just fun to mix it up!
Reaching – lower right, a photo by Carmen CS on Flickr.
Prayer: Father, help me to find creative ways to enjoy my life and service.
This is an amazing album. Out of 10 tracks, I give 4 of them 5 stars, and 5 of them 4 stars! Now that’s what I call listenable!
Amazon.com: The Altar and the Door: Music.
Somewhere between the wrong and the right
Somewhere between the darkness and the light
Somewhere between who I was and who You’re making me
Somewhere in the middle, You’ll find me
Actually, I was spoiled for choice on lyrics from this song. I wanted to just grab them all. Listen! Listen!
The line that most convicts me though is:
Just how close can I get, Lord, to my surrender without losing all control?
I first saw this movie last year, and it immediately shot to the top of my favourite movies list.
It’s about William Wilberforce, a Christian who was central to getting slavery outlawed throughout the British empire. I knew almost nothing about him before seeing the movie. Before our Civil War, he fought for human rights.
The movie is an amazing historical drama. It’s beautiful, and inspiring. Wilberforce suffered from chronic illness, and struggled with an addiction to painkillers given to him because of it. But he did not succumb to discouragement. He was an amazing fighter.
The movie has joy, humor, trouble and triumph. It highlights love, faith, seeking one’s way and then sticking to it once it has been found.
This is a very sweet movie about finding life and love again after tragedy. It’s also about an atheist finding faith from the example of a man of great faith. It’s not an incredibly deep movie, but it is comforting.
My favourite line from the movie is the one which gives it its name: Sometimes love isn’t fireworks, sometimes love just comes softly.
This book was recently recommended to me by my new friend Rose Spillenaar Harmer, who writes listeningtohear.wordpress.com, a great Christian blog. I’m only about 1/3 of the way through it, but it is already revolutionizing the way I pray. Thanks, Rose!
I will be including some of Dick Eastman’s insights in my Morning Reading posts. But that venue can’t convey what this book offers.
Mr. Eastman presents a way to pray for an hour each day, using 12 5-minute prayer activities. The framework provides a rich basis for prayer encompassing praise, confession, supplication, God’s Word, and much more. And the framework is flexible enough to meet different needs and styles.
He suggests an hour a day as being scripturally based, but encourages the reader to try doing at least 12 minutes to try the process out.
I’m currently doing the first 4 activities: Praise, Waiting, Confession, and God’s Word. I don’t time myself, but rather do as long as feels right on each activity. Lovely!
Prayer: Father, teach us to pray and to explore and expand our relationship with you!
A modern call to service.
This is a very different movie from my last, Ben-Hur. It is a modern-day movie following the transformation of a spoiled young man who is clearly bored, into someone called to service and faith. The catalysts? His dead grandfather and a young girl dying of cancer. Fearlessly confronts loss and the moments that go into grasping faith, without being preachy.
The classic epic on faith.
Amazon.com: Ben-Hur: 50th Anniversary Edition: Movies & TV.
This is one of my all-time favourite movies. I watch it at least twice a year – at Easter and Christmas. And it amazes me how many Christians I’ve met who have never seen it. I clung to its message even when I was farthest from being a Christian myself.
I’ve heard that people say “It’s called ‘Ben-Hur: A Story of the Christ’ and it isn’t about Christ at all.” I can’t understand that. It’s about God’s will working in the world, about turning the other cheek, about the incredible force of Our Lord when He turned His attention on a man. It’s about faith.
A movie about rediscovering faith…
One of the cool things about M. Night Shyamalan’s movies is that they are often not about what they seem to be on the surface. Or at least, not just about that. Signs is ostensibly an alien horror movie. But it is so much not just that.
It is a movie about faith.
About its loss.
About its rediscovery.
About how hard it is to live without.
After the death of his wife in tragic circumstances, Grahame is determined not to believe any more.
But under pressure, what happens?
I will not forget You are my God, my King
And with a thankful heart I bring my offering
And my sacrifice is not what You can give
But what I alone can give to youA grateful heart I give, A thankful prayer I pray,
A wild dance I dance before you
A loud song I sing, A huge bell I ring,
A life of praise I live before You
Amazon.com: Iworship 2 (Bonus Dvd): Various Artists: Music.
I just want to open my arms in praise when I hear this song. Especially, “A wild dance I dance before you” calls out to my heart. This may be because I always loved dancing and haven’t had the energy for it lately.
The call to give what I alone can give is what NeedlePrayer is about for me. We each have talents and skills to use for His glory, and I believe it is our calling to find them and exercise them. In all the little ways that mean so much more than we think.
Amazon.com: The Privileged Planet: John Rhys-Davies, Lad Allen: Movies & TV.
This is a great documentary which feeds into the Intelligent Design theory. It explores how many factors affected our world becoming what it is and allowing us to be here. Then, amazingly, it shows that not only is this world perfect for complex life, but it is also perfect for allowing us to understand natural law. And this is supposed to have happened by chance?
I found it fascinating.
NeedlePrayer 