Elliott's Muses

Lately I've been "being confronted" (in a good and grateful way) with my Prayer life.  My sense of prayer has always been a struggle.  While I've grown in it, and love those times to sit with God's word and allow it to form my thoughts, give me insight into my heart, motives, attitude, etc...I knew that my prayers needed to grow much more than they have. I started the year off with Tim Keller's devotions on Praying through the Psalms, and his book is on it's way as I take the time to read the Psalms and pray through them...it's a good discipline and while it might sound strange to someone who has never done it, it is a spiritual practice that is as old as the before Jesus walked the earth. John Piper recently had an interview with Tim Keller on the practice of prayer...and I want to post some of what that Q&A with him looked like.  I hope it helps you also think about your prayers. One more thing before the interview question.   Last night Li...

Happy Monday morning again this 25th day of January. I was asked recently how I viewed Mondays?  The responses I had to choose from were basically these: 1. Uughh!,  2. Friday is so far away!  3.I wished I was wealthy and didn't have to do this!   I found the questions interesting, but in the end I selected as an answer:   4. "A Fresh Start".   I enjoy coming to the beginning of the week. This morning I was reading this: Proverbs 8:22 22 “The LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. What if we gave God our mind, heart, motives, attitudes, and also our thanksgiving...he possessed me at the beginning of his work...and he has work for me to do this week. This changes everything including the way I pray. If I know that God is going to work in me, and that he has possession of my soul, body, spirit in ways that magnify any work I might do, well, that changes my outlook on anything a...

It's Thursday my friends...and you woke up to realize YOU DIDN'T WIN THE POWERBALL...:)  Don't know what to tell you but if you didn't spend any money in the first place you haven't lost anything, and I hope you  STILL are happy! I don't usually think a lot of Mark Cuban, but I think he nailed it: "If you weren’t happy yesterday you won’t be happy tomorrow. It’s money. It’s not happiness." Mark Cuban True...and surprisingly, he agrees with Paul when he wrote to his young protege, Timothy: 1 Timothy 6:6-10 6  But godliness with contentment is great gain,  7  for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.  8  But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.  9  But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.  10  For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evi...

I was reading this morning one of the toughest passages (I think) in all of the Bible: God tells Abraham to take his son, his only son, Isaac, and sacrifice him on Mt. Moriah. It caused me to muse a bit about times of testing, and times when things seem to be so hard... First the text: Genesis 22:1-2 1 After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 2 He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” The story is so strange because at first it seems so NOT-God...but it is! Yet the story is so clearly a prophetic picture. It is his "only son", and Mt. Moriah was the pinnacle spot of what would eventually be Jerusalem, and lastly, the words at the end show God's purpose in the test: Genesis 22:7-8 7 And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I a...

Monday, the first Monday in 2016...and you are probably diving into work - whether on the farm, in the office, on the road, or at home... the holidays are over and it is time to get back to work. I don't know if it has ever hit you: Work is sacred... Work is God's provision... Work is a way of making the world better...for yourself and others to prosper, and for you to understand that God wants to involve you. Genesis 2:15 15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. Every year I make a decision to do something that will last the whole year. After a couple of years away from it I'm going to read the through the Bible again. It's not that difficult to do if we understand that it is only 3-4 chapters of Scripture a day. I'm reading the scriptures as a way of studying God's Word...and as a way of understanding God - the one who has given me my Work. I have been reading and studying scripture for 45 ...