happy 100th to our national parks

To celebrate the 100th birthday of our National Parks, here are a few pics of my favorite park (Glacier) along with some of my favorite people. 

prayer as gift

"Every time I try to turn my prayer life around on my own, I tend to run out of steam. But over the years I have learned a different story from the Scriptures. Little by little, God the Father has used the school of hard knocks to join me with Jesus in prayer and to rely on the Holy Spirit for my spiritual life rather than on my own resources. So now I no longer regard prayer as an obligation or as a duty that I must fulfill, but as something that is given to me, something that I receive as a gift from the triune God." - Dr. John Kleinig

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scripture interprets scripture

"The entire system of dispensational millenialism is designed in such a way that you can look at current events and then go to specific instances in Scripture to try and find fulfillment. The very fact that you're looking at the Bible in this way means that you're majoring on the minors. You begin thinking more like Nostradamus than a historical reformation Christian, as you look up all these verses to prove that what's going on in the news everyday is actually predicted in Scripture. You end up doing your Bible interpretation totally bass-ackwards - seeing something on the news that you can't explain and then going to some obscure passage in Ezekiel, Jeremiah, or one of the minor prophets to explain it. Instead, we should allow Scripture to interpret Scripture, and interpret the cloudy passages with the ones that are clear."  -  Dr. Kim Riddlebarger

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olympic torch lighting

ht - new yorker

happy monday

happy monday from kilauea volcano in hawaii

ht - paradise helicopters