Bittersweet Farm

Pray for Christians in Iran and in the Muslim countries of the Middle-east. Pastor Yousef Nadarchani has been imprisoned for his faith and he maybe executed unless he renounces his faith. He wants to train his children as Christians and because he was converted from Islam, he is being pressured to renounce his faith. Let’s follow his story and pray for he and his family.

Take a minute to read this article from Mission Network News.

A Classic re-post from 2007

I love to think that I have been used in some small way to point people to the glories of Christ, His creation, and His other works. Today I received evidence in my e-mail box that the Lord has used me in the life of Josiah Faas in that way. He sent me this comment:

I thought of you today as I drove up a couple streets to the new McD’s for Hazelnut Iced. The fields are being harvested and the trees are adorned in their fall colors. I go down a little road through an alley of trees and my tires kick up the yellow leaves strewn on the road. It’s beautiful here. God is very good, and I thought I’d thank you for being a voice in my life to stir up my heart to see Christ more in everything around me. I love His creation so much, and to think it’s a but a mere, fallen reflection of the beautiful Creator. How wonderful He must be. God bless you, I hope you’re having a great week. Thank you and your family for being my friends.

Last week in the Northwoods I captured a photo of Ox Yoke Lake for my son. He recently told me that he spent many Sunday afternoons with the Lord looking on this scene. I like to think I inspired him Godward, too.

I pulled this from Kyle’s site this morning:

In my heart wells the warmest feelings of happiness when the cool days of autumn come. It is a deeply rooted happiness from childhood. My love for the season of autumn was passed down from generations before me. I believe this passing down to be a gradual process. I do not believe there is one single moment when the next generation possesses an inherited love for autumn, but if there was I remember the day it happened for me.

It must have been mid-October. Dad broke from writing in his garret study to take me on an autumn stroll. We walked slowly back the old, abandoned road bed to a clearing on a bluff over Yoder Creek. The view is embedded into my memory. The rolling hills of the valley were covered with corn that would be harvested in a few weeks. The glistening water of the Kokosing River wound it’s way through the valley. A slight breeze carried with it the scent and chill that only comes two months of the year. Leaves of the Maple, Ash, and Beech trees blew across our gaze. We stood side by side, the only noise the singing of creation around us. It was one of the moments of the season man cannot ordain. One of those times that is a coming together of God’s predestination and man’s stumbling into it.

As we stood and soaked up the glory of the moment, Dad pulled from the pocket of his jacket a copy of the Creator’s Word. He opened and read;

” – You visit the earth and water it; you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; you provide their grain, for so you have prepared it. You water its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening it with showers, and blessing its growth. You crown the year with bounty; your wagon tracks overflow with abundance. The pastures of the wilderness overflow, the hills gird themselves with joy, the meadows clothe themselves with flocks, the valleys deck themselves with grain, they shout and sing together for joy.” – Psalm 65: 9-13

Here is a secular idea that every preacher and teacher should consider when they are presenting the truth of God to an audience.

Check it out here.