Walking The Walk

Last week, the Balsora Baptist Church in Bridgeport, Texas caught fire.  Although fire fighters worked hard to save the church (parts of it were over a hundred years old) the structure burned to the ground.  The fire burned intensely hot, and finally the roof collapsed.  No serious injuries, but a couple firefighters were treated at the scene. The only thing left standing was this striking symbol--the cross.  The Lake Bridgeport Volunteer Fire Department said it all on the website.  "It remains standing in all of its glory, while its background is nothing but ash and debris.  Simple reminder how precious life is and how quickly it can turn."   The church plans to rebuild--lets pray for their success.  And if you'd like to help out, you can send donations to: Balsora Baptist Church 108 CR 3623 Bridgeport, TX 76426 I'm sure they'd appreciate it!  ~Todd Creason

The world renown theologian Karl Barth had a famous anecdote that I'll try and tell you in my own version, and add some of my own thoughts to it.  It went something like this: Imagine if you will a people that live in a giant warehouse.  They are born in the warehouse.  Everything they need to live is in the warehouse.  All they know is life in this giant warehouse.  There are no doors, but there are windows--covered in dirt and grime and never paid much attention to. But one day the children noticed the windows, and they pulled a ladder over to one of them, and wiped away the generations of grime that had collected over the panes, and looked out.  And what they saw surprised them.  There were people outside that window, walking up and down the streets seemingly oblivious to the warehouse they lived in.  And as the children are watching these people in wonder, suddenly these people are all looking up in the sky and pointing (maybe there was an air...

When I first read the story, I thought it was an internet rumor, but as it turns out, Dolly Parton did give one million dollars to research on the COVID vaccine.  The story has been fact-checked, and it's absolutely true.  Her friend, Dr. Naji Abumrad, was researching a COVID vaccine at Vanderbilt (that later became the Moderna vaccine).  She gave the research team a boost with a donation of $1 million.  Dr. Abumrad said, “Without a doubt in my mind, her funding made the research toward the vaccine go 10 times faster than it would be without it." "I just felt so proud to have been part of that little seed money that will hopefully grow into something great and help to heal this world." ~Dolly Parton Dolly grew up in dire poverty, and her musical talent made it possible to escape that world, but she's never forgotten the experience of being in need.  She's donated millions over her career to people in need.  She donated $9 million dollars in 2016 to people ...

"For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God." ~Romans 1:20 Today something truly inspirational happened for the first time in a long, long time.  NASA launched the first new space vehicle into orbit today in more than 40 years.  It's the beginning of a new era of space exploration and discovery! This happened in the midst of so much bad news lately.  Pandemic. Politics. Violence on our streets. All wildly exaggerated and hyped by a dishonest news media driven by ratings and advertising dollars. But this is the way the world has always been--in one way or another. There's a lot of good things that are happening in the world today also. Those don't make interesting news stories so we don't hear much about those things. But if you look for them, they are there.  As ...

"Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it." ~Proverbs 22:6  I saw this wonderful story on social media recently about a Chinese family.  Back in 1980, a new father took his one year old daughter on a trip to a lake in China.  Once there, they had their picture taken beside the lake.  The father loved the photo, and the next year, he decided to take his daughter to the same lake and take the photo again.  They continued to do that every year, except one, for 35 years! I probably spent an hour looking at the collection of 34 photos.  You can find them all here .  They went from black and white to color.  The lake background changed from a wilderness area to being more of a public park.  One of the photos of the girl in her teens showed without question she didn't want her picture taken--I know that phase of female adolescence well.  And then the granddaughters arrived-...