A Planted Seed

Hello Readers, Happy Spring!

View of passing airplanes over our town

I know that I wrote only a couple days ago, but you can believe me that I do enough to write three days later. The pictures I added have a short description beneath them but they don’t necessarily have a connection with the text. Sometimes I can’t connect the pictures directly to the content. So, I want to start this blog off with saying that I believe the Bible in its entirety.

Contrary to what I have heard in the last couple of weeks, I do not believe that the Bible is just a history book or has ‘further developed’. The Bible is many things. It is the Word of God, the history of mankind, and contains the prophecies that are being fulfilled to the end of mankind on this earth. I take it literally, Jesus said ‘blessed is he who is not offended in me’ (Luke 7:23). I have noticed many people are offended by the Bible. It tells them to change their ways, which makes them feel uncomfortable. Or they read a verse and isolate it so that they conclude the Bible is contradictory to itself and impossible to be taken literally in this modern 21^st century. One verse cannot be isolated because it has a second ‘reference’ or ‘key’ verse that opens more understanding and confirms the Word through His Spirit.

Windmill in the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Countryside
I went for a bike ride that turned out to be twenty miles
and I drove into Niedersachen (nee-der-socksen), another state! Had to turn
back because I didn't have my Visa with me. Oöps!
Maybe I would have needed it, I turned around rather than find out the hard way.

The Israelites were oppressed for over four hundred years. God brought them out of Egypt with a mighty hand, signs, and wonders. They walked by a column of fire by night. Bread fell from the sky every morning, enough so that every man had his full. And as if that wasn’t a miracle enough, the people then had the nerve to complain to Moses. They accused him that he brought them into the wilderness to starve. The people cried for meat to go with their bread and because God is so loving, He blessed them with meat as well. They saw the patience, strength, grace, mightiness and fierceness of God firsthand.  I can’t understand why the Israelites walked after other gods time after time after time. I can’t imagine how they could disobey His Word, it seemed as if they had forgotten everything He had done for them. But Moses was wise to the heart of Israel, and warned them. He said ‘Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons’ sons…’ (Deuteronomy 4:9).

Svenja's (my friend) dog, waiting for us to start our
Spring Vegetarian Barbeque
It was a BYOB party
Bring Your Own Beef. They're vegetarian!

I’m sure many Christians say to themselves when they read the story of Israel, ‘I would never disobey God’s Word if He did all that for me’. I’m sure some people shake their heads too when they read that Peter denied Jesus three times within a period of hours. But I realized if it could happen to the people of Israel, and to a personal disciple of Jesus then it could happen to us too, and it does. Too many times I have suffered through days with pounding headaches. The thought of laying my hands on my head and praying healing seems to fleet by, and I would trudge through the day. I act as if I had forgotten God has healed me from not only headaches, by Lyme disease as well. Somewhere in the human heart, we have the innate capability to forget.

Succesfully drove to Svenja's village, a good
eight or nine mile trail through the woods.
Also proudly wearing her moms wooden clogs

Here is how they stack their wood.
Not only does it help drying it out,
but is also decorative too!

In my deepest desire to be in perfect harmony with the will of God, at times when I fail, I remember I am human. Being human is not an excuse to throw everything to the wind, but to stand up and start the race again.

Spring is almost in full swing here. The flowers are all planted, and I myself planted spinach in our garden. I learned that if you want a truly good product, first you have to turn the soil then sift the rocks out. As I was kneeling down by the garden bed with my finger nails full of dirt, I realized that is what God does with us. He turns seemingly our whole life, or aspects of it, upside down and sifts the rocks out. His Living water feeds our roots, and with time and the Son we grow into a strong tree by the riverside.

Beautiful blooming trees on a trail behind my house

I hope you all have a wonderful week,

God Bless. Genevieve!