Luke 2:10 But the angel said, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.

Many have wondered what an angel looks like. Has he two feet? Six wings or two? Have they ranks among themselves? Can they be seen? 

In a time, where others look for U.F.O.s, they seem to miss one point: Angels are probably that, unidentified flying objects. They bring good news of great joy to the shepherds. They fight the good fight. Do they dance? Do they dance on the famous needle tip? Scripture says they sing. 

Did you ever think heaven might be boring? Think again. That's were the power is and the party, just we can't see it now. Doesn't hinder them being happy and glorious. And full of God's power. Might be a dangerous object to encounter. Or fascinating. Shining brightly with God's light. Some days I can hardly wait to be there, so much beauty and power in one place! Heaven is a wonderful place.

Isaiah 43:19 See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

God did a wonderful and new thing when Jesus came to earth. Many were quite shocked at the way he put his only beloved son not into greatest glory and majesty, but in a manger with a barely wed girl. Many a shocked today at this. Is this the most powerful God, who created heavens and stars and worlds? It is. He has taught us to look for him in new places. I wish you and myself that we may find him there, where he has pointed us to and bow in humility before his eternal wisdom and grace. Sing to God a new song and make a path for his ways, please. Many blessings are promised to the one who will search for the light and not turn back, neither by bribery nor by threat. May his love be around me and you. Have a wonderful and truly joyful Christmas.

Revelation 20:15 Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

Our society is based upom names written in books or on sheets of paper or nowadays in computer files. Be it a birth certificat, a pay-check, a letter, alwyas there has to be a name on it, somebody whom it is talking about, somebody whom it is addressed to.

They are important, those papers. Loosing them means loosing part of the identity, part of what I think I am. My name on those papers tells me who I am. On graduation or driving-test, on building a company or going to a party. It is important to have the name that belongs to me written on the right lists. It became popular with many celebrities trying to enter certain parties where they were unknown. Not on the guest list. No way to get in. Not even for a celebrity.

How much more exclusive even though on a different standard will God's list be. Is my name written upon it? Do I live so that my name is in there? That I made it clear? That's the party I want to join? To be greeted at the entry with a merry: "Come in!" "Welcome." 

What books, what papers is my name written upon? Which ones are important? Where is my priority? Where do I want to get in? And you? I want to go to heaven. I know. I want to join God's party. Nothing else will do. Will I meet you there? I'd love to. 

Matthew 6:34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

God will take care of his own people. He has not always be very tender with them. To educate and test them, he has put terrible challenges and choice before them Just consider this verse: 2 Kings 6:28
Then he asked her, “What’s the matter?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we’ll eat my son.’  Isn't that a terrible verse? A verse that seems to contradict all human feeling? But then, do we know who we'd be tomorrow, if that morrow brings mourning and sorrow? If it brings hunger so vast, that mothers think about eating their own children in order to survive. 

Can you be sure, what tomorrow will be made of? To many it is only more of the same. More work, more washing, more cooking, more driving, more yelling and being yelled at. And so on. If there is no peace between me and God today, tomorrow brings no new hope, as much as I'd like it to be.

But those who have found peace with God, even in the midst of terrible temptations they can lean back and not worry about tomorrow. For with the challenge God will bring new ways to get by. To get a little closer to heaven. Not only tomorrow. Today.

Genesis 1:3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

Light falling on a person or a thing reveals a lot of information. For we gather information through our eyes and to see we need light. Without light, to us, nothing is. There have been discussions in science, 100 years ago. If things are if they are not seen or known. Is the coffee-cup behind your back there, when you don't watch it? Where should it go you wonder? Well, if you don't give it a name and a sense, it may just be there but without purpose. If it is there at all. 

Is God there if we don't see him? We believe he is. Is he there, if nobody believes in him? We believe he is. That's called idealistic. Thinking things are whether I know it or not. Whether I see it or not. 

Turn the question around and it makes more sense to me. Is there naything if nobody perceives it? God does. There is nothing his light doesn't shine on. And his light changes perception as much as a color added to a spot changes the color of the object. 

If your shirt is blue in blue light, what color will it have in white light? Still blue? or white? God's presence changes the light we live in and many things we used to call blue may well be white.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son....

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son....

Most of us know that verse. If we know only one verse it may well be this. Pondering it in my mind while I listen to some christmas tune, this thought was coming up. Christmas, as happy as we celebrate it, wasn't a happy day. It wasn't happy for God, even though he did what he had decided to do to give us a chance. Yet. knowing all as he did, it cannot have been a happy decision to give his precious son for our salvation. Salvation of a band of disturbed children that wouldn't even value the gift given and not comprehend its immense beauty and intent.

It probably wasn't all too comfotable for Jesus either, being born into a hostile world, into poverty, into certain death. To leave a so much better place behind, even if only for a moment counted short in front of eternity. 

I wouldn't enjoy leaving even my warm and comfortable little place for a stable, much less heaven. Just think! No, it is unthinkable.

Psalm 74:16 The day is yours, and yours also the night; you established the sun and moon.

I love looking at the moon, whether he is bright or barely visible, full or half, he seems to comfort me, just looking at him. For there is a power working in this universe that keeps the sun and the moon and the stars in its appointed place. As big as they are, they should fall or roll around chaotically or stand. Instead they move as if in a complicated dance with grace and precision one towards the other, each knowing its place. Whether you believ in science or not, (I believe rather in God), it is a miracle and a wonder to the eye and the heart. Who taught the moon to dance? Who taught the stars to shine? Who told the earth to spin? God does. In him is the why and the what well hidden. Some hundreds of years ago man thought the earth was flat with the sun and the stars pinned to a coverlike sky. Know we "know" so much more. i wonder, what we will "know for sure" in a 100 years from now. And whether we will know more about the power of God.

Hebrews 11:13 ... they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

The bird again. Have you ever felt like running against walls where a door was supposed to be? As if somebody had removed it, laughing like mad at your confusion and pain? Have you ever done a thing you thought great and good and got nothing but trouble out of it?

What do you do? Praise God, for if it truly was a good thing, the recompense coming from God will be even greater, where this world despises it? Thank God for the adversity? For the impenetrable walls that seem to leave no way out? Like a nightmare or a horror movie, where what is good is mocked to praise the evil deed? This world is - and should be a nightmare - for God's true children. Welcome to heaven. This world will hate the smell of it with fury and call it bad names. 

It'll help get closer to God. Promise.

Psalm 145:14 The Lord upholds all those [of His own] who are falling and raises up all those who are bowed down.

I have often felt like falling. But never as much as lately, when everything I have been working for seems to be taken from me. All things I have worked hard for achieving are eluding me, as if given to somebody else. It feels as if I were falling and falling and falling.  With nobody I would have thought of to be there. All alone.

With nobody I would have thought of to be there. All alone.  - But this is not written to complain. The more I fall, the more I become grateful for the falling. There is a beauty in it, that I didn't know about.  I have to trust that God will catch me somehow. Even if I will get wet. Or have been getting wet. I'll do it again. God is awesome and great. The world has become a sweet and meaningful place by falling, by having to give up my own importance. (Even if I am still choking every now and than, I pray God will see me through the choking as well, I feel like a cow to always chew and rechew things... he knows, he can save.)

Gen. 3:10 And he (Adam) said, I heard thy (God's) voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

Which position is more beautiful? Which is more dangerous? Walking in the light or in darkness? Both have different advantages depending on who or what we are. 

Blending in is usually the safest spot to be in. Which is why many small animals have learned to survive by  mimicking sourroundings, by adapting in color or/and shape. Which is, what Adam and Eve did when they started to fear God's presence. It had become a terror to them. But there is no hiding before the eye of God. Naked we all stand in front of him. Known and seen up into the deepest cell or fiber of body and mind.  Better to get right right away. God will be gracious and forgive. And give a new life out of the shadows. As fearsome as that may sound, it is worth the going. Much more, God is worth the going. Even if it kills. Especially when it kills. 

Gen. 3:8 And they heard the voice of Jehovah God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Jehovah God amongst the trees of the garden.

The one person, blending in perfectly without any disturbance to our perception of things is often the one we favour and if that person makes us look good, we'll like him all the more. Until God calls us and in his light, in his presence things may take a shift to the unpleasant. Please, for the grace of God, have nothing to hide to him and be ready to enjoy the evening stroll in heavenly gardens.

The bird tries to blend into his surroundings. Many animals do by mimicking the world they live in. We do by trying to be like everybody else. To be invisible in society. The most invisible man will be most successful. 

Luke 12:27 Consider the lilies, how they grow.

God is great. He gives us beauty in every flower. In every face.

As the flowers wither, so faces wither and grow old. Yet not less beautiful for the one who can see the beauty.

The beauty of all things present and past. The beauty of fading and being reborn.

It hurts to fade. It hurts to see a loved face grow old, fade away. But where it grows old towards eternity, there is everlasting beauty. And the promise of rebirth. And heaven truly is a wonderful place to be reborn into.

Matthew 23:28 Just so, you also outwardly seem to people to be just and upright but inside you are full of pretense and lawlessness and iniquity.

This is part of the parliament here, a very impressive building. People come from afar to see it.

I have not been inside, but those who know, they tell me the inside is completely neglected, not renovated for 100 years, with a leaking roof and unsufficient plumbery. 

Before it is a place on which the sky seems huge and seems to invite  to rather concentrate on what matters most. God's kingdom. The official shame of a cross, of surrender to circumstances that where far less than ideal. The greates palace couldn't hold God, only a stable could. My eyes follow the clouds and I know, heaven starts right here, at my feet, in my eyes.

Jer. 31:3 The Lord appeared from of old to me, saying, yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love.

We could tell each other. We could sing it from the hills. We could drum the rhythm to our friends. We could encourage  us one another. Take a stand for all eternity. By the way we live and love. 

Drum it to all generations. God loves us. Eternally. Faithfully. And I will do the same to the measure of grace accorded to me. May it be a sweet sound in the ears of the Lord. Will you join?

He has sent the autumn rain and the spring rain as before. Joel 2:23

The morning mist in the hills looks pretty. I love those hills and try to go once a week. To go out of town - which I love dearly - helps me to get a different focus. To get in touch with nature. My nature and God's nature are there too. Not always very compatible. But the beauty helps me to forget my own shortcomings and to concentrate on the beauty God gives to all. Whether they know it or not, whether they want God to be good to them or not.
To need somebodies interference to make everything bright is a delight were that someone is a friend, but others may even come to hate the beauty because they cannot make or control it. God can. He makes it spring and summer, autumn and winter. We go through theses and find their blessings, whether in a material world or in a spiritual world. We all depend on God's mercy, willingly or unwillingly. Being able to give thanks and to enjoy what is given is a blessing in itself. Those, who can only complain, live in hell even here on earth. Those who enjoy have a foretaste of what heaven will be like.

“Let there be no strange god among you; Nor shall you worship any foreign god. “I, the LORD, am your God. Ps 81:9

This man prays to his gods. He is sincere and honest, probably as honest as he can be. Is he right? Before we quickly condemn him, how sincerely do we believe? Do we trust? How much intensity do we give God? I wonder, if this man's feeling is right, whether God will not give him grace, where we as luke-warm believers may ask in vain. God deserves so much more then this egyptian gives to his god. He deserves our undivided love and service. Then he will give grace  and mercy and living water will flow into the life of the faithful.

“Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”” John 6:29 NIV

..and I wish all places where taken as they often are here.

This film hasn't started yet, it will soon. The film of my life started quite a while ago and I am glad the film changed , though at times I still feel caught in the wrong film. That may just be, because I am not good enough for God's film. Or I am taking time getting used to it. May he be blessed. Wish I could better express what it means to me. Even though it may be the wrong film. ;)))

Terrors: The Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom

http://www.authonomy.com/books/36440/terrors-the-fear-of-the-lord-is-the-beginning-of-wisdom/

The first part of my book made it onto place 14 of the New-Comer-List on authonomy. I am so happy and excited. I even got 6 stars for it, which is the best you can get for writing. - Of course you can all go and read or even support me, I'd be happier still. Feels like God's blessing is breathing onto my effort, if I may be so bold. God be praised. This is awesome.

Matthew 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

God's heart is pure. So pure that no filth can approach it, as much as lovingly he might long for it.

We are like aimlessly wandering hearts in space, until we find purity, and find rest in God. 

Then the trees of the forest will sing for joy before the LORD;... 1 Chron. 16:33

The trees will sing with joy, they seem to be full of joy even as I am walking through.

They give shelter, they play exquisitely with the suns light.

They  relieve the eyes of the hard forms of brick and concrete.

They are a joy to my tired heart, a God-given place for worship and prayer.

He *said to him, “Do you wish to get well?” (John 5:6)

Sunny summer days are a delight to the eye and skin, they show a pretty side of nature and one easily agreed upon. Sometimes it looks as if it had been touched by and angel. And has some power to heal sadness and sorrow. 

The big picture is beautiful, with a high sky and summer clouds wandering by. It is joy to the eye and the heart.  To get some of the air, hot with sunshine and cooled with a breeze is to me always part of a greater miracle.

The small picture may be more difficult to see and it is way more fragile than the great view. It is beautful in its fragility and composition of color. Every one of these little things make the big picture beautiful. If one is missed, will anyone care? One may not make a difference as the dog in his impetouos ways jumps on several of them. But even though - it is the small things in life that make the big picture pretty. Jesus cared for crowds, big picture, he cared as well for little children, small picture.  

But at Bethesda, where many sick people were waiting for the angel to touch the waters to be made whole, Jesus only healed one man. That has often puzzeled me. Why wouldn't Jesus make the waters move constantly or do a general healing "session"? Because often the sickness is for us a learning opportunity. he healed that one man to teach him a lesson. Which the man did not learn. It is a challenge to admit, I don't get the big picture here. If I could. I would have healed everybody. Wouldn`t you?  Maybe in their hearts they didn't want to get well? Or wanted to have their own ways? I have to trust, that Jesus knows what needs to be done. For me and for others. He is Lord. If I don't forget, the picture may remain foggy but beautiful. If I don't trust, nasty spots will easily appear. Not in this world but in my soul. Those spots will hinder my seeing the wonders of God. Even though it may not be easy to trust where I don't understand. I am like the small flower in a big picture that only God sees.

Philippians 4:9 The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

There is a serious promise attached to a huge demand. Do, what you know to be right, do, what you know to be the way, Jesus has set you on, and deep inner peace will follow. Many would love to find inner peace. They might travel around the world in search for it. But to obey God? Too easy? Too difficult? It is the only way to find inner peace. And I have tried some of the trodden paths. It may feel nice, but the hearts longing usually remains empty. In getting closer to God there is this assurance of peace. And the world around may start spinning with madness and disgust. But God will be there and bring peace. He will satisfy every need. Even if it may be by taking the need away. He has his own ways of being glorious and funny and wonderful. Which is why: Heaven is a wonderful place. (And though fish may look peaceful, as much as I know they strive as much as anybody else. Yet their watery world somehow seems to promise relief, at least relief from the weight of my own self...)

Isaiah 65:25 The wolf and the lamb will graze together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

I have often been gazing at the piranha, wondering whether he enjoys his bloody meals.  Whether he has a choice to survive, if he refused to live on blood. He seemed to look at me saying: "We are not so different, you know. Don't you hide sharp teeth behind a pretty face? Sprinkled with red and gold, aren't you deadly sometimes? Can you survive without slandering and harming somebody else? Some probably innocent creature, who wonders what befell him? Do you have a choice to survive in this world? Can you live on "grass" alone? Can you even wish you could be different?" I stood a long time in front of that basin, before wandering off to more peaceful, elegant or funny creatures. As beautiful and bountiful as God made them. But I didn't forget the piranha. Wondering how I can change. How I can be good. And feel good. For being good feels real good. Promise. God can pull out those sharp teeth. Feels a bit scary, helpless, if you know what I mean.