Had a few minutes between appointments yesterday so instead of coming home Carla and I delivered and donated some books to the Library and the Discovery Center’s gift shop.

While there, talking to the clerk, an older lady came up and told her she would buy one if I would sign it.  Sold one.  Even before I could leave.

Still not doing as well as I want.  Getting stronger, still have good and bad days, but getting better.  I was told to expect this, it was a nasty bug and did some damage to my system.  Hopefully the tests in another week will come up okay.

Really pretty today, Mt. Hood was beautiful as it glistened in the morning sun.  Not a lot of snow on it, but enough to make it look completely covered AND within arm’s reach.  A little later went out to get a photo and it was clouded over, oh, well.

“I am positively sure after many years of observation and prayer that the basis of all of our trouble today, in religious circles, is that our God is too small.

When he says magnify the Lord, he doesn't mean that you are to make God big, but you are to see Him big. When we take a telescope and look at a star, we don't make the star bigger, we only see it big. Likewise you cannot make God bigger, but you are only to see Him bigger....” - Tozer

Psalm 34:3 Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together.

Carla and I watched the movie, LILLIES OF THE FIELD, last night for probably the umpteenth time.

It was shot in Arizona in about a two week period of time with a very small budget.  The actors were paid a token and given a piece of the profits. 

It ended up receiving several Academy nominations and the Best Actor of the Year for Sydney Poitier. 

If you haven’t seen it, it is well worth looking up on Netflix or whatever extra stuff you might have to watch movies.

It is a story about faith; even if fictional. 

Five nuns come over the wall from East Germany, travel 8000 miles to take possession of a small farm that was donated to the order. 

The Mother Superior had a dream of building a Chapel for the local citizens.  They had no money, no means of support.  They had very little to eat and subsided on what they could grow, and raise.  Or at least that was the premise; if it was based on reality they probably would have also received produce and meat from the local citizens.

None the less, when Sydney Poitier’s character ‘Homer Smith’ pulled into their driveway to get some water for his car she felt he had been sent from God.  He was an itinerate, jack-of-all trades, handy man and he agreed to do some repair work on the roof, expecting to get paid.

The title comes from Mathew 6:27-29 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

²⁸ And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

²⁹ And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

The Mother Superior used these verses to defend her position of not paying Poitier’s character for work he performed.  

Once she saw he could actually work with his hands she was more convinced he was sent from God and the story line follows of disagreements between the two.

Even though she wrote many letters asking for support she couldn’t get materials she promised, no one was donating anything.  She “was depending on people and not God to provide the materials.”  He had nothing to work on, they get in an argument and he leaves.

She had introduced him to the small congregation who attended mass, given by a Circuit riding Priest out of the back of his pickup on a small lot next to the only business in the area, a small grocery/café/gas station.  He was going to build them a ‘shapel.’  (German accent.)

After he left she and the nuns would resume walking several miles to the services and, of course, were embarrassed and downtrodden.

After several weeks he comes back, brings them to the services and the congregation decides to support the project.

Not all of it follows biblical principles; two of the main characters participate not because they believed in God, but to have ‘insurance’ in case there was a God.  They could point to their activities as a way to earn their way into heaven.  We know better.

The final outcome:  a new chapel. 

It is a humorous feel good story and shows what determination, prayer and faith can accomplish.  The interaction between the Mother and Poitier is well done.  She received an academy award nomination.

Every time I see it, I am reminded that one person, who has faith in God, can make a difference.  The Mother’s tenacity, belief and faith that God will provide is a good lesson for all of us.

We hamper God.  We too often think that our problems are so big, or our sorrow so strong that no one, and nothing can help us and we go deeper into despair.

We pray to Him, we ask for relief, we ask for deliverance, we ask for strength and if it doesn’t come immediately we give up thinking God isn’t going to do anything – that He has left us to our own devices.

We forget that God CREATED the universe.  That, in His Word, by both promise and recorded deeds He has shown His love and desire to be with us no matter our circumstances.

Just because He doesn’t answer immediately, and especially the way WE want Him to, doesn’t mean He isn’t with us, doesn’t mean He doesn’t care.

Mathew 28:19-20 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

²⁰ Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

 

And we can remember this as we pray for the lost hunter!

AMEN!!

Later, Art :-)