Watch Out For Wild Turkeys

By Aubrey Spencer –

Jarrod and I were out for a drive the other day on one of our “coffee dates” when all of a sudden we had to come to a quick stop in order to let a group of wild turkeys cross the road in front of us. (Not something I’d experienced before.) After four or five had crossed the road, we started to take off but noticed one turkey running full speed toward the road in front of us in order to not be left behind by his “buddies.” We slammed on the brakes, avoiding what could have been a nasty feather-flying moment, and watched as that last turkey joined his crew on the other side of the road. I had to laugh at the whole scene. I mean, how many people can’t drive down the road because a herd of wild turkeys are running around them? But then it got me thinking about life in general. How many times do we think we’ve got things under control and start to “take off again” just to be bombarded by another “wild turkey”? We take our eyes off our goal for a second and then get blindsided by problems, temptations, bad attitudes, etc. running full speed right at us.

We need to be prepared at all times—for the “turkeys” we can easily see. And for the ones that come sneaking up beside us, running wildly, ready to cause a crash in our lives. Who knew so much could be learned from an encounter with wild turkeys? I guess God can use anything to remind me of keeping my eyes on Him!

PRAYER: Father, help me keep my eyes on You. So often I get distracted and forget my focus. Remind me that You are in control and that You alone are worthy of my attention.

“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2 NIV).

Today’s devotional is by Aubrey Spencer. Aubrey is a real housewife of northwest Kansas. She is a minister’s wife and a mom to two little miracles, Oliver and Ava. She has a passion for writing and entertaining but realizes her greatest ministry at the moment is to raise her children to be people after God’s own heart. She loves to see how God shows up in everyday situations. Read more of her writings at http://ministrymama.blogspot.com.

Back to Basics

By Don Otis –

What do you want to achieve in the New Year? In fitness language, setting goals and maintaining them is called adherence. As it is with anything in life, your goals determine your behavior. We don’t stumble into good health any more than we do ill-health. It takes intention. Or, in Christian terms, we set our heart (will) toward a goal.

In the past several articles, we have talked about how easy it is to fall off the wagon, so to speak, when it comes to adherence to our goals. We have discussed the importance of consistency, cross- training to break up the monotony, and having definable objectives. We have discussed fat-burning cardio exercises and what works best. This means intensity over duration. In other words, it is better to increasing your intensity on a treadmill than to walk slowly for 45 minutes. We call this quality or quantity. Some people think they have to spend a lot of time to get satisfactory results. Not true.

This weekend I had an hour of sunlight left and wanted to get a mountain bike ride in on the Santa Rosa Plateau in southern California. I met up with a Christian chiropractor and we took off at a breakneck speed (there is a reason they call it “breakneck”). We finished ten miles on single track trails just as the sun set. I had resolved to work out that day, even if it was challenging to do it before the sun set.

Here are some of the questions in the Exercise Confidence Survey asked by fitness trainers who want to access the resolve of new clients.

Do you get up early, even on weekends, to exercise?

Do you stick to your exercise program after a long, tiring day at work?

Do you exercise even though you are feeling depressed?

Do you stick with your program even when you have household chores or social obligations to attend to?

I would add many of my own questions to the survey, like “Are you willing to turn off the television or stay off Facebook long enough to exercise? The biggest distracters are our schedules, family obligations, vocational responsibility, or fatigue/depression.

For me, one of the ways I stay motivated is to document what I do. It is simply writing down what I have done for the day on a 4 X 6 card. I have hundreds of these from decades ago. I know, for example, how much slower I am today than twenty years ago. Although my miles are slower, I keep moving and setting goals. This year will end with 1700 miles logged! Whatever your goals are, write them down, check on your progress, and persevere.

The most critical period of adherence to exercise is the first three to six months. This is one of the reasons I encourage a slow, methodical approach that helps people maintain a lifestyle of God-honoring, healthful living. Another reason for the slower approach is to avoid burnout or injury. If you are older or heavier, start with low-impact activities.

If it is helpful, write a contract–even if it is between yourself and God, or yourself and your spouse. Include a series of goals (make these reasonable) and determine to adhere to them–to “show up” even when you don’t feel like it.

Don S. Otis is am ACE Certified personal trainer, the author of Keeping Fit after 40 and Whisker Rubs: Developing the Masculine Identity. He is the president of Veritas Communications, a Christian publicity agency based in Canon City, Colorado. You can contact him at don@veritasincorporated.com.

The Sanctity of Human Life Sunday

By Dianne E. Butts  –

The National Sanctity of Human Life Sunday is January 23, 2011. Each year, Sanctity of Human Life Sunday is held on the Sunday closest to January 22, the date in 1973 when the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision on Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton which legalized abortion on demand.

Since then, there have been nearly 50 million abortions in the United States. Here are some more statistics about abortion in America:

• In the United States, approximately 3,700 abortions are performed every day.

• Of all pregnancies in America (excluding miscarriages), 22% end in abortion.

• About 61% of abortions are obtained by women who have one or more children.

• Of all abortions only 1% occur because of rape or incest. This means that of those 3,700 abortions performed every day, only 37 are because of rape or incest.

• What about the other 3,663? Potential health problems regarding either the mother or child account for 6% (222). The remaining 93% (3,441) are for “social reasons” (i.e. the child is unwanted or inconvenient).

• Of all abortions, 18% are performed on women who identify themselves as “Born-again/Evangelical.”

• Of all abortions in the United States, women identifying themselves as Protestants obtain 37.4%; Catholic obtain 31.3%; Jewish obtained 1.3%; and women with no religious affiliation obtain 23.7%.

• If you’ve seen the “Precious Feet” lapel pin of two tiny human feet, the international pro-life symbol for nearly thirty years, you may know those feet are the exact size and shape of an unborn baby’s feet at ten weeks after conception. Of all abortions, 52% occur before the ninth week of pregnancy and 25% between the ninth and tenth weeks.

• By the time they are 45 years old, an estimated 43% of all women will have at least one abortion.

Do you find anything startling in these statistics? Perhaps you thought abortion today was rare, or only needed or used in extreme cases. This Sunday, on Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, how might you pray for our nation? If you’re inclined to do a bit more, where might you volunteer to make a difference? And the next time you have the privilege, how will you cast your vote?

I’ve learned that many women (and men) who have experienced abortion and now regret it, feel they have committed the unforgiveable. Think of it. According to statistics, this issue affects up to 43% of our population. Through hearing their stories, I’ve learned what a difference it makes in their lives, and their walk with God, when someone compassionately reaches out to them with mercy, talks with them about God’s forgiveness, and helps restore them in their relationship with Christ.

“For you, O LORD, have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before the LORD in the land of the living” (Psalm 116:8-9, NIV).

Dianne is the author of the coming new book, Deliver Me: Hope, Help, and Healing through True Stories of Unplanned Pregnancy (Connections, 2011), www.DeliverMeBook.com. When she’s not writing, she enjoys riding her motorcycle with her husband, Hal, and gardening with her cat, P.C., in Colorado. www.DianneEButts.com

Editor’s note: You may contact the author for information regarding statistics referenced above.

Statistics to Believe In

By Hally Franz –

There are twenty-five varieties of warblers…

As 2010 is ended and a new year begins, there’s a time for summing up the good, bad and ugly numbers connected with the closing year. Some statistics relate to the financial condition of our country. Retailers will calculate holiday sales for 2010, selling us theories about spending and consumer faith or fear. And, we’ll be worked over by the most recent government-provided data on our country’s ever-growing national debt and rates of unemployment.

There will be frightening facts about health in the United States, and year-end evaluations will no-doubt alert us to rising rates of diabetes, heart disease and obesity, figures we can live without.

Some of the hardest numbers to absorb are those having to do with our humanity and morals as a society. We get pummeled by crime rates of communities around the country, the growing problem of internet pornography, and stories of violence and abuse.

When we strive to start a new year with hopeful resolutions, we often are bombarded with news that’s far from encouraging. Those funneling the numerical news to the masses sometimes have ulterior motives and may be just as easily spouting fuzzy math and facts.

I had the opportunity to visit one of our state parks recently. In this state park in my back yard, there are 158 species of birds, and twenty-five of those are warblers. Tennessee, Magnolia, Worm-eating, Red-eyed, and Yellow-rumped are five of them. I know nothing about warblers, but they sound like some interesting creature-characters.

There are 3,675 state parks in the U.S.A. and approximately 195 countries in the world. If I do any kind of math, that adds up to lots of crazy and kooky birds, not to mention horses, dogs, snakes, tigers and apes, to name a few.

When I’m striving to move beyond the post-holiday blues to set goals for 2011, I need to hear state park numbers as much as state-of-the-union numbers. While we must face our country’s financial, health and societal challenges, we also need to be uplifted by the God numbers. We humans cause debt, sickness, and sin, but our Heavenly Father created our vast and beautiful world before all those things came about. He gave it to us, and He loves us even when we make messes of things. And, He’s on our side when we start each year trying to do a little better.

PRAYER: Heavenly Father, while the world presents discouraging news and numbers, enable us to see the magnitude and magnificence of your creation. Replace frustration with hope as we begin a new year in Your service.

“And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good” (Genesis1:20-21 KJV).

Today’s devotion is by Hally Franz. Hally is a former teacher and high school guidance counselor, turned homemaker. She enjoys volunteering at her children’s school, teaching Bible classes at her church, leading projects in 4-H, writing, reading, scrapbooking, and rousing (though, sometimes, not pretty) zumba classes.

Seeing Past Paradise

By Peter Lundell –

My wife earned an all-expenses-paid trip to a gargantuan, opulent resort for a working vacation, and I got to go along. I was awestruck at the gardens, aquariums, water-park, ocean, and at the grandiosity of the architecture—the billions of dollars that must have gone into making this heaven on earth. I thanked God I didn’t have to pay.

Being so enthralled with the immensity of the place, I found myself not praying or reading my Bible as much as I normally do. Oh, my.

So I asked myself where God fit into this picture of extravagance. Since God is everywhere all the time, isn’t it up to us to determine where He fits into our lives—or more accurately, where we fit into His universe? As I surveyed this Garden of Eden, this palace of kings, I started looking beyond it. And I saw two things.

First, though it would take four days to see everything in this resort, it’s still just a dot on the planet. It would take many lifetimes to see even a fraction of everything on God’s earth—and it’s still a tiny ball in a vast cosmos.

Second, if humans could build such impressive places, what must heaven be like? Being at this resort gave me a new anticipation for how God’s eternal resort must be infinitely beyond this earthly one. Absolutely beyond imagination.

From that point I continuously found myself praying and reaching for my Bible. The change was a matter of getting a new perspective. Whether your life feels good or bad right now, here’s a promise from 1 Corinthians 2:9: “No eye has see, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.”

PRAYER: Father, keep my eyes always open to see beyond the amazing man-made wonders of this world to the infinitely greater wonders You have in store for those who believe.

“This is what the LORD says: ‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be? Has not my hand made all these things,    and so they came into being?’ declares the LORD. ‘This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word’” (Isaiah 66:1–2 NIV).

Today’s devotion is by Peter Lundell, author of the award-winning book Prayer Power. A rising new voice on connecting with God, Lundell is a pastor, Bible college teacher, and conference speaker. Visit him at www.PeterLundell.com for his inspirational “Connections” and free downloads of articles, parables, short stories, and book chapters.

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