Storytelling.

I listened to my "new" audiobook on storytelling throughout the day.  Seven disks!  In the background while I was doing other things.  The main point was we respond to stories.  Three stories are needed for whatever you are trying to share with people... to sell them something, to convince them of something.  

THE STORYTELLER'S SECRET : Why some ideas catch on and others don't

The author was the reader - Carmine Gallo.

The copyright year is 2016.

I found it at HamiltonBook.com - where I have been buying used books (and more) for a long time.  The don't have good descriptions so you are taking a chance, especially if you are sending books to someone else, but I haven't had problems.  I check out the titles and whatever description they do provide.  I tend to buy items at the lower price point.  I rarely go above $5 - $10 per item, usually choosing things that are less than $5.  Inflation has hit every business, so their base prices seem to be rising as well.  Right now they have a standard shipping price of $4.00 (I think that was it).  This means whatever you order ships for that same price.  I bought up to four books and the shipping price was still $4.

Two of my sons have been in jails and prisons.  Books become their gifts for birthdays and Christmas.  You can filter for softcover books, the only thing allowed in correction facilities.  Hamilton Books is set up for that.

The other book I bought for myself this time was US founding documents like the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights.  I wanted to have these to read and think about as our nation struggles through the problems we are seeing.  Maybe I can find a way to share my own views.

I didn't make it to a grocery store yet.  My sorting project really makes me tired and weak.  I will have to get that done soon.  I ran out of the onion bits I have been using instead of fresh onions, and popcorn (a serious deprivation :-) , and my real butter is nearly gone.  I think I have three tablespoons left.  Margarine is just not the same, but it does work for some things.

We don't realize how much we depend on our favorite foods, any foods, until it is gone.

I will survive, but it is about all I get to do with my budget... buy food and household items I need.  

I am hoping to get out more.  The local art museum has a free day each month.  The public library has things going on I will try to attend.  I can find new books and DVD's and audio books there.  Once I am able to sell online, and increase my income, I will have more options for things to do.

Finding things while I am sorting is becoming an adventure.  Lots of memories.

The reality of my age and health changes so many things.  I have been trying to be brutal in shredding as much as I can.  It's hard to let go of our dreams and hopes for our lives.  

I turn my focus to GOD and try to think of heaven.  I will be glad to live there for eternity.  Whatever my life has been, I have trusted GOD and done what I thought He wanted me to do.  GOD's Will is the bigger issue.  He knows what it has been about, why things have happened, and what they mean to His Plan.  

You will be glad to know I am finding my writing notes from so many places.  As the winter gets here, I will be working to improve my blog contents.  :-)  There is hope!

Pray for our nation, and the world.  

I just watched a video short where someone decided to pass around a fake voter campaign at Yale asking to get rid of the Constitution.  There were too many people who signed it.  It tells me they don't understand where their rights come from, why they are free.  They don't understand how the lack of freedom affects life in countries who don't allow it, countries who are run by dictators and violence.  It's hard to believe they are at Yale and don't understand these details.

When I was attending the University of Oregon I was in a history class where the teacher-in-training was from Germany and taught the students that Germany was right somehow, saying America was not right somehow.  It has been so many years now I can't remember the details.  Maybe I will find a note somewhere - :-)   I just remember he was teaching them wrong information... which was against America.  That was around the 1980's.  Who knows what has been taught in the "privacy" of classrooms all over the nation.  We are being destroyed from within.

I heard a sermon or other video that shared all the major civilizations didn't die from outward attacks like war, they died from the moral decay of their leaders.  One by one we are dying in the same way.  In God's eyes, America has fallen away.  It no longer represents GOD and goodness.  GOD is not responsible for caring for us, for protecting us, as a nation.  I have always felt that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were GOD telling us His Hand of protection has been taken away.

This is also the path to fulfilling the prophecies of the End Times and the Antichrist.  We just don't want to believe that we could suffer GOD's judgment for our national sins.

Pray for us.  Pray for all Christians.  Pray for our families.  Pray for our nations.

May GOD have mercy on us.

What I think : About the popular Rapture theory.

I started to watch a video by John Hagee about the End Times.  I couldn't watch the whole thing.  I was having computer problems again, but I could hear the audio.  I worry so much about what I see as a false teaching about a Rapture that is suppose to save us from any suffering of the Antichrist.  

LINK to the one I started watching: https://youtu.be/j8-Cj5bMGYk?si=Ijy1at1R1y42AVwS

I understand all the believers will be gone, but my understanding of this time in history and prophecy is that we will be killed by the Antichrist when we refuse to take the Mark of the Beast.

The reason I chose this graphic for today's post is the theme ::  TEST GOD. Trust God.    

I have never understood why this belief became so popular.  Since I have been aware of information sources being altered, I have wondered if that has been part of the problem.  It would have to be very manipulated, but people with money (who hate GOD and all He stands for) might be able to accomplish it.  It's hard to think about.

One time I noticed that a major Christian Bible source was sold to a non-Christian company.  Later I discovered it belonged to a different company.  The issue is that all the details we depend on for our faith could have been changed without us knowing it.  With so many different versions now, who would know the difference?  Not many people know every word of the Bible, and they would only know their one chosen version.

It took years for me to study what I did.  I chose the King James Version, which is not the easiest to understand.  I used other Bible versions to compare the way they had been translated.  

I have noticed that most Bible references are missing now.  I don't know if that is because of so many translations, or to avoid having a specific verse to check.  We live in an age of Bible hate.  The powers we have to deal with would rather confuse everyone then share a theology that differs with their own... or that conflicts with their own.

When the opposition becomes the only power that exists, these issues may be fully controlled by them.  No one will even know there is a Bible, GOD, or anything that says there is sin and judgment for it.  

I have said the only "Rapture" in the Bible is way at the end of our existence, when fire destroys us.  It is only the people who are alive when that happens that get taken to heaven in the form of what we call a rapture.  Other than that time, and the two who were taken to heaven alive, the requirement is to die.  "It is given unto man once to die and then the judgment." - my paraphrase, unless I remembered the KJV well.  The two who went to heaven without dying are expected to be the two witnesses in the End Times. 

I have wondered why GOD would have to take men early like that.  I imagine it is because they lived their FAITH different in their time.  We would never be witnesses like that.

I try to tell everyone that they MUST read the Bible for themselves and make a decision for themselves.  Every denomination has their own interpretations about the controversial things in the Bible.  Once they have a specific definition, you can't really go against it.  This is why we are not ONE Body of Christ.  We need to fix this problem.  I had hoped to try.  

Study this topic.  Pray for GOD to show you His Truth.  You have to find your own answers.  NO ONE WILL BE WITH YOU AT JUDGMENT DAY!!

I hope we will be ready when the Antichrist shows up.\\

What I discovered today.

News.  I find it's a mixed "blessing."  Since the Democratic Convention I haven't watched a lot.  I noticed the "headlines" at YouTube and haven't wanted to hear the liberal themes.

The media has been pushing Harris pretty hard.  One "poll" result I found said she was ahead by the margin of error percentage.  That is amusing.  I wondered if they used the margin amount for her and the non-margin amount for Trump.  

It is a very sad topic for me... the media and our information sources.    

I studied Journalism in college because I wanted to write.  Not writing you would do with an English major, which I would think was books.  I am really bad at grammar.  I have never been able to overcome this problem.  I didn't pass a required test the first time, and I lived in fear of taking it again.  You couldn't continue in Journalism if you didn't pass it in two tries.

I wanted to do more magazine style writing, so that made Journalism as a major the best option for me.  Then LIFE happened, again.

I think the integrity of Journalism has always been an issue.  We depend on our information sources.  It use to be the media was our watchdog, protecting us from the government and from criminals.

I grew up with news personas that had large reputations.  It's hard to remember names.  I was more interested in the news when I wanted to watch it.

I wasn't political or discerning about truth and media issues when I was young.  I formed my current opinions over the years of my life by seeing how topics I knew about were handled.  

We all know that our world has changed.  We are not the same people or nation we once were.  Our media sources have also changed.

I don't think I have missed a lot.  I check the descriptions of some of the YouTube news channels to avoid the bias.  I haven't chosen to watch too many of the stories listed.

I have found other videos to view.  One I discovered today was about a private corporation using Eminent Domain to legally take the land of farmers from Missouri eastward.  It seems they want to build power lines.

Later I watched a "Yanasa TV" YouTube channel video about Eminent Domain being used by the government to take more small farm lands for water issues.

I think it is a warning bell for all of us.

This week I have been discovering clay and pottery videos.  I never realized the small and the big of making pottery - globally.  It is so amazing what we can discover at YouTube.  Food channels, art channels, pottery channels, from people everywhere.  I wish I could do all these things right now, but I am not young enough anymore.  I also need my own property to do both personal and business goals.  If I won a BIG lottery prize, I would try to finish all the things I have wanted to do over my life.  It's a very long list.

Lots of food issues today.  I am going to try to make it to September using what I have right now -- my back-up foods, my garden foods, my regular foods.  Figuring out what to make has been quite a challenge.  The side-effect of being ill and recovering, too weak to walk to the store or even get a ride, then the challenge to make it through... this is what I am doing this month.  It has been helping me with making menus.

I tend to start each day asking myself what I have to eat first, so I don't have to waste any food.  I still do that, but I am more focused with my challenge.  I am using up foods I need to go through and replace, getting more organized, and trying to make a list of what I will need to buy in September to get my pantry back in shape.  It's a good thing if you look at it that way.

I find that aging is changing a lot of my food options.  It's hard to change.  This will let me rethink my food choices.  

The last time I did this, I ended up spending way too much the next month.  I MUST NOT DO THAT AGAIN!  This is why my shopping list is so important.

I am beginning to feel better.  September may be a great month for me.  I hope so.

Finding GOD's Truth in the Bible

I am always thinking about how GOD works out His Plans.

I guess I am just trying to figure out what He is doing in the world, in my world, in the lives of others.

We all have interpretations about what the Bible says.  That is why we have so many denominations, why we are divided, why we think our ideas are the right ones.

I guess I do the same thing.

When I was searching for my answers about GOD, I made my own decisions about what GOD was trying to show us.  Nothing big, just the conflicts we seem to have.  I needed to decide which view I thought was the right one.

I listen to a video sermon from Adrian Rogers called the Final Judgment.  There are points he makes about the two places called HELL and DEATH, the GREAT WHITE THRONE JUDGMENT, and the LAKE OF FIRE.  I understand the concept of Death and Hell being temporary spaces we go to when we die to wait for the big Judgment, the Great White Throne Judgment.  Death is for the saved, Hell is for the unsaved.  The Lake of Fire is the final place for those who are not saved, not in the Book of Life.  

And then there are all the Martyrs -- the souls who wait under the Throne for the Day of Judgment - to be avenged.  They seem to be a separate group.

In the sermon about the Final Judgment, Adrian Rogers makes one statement about the White Throne Judgment that I don't understand.  He says that anyone who is saved will not have to stand before that final White Throne Judgment.  I am not sure that is the right way to see our future.

I say this because of the martyrs.  They are the only ones I have found who will never face the second death at the Great White Throne Judgment.  

I think we will still face the White Throne.  My view of our sins is that when we confess and repent of our sins, accepting Christ's substitutionary offering for them, they are removed from our "book" in judgment.  Christ's sacrifice covers them.  They are no longer part of our judgment process because we have confessed and repented and accepted Christ's death as our atonement for them.  

This is how I understand the process of forgiveness. 

Consequences of our sins never go away.  Forgiveness is a different thing.

This is what I decided when I studied the Bible to find answers.

Every denomination has their own definitions of what the Bible says.  I think we have to search for our own understanding.  We are all just humans.  Only GOD really knows what He means.  Some parts of what He says are hard to know.  It takes many years to go through all the different passages about any topic, and there are things I will never know about history that is related to some of the Bible's stories.  BUT -- I am still responsible for seeking out these answers myself.  

We have to find a way to become One Body.  Talking through all these differences is the only way I see this happening.  

I hope we can create a global effort, one the world will be able to access and be a part of.  It may be the only good thing the internet can accomplish, for all of us.

I hope GOD allows us to do that.

What If... God's definitions are not the same as ours?

Reading the Bible is a challenge when we see different views of what the words say.  It's been the same way since Man was created.  In our day, the challenges can be worse.  Do you realize that online information can be hacked, changed, and we would never know.

I haven't memorized the Bible.  I can hardly repeat any full verses.  When I read Bible quotes these days I don't see the version attribute that once was "required" information.  I am not sure why, but that is how it is in my limited access.

I remember reading that Zondervan was purchased by a non-Christian company, but later on another company was listed as its owner.  The reason I mention this is because when someone buys a company they acquire all their assets... including the primary manuscripts.  Anything could be altered and we wouldn't know it.

The purpose of this theme is to share how vulnerable our spiritural lives are in a day when Christ is the target and the Bible is something we depend upon.  

I keep trying to think of ways to protect God's WORD for the future and for us.

I don't know Hebrew or Greek, or the Latin of some other versions.  I don't have access to authorized (trusted) versions of the original manuscripts.  My collection of Bibles is small, in English, and mostly kept for referencing.  I don't remember if I still have my concordance/s.  I barely have the ability to study my Bible these days, and struggle to know why GOD has not provided more for me to do the work I know He put in my heart to do.

We live in hard times for godly things.

We are also not the first in history to suffer for our faith.  It is just new to us.

I worry about how fear will change the faith of so many who believe they are saved.  I try to think of things we could do to help each other as things get worse.  I want to save our resources for taking care of God's People, not watch the Enemy sieze them to build evil weapons that will be used to harm and kill us.  And God has not provided for this work.  I just don't understand why.

I know there is a reason.  God always has a reason.  I just cannot think of what that might be.  So I wait, trust, seek GOD for what to do, and wait more. 

That is what we do.

I think the Bible shares this process over and over again.

I used to think of all the people who were forced to wait long times for GOD to do what He promised to do.  Abraham and Sarah are the most obvious.  I also thought of the judgements of GOD that lasted many years... 70, I think, in one story; over 400 years in another.

It always makes me realize that I am not the focus, GOD is, His Word is, His Plan is.  Whatever happens, our task is to stay true to our salvation, to keep believing that GOD does what He promises, that His Word always comes true.

One of these days I will have to die.  How and when that happens is in GOD's Hands.  I just want to stay faithful and meet as many of my loved ones in heaven some day.

I can see GOD's patience in the long years of waiting.  He wishes for all to be saved, and stays true to His promise to let us make our own choice about being in heaven with Him one day.  The Bible tells us what those requirements are.  This is why the Bibles we read are so important.  How do we protect God's Word from the violations technology is capable of causing?

Maybe you know the answer.  I hope you find a way to share it and help all of us.

In Christ,

Deborah Martin

https://work2gather.us

Tuesday, 9 January 2018

I think this blog has just changed into a non-scheduled effort...  :-)

I went shopping yesterday, and depleted my energy... totally forgot about writing and went to bed!  I was going to get up later, after I rested just a little (haha), but at 11pm - when I was awakened by "something" - I couldn't keep my eyes open so I let it go.  This is how it goes.  I may as well just let it go.  I think it will help all of us to just let this blog discover its own schedule.  :-)

*
Over the weekend, I think it was, I watched some more documentaries.  I decided to watch FOOD INC again... it really made me so ill about our food supplies and how little we can do to change it.  I cried again for the mother that lost her 2-year-old son to a fast-food burger...and found a new passion for life that she would rather not have.  I had to turn my head and close my eyes at the scenes of suffering and abused animals that are part of our food supply process.  I left the room at a part I remembered as too much to deal with emotionally.

I also watched one about how we value the truth and discard our values for rewards of various kinds.  It had a catch title --  (DIS)HONESTY : THE TRUTH ABOUT LIES.  It will make you think about your life and future in new ways.  I shared with my son that the biggest point they made was about our changing economy and the effects of a cash-less society on our moral values.  The basis of the film is the testing they did on college students, but the real-life effects of our moral choices are very displayed in the real people that become examples of the effects of our rationalizations about honesty... and what happens when we get caught.  :-(  

The third one I remember watching was about prisons... another topic of interest to me.  It was called BREAKING THE CYCLE, I think.  It shared the new efforts of Norway on maximum-security prison populations and how they are inspiring change in America.  The main comparisons were about a difficult prison in New York (Attica) and then they shared the efforts of inspired changes being made in a North Dakota prison. 

If you have read my other posts or writings, you will know I have my own ideas about reforming prisons.  Some of these things are shown in Norway, but the biggest financial change would be to link prisons to the opportunity of internet sales, via the administration of one website for all of America.  It would provide income for both inmates and prisons... and change the future of so many.  I don't want to get into the details right now... but maybe later today I will add a post about that.  My "Pathway to Freedom" concept and the income / job options of internet sales would revolutionize the prison industry and reform options.

I didn't win the big prizes in the lottery this past week, so I guess I will just keep sharing them and hope SOMEONE will think about doing them.

*
That's about all I can share right now.  Another day is starting.  :-)

God willing, I will be back later.

In Christ,
Deborah Martin

*
*
*
May GOD watch over us as we grow into the future.
May He have mercy on us as we discover the damage life without Him brings.
May we find a way to help each other.
May we love the good, hate the bad, and let our humanity find its way through discovering our future.
May our world focus on fixing the problems we have.
May we recover from the harm greed does to our decisions.
May we care about those who have less than they need for their life, their families, their dreams.
Amen.

Thursday, 19 October 2017

Yes, I did find some great words to share with you from the book I was reading until this morning... 21 Unbreakable Laws of Life, from Max Anders.  Here are the two passages I felt most important to share...

On page 193, the chapter on Truth...
"Our society is sick because we are drinking from a polluted water supply of truth.  Into that water supply has been dumped lies, inaccuracies, misconceptions, runaway individualism, the demand of rights without responsibilities, selfishness, sensuality, and a conviction that my happiness is more important than yours.  And, as we drink from this polluted water supply, we are becoming morally ill, just as we would become physically ill if we were drinking real water from a reservoir containing filth, waste, and disease.

"I am persuuaded that the reason many people do not believe in absolute truth is because they are free from moral obligations imposed by society and don't want God putting any back on them.  They like their freedom.  But they are like a dog who has broken his chain and thinks he is free, only to run out into the street and get hit by a car."

Both of these paragraphs are really important to think about... our source of information, and are we really free without God.  I am especially impacted by the sentence about the dog who thinks he is free.

On another page, in another chapter, I found another important passage I wanted to share.  This is from the chapter on faith, page 202.
"This is a crucial thing to understand.  We do what we do because we BELIEVE it will make us happy.  We may be dead wrong, and often are, but we do it nevertheless because of what we believe.  When a Christian deliberately and knowingly sins, it is a breakdown of faith.   He believes that the sin will make him happier than God will.  The opposite of obedience, then, is not disobedience.  THE OPPOSITE OF OBEDIENCE IS UNBELIEF!"

Interesting thought, isn't it!

We tell ourselves that the things of the world are going to bring us happiness, and then we give ourselves permission to walk away from what we know is right.

Now I can begin the next book, Battlefield of the Mind.

*
Well, I wanted to get this done, so I will be going for now.  I may add to this later, or may not share again until next week... I'm trying to decide how much time and effort to devote to this blog journal.  :-)

In Christ,
Deborah Martin

*
*
*
May God help us all to find the path we need to take... and to keep ourselves focused on what we need to be doing, not what everyone else is doing.
May God provide what we need to accomplish His Will in this life, and to save as many as we can to eternity in heaven.
Amen.

30 August 2017

I made it to my favorite sale today... the local Salvation Army 50% off sale at their thrift store/s.  I can only go to one, so I don't know what happens everywhere else. 

Some of the shelves were bare in my favorite kitchen aisles, but I found lots of great things to buy.  I discovered several more of the Carleton Sheets seminar tapes (VHS) from the later 1990's and early 2000's.  These are all based on his No Money Down purchases of real estate.  I should be able to find some great ideas and possibilities in these.

I have been trying to compare him to someone current, but I don't think there is anyone.  He wasn't the same as the Fixer Upper programs now, but the premise is the same... to fix properties up... buy low, sell high, make money to buy more properties.

The last time I went to the thrift store sale, I found three of his tapes.  Two of them have chapters 11 to 24 of the book they are based on.  I hope I found the first ten chapters today.  I also found three supplemental tapes.  I will be busy for awhile.

I was very happy to find a book by Pastor Cho of South Korea... about his affiliation with the Full Gospel Businessman's Fellowship.  I am fond of both ministries.  I am looking forward to reading this book over the next several weeks.  Pastor Cho's church there is the creator of Prayer Mountain.  They are a huge church, but they meet in homes a lot.  I think they made a big building to meet in, but I don't remember all the details right now.  I remember being very impressed by what I read they were doing.

I found a bunch of great treasures today, but I don't want to go through each of them.  It's been a long day and I am tired from it.  I worked on my recordkeeping after I got home.  My budget is still OK even though I spent more than I wanted to.  I left some nice pans before I went to the book department... my weakness.  I think I bought 7 books and 6 VHS tapes!  More than I normally do.

*
Later tonight I discovered the movie Armageddon on TV so I decided to watch it while I ate some popcorn and rested.  I didn't think the film was named well... the word was defined as "the end of all things" and that is true.  My understanding is that the biblical Armageddon is a real battle on the ground, not an asteroid threatening to destroy the planet.  I didn't watch the whole thing... it got to be too much for me.

Hollywood has interesting ways of maligning God and the Bible...  if you don't know what Christianity is really about, you wouldn't know the details are wrong.  So, people hate God because they don't really know what the Bible says.

*
Well, this will have to do for today.
I hope to find a better schedule for my blogging... late nights are not good... who can think at this time of night!
I like the idea of Journaling, just not sure how I want to do that.
Bear with me... by the end of the year I will have this figured out.  :-)

In Christ,
Deborah Martin

*
*
*
Thank you, Lord, for the treasures I found today, for the ability to buy them, for the ability to read, to see, to understand them.  Help me to put them all to good use, helping others, helping myself.  Amen.

Today is the Sabbath - what does that mean?

Saturday, 18 June 2016 - about 10:15am my time

It is another day of "rest" and I still don't know how to define that in my life.  I believe the Sabbath is a commandment so it isn't just an "if I want to" activity.  The Ten Commandments didn't go away when Christ died and salvation through Him started.

Here is the part about the Sabbath from the link above ::

8  “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

9  Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁰ but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns.   

11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

The great controversy between Saturday and Sunday is solved in my mind by the fact that we are adopted into the Jewish family when we become saved and cease to be Gentiles.  There are only two people groups in GOD's eyes, I believe.... the Jews and everyone else, called the Gentiles.  The biblical Sabbath is evening and morning according to Creation... so for the Jews it is Friday evening at sundown through sundown on Saturday.

I find this change of "days" to be a pain in the bottom, but that is how GOD decreed it.  I once had the thought that we get to rest at the first part of the "day" (sleep at night and get refreshed), then we have all day to do real Sabbath things (whatever they may be).

As I got into the Sabbath challenge I could understand why there were so many problems surrounding it... and still are.  I finally got to the question, "How does GOD rest?" and am still there.  I also realized that babies needed to be cared for, old people needed to be cared for, some things had to be done to eat (just not making a fire, which was a LOT of work).  Servants were resting, too.  That means everyone had to do things differently... feed themselves, and things like that.  :-)

I haven't decided about the animal questions...  they could "save" animals in distress, so I call that the "emergency clause" -- we can do emergency activities... but how to separate them from regular work activities, I'm not sure.  Shelters, hospitals, police, military... these things don't go away because it is the Sabbath... how do we deal with the needs of that one day a week ??   I'm not sure. 

The whole idea of the Sabbath rest is that GOD is able to deal with those details when we honor Him with our commitment not to do "work" on that day.  That includes earning the income from our regular labor, which we rely on for our survival.  For the farmer that is the crops in the fields.  For the rancher, it is the animals that create their income.  For those in urban areas, where there is a lot of crime, that includes the safety of our lives.  All of these details are the kinds of things that make the Sabbath an act of faith, like tithing.

It isn't an easy question to answer.  GOD is involved in all the parts of our lives.  The Bible tells us that GOD is able to make one field prosper and another to whither.  It tells us that GOD controls the womb.  We discover that GOD protects those who rely on Him, and uses the evil to bring judgment on those who go against the things He has decreed, including the wayward Jew.

Christians seem to have a Sabbath of going to church and eating out afterwards.  I don't know what else happens in other people's houses, but I'm not sure rest is the theme of the day.  If our servants are also to rest, does that mean we really shouldn't go out to eat?  Is gardening work, or is it a recreational part of our lives, something we do to relax, a hobby, not really a job to us?  That question came up in my mind.  What can we do on the Sabbath that isn't considered work?  Did potlucks start as the Sabbath rest meal?  :-)

I remember a news story about orthodox Jews trying to claim that pushing the elevator button was work and they couldn't do that on the Sabbath.  It must have been on Facebook (FB) because I remember commenting that if you can't push the elevator button, you also can't open a door, the frig, the microwave, the toilet, or anything we use in day-to-day life.  I don't remember exactly what I wrote for examples, but you get the idea by the ones I shared here.  I don't think pushing an elevator button is what GOD was concerned about.

I continue to search for my own answers to my Sabbath rest.  I decided it had to be between GOD and me because that is how we are finally judged.  Everyone else won't be with me when I reach the Great White Throne Judgment... I need to find my own answers.  I think GOD understands the process and will help me find His Truth about the matter.

If you have any thoughts on the matter, please use the comments section to share them.  We all have different lives and when we share some of the better details about them, others are helped.  We can search for the answers together.  Thanks.