Sunday, January 26, 2014

From the Scriptures


 
I was reading in the scriptures about the dedication of the temple that King Solomon built in ancient Israel.  After the construction, which included the best materials the people had, the Lord appeared to Solomon to accept the house they had built for him.  The dedication of that temple was somewhat Pentecostal, with some of the same miraculous manifestations that accompanied other great outpourings of the spirit that are recorded in the scriptures. And Solomon worshiped at the temple and the Lord appeared to him.  Among other things, the Lord said, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent unto the prayer that is made in this place." (2 Chronicles 7:14, 15). When I read that it made me think of similar promises the Lord has made to his people, about the blessings in the land that accompany righteousness, how the Lord will bless those in their promised lands that keep his commandments as long as they keep his commandments.  But I also noticed the promise to hear the prayers and see the needs of his people who attend and worship in the Lord’s temples.  How blessed we are today to have temples.  And how blessed we are to have temples so close, so much more accessible than they were for so long.  It was a reminder of how anxious the Lord is to extend his blessing to us, how much he does to help us keep his commandments.  We really live in a marvelous age.

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Let it Snow!

The other day it started snowing.  They had been predicting a few inches but when it finally got here it just snowed and snowed. Snow is wonderful stuff - it looks great while its falling and it looks great once its done falling and you've done all the clean-up.  But doing the shoveling can get to be quite a chore.
This particular storm ended up dropping quite a bit.  If fact, for our area it came real close to breaking a long time record. As it was, it beat records going back over one hundred years.  It came real close to breaking the all time record for a single day's snow fall.  We got just over nine inches within a 24 hour period.
 Having a snow blower makes cleaning it up a whole lot easier.
Now all we need is for the city to quit coming by and turning it back into our drive-way.  They have a rule about not throwing the snow into the street.  Why can't that work both ways?