HARMLESS THOUGHTS

 Every Wednesday Night at Edgewood Church, just before our prayer time, we spend some time reading, studying, and considering a Psalm for the week. Tonight's Psalm is Psalm 16. 

 Podcast Episode Number 32 - Thoughts from a Black Truck.  This is one of my unscripted, from my phone podcasts. 

 My wife and I are waiting.  We don't like waiting. It isn't our favorite. But I noticed this morning, as we were discussing our waiting, that we are handling it in different ways: my wife an I. The one way of dealing with it was not better than the other way, it was just different. For me, even though I am an analytical person, I don't tend to analyze these sorts of things. I tend to bundle them up in a little cubby of my mind. The stressors and anxiety-producing realities find a quiet little home in a quiet little part of my mind. I wrap them up in my blankie in that cubby. I check in on them from time to time, but quickly divert my attention to my job-related "squirrels"... My Adult ADD finds this to be the easiest thing to do.  Squirrels naturally grab my attention fairly easily, so the squirrels of homeroom videos, discipline referrals, tech-help requests, lunch duty, and front door duty allure my focus without any hesitating. I'm not saying it is healthy...

 At Edgewood Church we will be looking at Psalm 15 for tonight's Wednesday Night fellowship. If you would like to join us for this time of Bible Study and Prayer, we meet at 6:15pm at Edgewood Church in Danville, IL.  Psalm 15 (ESV)

 

Preface I have thoughts on education. I have these thoughts because I have been in the educational world for a majority of my life. Besides going to school myself, I have been a math teacher for 19 years, being a math department head at two different schools for some of that time. After a short stint as an instructional coach, I have been a disciplinary dean for the last 2 and a half years. Across this educational career, I have taught in both public and private schools in three different states. I am not, by any means, saying that my time in education has made me an expert, but it has left me with some thoughts on the issues facing education, and possible solutions to those problems. 

www.reftoons.com  

 Our Wednesday Night Prayer meeting has been featuring a Psalm each night. We are ready for Psalm 14 for Wednesday, April 14th, 2021. If you live in the Danville Illinois area, consider visiting Edgewood Church at 6:15 pm.  Click to listen to Psalm 14: 

Click to listen to the audio of this post being read by the author: Me! The Fellowship. In The Fellowship of the Ring, the first book of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, the Fellowship (the group that has been tasked with protecting the ring-bearer and escorting him to Mordor) find themselves traveling through a mountain via some ancient Dwarvish mines. Though always looking to Gandalf the Wizard as their guide, they find themselves more dependent on him in the Mines, seeing as he is the only one who has actually made this particular journey.  The movies portray this moment well, but I would like to share the book's version of this part of the story:  It was after nightfall when they had entered the Mines. They had been going for several hours with only brief halts, when Gandalf came to his first serious check. Before him stood a wide dark arch opening into three passages: all led in the same general direction, eastwards; but the left-hand passage plunged down, while the right-...

Click to Listen to Pastor Matt read Psalm 13   Psalm 13 To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. [1] How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? [2] How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? [3] Consider and answer me, O LORD my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, [4] lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,” lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. [5] But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. [6] I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me. (ESV)

I am blessed. Today marks the date of my 25th wedding anniversary. In this post, you will not see any jokes about how she stuck with me or vice versa. No comments about any drudgery in the process or how much time it actually felt like. There won't be any of that in this post. It isn't because neither one of us could or couldn't make those jokes (and laugh them off... trust me... we can laugh!), but that simply isn't what I'm thinking about.  An Honor. For me, I consider it a genuine honor that God has allowed me to spend my life with this person. My theology dictates my understanding of how this world works: and it is a world orchestrated by a good and sovereign God. And my God, in His Sovereign Goodness, gifted me with a life shared with this one particular person... my wife Charity.  That God would bless me in such a way, lies outside of my ability to either comprehend or explain in any reasonable terms, and over these last 25 years this life together has increas...

 

The scripture that we (at Edgewood Church ) will be covering on Sunday, April 4, 2021 will be Luke 5:1-11. Listen to me (Pastor Matt) read through this portion of scripture in preparation for church tomorrow.