Three days and Passover dates confusion... let's clear this up

TWO Questions come up in calendar confusion related to Passover. Let's get these sorted and remember what the holiday is all about. And what Christians can learn from this Jewish holiday. But first, what day was it?

Passover is the holiday that celebrates 'once we were slaves, now we are free.' Deliverance after hundreds of years of slavery in Egypt. God rescued the Jewish people and set a date, 14 Nisan, for us to remember the anniversary under a full moon each year.

Christians also have a day in this season related to Holy Week, the time of the death and resurrection of the Saviour Yeshua/ Jesus. 

There is some overlap and then of course, some real questions. Here are two of them asked, and hopefully answered for you.

QUESTION 1:        3 Days and 3 Nights in the grave

People often ask, “If Jesus said he would be in the ground three days and three nights… how does this work if Good Friday was when he was killed and buried to Easter Sunday when he arose?” That’s more like 36 hours.

Here’s the key:
The Bible uses Jewish time reckoning, not modern Western precision. This is not a Swiss watch.
In Jewish thinking, “Passover” can mean more than one thing.

1. The meal itself (the Seder, 15th of Nisan evening) 

1. The lamb sacrifice (14th of Nisan daytime) 

1. The entire festival week (Passover + Unleavened Bread)

the Passover lambs were being sacrificed. Different calendars; one fulfillment.

In Jewish thinking, any part of a day counts as a whole day. So look at the timeline: Jesus is buried on Friday before sunset — that’s Day 1 which includes Thursday night. He is in the tomb on Saturday, the Sabbath — that’s Day 2 which includes Friday night. And He rises early on Sunday — that’s Day 3 which includes Saturday night.
So Friday, Saturday, Sunday… three days.

Now what about “three days and three nights”? Two answers. 1) As I showed you just now, Friday daytime IS part of the same day as Thursday night. And similarly, Saturday day is Friday night. And Sunday day is Saturday night. Three days: Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Three nights, Thursday to Saturday.

But I prefer unpacking this in a 2^nd way. Why? Since this phrase is a Hebraic expression—a common Jewish way of saying a period spanning three days, not necessarily 72 hours. In fact, no matter what day you start with (and some start with Wednesday, you will never get 72 hours on the dot. He died in the afternoon, and he arose early in the morning. 

But the Hebraic expression is not about 72 hours. It’s a common Jewish way of saying a period spanning three days. Esther fasts and leads the people to fast for “three days, night and day” → yet goes in on the third day (not after 72 hours) (Chapter 4, verse 16)

The Bible itself says repeatedly…He would rise “on the third day.” so there’s no contradiction. It’s not about counting hours—it’s about understanding how Jewish people counted time. And when you do…Friday to Sunday fits perfectly. Sometimes the answer isn’t changing the Bible— it’s understanding the culture in which it was written.
 
Question 2… Was the Last Supper a Passover meal? 

People often notice something in the Gospels that seems to be a contradiction, but it isn’t. Let me explain. Matthew, Mark, and Luke say the Last Supper took place on Passover. And many believers see similarities between the Jewish Passover seder and the Last Supper.

But the apostle John seems to say Jesus died before Passover. So which is it? Who is right? Or can both of them be accurate?

Here’s the key:
The Synoptic Gospels are focusing on the meal, that is, Jesus eating Passover with His disciples. But John is focusing on the timing of the sacrifice. In fact, in John’s Gospel, Jesus is crucified at the very time the Passover lambs are being slaughtered in the Temple.

That’s not a contradiction—that’s theology. Jesus didn’t just celebrate Passover. He became the Passover Lamb. It’s very possible that Jesus followed a Galilean reckoning of Passover, celebrating it with His disciples—while the Temple in Jerusalem followed a different schedule, so that when Jesus died, the official Passover lambs were being sacrificed.

Jesus kept the meal… and became the Lamb.

How do we explain the different timings of Passover in the Gospels? 

Here’s a possibility many people don’t know:
In the first century, not everyone kept the calendar exactly the same way. Jesus and His disciples were from up north in Galilee, while the Temple authorities were in Jerusalem. Some scholars believe Galileans may have reckoned the day differently, thus allowing them to celebrate Passover a little earlier.

That means Jesus could eat a true Passover meal, the seder, with his disciples, and then, the next day which was the same Hebrew calendar date, as the official lambs were being sacrificed in the Temple, Jesus is on the cross. So again, not a contradiction, but a convergence. He keeps the Passover meal, and then he becomes the Passover Lamb. Different calendars, one perfect fulfilment.

Wait; were there actually different calendars in Jesus’ day?
The answer is yes. In the first century, not all Jewish groups followed the same calendar. For example, the community at Qumran—the Dead Sea Scrolls group—used a solar calendar, not the lunar one used in Jerusalem.

That meant their festivals—like Passover—could fall on completely different days. Other groups, including those connected to the Temple, followed the official lunar calendar. So when we read the Gospels, we’re stepping into a world where more than one way of counting time existed.

That helps explain how Jesus could share a Passover meal, and still be crucified at the very time
Because no matter the calendar—Yeshua is the Lamb. History may have had multiple calendars…but God had one perfect timing.

False Prophets? Today? Sure, why not. How to recognize them. (Jeremiah 8)

 

Truth and Consequences: A study in the prophecy of Jeremiah

 

Lesson Eight (of 52): Four Voice “Choir”

To watch this on video, click here:  https://youtu.be/BxxmqVGGqsk

  INTRODUCTION

I love music and that includes almost every type. Gregorian Chant to four-part harmony in Southern Gospel choirs. I enjoy folk music of Peter, Paul and Mary and the Seekers and The Who’s rock opera Tommy. I know—wide range, right? It’s true that modern music experiments with conflict in ways that classical composers might have avoided. The word cacophony itself describes much of our human drama and human dilemma in light of Covid the last two years, and its relationship to music is unavoidable to me. The idea of disruption and harshness is apparent. Things just don’t fit together. Let’s see what the reference book says.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary gives this definition of cacophony

1: harsh or jarring sound 

specifically : harshness in the sound of words or phrases

2: an incongruous or chaotic mixture : a striking combination, as in, a cacophony of color or a cacophony of smells

Bernstein hits this jarring in Chichester Psalms and awoke the psaltery and harp, and me, too, when I first heard it. I remember a Passover night in 1971 when two songs were overlapping at our seder when I was 19, the songs being “Jeremiah was a bullfrog (Joy to the World)” and “Hallelujah” (from Handel’s oratorio “Messiah”). Imagine two young people singing each of those at the same time. That’s the jarring sounds of cacophony.

In today’s reading of the 8^th chapter of Jeremiah, I hear four voices, four distinct songs being sung, sometimes overlapping and altogether jarring. The singers are whom you would expect in a biblical book, including God and the people of God, that is Judah. But the other two are the ones in conflict today. This conflict caused the cacophony and that is our focus today.

We are in a section we began last time of falseness and I reiterate for review: Chapter 7: False worship, chapter 8: today’s reading, centres on false prophets, chapter 9 next week  is about false confidence, and finally chapter 10, we will see the cause celebre and that is false gods. 

On to today’s lesson, then, chapter 8: False prophets in the land

Let’s dig into this chapter and hear, really hear, what God is saying to our people.

1. 1. Generation of the dead (.1-3)

 Who lays out bones, of all the people, outside a cemetery, in the streets, in the highways and byways, and disregards their history and their future? They tossed their relatives aside in as shocking a disregard as we saw this week in Sydney where little Charlise Mutton, the 9-year-old schoolgirl who lived with her grandmother in Queensland, was found after days and days of searching by hundreds of volunteers and tens of thousands of man hours, found in a barrel, dead, tossed aside with shocking disregard. Who does that? Who despises a person so badly that their remains are not given suitable and proper burial?

Verses 1-3 show the bones of everyone from the past. The powerful and significant, and the general members of the public, all tossed and laid aside, considered as dung on the ground. Avoided. Irrelevant. Of no consequence.

If you are not met with the sadness of the ending of chapter 7 in the opening verses of chapter 8, you need to check your callousness barometer. 

Someone had a question at the end of chapter 7, and I need to address this specifically. In verse 29 we read, “cut off your hair and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights, for the Lord has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.” 

The section concludes with our opening verses today. 

What is this Generation of the Dead? Christopher Wright makes the point and it’s very important for us to note, “This terrible text begins with a cry of lament and ends in the silence of a living death. The lament, we note, is for this generation. God will not abandon his ultimate purpose in the election of Israel, his long-term mission of redemptive blessing, his eternal covenant faithfulness. However, for these people, people who had put themselves beyond preaching to and past praying for, there is no hope, the Lord has rejected and abandoned this generation that is under his wrath.” (Wright, page 118)

That’s what is showcased at the beginning of our chapter today. Hope that helps you. It’s not all Israel or all Judah for all time, only a select group.

1. 2. Irrational behaviour (.4-7)

Both Wright and Warren Weirsbe in their commentaries title the next section “irrational.” I like that. I couldn’t find a word to describe the folly of Jewish humanity in this season. Birds and horses know better. And really it’s not that we don’t know; it’s that we disregard and fail to follow. What’s wrong with us?

If we can fall and then rise again; if we find ourselves walking in the wrong path, and then turn and go the right direction, no doubt with help from Siri, then why cannot God’s people do the same? Why do we verse 5, “refuse to return?” It’s not that we fail. It’s not that we are wrong. Everyone knows that as Shakespeare taught us, “to err is human.” We all fall short of God’s standards. Obviously. So when that happens, do we say, “oh well, I’ve already started down the wrong path, I might as well continue?” Or do we stop, shake ourselves out of it, turn to the Almighty, and cry out quickly, “God, I surrender to you my mistakes. I’m sorry. Please strengthen me to get back to you and to get it right… again” That’s the ticket. That’s the victory. 

Remember the Apostle John said, “Faith is the victory.” (1 John 5.4) That’s what faith looks. That’s how faith acts. 

Yes, you will fall.

Yes, you will sin.

Yes, you will be away from God.

Then what?

The Proverbs teaches us, “a righteous man falls 7 times, a nd rises again! But the wicked stumble in time of calamity. (24.16)

What is your ongoing choice? When you fall, when you fail, when you sin, will you turn to the Lord? 

When a man turns to the Lord, that’s where liberty is found. A self-centered person says, “Oh, it’s just me.” Even a person with low self-image (low self-esteem) is as self-centered as a very proud person and narcissist. A healthy self-imaged person says, “I belong to God” If I know I’ve sinned, if I’m a realist, I turn to HIM! Not to myself. I don’t turn to myself and say “I’ll do better next time.” It’s not about me or you! It’s about faith in, surrender to and trust in the Almighty. Will you turn to him?

A self-centered person turns to himself in applause and accommodation or to himself in sad self-mockery and shame and guilt. You WILL turn to something. You will trust in something. You will put your faith in something. I recommend you turn to the Lord.

Otherwise, your behaviour is irrational. 

Birds and horses have instinct, and we rejected our native and natural relationships with the Lord and his people. Irrational to be sure. 

Then verses 8-12

1. 3. Their refusal was caused by deception

Whose deception is this? The false prophets are responsible!  Look at verse 8.

The Word is with us. 

The Torah is ours. 

My friends, I hear this over and over. I’m Jewish. It’s a trump card tossed into the conversation. We are ok, we don’t need to comply, to obey, to listen to what God says. We have the Torah. We have an automatic relation to God. 

Some told me recently, “No, I don’t attend synagogue any longer. (various reasons given) But I’ve got an inside track with God. I have a loyalty card with God. He’s on our team. 

These are not the words of my friends. These are the words of false prophets. These people have learned from wrong teachers. 

False prophets say things like “We are ok, we don’t need to comply, to obey, to listen to what God says. We have the Torah.” (even as last week we learned they were saying, “We have the Temple.”) We have the Talmud. The sages are ours. Last week I was in a heated battle with an Orthodox Jewish man in Israel and he told me I was of no consequence because I didn’t know the Sages. Not even, ‘we have to study Torah’, but simply we HAVE the Sages. 

Now before you get a big smug here on this Zoom call, how many Bibles do you have at home? How much time yesterday did you spend in one of them? And the day before? And last week? Get it? Having the Word is not the same as KEEPING the word!

Look at what they preach, the false prophets. Verse 11. Peace, peace. 

שָׁל֣וֹם ׀ שָׁל֑וֹם וְאֵ֖ין שָׁלֽוֹם׃

It’s the worst thing to declare God’s vention and intervention, and he’s not involved. Jeremiah will teach this again and again in his prophecy. The sinners say, “she’ll be right, mate” and they are dead wrong. 

False teachers today. Listen to this passage in the Newer Testament “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.” (2 Peter 2.1-3)

Those are the words in the First Century in Peter’s day. They are still right in our days! When you hear false teaching, like, “It’s ok, don’t worry about sin.” IF you hear that, walk away. Stop listening to that preacher. 

When you hear “there is coming a day of judgment” and you feel guilt and shame, what do you do?

Back to Jeremiah, “Were they ashamed because of the abomination they had done? 

They certainly were not ashamed, and they did not know how to blush;” (8.12)

Shame is right when you are wrong. False teachers, false prophets lead the people wrongly. But even then we are responsible. 

1. 4. Their refusal leads to judgment (13-22)

The cacophony of the sounds, of false prophets, of God calling in judgment, of the people of Judah saying they are doing ok, and then the sound of Jeremiah making it clear we are not ok.

These are cacophonous and the only reason we are hearing, we are listening to that cacophony is that we have chosen to listen to the false prophets over the true prophet, Jeremiah, who speaks to almost no one who is listening. 

Jeremiah didn’t have a big following. If we want a big following, we can entertain people into eternal damnation. Jeremiah has a word for us in 2022, and a word for you. Will you hear him?

CONCLUSION

God is calling each of us to know him and to walk with him, today and throughout our days. Have you received Yeshua as your messiah and Lord? Have you renounced your sin, your idolatry, your forsaking God and given him First Place in your life? If not, please, do so now, just now, as we pray together. Use your own words, if you want, but yield, surrender, to the Lord of life. 

PRAYER

Then please write us (admin@jewsforjesus.org.au) to tell us what you have just done, and we will send you literature and encourage you. You are part of our family; we love and appreciate you. And we want you to enjoy the presence of the Lord who calls, who knows, who blesses and builds us up. 

We hope to see you again next week as we study chapter 9. Until then, Shabbat shalom!

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barnes, Albert, Albert Barnes’ Commentary on the Old Testament, 

Craigie, Peter; Kelley, Page; Drinkard, Joel. Word Biblical Commentary. Book of Jeremiah.  1991. 

Henry, Matthew, Commentary.

Weirsbe, Warren. Be Decisive. David Cook Publishers, Colorado Springs 1991.

Wright, Christopher, The Message of Jeremiah, The Bible Speaks Today, Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois, 2014.

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ACTUAL TEXT

8 “At that time,” declares the Lord, “they will bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its leaders, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem from their graves. ² They will spread them out to the sun, the moon, and to all the heavenly ^[a]lights, which they have loved, which they have served, which they have followed, which they have sought, and which they have worshiped. They will not be gathered nor buried; they will be like dung on the face of the ground. ³ And death will be chosen rather than life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family, that remains in all the places to which I have driven them,” declares the Lord of armies.

⁴ “You shall say to them, ‘This is what the Lord says:

“Do people fall and not get up?
Does one turn away and not ^[b]repent?
⁵ Why has this people, Jerusalem,
Turned away in continual apostasy?
They hold on to deceit,
They refuse to return.
⁶ I have listened and heard,
They have spoken what is not right;
No one repented of his wickedness,
Saying, ‘What have I done?’
Everyone turned to his own course,
Like a horse charging into the battle.
⁷ Even the stork in the sky
Knows her seasons;
And the turtledove, the swallow, and the crane
Keep to the time of their ^[c]migration;
But My people do not know
The judgment of the Lord.

⁸ “How can you say, ‘We are wise,
And the Law of the Lord is with us’?
But behold, the lying pen of the scribes
Has made it into a lie.
⁹ The wise men are put to shame,
They are dismayed and caught;
Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord,
So what kind of wisdom do they have?
¹⁰ Therefore I will give their wives to others,
Their fields to new owners;
Because from the least even to the greatest
Everyone is greedy for gain;
From the prophet even to the priest,
Everyone practices deceit.
¹¹ They have healed the brokenness of the daughter of My people superficially,
Saying, ‘Peace, peace,’
But there is no peace.
¹² Were they ashamed because of the abomination they had done?
They were not ashamed at all,
And they did not know how to be ashamed;
Therefore they will fall among those who fall;
At the time of their punishment they will collapse,”
Says the Lord.

¹³ “I will certainly snatch them away,” declares the Lord.
“There will be no grapes on the vine
And no figs on the fig tree,
And the leaf will wither;
And what I have given them will pass away.”’”
¹⁴ Why are we sitting still?
Assemble yourselves, and let’s go into the fortified cities
And perish there,
For the Lord our God has doomed us
And given us poisoned water to drink,
Because we have sinned against the Lord.
¹⁵ We waited for peace, but no good came;
For a time of healing, but behold, terror!
¹⁶ From Dan there is heard the snorting of his horses;
At the sound of the neighing of his stallions
The whole land quakes;
For they come and devour the land and its fullness,
The city and its inhabitants.
¹⁷ “For behold, I am sending serpents among you,
Vipers for which there is no charm;
And they will bite you,” declares the Lord.

^18 [d]My sorrow is beyond healing,
My heart is faint within me!
¹⁹ Behold, listen! The cry of the daughter of my people from a distant land:
“Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King not within her?”
“Why have they provoked Me with their carved images, with foreign ^[e]idols?”
²⁰ “Harvest is past, summer is over,
And we are not saved.”
²¹ I am broken over the brokenness of the daughter of my people.
I mourn, dismay has taken hold of me.
²² Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has not the ^[f]health of the daughter of my people ^[g]been restored?

Who are the storytellers?

When I was a young boy my parents would warn me not to lie. There would be consequences like canker sores and elongated noses as in Pinocchio. The truth would win out and I would be found out. They used a phrase to warn me, “Don’t tell stories!”

I wish I had heeded their oft-repeated advice. And although neither canker sores nor wooden noses eventuated, there were still plenty of consequences which were harmful in personal relationships. I regret every lie I told and retold; to this day I am sorry. 

The use of “story” for “lie” fascinates me.  I love a good story. Hollywood thrives because, it seems, everyone loves a good story.  Forrest Gump told stories and Euripides told stories and Bill Bryson and Jeffrey Archer are master spinners-of-tales. But are they liars? I would not go so far. 

Some of you might know I love to tell stories especially true stories that feature my kids or grandsons. Their boundless energy and joie-de-vive are worth every yarn I can spin. They give me great nachas, that Yiddish indescribable term for family pride. 

Storytelling was a feature of the life of Yeshua as well. He knew how to capture and then to make a crowd shake its head. Substance and rhythm along with language which twists and turns— those make for good story. 

Let me ask you— to whose stories do you listen? What makes you return for their next one? When will you stop giving them your ear?

Don’t story to me. Tell me the truth. 

Will the real Christmas please stand up?

I loved this Christmas video today. I got a little dizzy as the camera almost sped around the speaker, but I listened and agreed. And I don't usually like rap-style communication!

Maybe you will like it as well.

Or maybe you have already chosen to disregard the stooper. I hope not. I hope you listen with both ears, and with the ears of your heart.

It can't hurt, you know?

Here's the video from the UK:

Then please, tell me, or better yet, tell someone else about your beliefs about Santa or about the Messiah. Which is the real Christmas? Will the real Christmas please stand up?

Pondering God (Part 4)

4 May. Continuing our study of who God is. God is true. Not only does He represent something which is true, He embodies Truth. Against the noise of fake news accusations, it's good to know that there is Truth, and we don't have to wait for CNN, the ABC or FoxNews to verify this. Verification complete already. By the way, the word 'verify' means "to make true.'

The Bible says, "Let God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written, “That You may be justified in Your words, and prevail when You are judged.” (Romans 3.4 [quoting Psalm 51])

Yeshua said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." (John 14.6) Truth emanates from Him. And truth is comforting. Every investigator wants that; every husband and wife want that. Every student sitting exams and every examiner want that. 

Search no longer. God is true.

Who makes up your mind? A lesson in curating

I used to watch this man, Walter Cronkite most evenings at 5:30 in my Kansas City home. Then, Friday, March 6, 1981, he ended his nightly presenting of the news for me. Dan Rather took over after that. Here's his famous ending and sign-off in this short video.  

What made those 30 minutes so informative, what made it so nightly for us, what made Cronkite so trustworthy was that he and his team of journalists roamed the world, investigated the happenings and curated the information for us. It was not 'fake news.' It was simply 'the news.'

Curating is the job of the folks on television news stations, at the museum, or at the universities, galleries and high school classes. Curating has to do with choosing, both selecting and deselecting, bringing information or beauty, news and life to others. It's about making sense or bringing the best to others. Walter Cronkite curated the news for us. And we learned and we had confidence in what he reported.

'Fake news' is a term used often in the last couple years, although it was coined years earlier. Media Watch here in Australia reported, "A well-known case of fabricated news in Australia happened in 2009 when a report Deception Detection Across Australian Populations of a "Levitt Institute" was widely cited on the news websites all over the country, claiming that Sydney was the most naive city, despite the fact that the report itself contained a cue: amidst the mathematical gibberish, there was a statement: "These results were completely made up to be fictitious material through a process of modified truth and credibility nodes"

Made up, that's the key phrase in the issue of 'fake news.' Wiki opens their definition with "Fake news is a type of yellow journalism or propaganda that consists of deliberate misinformation or hoaxes spread via traditional print and broadcast news media or online social media."

One of the most famous fake 'news' was a radio drama with Orson Welles. "The War of the Worlds" was an episode of the American radio drama anthology series The Mercury Theatre on the Air. Directed and narrated by actor and filmmaker Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds (1898), presented as a series of simulated news bulletins. Although preceded by a clear introduction that the show was a drama, it became famous for allegedly causing mass panic, although the reality of the panic is disputed as the program had relatively few listeners.

Remember the movie, "Wag the Dog?"  1997, starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert de Niro. Woody Harrelson and Anne Heche. Even Andrea Martin. Directed by Barry Levinson. The story was about a president in the US who is caught in a sex scandal and his advisors concoct a war to distract the American public. They succeed in this distraction with the help of De Niro who plays a 'spin doctor' which is what they called these fake-news-sources 20 years ago, and Hoffman, who plays a Hollywood producer who gets the job of creating the war in California, although it is supposed to play out for real in Albania. 

What was 'spin doctoring' in 1997 is 'fake news' today. In 1800 it was yellow journalism. In Russia it's still called 'propaganda.' 

With all this doctoring and curating of information, where is the Truth? And maybe more important for us, who is making up our mind for us? Is it (CNN/ Fox/ MSNBC) or your local newspapers (NY Times/ Sydney Morning Herald/ London TImes). Who is telling me the pure curated truth?

The boring bits

I watched the news at 6 pm tonight. There were accidents and violent shootings, arson attacks on buildings and drugs associated with football players of note. But when I think about it, most of life will never get on the news. Most of life is boring. Most reality isn't news at all. Most of the traffic on the road will not have an accident. Most people will go to work on the bus or the train, and simply pay their fares, walk to the office, get their morning coffee, perform their daily tasks, and go home, on the bus or train, eat dinner, retire, and start over tomorrow.

The news isn't comprehensive at all. It's only the stuff that stands out, above or usually below, the levels of normal situations of life. Humanity and dare I say, nature, usually carries on in its regular course. The patterns or orbits of the planets are consistent, they say, but for many that simply sounds boring.

A woman named Barb Raveling says many things in her blog, and this one might speak to our point today. She highlights 9 Bible answers to the question of boredom, really just gets things back in perspective about percentages of thrills and ennui.

Filling up our ears with noise and losing time to contemplate, that's a massive result of the fear of boredom and the lack of completeness that is found in a relationship with the Lord. Most of life is the boring bits. Walking with the Almighty through it all, that's the thrill, not of a roller coaster, but of a God who extends His love to us, daily, hourly.

I'm not on the television show 24, although I try to take life 24 hours at a time. One day at a time. Surrendering my life to the care of God, who ever wants me to know Him and walk with Him each day. Boring? Ok, most of life is just that. I don't sink every 10-foot putt, nor return every lob to my opponent's court deep enough. I don't answer every unbeliever's questions with satisfaction, and the drudgery of sameness nips at my heels throughout each day. Yeah, so? I'm not in a Tom Cruise movie. I'm just me. And that will have to do for now.