patience

Genesis 8
1 But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. 2 Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. 3 The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, 4 and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 5 The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.
6 After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark 7 and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. 8 Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. 9 But the dove could find no place to set its feet because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. 10 He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. 11 When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. 12 He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.
13 By the first day of the first month of Noah's six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. 14 By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.
15 Then God said to Noah, 16 "Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. 17 Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you-the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground-so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number upon it."
18 So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons' wives. 19 All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds-everything that moves on the earth-came out of the ark, one kind after another.
20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. 21 The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though [1] every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.

22 "As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease."

/************************************************/

9 months!....9 freakin months before the world completely dried up....

i cant even sit still for an hour...muchless 9 whole months...

i am patiently waiting for more patience...although the confinement may do me good....i feel as if i am trapped by my freedoms sometimes...

After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."
Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.' " - matt 4:2-4

it all boils down to faith

clueless

Genesis 7
1 The LORD then said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. 2 Take with you seven [1] of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3 and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. 4 Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made."
5 And Noah did all that the LORD commanded him.
6 Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth. 7 And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. 8 Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, 9 male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah. 10 And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth.
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month-on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
13 On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark. 14 They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings. 15 Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. 16 The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the LORD shut him in.
17 For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. 18 The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 19 They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. 20 The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet. [2] , [3] 21 Every living thing that moved on the earth perished-birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.
24 The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.

/**************************************************/

our feeble minds...and meager logic can not even begin to fathom an inkling of His wisdom...

it kind of makes u wonder how extremely much the Bible must be dumbed down...for us to even grasp a slight clue of truth...

no cookies

Genesis 6

The Flood

1 When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. 3 Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with [1] man forever, for he is mortal [2] ; his days will be a hundred and twenty years."
4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days-and also afterward-when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
5 The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7 So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth-men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air-for I am grieved that I have made them." 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD .

9 This is the account of Noah.

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. 10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.
11 Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress [3] wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. [4] 16 Make a roof for it and finish [5] the ark to within 18 inches [6] of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. 17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark-you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you. 19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them."
22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

/************************************************/

"Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.......
11 Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth."

if you look at mankind, from the creation till now, it is as if...we as human beings have been growing up....

we started as an infant...and so, God gave us all these rules to abide by....(no cookies before dinner)...if we broke a rule, then God would give us a whoopin....Jesus said himself that these laws were made b/c our hearts were hard.....Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning." (matt 19:8)

so as an adolescent you begin to understand the meaning behind these rules and further understanding of our intentions behind those actions...

i took a soci class that said....u have to give children boundaries...b/c w/o them they will just immitate everything they see, (w/o the appropriate discernment)...

thats how mankind has aged as a civilization...

i feel as if we are in our rebellious teenager stage...

God took him away

Genesis 5

From Adam to Noah

1 This is the written account of Adam's line.

When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them "man. [1] "
3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. 4 After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. 5 Altogether, Adam lived 930 years, and then he died.
6 When Seth had lived 105 years, he became the father [2] of Enosh. 7 And after he became the father of Enosh, Seth lived 807 years and had other sons and daughters. 8 Altogether, Seth lived 912 years, and then he died.
9 When Enosh had lived 90 years, he became the father of Kenan. 10 And after he became the father of Kenan, Enosh lived 815 years and had other sons and daughters. 11 Altogether, Enosh lived 905 years, and then he died.
12 When Kenan had lived 70 years, he became the father of Mahalalel. 13 And after he became the father of Mahalalel, Kenan lived 840 years and had other sons and daughters. 14 Altogether, Kenan lived 910 years, and then he died.
15 When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he became the father of Jared. 16 And after he became the father of Jared, Mahalalel lived 830 years and had other sons and daughters. 17 Altogether, Mahalalel lived 895 years, and then he died.
18 When Jared had lived 162 years, he became the father of Enoch. 19 And after he became the father of Enoch, Jared lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. 20 Altogether, Jared lived 962 years, and then he died.
21 When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. 22 And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. 23 Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years. 24 Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.
25 When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he became the father of Lamech. 26 And after he became the father of Lamech, Methuselah lived 782 years and had other sons and daughters. 27 Altogether, Methuselah lived 969 years, and then he died.
28 When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son. 29 He named him Noah [3] and said, "He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the LORD has cursed." 30 After Noah was born, Lamech lived 595 years and had other sons and daughters. 31 Altogether, Lamech lived 777 years, and then he died.
32 After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth.

/***************************************************/

"Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away."
(hmmm...)

LOVE SEEKS YOU

LOVE SEEKS YOU

One of the most common cries of the human heart is: "No one understands me." All of us, at one time or another, have expressed the frustration of the inner man with these solemn words. It is not merely a statement of self-pity, as we are often told, but the honest realization that we live lives of quiet desperation. We sense that there is so much more to us than others comprehend, and we yearn for someone to reach and hear us. We see ourselves like actors playing our appointed roles in society and the home, projecting the image our part demands, while the real person we know ourselves to be remains unknown. The example of the clown who weeps behind his mask is familiar to all of us. The desire to "be ourselves" overwhelms us often, but just as often is stifled in the realization that only further misunderstanding and rejection will follow.

This concept of our personalities is not new to modern man. Those who peopled Japan in ancient times had this concept of the soul: "the little man inside." The pygmies of Africa, almost the lowest in the human scale, have a word in their language for soul that means "man on the inside." We often glimpse this undeniable fact and see ourselves imprisoned and isolated while surrounded by those who claim to know and love us. Many have reconciled themselves to a lifetime of loneliness after reaching out without success to others.
Exiled and alone, they sit in silence watching others while they search. Some have accepted without question the role they must play. Deceived by the thought that the role and the man are one and the same, they comfort themselves with the philosophy, "That's the way life is."

This book is written to you. Not the "you" everyone knows, but the "little man inside" that for years you have supposed no one knew or ever would. God knows that man, understands him and loves him. At this point, I am not so interested in telling you what kind of person you are, as I am in helping you to discover why you are what you are. The effects I speak about must have a cause, and the greatest book known to man on the subject of human behavior records it. That book is the Bible, God's precious Word. We know it is His Word because it tells the truth about us, and knows us as we are.

In the Bible, the first book, Genesis, is the book of beginnings. In it the origin of all things is found, and the peculiarities of the human personality are explained. You, as a person, are not merely the product of fate, nor the natural result of environment and training, but of nature. In Adam, your father, you will find the reason back of much of your behavior. Each of us, his children, are really living in our own way his experiences in the Garden of Eden.

When God created Adam, He placed him in perfect surroundings -- a beautiful garden, abundant food supply, pleasant circumstances and unlimited possibilities of life.
The whole earth was subject to him, and every living thing awaited his command. Blessed by God with a helpmeet (exact counterpart) named Eve to share his life, he enjoyed unbroken communion with her and with God. As he walked and talked with the Creator in the cool of the day, it was, indeed, paradise. Adam was himself with Eve and with God. Naked and not ashamed, he walked in quiet self-acceptance, resting in the undisputed fact that he was what he was by the grace of God. Resting in the wisdom and love of God, he saw himself as the expression of God's creation, hence known, understood and loved by both God and Eve.

All of this changed when Satan, through the serpent, cast the shadow of doubt upon the integrity of God; changed His truth into a lie; and accused Him of withholding good from Adam and Eve, hence causing them to doubt His love. The unbelief of their hearts was expressed in their act of disobedience, and so sin entered the human family; and spiritual death was the direct result. Death means separation - separation from God, and from each other - and the evidences of this death are plain to see in the events that followed.

The openness Adam and Eve had once enjoyed between themselves was gone. Their eyes were opened and they saw themselves as they were - naked - and they were ashamed of that nakedness. Self-acceptance turned into mutual rejection, and they busied themselves sewing fig leaves
together to hide their shame in each other's presence. The blessed liberty of "being themselves" with each other was gone, and they began to hide, revealing only that part of themselves they deemed worthy of acceptance. Judging what was good and evil in each other, they became actors wearing a mask; and the "little man inside" began his long, dreary exile.

In the cool of the day they heard God's voice; but instead of walking confidently and talking openly with Him, fear filled their hearts and they hid from His presence behind the trees in the garden. God's first word to Adam in his lost estate was in the form of a question: "Where art thou?"

Adam's children to this very day follow their father's practice of blaming others for their condition, hiding from God and one another, and never coming to grips with life's most important question. Ashamed of what and where we are, we go through life playing the hiding game, hiding from God and from one another. Wearing our self-made mask, we build walls about ourselves that keep others from the real person, and keep him inside. We cannot believe God loves us as we are; and so we begin a lifetime of performing in His presence, hoping to earn His acceptance. We cannot believe that man can accept and love us as we are, so in our shame we wear whatever leaves will please him, in hopes of earning his love and acceptance.

Our behavior betrays the fact that the fall of our father Adam left each of us with the basic emotional and spiritual problems that plagued him: fear, inferiority complex, and a haunting sense of guilt that seeks and finds relief only in hiding from man and God. Many and varied are the devices the human personality creates to cope with these basic needs, as any student of psychology will tell you. We ascribe technical terms and names to our problems in hopes of isolating them, thus helping us to cope with them. But when all our devices fail, we resort to Adam's way of escape - hiding.

The hiding game begins early in life. As children we are open and honest with all we meet, just being ourselves without concern over self-acceptance. This is the sweet innocence that endears children to us. Without guile or deceit, they fully expose themselves to all, naked and unashamed in the presence of man. But soon they experience the first pains of rejection from others, and little by little begin to build their own world of unreality. Pressed into the demands of a society that forces unreal roles upon them in school, job and home, they retreat further and further into the silent world of nowhere. Adulthood arrives, and too often they find the outer man not true to the little man inside.

It is safe and secure in that prison. No one can hurt the real self, for he is never revealed to others. No one can reject him, for he is never offered to anyone. Only the image man, the masked actor playing his part, is ever seen and known.
All of this is fine, but sooner or later we make the discovery that we have taken into our hiding place a companion that none of us can live with forever. That companion is loneliness.

Loneliness was one of the effects of Adam's fall. He was alone in the beginning and God said it was not good for him to be alone, so He gave him as a precious gift, an helpmeet, Eve. Adam never knew loneliness in his perfect estate, but he and his children have lived with this destroyer ever since his fall. Adam knew loneliness the day he hid from Eve; for, doubting his acceptance as he was, he revealed only that part of himself he judged her willing to receive. Haunted by the realization that the image he projected was not true to the real man, the little man inside learned to live alone and lonely.

Another once wrote, "The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence." Loneliness creates an unbearable stalemate in most of us. Desperate to be known, accepted, understood and loved, we peer through the iron bars of our hiding places, daring at times to risk an exposure of our real selves, only to be greeted with hostility and rejection; and so we are driven deeper into ourselves.

We are like a timid flower who longs to unfold its beauty to the world, but is beset by frost and insects, develops a blight, clasps its petals firmly
to itself and hides its face from all. We search for someone who can be trusted with the revelation of ourselves without rejection, and listen with hope to the talk of love among mortals, only to find in experience that too often the only communication we are ever offered is mask to mask, not face to face.

So, shut up within, we live our quietly desperate lives. Our only companions are our fears, guilt, sense of inadequacy, and loneliness. Many times we are driven so deep within ourselves that we lose all hope of reality and all sense of personal identity. We search for medical, psychiatric, and spiritual answers and help, clinging only to the hope of survival for life. We say with sorrow, "There is no one I can talk to, for no one understands me."

Oh, timid soul, there is Someone Who knows you, understands you, and to whom you can tell all your heart and still He will love you! Please read on to the happy revelation of a God Who loves you as you are, and where you are; a God Who will be your Saviour and Friend in Jesus Christ, His Son!

The way of self-acceptance is to find acceptance with God. We need desperately to see ourselves -- our true selves -- through His eyes, accepted and loved as we are, if we are to be free. We will languish in our prisons forever if we wait for some human who will love us when we are unlovely, accept us when we are unacceptable, understand us when we are beyond human
understanding. Only God, in Jesus Christ, can meet the needs of your heart. In His presence we can be what we are without fear . . . take off our mask; be freed from the need of man's acceptance; learn the glory of being alone without being lonely; and blossom in the sunshine of His love. In Him and His love we will discover our origin and destiny. Created to receive the revelation of His eternal love, we can find in Him the principle of our existence and its only end. To know the true power of His love in Jesus is to see earth metamorphosed; to live in the assurance of His love is to experience no winter or night -- a life where all tragedies, dreary duties and fears vanish.

My immediate purpose is to assure you that there is Someone Who knows you as you are, and where you are. Never mind for now about your sins and failures. Please read on as He seeks to bring you under the banner of His love at Calvary's cross, where His forgiveness and provision for you were revealed. Let him fold you in His eternal love and acceptance, and set you free to walk with Him in the cool of the day in precious and real fellowship. Read in faith that God has found you and will speak to your deepest heart needs.

do what is right

Cain and Abel

1 Adam [1] lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. [2] She said, "With the help of the LORD I have brought forth [3] a man." 2 Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.
Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. 3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD . 4 But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.
6 Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."
8 Now Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let's go out to the field." [4] And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
9 Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?"
"I don't know," he replied. "Am I my brother's keeper?"
10 The LORD said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. 11 Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth."
13 Cain said to the LORD , "My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me."
15 But the LORD said to him, "Not so [5] ; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over." Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. 16 So Cain went out from the LORD's presence and lived in the land of Nod, [6] east of Eden.
17 Cain lay with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch. 18 To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad was the father of Mehujael, and Mehujael was the father of Methushael, and Methushael was the father of Lamech.
19 Lamech married two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah. 20 Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock. 21 His brother's name was Jubal; he was the father of all who play the harp and flute. 22 Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of [7] bronze and iron. Tubal-Cain's sister was Naamah.
23 Lamech said to his wives,

"Adah and Zillah, listen to me;
wives of Lamech, hear my words.
I have killed [8] a man for wounding me,
a young man for injuring me.
24 If Cain is avenged seven times,
then Lamech seventy-seven times."

25 Adam lay with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, [9] saying, "God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him." 26 Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh.
At that time men began to call on [10] the name of the LORD .

//===================================================

"If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

hmm....sin desires to have me

simply enough, do what is right...