Daily Sheet: Day 128: Generosity
Family Book: “A New Coat for Anna”
Travel: Denmark
Song: “Come Thou Fount”- Fernando Ortega (with lyrics)
Tag Archives: Generosity
Day 118: Beauty
Daily Sheet: Day 118: Beauty
Family Book: “The Beautiful World that God Made”
Travel: Ecuador; Galapagos Islands
Video: “Jesus, You’re Beautiful” – Sara Groves (with lyrics)
Day 110: Neutrality
Daily Sheet: Day 110: Neutrality
Family Book: “The Slant Book”
Travel: Austria; Czech Republic; Switzerland
Video: “Roll to the Middle” – Sara Groves
Day 108: Perseverance
Daily Sheet: Day 108: Perseverance
Family Book: “The Butter Man”
Travel: Western Sahara; Morocco
Video: “When The Saints” – Sara Groves (images from the persecuted church; with lyrics)
Song: “Mistral” – Roo Panes
Day 103: Attentiveness
Daily Sheet: Day 103: Attentiveness
Family Book: “Good Night, Gorilla”
Travel: Cameroon
Video: “A Message To Myself” – Roo Panes
Going to get out of here, so many voices fill this place; Society is in my solitude. Oh find me the corner of this great space! If I’d heard every word, if I’d read every line upon the shelf, I’d still need a message to myself.
Searching for the elements, the roots of a fundamental love; Been reaching out to find my solid ground, ’cause I’ve never known peace lest from above. So up in the clear, I’ll find the voice that I hold dear, and I’ll send a message to myself.
Video: “Just One More Thing” – Sara Groves
Day 102: Benevolence
Daily Sheet: Day 102: Benevolence
Family Book: “If the World Were a Village”
Travel: Gabon
Video: “Open My Hands” – Sara Groves (talking about her inspiration behind writing this song)
In Psalm 84:11 we read, “No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.” Sir Richard Baker comments, “But how is this true, when God so oftentimes withholds riches and honor and health of body from men, though they walk ever so uprightly? We may therefore know that honors and riches and bodily strength are none of God’s good things, and the good things of God are chiefly peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Spirit, fruition of God’s presence, and a vision of His face in the next. These good things God never withholds from the Godly.”
Video: “Open My Hands” – Sara Groves (live acoustic performance)
I believe in a blessing I don’t understand. I’ve seen rain fall on wicked and the just. Rain is no measure of his faithfulness; He withholds no good thing from us.
I believe in a peace that flows deeper than pain, that broken find healing in love.
Pain is no measure of his faithfulness; He withholds no good thing from us.I believe in a fountain that will never dry, though I’ve thirsted and didn’t have enough. Thirst is no measure of his faithfulness; He withholds no good thing from us.
I will open my hands, will open my heart.
I am nodding my head, an emphatic “Yes!” to all that You have for me.
Questions:
- Do you think Sir Richard Baker is right?
- Why does Sara Groves say, “I believe in a blessing I don’t understand”?
- Why, if God is faithful, do people experience drought, pain, and thirst?
- What is our role in all this?
Day 101: Belief
Daily Sheet: Day 101: Belief
Family Book: “I Believe: The Nicene Creed”
Travel: Congo
Video: “Creed” – Rich Mullins (with introduction by Rich)
I hope I would leave a legacy of joy; a legacy of real compassion. Because I think there is a great joy in real compassion. I don’t think that you can know joy apart from caring deeply about people, caring enough about people that you actually do something. But I have a feeling like if my life is motivated by my ambition to leave a legacy, what I will probably leave as a legacy is ambition. But if my life is motivated by the power of the Spirit in me, if I live in the awareness of the indwelling Christ, if I allow His presence to guide my actions, to guide my motives, those sorts of things, that’s the only time I think that we really leave a great legacy. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. My ambition to be a good guy is a fleshly ambition. And when Christ calls us to take up our cross and follow him, a lot of us think that what that means is we’re supposed to lay down our vices, and we’re supposed to cling to virtues, but I think that unless Christ is Lord of our virtues, our virtues become dangerous to us and dangerous to the people around us. I think that when Christ calls us to take up our cross, what He means is you must die not only to whatever vices are in your life, which he will eventually kill out, you must also die to whatever virtues are in your life. Your life is not valuable because you are an articulate speaker, your life is not valuable because you are a generous person, your life is not valuable because of any of that. If we empty ourselves of everything and allow God to be present, then it’s no longer us, it’s Him. Then it becomes a spiritual thing. And that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. And that’s when I think Christianity really begins to make sense.
Video: “Creed” – Rich Mullins with Third Day (with Croatian subtitles)
Day 96: Gentleness
Daily Sheet: Day 96: Gentleness
Family Book: “Handa’s Surprise”
Travel: Comoros; Madagascar
Video: “Childhood Summer” – Sara Groves (official music video)
I miss innocence. I miss the arms of my mother. I miss feeling light like a childhood summer. Childhood summer.
Day 93: Kindness
Daily Sheet: Day 93: Kindness
Family Book: “The Watcher”
Travel: Zimbabwe
Video: “All the Ways You Wander” – John Spillane
…And if you take the long way, if you take the long way home, down where the magicians and the dreamers roam, through the mountains of morning, through the valleys of night, searching for the island of your heart’s delight,
I’ll wait for you, like a true friend. I’ll wait for you, ’til the very end.
Video: “Kindness”
Video: “12 Year Old Boy Helps Homeless People in Los Angeles”
“I might only have one match, but I can make an explosion.”
Video: “12 Year Old Boy Helping More Homeless People in L.A.”
Video: “14 Year Old Boy Helping More Homeless People in L.A.”
Elliot Katz, the boy in the last three videos above, was inspired in part to form his charity organization, ReachingOutCalifornia, by the following verse:
“And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.” – Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:9; Yerushalmi Talmud.
Put in context, the passage reads as follows:
…We find in regard to Cain, who killed his brother, “The bloods of your brother scream out!” (Genesis 4:10) – the verse does not say blood of your brother, but bloods of your brother, because it was his blood and also the blood of his future offspring [screaming out]! [The judges’ speech continues] “It was for this reason that man was first created as one person [Adam], to teach you that anyone who destroys a life is considered by Scripture to have destroyed an entire world; and anyone who saves a life is as if he saved an entire world.”
Questions:
- The Talmud, from which the Mishnah Sanhedrin passage is taken, is a Jewish writing. Compare these verses to Jesus’s words as recorded in Luke 9:24:
If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. (New Living Translation – NLT)
- “The Watcher” is written as a poem. Describe the format.
Day 90: Contentment
Daily Sheet: Day 90: Contentment
Family Book: “Last Stop on Market Street”
Travel: Ireland
Hymn: “Amazing Grace” – Joey + Rory Feek
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.
‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved. How precious did that grace appear, the hour I first believed.
Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come; ‘Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.
The Lord has promised good to me; His word my hope secures; He will my shield and portion be, as long as life endures.
Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail, and mortal life shall cease, I shall possess within the veil, a life of joy and peace.
When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we’ve first begun.
Video: “Give Me Jesus” – Fernando Ortega (live)
In the morning, when I rise, give me Jesus.
And when I am alone, give me Jesus.
And when I come to die, give me Jesus.
Give me Jesus, give me Jesus. You can have all this world, but give me Jesus.
Character core curriculum 
