Day 142: Righteousness

Daily Sheet: Day 142: Righteousness

Family Book: “Noah’s Ark”

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Travel: Norway

“The Right Thing to Do” – The Harrow Family

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Day 139: Steadfastness

Daily Sheet: Day 139: Steadfastness

Family Book: “Freedom Summer”

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Travel: Utah; Colorado

Video: “If I Stand” – Rich Mullins (acoustic, Wheaton College chapel service 1997)

Song: “If I Stand” – Adam Young (Owl City)

Question:

  • When Satan told Jesus the following, what was he referring to?  (If you get stuck, refer back to Day 131).

For it is written: “He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”

  • What does this tell us about Satan?
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Day 113: Commitment

Daily Sheet: Day 113: Commitment

Family Book: “Silver Threads”

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Travel: British Columbia

Song: “I Commit” – Margaret Becker

 

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Day 108: Perseverance

Daily Sheet: Day 108: Perseverance

Family Book: “The Butter Man”

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Travel: Western Sahara; Morocco

Video: “When The Saints” – Sara Groves (images from the persecuted church; with lyrics)

Song: “Mistral” – Roo Panes

 

 

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Day 106: Flexibility

Daily Sheet: Day 106: Flexibility

Family Books: “From Kalamazoo to Timbuktu”“Moonlight on the Amazon”

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Travel: Mali

Song: “Time May Bring” – Andru Bemis  (scroll down for the song)

Video: Brazilian Pianist Eliane Rodrigues’ performance with a broken piano

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Day 105: Alertness

Daily Sheet: Day 105: Alertness

Family Book: “Dawn Watch”

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Travel: Michigan; Wisconsin

Video: “Gotta Get Up” – Rich Mullins

Video: “Wake Up Sleeper” – Gungor (live, in subway station)

 

 

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Day 104: Optimism

Daily Sheet: Day 104: Optimism

Family Book: “Four Feet, Two Sandals”

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Travel: Afghanistan

Video: Sara Groves introduces “Floodplain” and talks about the role of positive thinking in our lives

Song: “Floodplain” – Sara Groves

Some hearts are built on a floodplain, keeping one eye on the sky for rain.  You work for the ground that gets washed away when you live closer…

Closer to the life and the ebb and flow, closer to the edge of I don’t know, closer to that’s the way it goes…  Some hearts are built on a floodplain.

And it’s easy to sigh on a high bluff, look down and ask when you’ve had enough.  Will you have the sense to come on up or will you stay closer?

Closer to the danger and the rolling deep, closer to the run and the losing streak and what brings us to our knees…  Some hearts live here.

Oh the river it rushes to madness and the water it spreads like sadness and there’s no high ground.  Closer to the danger and the rolling deep, closer to the run and the losing streak and what brings us to our knees…

Closer to the life and the ebb and flow, closer to the edge of I don’t know, closer to Lord please send a boat…  Some hearts are built here.

Video: “Brighter Day” – Gungor (drum cover)

Love came down and hope was found; Now we’re waking up to a brighter day.

Questions:

  • Do you like today’s story?  Does it make sense to you?  Why or why not?
  • Explain Ecclesiastes 11:4.
  • What is a floodplain?  What does Sara Groves mean when she says “some hearts live there”?  Do you think that means these people are optimistic or pessimistic?
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Day 102: Benevolence

Daily Sheet: Day 102: Benevolence

Family Book: “If the World Were a Village”

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Travel: Gabon

Map: Mary Kingsley’s Travels

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?
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Day 93: Kindness

Daily Sheet: Day 93: Kindness

Family Book: “The Watcher”

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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.

 

 

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