New layout with a new header pic

I've been wanting a "stretch" profile that will take advantage of larger display monitors. Blogger doesn't exactly have the widest selection of templates.. but this one will do. The picture above was taken by my wife in Drumheller Alberta (that map is centered on as close as I can tell that I was standing) just outside of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology.

The picture represents a lot of thinking, growth and failure to me. When I got back to where my wife was standing - a long way away - I was disappointed that she had had such a hard time taking photos. The results were not what I had hoped for and I didn't understand why they might have been hard to accomplish. There now that this is out of the way, I could not post this picture without the confession of the conversation that happened afterwards - it would not be honest and my meager conscience would not allow me to knowingly mislead here where I minister and live daily.

The picture is a representation of a lesson God has spent three years teaching me. I'm standing in a valley there. Around me all I can see is destruction. Literally actually as what I am standing in is a scar left over by the Flood. But more personally, to me I was standing on a mountain in the valley of the shadow of death.

It is in the deep dark scary valleys of life that we learn about, and to trust God Almighty. It is the proving of our faith. Not that we are faithful, or that we have faith. But that our faith is true. That God is exactly who He says He is. When our faith is proved to not be in vain, because the Object of our Faith is TRUE then that is more valuable than anything and everything else in the World.

So what you see the chubby little me doing in that picture is raising my hands to Heaven deep in a valley, yet high on a mountain! Because I have learned that in the depths of despair we rely the most on God and so we are the most secure. When we know this, then we can praise God in the valley! This is what the Lord has taught me so far on my walk toward Him.