January 2
This is the first full week of this new year and most of us are wondering how it will turn out. Will it be a year of success or one fraught with failure? As 2020 unfolds, remember this, patience and perseverance will lead to achievement.
The next time you use a spoon full of honey consider the patience and perseverance required to produce it. To make a pound of clover honey, bees must take the nectar from 62,000 clover blossoms, and this requires 2,750,000 visits to the flowers. In other words, a bee must go from hive to blossom and back again nearly 3 million times to produce one pound of this golden natural sweetener. Given the incredible effort required, it is amazing that any honey is ever produced. Keep in mind, however, that as many as 60-70,000 bees live in one hive and work as a single team so what seems an overwhelming task is accomplished through patience and perseverance. If God created the tiny honeybee with such capacity, what do you think he expects from us? This year add patience and perseverance to your daily routine!
January 9
I am constantly amazed at God’s creative genius. Hi, I’m Tom Ellsworth from Sherwood Oaks Christian Church with a minute message.
Just consider the complexity of the eye. Did you know that the human eye can detect 10 million colors? TEN MILLION! If there were no obstructions on a dark night, the human eye could see the flame of a single candle thirty miles away. The cornea, that clear outer protective covering receives oxygen directly from the air and it’s a good thing. Imagine trying to see through a web of blood vessels! And the process of seeing causes the photoreceptor cells to expend a huge amount of energy. As a matter of fact, the per gram of tissue energy used by the eye is 600% greater than our cardiac muscle. And all the parts of the eye – rods, cones, retina, photoreceptor cells, iris, optic nerve and so much more are necessary for vision. Remove any one part, and our vision is gone. Dr. John Stevens, states that, “it would take a minimum of a hundred years of high-speed computer processing time to simulate what takes place in your eye multiple times every second.” Could something so grand be accidental? Hardly! Look up and thank God for the ability to see!
January 16
January 30
Life’s best gifts to us are not things, but opportunities. Hi, I’m Tom Ellsworth from Sherwood Oaks Christian Church with a minute message.
Everyday life demands intentionality. I believe we often miss the chance to make an important difference because we’re slow to open the door when opportunity knocks. And when we finally do seize the moment, it may be just a little too late. Does the name Elisha Gray ring a bell? If you don’t recognize him, you’re in good company. On March 7, 1876, Mr. Gray submitted plans for a truly brilliant invention to the U.S. Patent Office. Unfortunately for Mr. Gray patent number 174,465 had been issued earlier that same day to another gentleman with a similar invention. Some even suggest that Gray’s idea was the superior of the two. Nevertheless, when a phone rings, we don’t remember the name Elisha Gray we remember Alexander Graham Bell.
The Scriptures are filled with the stories of those who seized the moment as well as those who didn’t. God gives us the same choices today – don’t get caught second in line when you can make a first-rate difference. When opportunity knocks, or…uh…calls, answer on the first ring!