A Thought

Okay! This is the long lost person who's supposed to be writing in this blog, but hasn't recently, otherwise known as: Sarah!
Today we're getting hi-speed Internet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *woot, woot* (as Abigail would say)
Yeah, so I'm pretty excited about that- we'll be able to see all those blog videos that we haven't seen, Dad can watch the weather online, we can post pictures on our blog, and there are endless other possibilities! We've been trying to get hi-speed for some time, but Verizon doesn't have a line this far out in the country, I guess, the only other possible situation was Dish, and our server doesn't have hi-speed so we hadn't got it. But on Monday Dad was calling around and Ntelos had a really good deal so we got hooked up and I think we received the modem thing today in the mail! So now that that's settled I was going to talk about something that I came across this week.

This week while working with Dad and Daniel, I was reading "Christie, the King's Servant" by O.F. Walton and came across a section which made me think. (The book is set in a fishing village in Yorkshire, England and the town has just had a festival of games, including Tug of War. This segment is the next Sunday when the preacher's talking)
"The Tug of War is our subject to-day, dear friends," he began, " and a very suitable subject, I think, after what we have witnessed on this green during the past week. We have seen, have we not, a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull together, as yon heavy crab-boat was dragged up from the beach? How well she came, what progress she made! with each yodel we brought her farther from the sea. We all of us gave a helping hand; fishermen, wives,visitors,friends,all laid hold, and all pulled, and the work, hard as it seemed, was soon accomplished.Why? Because we were all united. It was a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together. And now let me bring back to your memory another event during this past week. The place is the same, our village green, the same rope is used, and those who pull are the very same men, strong, brawny,powerful fishermen. Yes, you pulled your very hardest; if possible you put forth more strength than when the crab-boat was drawn up, and yet, strange to say, there was no result, the rope did not move an inch. What were you pulling? What was the mighty weight that you had to move? What was it that, for such a long time, baffled the strength of the strongest among you? The weight you could not move was not a heavy boat, but a light handkerchief! What was there this difference? Why was the handkerchief harder to move than the boat? The answer to that question was to be found at the other end of the green. There were other pullers at the rope that day, pulling with all their might in an exactly opposite direction. It was not a united pull, and therefore for a long time there was not result, and we watched on, until a length one side was proved the stronger, and the handkerchief was drawn by them triumphantly across the line. To-day, dear friends, I speak to you of yet another tug of war. The place is the same, Runswick Bay, and our village green, but the weight to be drawn is not a boat, not a handkerchief; the weight is a human soul. It is your soul, my friend, your immortal soul; you are the one who is being drawn. And who are the pullers? Oh, how many they are! I myself have my hands on the rope. God only knows how hard I am pulling, striving with all my might, if possible to draw you, my friend , to Christ. But there are other hands on the rope besides mine. Your conscience pulls, your little child pulls, your Christian mate pulls; each sermon you hear, each Bible class you attend, each hymn you sing, each prayer uttered in your presence, each striving of the Spirit, each God-given yearning after better things, each storm you come through, each danger you escape, each sickness in your family, each death in your home, each deliverance granted you, gives you a pull God-ward, Christ-ward, heaven-ward.
Yet, oh, my dear friend, you know, as clearly as you know that you are sitting there, that, so far, Christ's pullers are drawing in vain. You have never yet, you know it, crossed the line which divides the saved from the unsaved. Why is this? Why, oh, why are you so hard to move? Oh, my friend, do you ask why? Surely you know the reason! Is it not because there are other hands on the rope, other pullers drawing in an exactly opposite direction? For Satan has many an agent, many a servant, and he sends forth a great army of soul-pullers. Each wordly friend, each desire of your evil nature, each temptation to sin, each longing after wealth, each sinful suggestion, gives you a pull, and a pull the wrong way, away from safety, away from Christ, away from God, away from heaven, away from Home. And towards what? Oh, dear friend, towards what? What are the depths, the fearful depths, towards which you are being drawn?

Alright, so I know that was sort of an old-fashioned sermon(all those "dear friends!") But the point he was making is very important. Now I know a lot of us are Christians and this is talking about the pull for your soul for Christ, but if you think about it, everyone, every day is making different choices and decisions that are either drawing them closer to God or separating them from him. We know that "We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God". Our sin separates us from God and it's "When we confess our sins he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." So I just think that we all need to be conscious all throughout our day of where our choices are taking us: away from the Lord or Drawing us to Him.

So that's that, but also I wanted to tell everyone that Rachel did end up writing a story that she's very pleased with and was exactly on the word limit for the contest!!!! Yay!!! I really like the story too.
That's all for now! -Sarah