A prayer for today

Let not those rejoice over me who are wrongfully my foes,
  and let not those wink the eye who hate me without cause.
For they do not speak peace, but against those who are quiet in the land they devise words of deceit.
They open wide their mouths against me;
  they say, "Aha, Aha! our eyes have seen it!"
You have seen, O LORD; be not silent!
  O Lord, be not far from me
Awake and rouse yourself for my vindication,
  for my cause, my God and my Lord!
Vindicate me, O LORD, my God, according to your righteousness,
  and let them not rejoice over me!
Let them not say in their hearts,
  "Aha, our heart's desire!"
  Let them not say, "We have swallowed him up."
Let them be put to shame and disappointed altogether who rejoice at my calamity!
Let them be clothed with shame and dishonor
  who magnify themselves against me!
Let those who delight in my righteousness shout for joiy and be gad and say evermore,
  "Great is the LORD who delights in the welfare of his servant!"
Then my tongue shall tell of your righteousness
  and of your praise all the day long.

-King David
  Psalms 35:19-28

Semi in the rain

We had a slight issue yesterday in the rain. We had a load of wheat that needed to go in the shed. Well the only place it would fit is in our shed at our house. So I took it home and started backing it in. Well, in an effort to avoid the RATH OF WOMAN :) hehe we tried not to cut the lawn up. Well, we had an air hose pull off, and that automatically locks the brakes. After we finally got that on we got it straightened out thanks to a driveway directly across from our driveway. Well, when I went to back up things started going a little wayward. The lift axle in the middle of the trailer caught on the crown of the road.

So, now we had the entire road blocked off. I was able to go ahead and we tried the 3 times but then the wheels really started slipping.

Those of you that are not very experienced with semi's, let me give you a bit of a heads up. If you ever for some reason are held up by a semi that looks like it is stuck on a banana peal and you are tempted to get angry. Don't, even with all of the weight on the wheels it probably is stuck on a banana peal. So, we were able to get the semi most of the way off the road (Ok, mostly out of one of the lanes) and Hotrod/Big Shot/Big Guy/my brother David, and I left (mind you it is still raining) and went to go get a tractor to pull it. (David had to drive a smaller tractor (open air) back to the farm.)


We got our tow rope and chains to hopefully pull the semi across the road.

Well, we got back and hooked on and Hot Rod started pulling even before I was back in the semi. The John Deere was slowly pulling the semi backwards, but immediately after I climbed up in the semi I heard a clanging sound and the semi stopped moving.


One of the cleaveses that we used had stretched out (Oops!!)

So we reattached, double looped the chain and tried again.



And it worked!!!
So we went to check out our handiwork across the road.


Too bad we mow that too:(
Well we got it backed in the shed without any more real excitement,
and didn't even mess the lawn up too bad thanks to good guidance, and left for the next great adventure; How to load up 2 cattle for the meat packer and haul them there in 30 minutes, when it takes 40 minutes just to drive there!!!

Pride and I'm not talking lions 1

I was thinking today what an awesome thing it is that God would work in our lives to keep us humble. I have been doing a considerable amount of reading on the Kings of Israel and Judah lately and the result has been very sobering for me. Not that I would consider myself anywhere connected to being a king or even an important person in this world (I consider this a privilege). However, one thing that all of the Kings had in common was their inability to be sinless followers of Yahweh. It is amazing/frightening to read how one right after another would be devoted to God and very passionate about serving Him, and then one day BAM! they would be sinning like the pagans they hated. Without exception they did this to at least some extent. Even David, whom the kingdom was named after, and the star was named after. David was considered one of the most devote Jews ever, a heart after God, and yet in his fallen humanity he committed adultery, and then murders the woman's husband. Later in life he demanded that a census be taken against the pleading of his ad visors, and the result was the death of 70,000 men. That is about as many men dead as people that live in Kalamazoo. That number doesn't include women and children. If women and children died too, the number of total people that died was probably closer to the population of Grand Rapids. Those are staggering numbers of people dead for a man considered to have a heart after God.
I think the major difference comes from the reaction that resulted in these different kings being confronted with their sin. David and Hezekiah are to examples of kings who turned away from their pride and humbled themselves before the Lord...