When mass failure overtakes a nation, such as the 1929 world business depression, the circumstance is in perfect harmony with nature's plan to break up man's habits and give out fresh opportunities.

The river never changes. it may alter it's path a bit, but it never changes. It's us who change. We come back here and we're are different. Not it. Form can't be extracted from the essence like some broth reduction. This river's taught me a good bit. Probably why I don't leave here. It winds, weaves, snakes around. Rarely goes the same twice. But, in the end, it always ends up in the same place and the gift is never the same. ...it's the journey that matters.

Sin may have the power to kill and destroy, but God is the Creator of life. He can create it from nothing, and He can restore it from death.(John 11:25-26)

The conversion of a soul is the miracle of a moment, the manufacture of a saint is the task of a lifetime.

John says, in effect, "In the beginning, God the Son created humanity and filled them with life. He then came to earth as a human to bring life again to humanity, which is spiritually dead because of sin.

I took her hands in both of mine. "Darlin', what happened in those woods does not define the rest of your life. People might look at you and say, 'There's that woman that was taken to the cabin in Kentucky.' But God doesn't look at you that way. He says, 'There's my daughter. There's my spotless bride that my Son died for.' What happened out there does not have to follow you.

The past is like grace. It's not enough to know about it. We all know what happened back there. Grace allows you to see yourself in light of the past, not in the shadow of it. You see the truth about yourself, your need.

The reason he kept going was that God got hold of his heart. And he did the same for me. I'm so ashamed of what happened back there. How we let our passions run. We hurt a lot of people. And we've lived with that. But

God, I want a new job and I don't want to go to jail," Tony prayed. "But I know there are consequences to my actions. I know what I did hurt people. I've hurt my family. I hurt my employer. And I thank You for forgiving me and grabbing hold of my heart and not letting me go any further toward things that would have destroyed me.

I am not a has-been. I am a will be.

In God's plan, our quest for personal identity is meant to drive us back to him as Creator so that we find our meaning and purpose in him. When we live out a sense of who we are IN CHRIST we live our lives based on all we have been given by Christ. This keeps us from seeking to get those things from the people and situations around us. Much of the disappointments and heartache we experience is the result of our attempts to get something from relationships that we already have in Christ.

None of us ever gets to be in relationship with a finished person. God's redemptive work of change is ongoing in all our lives.