It’s fall in full swing around here and we are loving the cooler temperatures, the harvest festivals, Homecoming events, and looking toward Christmas. Some early birds have already put up Christmas decorations. These last three months of the year are my favorite time of year. A Prata Potpourri is one of my favorite blogs to write. I hope some of these links are meaningful or helpful to you. Enjoy!
An unusual topic, but it appears frequently enough in the Bible for us to ponder its symbolism. I am reading the Book of Jonah, and the great fish vomited the prophet up on dry land. This act signifies the destructive nature of sin and disobedience, including biblical instances where vomiting represents evil, such as God’s rejection of lukewarm believers. I highlight the stark imagery to illustrate spiritual truths.
This reflection warns against misinterpreting Scripture to promote an “if-then” theology—doing good to get good. Citing Job, Psalms, and New Testament examples, it emphasizes that we cannot fully know God’s mind or assign specific blessings or trials to specific actions. God’s purposes are sovereign, mysterious, and beyond human judgment. We should be cautious not to claim such insight ourselves.
I recount life aboard a sailboat, enduring the elements as a metaphor for the emotional toll of living with a contentious spouse. Drawing on Proverbs and Matthew Henry’s Commentary, I urge wives to foster peace at home, emphasizing kindness, self-denial, and Christlike love as a sanctuary for their husbands.
I read Nehemiah 8. It is a short book in the Old Testament, and it is good. Nehemiah was the fellow who supervised the rebuilding of Jerusalem and alongside Prophet Ezra help to purify the Jewish community that had re-gathered there. Nehemiah was governor and Ezra was the priest and the scribe.
The day came when Ezra called all the adults, and all children who could understand, to come and listen to the reading of the Law. They stood and listened. The Levites were there to help them understand what they were hearing. Soon there were tears, weeping, and crushed hearts. They fell on their faces. “For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the Law.” The Jews realized how far they were from God. But Ezra said not to weep, for it was a day of rejoicing. The Festival of Booths was born, and the people celebrated, giving gifts to those who had nothing, and went their way eating and drinking. It is a short chapter. I recommend reading it.
The response of the people was the only proper response but it is one from which we can gather strength and praise our Savior all the more. First, the people listened to the word. Any walk with the Lord should begin with listening, either by reading yourself and listening with your mind and heart, or listening to a pastor. The people were instructed, and that is a good start.
Then they wept. There are a lot of reasons people weep when they read or hear the Word. It is precise, beautiful, true, and convicting. It is a gift delivered once for all to the saints, and it is good for reproof, exhortation, and education. The Word also reminds us how far we are from Him, Him as savior and we as sinners forgiven by His blood and His grace. But the Word also reminds us of how close we can be to Him!
Then the people were glad. He restores us! He hears prayer, he regenerates us in His likeness, and we are glad, going forth in joy to know that we CAN know our Savior personally. They celebrated, and they gave gifts. We should do that as well, always being on the lookout for those who are in need to fill that need. Giving the gift of the Word, or our time, or our love or all three!
Finally, the people went away rejoicing but their response to hearing the Word did not stop there. They DID something. In this case it was to begin the Festival of Booths (Sukkot). The Israelites evidenced an emotional response but the instructors encouraged them to apply the words to a spiritual response, and they did so.
What is your response to hearing the word? Do you remain unaffected? Do you fall on your face? Do you weep? Do you rejoice….but remain inactive? Or does hearing the word motivate you to a response in the world that in turn affects others?
Our joy should be all the greater because not only do we have the word, we have the promise of the Word.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” (John 1:1-5)
May He shine brightly in your heart today. If it has been a few days,…weeks…months since you have really listened to the Word, do it today. In Him is life!
I blogged earlier in the week that I enjoyed attending the annual Book Fair put on by a literacy organization where the public can enter the well-organized warehouse and browse for books and take up to 100 of them for free.
I found some books for the school library, friends, and some for my own shelves.
I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to live in a nice apartment that has two bedrooms. I don’t need two bedrooms- I live small. However, the second bedroom is a blessing because I’ve always wanted a personal, home library. And now I have one!
One of my hobbies is collecting books. Searching for books, reading books, and living with books are separate things. Related, but separate. As far as searching goes, I like the thrill of the hunt. I almost found a first edition of Dune. A 1st edition of that science fiction book would bring in five figures. It turned out to be a first ‘book club’ edition, which is worth significantly less, but still a thrill to find. Or when I found a first edition of CS Lewis “Till We Have Faces”, worth about $200-400.
It’s an ‘Antiques Roadhouse’ sort of thing, where you come across a book at a yard sale that has an original Dali sketch inside, or a valuable first edition, or just THE book you’ve been wanting to read.
The other pleasure with books is organizing them. I use LibraryThing as an inventory software so I know which books I have and by what author etc. Very helpful since even though I have a good memory, I can’t remember all of them. So before I add one to my library I double check. Or after I get a few books, I add them tot he inventory. If there are any duplicates, I know which ones to give away!
Once I’ve obtained a book, and once I’ve inventoried it, I enjoy organizing the shelves. I have mine arranged by genre. Of the theological portion of my library, I have them arranged by topic and the commentaries I arranged in order of the Bible’s order.
Thus, Commentaries on Genesis start off the shelf and Revelation commentaries are at the other end. Missionary biographies are together, and the topics of heaven, grace, fearing God, prayer, and so on are also all together. I have one bookcase dedicated to the commentaries by MacArthur and his authored books that GTY has sent me or that I’ve purchased, and another bookcase with a shelf dedicated to Sproul. One large section next to the Sproul shelf is my Puritans section.
So it’s enjoyable to place a recently obtained book where it should go, and to then sit in the library and be among all my books and look at them, which by now are like friends.
It has taken me 35 years to accumulate them. I was always a reader and enjoyed library book sales and yard sales and finding books even before I was saved. When I moved from Maine to Georgia, though, I halved my personal library, after calculating the weight and the cost of hiring the mover to haul them 1500 miles.
When I moved within Georgia from one apartment to another, I halved them again, for the same reason, and because I was moving from a 800 sf apartment to a 400 square foot apartment. By then I was saved and I had started looking for theological books, anyway. I didn’t mind abandoning the books I left behind because many were not acceptable reading for a Christian. Dream interpretation/New Age books, spiritual but not doctrinal books, romances, and the like…all went bye bye.
EPrata photo
This was a blessing because not only were my shelves cleaned and purified but now I had room to accumulate books about missionaries, commentaries, doctrinal books and so on. And for the last 21 years I have been doing just that.
With this last batch I’ve accumulated, inventoried, and placed lovingly on my shelves, I realized now my shelves are full! I realized I literally have no more room to put one more book. This is both a sadness and a joy.
I never really collected anything other than books. I like function, and books are functional. Early in my life, like when I was 10, 11 years old I began collecting glass figurines. In the Mall (when there were malls) there used to be glassblowers selling their wares at kiosks. I had bought a delicately glass-blown small tall ship, a ballerina, and several other figures. My brother in a fit smashed them all one day. I thought “Well, that’s that.” I decided not to collect ‘things’ as they might one day be destroyed and render the whole collecting endeavor pointless.
As an adult I don’t like collecting ‘things’ because you have to dust them, and they take up space. I prefer empty or nearly empty flat surfaces. But books are living, so to speak. They’re friends you can turn to for entertainment, for comfort, to learn from. I came from a family of readers, so it seemed like a natural fit to collect them.
I remember once in the mid 1990s when my husband and I were traveling from Maine across the southern tier of the US for a few months. We made it to Los Angeles. My cousin lived there, which seemed exotic to us New Englanders to have a family member living so far away. We got together and visited, and he took us to a taping of the Tonight show. At that time Jay Leno was the host, and old time comedian Jonathan Winters was the main guest.
We were standing in line to get the free tickets, and since this was pre-cell phone days, we each took out a book to read as we were waited, me from my purse, my husband and cousin from their back pockets. Reading was what we did at any spare moment. We always carried a book or had one nearby.
I know some people don’t mind books in piles, books laid down on top of standing books on the shelves, books everywhere. I am too structured for that and I’d decided not to have any book piles when my shelves became full. So if my shelves are full, that means no more books. I’ve winnowed down twice, and the books I have are the books I want, so I won’t be dispensing with any unless something changes in me, my apartment, or my circumstances.
I love my books and now I get to love the ones I have and there will be no more additions for the time being. There will be no more collecting. I am happy to be a reader, to live a live of books, and to own so many wonderful possibilities for picking one up and mentally journeying whenever I want.
panoramic shot of my library room
One of the bookcases in the living room. I took this a few months ago, the gaps in shelf 2 and 3 are gone now
This is the other bookcase in the living room. There is a small bookcase in the bedroom, and a very small one in thekitchen next to the fridge that holds cookbooks.
Whatever hobby you have, whatever leisure you choose, I pray it brings you enjoyment and comfort.
In this essay, I explore how earthquakes unsettle people, prompting people to seek meaning and divine answers. I reflect on humanity’s attempts to categorize nature, and to control the climate. I discuss biblical prophecies of the Tribulation, highlighting a time of uncreation when the ‘natural order’ will be anything but natural. God has ultimate authority over the Earth and its ‘natural’ order.
I spend a lot of time outside watching the birds. There is an Eastern Phoebe nest under the awning at the patio, a Carolina wren nest in the eaves, and another wren nest at the other side of the lawn in the big birdhouse.
I watched the mom of that one go back and forth constantly, bringing food to her babies. I’d hear the baby’s racket inside the birdhouse and I’d know that the mom was back with another bug. She always swooped around looking for a tasty insect and was never disappointed. She always had enough to feed her babies.
The mama would fly off, and soon return with a bug, but not fly directly to the birdhouse. She would pause in a nearby branch, presumably to ensure that no predators were nearby. Then she’d quickly light on the birdhouse. I wanted to snap a photo of this process. I soon learned I did not have to keep my eyes glued to the birdhouse because when the mom landed, the inside of the house would erupt with chirps, lol. I’d hear the racket. Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!
The Lord takes care of them. They have food. Jesus was hungry often, (Mark 11:12, Mt 12:1), but God feeds the birds. Jesus had no place to lay His head but the birds have a nest.
And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” (Matthew 8:20).
How He takes care of us! Not only meeting our physical needs but interceding for us in heaven and in prayer! We are so blessed to have been given the grace to repent. And being in Him, we are secure in knowledge that He will provide what He knows we need.
God clothes the grass with wildflowers
26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. (Matthew 6:26-34)
The post discusses the need for rest as life seasons change, acknowledging shifting energy levels from youth to adulthood. I emphasize the importance of balancing rest with productivity, advocating for discipline in scheduling downtime. I encourage intentional rest practices, grounded in faith, to avoid burnout and maintain spiritual connection with God.
In his second letter to Timothy, Paul emphasizes the importance of remembering Christ, especially as he nears death. This act of remembering transcends mere recollection; it is a call to engage deeply with God’s promises.
the-end-time.org 