Tag Archive | flood

Billions of Dead Things

Reading Time: 3 minutes

“If Noah’s flood is true you’d find billions of dead things buried in rock, laid down by water, all over the earth.” Ken Ham.

After I got over the awesome vastness that is the Grand Canyon, that quote by Ken Ham began to resonate within me. Especially when I would hear park rangers talk about evolution. Sure, things died and are buried, but evolution doesn’t explain enough. For instance as a Christian, if I believe Genesis 1 is true then evolution doesn’t work because there was no death when the world was created. There wasn’t any death until AFTER the fall. God’s creation was good, till man messed it up.

And then it struck me. Dead things. All this breathtaking beauty is dead things. And the rangers were wrong. God was the One who created this. He destroyed a world that was evil in an attempt to give it a restart, but the sin nature in us all couldn’t refrain from going down bad paths once again.

God can use catastrophe, like a Biblical flood, to purge sin but also create something beautiful. It is so evident in Arizona, but it’s everywhere if we only open our eyes to see it.

We deny God’s power and beauty on display to our own detriment. If we forget then we are prone to do the same thing. We see it over and over and over in the Old Testament where God gives His people chance after chance to keep their covenant with Him. They fail every time. We all do.

Yet, God remains faithful. Always.

I live in Wisconsin with tall trees and lots of green grass. When we traveled through the Navajo Nation we saw a desolate landscape. Little grew. It was barren and people living there didn’t have much.

Then we went to Antelope Canyon in Page, Arizona (part of the Navajo Nation). It is amazing. Was it worth the price and the 2 1/2 hour drive one way to spend 30 minutes in a 1/4 mile stretch of sand to see the sights? Guess you can judge. I think they were the best pics from the trip.

While our vaction was good minus long delays at the airport for our flights, and lots of driving, it was also a slap in the face to realize that our world is no better than in Noah’s day. It’s funny that people want to focus on the environment, and the government believes they can control the weather, (hint: they can’t.), while we allow the hearts of people to be destroyed and sin has free reign. I was aware of this before our trip, but billions of dead things brought it to the forefront of my mind.

It is all the more reason to worship the Creator of the Universe and once again focus on the One who makes beauty out of pain. He’s done that in my life time and again, even this year. This is the second trip I took this year where God revealed Himself in fresh ways. I see it every day where I live too but God is bigger than my little world. The Grand Canyon shows evidence of that in more ways than most who visit, from all over the world, realize.

Spatzle Speaks: Through Raging Waters (Book Review)

Reading Time: 2 minutesRagingWaters copyRenee Blare has done it again with a fast paced romantic suspense that will be hard to put down. The last we left the Snowy Range Chronicles, in To Soar on Eagle Wings, Steve Mitchell had married Rachel Fitzgerald. Now a new adventure hits the area featuring Rachel’s best friend as her brother who his also Steve’s best friend. And life is going to get rough in Through Raging Waters.

Mother nature is doing her best to wash out the town of  Timber Springs and Ranger Steve Mitchell is going to do everything he  can to prevent that. Obstacles continue to rise and when his father-in-law suffers a heart attack in the middle of he storm he calls on his best friend, and son of the pastor, Paul Fitzgerald to assist. Unfortunately Paul is going to be need for even more than saving his dad’s life.

As the flood continues to escalate wiping out everything in its path and the storms keep coming, Steve calls on Paul and others to a rescue mission in the mountains. Paul hasn’t done any of that since a disaster traumatized him in his past but he steps up and his controlled life is slowly eroded in the process. He’s only just started to open his heart to love again with Melissa but is forced to set that aside to do the head into danger. Getting injured and relying on his annoying brother wasn’t part of his plan, but maybe that’s just what God needed to use to get through to his heart and faith locked away deep inside.

Melissa Hampton has been battling on several fronts: her mysterious beginnings being discovered in her mother’s keepsakes, her budding affection for the enigmatic pharmacist, brother to her best friend, Paul and the challenges of working for BJ Parker. When BJ is in danger she tries to find him only to realize the one who is really in trouble is Paul. She realizes she has more courage than she expected when forced into challenging circumstances to save the man she loves.

The best part of the story is that Paul has a dog. Yup. A great dog. They call it a therapy dog but hey, aren’t all dogs therapeutic? I think that’s what I am to my mom. So because it’s a non-stop action-packed novel filled with faith and love, I’ll give it five bones. I’m a dog. I don’t do stars.

Spatzle Baganz, book reviewer for the silygoos blog because that's how we roll.

Spatzle Baganz, book reviewer for the silygoos blog because that’s how we roll.

 

 

5 bones for blog