Prayers

Chris Paul had written Brian on his sneakers during the game last night.  He is an excellent role model in addition to being a great player. 

KIR, I have been meaning to express my sympaties and condolences about Doc.  One thing you can look at, he passed away where he would have wanted to, at home.  I put an elderly cat down about 15 years ago and it still haunts me.

jjoey,

You are right about CP3.  We need more athletes who are willing to take the responsibility of being role models as Chris has and others like Dekembe Mautumbo and Steve Nash.  Many have given back to their communities, to people in need, to Katrina victims, to the ill and disabled especially children.  Some do it for photo ops, but there are many who do it quietly, behind the scenes.  Lamar Odem, while with the Miami Heat, took on the responsibility of several children who lost their home and their parents in a house fire.  Very little press.  Kevin Garnett has built homes in the Louisiana/Mississippi area after Katrina.  CP3 is very active in rebuilding his community in New Orleans.  Chris Duhon runs the Stand Tall Foundation for rebuilding Slidell, Louisiana.  Carlos Boozer started 'Boozer's Buddies' to fund treatment for sickle cell anemia, which his oldest son suffers from.  His wife was pregnant with twins and they used stem cells from the placenta of the healthy twins to come up with an experimental but successful treatment for his oldest son (but everyone trashed him for leaving Cleveland Cavs assuming it was greed for money when it was financial necessity for treatment), Derek Fisher is booed now by Utah fans for leaving the Jazz to return to the Lakers in order to have his daughter's cancer treated.  We hear about the trouble makers in sports; why not pray for and support and publicize the good being done by many other athletes who aren't in trouble?  Oh, that's right, good behavior isn't news.  Let us pray for those who do good by building schools and hospitals (Deke and Nash) and praise God for good examples.  Teach our children what a role model in sports really is.  "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it."  Proverbs

Thank you too for the condolences for Doc.  Living mostly in isolation due to a weakened immune system through GI tract dysfunction, she was my constant companion and a great source of joy and affection.  Our pets are family to many of us. 

Our Lord has given us much through His creation and given us responsibility as good stewards over it.  How short mankind has fallen in this responsibility.  I pray for the day when we see the new heaven and new earth and the new Jerusalem.  Amen and amen!  God will make all things new in His time.  All glory and honor to Him.

Be well my friend and I continue to pray for your rehab to advance well.  God bless you.

KIR

Praise be to God in the highest!

MrClutch, I will continue to pray for your friend's cat. (I'm glad God knows what I was praying about...lol )

KIR, I was talking to my five year old daughter last night, she was asking about heaven and wether our pets go there. I do believe that our pets will be there. Someone correct me if I am wrong but I believe that there is scripture that states that.(I am half asleep and still a little foggy right now) Anyway, I believe that you and your cat will be reunited when you go home to be with our Father in heaven.

Peace be to all!     

Gators73,

Thank you for the wonderful devotional.  Thank God that our relationship with Him and our very definition of who we are does NOT depend on feelings, but on the facts and truths in the Bible.  It is so very important to commit God's word in our hearts and minds long before the storms come.  When we are shaken in any way, we MUST know what God has said about who He is and who we are in Him.  This knowledge is our foundation as strong Christians.

We will feel the same emotions given to all humans--happiness, sadness, doubt, grief, self-pity, loneliness, fear, confidence, self-assurance, etc.  Our feelings--whether we FEEL good or bad--do not change the facts and we need to rein in our extremes when they draw us away from our Father.  We may feel so self-assured that we neglect prayer, or we may feel like God isn't listening so we, again, neglect prayer.  God always listens, always cares, and will answer with the right blessing at the right time.  Don't stop praying because of how you feel!

"Commit your works to the Lord,
And your thoughts will be esta blished."--Proverbs 16:3

RazorG,

I did some Bible research about pets and the only reference I found was in Matthew 15:26-7 and Mark 7:27-8.  Jesus is approached by a Gentile woman who wants Him to heal her daughter and He at first says He was sent to the lost sheep of Isreal and that it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.  ('Dogs' was used as a derrogatory term for Gentiles.)  She replies that even the dogs are allowed to eat the crumbs that fall from the children's table.  In her answer, the word 'dogs' means 'a small domestic dog or puppy' and is the only reference I could find to people keeping domestic animals as pets.  Jesus recognizes her faith and heals her daughter.

The Bible seems silent on the matter of pets and what happens to them after they die; Revelation contains a promise that God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.  It would be hard for me to say that this means what makes us sorrow now, like the loss of a pet, will be restored to us (we will get our pets back) or that we will be changed so that things that make us grieve in this life will not be remembered or will not effect us in heaven.  I don't like to make assumptions on subjects that the Bible is silent on so I don't know for certain what happens to our pets.  I know when they pass on, they are relieved of their suffering and we miss them.  I know God comforts us in our sorrow.  Beyond that, I will not guess.

The words "beast" and "creature" is used throughout the Bible to refer to animals for sacrifice, animals as property, any being with life including mankind, spiritual beings, and metaphorically in some cases for governments or economic systems (especially in prophecy).  There are animals in heaven, I believe, as in the horses referred to in Revelation.  The new heaven and new earth will have animals that are all peaceful and will not harm each other or mankind since sin will have been removed from creation.

Does anyone else have a take on the Bible's perspective on this?  Just curious.  I do believe they are a blessing and a gift from God to us now and we can thank Him for them now.  I would like to think we will see them again, but I have no Biblical statement to support that either way.