Moving!

My husband is starting a writing bulletin board, and I noticed that our hosting company allows you to install wordpress on your site. So instead of having a blogspot.com blog address, I will now have an easier-to-remember address, http://brookelorren.com/blog. Hope I just find more time to post!

Revival Challenge Day 19

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days... we're currently on the road in California, taking the kidlets to the various Southern California attractions. But I've been praying for revival and I hope that you are too.

I was reading Ezra over the last few days... the times that we are in right now are a lot like the times of Ezra's day. If you've read Ezra before, you might remember that the Israelites were taken into captivity by the Babylonians, and they rebuilt the temple. Some people who had seen the original temple were sad because it was not as nice as Solomon's, but many people were glad nevertheless.

Anyway, Ezra lived in a time that is very much like our own. The believing people were living among many people that did not believe in God. And just like in our day, the believing people were living a lot like the nonbelieving people. They were even marrying nonbelievers (it happens today too).

Ezra was very sad when he found out that the people were living like the world, and he prayed with repentance and forgiveness. The people decided later to live separated lives again.

My preacher was talking about how when he was a high schooler, he was invited to a church youth group meeting. He was wondering how church youth group could be fun. They started showing pornographic videos at the meeting. Preacher left the meeting early, and was turned off from Christianity for years as a result. Even the nonbelievers know that Christians are not supposed to be doing things like that.

If we live like the world, how are we supposed to show the world how we are different? How your life can change by believing in Jesus? You can't. The divorce rates in Christian homes aren't really different than the divorce rates in everybody else's homes. Our children are generally just as ill-behaved as the rest of the world's. If there is no change in our lives, why would the world want to be like us? At least they are free to do as they like on Sunday mornings.

I know that there are obviously some people who are Christians that have great families. I know many of them myself. But your family speaks more about what it's like to be a Christian than a lot of other things you could say. Perhaps that's something to pray about today, whether for strength for your own family (even if your family is great that's probably a good idea anyway), or strength for the families of people that you know, people in your neighborhood, and people in your country. Revival is more difficult when our families are falling apart.

Where Is The Ark of God?

Indiana Jones made a movie about it once... where is the Ark of God?

I was watching Digging For The Truth on the History Channel once, and they had an episode of where the ark might be. One of the plausible sounding guesses was that it was in Ethiopia. Some people think that somehow it got over there because King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba had a relationship of some sort... or so some believe.

The Ethiopian theory is based on the belief that the last known reference to the ark in the Bible was from King Solomon's day.

I guess whoever came up with that little bit of research failed to read the entire Bible.

While I was reading II Chronicles 35 today, I ran into verse 3: "Then he said to the Levites who taught all Israel, who were holy to the Lord: "Put the holy ark in the house which Solomon the son of David, king of Israel, built. It shall no longer be a burden on your shoulders. Now serve the Lord your God and His people Israel."

So evidently, the location of the ark was known in King Josiah's day, and he sent it to one of the houses which Solomon built. I would guess he would put it in a house in Judah? And not in Ethiopia, even if Solomon built a house there. Josiah followed the Lord, and I would find it hard to believe that Josiah would send something that important away from his country during his lifetime. He also had no reason to believe that the ark would have been taken by enemies.

He died fairly suddenly in battle.

His sons did evil in the sight of the Lord. One of them was carted away to Egypt, Nebudchadnezzar carried away another king and also took some of the articles from the house of the Lord to Babylon.

II Chronicles 36:18 says that all the articles of the house of God, great and small, ended up being carried away to Babylon.

Perhaps somebody had foresight in the days of the final evil kings, and hid the ark away... or perhaps the ark ended up going to Babylon. But the Bible says one thing: it didn't leave Israel in the time of Solomon.

Revival Challenge Day 14

Hello!

Hope you are all having a great day today, whether you are reading in the middle of the morning or in the middle of the night.

The expected bad news has happened... Governor Ritter of Colorado signed a bill that will allow sexual predators to enter women's restrooms at any time that they feel like, as long as they claim to believe that they are female at the time they do so. Of course, that was not the intent of the bill... the intent of the bill is to allow transgendered people to use the restroom of the gender they perceive to be... but the unintended consequence is that it will allow sexual predators to use the women's restroom as well. They need our prayers.

I was reading II Chronicles 35-36 today. King Josiah was a good king. Unlike Joash, who became king at age 7 and was good for all the days of his mentor Jehoiada, then ended up killing his mentor's son after his death, King Josiah seemed to be a good guy all the days of his life. Chronicles doesn't really say anything bad about him.

But he did sin, and that was his undoing. King Necho of Egypt was fighting against Carchemish, and Josiah decides to join in the fight. Necho sends him a message from the Lord, basically saying butt out, this isn't your fight... don't meddle with God, or he'll destroy you (II Chronicles 35:20-21). Josiah didn't listen, and that was the end of him.

I bet there are a lot of people like Josiah out there. I know lots of people that love the Lord. They try to do what pleases God most of the time. They go to church, teach their kids right from wrong, try to stay away from filthy movies and television shows... but it's very easy for even people that want to follow the Lord to fail just as Josiah did.

Anyone can be like Josiah. I'm not perfect. Only Jesus is.

I pray today that those of us that love the Lord can follow him today with our whole hearts, and not fail to listen to him when he speaks today, as Josiah did with the king of Egypt.

Revival Challenge Day 13

Hello!

I was thinking this morning as I woke up... what could revival mean to this country? I suppose most Christians generally think of it as a good thing... and it is. But... the road to revival might not always be sunshine and roses.

I mentioned the Fulton Street Revival on Challenge Day 1. Lots of people got saved, people got rid of the ungodly trash in their lives, and the crime rate went down. Great! BUT... to get there, there was a stock market crash. When things look down for a people, that's often when people turn their hearts to God.

I think that's true in most people's lives. Like Hezekiah in II Chronicles. Today I read chapters 32-34. Many of us who have read the Bible a few times know that Hezekiah was about ready to die, then he prayed that he wouldn't die, and God let him live another 15 years. During those years, he was full of pride and didn't serve God the way that he was supposed to.

I noticed today, that his son Manasseh was an evil king, for the most part. Manasseh was 12 years old when he became king, which meant that he was born while Hezekiah was in those 15 years that he spent in pride, not following the Lord. So all he saw of his father's life were the bad things, and not the years and years of good that he did before that, repairing the temple and the like.

Manasseh was an evil king for most of his life... but in II Chronicles 33:12, after Assyria took the country and he was in bondage, he humbled himself. So for the last few years of his life he was good.

Manasseh's son Amon probably saw the evil that his father did for most of his life, and he was an evil king. He didn't repent, and only reigned 2 years. He had a young son named Josiah, who was 8.

Josiah saw the evil that his father Amon did, for all 8 years of his life, but he was 6 years old when his grandpa Manasseh died. Manasseh had repented in his latter years, so during the 6 years that Josiah was alive before his grandpa died, he probably saw his grandfather doing good.

But before Manasseh repented... he was taken away into captivity by the Assyrians.

What good is it if our country gains the whole world, but loses it's own soul? The riches that God has to offer us in the next life are better than the riches that we can find in our toys, the clothes, the food, and all the wonderful things that we find down here. I know I'm saved, and if you're praying for revival along with me you probably are too, but we live with people that aren't saved, and some of them are probably people we care about.

Revival Challenge Day 12

America continues to have some serious challenges. Focus on the Family had a broadcast yesterday about a law sitting on the governor's desk in Colorado saying that private businesses can not discriminate against transgendered people who want to use the bathroom of the opposite gender. So anybody that thinks, or says that they think, they are of the opposite gender can go into the restroom of the gender that they believe they are.

I do feel for transgendered people... many of them seem to struggle with their identity. BUT... this law is fairly dangerous. How is a business supposed to know that someone feels they are of the opposite gender? There is nothing to stop a man from going into the girls bathroom, claiming to be transgendered, when his true motive is of a predatory nature. Locker rooms at schools and gyms would allow for peeping toms, who could simply state that they felt like they were female, which gives them a reason for using the female locker room.

Colorado needs our prayers, only God can keep the governor from signing this law at this point.

Although things look bad, I was encouraged when I read II Chronicles 30-31 today. While the people of King Jotham were wicked, and the people of King Ahaz's day followed him in his evil doings, the people in King Hezekiah's day had a real revival. They cleaned up the temple, got the priests and Levites cleansed, and even sent out messengers to Israel inviting them to join them in the Passover... they had their own little band of missionaries going out, I guess you could say.

This change in the hearts of the people took place quickly... II Chronicles 29:36 says that "Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced that God had prepared the people, since the events took place so suddenly." It just happened. Only God can do that.

Perhaps you think that praying for revival is futile... aren't we in the last days? I think that we are, but other countries are seeing people turn to Christianity, why can't it happen here too?

A Sputtering End To The School Year

Life is funny. Around the beginning of April, I had this schedule all ready. I was going to be done with school before Memorial Day, it was going to be great.

Then our house caught on fire.

It is so hard to get back into your life's groove when everything is so suddenly interrupted. We missed a couple of weeks of school, and the lessons that were so easily begun at 9 have now become afternoon classes.

But I'm finally starting to see the end. We have 3 more math lessons. My dd's birthday is coming up very soon and I'm not teaching reading past that date. Those are our most difficult classes.

I really enjoyed BJU's Vacation Stations last year. It only took about 15 minutes a day, and last summer dd seemed to blossom under the program. At the beginning of the summer she could sound out individual letters, but she couldn't blend them to form words. By the end of the summer, just by reviewing what she already knew, she had gotten blending, and I was confident enough in her abilities to put her right into Reading 1.

So we're getting Vacation Stations 1 this year, and we'll start that the week after her birthday. We won't be finished with Bible or history (we have 10 lessons of each left), but both history and Bible are not intensive classes, and they have information that I'd like to teach before we hang it up for the summer. I'm hoping that Vacation Stations will reinforce all the addition and subtraction facts that dd has been learning all year, as well as reinforce all the reading that she's been doing.

We picked up the items for the summer reading program at our new local library today. Dd's all excited about that.

I wrote earlier today about the faithfulness of some of Judah's kings... or in their case, how their faithfulness sort of went to a sputter in the latter years of their lives. I think that homeschooling requires a great deal of faithfulness. You just have to keep plugging away at it. It takes faithfulness, especially when things are going well. If I hadn't been on schedule when our house fire happened, it'd be very difficult to catch up, or I'd have to teach reading and math all summer.

Last year, we were able to end our school year in April, for a very long and enjoyable summer. This year is seemingly ending in a sputter. First the math goes, then the reading goes, then we slowly morph into our summer schedule while tying up the loose ends of history and Bible. But I guess one great thing about homeschooling is that you can be flexible in this sort of way if you want to.