On the surface this is a very easy question to answer. God the Father, of course. I worship Him every Sunday at church, in my quiet times, in my ministry, and in my works for Him. I devote my life to Him. Why do you ask?

A short while ago I spoke to a good pastor friend who has had to give up pastoring through a serious, life threatening, illness. One of those special friends, whom you could not meet for a few years, then carry on as if it had just been yesterday.

He was telling me about his journey of the past year. Of the shock of diagnosis. Of the pain. Of the trips to hospital. The operations. The treatments. His amazing positivity in the midst of it all! Having to give up pastoring his church. Finding God again!

Pardon!!! You are a pastor! How come you had to find God again?

My friend then explained to me how his church, his ministry, had become his de facto god. For all his energies had gone into his people, his church, his programmes, making it bigger, more successful, all in the name of God, until there was little room left for God.

With sickness has returned his first love, a renewed, deep, intimate relationship with his Dad, Abba Father.

I was challenged, to say the least! How true is it, of me? Of you?

My God wants me! Your God wants you! Our ministry is good, but not at the expense of intimacy with Him! God is crying out to me and to you! He wants us back! To return to Him. To regain our first love that took us into ministry in the first place.

The enemy has manipulated our focus onto the worldly treadmill of success, size and status. Of the physical, in the name of the spiritual. Each morning I check to see how many visitors we have had to our website, what pages have been visited and items forwarded or downloaded. How greatly we have we have been deceived. Our focus is on work, on good works. How we have been so easily and willingly led astray!

Oh, my God, I have got so busy and lost it - have lost You. I repent Lord of my worldly ways. My ministry is not my ministry but Yours and Yours alone. Please Lord, take me back into your embrace. Help me Lord return to the foot of the Cross. Thank you Jesus for your sacrifice for me. May I not abuse it again. Thank you Holy Spirit for being so patient with me. May I hear and apply what you are saying to me. Thank you Father for not giving up on me. My desire is for You.

"Saul was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned over Israel forty- two years. Saul chose three thousand men from Israel; two thousand were with him at Micmash and in the hill country of Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan at Gibeah in Benjamin. The rest of the men he sent back to their homes. Jonathan attacked the Philistine outpost at Geba, and the Philistines heard about it. Then Saul had the trumpet blown throughout the land and said, "Let the Hebrews hear!" So all Israel heard the news: "Saul has attacked the Philistine outpost, and now Israel has become a stench to the Philistines." And the people were summoned to join Saul at Gilgal. The Philistines assembled to fight Israel, with three thousand chariots, six thousand charioteers, and soldiers as numerous as the sand on the seashore. They went up and camped at Micmash, east of Beth Aven. When the men of Israel saw that their situation was critical and that their army was hard pressed, they hid in caves and thickets, among the rocks, and in pits and cisterns. Some Hebrews even crossed the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. Saul remained at Gilgal, and all the troops with him were quaking with fear. He waited seven days, the time set by Samuel; but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and Saul's men began to scatter. So he said, "Bring me the burnt offering and the fellowship offerings." And Saul offered up the burnt offering. Just as he finished making the offering, Samuel arrived, and Saul went out to greet him. "What have you done?" asked Samuel. Saul replied, "When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Micmash, I thought, 'Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the LORD's favor.' So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering." "You acted foolishly," Samuel said. "You have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure; the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the LORD's command." Then Samuel left Gilgal and went up to Gibeah in Benjamin, and Saul counted the men who were with him. They numbered about six hundred." (1 Samuel 13:1-15)

The Lord Rejects Saul as King

702. In God's dictionary, 'doing' follows 'being'.

703. 'To do' is simply living out our 'to be'.

704. If 'to do' does not follow out of our 'to be', then our 'to be' is 'not to be'!

705. 'To be' a witness is 'to do' God's will.

706. We are first called 'to be', then 'to do'.

707. Too often we try 'to do' when God is simply calling us 'to be'.

708. 'To do' good, it is best 'to be' good!

709. To best know what 'to do', we must first learn how 'to be'.

710. If 'what to do' is your question, look to 'what to be' to find your answer.

711. When 'to be or not to be' is the question, 'to be and to do' is the answer.

712. True 'being' results in 'doing'.

713. 'Being' without 'doing' is like a motor without a car. Makes plenty of noise but takes you nowhere!

714. 'To be' is the salt, 'to do' the light. We are called to be both.

1220. Our walk with Jesus is to start off with applying the 'don'ts' of the Law and to end up doing the 'do's' of His will.

1221. The sign of maturity in Jesus is when we live not only the 'dont's of the Law' but live the 'do's of righteousness, submission and obedience to God's will' in our lives.

1222. The 'don'ts of the Law' form firm foundations, but walls and roofs of a godly house are built of submission to God's will.

One boy did a good likeness of Joseph, Mary, and the infant Jesus, but off to the side was a roly-poly figure. The teacher, afraid that he had somehow worked Santa Claus into the scene, asked him who that was. She wasn't sure whether she was relieved or even more worried when the boy replied, "Oh, that's Round John Virgin."

368. THE LORD'S PRAYER
The Lord's Prayer has always been easy for kids to misinterpret. One little boy said "Harold be Thy name."

Two other lesser known prayers though are a little girl saying: "Give us this day our jelly bread." Or the little New York boy who petitioned God to "Lead us not into Penn Station."

367. SAD
A Navy Commander began teaching Sunday School for young children. One Sunday, the Pastor asked one of the Commander's 4-year old students what she had learned that day.

"Well," she said, "I learned all about the ten commanders. Isn't it sad that they're always broke?"

ANSWER:
Most people would guess that ocean life is more abundant in warm water. They'd be wrong. All kinds of marine life - plant and animal - are more abundant in colder waters. Many of the best fishing grounds are found in the coldest places. Why? Cold water holds more dissolved gases, such as oxygen and carbon dioxide, which marine plants need to photosynthesize. The more plant food you have, the more fish and sea mammals you'll see. Antarctic waters are simply teeming with microscopic plankton that attracts whales and fish. (Do fish feel the cold?)

THIS WEEK'S QUESTION:
Are there really such things as elephant graveyards?

SOME FUN FACTS

40. ARE YOU AVERAGE?
According to Hallmark Cards, the average American receives eight birthday cards annually. (Mine seem to come more frequently now!)

41. HALF THE MARKET
Only men were allowed to eat at the first self-service restaurant, the Exchange Buffet in New York, opened in 1885. Customers ate standing up. (Did women do the cooking?)

42. BIG BERTHA
The world's largest mammal, the 'blue whale', weighs 50 tons at birth. Fully grown, it weighs as much as 150 tons. (How many women would like to give birth to a baby one-third its adult weight?)

A WORD PUZZLE FOR YOU

Make another word from this word using all the letters.

PATTERER

A - Eagle
B - Raven
C - Hawk
D - Stork

Source: www.biblequizzes.com

!!!!!!! God's hand is in everything, so we can leave everything in God's hands.

!!!!!! God will work with us in a seemingly hopeless situation.

!!!!! Jesus has promised to answer whatever you ask, if its in His will for you.

!!!! Great problems put you in a perfect position to watch God's big answers.

!!! I am powerless to choose my fate; I have the power to choose my response to my fate.

!! Let God have your life, he can do more with it then you can.

That night it rained cats and dogs. The pastor worried that the paint which wasn't dry would be washed from the house. Sure enough, in the morning all the paint to which they had added water was washed from the house. At that moment the clouds parted and the pastor heard a voice from above. It said "Repaint and thin no more."

84. A GOG NAMED MACE
A mechanic who worked out of his home had a dog named Mace. Mace had a bad habit of eating all the grass on the mechanic's lawn, so the mechanic had to keep Mace inside.

The grass eventually became overgrown.

One day the mechanic was working on a car in the backyard and dropped his wrench, losing it in the tall grass. He couldn't find it for the life of him, so he decided to call it a day.

That night, Mace escaped from the house and ate all the grass in the backyard.

The next morning the mechanic went outside and saw his wrench glinting in the sunlight. Realizing what had happened he looked toward the heavens and proclaimed, "A grazing Mace, how sweet the hound, that saved a wrench for me!"

85. MIDDLE AGE
Rumour has it Billy Graham Ministries is starting up a Emotional Support Group for middle aged men experiencing hair loss. Apparently they close every meeting with the benediction, "Go, and thin no more!"

86. GAME
At the police station, Bubba explained to the police officer why his cousins shot him.

"Well," Bubba began, "We wuz havin' a good time drinking, when my cousin Ray picked up his shotgun and said, 'Hey, der ya fellows wanna go hunting?'"

"And then what happened?" the officer interrupted.

HONG KONG -- One of the most famous Bible stories is Noah's Ark. Now people can visit a life-size replica of the ark in one of the world's most famous cities, Hong Kong.

The ark rises next to a huge suspension bridge and one of the world's busiest waterways. Its story begins with a unique partnership including a government, a developer and Christian organizations working together.

In the late 90s, Hong Kong needed a bridge to connect the city with its new airport. Matthew Pine is manager of "Noah's Ark" theme park.

"As part of the whole development scheme, there was an island that needed to be developed to enable the building of the bridge," he recalled.

As a lawyer for the developers, Hugo Chan had a message for the government.

"We can help you with the bridge if you negotiate with the owners of the land on the island, build a theme park for the community, let us relocate the villages and build a residential development," he told them.

So the government built the bridge, apartments and a theme park.

"They had vision to do something remarkable, something outstanding. So they came up with many ideas. Some of them were really outrageous and some of them were very unreasonable," Pine said.

Developers say the vision of the ark came from an 8-year-old girl.

"She drew a little picture, her dad took it. The government officials loved it and from there on the architects and the engineers developed the plan," Pine explained. "The marketing teams came alongside. And the Hong Kong government came to support it as well. And they eventually created what you see today."

The contractors built the ark the way the Bible describes -- 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high. Many believe it was the largest wooden structure ever to roam the seas.

Outside of the ark, a garden features nearly 70 pairs of life-size replicas of animals and a few ones. Inside, the ark contains exhibits with rare animals like a nautilus, a toucan and exotic fish.

Screens show animated films that demonstrate how the original ark could have been constructed and how it might have been ventilated. The exhibits also teach that the story of a major flood is nearly universal throughout the world's ancient cultures.

The designers of the ark tell Noah's story at the time he opens the ark after the flood.

"The reason we chose that moment in the story is because this is the message we want to bring to Hong Kong. to China the world today," Pine said.

TO GO OR TO STAY?

There's a time to come and a time to go,
Which is which we never seem to know.
Not to outstay our welcome here,
Nor to be a nuisance there,
Give me wisdom Lord,
To be in Your accord.

Have no idea why I am writing this!
But trust the point I do not miss!
For we all have times when we should know to go,
But hang on we do, outstaying our welcome,
saying yes when we should say no......

Just leave!
Don't grieve!
It's not the day,
For me to stay.

This simple lesson we must learn,
Many 'brownie points' then to earn.
Our welcome not overstaying,
And our hosts not dismaying.
Then they will be happy to have us return,
For us, the 'welcome mat', we will not burn.

This piece of sage advice
May keep us very nice,
In the eyes of others,
If not our mothers.

Reminds me now, her to visit,
Yes, for more than a minute!
For she brought me up, indeed she did,
Even at times, when I was a bad kid.
For mothers are more patient than most,
My responsibility to her, now foremost.

So I will visit her this afternoon,
Hope she will be over the moon.
Take her out in the car for a nice drive,
In the sunshine - so good to be alive!

On Wednesday night we loaned our truck out to help someone move house. At 10:15pm we locked it up in our building. At 6:30am Thursday morning, I came to work, opened the door, and the truck was gone! Stolen! And we were starting our big shift on Friday!

Disaster! Normally we would not expect to see the truck again. It would either be stripped down for parts or wrecked, burned out, or otherwise vandalised. An unbelievable situation! How could it be!

We hired a rental and got ready to shift. On Thursday night, at 10:30pm, I got a phone call from the Police to say that the truck had been found. It was in perfect condition, still with the keys in the ignition! Thank you Lord - satan is defeated - again!

We are now shifting..... and shifting..... and shifting!

Must run and shift some more! Until next week___

MAY GOD BLESS YOU AND YOU BLESS GOD.

His servant and yours

David Tait

Today's 'Word Puzzle' Answer: PRETREAT