Prayer

As this new healthcare bill is put into practice there is one thing that I want to touch on. I don't care whether it's the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do. I do know that abortion is wrong though. Killing innocent children is against God's will for us and for this country. This new bill will be supporting abortion and even make doctors practice it. In light of this, I would ask everyone to pray for our country. Pray for our leaders and their discernment. Whether you like or dislike our President and his decisions, he is our leader, and we need to pray for him and support him. Our country needs our prayers more than ever. So don't just sit around complaining about what's wrong with him or his practices, pray for guidance.

Prayer is a powerful thing. It can do miracles! I have seen it happen. So earnestly pray for God's hand in this time of need and this fragile time. Let us not be thrown into war about this where each side won't support the other. I may not agree with everything that is happening, but there is no reason to go start a war over it. The best thing to do is pray that God will be merciful and that He will lead us back to our roots.

So pray and pray hard.

In Christ,
Brian Haefliger

How he loves us

God doesn't just like us. He doesn't throw us aside when we disobey him. He is a father. He loves us unconditionally. The song "How He loves us" I think captures God's love as well as we can.

He is jealous for me
Love's like a hurricane,
I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of
His wind and mercy
When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory
and I realize just how beautiful You are and how great your affections are for me.

Oh, how He loves us so
Oh, how He loves us
How He loves us so.
(x2)

Yeah, He loves us
Oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves.
(x2)

We are His portion and
He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption
by the grace in His eyes
If grace is an ocean, we're all sinking
So heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss and my heart turns
violently inside of my chest
I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way


He loves us,
Oh, how He loves us
Oh, how He loves us
OH, how He loves
(x2)

Yeah, He loves us
Oh, how He loves us
Whoa, how He loves us
Whoa, how He loves.

Yeah, He loves us
He loves us
He loves us
He loves.

He is jealous for us. He is jealous for you. He desires you to be with Him forever in eternity! How great is that?! We may bend and break in this world, but no matter what He loves us, and nothing else matters.
Psalm 56 says, "Be merciful to me, O God, for men hotly pursue me; all day long they press their attack. My slanderers pursue me all day long; many are attacking me in their pride. When I am afraid, I will trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can mortal man do to me? All day long they twist my words; they are always plotting to harm me. They conspire, they lurk, they watch my steps, eager to take my life. On no account let them escape; in your anger, O God, bring down the nations. Record my lament; list my tears on your scroll - are they not in your record? Then my enemies will turn back when I call for help. By this I will know that God is for me. In God, whose word I praise, in the Lord, whose word I praise - in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can men do to me? I am under vows to you, O God; I will present my thank offerings to you. For you have delivered me from death and my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before God in the light of life."

This world may tell you that it loves you, but it's only a snake, treacherous in all it does. Instead of trusting in the world to take care of you, trust in the One who loves you unconditionally. Trust in your everlasting Father because He will never let them harm you. He will let you walk in the light of life. He will lead you to safety and to Him. He is awesome!

John 5

Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie-- the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?" "Sir" the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me." Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

Sometimes in my life I am just loafing around in my sorrow. I think that nobody is there for me and that there is nothing that I can do. But this isn't the case. Jesus is always there for me. We just have to have enough faith to stand up and walk. Jesus calls each of us to do things that we don't know how to do. But He knows that if we just trust him and have faith, all things are possible. It's an awesome feeling. When we are doing what God wants us to do, everything just seems to go much better. We don't sweat the small stuff, but instead we look ahead to what is better. It's awesome. So the next time you are stuck somewhere, pick up your mat and walk. Trust that God will lead you where you need to be.

Brian
(poop is respectable)