A happily married couple -- 52 years. Ten years in retirement.  Enjoying kids and grand-kids.  The smiles are real.

Bob, our old cat.  About 20 now.  A fine beast and good friend.

Picture taken in the Pyrenees by our Son, Dr. Thomas Spencer.  He is a great scholar and photographer.  He also leads tours of Paris, where he has lived for about 20 years. Check American in Paris Tours...   https://www.facebook.com/American.In.Paris.City.Tours

The Thief on the Cross -- Luke 23:32-33, 39-43

Note with great care the road the thief's growing faith follows, for every one must walk that road if you are to find the light. He says, "Lord!" What a great distance between calling him "man" and calling him "Lord!" Grace bridges the gap between looking at Jesus and calling him just a man, and calling him Lord. And, as the lightning flash lit the whole land, so his faith hastens to completion, for he calls him "King!" "Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom."

Oh, if we could ask that thief, "Thief, first Christian believer, what did you see through the pain? What did you see through the dripping blood? Thief, how did you see the Lord of life whom we often fail to see? Tell us how you saw the kingdom beyond the cross which no one had eyes to see? Did you see the crown? How did you see that life was not to be lived in violence and strife, but in loving fellowship? We know you did not have time to think it out, but you saw it – saw enough to act. You saw the certainty of life beyond the cross, the light beyond the shadows. O blessed thief, whose soul was swept from the doorway of hell to the open gates of heaven, we cannot equal nor add to your praise. The Lord Jesus gives your reward with his words: ‘Today, you will be with me in paradise.’"

It drives us to wonder. It sends us to awe. It moves us to prayer! We pray for that thief’s ending! – that we too may stand near the cross for one brief hour, that brilliant light dispersing our shadows, that love healing all our deep distress, that mercy luring and leading each of us into that blessed kingdom, where we will join heaven’s host in perpetual praise, where we will cast our crowns before God, lost in wonder, love and praise. Give us an ending like that. 

Blessings,

Bill

You are also invited to view the following: http://wspencer61.wordpress.com/

Moses in the Back Forty

Moses fled to Midian and, let us say, grew a beard, put on a baseball cap, and drove a pick-up. We could say, rather, if we were to observe the austerities and sobrieties of staid religion, that he 'took on local ways.' The one bright spot in this experience was Zipporah. My Old Testament professor, Charles Baughman, both preacher and teacher, who would break into a sermon in many a lecture, used to say that Moses and Zipporah might have been called "Birdie and Sonny." They were a match, and Moses left behind his haste and his own time schedule for doing things. He threw away his laptop, and settled into the slow rhythms of the desert. He lived with a local sheep rancher and gradually began to change. 

Then his first son was born. Moses gathered up his old grief and spat it out in the name of that child. It was Gershom. Know anyone by that name? I knew an old preacher who had Gershom in his full name. Gershom means "stranger, alien." He was a stranger in a strange land. 

But things changed for Moses. Time heals all wounds, and, a humorist added, "wounds all heals." Healing set in. He found things in the wilderness that were interesting, then fascinating, then uplifting. He found the flower in the rock. His wandering became a time of learning and joy. He gathered knowledge that was to serve him well in another day, when, in God’s time, he would be a deliverer.

His second son’s birth demanded a different appellation. It was "Eliezer" – "God was with me." That, dear friends, is not only a name but a great answer. We remember Moses this day only because he came to that answer, sought, found and fleshed out in that name. Eliezer! "God was with me from the beginning!" His first born was "stranger." The second born was "With me! God was with me!" It was a great change. (Read about the names in Exodus 18.)

This picture of Moses early life is also a picture of you and me. We live between youth and age, between ego confusion and ego integrity; between seizing life and saying, "I am my own and I’ll do it my way!" and giving life to God and saying, "You have been with me all along." Friends, we live between Gershom and Eliezer.

We are like this in our feelings about things. There are times in life when we feel like strangers, alienated and lost, our world in pieces. And then, from time to time, looking back on those rough stretches, we find ourselves saying, "No, No! Not Gershom, but Eliezer, God was with me on that road."

God was with me! It is simple to say. Easy for the intellect to grasp, but to learn this great truth with the heart may require years, tears, and the bending of the will in one holy direction until all our "alienations" are transmuted into the dearly bought phrase, "God was with me all along."

Moses went on to greater things. In God’s time he was to be a deliverer of his people; but today I wish for you this one thing: that somewhere between the hither and the farther shore, between youth and age, between the heady idealisms of Egypt and the tempered vision of a Mount Nebo, you should discover "Eliezer."—that God was with you all along.

Blessings,

Bill

Christian thoughts...

-If thou bear the cross cheerfully, it will bear thee. Thomas a Kempis

-Religion is the best armor a man can have, but it is the worst cloak. John Bunyan

-Christ sends none away empty but those who are full of themselves. Donald Gray Barnhouse

-When a man is getting better, he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less. C. S. Lewis

-People are like stained glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out. But in the darkness, beauty is seen only if there is a light within. Unknown

Friends, Here is a collection of thoughts from various Christians.  May they stir the mind and feed the heart.  Hope all is well in your domain.

Light and Warmth,

Bill

I would rather have speeches that are true than those which contain merely nice distinctions. Just as I would rather have friends who are wise than merely those who are handsome.
Augustine

Friends,  We are a culture of words -- TV, texts, email.. on computers, tablets, laptops, etc. Words, words, words, from all directions.  They pummel us daily from all directions and sources.   We can weed out unwanted emails, and choose texts and TV, but all of this is just action in our culture of words.  I am thankful for a year of typing in high school... for words were and are my business for a life time.  Thus, the above is for me, and maybe for you too.  At any rate, Augustine points us in an accurate direction in writing and hearing words.

Blessings,

Bill