IllustrationFriday.com Challenge: Yesterday

This week’s challenge, the word “YESTERDAY” is a loaded word. Some look at their yesterdays with fond memories others with profound regret. Memories of yesterday can spawn the enemy of all creativity, “If only…” If only I had done this… If only I hadn’t done that… If only this had happened… If only that hadn’t. CanI tell you, none of that is useful? Yesterday serves one purpose, as a lesson for how we will live today. Those lessons combined with the choices we make today are what ultimately influence the course of our lives. God in His permissive will allows this, knowing full well our past and the choices we will make today. Give up on “If only…” thinking, learn from your past and make great choices today, thrusting that God is good and will carry you all the way through. Yesterday is a teacher, learn from him, make great choices and create a better future.

IllustrationFriday.com Challenge: Talent

The challenge for this week was the word Talent. I wasn’t quite sure how to express it until I found this great quote from John Wooden that not only addresses talent but how to handle it.

IllustrationFriday.com Challenge: Whisper

The IllustrationFriday.com challenge of the week is the word “Whisper.” The above image is what popped into my mind.

You see our world is loud. There seem to be at any given moment, a million voices screaming for our attention. These voices can take us in a million different directions and most of them will take us far off task and outside God’s will. We need to shut them off somehow. We need to get away by ourselves and listen in the silence. There are a million voices screaming for our attention, but there’s one voice we all need to hear. It’s the voice of God and He speaks not in a scream, but in a still small voice.

We read about it in the Bible. There was a time when the prophet Elijah was in desperate need of a touch from God to hear his voice. This is the account from 1 Kings 19:11-13.

11 And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:

12 And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.

13 And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?

When was the last time you heard from God? Maybe you need to get away from the screaming distractions and the storms of life and listen for the whisper!

IllustrationFriday.com Challenge: Wool

Okay so the challenge was wool and wool made me think of lambs which brought my mind to the Lamb of God, Jesus.

IllustrationFriday.com Challenge: Stretch

At the end of the election season, the word stretch came up as the IllustrationFriday.com Challenge and I got this image. Stretching the truth usually removes the truth from it. Jesus said the truth will set you free. Just don’t stretch it.

IllustrationFriday.com Challenge: Stretch

Just coming out of the election season, the Illustration Friday Challenge word stretch took me here. Stretching the truth is no longer truth. The truth is pure and as Jesus said, Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

IllustrationFriday.com Challenge: Tall

Maybe it’s because school started this week but I just couldn’t get this child-like illustration of a Giraffe made out of the letters spelling the word “tall.” (Yes I know the “L’s” are backwards, call it artistic license.) I know it’s pretty elementary but it was fun to do and it got me thinking.

Did  you ever wonder why you were made the way you were made? I think we all have things in ourselves that we’d  like to change. If that’s you,  consider the giraffe. That long neck has to be a, well, a pain in the neck, but it is actually a perfect design. As a matter of fact here is a whole article about the unique anatomical characteristics designed into the giraffe just to make it work. Ultimately God created an animal capable of eating from the tops of the trees. The giraffe is perfectly designed for what it was intended  to do.

Perhaps so were you. Short or tall, God made us all.

IllustrationFriday.com Challenge: FREEZE!

The IllustrationFriday.com challenge was the word Freeze and maybe it’s just because I watch too much NCIS but the first thing I imagined was a police officer shouting Freeze! Sometimes I think it would be a good idea to have an image like this posted at various places, to make us stop and think before we take an action or make a decision. How many things in our lives would improve if before we did something rash our little “internal cop” would yell “Freeze!” or maybe he does and we just don’t listen???

IllustrationFriday.com Challenge: Bounce

The challenge for the week was the word Bounce. I thought of basket ball and hopping animals but the thing  that really stuck in my head was bouncing checks. Then an old and thoroughly inappropriate saying came to my mind from my distant blurry past. People used to say, “Don’t write a check with your mouth…”  I won’t finish it. It’s not appropriate. What usually happened was someone would be getting a little too arrogant and insulting and decided to take it out on someone who could beat them to a miserable  pulp.  The sentiment really comes down to this, “watch your mouth! What you say can and will be used against you in the form of physical  violence.”

Certainly I’m not an advocate of physical violence nor  am I a fan of arrogant and demeaning  speech. Neither is God. In  James 3:5 and 6, we read, “⁵ Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. ⁶ The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.” It’s true. Your mouth can create huge problems, so be really careful what you say.

Earlier in the passage James 3:2, we get a pretty nice antidote, “If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.”

What kind of “checks” are you writing? What would happen if one bounced?

IllustrationFriday.com Challenge: Lost

The challenge of the week was Lost. Lately I’ve been dabbling with pop-art and there was this piece I was already working on that pretty much sums up the ultimate reason we get lost. It all comes down to a choice a long time ago. God told his first two people they could have everything they wanted in the paradise He created for them. There was only one thing they could not have. Unfortunately the one thing they could not have became the apple of their eye and they made a choice. Reject God for the only thing he did not give them. It sounds senseless, but we do it every day, every time we choose something that God tells us not to do.

What was their prize? The tempter told them they would be like God knowing good and evil. Let’s examine that. They already knew good, they were surrounded by everything good and had daily communion with God in person so what did they really gain by their sin? They got to know evil. In the same way when we choose sin we get the privilege of dealing with the consequences not to mention sometimes unleashing those consequences on the people around us.

You may finally ask the question, why did God put that tree there in the first place? Why did He allow them to be tempted? Believe it or not, because of love. You see love is a choice. Without an alternative, would ti really be love? They got to choose whether or not they would love God and they chose wrong. Today we are surrounded by billions of harmful choices, and the way to resist them is same as it has always been. Choose to love God more. Anything less is a lost choice.

Yes we are surrounded by temptations and consequences on every side, but hope is not lost. God gave His only Son to die on a cross to pay the price for our sins. If we will put our faith in Him, He will save us and lead us through this minefield called life.

Hope is not lost. Hope is a person. His name is Jesus.

(If you’d like to purchase a print of the image above, click the image, or get it on a T-shirt here.)