Month: August 2026

Posted on in Amazing Creations, Faith, Look, Nature, Worship

Tree Swallows Amaze Me

This is a stunning video. Take the time. Sit back and watch these acrobats! Be blessed that we have such talented photographers with enormous gear to capture these marvels of God’s kingdom!

I like tree swallow and barn swallows. I just can’t get over them both.

Cornell Lab All About Birds says: Tree Swallows live on a diet of insects, though they occasionally capture other small animals and may eat plant foods during bad weather when prey is scarce. They feed from dawn to dusk in sheltered areas full of flying insects, usually foraging no more than 40 feet from the ground. Tree Swallows eat all kinds of flying insects: dragonflies, damselflies, flies, mayflies, caddisflies, true bugs, sawflies, bees, ants, wasps, beetles, stoneflies, butterflies, and moths, as well as spiders, mollusks, and roundworms. Their prey may be smaller than a grain of sand or up to two inches long. They chase prey in the air, with acrobatic twists and turns, and sometimes converge in large numbers in an insect swarm. During the breeding season, Tree Swallows eat high-calcium items like fish bones, crayfish exoskeletons, clamshells, and eggshells of gulls or loons.

26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? Matthew 6:26-27 NKJV

Posted on in Book quotes, Faith, Illness and Health, Praise, Prayer, Spiritual discipline, Spiritual growth, Surrender, Thanks, Worship

Amy Carmichael

Have I told you how much I treasure her book The Edges of His Ways? Oh what a challenge and encouragement and comfort her writing is to me. I think I will tire of it and another year passes with me reading a passage each morning and pondering the meaning for each of us in the current year.

Is this passage she writes:

“As I read the New Testament over and over, I am more and more impressed by the way suffering was taken for granted as something appointed; but always there is the thought of joy not far off. In our Lord’s private talks with His disciples there is continually and clearly that “Must” of suffering, and the joy to follow. We often act as if the place that is called Calvary had been taken out of the landscape of life, or were an accident there. It is not so; but just out of sight is the joy that is set before us, and there is the power which can enable us to treat the invisible as visible, the promised as present.”

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:1-2 NRSVUE

That describes suffering we more than likely will never have to endure.The example is set for us though by our Savior. Whatever the suffering, endure it. Disregard or despise any shame involved with that suffering. Always reach for the joy set before us. What joy you may ask? The joy of eternal companionship with the Trinity. The joy of the promises of Jesus: we are never alone. We will know His voice. EVERYTHING we need has been given to us.

My friend Chuck who has an acute form of leukemia recently texted me, “Our faith and the good Lord’s strength are what gets us through each day. I still have a big hallelujah even on the worst day.”

So I sent him the song Hard Fought Hallelujah performed by Brandon Lake, John Batiste and Jelly Roll.

I have no idea what the purpose the water on stage was, except maybe to symbolize the Holy Spirit?

“And there is the power which can enable us to treat the invisible as visible, the promised as present.” Thank you Amy and the folks who continue to make her writings available.