A longer ride today. I was going to turn around after 20 km, then I saw a turn off to Yarrie Lake. I thought I would go there and see if the road is sealed all the way to the lake. It turns to dirt about 1 km short of the lake. At that point the wind started to get stronger and it was hard coming home. 😀
Freud has, in fact, provided the West with a compelling myth—not in the sense of a narrative that everybody knows is false but in the sense of a basic idea by which we can understand the world around us, regardless of whether it is “true” in the commonsense way of understanding the word. That myth is the idea that sex, in terms of sexual desire and sexual fulfillment, is the real key to human existence, to what it means to be human. Carl Trueman
Decidedly “100% atheist,” Mariah Jones pitied Christians, believing they reject reason and the advancements of scientific knowledge.
“I did not believe in God,” Mariah says on a 2019 video on her YouTube channel. “I didn’t believe in spirituality at all. I thought believing in such things was silly. Basically I was just a strong believer in science.”
Right after high school, Mariah joined the Navy in 2013. It was in the Navy that she developed anorexia and bulimia.
“It grew more and more aggressive as the years went by,” she says.
Once out of the Navy, she enrolled in college, and she positively relished the science classes which at first affirmed her belief in nothing.
“I used to enjoy when people would bring up God so that I could try and destroy their argument with science.” she admits. “I would ask them impossible questions that would put them in this awkward position and make it pretty much impossible for them to answer.
“I hated when people would talk about Jesus.”
Her distaste for Christianity was extreme, fueled by the grip of the evil one in her life.
“My mentality towards Christians and anyone who was religious was like, You’re wasting your entire life trying to live by these impossible standards and these rules that supposedly God created just to go to a place after you die,” she says. “I thought religion was a man-made construct that was harmful to people.”
Then a boomerang struck in 2017 in her second year in college. The same science that in the first year of college affirmed her atheist became the science of the second year of college that undermined her atheism.
Specifically, how could biological molecules with astronomical number of atoms all sequenced with confunding minute precision have just come together by chance? she wondered.
See related article: scientist Sy Garte became a Christian when he studied molecular biology.
So at first science contributed to her atheistic arrogance. Then, as the classes advanced, they deconstructed it.
“Having to accept that everything just formed on its own by itself on accident, it didn’t make sense to me,” Mariah admits. “It really started to bother me because deep down I didn’t want to believe something. I didn’t want to take that responsibility.”
Mariah stayed after class and probed professors looking for logical answers.
“What came first, was it the blood or was it the heart that pumped the blood?” she quizzed them. “Was it the skin that held it all together or the organs inside the skin? How did nothing turn into something? How did nothing result in intelligent life? How did an explosion result in living breathing loving unique beings?”
The professors were of no help with these befuddling questions. So, her mind wandered to the obvious: there had to be an outside agent guiding the process, an external agent with a purpose from another dimension.
Her progression bugged her. She had always felt sorry for those who saw the need to believe in God. But now science was leading her towards him.
“Eventually I recognized my biases and I knew that I was being closed-minded towards the alternative which was God,” she says.
As she pondered what she had vowed never to do, she prayed to God.
“I refused to call it a prayer at this time,” she recalls. “But I basically said, ‘God if you’re real and you really exist, would you not want me to know you? Would you want me to wonder forever about if you exist? I don’t want to be disrespectful to you. But I just if you’re there, I want you to give me a sign and I’ll believe.’”
Immediately… nothing happened. To be truthful, Mariah felt embarrassed and dumb.
But as the next six months unwound, things happened: vivid dreams that reflected Bible verses and scary events rattled her.
Mariah was disinclined towards Christianity. So she searched every other religion: Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Buddhism, you name it, she researched it.
Finally, she looked into the character of Jesus in the Bible, and what she saw startled her.
“I started studying the Bible and learning about Jesus and the meaning of his life and death and what he claimed his purpose was,” Mariah says. “I ended up finding out that his purpose was essentially for me.”
Then in December 2017, her battles with anorexia and bulimia came to a head.
“I was trapped in this violent cycle that would never end, never, no matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t break out of it,” she admits. “I remember being in the bathroom. I was in the bathtub and I was throwing up. I remember feeling like, How long will I keep doing this? I felt so enslaved by this disease, this addiction”
As the water was running, she broke down crying for the first time.
Without any forethought, she cried out: “Jesus, please help me.”
This time the response was immediate.
“I can’t explain the feeling what it was. It was love. Someone loved me. I felt stillness, peace,” she explains. “Within seconds the crying stopped, not on my own. Something had come over my entire being. There are no words. The entire room was filled with Jesus.”
The anorexia and bulimia simply disappeared from her life.
“I felt healed,” she thinks. “It felt almost like I never had an addiction to begin with. This darkness, this heaviness that was over me for four years, gone completely. I went to bed that night shocked – in a good way. I just could not believe what happened to me. I still can’t fathom what he did to me.”
A few days later, she received Jesus Christ into her heart.
Initially, Mariah was reluctant to share her testimony online because she feared a blowback from her atheist friends.
“I know what I’m going to face. I know people will probably make fun of me. I’ve accepted it,” Mariah says. “I know who I used to be. I would have laughed at me. But I don’t care. I will never forget what he did for me. I will always be in his debt. This is just a small, small portion of my gratitude for what he did for me.”
If you want to know more about a personal relationship with God, go here
From: God Reports
Quite windy this morning. It makes you work that much harder, but still a good ride.
Freud’s fingerprints are all over the Western culture of the last century, from university lecture halls to art galleries to television commercials. Carl Trueman
Scripture
“You keep whatever your god Chemosh gives you, and we will keep whatever the Lord our God gives us.”
Observation
Jephthah is a son of Gilead, but to a prostitute. The sons of Gilead’s wife drive him off the land so he flees to Tob, where he gathers a band of worthless rebels.
When the Ammonites attack Israel, the elders of Gilead send for Jephthah. They make him there ruler and commander of the army.
Jephthah then sends a message to the king of Ammon, demanding to know why they are attacking. The king says that Israel stole their land.
Jephthah writes back to say that they never stole any land from Ammon. In any event, the land is a gift from the Lord. The Ammonites can keep whatever their god gives them, but Israel will keep the land the Lord gives them. Not only that, they have held this land for 300 years, and the Ammonites never tried to take it back before.
Application
Jephthah was right to see this war in spiritual terms. Israel lived in land given to them by the Lord. The Ammonites had their own gods to gift them land. Therefore, any invasion was a test of whose God is the greater.
We live in a culture which does not recognise the reality of the unseen realm, except in romanticised terms. The reality is that we are in the thick pf a supernatural war. As Christians, everything we do advance as either God’s Kingdom or satan’s realm.
This battle is personal, but it is not human. We do not fight against people, but against powers and principalities, rulers and authorities in the spirit realm. The primary weapon of this warfare is prayer. As we surrender ourselves to God and listen to the indwelling Holy Spirit, He directs us how to pray and how to live in such a way as to destroy the works of satan.
The battle belongs to the Lord, and His victory is guaranteed.
Prayer
Lord, please grant me the gift of discernment of spirits. Open my spiritual eyes so that I can truly see where the battle is and how to fight it. Amen.
Much milder morning, you can almost think spring is near. A nice ride down Jacks Creek and Gun Club Roads
Nevertheless, there is a key subsequent development that is necessary for us to understand if we are to appreciate fully the way our contemporary culture thinks, and that is the move from understanding sex as an activity to seeing it as absolutely fundamental to identity. Carl Trueman
Scripture
Then the Israelites put aside their foreign gods and served the Lord. And he was grieved by their misery.
Observation
Two judges, Tola and Jair, between them ruled over Israel for 45 years. It Seems to have been a time of peace.
But then the Israelites turn again to foreign gods. They abandon the Lord. So the Lord abandons them to the Philistines and the Ammonites.
The Israelites call out to the Lord to rescue them. At first, He is unmoved. He tells them to call out to their foreign gods to rescue them. They repent from their wicked ways and their idolatry, so the Lord determines to rescue them.
Application
It would be very confronting have the Lord say to you: “You have been serving other gods so let them save you.”
Sometimes we can think we can take up the Lord and put Him down again, that our faith is like a buffet dinner where we can take what we want at anytime.
God is looking for relationship, for intimacy and faithfulness. He isn’t interested in what we may do to serve Him from time to time. He wants our hearts, our minds, our will.
People sin, even spirit-filled born again Christians. We repent and turn back to the Lord, and He welcomes us back. What He does not like is the uncommitted, fickle faith that ignored God six days and then wants Him on Sunday or, worse still, only ever calls to God when a problem needs to be fixed.
We must stay faithful to the Lord, everyday.
Prayer
Lord, I confess that I do not always do what is right by you. Please forgive me for being so easily distracted from following you and help me to follow you more faithfully. Amen.
By Kevin Airs For Daily Mail Australia
New data shows Covid cases in Singapore and New Zealand have overtaken Australia in the latest Omicron wave despite ultra-strict mask mandates.
Masks are worn everywhere in the densely-populated Asian city while New Zealanders are forced to wear them in all indoor public places, such as shopping centres and libraries.
But both now have higher case numbers per million than Australia, where compulsory mask rules have been abandoned in most indoor settings.
Shock data has revealed Covid case numbers in New Zealand and Singapore – where masks are reularly worn all the time outdoors, as seen here – have overtaken Australia in the latest Omicron wave despite ultra-strict mask mandates
These figures appear to smash the push now on in Australia for a return to mask mandates, which are currently compulsory only on public transport and in aged care and healthcare centres.
Since Australian mandates began to ease last October, per capita case numbers in Singapore exceeded, matched or lagged behind Australia, before rising ahead again.
In New Zealand, case numbers were six weeks behind Australia’s Omicron wave in January, but since February they have matched or exceeded Australia.
Death rates in New Zealand also overtook Australia per capita at the start of March, despite the Kiwis being on the highest code red mask mandate restrictions – and have stayed higher ever since.
In New Zealand, case numbers were six weeks behind the peak of Australia’s Omicron wave in January but since late February they have matched or exceeded its Tasman neighbour
Since Australian mandates began to ease last October, Singapore’s case numbers per capita exceeded, matched or lagged behind before overtaking Australia’s again
Death rates in New Zealand overtook Australia per capita at the start of March while the country was still at code red for mask mandates and have stayed higher ever since
In Singapore, death rates in the city dropped lower in April after racing ahead between October and Christmas, but are now surging wildly again and set to overtake Australia once more
Read the full article at The Daily Mail
