Proverb of the Day Much of the commenting I've seen of late on other blogs brought this verse to life for me today. Proverbs 20:3 says "It is to a man's honor to avoid strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel." I know that I am often a fool when it comes to arguments. And, it seems I am not alone in that folly as I peruse a few of my favorite blogs. Father, I pray that we would die to ourselves and what we perceive to be our rights and righteousness and wisdom and let your love, truth, wisdom, and knowledge work through us as we draw near to You as Your sons and daughters. I also wanted to share how much I have been encouraged by Alan Cross. If you don't regularly check out his blog, I wish you would. It is thoughtful, intelligent, and not self-righteous. Moreover, he would love your prayer support. Check it out. I link to it, but also it is at downshoredrift.com. Finally, I wanted to share these words of wisdom from one of my Methodist pastor friends. I had the blessing of hearing his sermon today. "We need to train diligently to be someone who desires to have the character of Christ inwardly so that we can be more like Christ outwardly." "When you feel gassed and used up, it may be because you've tried to act like Christ before you really were like Christ." "Why would you expect to be able to be like Jesus without having the training that goes with it?" He shared what a first century Jewish disciple was. They were those who followed their rabbi so closely that they hoped to look like, be like, walk like, talk like, and live like their rabbi. He shared that it took great discipline, just as is described in Timothy, through worship, unhurried reading, memorizing, meditating, fasting, solitude, jounaling, accountability, praying, listening, etc. And, he emphasized that it isn't that these works save us, but that we can't expect to live effective Christian lives without training to do so just as a professional athlete can't expect to be effective without going through the fundamentals hundreds of thousands of times.