Good Friday morning to one and all! I find myself giddy with excitement knowing that the siding and window project on our home will start on Monday! I began this project doing it all on my own a couple of years back, and then my health started to slip away from me. I have hired out the completion to a trustworthy source and look forward to finally fulfilling my promise to my darling bride, Madeline. I have discovered I can still work slowly and not in the heat, so I will finish the inside work myself as long as my health allows. There is only some paint and flooring in my little office, and then a guest bath remodel and some additional work to finish out the kitchen remodel with a new-to-us commercial-style oven/range, and then the flooring throughout. My poor bride has been waiting so long for me to complete this home. Honestly, I don’t know how she puts up with me!   Well, I am rambling again. Let’s get to Today’s Daily Bible Challenge in Judges 17, where we will read/lis...

   What a strange man Samson must have been, stronger than any man we have ever seen or met in our lifetimes! Yet he fell victim to his own lust, blinded by his pride so much that the truth was in plain sight and he could not see it! If you are like me, when the first ambush happened, you thought; Well, he won’t see her again! And yet he did, and even told her the real secret to his power. It is so easy for men and women to get blinded by our pride. After all, it was the root of the original sin in the Garden of Eden!  Samson only ruled as Judge for 20 years, what a waste of what could have been such an amazing life! I, too, wasted a lot of my youth on lustful/prideful things and endeavors. But thankfully, God has revealed my pride to me without my eyes being gouged out like Samson!  It is a scary prayer to ask God to reveal your iniquities to you so that you can start working on them with His strength and wisdom. Have you ever prayed such a prayer with the convictio...

  Through all the ages, I wonder how many men of faith have been led astray by their lust for a woman, or, even more unfortunately, many women? Samson was a huge man and a great warrior with the strength of many men, yet he had the same weakness as so many of us do! We need to understand how easily we are swayed away from our mission by the opposite sex, but really by our own pride/lust. It is so important to find a spouse that you are equally yoked with, so that they can be trusted with your heart! So they will not lead you away from God’s mission for both of you!   Well, Samson in Judges 14 was not wise in his search for a wife; even as his parents tried to point it out to him, he didn’t want to hear of it! He was prideful and did not even approach God about her! Well, I don’t want to give too much away here, so I will leave it to you to click the link below and listen for yourself!   I find his story fascinating and couldn’t help but read ahead, so maybe we should all ...

       Good Tuesday morning to all of you near and far! We have the beginning of a great account from the Bible this morning! As we take the Daily Bible Challenge and read Judges 13! Please don’t dismiss these chapters because there is so much detail that was left out of your Sunday school lessons as a child, which may not be suitable for kids. If you have never heard about Sampson, prepare for a very interesting read/listen in the next few days! Yes, a great and powerful man was tricked by a beautiful seductress, but that is just a small part of the story! Sampson does not avoid the consequences for his lustful actions, but he still fulfills the role God had planned for his life and death!   Finishing strong is something I hope to be able to do someday! Holding strong to God’s word and plan for your life is something many Christians strive for, hoping to hear those words; Well done, my faithful servant! In many a sermon, this has been depicted as a baseball pla...

      Good morning, we have a busy day here on The Little Hundred Acre Wood! Madeline and I need to drop off our new adopted cat, Andy, at the vet before going to lunch with a pastor friend and his wife and daughter in Glen Rose. Then we need to head to Weatherford to go to the doctor for Madeline. But before that, I plan to get another section of taping and floating done in my little office. I am fixing all the shortcuts the flipper did on this house 8 years ago, before we bought it. I might even get to do a little more sheetrock work after we get back from Weatherford, before my men’s Bible study tonight at church.     But for this moment, we need to get focused on reading/listening to Judges 12 for Today’s Daily Bible Challenge, it is just over two and a half minutes, even you, have time for that! We will read/listen about the end of Jephthah’s rule and then listen to the basics of a few more judges who lived and died short lives as rulers of ...

Image Credit: Randy McCracken's blog.   Good Sunday morning, it is cool and damp here on The Little Hundred Acre Wood. If you are new here, you might not know how much or why I love God and His Word (The Bible). You see, I was once not the man you hear from every morning. I used to be a drunk, a drug user, addicted to some of the sleaziest things on this earth. But all that paled compared to the biggest sin of all, and that is pride. Well, little by little God delivered me from most of those things until one day He delivered me from alcohol and gave me a new life in Christ, one that is rooted in Him and the love He taught me to have for others.   It is from that love for Him and therefore you, that energizes me to get up most days before five and write to all of you! Why do I do it? Because I want you to have what God has given me, freedom from the chains that bound me, love in your heart for Him and those around you, and truly a new life in Christ!   Yes, I guess I am a ...

  Good Saturday morning to all of you! We are in chapter 10 of Judges for Today’s Daily Bible Challenge. Where we learn a little bit more about how frustrated God gets with His chosen people when they ignore Him and start following false gods time after time! Yes, even God, like any good parent, grows weary of His children’s disobedience, and there is a limit to His patience!   God is still God, even after Jesus came into the world. So we should expect He will feel the same, as this generation latches onto every little false god that blows in on the breeze of what is fashionable today! God is the same forever and always.   Yes, God showed us another facet of His personality when He sent us Jesus. That is His loving forgiveness, but even here in Judges 10, He forgave His chosen people time after time when they kept jumping off the same cliff repeatedly! But only after they repented, He did require their obedience, He won’t be mocked!   As Christians, sitting in our fa...

      Good Friday morning to all of you! I slept late for the first time in many weeks; five-thirty is very late for me, my usual is four, but the last week or so it has been between two-thirty and three! I was ready for some extra sleep and am very thankful it finally came! Yesterday, I did a little more work on the sheetrock in my little corner office overlooking The Little Hundred Acre Wood. Our home was a real fixer-upper when we moved in almost eight years ago, and this is one of the last interior rooms to be remodeled.  My deadline for this room is Nov. 20th, but for the most part, it is easy work to be done. Due to my health issues, I can only complete one wall at a time per day, but I am thankful that I can do that much! Well, before I start rattling on about house projects, let’s get to The Daily Bible Challenge!    We are in Judges 9 this morning, and it is a captivating chapter full of war, murder, and even a wannabe king being kille...

 Good morning from the little corner office overlooking the Little Hundred Acre Wood. It is not as cool this morning, but a front and rain are on the way for North Central Texas, and we sure need it! Madeline loves the cooler temperatures. I am not a big fan, but I like the change!  Tonight is Re/Generation night at our church! If you find you are struggling with something that might be holding you back in your relationship with God. I highly recommend this program for leading you to a place where Jesus can break the chains of bondage that are holding you back! There are now locations all over the USA for this program. We all seem to have some kind of chains from this world. For me, it was pride and several common sins that stem from such pride!  It would seem even Gideon had some chains of his own. Some were probably like my sin patterns, as he was prideful enough to have seventy wives, and who knows how many concubines. Even a powerful servant of God like Gideon had so ...

 Good morning, we have made it to Wednesday, and all is good! What an incredible God story we have in Today’s Daily Bible Challenge as we read/listen to Judges 7. I can only imagine what Gideon must have been feeling as God took away twenty-two thousand of his soldiers. God did this as Gideon was preparing for a battle in which he was already outnumbered by tens of thousands! But Gideon remained faithful, and then God took it from ten thousand to just three hundred! Would you have argued with God, or maybe even just fled for your life?  Are you wondering why God would have done this? In my youth, I wondered about it too! Through this life, I have struggled foolishly with pride for many years, but God has a way of humbling us! Many years ago, God humbled us in ways that shook our lives to the very core! Then, much later in life, God used a great program called Re/Generation to show me how I still struggled with pride and just how many of my sin patterns were originating out of ...

 Good morning, it is Tuesday already, and there is much work to do! Have you ever heard the phrase Gideon’s Bible? Yes, the Bibles in the bedside tables of hotels around the world! Well, they get their name from Gideon, and that is who chapter 6 of Judges is all about!  Have you ever tested God? I tend to be too afraid to test Him directly to His face! But Gideon did it three times in this one chapter and survived! To be clearer, he tested that it was really God speaking to him and not his imagination or satan’s trickery. I think testing God this way is a very wise thing to do! Especially with all the noise of today’s lifestyles! There are people and organizations everywhere telling you this or that, and telling you if you do this, then life will be great! Take this pill and you will lose weight and everyone will love you! Take this pill and it will cure you of this or that! Drive this car, and everyone will respect you! The messages are endless!  So, how do you test w...

  Another fine Monday morning we have here on The Little Hundred Acre Wood! It is 56 degrees as I am writing this letter to all of you. Texas is not good at doing fall, so this is a real treat for us to have some cool mornings, but it will be 92 this afternoon! This weather is likely to keep repeating itself through late November. We did get our first rain in about 60 days this weekend, but it was pretty short-lived, maybe a ¼ inch or so.   Our chapter for Today’s Daily Bible Challenge is Judges 5. It is a song celebrating the great victory God provided through Deborah, Barak, and Jael against the Canaanite King Jabin and his commander Sisera. They had some help from some rain God provided in this battle; some say that the rain helped against the Iron Chariots of the army, maybe floods sinking them in the mud, or even rust. My thoughts are: it was most likely the mud. Deborah was a very unusual character in the Bible as a female prophetess, also acting as a Judge.   I hop...

      Good morning, all you early risers across the world! It is Sunday, I have had my Sabbath’s rest yesterday and am ready for action today! It is exciting to live a life following your calling! My calling is two-fold: it is to tell people about the Gospel of Christ and then challenge them with The Daily Bible Challenge, where we read/listen to the whole Bible cover to cover!  The Hope of this ministry is that you, too, will read all of the Bible and stop listening to gossip/lies about God and start listening to God about God! You see, most people who talk to you about God have never even read any of His word in context.  A word here or a sentence there plucked out of context could be applied to all kinds of lies about God! We are mere mortals, so understanding all of God’s attributes can be very difficult, if not impossible! But trying to learn more about Him one sentence at a time can be fatal in the overall timeline of our lives!  Applying Old Tes...

      Good Saturday morning, I have a men’s breakfast starting soon out on the deck over The Little Hundred Acre Wood. We meet about every two weeks at local restaurants, but this week I am hosting! Madeline and I prepared all day yesterday to make this smooth! But the food will start after this is posted. Gallons of coffee, Eggs, Bacon, and Pancakes, and plenty of fellowship! Most of us in this group have verified and checkered pasts at best, and outright addictions too, but what we have in common is that God has saved all of us from that being our future! All our futures are in service to our Lord and Savior, Jesus, who is the Christ! Well, I am rambling, let's get to Judges 3, where we will read of a king being murdered in cold blood (think Jabba the Hutt as far as what this king was like), and someone who defeats six hundred men with just a jawbone of an Oxen! This is an exciting and somewhat gross chapter, Judges 3! So click the link below and join us in The D...

       Good morning and welcome to The Daily Bible Challenge, where we read the whole Bible one chapter at a time in context! You see, we believe a more complete understanding of the Bible can only come when it is read/listened to in context! The Old Testament was written to the Jews who escaped slavery in Egypt (really delivered from Egypt by God). Most of us reading this are called Gentiles (other than Jews). God did not replace His love for the Jews with the Gentiles. He added us to them as Sisters and Brothers under a new and different covenant. The Jews are held tightly by God as His chosen people; we are adopted sons and daughters, but for the Jews, it is their birthright! If we accept God’s gift, we are covered by the Blood of Jesus in this new covenant, and are forgiven of our sins through God’s grace and Jesus paying the price for us to be forgiven and therefore allowed into heaven! So there is a bit of context as you read Judges 2 this morning.  C...

 We have a new book to start for Today's Daily Bible Challenge, we are in Judges 1. The writing style is a bit different, and it seems not to be written as a prideful conquest report but more of a historical reference to the details of the conquests from the book of Joshua. It is interesting to me that Jerusalem was occupied by the Jebsites and was not fully conquered in these conquests. These are the people that King David will later pursue and conquer some four hundred years later.  There are also some important things about the area called Gaza that is in the news these days. So Gaza has been in conflict for thousands of years, and may be until the end of time! If you are seeking to make sense of all these world conflicts, some of the roots are right here in the Bible! For those who say the Bible is just some old irrelevant book, maybe they need to do some research before they speak/gossip! As you may have seen me write many times, the Bible is 66 different books with some ...

 Another Wednesday has arrived. Tuesday was a blur as I worked on my antique truck, and then I noticed it was after four. The whole day was gone, just like that! I had some big setbacks as I made new door panels for Eeyore, and that cost me a lot of time! Because Tuesday was such a long day, (we have our church family group on Tuesday nights too). I will mostly rest today so I don’t aggravate the Hashimoto's more! But maybe tomorrow I can get back to it and do the passenger door panel and the kick plates. Soon it will even have a stereo for the first time in who knows how many years! The new dash might be as soon as next week, but that is the last part of the interior work, as it includes rebuilding the AC box inside, installing new foam on the damper flaps, and a new control cable. That alone may take a couple of days with the dash completely out. Then I need to get the parts truck full stripped and sold off!  So what does all this have to do with The Daily Bible Challenge,...

  Good morning, what a great launch and splashdown of the last of this generation of Starship SpaceX had yesterday! Yes, I am a space geek, and have been since the 1980s when I worked for NASA as a young lad with the space shuttle missions. We are mere months away from the next-generation Starship that will be reusable and caught on the same launchpad it takes off from. They will also be catching the booster rockets on a second pad down in South Texas at Boca Chica Beach! Madeline and I had a great date night many years ago at Boca Chica! We look forward to going down there again soon to visit her family graves and maybe even watch a launch!   One of the things I find interesting about Elon’s quest to “save” the human race is that Jesus may return before he gets the chance! It is an endeavor that becomes folly in the reality of scripture! I am not saying going to the moon, and then to Mars, is not worth doing, just that it won’t save humanity; our future is written, and escapi...

    Good Monday morning! I am so excited to be writing to all of you this morning! Why, you ask? Well, for that, I don’t have a clear answer; there is just some kind of JOY in my heart! There is so much that is to happen today in the world, and some of it might start some unbelievable events ahead! NO MAN will know, that includes me, but there are sure many signs about. Some of which have never been around before! I am also excited for the next Starship test flight tonight from SpaceX, as a former NASA employee (subcontractor to be specific), I have been watching Elon’s team with great excitement!   I am also excited because my eldest son and I will be doing a few things around The Little Hundred Acre Wood this morning. We need to wrap up his projects before he moves out in three weeks! We are excited for his new adventure, but we must admit we will miss him being around. I need to check out our trailer mechanically before his move and get the tags all current. ...

 Good morning, I hope this letter finds you well! We had our first official Sabbath yesterday; we rested from dusk Friday to dusk Saturday. It was unusual for us to rest a full day like this. We took some naps and spent time talking and reading. I hope we will do this weekly as we learn more and more about how to honor God with this day of rest as He commanded. No, we will not be legalistic about it, and if there is an emergency, we will still act accordingly and not claim it is the Sabbath, and we cannot help… Jesus made that clear in His time here on earth! The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath! (Mark 2:27) I like what gotquestions.org says about this whole Sabbath debate!  This morning’s Daily Bible Challenge is Joshua 21, and we will read/listen about Kohathites, Gershonites, and Merarites. Along with some interesting facts about the need for the cities of refuge. Refuge from the Avenger of Blood. To me, interestingly, those cities of refuge are run by th...

  Good morning, Madeline, and I are trying something new today, we are trying to observe our Sabbath (day of rest) today, Saturday. Because I work for the church on Sundays, it can be hard to dedicate a day to rest and time with God. We are not sure what we are doing in this new adventure, but this week we are starting small. From dusk Friday to dusk Saturday, we will rest and do no work. Because The Daily Bible Challenge is free and part of my own quiet time with God, I will still post this as usual. It is not work to me, but it is a joy and love to get to talk to you about God and how He has changed our lives and can do the same for you! Any responses to messages will be the next day, unless there is an emergency. We will be adding a little more to our new tradition each week until we understand what God wants us, two Gentiles, to do with His day. He clearly states to us that the Sabbath was made for man, not man made for the Sabbath. With that, we have a lot to learn about Sabba...

 Good Friday morning, there is a lot of territory to cover in Joshua 19 for Today’s Daily Bible Challenge, pun intended! I think there isn’t a lot more detail after today about the boundaries and territories of the 12 tribes. I am sure this is good news to those of you who find maps and geography make your eyes roll back into your head! Well, really, nine and a half tribes, not 12, the Levites did not receive land, and one tribe was on the other side of the Jordan, just outside the promised land! But what about that half? I will leave that for you to research and find out for yourself!  One of the details that intrigues me about this chapter is verse 19:9. You see, I think today those would be the words to cause a future war. Someone had their portion taken from someone else’s territory. I wonder how the sons of Judah thought about that? Remember, all this was prophesied in Genesis 49 and has now been fulfilled! God keeps His promises!  Click the link below to listen fo...

  Good morning, I hope you have a great Thursday planned. Madeline and I will be meeting my brother and sister in law just north of Waco for BBQ today! We have award-winning BBQ and family business to take care of…any excuse to see this great couple that has been through so much in this life! She is a cancer survivor, and he is working on becoming the bionic man with all the surgeries he has had through the years, as joints fall apart and are replaced! I am picking up some of my inheritance from them today, mainly a baseball cap that is in a fancy case. It is a limited-edition signed original from a famous Astros player, who left and was then hated by Astros fans as a traitor. My dad was one of the biggest Astros fans ever. I’m not sure he ever forgave Roger Clemens!   What a thing to ponder, these people in chapter 18 of Joshua were working out an inheritance of huge plots of land as an inheritance, and I am getting a baseball cap… the strange things we value in this time ve...

       Good Wednesday morning to each of you. Today, we will be reading/listening to two chapters (Joshua 16-17), as chapter 16 was less than 2 minutes long. This is more on the territories allotted to each tribe. There is a little bickering as to the size of allotments, and that was adjusted accordingly by Joshua because some of the tribes were quite a bit larger than others. There is also an uncommon allotment made to a group of sisters as they had no living brothers at this time! This was to honor an agreement Moses made with their father before his death.   I will keep this short as the two chapters make for a six and a half minute read. Click the link below to read/listen for yourself! Please do not hesitate to contact us with questions or comments via Direct Messaging. Talk with you soon! https://www.blueletterbible.org/audio_video/popPlayer.cfm?type=nasb_n&b=6&c=16

      Good Tuesday morning, we are in chapter 15 of Joshua for Today’s Daily Bible Challenge. Please join us as we dig into the Bible, reading the whole thing one or two chapters at a time! If you join this challenge, you will become one of the statistical few who have actually read the whole Bible, in context no less! Yes, we do skip around a little, but only when important Holidays make it a good thing to do, like moving to the New Testament for Christmas and Easter!     Now, if you are saying you don’t have time, we do this using Blue Letter Bible’s audiobook of the NASB 95 version. The typical chapters are less than 5 minutes to listen to! So if you do this on your phone, you can easily do this on your commute to work or on the way home from dropping off the kids at school!     If you are saying; Why would I want to do this? Here are a couple of good reasons to take the challenge and read the whole Bible cover to cover! So...

  Good Monday morning to all of you near and far. Sometimes we Americans think we are persecuted for our Christianity, but in fact, that is rare. We are free here to worship and practice our faith even on the streets of most towns and cities. I have been talking with a Christian in a foreign country this morning who is persecuted by their family and community. I pray fervently for their protection by God and that they will rise up as a strong warrior for Christ, even if that means fleeing to a free country.   It is easy for me to proclaim God’s word because I know God is real, because of the huge transformation I have experienced. This transformation is made possible because Jesus paid the price for my freedom in Him. I was a pretty sleazy man before God began His work in me! I do not take any credit for who He has made me; all the glory goes to Him. I still sin, but it is not my lifestyle anymore! There is great thankfulness from those who have been forgiven of much! (Luke 7:...

       Good Sunday morning to each of you, far and wide. I hope you are blessed on this fine day! I worked harder than I was supposed to yesterday, but half the antique truck’s new interior is in! This meant taking out the seats so the new carpets could be installed. I also installed the refurbished side and back wall panels. Madeline and I went for a ride afterward, and it is so much cooler and quieter than it was before! While I had the wall panels out, I was able to pop out a dent there, too! I will start working on refurbishing the door panels on Monday or Tuesday, but that work is inside the air conditioning of the shop!   Well, I guess you have figured it out by now, you shouldn’t ask me about old cars/trucks or the rambling will start LOL! Sometimes you don’t even have to ask about it… Let’s get to Today’s Daily Bible Challenge in Joshua 13.   We can figure out from this first paragraph that these conquests were not an overnight success! Joshua is no...

       Good Saturday morning, and welcome to The Daily Bible Challenge! It is a short chapter this morning and is mostly a historical record of the conquests of Joshua and the legal record of territorial boundaries, so this is not riveting reading, and is partly why this is a challenge to read the whole Bible cover to cover! Click the link below to listen to this two and a half minute historical account. Yesterday, I got the second floorboard installed in my old truck and did a little tweaking on the first one as well. All with plenty of time to still take a shower and head out to my rescheduled lunch appointment from the day before. I started earlier to beat the heat, and the second time you do something, it always seems easier and faster. Madeline and I had an evening dinner out on the deck. It was a great evening, as Texas weather goes! I may start on the new carpet installation this morning. To do this, I have to remove the seats. That is a good thing because...

 Good morning, we have all made it to another Friday! Yesterday, I finally got the first floorboard permanently installed in my old truck. Today I hope to get the passenger side done early before the heat and my lunch appointment in Glen Rose. If nothing rips, slips, or tears, I should be installing the carpets on Monday and the rest later in the week! It has been a long summer without carpets to insulate the cab from the engine and transmission heat. If you are a long-time reader here, you know that health issues for Madeline and me have made this a lot longer project than intended! Let’s see what really happens this time LOL! I am sure being taught to roll with the punches these days!  Well, I am rambling about old trucks again, we'd better get to Joshua 11 for Today’s Daily Bible Challenge before I have you looking up something in a Chilton's Manual for me! In this chapter, there are great alliances forming against God’s people, trying to overpower them with huge numbers. I...

  Good Morning, I hope your plans for this Thursday are very productive in your life goals. Our goals here at The Daily Bible Challenge are pretty simple! That is, we just want to talk you into reading the Bible; we make it very easy to do by putting a link to an audiobook of the chapter for the day at the bottom of each post. Then we tell you just enough about it to tempt you to want more!   If you like the study of ancient people groups/archaeology, there is a lot to take in from chapter 10 of Joshua. If you like the study of war or conquest, you will also find a lot of meat to devour in this chapter! I dug deeply into archaeology after reading today’s chapter. But, you do you, that is just where my interests are. There are some facts to back the case that the people of modern-day Gaza are the descendants of the Canaanites, AKA the Gibeons and Rahab’s family. Boy, did that open up my research to a can of worms that I dare not publish without much more research!   It is ...