Well, we have a little taste of winter this morning here on The Little Hundred Acre Wood. It is 36  degrees and  very windy  as I am writing to you! Our home is much less drafty after the completion of our siding project last week! That should yield many rewards for us long term in comfort, but also the electric bill! I am so very thankful for this being done!    David Flees to Philistine Territory, well, that is what this section of 1st Samuel 27 is titled. David is very loyal to Saul, well, really to God’s will about the Anointed by God King Saul! So he ran to hide from Saul’s pursuit. But David was a raider/pirate of the land, so to speak, and had little regard for human life at this point. This is one of those cultural differences that we need to understand, but also not let it make us dismiss all the good David does in his lifetime. In modern times, we are very black and white on such cultural differences, sometimes totally dismissing someone because...

  What amazing storms we had here last night on The Little Hundred Acre Wood! The lightning was constant and spread out across the whole horizon, and close by, too! Madeline and I are back to being alone now that all the adult kids have left from the holiday visit. We are never truly alone; we have God, each other, our church family, and then there are the ten to 20 animals here, depending on the time of year. We usually start out in the spring with more chickens and end up losing many to predators in late spring. This is common as the predators begin to wean their young, and just about everything loves to eat fresh chicken! I hope to get a large chain link fence to protect them for that season someday!   I know some of my regular readers just want to hear about the life we have here, but if that is all you read, I have failed my mission! My mission is to try to convince you of the value of reading the whole Bible cover to cover in context! So, mostly my mission is equipping t...

        Good morning, what a feast of Thanksgiving that was yesterday! We had a great family time here on The “Little” Hundred Acre Wood. This place is far from a hundred acres, but it is named after the wilderness of a fictional child, “Christifer Robin”. Yes, of Winnie the Pooh fame. Many of our pets and vehicles are named after Christopher’s friends; we have Tigger, Roo, and Piglet, as well as Eeyore the truck. However, Winnie left us and moved in with a neighbor a few blocks away when we had some loud work done on our home a couple of years ago. We still see her and are in touch with her new family. Everyone seems happy with the new arrangements, but who would have thought Winnie was a traitor… Ok, maybe I am still a little bitter LOL!   Our contractor will be here today working to finish the siding project on our home. I was doing all the work myself here, but when my health left me, I finally swallowed my pride and hired a bi-vocational pastor friend ...

  Good morning and Happy Thanksgiving to you and your whole family! It is a day to give thanks, and we have so much to be thankful for here in the USA; yet, few of us can see it through our opulent abundance and incredible comfort. We can’t see the forest for the trees! You see, we Americans usually own a home and two cars per household. That puts us well into the top five percent worldwide, really closer to the top 3%. Now, don’t think I made that up, those are real numbers fully researched through Super Grok AI in the wee hours this morning.   We should not be ashamed of that wealth, just thankful for it. But it is so very easy to lose sight of how good we have it in all the comforts we have made for ourselves. So all that I am saying is we need to be thankful for wherever we are in that spectrum, because it could be a whole lot worse!   I am not implying that material wealth is the only thing to be thankful for. This year, I have learned how much I took my health for g...

  It is a holiday week for many, but I was stirred from my sleep at three and decided to come write to you. I hope when you arise that your plans are finalized and you can start the preparations for the feast of Thanksgiving! We are very thankful to have our oldest and our youngest son and daughter this year. We plan on seeing our middle son and DIL at Christmas. But before I start rambling on and on about The Little Hundred Acre Wood and such, let’s get to Today’s Daily Bible Challenge!   We are in 1st Samuel 23 today, but I kind of left out too much from chapter 22 yesterday. If you didn’t read that the most important part is that Saul killed 85 priests of God and their families! Saul's own soldiers would not honor his command against God’s anointed, so Saul had a local king/mayor do it for him…   In chapter 23, David delivers the people of Keilah from an attack by the Philistines. These Philistines are an ongoing problem in the region. There are some great articles on ...

  Good morning, we are in 1st Samuel 21 for Today’s Daily Bible Challenge. It has a very important verse that Jesus referred to, and this reference was recorded in 3 of the books of the New Testament! David goes to the temple hungry after fleeing from Saul with a few men who now follow him as their leader. They had no provisions at all and were given sacred bread that is only for the Priests! This was sacroledge to the holy ones, yet Jesus uses this as a reference to not value religious ceremonlies/traditions higher than God himself! Jesus makes the case that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath!   This is just one more example of God wanting a relationship with us more than religion! Jesus and the Holy Spirit are key to this relational aspect of God that goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden! God didn’t need a caretaker of the Garden; He's God. He wanted a relationship with His creations, Adam and Eve! Just as Jesus came to earth to show us how to have ...

  As I write this letter to you, there is a great thunderstorm deeply soaking the entire Little Hundred Acre Wood of our homestead. We needed this deep rain to prepare for winter and spring. The neighbors down the hill are trying to get out and are headed to drop off kids and then get to work! I do not envy them on such a morning as this! I have done that for decades, and now I am free from such things, yet somehow they are missed, too!   My mission these days is mostly from this keyboard; God commissioned me with two things for the rest of my life. The first is to try and talk you into reading/listening to the whole Bible cover to cover (that’s The Daily Bible Challenge). The second is to talk with you personally via PM/DM and sometimes phone calls and in person, about a new life in Christ! This is more important than the first, but to get into a deep saving relationship with Christ that changes you from the inside out, the first is almost a prerequisite! No, reading the Bibl...

  What do we do when someone lies outright, but what if they are family? Well, we will read about such deception in Saul’s family for Today’s Daily Bible Challenge as we read/listen to 1st Samuel 19. It would seem Saul is losing his mind to this evil spirit God allowed to come upon him! He tells his son Jonathan that he won’t harm David and yet throws a spear at him a few sentences later! The spear almost gets David, but only sticks in the wall. Saul expects his daughter to betray her husband next. The rest of this chapter has strange miracles that even include Saul prophesying!   For those who discount the Bible as just some boring old book, I challenge you to read and find out just how wrong you are about that! There are all kinds of drama and peril in these pages. Just click the link below and listen for yourself! Then send us a PM/DM with any questions or comments!   Talk with you soon! https://www.blueletterbible.org/audio_video/popPlayer.cfm?type=nasb_n&b=9&...

Good Saturday morning, it is a cool/cold day here on the Little Hundred Acre Wood! Yes, in Texas, forty-eight degrees is cold! But it was just in the eighties a couple of days ago, after a light freeze earlier in the week! Fall in Texas is a roller coaster ride for sure! Madeline and I are 95% ready for Thanksgiving now, with the interior updates almost complete on this holiday-induced timeline for our home. There are a couple of projects that will start after Christmas, but what we planned for before Thanksgiving is now just a few hours from being done. All that is left is some more organization and cleaning from all the construction mess! It feels so good to be following through with the promises I made to my darling bride! God, please keep my health up for a few more months so I can reach this finish line! Well, I guess Saturday mornings are meant for my personal ramblings here, sorry to slow you down! Let’s get to The Daily Bible Challenge in 1st Samuel 18, where we read a...

 Good Friday morning to all of you near and far! The coffee is hot, and I can’t wait to share chapter 17 of 1st Samuel with all of you! If you ever went to Sunday school as a kid, you probably read some version of this account. It was probably a watered-down version or just an outline of pictures to be colored in, because this is very bloody and graphic, with mortal wounds and the beheading of a giant by a young man.    But here’s the deal: This is not some kid’s story; it is a historical account of one of the central characters of God’s plan for David and later Jesus! It tells us so much about David’s relationship with God, and how huge this young man’s faith was! You have heard how a mustard seed of faith can move mountains; well, it can also kill a giant! Goliath’s death had huge effects as it put doubt and fear into the Philistines, causing them to flee in fear from the soldiers of Israel!  Please click the link below and listen for yourself! Then reflect on wha...

   What a great chapter we have for Today’s Daily Bile Challenge! Join us as we read/listen to 1st Samuel 16 as we hear about the future King David! From David’s life, we will find the prophesied lineage of Jesus. David is truly a man after God’s own heart, and yet he, too, eventually shows us his flawed nature of sin! Like all of us except Jesus, we have been born into a sin nature!    Can you even imagine one day you are a young man in a field tending sheep, and the next you are by the king’s side and his servant! A true place of wealth and honor. All the while knowing that you have been anointed king to replace this guy. But David is in no rush to become king. At this point, he is so full of the Spirit of God that he can control his pride and not try to take over before it is his time to do so! He is not serving Saul begrudgingly but humbly, as we will see played out over the next few chapters.  Hang on for a bumpy ride as we learn more about this central cha...

 Good morning, if you are a regular reader of this blog, you have heard me preach about context a lot! It is so important as we read 1st Samuel 15 this morning. So, to go through how to keep things in context, we ask, who is the author, when was it written, and to whom is it written!    1) Who was the Author of the books of Samuel? Samuel, and compiled by prophets of the day, from his writings.    2) When? 931 BC, just after Israel’s division into two kingdoms.    3) To whom was it written? The Jewish people, not the Gentiles (us). It was written well before Christ came and gave us Salvation.  This is important because in verse 15:22, we are told that God values obedience over sacrifice. But obedience to the law had a purpose in God’s plan for mankind, and that was to point to the need for a Savior! The Levitical law and the much simpler Ten Commandments showed us that, on our own, we could not keep/obey all the laws and needed deliverance from ou...

 Good morning from The Little Hundred Acre Wood. It is a balmy 75 degrees with high humidity this morning. What a change from the great weather we have been having, but at least it is not in triple digits like the summer and early fall usually are! Here is a little update on my office remodel. It is only lacking some paint touch-ups and caulk; I even installed the window casing yesterday. So today I will caulk, touch up paint, and move back in and organize all my books and manuals. Then the guest bedroom window casing will be installed, all before Thanksgiving, as I promised to my darling bride!  Well, we have a long read this morning, so I will cut this short. Click the link to listen to 1st Samuel 14 ~8 minutes. We will read about Jonathan and his armor bearer in battle and how honey played a part in him being cursed…or was he?  We hope to talk with you soon via PM/DM!   https://www.blueletterbible.org/audio_video/popPlayer.cfm?type=nasb_n&b=9&c=14

  Good Monday morning, I was able to sleep through the night last night. I do like rising early, but the third watch/3:00 AM, like yesterday, is a bit much for me. But sometimes He wakes me for a time of fervent prayer, sometimes it is my usual 4 or 4:30, and then the rare morning like today, where I slept until 5:30 and feel like I am out of sync with the world! I try to post this early each day so you can use it as a way to do your quiet time with God!   We are in 1st Samuel 13 for Today’s Daily Bible Challenge. If Saul wasn’t having a sleepless night, he sure should have been. He is being surrounded now by war and makes some foolish decisions, and Samuel lets him know about his grave mistakes! Saul definitely gets out of sync with God and will pay a huge price along the way. See if you can find out what his big mistake is and then send me a comment about your answer! Click the link below and listen for yourself, it is under a four minute listen!   Talk with you soon! h...

      Good morning, it is the beginning of the third watch. God awakened me, and I did what young Samuel did after his instruction, as in 1st Samuel 3:4. I have spent much time in prayer this morning, waiting for any revelation, and then went into my little office and ate some cereal and took all my stinkin old-man meds! With my little cat in my lap, I ponder what to write as I await God’s Holy Spirit living in me to reveal something from 1ST Samuel chapter 12 at 3:30 in the morning! I have reflected a great deal the last few days as we read these chapters, and again, we find God’s people abandoning God and drifting. At times, I am so angry with them as I read these accounts, and then I reflect on how I have done the same so many times in life! Maybe not erecting idols to false gods, but definitely raising my interests and hobbies to the level of being an idol, separating me from God! I have raised people and objects (mostly cars and homes) to a level of stealing...

 We bid you all a good Saturday morning as far as this post shall reach! I worked hard, maybe too hard for my age, yesterday, but now my little corner office looking over the Little Hundred Acre Wood has new flooring. The carpets were cheap and old when we moved in eight years ago, and with the hounds at my feet daily, they had become disgusting! The animals are not sure about these brand-new wood floors, but we humans love them! With the dark walls and the four new windows, this room is just how I had imagined it would be someday after the rest of the house was put together. My darling bride’s desires were put before mine, after all, this is her castle, well, really more of a farmhouse…LOL! Mostly, my territory is the basement area, except for this office, now it is my little slice of heaven on earth!  I sit here in this office in the wee hours of the morning writing to you about my Lord and Savior, Jesus, the one who is the Christ! I have spent much of my adult life reading...

 I hope that if God sent a messenger to me and told me all the things that were revealed to Saul through Samuel, that I would rise to the occasion and serve well! But the part about Saul standing head and shoulders above all the people would take a miracle with my towering stature of five-foot-six inches LOL! Like the later prophet/Apostle Paul, I am a short man with a big job! We are reading/listening to 1ST Samuel 10 for Today’s Daily Bible Challenge!  My job is to get you by whatever means necessary (without breaking the ten commandments) to convince you to read the whole Bible cover to cover, one chapter at a time, here at The Daily Bible Challenge! My job is also to talk with you about Jesus, who is the Christ, and how He came to deliver the willing world from sin and into salvation! Yes, unfortunately, He only delivers those who are willing to confess their sin and repent (turn away from sin). You do that by professing your belief in Him as the Savior/God and asking Him...

 Good Thursday morning, everyone! Welcome to Today's Daily Bible Challenge, where we read/listen to the Whole Bible cover to cover, one or sometimes two chapters at a time! We meet here every morning, 365 days a year! Today we are in chapters 8 & 9 of 1st Samuel. The people of Israel will be entering a new era with a king instead of just men of God anointed as high priests or Judges. All this was more rebellion against God, as He was to be their King!  There is a very important name in today’s chapter, one that later will become central to the years leading up to the lineage of Jesus. This name is Saul, and he is central to King David’s rise to power and, therefore, taking his place in the prophesied lineage of Jesus!  Click the link below to listen for yourself! The second chapter will start after a three-second delay. We love to hear your questions and comments via PM/DM!  Talk with you soon! https://www.blueletterbible.org/audio_video/popPlayer.cfm?type=nasb_...

  Fifty thousand and seventy men died for looking into the Ark; God’s wrath is real, do not discount it as Jesus stopped all that. There will be great destruction and death in the end times. There will also be Judgement when we die, whether in the end times or now. I do not in any way want to dismiss that Jesus is Love and came to deliver all who will repent, but Jesus is part of the Triune God we are reading/listening to here in the Old Testament. Tiune means three parts, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, but they are all one. Just go read John 1:1 and see that Jesus was there in the Garden of Eden. Jesus is the Word mentioned there in John. Hey, this is life or death stuff here, don’t take my word for it, go read/listen to these chapters (1st Samuel 6&7) and research this for yourself, like Lee Strobel did https://leestrobel.com/about ! You can find all of the research needed at BLB.ORG , but I challenge you to research elsewhere also! Here are some great sites for research: B...

        Good Tuesday morning to all of you near and far! We are in full swing with the siding and windows on our current house project. To keep ahead of the contractors, I tear out the interior window sill and trim each day before they get to that room. This allows them to do a full flashing tape wrap of the window frame and sill before the window install. Yesterday, I had to mix and pour a small cement project as they found an anomaly when they tore out the old siding by the garage door. This was rapid-set concrete, and I did it while they were at lunch, so it caused little, if any, delay. Today I will be working on some small interior projects and preparing for Madeline and me to give our testimony to a Re/Engage group at our campus of our church tonight. Madeline got the traditional turkey and ham deal at HEB yesterday, so we are ready for the big Thanksgiving feast soon! Well enough about us, what do you have going on these days? We welcome your comments an...

        Good Monday morning, I hope you had a great weekend. If you go to church, I hope the worship and message were energizing, and you are ready for whatever this morning will bring! We had our first freeze of the season this morning here on The Little Hundred Acre Wood, just a light freeze for a couple of hours. I prepped yesterday afternoon for this with all the plants put in and the spigots covered. We don’t show any more freezing temps for the week, so I probably jumped the gun on preparation, but better safe than sorry! I did not remember to cover the tomatoes, so they are probably a lost cause.     My darling bride Madeline had a women's event at church last night, and she came home energized and excited. I, on the other hand, was exhausted and went to bed earlier than normal.   Well, I am rambling again, let’s get to The Daily Bible Challenge, where we hear about young Samuel hearing from God directly and having to tell a tough message t...

   Good Sunday morning! I hope you are up and getting ready for church —if not, there is still time! We have a great service planned with worship music, Baptisms, and prayer. You are welcome to join us at any of our campuses or online at StoneWater Church. Unlike this morning’s chapter, there will be no sacrifices in our service because Jesus was the ultimate and final sacrifice for our sins!  Welcome to The Daily Bible Challenge, where we read the whole Bible in context one chapter at a time. This free ministry is done 365 days a year. It is made possible by the good folks at BLB.ORG and the NASB 95 audiobook they provide. We support them and hope you will feel led to do so also! There is no way to give anything to The Daily Bible Challenge, so consider this a gift and know we are happy to give it to you!  Today, we are in chapter 2 of 1st Samuel, which starts off with a song of praise from Hannah to God for the gift of her son Samuel. She is later blessed with fi...

   Good Saturday morning to all of you, we are in a new book this morning as we start 1st Samuel chapter 1 for Today’s Daily Bible Challenge. There are a lot of chapters, but there is also a more interesting style of writing!  I painted my little office yesterday and love the darker blue/gray. It is a few shades darker than the color in the next room, so it blends well. I did the rough wall painting and will cut in the corners and trim on Monday. After completing the work, I sat back and realized I should have done this long ago!  Well, I am rambling, let's get to 1st Samuel 1 and read about the barren Hannah being granted her prayers to have a son! It is a rather interesting chapter with a lot more great chapters ahead! Click the link below to listen for yourself!  Talk with you soon! https://www.blueletterbible.org/audio_video/popPlayer.cfm?type=nasb_n&b=9&c=1

  Good Friday morning, I hope this letter finds you well! There was great progress here on The Little Hundred Acre Wood this week. Three windows replaced, one section of siding finished, and another taken to about 40% complete. I also textured and painted my ceiling in my little corner office overlooking the wood and the lake. Today I will paint the walls and start working on moving the security camera hub and all its cables that are in the wall. Tomorrow we will help our son move out, I am just a driver in that event! I am too old to move furniture up to the third floor! It has been a very busy week indeed!   It was also a busy time for Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz in Today’s Daily Bible Challenge as we read/listen to Ruth 3 and 4. Just click the link below and listen to the first chapter, then chapter four will start about three seconds after the first is finished. We will hear how Boaz has a competitor in redeeming Naomi and, therefore, taking Ruth as his wife. No, I won’t tell yo...

  Imagine yourself in a foreign land, living with your mother-in-law after her husband’s death, and you are now a young widow too. Well, that is where we find Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi in Today’s Daily Bible Challenge as we read/listen to Ruth chapter 2.     They had no way to provide for themselves at this point, so things were looking pretty grim! But Ruth was a go-getter and did not stay wallowing in her mourning! She went out to glean grain from the harvest of others. This was a well-known provision of the time. You did not over-harvest to clean everything from the plants; you left some, as was the tradition for the needy to come behind and glean. (Lev 19:10) Provision for the needy was a civic responsibility backed by Levitical Law. No, you were not supposed to harvest it for them, creating an enabled poor; they still had to go out and work for it!   Well, the young, attractive Ruth caught the eye of Boaz, a wealthy relative of Naomi. He showed Ruth ...

 What huge loss Naomi experienced in Chapter 1 of Ruth! In some ways, she lost like Job did, but like him, there is much hope on the horizon, but she can’t see it yet! I can’t even imagine such loss and the mourning I would go through in such a time! When she returned to her hometown, she was still showing some bitterness toward God but not a denial of His existence or anything like that. She asked to be called by a new name, “Mara,” meaning bitterness, some translations say strength through hardship.  I don’t look down my nose in judgment at her; in fact, I admire her and her life story; I think I would be more bitter than she was! We will read/listen to a very encouraging historical account over the next few days. I hope you will join us for Today’s Daily Bible Challenge each and every day. Just click the link below, and an audiobook will pop up and start reading it to you word for word, no questions asked or data collected.  Talk with you soon! https://www.blueletterbi...

 Good Tuesday morning, we made great progress yesterday on our exterior house remodel, three windows replaced, and some exterior insulation added. Today, rainstrips and siding will start in two areas. All should be complete well before Thanksgiving at this pace! At one point, my darling bride had tears of joy to see the new window in the kitchen looking out at the wooded hillside. The old window was quite dated and drafty. It was a garden window from the early nineties and had too much hardware blocking the view of the oaks, elms, and cedars, even a couple of misquites! It is untouched land packed with trees and wildlife, and a wonderful forest floor from decades of foliage falling and not being removed each year.  Madeline likes to have her Bible time there at that window, sitting at the little barley twist table from her late mother’s home. The chairs at that table are from the market in New Orleans, purchased by her grandmother probably in the 1930s. My grandfather’s grandf...

  Another fine Monday is starting on The Little Hundred Acre Wood; there is a light breeze, and it's about fifty-five degrees. It is before five, so there is no faint glow of light on the horizon yet. When I took the hounds out for their run in the woods, the smell of cedar smoke filled my nostrils as soon as I walked out the door. With a slight panic, I moved to the railing to shine my torch on the burn barrel that I use when burning stumps. The stump I started yesterday was still under control with just a small amount of smoke, but the breeze was blowing it right to our front door. I wet the whole area before burning any stumps and have safely burned out a half dozen or so over the years here, always waiting until after a rain. I always wait to start until I know it will not be left unattended for a few days.   Today is a big day, the contractor/bivocational preacher I hired to finish the siding and window project on our home is starting today at eight! He is a lead pastor a...

 It is Sunday, and I hope many of you are already up and getting ready for church! I love going to church and seeing all my brothers and sisters in Christ. It is hard to explain, considering how introverted I was before Christ got a hold of my heart! I now have love for others that I never had on my own…I was following myself as the god of my heart!  We read about such people in Today’s Daily Bible Challenge in Judges 19. I cannot sugarcoat this; this is one of the worst chapters of the whole Bible! Nothing is redeeming in this chapter, and I dislike it completely. I almost wrote hate here... because it makes me burn with an anger that I haven’t felt in many years! This is definitely one of the chapters that is why this blog is called The Daily Bible “CHALLENGE”. If you are new to all this Bible stuff, this is probably not the place to start your journey with God. This chapter will leave you confused and angry if you are like me! So, if new to this, maybe start with the first ...

  Good Saturday morning, I am thankful it is November 1st! October is not my favorite month, especially there, at the end! But now we begin to prepare for two of the biggest feasts of American Christians. Thanksgiving and Christmas, of course! Family all gathered together and lots of fun and Joy through these two months across the nation. Be careful not to be a Martha in this time and be more like Mary, enjoying the family instead of focusing on the perfection of the celebration! (Luke 10:38-42).   For Today’s Daily Bible Challenge, we are reading/listening to Judges 18, where the tribe of Dan steals Micah’s Priest and all his false gods/idols. This act of brute force will lead them to a dark place in history and maybe even in the future. Many even theorize that they are cut out of their role in the end times due to this idolatry! In fact, there are even some that say that the antichrist will come out of the tribe of Dan! They tended to lean toward brute force and stealing. Ev...