Do you get caught up in life? Do you forget there is more to life than the day-to-day grind? I do. I am so worried about paying the next bill, what the next raise will look like, who hit whom first and many other distracting details I forget to step back and look at the big picture. I am also one of those Christians who really means to read the scriptures every day but only remembers when my head hits the pillow.I think I have found a solution to my problem. Trail Thoughts is a beautiful compilation of scriptures and companion explanation to be read one at a time. There is a scripture for everyday of the year. If you’re curious like me, yes, February 29th is included with a heading “Leap Year”. I will keep this book on my night stand and get my daily scripture everyday from now on!

Trail Thoughts is elegant in its simplicity. It isn’t long lectures telling you how things should be but rather an open door waiting for you to walk through and discover God’s desires for you. Trail Thoughts is the perfect gift for yourself or anyone who needs five minutes to recenter everyday. (In other words, practically everyone on this earth!)

Posted by Sabrina’s Thoughts 7/25/08

With the new Batman movie, “The Dark Knight” being so popular, we thought it appropriate to speak some truth of darkness of night and “The Light Knight…”

In the prologue to his gospel, John explains that being a child of God is very different than being a child of the world: “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision, or a husband’s will, but born of God.”(John 1:12-13)

According to John, this is the testimony of God: “God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.”(1 John 5:11-12) He who does not have the Son of God lives in darkness; Jesus, the Son of God, says: “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.”(John 3:19-20)

As a child of God, born again of the Spirit, your greatest desire will be to love and serve the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. Your next greatest desire will be to love and serve your neighbor. It is when your heart is transformed by the Holy Spirit that the inclination of the heart shifts from a desire to live in darkness to a passion for the light.

Excerpt from Trail Thoughts by Eric Kampmann, April 21

To be human is to know trouble.

Many years ago, I found myself facing bankruptcy, threats of lawsuits and financial devastation. With blinding speed, my self-confidence was blown away and I was rendered defenseless. Fear filled every corner of my life. But when the chips were down and there was absolutely nowhere to turn, I cried out to God in my distress…and He answered.

Trouble is the common denominator in everyone’s life. Sometimes it is subtle and sometimes dramatic, but it always seems to be lurking on the fringe ready to pounce. In my case, when I found that I could not save myself, I called out to God, not knowing what to expect. What I received was undeserved beyond measure, and ultimately, the experience drew me back to Jesus Christ.

It was truly a life saving event; I was saved through my failure. I now look upon that period in my life as the time when I experienced God’s amazing grace.

Excerpt from Trail Thoughts - April 27 – By Eric Kampmann

Excerpt from Trail Thoughts by Eric Kampmann 4/23

Even though we hear the warning, we often feel strangely compelled to ignore the danger in defiance of the obvious consequence. It happens all the time. When we hear someone say, “Don’t touch the hot plate!” we touch the plate anyway.

Why does a warning cause us to want to defy the rules? Why do we irrationally embrace risk when we know better? Edgar Allen Poe called this dark impulse “the imp of the perverse.” Dostoyevsky says that we have within our makeup an “underground man’ who acts as a double, nudging us away from the good and beneficial life to ruin and despair. The Bible calls this subterranean tendency sin which is a corrosive desire to do the wrong thing when we know it is wrong.

The ancient boundary stone is the signpost that keeps us out of harm’s way. Jesus invites us to follow him on this path, but we often demure by inventing excuses for wandering off into the thorns and brambles because we have allowed that other voice within to control our every step.

People are thirsty creatures!

We thirst for life…for the “good life” — the kind we see on beer commercials!  If we are thirsty…then it only makes sense that there is SOMEPLACE from which we are drinking deep.  Someplace we’re going for that spiritual purpose, for that deep love, meaning, beauty. 

But they may not be places God wants us to go.

In Jeremiah 2:13, the prophet laments, “For my people have done two evil things: They have abandoned me—the fountain of living water. And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all!”

We thirst for pleasure, activity, knowledge, power, esteem, love, respect, relationship, prestige, activity, acceptance, sex, a place in society, community, and even religion. We go to many “places” to satisfy that thirst….career, appearance, acceptance, status, getting into an inner circle, really making a difference, political causes, social causes, money, wealth, control, etc.

In the Gospel of John, chapter 4, Jesus dialogs with a woman who had a thirsty soul and didn’t know it.  Jesus told her, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who I am, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.”

You see, He offered her “soul water.” Jesus does this over and over because his living water is a gift.   His living water is given only by grace.  It’s not given on the basis of merit, pedigree, class, status, race, gender, or pecking order.

As Jesus and this Samaritan woman dialog, He points out that her life is one marked by failed relationships with men.  It’s those relationships, He points out, that have never quenched her “thirst.”

Basically, Jesus is saying, “You know, men have been running your life for years, not just one man.  It’s men. And I want you to know:  you don’t think you’re spiritually thirsty, but you deeply thirst for God.  You deeply thirst for closure, for acceptance, for significance.  You’ve just never realized that’s what it is you’re thirsty for.  And so you’re drinking at the fountain of male approval, and sexual relationships.”

And here’s this woman, such a mess, and she is changed when she hears it, and she’s running out with love in her heart and a whole new self-image. God loves to show forth his power in the lives of the people who are the most messed up.

Is this gift for anybody?  Everybody? Of course!  God created you, and you were designed to live for him.  Jesus shows us why this great living water is available for anybody, no matter who you are or what you’ve done.  

In John 7, Jesus gives a wonderful invitation…“On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, ‘Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’” (When he said “living water,” he was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in him. But the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet entered into his glory.)”

Please remember this: If Christianity is a religion of grace, if the living water is a gift, ‘the gift of God,’ Jesus calls it, do you know what that means?  It means we spill over this gift of love and acceptance to all people.  For God so loved the world. 

Written by Charlie Albertell

I was hiking in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness in Montana several years ago when I took a wrong turn. I thought I was on the right track and I was comforted by the fact that the map showed a small body of water up ahead so I continued on.

But as I climbed higher, the land grew dryer; trees and vegetation gave way to dust and unrelenting heat and my supply of water quickly dwindled to a few drops. I thought of turning back, but I foolishly decided to forge ahead to what became even dryer and more isolated ground.

Within an hour, the water on the map became a longing, then an obsession, then an urgent necessity. I was becoming desperate when I finally stumbled upon a shallow pool of still water. Without hesitation, I drank it as if it was the sweetest water I had ever tasted. I experienced great relief and great joy at something as common as water because my body desperately needed replenishment.

What is true for the body depleted of life-giving water is just as true for the soul of any person wandering in a spiritual wasteland. David says, “As a deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” (Psalm 42:1-2) And elsewhere, he says, “O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” (Psalm 63:1)

Our physical thirst mirrors a thirst deep within the human heart. Will we turn and find drink to quench this thirst or will we continue farther into the dry land where there is little water to be found?

Excerpt from Trail Thoughts 6/22