We're authors and musicians who loves to talk about faith & spirituality, arts & crafts, and music. Subscribe and join over 2,000+ newsletter readers every week!
Feed Rate
|
Feed Rate by Phil One of the activities I do quite often in my wood shop is resawing lumber (the rest of the world calls it "timber," just in case you have trivia night coming up!) While crosscutting makes boards shorter and rip cutting makes them narrower, resawing makes boards thinner. This is usually done on a bandsaw by running a thick board vertically through its width to make two thinner boards. A properly tuned bandsaw can make a straight cut through the entire length of a board, but there is one crucial task left up to the operator. The woodworker must control the feed rate (how fast or hard you push the board into the blade). This is a learned skill that causes a struggle for almost all new woodworkers. For a bandsaw to make a straight resaw cut, you must go SLOW! The thin little blade has a lot of material to cut and clear, so patience is a must. The trick is to apply slight and steady pressure and let the blade cut at its own pace. If you get in a hurry and push too hard, the blade will veer off to the left or right, and your piece will be ruined. If you keep pushing, eventually the blade will give up and break - and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (from the woodworker). Sounds a lot like following Jesus, doesn't it? One of the hardest disciplines to practice is patience, especially when God seems to be stuck. How many times do we veer off the straight and narrow when we try to do things our way instead of waiting on God? Moses did when he killed the Egyptian taskmaster. Aaron did when he made the golden calf. Saul did when he didn't wait for Samuel to offer sacrifices to God. Peter did when he said he would never deny Jesus. Judas did when he betrayed Jesus to the hands of the chief priests. These are just a few examples; the Bible is full of people who weren't willing to wait on God's timing. I wrote a song years ago that I never finished, but the chorus comes back to me quite often... In God's time, He will do what's best, I know. The secret to successfully following Jesus is a proper faith feed rate. You can't push ahead of God and expect Him to follow you. You also can't sit and do nothing, waiting for God to move. You must pursue God with a steady consistency, letting Him set the pace. Sometimes it may be glacially slow, and other times you'd better hold on to your hat! Just remember: you run the race, God sets the pace! Click Here to Check our Concert Schedule! Check us out on Facebook! - http://www.facebook.com/PhilandPamMorgan |
Phil & Pam Morgan
We're authors and musicians who loves to talk about faith & spirituality, arts & crafts, and music. Subscribe and join over 2,000+ newsletter readers every week!
Q and A, The Old-Fashioned Way by Phil Have you ever heard the phrase, "Throw out the baby with the bath water?" Sometimes in our quest to be more efficient or accurate, we discard some pretty useful stuff. For example... Many more "liturgical" denominations use catechisms. Before you pick up your “we only use the Bible” stones to throw my direction, catechisms are merely a teaching tool for explaining Christian doctrine, often in the form of a series of questions and answers. Sort of a...
Repurposed by Phil At the beginning of this month, we sold our equipment trailer. A couple of years ago, we upgraded to a new, more compact sound system that fits right in the back of our Honda CR-V, so the trailer had been sitting idle for quite a while. Still, parting with it was bittersweet. We bought that trailer when we relaunched our ministry 25 years ago, and it accompanied us across the country for more miles than I care to remember. It holds a lot of memories. The good news is that a...
WELCOME TO SUMMER! We pray you had a wonderful celebration of our nation's 250th birthday and still have all your fingers (or at least the same number you had last week!). We mentioned earlier in the year that we would be keeping a light touring schedule this summer because of upcoming family events, but that doesn't mean we haven't been busy! Here's a snapshot of the happenings around here. Pam's mom has moved into a senior community - twice! The facility is beautiful and the waiting list so...