A Prayer for Today

Dear God,

Thank you for another day of life. Thank you for allowing me to wake up in my home with my family all around me. Thank you for your Word and for your faithful servants that come to my home every week to study your Word with me.

I trust in you for all things and all situations. When I look at my "to do" list with my human eyes, I am overwhelmed. When I close my eyes and pray for your guidance - for you to show me the next right thing to do - just ONE thing at a time, I feel peace. Thank you for this wonderful gift. When the whole world seems like it is closing in around me, I turn to you. I visualize myself resting in your arms and sincerely pray for your guidance and protection. You never fail me. You are truly an awesome God. Thank you for your care. Thank you for helping me keep it simple, taking life one very small step at a time.

Father, please forgive me for my many sins. I know that if I stop and ask and listen to you, you will be faithful and always guide me in the right direction. Please forgive me for not asking you and for taking my own way, and for the many sins and hurts that result.

Father, I pray special blessings today for those that are near and dear to my heart. I pray that you would surround them with your angels of protection and that you would send your Holy Spirit to speak to their hearts, gently guiding them in the right direction in every step they take. I thank you for the ministering of the Holy Spirit to my heart; I am so grateful to have "ears to hear" when you speak to my heart.

Thank you for another day of life. Please help me to use every minute of it for your glory.

In Jesus Christ's holy name I pray, Amen.

The Ant and the Grasshopper

OLD VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer
long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and
plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.

The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!

****************************************************************************

MODERN VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, "It's Not Easy Being Green." Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, "We shall overcome." Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the
grasshopper's sake.

Nancy Pelosi & John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair
share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a
defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel
of federal judges that Bill Clinton appointed from a list of
single-parent welfare recipients.

The ant loses the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of
the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens
to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't
maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow. The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote!