Goodness gracious - third post for the day.  That must surely qualify me as addicted.  Actually, this is my 122nd blog post, which is pretty good seeing I started this blog on 11 May.  Which is basically a post a day.  Not too shabby, I guess :)

My eyes are gritty.  I got this book The God's Honest Truth by Darin Hufford in the mail today and can't put it down.  I'm up to page 100.  The drink I've had from the well today was long and it was good.  I've been very thirsty lately.  It's good to be back.

There's a bit about the patience of God I can't resist posting:

Imagine if you worked in the emergency room of a hospital and one evening a two-year-old child was brought to you that had boiling water spilled down the front of his body.  The child is screaming and wailing at the top of his lungs.  As you delicately cut away his clothing, you see that his skin is literally falling off his body.  My question to you is this: What are the chances that you will lose your patience with this child for screaming?  Would you secretly wonder why his mother wasn't quieting him down?  Would you even attempt to quiet this child down?  What are the chances that you would even start to get irritated?  You wouldn't, would you?  Why, because you have understanding.  You can see with your eyes the exact reason why this child is screaming so much.  You would scream as well if it happened to you.  So you don't lose patience.  You don't even start to lose your patience, because you understand.

Love is exactly the same way.  When you love someone, you will always see the "burnt baby" in everything they do.  Love's eyes look beyond the flesh and into the heart.  People who lack patience are blind to the heart.  This is why they don't understand the person they claim to love.  Love sees everything in a person's heart.  It doesn't even begin to lose patience, because it understands completely why a person does what they do.  When looking for patience, we must always turn to love to find it ...

Loved ones, please understand this: God is patient with you because He understands you fully and completely.  When He sees you struggling with sin, His eyes see past the sin and straight into your heart.  He knows exactly why you do what you do.  He understands every tiny facet of your heart.  God even knows the things about you that you have long forgotten. He knows the very things that have made you the person you are today.  The Heart of God says, "I understand why you do this or that.  If I saw things the way you did, I would struggle too.  I want to help you to see things differently because this sin you are struggling with is killing you."  His patience with you is not a case of God holding back His boiling anger toward you, but it is simply God knowing you so well that He doesn't even begin to lose patience.  Your Father sees the "burned baby" in everything you do.