Refreshing Faith

I encountered two amazing discoveries today. The first discovery was found while looking on the net for places to hike with the family. The second I stumbled into while frequenting my wife and I's favorite coffee house (The Serene Bean).

Every week I find new reasons to fall in love with Georgia. While surfing on the net I discovered that North Georgia is full of beautiful waterfalls. The waterfall pictured here is the Falls on Raven Cliff Trail in White County. (For more falls check out: www.jjanthony.com/waterfalls/)

This water that falls with grace and beauty serves to refresh the pool of water below. It flows through every knot and curve of stone to make it's way to the awaiting surface. This image makes me want to find myself in it. Find a place that's cool and refreshing, a haven from the Georgian heat and humidity. I will find these falls!

The second discovery I had today was found flowing from a young girls heart. It was her faith that poured out and around every bit of her being. She like so many in our area came here from far away. Over the past five years she's dicovered that Jesus is her source. Like a river flowing His grace, mercy, comfort, strength, hope, health, encouragement...life has made it's way to her. All of this flows in and through her, like water over the falls. Her life isn't the source, but she allows Jesus the source to flow over, through, in and out of her. A visible expression of grace and beauty. not her's, but His. That's all she wants people to see anyhow...Him. What a refreshing discovery on my journey through life today. She told me how right now she's sort of checked out of the conventional church scene. She and three others get together in a house once a week to have church. She like many have found church today too busy with busyness. A waterfall is simply refreshing and today she helped me discover a new that faith in Jesus can be refreshingly simple. What's important isn't that you attend three services a week, are involved in four different ministries, and play softball on a church team in a church league. What's important is that you have found the reality of Jesus as your source. He can be the refreshing flow that brings life to you and life to those that view His presence flowing over the hard edges, curves, and knots that make up who you are.

I could visibly see that she could not hold back what Jesus has meant to her over the past five years. As I prayed for this twenty year old young woman I felt honored to have rounded a turn in my spiritual hike through life and had stumbled upon such an amazing discovery of God's creation and interaction. What an amazing discovery...what a refreshing faith!



Psalm 78:15-16 "He split rocks in the wilderness, gave them all they could drink from underground springs;
He made creeks flow out from sheer rock, and water pour out like a river."

The Big Big House

The Wiseman's are finally settled. We found a house to rent in Woodstock so we are no longer living in a van "down by the river." No really when Amie and the kids came we settled into our pop-up camper in the back yard of Jared & Charla's apartment. This was just a temporary 3 week experience and now we hate camping. Anybody want to buy a camper? The house we've rented is amazing. We weren't looking to rent in this neigborhood we were just out looking at neighborhoods deciding where we'd like to buy once our home in Ohio sells. Anyway we're on the backside of this lake community and there's this huge stone-cape-cod-looking lodge of a home on the end of the lake with two decks, cathedral ceiling, blah, blah, blah....wow! This lady is working in the yard and says she'll show us around. There's no way this is in our price range. God is so good! The lady says she doesn't usually rent to people with children, but for us she would make an exception. She throws out a great figure, says we don't need a deposit, and now we are living in the Big Big House!! In the last week I've fished off of my back yard 3 times. We even have a beaver....cool! I guess I am just really thankful that God provided us a home with a country feel and a back porch made for quite times with family and with Him.