January 30, 2017
by Brian G. Bettes
Many people I am currently praying for are facing severe trials right now. One friend just went in for surgery to have a cancerous tumor removed from his liver. That same man will have to go in again in a few months to have more cancer removed from his colon. A cousin of mine is in stage four of lymphoma cancer. Both suffer not only the physical pain of the disease that is trying to kill them, but also the fear of not knowing what will happen with the only life they have been given. Additionally, they wrestle with what it will mean for the loved ones who are left behind if the cancer takes them. Continue reading
This past Sabbath, John Reedy gave the message in Texarkana, TX, and he asked something that I am still thinking about a few days later. He asked, as Christians, are we allowing one foot to stay in the world while the other is in God’s church? He was making the point that we are in the world, but we aren’t supposed to be of the world. God understands that we can’t put ourselves in a bubble separating ourselves from the world. However, we aren’t supposed to get caught up in the world’s way of living, selfishness, greed, strife, envy, gossips, enmity with God, etc. We are to be different, set apart by how we live our lives. 
A good friend texted me this picture as a joke recently. Then he said, “This would make a good subject for a blog.” I decided He was right!
I know that I have written about music before, but the other day I heard something that I didn’t even know in regards to music. I was driving to town listening to a radio program, and the speaker was listing all the benefits of singing with other people. Studies have shown that group singing benefits our health and well-being. I knew I enjoyed singing, but I didn’t know that there were actually positive health benefits to singing, especially when you sing in a group. 
The other day my family and I were watching a fun series called Brain Games, and in one episode about lying, it had a study done with children. The premise was to have a group of children sit at a table with this tasty chocolate cake, and an adult would tell them that they were not to have any of the cake. In fact, they could not even touch the cake. Then the adult would leave the room to watch the children behind a two-way mirror. All but one of the kids could not resist the temptation. They just had to at least touch it with the tip of their finger. It was too hard to do the right thing when no one was around. 
In a recent blog, I talked about “tugging against the leash.” In a comment to that blog, a reader responded with this:
The Church of God International Springfield, Missouri 