I didn't have time at home to write this post, so now I am doing it from my cellphone in the car. We're on our way down to Lake Jackson, Texas, to spend Thanksgiving with my aunt, uncle, and grandparents. Left the house at 7 this morning,.. Temperature was 30 degrees.

Whatsoever we ask...

Jesus said that if we believe on Him, then whatsoever we ask in His name, He will do it. Now that is a pretty powerful promise. Whatsoever we ask He will do. But do we believe on Him?

Of course I believe on Him! I’ve been a Christian all my life, and I’ve never doubted that He was the Son of God. Well, that may be true, but is that really believing on Him? No, it’s not. We have to believe about Him too – that’s certainly important. But believing on Him is something different. What is it?

It’s believing that He is able to do everything He says He will do for us. It’s trusting that if we give our lives into His hands, that He will be able to manage them better than we ever can. And most importantly, it’s the commitment to surrender everything to Him, because He is the only one who can take care of it.

This is a very important point. It’s the difference between being saved and being lost. Paul and Silas told their jailer, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved… and thy house…” So apparently all we need to do to be saved (which that should be our #1 priority) is believe on our Lord Jesus Christ.

So… if believing on Him is all we need to do in order to be saved… then believing on Him is not just believing about Him. After all, Peter tells us that even the devils “fear and tremble.” Are the devils going to be saved? (Do I even need to ask that question????) So apparently there is some action involved in believing ON Jesus Christ. That action is turning ourselves over to Him.

It’s something that anyone can do. Rich, poor, high, or low. Your circumstances have no bearing on this whatsoever. You can submit to Christ – place all of your choices in His hand – at any time, any place.

The reward is incredible! Only a fool would refuse. And yet, aren’t we all foolish naturally, as humans? Yes, we are. But even from our faded viewport out of humanity, we can catch a vision of what is possible with God. How is that possible?

Because Jesus came to this earth and became a human so we could see what God is like…

Because God is love...

With men, things are impossible…

But with God, all things are possible!!!

Yesterday we spent most of the day at Wichita Mountains. It was a gorgeous day! The weather was absolutely perfect. Not a breath of wind, no clouds, perfect temperature for hiking... I loved it!

You can look at my pictures on this slideshow...

We hiked to the top of Bat Mountain and looked around for a while.

There is a little cave in the side of the mountain, so the three more adventurous members of our family decided to go see if we could crawl down the side of the mountain and get in it. Now we had heard from the Visitor's Center that you need ropes in order to get into the cave, but we didn't have any ropes. But that didn't deter us too much. We've spent quite a bit of time on the rocks at that park, hopping and climbing and whatever else, so we are actually quite good at it. So we headed down the side of the mountain, and Mother stayed behind to pray for us... :) The mountain was very steep. We ended up descending through a little crack in the rocks. It was probably a very dangerous thing to do, but we didn't mind. When we reached a point about 10 feet above the cave, we were clinging to a nearly vertical sheet of rock, and had our bodies wedged in this little crack.

Around this time, my glasses somehow managed to become dislodged from my face, and went tumbling down the crack. By what I believe to be a miracle, they didn't fall all the way down the mountain. You can't see in the picture, but there was a little puddle in the rock, and my glasses fell into that. By some strange "coincidence" (but I don't believe it was a coincidence at all) they weren't scratched the least bit!!! How did that happen? There's only one way - supernatural intervention!! They would have to have been scratched at least a little, falling down a channel of sharp rocks... I was considerably more careful with them after that happened!

Well, we decided to turn around and climb the vertical rock from whence we had come, because we realized that if we made it into the cave that we wouldn't be able to get out without a rope or a ladder, and of course we didn't have either of those at hand. So we made it back to the top safely, much to Mother's relief. She had been praying "without ceasing" that we would make it back safely and in good condition... :) What a dear Mother I have!

The Right Must Win

Oh, it is hard to work for God,

To rise and take His part,

Upon this battlefield of earth,

And not sometimes lose heart!

He hides Himself so wondrously,

As though there were no God;

He is least seen when all the powers

Of ill are most abroad.

Or He deserts us at the hour,

The fight is all but lost;

And seems to leave us to ourselves

Just when we need Him most.

Yes, there is less to try our faith

In our mysterious creed

Than in the godless look of earth

In these our hours of need.

Ill masters good: good seems to change

To ill with greatest ease;

And worst of all, the good with good

Is at cross-purposes.

It is not so, but so it looks,

And we lose courage then;

And doubts will come if God hath kept

His promises to men.

Ah! God is other than we think;

His ways are far above,

Beyond our reason's height, and reached

Only by childlike love.

The look, the fashion, of God's ways

Love's lifelong study are;

She can be bold, and guess, and act

When reason would not dare.

-Frederick William Faber

It took me a while to understand this poem. Please take the time to read it over, until you understand it. It will be worth it. :)

~ Zachary

Sample from my new CD!!!

Finally I have a sample from my upcoming CD Preludio to share with you.

I can't exactly say it's typical of the CD, because no two of the songs are quite the same, but it does carry some of the impressionistic neoclassical sound that characterizes this CD.

I hope the audio quality is decent coming through the video. I am not finished with editing yet, so if it doesn't sound right feel free to make suggestions. However, remember that the audio is of reduced quality in order to stream it over the internet, so it will be higher quality than is on the video.

Enough said... Just watch the video!

If you like it, post a comment or email me at reachingupwardstudios@gmail.com.

If you don't like it... well, then you figure out what to do about it yourself... I'm not making provision for that! :)

Back from Indiana Family Camp

Back from Indiana Family Camp... What a huge blessing!!! I don't have time at the moment to write a looooooooog post about it, but I will try to do it soon... :)

I'm almost ready to put up one of my samples for my new CD, Preludio. Look for it sometime next week! I'm really excited about it!

By the way, don't be afraid to leave comments on my posts. Your comments won't show up immediately, but they go to me and I publish them as soon as I read them (usually the same day if I'm at home). :D

I have so much to share about INFCM... I learned a lot, and was very inspired. Sean and I talked about standards in Christian video production for 40 minutes straight. I am not going to share all of that this moment... You can ask me about it if you want to know what we talked about, or else I'll probably put it up in a post later. :)

Well, I have to wrap this post up for tonight. More are soon to follow.

Zachary

This morning, we left for Indiana Family Campmeeting. We're driving to St. Louis today, them finishing tomorrow. For once, we actually managed to leave at the time we had planned! We did bring a really lot of stuff with us though. I installed SoundBooth on my parents' laptop, and am going to try and edit some songs for my cd. I'm really looking forward to the campmeeting...