Thursday a.m.

Good morning! Too bad it's not RAIN day today! Wow, this weather would certainly make the ride across Indiana better and easier. Looks like Saturday won't be too bad: low 90s with humidity rising but not quite where it was recently.

I had my first RAIN related dream last night. My seat came loose going down a hill, and then I had a flat tire - rear tire of course. There was other weird stuff associated with it as well: it was along an ocean course and a guy was changing my tire but not really getting the job done. Normal stuff, I guess.

Yesterday was a pretty good day, and it ended with a great meeting about our rapidly approaching trip to Honduras. I think we are just about set. I am excited about what we are doing and plan to do.

Comfort - that's the topic for this week. Here are some working definitions, English and Greek.

comfort
a state of physical ease and freedom from pain or constraint, consolation for grief or anxiety, cause to feel less unhappy; console.

parakaleō
to call to one's side, call for, summon, to console, to encourage and strengthen, to comfort

Comfort only comes to those who can see the future. Sometimes, when our faith is weak, we cannot see beyond the problem in front of us. That’s when it is so vital that comfort, which is just the flip side of encouragement (same Greek word), is provided by those who can see the future. That's what I'm picking up from reading 2 Cor. 1 and beyond.

Comfort comes from God, as he reveals the future to those who have faith in him/it, but it is administered and mediated through believing, future-seeing humans who come alongside strugglers to help them see what they know and see.

Oh, just about forgot! The picture above is what we saw when we finished our dolphin cruise. I wanted to take Ben deep-sea fishing, but it didn't work out this time. Seeing these fish made me wish that we went! It brought back a lot of memories from New Zealand. My buddy Greg and I would go out on  regular basis and come back with fish like these. Yum yum!