Crooked River State Park, St. Marys, Georgia
Abraham replied, “I said to myself, ‘There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’ Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not of my mother; and she became my wife. And when God had me wander from my father’s household, I said to her, ‘This is how you can show your love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me, “He is my brother.”’ ~ Genesis 20:11-13 Such assumptions – and excuses – Abraham has made! Did he not learn from his time in Egypt a few chapters ago? After all that’s gone on in his life, does he really have so little trust in God? And did you catch that he sort of blames God for all this? “…when God had me wander…” Do we not behave this same way whenever things aren’t going smoothly? Did you know that Abraham and Sari were related? I sure didn’t! I know I’ve read this account before, but I guess I just skimmed over that part, because I certainly don’t remember it. And how presumptuous of Abraham to put his wife in such a position, and make her white-lie or repeat half-truths for him. And yet, how often do we do that very thing – – telling our own white-lies or half-truths and even getting others involved in our “little” deceptions in an attempt to “save” ourselves from something or someone? Lies are not “black” or “white” or “half” in God’s eyes. They are simply lies.
I was researching for tomorrow’s verse and discovered the following on enduringword.com:
There is a terrible meaning in this verb wander which Abraham uses. The Hebrew word occurs exactly fifty times in Scripture and never in a good sense. It is used of animals going astray, of a drunken man reeling, or staggering, of sinful seduction, of a prophet’s lies causing the people to err, of the path of a lying heart. Six other words are translated wander, any one of which Abraham might have used, but he used the worst word available. (Barnhouse)
Abraham should have said: “Forgive me, Abimelech, for dishonoring both you and my God. My selfish cowardice overwhelmed me, and I denied my God by fearing that He who called me could not take care of me. He is not as your gods of wood and stone. He is the God of glory. He is the living God, the Creator, the most High God, possessor of heaven and earth. He told me He would be my shield and my exceeding great reward, and supplier of all my needs… In sinning against Him, I sinned against you. Forgive me, Abimelech.” (Barnhouse)
Our water trail required high tide this morning, so we had to be on the water by 8:00am. What a gorgeous morning! Some clouds, and very calm even though the tide waters were coming in. Our directions said to start 90 minutes before high tide, for the 6.3-mile paddle trail.
But just like yesterday, there were markers missing, which meant at times, we just had to do an educated guess. Naturally, that’s Blaine’s department. After all, he steers, I just provide additional power. 😊
We stopped at a landing called “Harriet’s Bluff” (which was very difficult to see) and got out to walk around a bit, just to stretch our legs.
Then it was back into the water, which was at slack tide. For those of you who don’t know – like us not too awfully long ago – that’s the approximately 20-30 minutes between when the tide is coming in and when it’s going out. And it makes a difference in paddling! There’s no tide helping you out. You don’t really notice until you’re sitting still in the water during slack tide. 😊
so any critters that happen to be on the grass, hit me first.
Once I reminded him of that, he backed out. : )
We didn’t enjoy this paddle quite as much as yesterday’s, because although it was beautiful, there wasn’t much to see today.
Oh! And it started raining! It wasn’t supposed to rain! One black cloud dripped some drops on us before moving on. Nothing serious, but still. Hey. It’s okay. It added some fun and laughter to the morning.
because the wind kicked up, and the water’s moving with us.
We found out later that they’re probably crab traps.
They tell us there’s a 50% chance of seeing dolphins when you’re out on the water. We didn’t see any yesterday, but today, just as we were finishing up, Blaine saw them! Three! Moving slowly beside us, but by then, the tide was dragging us along, so we couldn’t follow them. At least we got one picture! And watched them for a minute or two as we drifted away.
I only caught two, but there were at least three. : )
Did you notice the bird? : )
Dinner tonight was ‘leftovers’ in the most delicious way! I made my fairly new invention, “meat pasta”. What’s that? Any leftover tidbits of meat, and veggies, chopped up, fried up, heated up, added to spaghetti sauce and pasta like rotini, layer with cheeses, baked for about 20-30 minutes, and voila! It’s really good! Tonight it was a piece of smoked sausage, two sausage patties, some browned hamburger, a piece of cooked chicken parm, a few pieces of pepperoni, onion, green and red pepper, mushrooms, fresh basil, garlic, freshly grated romano cheese, and shredded mozzarella/provolone.
We cannot say “Yum!” enough times!