Tag Archives: Inspiration

Nuggets Plus – The Ant, stores to share…

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Ants and aphids on a mango tree ©binux

Ants and aphids on a mango tree ©binux

The Ant, stores to share… ~ by a j mithra

Ants have two stomachs
one to store food for itself
and the other to store food
to be shared with the other ants!

Nuggets Plus

Nuggets Plus

We’ve been storing
lots of spiritual food since birth
but, do we share it or store it?

Remember, storing too much
could lead to spiritual cholesterol..

The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. Matthew 25:40)
Have a blessed day!
a j mithra
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Nuggets Plus – African Lungfish, The Clay Dweller…

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Protopterus - African Lungfish WikiC

Protopterus - African Lungfish WikiC

Nuggets Plus – African Lungfish, The Clay Dweller… ~ by a j mithra

Nuggets Plus

Nuggets Plus

African Lung fish
dig a hole and survive
under the mud
for even up to four years
without water!

What have we done
for those who live in miry clay
without the Living Water
all through their lives?

He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water (John 7:38)

Have a blessed day!

a j mithra

More Nuggets Plus

a j mithra’s Articles

Protopterus – Wikipedia

Nuggets Plus – The Righteous Cedar…

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Nuggets Plus – The Righteous Cedar… ~ by a j mithra

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Nuggets Plus

Not only Ships
but also God’s temple
and musical instruments
were built with the scented and
decay resistant wood
of the Cedar tree!
Cedar was even used for
ritual cleansing!
We say that we are God’s temple
and instruments in the hands of God!
God calls us as Cedar too!
But,
do we deserve to be called
as Cedar?
The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree:
he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.” (Psalm 92:12)
Have a blessed day!

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Thankful For The Lord’s Birds

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With all the preparations for Thanksgiving and having company here for the holiday, I am re-posting an article that I wrote for our church blog, The Fountain. We were asked to write about only one thing we are thankful for, so, myself and several other writers posted articles of Thanksgiving.

Some of the other articles were:

I’m Thankful for Pastor Jerry (by Stephen Simpson)

Thankful for This Time and Place (by Jonita Barram)

Thankfulness at Thanksgiving (by Lou Gentry)

My article on the blog:

Thankful For The Lord’s Birds (by Lee Dusing)

In view of the Thanksgiving season, I have asked our blog authors to write about one thing they are thankful for.  Lee is up first.

Give thanks unto the LORD, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people. (1 Chronicles 16:8 KJV)

One thing is all Stephen will let us be thankful for. So I won’t mention the other 9,000 things I am thankful for.

The Lord has given me an interest in our avian friends, the birds, and it has brought so many blessings from it. When observing them, their colors, behavior, the variety, and just the wonder of them, I can’t help but be THANKFUL!

Woodstorks on top of tree at Circle B -7-22-11 by Lee

Woodstorks on top of tree at Circle B -7-22-11 by Lee

The Lord and I have a running conversation when birdwatching or looking for photos of birds for my blog. Here are some of my thought and talks with Him:

Long-tailed Broadbill (Psarisomus dalhousiae) babies ©©coracii

Long-tailed Broadbill (Psarisomus dalhousiae) babies ©©coracii

“Wow! Look at you! Lord you really created them neat”

Coppersmith Barbet (Megalaima haemacephala) by Peter Ericsson

Coppersmith Barbet (Megalaima haemacephala) by Peter Ericsson

“Lord, what an amazing coloring.”

Painted Bunting (Passerina ciris) ©©Flickr

Painted Bunting (Passerina ciris) ©©Flickr

“Amazing! How did you think of so many different designs and colors?”

Andean Cock-of-the-rock (Rupicola peruvianus) by SanDiegoZoo

Andean Cock-of-the-rock (Rupicola peruvianus) by SanDiegoZoo

“(Chuckle) Lord you sure have a sense of humor on some of these birds!”

“Lord, you caused the donkey to talk, could you bring that bird out where I can see it.?” (Thankfully, it has worked several times. Thank You Lord.)

On and on the conversations go. I love the Lord and I am so thankful to Him for that interest and the love He has put in me for His Creation, especially the birds.

Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; (Ephesians 5:20 KJV)

Other Thanksgiving 2011 Posts:

Other Posts by Lee:

P.S.

Since this is my blog and it is Thanksgiving today, I can add more things I am thankful for. Of course the thing I am most thankful for is my salvation provided through the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross.

Caught Dan on the Boardwalk trying to find a bird

Caught Dan on the Boardwalk trying to find a bird

Next I am thankful for my husband, Dan, who is the other love of my life. I am thankful for the 48 years the Lord has allowed us to spend together. We are both thankful that we share our love for the Lord and enjoy being allowed to serve Him in various ways.

I am thankful for Faith Baptist Church, here in Winter Haven, FL and the others we have attended over the years. What a blessing it is to attend, listen to great preaching, singing, and have great friends. Serving the Lord here is great. As we lived in other places over the years, we have had great blessings and friends there also.

I am thankful for this blog and all of you who stop by and read the articles that are produced. I am very thankful for the writers like ajmithra, Ian Montgomery, Dottie Malcolm, Stephen Simpson, April Lorier and others who have contributed their talents. All the photographers and videographers who have allowed their photos and videos to be used.

Then our families and friends, who could not be thankful for them. On and on I could go for the many blessings in my life, but I will stop there for now. Just the 10, 466 birds in the world would put me past the 9,000 things I am thankful for.

Look around you today and count your many blessings. There are many.
Lord Bless your day and Happy Thanksgiving.

A Psalm of praise. Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations. (Psalms 100:1-5 KJV)

Here are other Thanksgiving related posts:
Birds of the Bible – Thanksgiving 2010
Birds of the Bible – Fatted Fowl 2009
Thanksgiving Turkey 2009
Happy Thanksgiving 2008

R.A.Torrey’s Topical Bible – Thanksgiving

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Nuggets Plus – Cochineal Insect

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Cochineal on Opuntia cactus (the white spots) La Palma - WikiC

Cochineal on Opuntia cactus (the white spots) La Palma - ©WikiC

Nuggets Plus – Cochineal Insect ~ by ajmithra

Cochineal insect

that lives on prickle pear cactus,

is dried and powered

to extract dye

for fabric, food and cosmetics..

Jesus dried His blood for us,

to dye the fabric of Salvation

to give us the Living Bread,

and to beautify us

with the cosmetic of holiness..

And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. (Revelation 7:14)

Interesting Things – Dragonfly (from Creation Moments)

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Dragonfly by Phil Kwong

Dragonfly by ©Phil Kwong

Come, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the LORD. (Psalm 34:11 )

Evolutionary naturalism paints the picture of life as if it were a haphazard series of accidents that just barely resulted in a range of living things that just manage to survive. This fanciful picture destroys our sense of wonder over the sophisticated engineering designs in nature.

SmileyCentral.com

Consider the mystery of flight, for example. Some evolutionists suggest that perhaps birds are descended from lizards that fell out of trees a lot. Other evolutionists say that birds came from lizards who grew wings, not for flight but to chase down and catch insects. Yet, they have little to say about the fact that we humans have come by most of our sophisticated knowledge about flight from studying the birds.

Then there is the problem, for the evolutionist, of how flight accidentally evolved so many times for so many creatures. Scientists studying the dragonfly are learning even more secrets of flight. Our best high-performance aircraft can barely lift themselves off the ground. However, the dragonfly can lift 15 times his own weight into the air. Scientists have learned that this is because the dragonfly’s wings are designed to create little whirlwinds over their top surfaces. These whirlwinds are the secret to creating incredible lifting power. Ways are now being planned to apply this secret to new aircraft designs.

Dragonfly by ©Raymond Barlow

Dragonfly by ©Raymond Barlow

The engineering excellence found in nature and from which we have learned so much even in this day of interplanetary probes is not witness to a mindless process of evolution, but to a wise and mindful Creator.

Prayer:
Father, it seems a shame that humans learned about flight from the dragonfly and fail to see a witness to You. Yet, I know that I don’t learn from You as I should, either. Forgive me for Jesus’ sake and make me a better learner. Amen.

Notes:
“Dragonfly model for future wings.” Science Digest, Mar. 1984. p. 87. ©Creation Moments, 2011

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The lessons being learned about the dragonfly’s wings are a good example of:

But now ask the beasts, and they will teach you; And the birds of the air, and they will tell you; (Job 12:7 NKJV)

We can learn much from the critters by learning about how the Lord created them and then applying those lessons to better our lives.

More Interesting Things

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Birds in Hymns – Great Giver Of All Good

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Prothonotary Warbler (Protonotaria citrea) Neal Addy Gallery

Prothonotary Warbler (Protonotaria citrea) Neal Addy Gallery

And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. (Isaiah 6:3 KJV)

Words by Ann T. Gilbert (1782-1852), 1827 (orig­in­al­ly, “Spared to Ano­ther Spring”).

This hymn ap­peared, un­at­trib­ut­ed, in the Amer­i­can School Hymn Book, by Asa Fitz, 1854, and is some­times in­cor­rect­ly ascribed to Fitz. The ver­sion be­low was pub­lished in the 1882 Col­lect­ion by God­frey Thring.

Music: Swabia by Johann M. Spiess (1715-1772) – ar­ranged by Will­iam H. Ha­ver­gal, 1847

Great Giver of All Good

Great Giver of All Good,
To Thee our thanks we yield
For all the beauties of the wood,
Of hill, and dale, and field.

Ten thousand various flowers
To Thee sweet offerings bear,
And joyous birds in woodlands bowers
Sing forth Thy tender care.

The fields on every side
The trees on every hill,
The glorious sun, the rolling tide,
Proclaim Thy wonders still.

But trees, and fields, and skies
Still praise a God unknown;
For gratitude and love can rise
From living hearts alone.

These living hearts of ours
Thy holy Name would bless;
The blossoms of the thousand flowers
Would please the Savior less.

While earth itself decays,
Our souls can never die;
O tune them all to sing Thy praise
In better songs on high.

By them shall the fowls of the heaven have their habitation, which sing among the branches. (Psalms 104:12 KJV)

Ann T. Gilbert was the daugh­ter of Isaac Tay­lor, who at the time of her birth was a Lon­don engraver. Her father sub­se­quent­ly be­came a Con­gre­ga­tion­al min­is­ter, liv­ing first at Col­ches­ter, then at On­gar. In 1813, she mar­ried the Rev. Jo­seph Gilbert, class­ic­al and math­e­ma­ti­cal tu­tor at the Con­gre­ga­tion­al Col­lege, Mas­bo­rough (near Roth­er­ham), York­shire. From Mas­bo­rough they moved to Hull, and lat­er Not­ting­ham.

Johann M. Spiess taught mu­sic at the Gym­na­si­um in Hei­del­berg, Ger­ma­ny, and played the or­gan at St. Pe­ter’s Church and (1746-1772) at Berne Ca­thed­ral.

More Birds in Hymns

Most information from The Cyber Hymnal – Great Giver of All Good

Nuggets Plus – Caddisfly – The Healer

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Trichoptera Caddisfly from Wikipedia

Trichoptera Caddisfly from Wikipedia

Nuggets Plus – Caddisfly – The Healer ~ by ajmitha

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Nuggets Plus

Caddisfly’s silk Is sticky when wet and this silk Make a valuable adhesive tape used to suture wounds.. When we get wet with the Living Water, We have to suture wounds and not create wounds… By the way, Is our life creating wounds, Or suturing wounds? Remember, Though we hurt Jesus, He still heals… He expects us to be like Him… Do we heal and not hurt?

He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. (Psalm 147:3)

Trichoptera Net made by Caddisfly from Wikipedia

Trichoptera Net made by Caddisfly from Wikipedia

Nuggets Plus – The Mirror’s Reflection

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Common Sandpiper (Actitis hypoleucos) by W Kwong

Common Sandpiper (Actitis hypoleucos) by W Kwong

“A bird — most often but not always a beautiful male cardinal attaclks a window day after day and won’t stop. Invariably …people worry about it injuring itself. Rarely does a serious physical injury result but it is a possibility. Psychological injury is another matter: the bird is clearly frustrated.

Nuggets Plus

Nuggets Plus

This is territorial behavior. Male birds establish personal homelands, in the case of songbirds one to ten acres in size. Then they spend much of their time announcing their hegemony, inviting in willing female partners through song and coincidentally defending their yard against other males.

Ornithologists who study territorial behavior find that they can plot the borders of these small kingdoms with great accuracy. Males in adjacent bailiwicks know their mutual borders as though a fence separated them.

The window the bird is attacking serves as a mirror and the bird, not schooled in physics, doesn’t understand that its anatiomorphic image the other side of that glass isn’t real. (That technical word means the same size and shape but reversed like two gloves. Mirrors do that. The only time you see an exact copy of yourself is when you look into two mirrors that meet at right angles.)” (Edited) From the July 7, 2003 issue of The Buffalo News

We look in the mirror to check our appearance.

  • What do we observe?
  • As a Christian, are we seeing a new creation or
  • Do we still look like we did before accepting the Lord?

For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.
(James 1:23-25 NKJV)

Have a Blessed Day!

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See also: Mirror Test on Magpies

Personally, I see a very creative Creator at work here, not convergent evolution.

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Nuggets Plus – The Accident Free African Locust

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Desert Locust - Africa -WikiC

Desert Locust - Africa -WikiC

Nuggets Plus – The Accident Free African Locust – by ajmithra

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As they swarm,
the African locusts
has the uncanny ability
to avoid crashing against
one another…

We are fearfully
and wonderfully made
by His own hands
in His own image…

But,

We often crash against each other..

Why?

Is it because,
we have lost “THE WAY”?

The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.
Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand.” (Psalm 37:23,24)

Being and Doing as God Enables – by A. W. Tozer

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Bird caught in a net

Bird caught in a net

Being and Doing as God Enables – By A.W. Tozer  
(Guest Writer from the Past)

Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird. (Proverbs 1:17 KJV)

Failing to get ready in time for eternity, and failing to get ready now for the great then that lies out yonder, is a trap in plain sight. There is an odd saying in the Old Testament, “How useless to spread a net in full view of all the birds” (Proverbs 1:17).

When the man of God wrote that, he gave the birds a little credit. It would be silly for a bird watching me set the trap to conveniently fly down and get into it. Yet there are people doing that all the time. People who have to live for eternity fall into that trap set for them in plain sight. It is folly to put off to a tomorrow because you may never see the things that you should do now. It is an act of inexcusable folly to count on help that will never come. It is foolish to ignore God’s help now offered us. Many are guilty of ignoring the help that is presently being extended to them, all the while waiting for help that will never come from others. There is not much that can be said in favor of lazy or careless Christians. God never told anyone to do anything that he or she could not do. Jesus said to the man with the paralyzed arm that hung at his side like a limp piece of flesh, “Stretch out your hand” (Matthew 12:13a). And the man, believing that Jesus was the Christ, stretched out his hand and was healed instantly. God has never asked anyone yet to do anything that He was not enabling the person to do.

See  A.W. Tozer index.

A.W. Tozer (1897 – 1963)

A 20th-century prophet” they called him even in his lifetime. For 31 years he was pastor of Southside Alliance Church in Chicago, where his reputation as a man of God was citywide. Concurrently he became editor of Alliance Life, a responsibility he fulfilled until his death in 1963.

His greatest legacy to the Christian world has been his 30 books. Because A.W. Tozer lived in the presence of God he saw clearly and he spoke as a prophet to the church. He sought for God’s honor with the zeal of Elijah and mourned with Jeremiah at the apostasy of God’s people.

But he was not a prophet of despair. His writings are messages of concern. They expose the weaknesses of the church and denounce compromise. They warn and exhort. But they are messages of hope as well, for God is always there, ever faithful to restore and to fulfill His Word to those who hear and obey.

The Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer – ebook

A. W. Tozer – Wikipedia

Birds of the Bible – Bird Catcher

Wordless Birds

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Nuggets Plus – Digestion and Meditation

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Common Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) at Nest by Anthony747

Common Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) at Nest by Anthony747

A crop (or croup sometimes called a craw) is a thin-walled expanded portion of the alimentary tract used for the storage of food prior to digestion that is found in many animals, including gastropods, earthworms, leeches, insects, birds, and even some dinosaurs.

Nuggets Plus

Nuggets Plus

As with most other organisms that have a crop, the crop is used to temporarily store food. Not all birds have a crop. In adult doves and pigeons, the crop can produce crop milk to feed newly hatched birds.

Scavenging birds, such as vultures, will gorge themselves when prey is abundant, causing their crop to bulge. They subsequently sit, sleepy or half torpid, to digest their food. Most raptors have one; like falcons, hawks, eagles and vultures but owls do not.

Cows eat grasses and then spend time digesting their food. (See Video)

When we read God’s Word, do we digest it and meditate on what we have read?

I rejoice at thy word, as one that findeth great spoil. (Psalms 119:162 KJV)
Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O LORD God of hosts. (Jeremiah 15:16 KJV)
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. (Psalms 19:14 KJV)

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