Jonathan Shradar

“Believers may not often realize it, but even as believers we are either centered in man, or centered in God. There is no alternative. Either God is the center of our universe and we have become rightly adjusted to Him, or we have made ourselves the center and are attempting to make all else orbit around us and for us. When the truth dawns, we are amazed to discover how the snare of making all things to revolve around man has been the bane of most of our preaching and teaching. This is true even of the area of teaching which is considered to be of the deeper life emphasis. As long as men are victims of this wrong philosophy and approach to truth, they cannot avoid reckoning from a self-center. When the center is wrong, then everything in our reckoning is wrong.” Devern Fromke This self-centeredness is not on the bane to our preaching, but to our whole life.

Our family just returned from an adventure-filled two-week journey in our RV. We hit a few National Parks, saw some friends along the way and played with cousins in Nebraska. It was a nice break, change of pace. Our first stop was at Grand Canyon. We stayed overnight in the park and made our way during the cool morning to the rim of the Canyon so we could take in the awe-inspiring depths of the earth formed by water. If you have been there you know how it takes your breath away. It is a great expanse, high and far. A keen reminder of our comparative smallness. As we enjoyed our lunch in one of the amphitheaters overlooking the Canyon, we were harassed and entertained by several entitled little squirrels. They nearly took food out of our hands (and not food we were offering, but the food we were eating.) The squirrels clearly had their share of human interaction and food. But they were the mangiest squirrels I have ever seen. Half of their hair falling out, sickly looking (probably from