Stephen De La Vega

  A mountaintop high. Indescribable. The view. The air. The freedom. Above it all. Breathe in… Exhale…   Now step back down for a moment. Let’s consider the mountain top high of a despicable king who somehow decided to obey God. In our walk through every 20:24 and 20:25 verse in the Bible, we find ourselves in the middle of a 3-part look at our responsibility to God as we consider kings and kingdoms in the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. Part 1 was the prior post: I Will Stand for God’s Government . Next time, we will Let God Win Our Battles . Today, we resolve to Follow God through Highs and Lows . Our story is found in 1 Kings 20 . At this point in history, Israel had been a divided nation consisting of a northern kingdom called Israel, and a southern kingdom called Judah. Jerusalem was the capitol city of Judah, and Samara was the capitol city of Israel where King Ahab reigned as its seventh king. He was ungodly – not a role model in any way for the king...

[This is Part 2 of Animal Instincts Trilogy.  Also read Part 1 and Part 3 .] I stepped out of my comfort zone one day and walked into a GRIT Cardio class at the gym.  Well, I wasn’t out of my comfort zone as much as I was out of my lazy zone, but that's another blog.  Either way, the cardio class was still pushing the envelope for me.  GRIT Cardio is a high intensity, teacher-based, half hour span of utter desperation.  After every 1- to 2-minute set of jumps, squats, planks, donkey kicks, and other humanly impossible actions, I wished I could claim my incessant panting as sufficient aerobic exercise for the day. I realize there are certain humans who can manage this insanity while hardly breaking a sweat, but I'm not one of them.  These other humans somehow reached a point where executing the unnatural movements of GRIT Cardio was not as heavy a burden for them as it was for me.  It still takes effort, they still get a workout, but the...