Okay, so There are Some Dangers with Rivers, Lakes and Seas to be Aware of. Yes, Oftentimes Along the Banks, or in Tributaries or Swirling Eddies You Come-across Em.

Walk on.. not alone or with those who keep pullin' ya down.  Go forward, win the good battles you face.  Get past the muddy danger zones. 

My two brothers ..Kev and Kyle and I.. we used to get in some fairly serious mud-fights around river waters and lakes. 

Been called water-kids with a water dog (a shepherd named, Blitzen), but sometimes it was really more about mud or a horse trough with us boys. 

Yup, at times, like you probably also did... we’d have a tug of WAR ..over something like a mud-hole or bathtub for watering horses at.. and we'd find ourselves waste deep in the mud at some So Cal River..flingin' that stuff at other kids who also gladly join in, who enjoyed this pastime. 

As was our custom, we'd together do at least 100 miles down the Colorado River every year at Easter time.. down to Mexico with a bunch of other Tom Saywer Camp kids. 

My grandfather Bill started it, and then my dad owned and ran this camp biz (more on that here). Dad would enjoy driving the ski boat the whole time for the kids on four to six rail-road tie rafts that we'd built and traveled south on... so he didn’t always see the gnarly battles with the flinging of mud at the guys on the other side. When he was a kid, he was in em too, so of course he understood.  

Been stuck in mud at the Devil's Gate Dam before. Needed a little help that time. But I remember one time while in the heat of it all (mud flyin').. while getting stuck and s l o w ly sucked-in ..up to my waste in the mud, and then up to my chest as a mud fight raged on. 

Didn't really take it seriously. How can you, it's kid's a mud fight. And we all pretty much were laughing the whole time while still flingin' and whipping some soggy fast balls at those guys “the enemy”..chuckling out loud I was, that nature had somehow actually handicapped me to almost a standstill. It had tightly grabbed 'hold of me. Is this happening for real? Naww. No way! Oh yes -- WAY! 

That rubbery clay like mud was a little different this time..more rubbery-like. I was stuck, but not like before. It was holding me at bay and gradually sucking me downwards the more I tried in my own power to get above it to free myself. It can happen -- slowly gettin' stuck in near-quick-sand. And that was one time I actually needed some help to out of there.. help with a long two by four and it took a little while too.. for my buds to tug and TUG me on out. Embarrassing. With mud all over the face, it was sorta like a rescue. 

Here's what to do. Listen, in certain areas near an eddy or a muddy river bank where you can find so called "jelly-sand" (near-quick-sand) is, you can just walk fast over some of it.. not really sinkin' in much. But you have to keep on walking. If you are more on the edge of it, then keep goin' instead of ceasing to walk over it. Man, you would start to sink down in the crud, and then might even need some friends to throw you a line to pull you out. 

Now in a context where the Colossian believers were starting to get stuck.. sucked on down by an amalgamation of spiritual weirdness ..a quicksand of Gnosticism, Judaizer-legalism, religious heresy, mysticism and asceticism, the Apostle Paul warned those people of the Lycus Valley saying, “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.” Col. 2:6-7 nkjv

Be on the move forward, not sideways or backwards! Together with the body of Christ -- in a healthy Bible teaching church. Get your feet on the solid Rock (the Jesus Christ of the Bible), get yourself on stable ground in the Word of God. Come to Him. Have you gotten distracted away a bit.. taken a stride from the Master's side? Turn and trust -- come back to Him. Get back to your roots, believer, back to the basics of simply walkin' securely.. instead of gettin’ all sucked-into danger. Now is good. Return today, get home before dark. 

Listen, Jesus walked and overcame. You too were born to walk in victory--you were created by Him to win in the battles of life!  

At the beaches you shuffle your feet through the sands cuz the dangers under-neigh the water could be riptides, skates, stingrays or bigger sharks some 35 yards out. But at different Southern State rivers like the San Gabriel, the Colorado, and Santa Ana River etc the dangers could be ‘quick aka Jelly Sand.” We all love gettin’ in the water when it’s hot out, but be cautious and vigilant, prayerful.. especially with all the children playing around you there.        

There was once this Texas man that was killed by gettin' stuck in Jelly-Sand on the San Antonio River not all that long ago.  

Did you hear about, Mr. Jose Rey Escobedo? He went missing back on July 7, 2015 around 10 a.m. On July 8, police received a call reporting a light blue car had been parked underneath the San Antonio River Bridge in Goliad County. After succumbing to his battle, eleven game wardens found him on the 11th in South Texas. 

Got Any Family Traditions At The Start Of A New Year?

Do you have a family tradition at the start of each new year ..or maybe at the end of each year?

As a little kid, my family would always go down to Mexico at the tail end of each year on what we called “The Desert Trip” ...with some five van-loads of off-the-chain-kids and of course, with my big German shepherd named, Blitzen.

You see my dad owned a camp business that his dad (Bill) had started early in the last century and my two brothers, Kevin, Kyle and my little sister Kathy and I always had a lot of fun jumping off rocky gorges into sand, eating raw eggs, exploring small bat caves (man, no insurance company today would ever cover the stuff we did back then..).

But we camped out by the Salt Sea and in the huge sand dunes of SoCal and in Mexico each year and would have a great time throwing fireworks with our Mexican friends. Then we would enjoy being with my parents (among all the young campers) as my parents would celebrate their wedding anniversary on December 29th. Our family didn’t have a pile of money you see and there were only certain days that all of us kids and all our Tom Sawyer Camp friends would get free from school to go on such a trip.

Us guys would always enjoy proving to the world that we were real men too (even though we were really just snotty nose little boys who were simply out for some adventure), and we would do this by jumping off bridges, going swimming in the frigged Colorado river, and by catching diamond back and sidewinder rattlers or tarantulas or fat scorpions in the sand. We’d even bring these creatures home to take to school for show and tell and my parents would let us too, except for the snakes that we had to leave at home in an empty fish aquarium so they wouldn’t bite and kill any classmates.

We had some wild and crazy family traditions at year’s end, but none of us in my family knew our Maker in a personal way back then. It wasn’t until the late ’70s that all that changed. Maybe you to have had some traditions that were quite cool as well.

You know, one of the greatest things that you and I could do at the beginning of each new year is to start over again in our relationship with God, making sure that all our sins of omission and commission are under the blood of Jesus (and sure we should be quick to confess and repent all through the year as we need to, but I’m talking about a full recommitment at the start or end of each year here). We could also start over with the Bible as well. I hope that you’ve firmly committed yourself to daily Bible study for 2009. Maybe you have and move through it at a slower pace. I enjoy doing that, so keep going. We need all those chapters!

Check it out, the Bible won’t bite you like my snakes or my skunk (Thumper) would want to do, but it will help you become a real man ...young boys..as you wisely live it out. It will indeed help you grow up right and become mature women ..young girls..just like you deep down really want to become.

Perhaps you would like some practical daily fishin' for people ideas that you can read along with pouring over the Scriptures (which is more IMPORTANT of course..) just to help you out in this area. I encourage people to read one of mine each week just to be encouraged. I also really like the devos from Skip Heitzig a lot (you can even hear him daily if you would like..) and the Blue Letter Bible reading plan.

How else will you stay strong in the Lord or walk pure in such a filthy world, if you are negligent or spiritually malnourished Christian? We are either going forwards or backwards spiritually—we choose daily! The Bibles asks, “How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation” (Heb. 2:3, nkjv)? The Bible promises us, “Great peace have those who love Your law, and nothing causes them to stumble” (Ps. 119:165).

Listen, if you have no supernatural peace inside of you, you are not loving God’s law enough. Simple as that! His Book will keep you from sin, but sin will keep you from His Book! You might even think you are a real Christian because you were raised in a church where the Bible was taught, but God’s peace is to rule in your heart every day and if you lack such peace …something is seriously wrong with your ultimate connection! Are you in the darkness right now (I’m not talking about suffering in the middle of some trail or testing time here)? He can help you out. God’s “words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple” (Ps. 119:130). You can know for sure that you are right with God today! Now is good for addressin' that. Now is better than later, cuz not to decide..is to decide. today! Take a moment to read a bit more. Facebook.com/shareJesus