I took this photo at the Jesus in the City parade in Toronto. At first I wanted to make everything black and white except for the robe of the actor who is portraying our Lord Jesus Christ, then I realized this will make the robe the center of attention so I changed my mind. Here I just want to talk about the crucifixion. In 2004 a non-Christian co-worker told me that he went to watch The Passion of the Christ movie and said it was very brutal then added, “But it wasn’t the worst [physically] torture that anyone had endured.†Of course, he was right: our Lord did not endure the most physical torture in the history of mankind, because some men were crucified for days before they died, many others died more horrible physical deaths. As far as we know the two thieves who were crucified alongside our Lord… read more
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This Digital Painting in Photoshop tutorial will cover the basics of sketching thumbnails for your Digital Painting workflow. 1. Environment Thumbnailing 2. Narration of the process [sociallocker] [/sociallocker]
When I saw this sunset I thought to myself, “Oh, man! I can’t resist sunsets! Then I thought, “Only God can mix purple, navy, red, orange and yellow and make it look this good!†Try wearing that! (Unless you work as a balloon!) I remember few months ago I was meeting with my design team and we were supposed to come up with alternative designs that meet the client’s needs (so we can select the best design and improve it as our proposed design). We were 6 students in the group, and we were discussing ideas, and designs already in use, and what if it looked like this, or worked like that machine, etc. After a considerable time we came up with only 4 alternative designs! Only four! And even those four were similar to each other! That’s when it hit me: God made countless types of vegetables… read more
One of my favorite activities is on Saturday morning right after I wake up and pray is to start cleaning my room as good as needed which usually takes about an hour to an hour and a half (yea, I know some people are slow!) Before I clean my room I open the curtains in the apartment and all doors so the apartment is full of the morning light. And turn on a sermon by Dr. Stanley and start cleaning! My room is always organized so I don’t have to put things in place or anything like that, but the dust I have no control over so I wipe the dust off everything. Then I wipe the floor clean and lastly change the bed sheet and the billow cases, and the comforter if needed. Of course I also have to make the mirror shine again! These are by far my… read more
I personally like when people are honest with me and point out my faults, so that I know my weaknesses and I can submit those weaknesses to Christ through prayer. That’s why I find the sermons of Dr. Charles Stanley, Paul Washer, and Billy Graham attractive, because they are effective. Of course I didn’t enjoy all honest and Biblical sermons because God used them to require change in me; it is very difficult to submit an area of weakness to Him to direct us through the change process. I can remember sermons of Dr. Stanley I listened to that I thought I would never need because I would never come across that situation, yea, right! that same sermon came in so handy a couple of years later! The same thing with reading the Bible…I read the Bible few times and some verses didn’t really apply to my situation, but they… read more
Suppose you found a friend carving a small statue out of a piece of wood. “What are you going to do with that?†you ask. “I’m going to worship it,†he says. “I’ve got a nice spot in my bedroom where I can kneel down and ask it for things.†Or imagine people on a suburban street pooling their wedding rings and other jewelry to make a statue they can put in the park. They plan to kill animals and leave the meat out in front of the statue. To moderns, idolatry is as weird as cannibalism; we’re not tempted to try it. But since a great part of the Old Testament is concerned with idolatry, we need to get some idea of what people saw in it—and why God condemned it. “They have forsaken me and made this a place of foreign gods.â€Â Jeremiah 19:4 Mixing Religions In Jeremiah’s… read more
For a long time now it has been my heart’s desire to get married to the woman God has meant for me, according to His timing. Second to only knowing Jesus more and more and become more like Him and fulfilling His purpose for my life, having my own family has been my biggest dream. However, waiting has not been an easy task, especially few years ago when I knew what God’s will was from reading the Bible, but I didn’t have enough faith to live a worry free life in Christ—simply put, I knew He was faithful but I didn’t trust Him fully all the time. A few years ago I felt so lonely and saw how everyone around me has someone, whether according to God’s will or not, and so I went to pray and started crying out to Him, I was so troubled in my heart that… read more
As I sit here and write this there are tears in my eyes. I’m not not one to cry, it usually only happens a handful of times a year, but the past few days have been crazy. I’m so overwhelmed right now, but not in a bad way. I’m overwhelmed with God’s love for me. I don’t understand how He can love me this much, how He can care so much about the little details in my life. Everything from the basic necessities of life to friendships that touch my inmost being, He has taken care of it all in the most amazing ways. I wanted/needed to find a job (I’m currently a student), there were a few different reasons why but I just knew that it was what I should do. So I prayed that God would provide me with an opportunity, a job where I could be a… read more
I’ve been thinking about the topic of pornography and so I thought I’d do a write up on it. Although I don’t like to admit it, it’s something that’s killing the Church. Stats are that 99% of guys have looked at or have been addicted to pornography at sometime in their life. Not only that but a large percentage of marriages (I can’t remember the exact number) end up in ruins because of it. But it’s not something we like to talk about because it’s awkward and personal. But showing love for someone is acting in their best interest, not doing what is comfortable for them but doing what will actually help them. It sometimes means saying the hard things or bringing up the taboo subjects. My question to you is this, if there was some guy who called himself a “Christian†and just slept around with different women all… read more
Hosea begins with a love story; a painful, personal love story, the prophet’s very own. Hosea had married a woman who acted like a prostitute. Yet the more she went out on him, the more Hosea loved her. He gave her everything a good wife deserved: his love, his home, his name, his reputation. She responded by sleeping around with other men. He warned her, he pleaded with her, he punished her. She humiliated him until he wanted to cry, yet still he clung to her. Why did Hosea begin with his personal life? Because God had expressly told him to relate it to another, more tragic love story: the painful love of God for his people. God could have simply declared, “Israel is like a wife to me, an adulterous wife.†Instead, he used Hosea to act out the treachery in real life and to show in living color… read more
I’m once again at a loss for words. I’m often frustrated with life, I sit here in North America blessed with so much and yet it doesn’t bring any satisfaction. I know that there is so much more to life, all this “stuff” we have just gets in the way of what really matters. Perhaps it’s my circumstances, perhaps I’m just going through a dry spell. I want to be able to find the people who are hurting and help them. Tell them it’s okay to not have things figured out, I sure don’t. I want to tell them that in our brokenness that we can become something better. When we come to the place where we have nothing else there is a way out. I don’t care who you are or what you’ve done. You’re an amazing person. Perhaps you don’t see that right now, maybe you don’t think… read more
Idolatry, Why The Big Fuss? A few months ago before a test I saw a classmate holding the cross that hung around his neck and was praying in preparation for the test. Later I e-mailed him asking if he was a Christian and if it was OK with him to add his e-mail to my “Christian forwards/messages†list. He replied to my e-mail saying that he was not a Christian: he simply had the cross for “good luckâ€. “And God spoke all these words: ‘I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. ‘You shall have no other gods before me. ‘You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD… read more
I’m sure we’ve all heard, read, or otherwise been made aware of this verse at least half a million times, but something caught me as we were reading through it in class a couple weeks ago. Anytime I’ve heard this exposited, used as an example or even just read it myself I always came away with the thought.. “Yes, build your life on Christ, the rock, the solid foundation and then your house, your life, won’t fall down when things get tough. “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.” Matthew 7:24-25 ” The only problem with this is that it isn’t quite what… read more
Deep snow is hard to walk in because it requires extra energy from us to move our feet in it, but it is very safe, snow is not slippery, and so it won’t cause you to fall and break your bones. Some pathways looks clear and safe, but if you examine it, you will find that the clear path you see is not so “clear†because so many people walked on it, the snow has melted and been compressed to a thin sheet of ice that’s muddy so it rarely looks dangerous to the naked eye. But everyone knows how dangerous those paths can be, even though they require no extra effort to walk on them and in theory they are much faster to take. That’s why I took this photo because whenever I see a scene like this one it reminds me of Mathew 7:13-14. Interestingly enough, I believe… read more
Last weekend we, a somewhat random group, went to Hourglass Lake. Hourglass Lake is actually two different lakes and they’re not the one (singular) you see in the shot. That’s Lower Hourglass Lake and this shot was taken near Upper Hourglass Lake. It’s named Hourglass because the top lake flows into the bottom via a waterfall. It also seems like it could be called Hourglass because Lower Hourglass Lake looks like an hourglass. I know, sort of confusing 😛 I sometimes hear things like, “You should do this, and then we’ll really see how good you are!†And I’m like, “Ummmmmmm?†I think at this point it’s time that I introduce myself. My name is Brandon Peters and I have issues. I’m full of jealousy, quick to anger, lustful, prideful, greedy, and lack self-control. And that list is not exhaustive, those are just some of the bigger issues. I never… read more
Two Thousand Seven was an extremely stressful year for me because I lost the friendship of someone I dearly loved with all my heart. I found myself depressed for a long time, and my eyes teared for no reason, I cried almost daily, and wrestled with God daily. To make things worse I started university in September of that year and the stress level just shot up! So I became not only emotionally and spiritually tired but also physically and mentally tired and very sleep deprived. One day in early January of 2008 I went to sleep around 3:30 AM (because of school work I had to stay late), so I laid with my back flat on the bed looking at the ceiling and because I was so exhausted as soon as I put my head on the pillow I fell asleep. Suddenly (what seemed like a second after I… read more
Today I wanted to talk about the idea of relationship. If there is one thing I’ve noticed, it’s that Christians really do want a relationship with God. I think that we see the fire that others have and we see how happy they are and we crave that. But we want it in some easy form, we want to swallow a pill and get on with our day. I hate to break it to you but that’s not how a relationship works. How close would you be with your friends or family if you never spent time with them? You want a fire for God? You want to experience Him more deeply? Then you have to make time for Him. Read your Bible and spend time in prayer. I know it’s sickeningly simple, but that’s just how it is. It might mean that you have to say “no” to other… read more
When I took this photo of the white flower I remembered how in Christ we are new creation. But here I would like to just talk about the joy of being new creation in Christ, because it seems that joy is the first gift Christ gives us through the Holy Spirit when we surrender our lives to Him. Here is a little story… In the summer of 2003, I had just graduated from high school and by then I was in Canada for 4 years, I decided to find Christian chat rooms online. I had never been to a chat room before (or since) but I really wanted to join one because I needed spiritual advice on how to overcome lust, and I didn’t have any other source of help. So I went to MSN chat rooms (been closed for a while now) and I looked through few Christian chat… read more
When I was born my dad had already joined the Iraqi army so I really didn’t see him much. He actually joined the army one year after he got married at the age of twenty five and left the army in his late thirty’s. Back home men are forced to join the army; they fought and died for a cause they didn’t believe in, against a neighboring country they did not consider an enemy, in support of a president they did not elect. My dad had a vacation of around seven days every forty five days, so when he came home he didn’t want to shave because in the army they are forced to wake up at 5 am and shave every morning, so he just wanted a break from it! Needless to say I didn’t know who my dad was! I actually didn’t know what the word “Dad” meant!… read more
I want to change lives! I want to make the world a better place. I don’t know who you are, what kind of person you are, or what you’re trying to get out of life, but If you’re the same as everyone else, you’re probably just trying to find your way through life. Maybe you’re trying to be unique, to be noticed. Maybe you’ve been striving for the approvals of others far too long and you’ve never found it. Maybe you’ve been hiding behind a mask so long that you’ve forgotten who you really are, maybe you just feel lost in this huge world, maybe you’re feeling alone or maybe you just feel invisible. That’s not really who you are, you were built for so much more! You’re beautiful, strong, courageous, loving, and yes, you are unique. Even if these things are hidden deep down, they’re there. And that’s all… read more
One hot summer afternoon in Iraq I was walking with my best friend from the neighborhood; we were both in our early teens. He told me that he wants to be a doctor. I thought it was kind of an unrealistic goal since he wasn’t a straight A student so I asked him why he wanted to be a doctor. He told me that his dad was motivating him to finish school and to do his best. I knew my friend’s dad worked long hours, from early morning until afternoon, as construction worker then worked as a taxi driver until late evening or night. Then he continued telling me that when his dad was a teenager his grandparents never told his dad to finish school so his dad doesn’t want the same thing to happen to him. I remember making a mental note to the like, “You have to change;… read more
There is something about Christmas colors that just cheer me up. This capture was taken at my youngest uncle’s house. He is married to this wonderful godly woman—the godliest person I know. It doesn’t take you long after you meet her to realize she is a very special person. When we have a family gathering she probably does 99% of the serving! When you meet her you will realize all her day is spent with her loving others, serving them, giving them gifts, encouraging them, comforting them, praying for them, and building them up. You know, they say behind every great man there is a woman: she has truly built my uncle up spiritually and any other good way. At her old church she was nicknamed “God’s faithful daughterâ€. My uncle is a believer too and he is an awesome, loving and funny man. She loves the fact he makes… read more
I have this pack of cheap ball pens, but I’ve kept only one in my drawer in case I need a pen. First time I tried to use it it was leaking a bit so I just rubbed the tip on a piece of paper and used it. Second time it was a bit of too much of a leak for me to use it so I put the cap back on it, and returned it in my drawer and got out another pen and used that pen. I did the same for the next few times I needed to use that leaking pen. Finally when I tried to use it the leak was so bad that I didn’t even consider keeping it, I thought, “Why am I bothering with this cheap and useless pen when I have so many others that work perfectly fine?†So I broke the pen,… read more
I wouldn’t wish Trichotillomania to my worst enemies. I am afraid if I get married I will pass the genes to my children because Trichotillomania is genetic, it is classified as an impulse control disorder by DSM-IV, it is the compulsive urge to pull out one’s own hair leading to noticeable hair loss. For most of my life I had considered it to be a curse—or at least something I wouldn’t want in my life. But sometimes when I think about it I wonder if God has a purpose in it—a higher purpose than just “to torture meâ€. You see, Trichotillomania really lowered my self-confidence due to my low self-image. It is not easy for a young man to be confident when he can’t even control his fingers so not to pull his own hair. It is not easy for a young man to be confident when he feel embarrassed… read more
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