Here is a live telling of the story of Daniel in the lions’ den from the book of Daniel. I told this story quite a lot at various school assemblies some years ago and managed to grab a recording of one telling of it which you can find here.
It’s a great story of how the Lord God looks after His people and is able to control what seems to be uncontrollable for His purposes.
Let me know what you think
I write the occasional song and this one is based on the biblical theme that says if we draw near to God that He will draw near to us. Whilst found explicitly in the book of James, it is a theme that repeats throughout the Bible and tells us that God is waiting … He is waiting for you and I to realise how much we need Him and that without Him we don’t really have anything. It is coming to the realisation that nothing in life is worth having if we don’t have Him and that we need to get rid of everything that holds us back so that we can have more of Him.
For me, it is realising that nothing is more important than Him and the joy of knowing moment by moment, day by day that He is with me and that even when I get it wrong that He is just waiting for me to acknowledge I got it wrong, say sorry and come to Him for the help I need to start living right again.
What amazes me is that He isn’t waiting, tut-tutting and shaking His head at my failure. Instead, it is as if He’s almost impatient to hurry up and deal with the failure so it can be put behind us and forgotten so that we can get back to a close and intimate relationship together. And then, with the issue dealt with as I come to Him – in return He draws near to me (would it be irreverent to say that He hurries to be close to me again?) with all those amazing promises He gives us in the Bible.
There really is nothing more precious and valuable than knowing Jesus with you as you go through life. A
This is an unusual one in that I actually woke up one morning singing this song/hymn! This doesn’t happen very often and when it does, most of the time I forget what I was singing within a very short period of time. But this one proved to be different in that I could still remember it some time later.
So, having remembered it, I thought maybe it would be worth sharing – so I did some editing to get the words as good as I could and recorded it and have put it up here to see what you think.
It is a hymn of praise and of access to the throne room of God with all the implications that this brings for us … I mean, we actually have access to God’s throne room – to stand before Him and bring our praise and our requests! What an amazing truth this is. Hope you enjoy it.
Here’s a song I wrote with the help of another student while we were at Bible college a long time ago – he is now the Rev. Simon Faulks. It is about the death of Jesus, the cost of the cross on the Father and that it was a death that should have been mine.
When you see pictures of Jesus on that cross, you just need to remember that He didn’t need to go there for His own sin – He went there for my sin – my sin and your sin. He literally died in our place taking the punishment we deserved so that we could become ‘right’ in God’s eyes.
Can’t promise it’s the best recording in the world, but I hope you find something in it all the same.
Picture from Flickr.com by ‘UK Ministry Of Defence’ ‘French Fishing Vessel ‘Alf’ in the Irish Sea’ www.flickr.com/photos/defenceimages/8675799490
Here’s another version of the Jonah story – but a little more in detail than the one below. I did it some years ago but it still works as a good story worth sharing.
Hope you enjoy it.
Here’s another of the short videos I did for a children’s holiday club some years ago. It looks at the story of Daniel and the lion’s den from the viewpoint of one of the lions! Once again it was done with Crazy Talk and was good fun to do.
Hope you enjoy it.
Sometimes I have thoughts and record them with whatever I have to hand. Well, I had this thought about how we want God to work in our lives not in proportion to our own work but in proportion to His Love and Grace and I recorded it on a low quality hand-held recorder. The end result was something of rather low quality but a good thought.
So, rather than re-recording it and losing the passion of the original, I put it into an audio editing package and cleaned it up a bit and then added a stock sound-track from Smartsounds – Sonic Fire Pro and cut the audio to work with the music. The end result isn’t so bad and I think that the passion of the original is still there. Have a listen and let me know what you think.
BTW, when I speak of the God of alchemy what I mean is that God takes the dross that is our lives and turns them to Gold through the work of His Spirit.
One of the things people often think is that God is a kill-joy and that somehow sin is what we really want and will make us feel good. However, while it’s hard to disagree that for a short while sin MAY make us feel good, I would argue that the truth is that God wants us to have nothing but joy and that He knows what’s best for us and what will give us the most joy of all. So the reason God is against sin isn’t because He wants us to be miserable but instead that He wants us to be full of joy all the time and He knows that sin is what really destroys joy and ruins our lives because after the initial feelings we have to live with the consequences. So God is against sin simply because sin hurts us.
Anyway, this song was a thought exercise about the cost and result of the sin of being unfaithful. It may start off with thoughts of how great it could make you feel, but how long would that last? What would happen when it was found out? How would you feel at the consequences? What would life be like? It looks at the loss that’s involved as a way of asking if it’s worth it.
To be honest, sin is never worth it and will always be very costly. But thank the Lord that even if we do fail He will always love us and call us back to Him to start afresh.
Lastly, if you feel tempted to sin, why not do your own thought exercise and ask what the consequences of your actions will eventually be before you decide to do whatever it is you’re tempted to do! Let me know what you think.
Here’s a little production I did with a creative group from my church some time ago. Everyone worked together to produce something that was great fun to work on. It never ceases to amaze me how things can be so much more than the sum of the parts when a group work together for a common goal. I am very grateful to everyone who was involved to make this short fun parable come to life.
As a side note, I have often used little bits of this production footage in my classroom training courses to help people select what to use and practice some editing skills – s0 it has lots of good memories for me.
Picture from Flickr.com ‘Daily Tea’ by BEV Norton
Here is a silly little nonsense poem I wrote about drinking a cup of tea and all the terrible danger that can happen should things go wrong! Don’t expect it to make any sense, but do enjoy it and let me know what you think.
I will try and post any pictures that you send in to show what this world may look like. Send them to info@tale2tell.com
The Cup of Tea
I went to drink a cup of tea,
Instead that cup of tea drank me!
It slurped me up, and flushed me around,
Then swallow hard, it was quite profound!
Flolloping down, with burbles and gurgles,
Flipping and flapping and avoiding some fur-balls!
Sweeping deeper – low and then high,
I flew past a sandwich that had started to cry!
Then on through some socks – only one of each mind!
Laughing their toes off, they were very unkind!
Then two forks did a jig and some tongs told a lie,
And a biscuit floated past with a wink of its eye.
‘Til a spoon scooped me up and flipped me back out,
You know, past that teddy that had started to shout,
With a hard soggy bump, I sploshed on the floor,
And at once decided to drink tea no more.
© Copyright – Andrew Devis 19th December 2014 – All Rights Reserved
