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“Who’s On First?”


Ahh, baseball’s end of season.  Millions are watching to see who will win the World Series.   Who will win, who will lose?  

Some of you are way too young to remember the old comedy routine of Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s On First?” ???????????????

It’s a classic bit of confusion not unlike real life when we get our “game of life” out-of-order.  Life is a game with rules and regulations.  Our problem is in not “reading the Rule book”.  We want to run “home”,  or maybe to “2nd” or “3rd” skipping “1st”.  You cannot score a run to “Home” without running the bases and you have to start with “1st” base.

In our game of life we tend to run after foul or fly balls; chasing around the infield or outfield and totally disregard “1st” base.

Today you may face some curve balls, knuckle balls or spit balls.  You’re going to swing and try to connect.   Don’t look at the pitcher, the catcher … run around the infield or chase out into the outfield   LOOK to “First Base” and start running.  First base is your Lord and Savior.  Without First Base there is no game.  There is no beginning, and no end.  There is no success, no win.

If your life is confusion and mayhem, if you’re playing the game with out the “Rule Book”, His word, then you are going to lose.  You are going to be lost, miserable and empty.  Get into the Word, check your Guide, and head towards First Base.

Psalm 119:105 NASB  “Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.”

James 1:5 HCSB “Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to all generously and without criticizing, and it will be given to him.”

RBGreenDesigns.com 2019 (reposted from blog dated 5/31/2013)

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These Are The Chapters Of Your Life!


Not as catching as "The Days Of Your Life", but it gets my point across (I hope). chapters I have worked eith many young people. Some in classroom settings, others in church settings and some as their boss. Some were finishing high school while others were preparing for their college graduation. Papers, exams, hurrying up to get finished; they could not wait to graduate.

January is mid school year. So much to finish in so little time..

Graduation will be the page for the next chapter in their life. After they enter the work force, January becomes the beginning of chaoters for many.

Chapters, there are so many. Some we want to hurry and get through; we are ready to move on. Others we want to last forever and never change. But, life changes and new chapters begin. Our lives are like a book. There is the opening sentence, the closing sentence and a lot of “stuff” in-between. Sometimes,if you become a Christian, a main theme becomes inserted. If not, your life never has a theme and the book rambles and turns, going from place to place, never quite making sense.

The main theme: Christ is the thread that holds your story together. Are your chapters well written? Is there proper transition, a thread of continuity? Is God the author of your story, or do you try to become a ghost Writer and take "the pen in hand." If so, when a game changer like a tragedy, job change or loss, birth, marriage, loved ones death, etc. can come into place. All too often your story becomes muddled and confused, lacking structure and cohesiveness to hold the story together.


If I started a blog and some one pushed me out of the way to finish what I was trying to write, confusion would be the result. Why not let the Author finish what He started?

Hebrews 12:22 (NASB)“fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Or, you can go ahead and pick up the pen yourself, tell God you do not trust Him with your life and make a mess of the chapters of your story.

January. New Year. Which writer, you or the Author of your fauth?

RBGreenDesigns.com 2022

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“Pick-a-little, Talk-a-little”


Remember in the musical Music Man pickalittlewhen all the older women start chattering like a passel of hens?  They were bent on telling the Music Man about the librarian.  There was probably a little truth in what they said, but mostly it was their jealousies and need for gossip that spewed from their mouth.  We laugh when we watch the scene.

Working in a retail environment since the introduction of cell phones, gossip has gone global.  No longer just in the neighborhood (or church foyer), gossips have worldwide reach through cell phones, Facebook, Twitter and more.  Careless chatter gone out worldwide never to be retrieved.  I have blogged before about careless tongues (O Be Careful Little Mouth What You Say.) Words hurt, they scar and sometimes those scars ruin lives.  It does not matter if you are talking behind someone’s back or to their face, words once out are never taken back.  Like the toothpaste squeezed out, you cannot make it go back in the tube.

Working in retail you hear so much (you wish you did not have to hear) of people’s private lives as they wander around chatting on their phones.  Conversations best kept private are spilled out over aisles.  It seems people think they are in their own private phone booth and because no one is on the aisle with them, then no one can hear them.  And of course their are those that think they have to shout their words across the phone for it to get to the other end of the line.  People just like to talk.  In specific they like to PICK-A-LITTLE, it makes them feel better about themselves to tear others down.  Once started their TALK-A-LITTLE becomes talk-a-lot.  The art of silence has gone.  It is no wonder people do not “hear” what is being said any more.  Their ears are in overload and you have to get their attention.  Recently a father let a loud whistle in the store to get his kids to come.  He looked at my stunned face as if to say “what?”.  His kids don’t listen to their names or him talking, so he’s resorted to whistling for them like a dog.  (Shaking my head).

Wouldn’t it be better to really PICK LITTLE to say, and TALK LITTLE, so that when you did speak others would want to hear what you say? Wouldn’t there be less hurt and less anger if people slowed down and chose their words carefully?   Hmmm, that sounds like a verse from the Bible.

James 1:19 ESV  “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;”

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♪♫♫♪TRADITIONS! ♪♫TRADITIONS!♫♪♪♫


Lights In The Storm's avatarLights in the Storm

Ahhh…Mother’s Day!  Brings back so many memories.  Raised in the South meant following traditions.

On Mother’s Day all five of us would go out to the rose bushes and select a red rose.  My brothers would get buds and my sister and I would pick open blooms.  Mother would select a white rose for herself and a white bud for my father.   You wore a red rose to honor your mother who was alive, and a white one for a mother in Heaven.  You simply would not go to church on Mother’s Day without a rose on your shoulder to honor your mother any more than you would go to church without your gloves and hat on Easter.  In fact, many (including my mother) would take extras roses and pins for those who did not have roses in their yards.  Flowers and their colors were non-verbal traditions of deep beliefs. …

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Does Anyone Really Know What Time It Is?


Interesting song from 1969 by CHICAGO lamenting if anyone really knows what time it is?  So, what about God, does He know what time it is? Hurry up Lord, I need an answer NOW, TODAY!

Hmmm, that didn’t work did it? Think of yourself as a small rock.   You can lay beside the stream, in the sun and dry and crack, or you can get in the middle of that stream and wait … and wait, sometimes submerged totally; all the while being shaped and smoothed.  The stream may be low and you can see the sun, the waters may be flood waters covering you with rushing waters, you may tumble further down stream, but you’re being shaped and smoothed.rocksmoothing

I have discussed time before (Got Time? , Hurry Up and Wait, and One Step At A Time), it’s a constant theme with us humans.  The truth is, as I have said before, TIME is for humans.  God does not have time.  He was, is and forever will be, so time is always then, now, and coming: all in one. There is no need to hurry for Him, you can’t hurry what doesn’t exist.   It’s past, it’s present, and it’s future.  We need time, not Him.  Time to shape and mold, to learn patience and to grow like Him.

It is no coincidence that as I was jotting down my notes on these thoughts I stopped to read my daily devotions in “Utmost for His Highest” by Oswald Chambers.  Today’s scripture:

Habakkuk 2:3 NASB “For the vision is yet for the appointed time; It hastens toward the goal and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it; For it will certainly come, it will not delay.” 

“If God gives you at time spiritually, as He gave His Son actually, of temptation in the wilderness, with no word from Himself at all, endure, and the power to endure is there because you see God.” ~ Oswald Chambers (updated edition – My Utmost For His Highest)