Tag Archives: Mount Rushmore

The Place of Delight

Danny Glover and Steve Martin starred in the 1991 film Grand Canyon. While the script was filled with New Age propaganda, the point of this movie is that seeing the Grand Canyon can change your life. After a few years of planning and saving funds, I spent an entire month in 2007 traveling across the country. The center piece of this summer vacation was an entire day at the Grand Canyon. While the views were breath taking, my family and I experienced several delightful places.

And the Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden [delight]; and there He put the man whom He had formed (framed, constituted), Genesis 2:8.

Day 1 was a visit to Skyline Caverns in Virginia followed by the scenic Skyline Drive in the Blue Ridge Mountains. From the Smoky Mountains to Native Indian Caves to the Ozark Mountains, Bandera Volcano & Ice Cave, the Painted Desert, Pagosa Springs and Mount Rushmore, these are days that I will always treasure. Although it’s been 15 years since this trip, I have images forever sketched within my mind of these places of delight. The only repeat visit was Slide Rock State Park’s natural waterslide.

Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires and secret petitions of your heart, Psalm 37:4.

God’s original intent of Creation was to design a place of delight when Adam and Eve could live forever. Unfortunately, when you don’t follow God’s rules, you miss out on all the blessings that God wants to shower your life with on earth. Based upon the words of Moses in Genesis 3:16-19, partaking in temporary pleasures exchanges blessings with curses. Adam and Eve were banished from the Place of Delight, never to see it again. May we learn from their mistake by choosing life over death, Deuteronomy 30:15.

by Jay Mankus

The Tyranny of Things of Space

If you study Old English. tyranny is an expression used to describe a cruel and oppressive government. Whenever people in authority exert undemocratic rule, employ an unreasonable amount of force or suppress the rights of their citizens, rebellion, revolts and uprisings follow.  People who survive war or escape tyranny tend to turn to the Bible for answers in life.  Perhaps, this may explain why the Bible is the greatest selling book of all time.

“No other book of any kind ever written in English has ever so affected the whole life of a people,” Theodore Roosevelt in 1911.

Theodore Roosevelt is one of four presidents whose face is on Mount Rushmore.  The other three presidents are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.  After his tenure as the 26th president of the United States, 1901-1909, Roosevelt made a profound statement about the Bible.  While the context of this quote is unclear, Roosevelt understood the power that the living Word of God has on the ability to transform human lives.

“Six days a week we live under the tyranny of the things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time,” Abraham Joshua Heschel from The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man, 1951.

Forty years later, Abraham Heschel explored the Bible to make the connection between freedom and the Sabbath.  Depending upon your work schedule, life is filled with monotony, the mundane and tedious tasks that typical occupations require.  Thus, the tyranny of the things in space is a human being running through the rat race called life without any purpose and reason.  However, when you apply biblical principles to keep the Sabbath holy, becoming attuned to God, helps souls see how everything else in life is so insignificant.  When faith is exercised daily, the Sabbath isn’t merely one day of the week, its a lifestyle that enable Christians to escape the tyranny of the things of space.

by Jay Mankus