The Time To Decide

..."As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

Joshua 24:15 

"Anything which we keep in our hearts in the place which

God ought to have is an idol, whether it be an image of wood

or stone or gold, or whether it be money, or desire for fame,

or love of pleasure, or some secret sin which we will not give up.

If God does not really occupy the highest place in our hearts,

controlling all, something else does, and that something else is an idol."

James Russell Miller
(1840-1912)
American Christian pastor and author

The Cowboy

Gerard Curtis Delano

1890-1972

Painter and Illustrator of the American West

Did you ever stand on the ledges,

On the brink of the great plateau

And look from their jagged edges

On the country that lay below?

When your vision met no resistance

And nothing to stop your gaze,

Till the mountain peaks in the distance

Stood wrapped in a purple haze.

On the winding water courses

And the trails on the mountain sides,

Where you guided your patient horses

On your long and lonesome rides.

When you saw Earth's open pages

And you seemed to understand

As you gazed on the work of ages,

Rugged and rough, but grand.

There, the things that you thought were strongest

And the things that you thought were great,

And for which you have striven longest

Seemed to carry but little weight.

While the things that were always nearer,

The things that you thought were small;

Seemed to stand out grander and clearer.

As you looked from the mountain wall.

While you're gazing on such a vision

And your outlook is clear and wide,

If you have to make a decision,

That's the time and place to decide.

Although you return to the city

And mingle again with the throng;

Though your heart may be softened with pity

Or bitter from strife and wrong.

Though others should laugh in derision,

And the voice of the past grow dim;

Yet stick to the cool decision

That you made on the mountain's rim.

"The Time To Decide"
(1924)

Bruce Kiskaddon

(1878-1950)

Cowboy poet laureate of America