February 13, 2008
“If you decide that it’s a bad thing to worship God, then choose a god you’d rather serve—and do it today. Choose one of the gods your ancestors worshiped from the country beyond The River, or one of the gods of the Amorites, on whose land you’re now living. As for me and my family, we’ll worship God.”
Joshua 24:15 (The Message)
Thought of the Day
As you can probably figure out, God speaks to me in a lot of different ways for the thoughts. (Or at least I think it is God.) This one today came to me as I was coloring. Did you know that back in 1864, Joseph Binney founded the Peekskill Chemical Works Company? He manufactured charcoal and lamp black. Lamp black is a pure black pigment and is probably the oldest pigment known to man. (a little known fact.)
In 1885 Binney retired and his son and nephew Harold Smith take over the company. Binney and Smith is formed. In 1903 the company produces the first box of eight Crayola crayons. These were the choices back then. Black, blue, brown, green, orange, red, violet, and yellow. Over the years many more colors were introduced. There are currently one hundred and twenty colors. New colors brought out in 2003 were inch worm, jazzberry jam, mango tango, and wild blue yonder. Colors are also retired now when new ones are developed. We sadly had to say goodbye to blizzard blue, magic mint, mulberry, and teal blue in 2003. Don’t worry though; each retired color ends up in the Crayola Hall of Fame in Easton PA.
One last fact about Crayola crayons that might surprise you is that since 1903, more than 120 billion crayons have been sold. I am not sure how or why you would want to do it, but if you laid all 120 billion down end to end, it would circle the globe more than 200 times. That is a lot of crayons.
Over the years, Smith and Binney felt like they had to offer more and more choices to their customers. I am sure that some of the choices were good and some were bad. Way back when, the people in Joshua’s time had some choices to make. Joshua knew that there was really only one choice to make. I love his words. Choose who you will, but as for me and my family we will worship God. We will serve God. We will choose God. Make his words, your words. Do it today.
Prayer
God, I will choose You because You chose me. Amen.