2nd Thief Riders participated in an Outreach with Mountain View Community Church in Culpeper, VA on 9/18/05. It was a tremendous time of fun and fellowship. Mountain View sponsored a car and bike show and awarded a total of twenty trophies for the event. There was free hot dogs, chips and lemonade. They also provided a band and everyone had a great time.

In Proverbs 12:10 it reads, "A righteous man regards the life of his animal." My wife reminded me of that verse early yesterday and it was the wisdom gleaned from our quiet time with the Lord that morning. It was a God appointed Word from Him as later that day we had to put down our loving, faithful and courageous dog Kody. We knew it was on the horizon, but didn't know it was to happen that very day.

A story was told by another patrol officer in the area I was assigned. He was out working early one morning and he noticed an out of state vehicle drifting in and out of the travel lane at a high rate of speed. As he came alongside he realized that the driver and the entire family asleep in the car. This officer immediately activated his siren which woke the driver (and the rest of the family) and stopped him. The officer wrote him a well deserved ticket for reckless driving.

So what is “hope?” Well what it is not is optimism. Optimism is to hope what happiness is to joy. The former relies on circumstances to operate where as the latter is rooted in a deeper belief independent of circumstances.

I want to make a point here that has eternal consequences: How and what you perceive the Bible is going to affect how you live your life and your relationship with God. If you only recognize the Bible as a set of rules, regulations and doctrines you have to follow to attain heaven you missed the deeper meaning.

While working a midnight shift a few years back in a rural county I was eating “breakfast” at a local restaurant. It was about 5:30 am. It had been a long shift and I was looking forward to going home to get some sleep. To top it all off the waitress had just spilled hot coffee on my lap (which has a tendency to wake a person up) when I got the following call: