Another answer: What does God mean to me.

           I am stuck again.  I really have no idea what to write today.  I started to write a few things but they degraded into useless rants filled with supposition and unfounded opinion, which is something I just can't support.  So I think for today, I will post another answer for my sons.  Yes, I know, I'm taking the easy way out.  But my head hurts and I can't think straight for some wierd reason.  Anyway, Here it is.

5-1          What does God mean to you?

God means, for lack of a better word, everything.  He is a comfort when I am hurt, a guiding light when I am lost, and a friend when I am alone.  He is a ready ear when news is good, a breath of life when all is said and done.  He is always ready to listen and willing to forgive even when we think we are beyond forgiveness.  He is hope in the deepest canyon, light in the darkest night, and strength when I am weakest.  He is the first one we should turn to when we have, well, anything.  We should thank him when things are good, ask for his help when things are not so good, and trust in his guidance.

Sure, some of this sounds as though I am just spouting what is taught in church and in various devotionals, but it doesn’t make it any less true.  Granted, I sometimes lose sight of this and who it is we stand for, but he always welcomes me back.  When he forgives me, he lets it go and chooses to ignore it.  He guides me when I need it, sometimes with a gentle nudge and other times with a not so gentle beat down, but never more than I need or can handle.  He allows me the freedom to choose what path I take, but still keeps me in his hands.  He cares for me and all I do and knows me better than I know myself.

God is the only one I love more than my wife.  He is first in all I do, and when he isn’t, due to my selfish (human) nature, he waits patiently for my return.  And I do return, I can’t help it, I am addicted to him.  He draws me in and feeds me with his presence.   There are times when I forget to fill myself on his presence and it is noticeable.  I become irritable and hard to be around.  I am selfish and want only what I want.  And it isn’t long before I ache for him to refill me. 

I am his and he is mine.  He gave me more than I could ever repay.  I could go on and on, but there are some things you just have to discover for yourself.  God’s awe inspiring presence is one of those things.

What does God mean to me?  Love, Forgiveness, Grace, Mercy, and Peace, above all, peace that’s what God means to me.

Thanks for reading and, as always, have a great day.

My biggest mistake.

              What a great weekend.  We have a new septic tank, we are now just waiting on the drain field.  That should finish up this afternoon and then we have to reseed the yard.  Saturday, we got to spend some family time on a much needed family outing on a bike ride.  Then we got to spend Sunday afternoon with friends playing games and sharing our lives.  What a great week end.  Of course Monday follows that, but that can't be helped.
              I can't help but feel rejuvenated after all that.  Even though I was spent after the bike ride, I felt great.  There was a smile on the entire family's faces even though you could see they were tired (at least the adults, the kids wanted to go again).  We thoroughly enjoyed it.
             I love being able to spend time with my sons and time near them is time well spent.  That being said, I think that for the rest of today's post I will share another excerpt from my answers for my sons.  This one is particularly close to home.

10-3 What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made?  What can I learn from it?

I think of so many mistakes I’ve made when I am asked this question that it is almost impossible to answer.  I will give it my best though.  First, allow me to clarify something.  To me, a mistake is an error in judgment or a decision made based on faulty information.  It is not an intentional action nor is it something you plan.  While it would be wrong to rob a bank and a horrible decision, it is not a mistake, it is a choice. 

So, looking at it from that point of view, I believe my biggest mistake was my choice of friends growing up.  You see, I had some of the information and, while it was my choice to be their friend, I erred in my judgment as far as what my will power was.  My friends growing up were diverse and I had two sets.  The first set is not the mistake.  They were my friends from church.  They were Christians and as far as I can tell, they lived it.  No, my mistake was the second set.  They were my friends from school and around home.  They were the ones I chose to hang out with the most.  There is that word again, chose.  My mistake wasn’t choosing to hang out with them, or even to be their friend, no, my mistake was to believe that I was strong enough by myself to resist their ungodly influence.  You see, not one of my friends from school were Christians.  They didn’t even pretend to be good.  Still, I thought I could be strong enough to resist the temptation on my own.  Boy was I wrong.

By the time I had graduated from high school, you couldn’t tell a difference between the way I acted and how my friends from school acted.  I allowed myself to be led astray and to go down a path I still regret to this day.  Because of that mistake, I walked in sin for nearly 20 years.  I told coarse jokes, made fun of others, thought only of me and my pleasure.  I refused to acknowledge God and what he wanted of me.  In my selfishness, I blamed others for my failures and felt cheated when I didn’t get my way.  I tried to live by the rules I had learned in church growing up, at least when I wanted to convince others I was good.  I pretended to be a Christian when I was home to make my father happy, but I was no longer following Christ.  It all came back to the mistake of thinking I could do it on my own, to thinking that I could be friends with ungodly people the way they wanted to be friends, without falling into their lifestyle.  While it was a bad decision to be their friend and to continue in that relationship, it was a decision, not a mistake.  We need to be clear on that.  Bad decisions are not mistakes, they are bad decisions.

What can you learn from all this?  Simply put, trust in God.  Can you have non Christian friends?  Certainly, and you should.  You must, however, be on guard at all times and realize that without God and Christian friends, it is all too easy to fall away from God and into the ungodly lifestyle of your non Christian friends.   You must also be wary of the relationship with them.  A non Christian friend should never be your first source of advice concerning, well, anything.  This is because their advice, while it may sound good, is based on worldly teachings and not on what God says.  Sure, some of their advice may even be exactly what God says, but if you rely on their advice, you will find that God has no part in your life and you will regret it.  I know I do.  You must also never let their opinion of you be a reason to do something.  God’s opinion is all that matters and an ungodly friend does not know or even hear God’s opinion.

This may seem to be a bit harsh.  It may even sound like I am against having ungodly friends.  This couldn’t be further from the truth.  Even God encourages you to have friends among non Christians.  Read Luke 5:29-32: “29 Then Levi gave Him a great feast in his own house. And there were a great number of tax collectors and others who sat down with them. ³⁰ And their scribes and the Pharisees complained against His disciples, saying, ‘Why do You eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?’
³¹ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. ³² I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.’”

Jesus sat with the worst of the society with reason.  The key is to remain rooted in your belief and to not allow them to sway you.  You should also note that, while he sat with them, he did not count them as close friends, that privilege was reserved for his disciples, those who had already committed their lives to him.

In closing, the biggest mistake I ever made was not trusting God over my friends on earth.  Don’t let this happen to you.  Keep your eyes on him and you won’t go wrong.

           Thanks for reading and, as always, have a great day.

Service is an Attitude, not an action.

            This weekend was enlightening.  In the Diehards bible study we had a discussion on the 6 woes in Luke chapter 11.  Then on Sunday the sermon covered what Jesus had to say to the pharisees.  The culmination of which was an eye opener to the world of legalism within the church.  Pastor Barry did a great job of pointing out where churches go wrong.  How they elevate good ideas and practices to must haves for salvation.  The one thing I think that could be added is a simple idea and basis.  The why we do the good things we do, our motivation.
            While it is true the bible says to tithe, it is very clear on one point.  It isn't about the money or the amount, it is about the attitude.  Do you give because God orders it and thus you give exactly 10%?  Or do you give because you truly love God, want to please him, and feel that he has a better use for it and thus tend to give extra either through rounding up liberally or just giving generously?  Do you do the right thing because it is the right thing to do or because brother so and so might be watching?  Do you volunteer at church because the church may or may not need you or because the deacon board might see you?  Do you pray out loud to be heard by others or to be heard by God?
            But they are all good, what difference does the motivation make?  Simple, if the motivation is to be noticed, then it is a selfish motivation and not a Godly one.  Eventually, that person will be noticed for the wrong reason or worse, cause hurt to another Christian who has the right motivation.  Someone who does things for the right reasons and unselfish love of God, while they may eventually err, is always quick to admit their errors and will do what they must to correct them.  The selfish one will blame others.
            When you do things to be noticed, you make yourself the focus and not the task.  When serving God, the service and God must always be the focus.  Once you start focusing on yourself, you trivialize God.  That is not a good thing.    The Pharisees forgot that.  They followed the rules that elevated themselves and did things out of a look at me attitude.  This led to hypocrisy running rampant among them.  It was noticed by the people, but the Pharisees were oblivious to it.  When we make rules to follow and things to do based on good principles and then judge others by how well they adhere to our made up rules, we are asking God to humble us.  Personally, I think I would rather avoid that.  God has a way of humbling us that no of us like.  He is especially harsh with those who claim to follow him.  As one man said, "if you are a child of God, you best be on your knees praying regularly or God will bring you to your knees some other way."  Several places in the Bible state that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess, that Jesus Christ is lord.  You can do it voluntarily or have God do it for you.  Personally, I would rather do it myself and save myself the pain and embarrassment.
            Thanks for reading and, as always, have a great day.

How's your Check Engine light?

           On my way into work this morning, my check engine light came on.  I have no clue what it could be as I can neither feel nor hear anything wrong.  This led me to the realization that the check engine light isn't there just to tell me when something is wrong, but also when something is going wrong.  It lets you know that something is not as it should be before it leads to something more expensive and damaging.  At least I hope that is what it does.
           The interesting thing is, we humans have a check engine light of sorts.  We call it our conscience.  It lets us know when we are doing something wrong.  And just like the check engine light in your car, you can choose to ignore it or you can choose to fix it.  The problem we run into is we tend to ignore the check engine light until it does so much damage the repair is costly and painful. 
             We, as humans, don't like to admit when we were wrong.  We are stubborn and hard headed.  It is easier to try and justify what we did or cover it up in a web of lies.  The problem with these two approaches is that, either way, you don't fix the problem.  We are still wrong and have to live with our consciences until we make it right.  With a car we take our check engine light to a mechanic to get it checked out and repaired.  We can do the same thing with ours and the mechanic for our check engine light is the best there is since he made each of us.  Yes, I am talking about God.  He will forgive us as well as cleanse us.  He gives us strength and guidance and so much more.  It isn't easy but it is actually very cheap.  In fact it is a free gift.  The only thing you have to do is accept it. 
            "But that means I have to quit doing some of the things I like to do," you say.  That is part of repenting.  You admit to your sins and that they are sins.  This means that you recognize what you are doing is wrong.  The only question is, "if you know it is wrong and you need rescue from it, why would you want to do it again?"  Sure, you should give up the wrong things you did, but this is a result of doing what is right and repenting, not a cost for it.  Think of it this way, you get your car fixed after the check engine light comes on.  The mechanic tells you that the problem was due to you driving over curbs all the time.  Concerned about making your car last longer, you stop driving over curbs.  Was that a cost, or correcting the error of your ways?  You see, changing what you do is not a cost of salvation, but a result and a correction.  It means giving up immediate gratification for lasting salvation.  It means giving up the now for the later. 
             So, have you had your check engine light looked at by the mechanic?  Or are you ignoring it, hoping it gets better? 
             Thanks for reading and, as always, have a great day.

Faith: The strength Challenge.

           I've been doing a bit of thinking lately and I came to a realization that has me a tad bummed.  Turns out I have doubts.  This is not normally a bad thing, I am human after all, it is what we do with those doubts that has me interested.  I am, of course, referring to my faith.  Don't get me wrong, the doubts I am having are not the crippling, stop you in your tracks doubts.  Just the minor ones that, left unchecked, can grow to big ones. 
             The doubts I am talking about specifically are the doubts that tell me to do something, "just in case God doesn't."  These are the doubts that bug me the most.  Do I truly trust in God's strength when I take action on my own, or is that part of God's solution?  The fact is, God wants us to do for ourselves as much as we can while trusting in him to give us the strength to do so.  God only acts directly when action beyond our abilities is required.  Even that requires a strong faith.  As I read the Bible, I find examples of strong faith that astound me.  Faith that has no room in it for doubts.  Faith I want.  Think about it.  When you pray to God for something, healing, financial aid, spiritual strength, etc, do you pray with the confidence that God will grant your request as he sees fit, or are you just praying to "cover your bases?"
              The reason I am thinking on this is because we have a lady at our church who has the faith that God will grant her requests as he sees fit and has such conviction of it, that, once she has prayed about something, has the peace to move on, no matter the difficulty of doing so.  Where I would pray and then wonder if what I am doing is from God or of myself, she moves with the conviction that God is acting through her.  Many would call her crazy, but they also called the apostles crazy.  I envy her faith and try to emulate it.
            The strange thing is, faith is not a natural thing.  We all naturally want to doubt anything that we didn't make, do, or say.  Believing in something outside of ourselves and allowing our belief in it to direct us is unnatural.  It is something we have to work at.  It is something we have to use daily. 
              Faith is a muscle that needs exercise to grow or even stay the same.  If you shelve your faith, it will shrivel and atrophy.  The funny thing is, God gives us the tools we need to exercise that faith everyday.  From annoying little clashes with family and coworkers to bad drivers on the road.  There are hundreds of little instances where we can place our faith in God and gain his strength.
              All that being said, I am taking up a challenge to strengthen my faith.  I want to invite you to join me in it.  I am going to do this challenge for 30 days and then assess how it went.  Here is the challenge.  Seek out 10 events that occur everyday that you can ask for God's strength in dealing with.  I know it sounds hard, but think about God's standards of dealing with your fellow humans.  I know I need God's strength to love my neighbor when he cuts me off on the highway.  I know I need God's strength to keep from yelling at my sons when they tell me no.  I know I need God's strength to turn the other cheek when someone treats me unfairly.  I am willing to bet, there are more than 10 events everyday.  If not, either you aren't looking, you live in utter isolation, or God has blessed your life beyond anything I can think of.  So how about it?  Are you going to join me?
             Thanks for reading and, as always, have a great day.

Relations: they're all relative.

           Another Wednesday.  So much is happening that I just can't seem to keep up.  I recently sent a letter home to my church asking for forgiveness for how I lived while I was a member of the congregation.  They should receive the letter in the next couple of days.  As a part of this, I asked my family members for forgiveness as well.  I even emailed a copy of the letter to my sister.  That is when things got interesting.  I received an email from my brother in law.  He was reaching out to me.  The funny thing is, I never really thought about it.  I owe him an apology for ignoring him.  I really didn't mean to, every talk we have had has been an awesome experience and I thoroughly enjoyed them.  It just never crossed my mind to call my sister to talk to her husband.  Why it didn't, I'll never know.  I think that it will be the start of a great relationship.  Now comes the fun part of figuring out each other's schedules (we are 2000 miles apart) so that we don't interrupt each other at work.  I look forward to it.
            I find myself wondering where to go next with this.  I find that the research I was planning on doing for the upcoming elections is going slowly (read as, I haven't started yet).  Every time I tell myself I am going to start, I end up staring at the computer trying to figure out what to do next.  Oh, well.  Anyway, I really haven't got much to say. 
            The pretty much sums up things today.  Thanks for reading and, as always, thanks for reading.

My Mom: A different kind of rolemodel

           On my way to work, the news pointed out that it was Friday the 13th.  I hadn't noticed, but then again, I am oblivious a lot.  I just don't see it as any worse than any other day.  In fact, my third son was born on the 13th and I classify that as a pretty darn good day.  Have I had bad Friday the 13ths?  Of course, but I have also had bad Monday the 1sts, Tuesday the 10ths, etc.  So why does Friday the 13th get such a bad rap?  I'll let you look up the history because I really don't want to spend the next few days summarizing it, besides, I am sure the History Channel will have something on it today.  What about you, do you consider Friday the 13th a bad day, or just another Friday?
             Yesterday, I sent a homage out to my dad.  It was what I felt at the time and it hasn't changed.  I feel the need to include my mother though.  You see, she was a role model to me in a different way.  My mom was a registered nurse before she had her first child.  When she became a mother she decided to become a housewife.  For those of you who think that a woman debases herself by becoming a housewife, I wish you could have met her.  By devoting herself to raising her kids and supporting her husband, she taught me that making money is not the only or necessarily best way to support a family.  Being there is even more important.  By shaping your child's life on a day to day basis, you have a hand in making sure that they become a productive and respected part of society.  The idea that men make women slaves by keeping them in the home is ludicrous.  Women who stay at home and raise their kids are showing love of the highest degree.  Think about it.  Love, by definition, is self sacrifice.  This means you put those you love above yourself.  By choosing to place you kids over your own desires, you have shown them what love truly is and I can't think of anything better to teach your kids.
               I say this, not to deride those that chose a career over staying at home, but to point out that the choice to give up a career to raise children is not debasing, but elevating.  My mother continually proved that.  I can't think of a single person mother interacted with that didn't respect her.  The neat thing is, she treated everyone with an equal respect. 
               You don't realize just how much of an influence someone has until they are gone.  You see, my mother died when I was 13.  It was hard on all of us.  But I want to tell you of something that happened 3 years or so before that.  My mom died of abdominal cancer.  She fought it for about three years.  Before that, she had a very active role in our church.  She taught the Shepperd's class, the class for the handicapped, and they loved her.  You could walk by the classroom during Sunday school and hear the joy in their voices.  If you looked in from the back during the lesson, they would listen attentively to her every word, just as she listened to theirs.  She knew each of their names, what made them special, and so much more about each of them.  She was more than a teacher to them, she was their friend.  When she got sick, she had to give up teaching since she was usually weak from the Chemo.  Every week at church, we had her students come up and ask about her and when she would return.  This went on for the entire time she was sick.  A lot of those special students lived in a community for them ten miles from the church and the church sent a van to pick them up every Sunday.  When mom died, we asked if they wanted to come and instead of the usual single 15 passenger van, we had to send 2 on 2 trips.  It seems, that there were quite a few who had come intermittently while mom was teaching and didn't return when she was unable to continue.  They filled three full pews and cried almost as hard as we did.
           Mom's funeral is one of the few times I ever remember our church being filled to overflowing.  You never realize how many people someone touches until they are gone.  The most amazing thing to me happened while I was home on leave a couple of years ago.  I was having a conversation with my brother in law and we were having a frank discussion about our wives.  He told me, "your mom must have been a remarkable woman to have raised such a great wife as my wife.  I can see her strength in your sister and really wish I could have met her."  This blew me away.  Nearly twenty years after her passing, and she is still influencing people and making them want to meet her.  I can only hope that I have half the influence and respect that she did.  Who do I want to see most when I get to heaven?  My mom is at the top of that list.  I hope that the line to meet Jesus is really long so I have that much more time to spend with my mom and introduce her to everyone she has touched. 
              Thanks for reading and, as always, have a great day.

Thanksgiving Week: Thank God you guys read this stuff.

             What are you reading this for?!  It's Thanksgiving!  Go spend some time with your family stuffing your face, watching TV and maybe playing a few games.  Sheesh.
              Since you are here, I may as well finish what I started with my final Thank you for this Thanksgiving week.  But I think instead of saying thank you or telling you something I am thankful for, I am going to instead issue a challenge.  As you go through this day, I want you to dig deep and think of a single defining event that you are thankful for.  I could be good or bad, it just has to be something that is a defining moment.  One of those moments that you look at and realize that without that event, nothing you have today could be. 
                Something you maybe needed to happen to set you up for today.  Maybe it taught you an important lesson that lingers with you and shapes nearly every decision you make.  Maybe it brought a person into your life that changed how you lived it and is still bringing about these changes.  Maybe it is an event so simple that you are astounded in just how much it has influenced who and where you are.  Maybe it was a moment of stupidity, or maybe a moment of genius.  Just dwell on it and you may be surprised what your mind brings up. 
                  I am not asking you to share it, although you may if you so choose.  This is just something I think can be a real help to you in finding who you are.  This shouldn't be easy.  It shouldn't be something that is on the top of your head.  This is something so deep in you that you have nearly forgotten it.  Granted it may be something you think of often, but you probably won't recognize it as the life changer it became.  I only say this because as I was typing this I had a dozen thoughts go through my head.  I discarded each one as I found an event before it that led to that event. 
                  First I jumped to my marriage, but I realized that without my early entrance to the military it would never have happened.  Then I realized that my entrance into the military would never have happened had I not been where I was.  As I traced back this thread, I found my defining moment to be something that occurred before I started school.  Back to something I had little recollection of.  You see, when I was born, my father was a dairy farmer in southern Iowa.  I see the surprise in some of your eyes, since most of you only know him as a plumber and electrician.  It's true.  He owned a dairy farm in Ringgold county Iowa.  He had a sawmill on this farm as well.  My memories of the farm are very vague.  I only really remember a white house and a big bulldozer.  The defining moment came when I was about 3.  That year, dad went bankrupt.  As I said, this is all something I pieced together from conversations with dad and other things I have read.  The bankruptcy lead dad to move to Nevinville, Iowa and take up plumbing and electrical work to pay the bills.  Due to dad's business and the needs of the family, it lead him to move us 2 more times, the final move to Shannon City, Iowa and the East Union School District when I was in second grade.
                  Why do I call that my defining moment?  My entire life hinges on it.  Without that moment, I would have grown up a dairy farmer and sawmill operator, thus I never would have learned all I did about plumbing and electrical from my father.  My wife would never have met my sister in junior high and thus would never have known me.  I might never have been disillusioned by the church I grew up in and thus not had the experiences I did, not all of which were good, but all of which contributed to my understanding and have since strengthened my faith.  I can't begin to list all the other things that hinge on this one event.  I am sure it was painful to my father when it happened and I know it couldn't have been easy, but I am thankful for it as it is key to who I am and what I have become.  Maybe I went back to far, but this is what I came up with over the past thirty minutes while I wrote this.  I am not done thinking on it and maybe I will add to it later, or maybe not.  But it does beg the question, how much of our lives is based on stuff we can't even comprehend when it occurs?
             What about you?  What is your event?  Think on it and thank God for it.  Maybe you'll find something you haven't thought of for years.
            Have a happy Thanksgiving and let everyone around you know just how thankful you are for their influence in you life.  Thank you all for reading this, knowing you read it is what allows me to keep writing.

Challenges of Faith

         Today's post is directed at my fellow believers.  While it should come as no surprise that I am a Christian (at least I hope it isn't a surprise), this post is not meant to push you away.  It is just something that I felt the need to say.  I gave that warning so that those of you who have decided that "all things God are wrong" and get angry at the mere mention of religion can be aware of what this post contains.  I would encourage you to read it, but I don't expect it.  It is your choice and one I respect.  Thank you for following my blog.  I hope this doesn't chase you away from it.  Have a great day.  For the rest of you, please read on.
         Things are always the most interesting when you challenge God.  Just a quick hint, God wins...always.  You may think you are winning and that you have proven him wrong, but you need to remember that he knows just how big a fall it takes to bring you to him.  Some of us only need to stub our toe, while others require getting a bit closer to meeting him in person.  Some think that just because God doesn't answer immediately, he isn't going to.  All you have to remember is, God's schedule and your schedule are not necessarily the same.  God has eternity, you don't.
        I always find it funny when my wife gets angry at shows that contradict her beliefs.  At least until I realize that a lot of people are like that.  Of all the things I have learned from the bible, the lesson I find the most interesting is the lesson of patience with others.  Take James, Jesus's brother, for instance.  James refused to believe that Jesus was the Messiah.  What makes this so amazing is that, of all the people in the world at the time, James knew more about him than anyone.  Yet he refused to believe.  We don't know why, it isn't really pointed out.  It took Jesus's resurrection to convince him.  What this means to me is that God will reveal what he needs to to those that need it when they need it and until that time, they will refuse to believe.  I have to think that of all the people to disbelieve in Jesus, James hurt the most, and yet God was patient.  He knew that once James witnessed the resurrection, that he would realize the truth and become the leader he needed to be.
         It is the same today.  We have to have patience with other people's beliefs.  they just haven't been properly introduced to God.  I am not saying that they need to be physically introduced, that is extreme.  I am saying that we have to have patience and introduce God to them by showcasing what he has done for us.  We have to live in a way that stands out.  If you are blending in and keeping your head down, you are probably not living as Christ wants you to live.  To live as a Christian is to be fundamentally different.  When you make a decision based on your faith, you have to call it that, you can't blame it on your schedule or on your wife.  The best example I can come up with is a topless club.  If a guy asks you to go and you respond with any excuse other than "I believe that is wrong and I refuse to go there," you are being dishonest with the person who asked you and your faith.  That is the hardest thing for you to do,  live in your faith and by what you know is right in a society that redirects the norms toward the immoral. 
       I think the biggest mistake that we as Christians make, is to try and push our beliefs and morals on others through laws and extremist actions.  What I am saying is that, we have to live with in the society and prove that our way is better by living it, not by beating others with it.  There are some things we do need to take a stand on and share our beliefs.  There are somethings we need to help direct laws towards, particularly when it comes to our children.  If something can adversely affect our children and how we raise them, then by all means we need to ensure we push laws to protect them.  Otherwise, we end up driving more people away from the faith than towards it. 
          While we may be passionate about something, we have to be able to argue for our beliefs to the public without basing our arguments on our faith.  While it may be true that our faith is what drives our arguments, today's society has decided that anything faith based is wrong.  What this means is that the instant you mention your faith in an argument, you have lost against a non believer, because at that moment, they have decided you are a religious nut and thus everything you say is based on your beliefs and not rooted in fact.  Regardless of whether or not it is true, that is what they believe.  I know, because I was one of them for many years.  "The bible says it?  Then it is a useless argument, no further action required.  Negate all previous comments."  That is the modern mantra and what I followed until I started looking at the facts.  God brought me around by logic and truth.  Although the bible was involved, it wasn't what ultimately brought me back to God, it was examples set by other Christians through actions and logic.
          The interesting thing in all of this is that I have yet to find a single belief and moral direction in the bible that you can't argue without mentioning the bible.  What I mean is that you can convince nearly anyone that what the bible directs is right and needs to be done without mentioning the bible or God in any way.  Then when you convince them of the biblical standard (without using the bible) you get to see the look on their face when you reveal your source.
          I guess through all this, the main theme is, live your life through faith to the best of your ability and god will take care of you and the rest.  People will judge you on your actions, even if they ignore or dismiss your words.  I believe that your words support your actions, not the other way around.  Actions will always reveal the truth eventually.  You may be real good at hiding that little vice you have, but I guarantee, at some point, someone will discover it and your actions will reveal the truth, or falsehood, of your words. 
      Thank you for reading.  I know that this won't change a lot of minds, but it is what I think needs to be said.  Have a great day.

What did you get?

          We all look at things differently and find that we need direction from time to time.  The question you have to answer is, where do you get that direction from?  Some rely on what feels right.  This may work from time to time, but is hardly reliable.  It may feel right to sit on the couch and do nothing, but it gets you nowhere.  Some rely on past experience.  This is fine as long as the situation is identical to what has previously occurred.  In my experience, things rarely happen the same way twice, and if they do, it is usually because you did something to direct it that way.  Sure we can apply past experience as a guide for what to do, but it in no way ensures success.  In fact, I can't think of anything that ensures success.  I can think of several things that can influence the outcome favorably, but nothing that ensures things will go as you want them.
         I can already feel the response from my pastor coming.  I ask that he note that I said as you want things to go.  Just remember, what you want and what God has planned aren't always the same.  In fact, I find that you stand a better chance of getting what you want when you want what God wants even if you don't know what that is.  It's kinda like Christmas.  You know, that one gift you have no idea what it is because its shape doesn't match anything on your wish list.  You open it and at first you really have no clue what it is or how to use it.  You kinda smile and nod, then give a feeble thanks and set it aside, not really sure what you are going to do with it.  The next morning as you are going through all your gifts and find that you are bored and not really satisfied with what you wanted, you pick up that mystery gift.  You sit there and study it and start to puzzle it out.  Maybe someone comes by and sees what you have and gets all excited.
         "You know what you have there?!" they ask, "its a whatchamacallit.  Check out what it can do."  As you watch them demonstrate all the wonderful uses you become more excited.  Soon, you can't live with out this gizmo that, just yesterday, you had no clue what it was.  You forget about all those gifts you practically bought for yourself because you just had to have them.  That's when you realize that you aren't even sure who gave you that wonderful new gizmo.  Or maybe you do, and that's when you realize that you didn't even think of getting them anything.  You completely forgot about them.
          Is that what your relationship with God is like.  Does he give you a gift that you have no clue how to use or even what it is and you ignore it?  Did you completely forget to thank him for that unexpected gift?  I know I have.  The neat thing is.  God is willing to continue to give and help you.  While some of us my have gotten the proverbial wonder gift from a distant relative and forgot to thank them only to have them drop us from their Christmas list, God will never drop us fro his.  Granted, he may nudge us back to where he wants us to be and sometimes those nudges hurt...a lot, but he never forgets us or abandons us. 
          I am writing this for a few reasons.  Firstly, because I recently received one of those nudges.  You see, of all the shifts I have to work, I hate graves the most.  While on graves, I am in an almost constant state of exhaustion.  I am grouchy most of the time and sleep rather poorly.  To make it even more interesting, I have to perform in our church's production of "Annie!"  This means I have to be alert enough to do my lines and my already bad schedule is no worse.  It made me look at why I was doing this play.  Was I doing it as part of the outreach, or for myself?  I realized, I was doing it for the wrong reasons and that I needed to recenter my life.  Through this, I have rededicated my life to Christ, starting with this play and my attitude while I am in it.  I realize that I have not put forth the effort that I should have and have rededicated myself to it.
            I find that God has the best understanding of when subtle works and when it is time for the megaphone.  Luckily, I responded before the megaphone was necessary.  Where are you?

Weekend update: The camping was fine.

           Great weekend.  It was 4 days of enjoying the sun and communing with fellow Christians.  The park was awesome and the weather perfect.  The boys had a great time and we never once heard them say they were bored (at least not until the ride home).  Now we just need to prep the camper for winter storage and clean up.  We started yesterday, but it will probably take a few days to get it fully unpacked and cleaned.  We did manage to give the boys hair cuts as well as baths.  All in all, we are all feeling great after a wonderful weekend.
           I have to say that the biggest thing I got out of this trip was the testimonies and the evidences of God's work.  I had many discussions with my fellow campers and they were always productive.  One of the topics we touched on was how God makes it easy to believe what we want.  After all, he did say, "Seek and ye shall find."  Although many Christians take this to mean seek God and you will find him, we came to the consensus (I am pretty sure it is accurate as well) that this meant that what ever you seek you will find.  I had some help in this from reading Lee Strobel's "A Case for Faith."  God has given us every evidence we need to prove his existence, if we seek that proof.  He has also given us enough evidence to disprove himself to a certain degree if we choose that direction.  What I find even more interesting though, is that if you keep digging into proof that God doesn't exist, you eventually reach the point where you have disproved your proof and have to start again.  Most people that I have ran into stop when they have enough proof to satisfy themselves and stop looking.  As a Christian, I keep finding more and more proof of God's existence and have yet to find that point where my proof is disproved. 
            We also found that those that decide to prove that God doesn't exist have their reasons for doing so.  These range from not wanting to admit they are sinners to the understanding that if they admit God exists that they have to give up the life and beliefs they currently hold.  To quote Pastor Barry, "A faith that requires little to nothing is a little to nothing faith."  I was among the sinners who didn't want to give up what he had.  The problem was I believed in God, I just chose to ignore what I needed to do to have that closer walk with him.  Once I gave that up, I found that I had less stress, I had a closer relationship to my wife and kids, and I was happier overall.  I am not saying it is easy.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  Turns out, the sin nature is quite the strong and determined little beast.  I have to be ever diligent to keep from cussing or getting involved in looking at things I shouldn't.  I have to fight the fight daily to keep from doing the things I used to do.  I don't always win, but it is easier now to admit them to God and be brought back.  It is just the way it is. 
          Thank you for letting me ramble today and giving me some of your time.  Have a wonderful day and keep your chin up.  Every bad day ends and a good day is sure to come (we can hope anyway.)

Tragedy and compassion.

            I am so excited.  This weekend is the final camping weekend of the year and I get to spend it with my church family.  Should be a great time.  We still have a lot to do to get the camper packed and I still have shopping to do, but We are so close.
            Now it is time to get serious.  For a couple of weeks I have been keeping a secret my sister asked me to keep (Sis, if you read this and I am wrong on anything, please let me know and keep the updates coming).  I kept it off of the Internet, for reasons I will detail below, but shared it verbally with my church and friends here.  My younger sister and her family is going through a really rough time.  They live in an area that has a high gang population.  My brother in law is the pastor of a church in the middle of this area.  The gangs there have decided they don't like the fact that he is offering alternatives to gang life and have decided that he needs to leave.  He is of a different mind.  What began with midnight calls and knocking on the door and running, escalated to texts with direct threats against their sons.  They went to the police and were told that the mayor didn't want the police to address the gang issue as it would draw attention to it and thus hurt tourism.  Due to the threats and inactivity of the local police, my sister was forced to leave her home with her children while things, hopefully, cooled down.  This left my brother in law alone with his ministry.  To make it worse, after my sister left, the house and church were both tagged with gang graffiti.  Then my brother in law had a log thrown at him from a moving car.  The log struck him in the jaw, knocking loose some teeth.  While he was lucky his jaw wasn't broken, he now needs a root canal that he can't afford due to various reasons.  As before, the police are still silent on this. 
         Now for the reason I kept this silent until now.  When my sister went to the police the first time, they saw an increase in the threatening activity, including pictures of her boys sent to her via text with threats accompanying them.  For this reason, she wanted the story and her location kept off the Internet as she was afraid of reprisal.  These gangs have not relented and my sister and her family are at the end of their ropes.  The reason I chose to write this today is because, she finally felt comfortable enough to share it via Face Book yesterday.   They need whatever support you can give them and I send them my prayers daily.
        I need to add that I have the deepest respect and love for my sister and brother in law.  Through out this the thought of giving up on their mission and leaving the church for their own safety has been the last thing they want.  If not for their boys, I believe the both of them would still be out there and spreading God's love.  If there is any Christian you should look up to, my sister and her husband are two of the best.  Sis, I love you and wish I could be there for you.  Thank you and have a wonderful weekend.
       

Weekend update with a side of wow.

         I started my story site yesterday.  I hope those of you that found it enjoyed it.  I should be able to add to it today as I am the late guy.  I have an Idea of where it is going, just no idea how it is going to get there.  Hopefully, I can get there in an interesting manner.
         Since I didn't give a report on the weekend yesterday, let me get you caught up.  The weekend was an interesting one.  It started off with a party for my work at a nearby park.  The kids had a blast and we all managed to have a wonderful time.  We then went to a church rally to prepare for Sunday's serving day.  We called it "The Church Has Left the Building."  On Sunday, there were no actual services.  Instead a majority of the church (over 400 volunteers) went out into the community to serve.  The church did things like cleaning up yards in an older community, cleaning up a cemetery, a positive protest at the local base (we held signs that thanked the service members for their service and cheered for them), and we also had a free car wash.  I was at the car wash from 12:30 until around 4:30 and we washed 83 cars in just the afternoon (the morning crew only did 80).  It was amazing to see the looks on peoples faces when we told them it was completely free, no donations allowed (we strictly enforced that bit).  It was a great time.  Even the kids got into it.  There is something to be said for serving the community.
        And that was the weekend.  This week should be interesting.  We need to get ready for our final camping trip of the year.  We need to make sure the camper is packed and we have everything we need.   We have to do this around a busy schedule and we don't even have our meals planned so we know what food we need to take.  In all, it should be fun.  Not much else to say.  If you have a chance, keep an eye out for the link to my other blog "Joe's Story time" and take a gander.  I tried to make it one post per page so you can read the story in order.  As always, thanks for reading, and come again.

Easter weekend thoughts.

    It's good Friday.  Amazing how the world views things.  I had an athiest friend post on Facebook that he couldn't understand how Christians could call the torture and murder of "their supposed saviour".  The fact is that we are not celbrating his torutre and murder.  We are celebrating his sacrifice.  He chose to die for us so that we may live.  To be truly innocent of all wrong and to still die in our place is something beyond our comprehension and something we don't deserve and yet he did it.  It is called Good Friday because without his death he could not have risen again.  Without his shedding of blood, we could not be redeemed.  Without his sacrifice, we could not enter the kingdom of heaven.  I recommend reading any book by Lee Strobel if you are asking questions about the Christian faith.  I just finished his book "A Case for Faith" and it was inspiring.  He is a former Athiest and he does such a wonderful job of using logic and reason to answer some of the most critical questions about Christianity.  The summation he gives in the aforementioned book sums it up nicely.  God is so loving he gives us what we truly want in regards to our relationship with him.  If we desire any kind of relationship with him, he will give us everything we need to find him and draw nearer.  If, however, we should decide we want nothing to do with him, he gives us everything we need to deny him as well even though it grieves him.  This weekend we celebrate, not Jesus's death, but his gift of eternal life.   We celbrate his forgiveness and his sacrifice to conquer the grave so that we may live.  Thank God for his mercy and grace granting us what we did not deserve but so desperately needed.  As is so often quoted, He paid a debt he did not owe and forgave us a debt we could never pay.
     May you have a great Easter weekend and reflect on what grace and mercies God has granted you.  God bless.