Lean Not…
July 3rd, 2008 | No Comments | Posted in » Devotions / Bible Studies
Ever have a Scripture passage you needed to hear or read just kind of presented to you out of the blue? Cool how God works sometimes, isn’t it?
In case you hadn’t noticed, I have a random selection of Scriptures that are displayed by a plug-in in the upper right corner of my site. Every time you visit, you’ll get a new Scripture there. Anyway, it’s a cool feature, that turned out to be especially helpful to me today… I needed to be reminded of the verse that came up.
Proverbs 3:5-6 (NIV)
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.
You see, I’ve been in a bit of a spiritual rut recently, 
and I haven’t really been able to put my finger on the reason why. It’s frustrating… I’d like to think that if I knew exactly what was going on, I could fix it. Given that, I’m sure you can see why these particular verses were meaningful to me.
Lean not on my own understanding. Trust in the LORD with all my heart. Acknowledge him (in all my ways), and HE will make my paths straight.
The message of Proverbs 3:5-6 is an encouraging one for sure. When we struggle with our faith… when we’re confused by life’s circumstances… when our prayers seem to go unanswered… when the world crashes down around us… we don’t have to worry about the why. We don’t have to understand it all to fix it.
We just trust in the Lord with everything we’ve got and follow Him intently. And He’ll take care of the mess we’re dealing with and put us back on the path He intends us to follow.
Cool stuff.
Thoughts on Family Focused Faith, Part 1
July 1st, 2008 | 1 Comment | Posted in » Christian Living
Given that I’ve spent some time thinking about family focused faith recently, I thought I’d share a few quotes from Voddie Baucham Jr.’s book, “Family Driven Faith”, and some thoughts about it over the next several posts. I’m not sure how long the series will last, but I’d like to hear what you have to say in response.
In laying the groundwork for his book, Voddie writes some observations on the apparent parenting goals of many (if not most) modern-day Christian families:
Many families have been lulled into what I like to call a full-screen view of parenting. We look at the biblical mandate and compare it to societal norms, and there appears to be something missing. We believe that somehow we are depriving our children of experiences that will make them more liked, more respected, more normal. Hence we trade in the biblical standard for a cultural norm that hovers just below mediocrity. All of a sudden our desires for our children change. Now all we want for our kids is what “every other parent” wants for their children.
Voddie spends a bit of time elaborating on this “full-screen” vs. “wide-screen” view of parenting. If you’ve ever watched wide-screen movies on DVD (and have a standard TV set), you’ll know what he’s talking about. Wide-screen DVDs take up the entire width of your screen, but have black bars at the top and bottom… it looks like something is missing. Full-screen movies don’t have the black bars, but the entire screen is filled by cutting off the sides of the picture. Hence, full-screen movies appear complete, but are, in actuality, missing quite a bit of the big picture.
Voddie notes that many of us prefer the full-screen view of parenting, even though it cuts out part of the full “wide-screen” picture of Biblical parenting. We focus on ensuring that our kids grow up “normal”, and we lower the bar for our parenting efforts, sacrificing God’s standard for the lesser standards of the world. We make our goal for parenting our children any number of things: ensuring they get a top notch education, helping them to become great athletes, preparing them to find their future mate, etc. While these are certainly not bad things in and of themselves, we often place these ideals as the consuming goals of parenthood… far above that of ensuring that our children learn what it means to be devoted followers of Christ.
Think about the time you spend with your children talking with them. Think about the things you spend time teaching them about. How much of that time is spent talking about matters of faith?
What do these things say about the importance you place upon instilling faith in your kids?
When I go through this exercise, it’s eye-opening. While I profess that the number one goal for my parenting efforts is to foster the growth of my kids’ faith, the reality of how we spend our time says much more.
So what do you think? Are Christian parents generally missing the boat with our parenting efforts? Why or why not? Do you think we generally choose societal norms over Biblical standards, or have we just become complacent? What can we do to better maintain proper perspective on parenthood?
Any thoughts on what Voddie has to say, or in response to any of the questions above?
My Yoke is Easy…
June 30th, 2008 | No Comments | Posted in » Devotions / Bible Studies
Matthew 11:28-30
28Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
I don’t know about you, but these verses are music to my ears. I’m weary. I’m burdened. And I need rest.
Eternally, yeah… I’m good with that. Faith in Christ assures of forgiveness for our sins, escape from the just punishment for them we deserve, a right relationship with a holy and perfect God, and eternity in heaven. This life has nothing for us that compares to the glory of that which awaits us afterward.
But I wonder, despite this kind of assurance in eternal matters, why is peace and rest so difficult to find in the here and now? Our daily lives are jam-packed with frustrating moments and circumstances. The struggle with sin wears us out. And God? Well, oftentimes he seems quite distant and uninterested in what we’re dealing with (that’s hardly true, of course, but it sure seems that way sometimes, doesn’t it?).
Perhaps we’ve only ourselves to blame? Do we often struggle against Christ’s yoke, and end up carrying more of life’s burdens than God intends for us to? Or are we simply so weak that even a light burden seems unbearable?
I don’t know what you think, but here’s what I know… life isn’t easy. Satan is real, and he wants us to struggle. Even when you’ve been faithful, the arrows he fires at us still land from time to time, and they hurt. And when we’re out in front of Christ, rather than walking in step with Him as intended… well, we’re a pretty easy target, and we’ll take a lot of hits from enemy fire.
When you’re hurting… remember that yoke of His. It’s got two sides, and you can’t wear the portion designed for Him. Stop trying, and let Christ give you the rest you need.
Friday Photos — Our Little Swimmer
June 26th, 2008 | No Comments | Posted in » Pictures
Time for Friday photos again!
One freshly filled kiddie-pool…
One cute little girl in a dress…
One moment where mom has her back turned…
And you get this:
Monday Laughs…
June 23rd, 2008 | 3 Comments | Posted in » Just For Fun...
It’s Monday, and we all could use a good laugh. Enjoy this bit of humor…
This morning, on my way to work, I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have been… and I rear-ended another vehicle. I groaned, dug around in the dash for my insurance, and stepped out of the car to examine the damage.
As I stood there standing along the road, watching steam roll from my punctured radiator, the other driver got out of his car.
You know how the most stressful of real-life situations sometimes simply become funny? Like when you can’t help but laugh at a funeral or the like?
Of course you do.
Well, the other driver got out of his car, and I couldn’t believe it… he was a DWARF, only about 3 feet tall! The laughs started coming (it was the last thing in the world I expected), but I did my best to suppress them in spite of my mind’s imaginative wanderings (how did he reach the pedals, how could he see over the dash, etc.).
I tried… I really did. Dwarfism simply isn’t something to laugh about.
But after he stormed over to me, looked up at me, pointed a finger in my face, and loudly proclaimed, “I am NOT happy!”… I totally lost it.
The other driver exploded. “What. What’s so funny, you moron?”
Fighting back the tears, and struggling to get my laughter under control, I looked down at him and said, “If you’re not Happy, then which one are you?”
And THAT’S when the fight started.
UPDATE: This would have made a GREAT April Fool’s joke!
This story has been taken by several people to be real (including one of my closest friends), so I guess I need to add a disclaimer. It’s NOT REAL… just a humorous first-person fictional writing based on a joke I saw yesterday. Any similarity to events, real or imagined, is purely coincidental.
Word Clouds…
June 20th, 2008 | No Comments | Posted in » Just For Fun...
Check this site out: wordle.net. It allows you to create word clouds quickly and easily… a pretty neat exercise with Scripture passages. Check out the following, generated from one of my favorites, Philippians 3:12-14…
HT: Jason Allen.
Friday Photos — Sunday Snapshots
June 20th, 2008 | No Comments | Posted in » Pictures
This week’s Friday photos are actually Sunday snapshots, following church a couple weeks back. Nancy had dressed the kids well for some group photos, so we spent a bit of time trying to get a few good ones.
Getting three kids to sit still certainly isn’t easy, so we never did get a great one of all three together. We did get a few individual shots that we thought were decent. Check ‘em out below…
First, Jenna, hamming it up a bit…
Here’s a candid shot of Allison, just doing her own thing (that’s mulch you see in her hand… she loves playing in it for some reason).
I actually caught Jeffrey sitting still long enough to catch this shot…
Last one… Jeffrey and Jenna are pretty good pals.
Jeffrey’s Big Fish
June 17th, 2008 | No Comments | Posted in » My Life, Pictures
Jeffrey had a great time fishing Saturday, as you can see from the photos below. He caught two nice bass from Grandpa’s pond, both running in the 3 pound range.
This is the first fish… caught with a little help from Grandpa.
The second of the two (which may have been slightly larger)… well, that was all Jeffrey. He cast the line himself, reeled in the lure (a plastic worm) by himself, set the hook himself, and landed the fish… by himself. All Grandpa had to do was get the net, and all Daddy had to do was grab the camera!
It was a pretty cool deal… I’m SO proud of my little fisherman! He outdid Daddy for sure… and I didn’t mind one bit.
Anyway, here’s the photos of his second fish…
Friday Photos — Little Wet Ducks
June 13th, 2008 | 1 Comment | Posted in » Pictures
It’s been a while since I’ve posted any Friday photos. Thought I’d get back on track this morning…
Anyway, here’s a couple photos of my girls, splashing around in their kiddie pool… loving every moment.
New Church Website…
June 12th, 2008 | No Comments | Posted in » Church Stuff...
It’s been a while in the making, and ultimately out of necessity as much as a desire to revamp it, but my church, Missouri Valley Baptist, has a new website.
For those of you who are interested in details (some of you may be considering your own church site), we’ve used Wordpress for a content management system. We’ve switched webhosts as well, as the old one had recently made some changes in “upgrading” our package that rendered our website completely inoperable. We’re now with Bluehost, and couldn’t be happier! Much faster… more reliable… and unlimited space!
Some of the cooler features? First of all, we’ve integrated Google Calendar to make it easier to keep an updated listing of upcoming events online. We’ve also used Google Maps to create an interactive way for people to get directions to our church. For statistics, we’re using both Google Analytics and Statcounter. RSS content is all running through Feedburner.
Anyway, check it out when you get a chance, and let us know what you think.
