Life on Snow Hill

Today’s daily verse is Philippians 4:8 – Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Every once in a while, I run across someone who simply wants to twist the Scripture to make it fit his or her lifestyle. Some try to use it to flaunt their ’super-Spirituality’ and highly educated self. Some totally ignore it so they can do the things they want and feel no conviction for it.

Some do all three.

This morning I was thinking about some of them. When I do that, I usually find myself getting angry and not fit for much for a while. Then I thought to myself, “Today is Sunday. I should be at my very best today.” Not that I should be any different today than I am any other day of the week – I certainly shouldn’t. I should live life the same every single day. I should be the same person every single day, whether it’s a Thursday, a Monday, or, yes, Sunday.

My point is, today is the Lord’s day, and I should find myself extra careful to keep my focus on the things of the Lord. Dare I say, the devil may try extra hard to get us off track on Sunday? Sure he does.

That’s when God reminded me of today’s verse – think on these things. Don’t worry about those other people. Stand for truth, for sure, but think on these things.

One small disclaimer. I couldn’t put the entire verse in my twitter status because I only get 140 characters. I’m not trying to change anything about what it says – promise!

I’ve severely neglected my blog again. I’m not going to keep much of a following that way, now am I? I’ve decided to try to do something about it. This something will serve two purposes for me.

1. My Bible reading and study habits will benefit. I’m taking other steps to improve this area of my life, as part of somewhat of a New Year’s resolution. But this will help to further that purpose in my life.
2. I’ll at least have something here daily. If it’s nothing more than a twitter update. Yes, that’s how I plan to post my daily verses, at least to begin with. If I feel compelled to expound on the verse, I’ll post about it here in my blog.

Today’s verse, that you should see over in the right column over there, is a large part of my motivation. Here’s why.

For the past few months, I’ve been realizing more and more that I don’t study like I should. I don’t read God’s Word like I should. I spoke to Becky about it a little, and told her what I’d been thinking about doing to improve this. She agreed that it would be a good thing to do. I thought about it a little more and decided that’s what I would do.

What’s that, you may ask? A way to help me improve my study habits in the Bible. A specific way to commit myself to it. I’m being purposely vague. I’m sorry, but that’s all you’re getting out of me. For now. Maybe later.

In church last Sunday Morning, the pastor read a verse as sort of a sideline thought to his main message. That was the one I needed. It not only confirmed in my heart that I was committing to do exactly what I should, but it took it even farther and revealed to me that if I am going to benefit at all, and if I’m to learn anything at all out of the study I’m committing myself to doing, it’s going to come from God.

I know, it’s a really simple thought, right? But it was a revelation to me when it hit me. Not only do I need to improve in my study life, but in my prayer life as well. I can read the Bible until I’m blue in the face, but if I don’t have God’s help in giving me the wisdom and understanding for what I’m reading, it will benefit me little.

To my Christian friends and readers, I desire your prayers. First, so that I get and keep the determination I need to keep at it. I don’t expect to take a step for God and not get resistance from, at the very least, my old nature. Second, so that it will actually benefit me. I don’t expect to study God’s Word and  get nothing from it. But I want all I can get. It’s one thing I feel like I can be selfish about. The thing is, God is big enough to do the same thing for anybody and everybody else that wants it, so I guess it isn’t really all that selfish.

As I’m sure most people are this time of year, Becky and I have been busy. Becky has had most of the responsibilities for taking care of the Christmas play at church this year, so she’s been covered up with that. She has also been doing all of the shopping and everything else that goes along with this Christmas season.

For me, it really started the weekend of December 5. At work, we did a server room redesign. We pulled all of the network cabling from under the floor and put brand new cabling overhead. We added a second switch and made the two redundant. We ran two cables from each server – one to each of the switches. During that process, we were able to clean up our server racks quite a bit. There is still a little work to be done in that area, but it won’t take much.

Oh. That lasted 2 days – Saturday and Sunday.

With the company I work for being cheaper by the day, they won’t let me keep any overtime. I put in 25 hours over the weekend, so I only had to work 15 through the rest of the week before I reached my maximum of 40 hours. So I used all that time off from work to help where I could with the new fellowship hall we’re working on at church.

Most of the early part of the week was spent putting some finishing touches on some of the floor tile and trimming around it. Then we started moving everything off the floor so it could be cleaned and prepared for carpet. I really can’t remember what all else we did. It’s becoming a blur.

I do know that later in the week, we tried to clean the concrete floor by hand with mops. That worked really unwell. That floor had everything from paint to sheetrock mud to tile grout to sawdust and whatever else you could imagine being on a concrete floor during a construction project. We got our hands on this big nifty power tool that cleans concrete for you. You just have to steer it. It has a pad on the front of it that spins, much like a floor buffer. It dispenses water on that pad to help it break up whatever is on the floor. On the back of the machine, it has a squeegee with a vacuum on it to get all that dirty water off the floor. A couple times over the floor with that, and it was almost clean enough to eat off of.

On Saturday we began laying carpet. We got it in slightly over 3′ square tiles. This was for a couple of reasons – one being that it was said that it was generally easier to lay that than regular carpet on rolls. I’d never done either, so I’ll take their word for it. The second, and most important, reason was that if something was spilled on the carpet, the affected tile(s) could be pulled out and cleaned, or replaced if need be. The glue that is used is more of a no-slip contact material so that carpet can be easily pulled out and put back. Pretty nifty stuff.

Carpet was finished yesterday, and the gas fireplace was finally installed by the gas company.

I forgot to mention that the Christmas play is supposed to be in the fellowship hall this year. So my focus yesterday after work was to get the sound system working.

I had two ceiling speakers to install in the kitchen area. That wasn’t too much of a task. The wiring was already there – I just had to connect it and put the speakers in place. Piece of cake. After that, I had to connect these weird European (but supposedly popular) Neutrik Speakon connectors to the wiring I had in place. It was pretty simple once I figured out how the stupid things worked. I finished that job, locked them in place on the sound board, plugged in a mic, and . . . nothing. Great. What did I do wrong? Turns out the cable I had on the mic was bad. We got another mic, and the pastor and I tried a few buttons and switches on the board and sound magically came out of the main 4 speakers mounted on the walls in the main dining area. Awesome. I messed with the board a little more and tweaked a few settings here and there, and things worked great.

My focus this evening is to get the kitchen ceiling speakers wired in with the rest of the system. It shouldn’t be too much of a task. After that, I’ll be working on a couple of small stages for the play. I also need to learn a simple song on the piano for some of the younger kids to sing during the play.

I think that’s everything. That’s all I have written in my to-do list anyway. The whole thing is very enjoyable, but I’ll honestly be relieved when all of this hectic hurry up mode is over with.

It’s that time of year again. Thanksgiving. The time where families get together, carve up a nice, big, juicy turkey, cook up a huge feast full of everything from cranberry sauce to dressing to pumpkin pie, and watch football.

The turkey is the centerpiece of this feast. Supposedly this all began when Queen Elizabeth of 16th century England was chowing down on some roast goose during a harvest festival. Word came to her that the Spanish Armada had sunk on its way to attack her beloved country of England. She was obviously pleased at this news. So pleased, in fact, that she ordered a second roast goose to celebrate. So, the goose became the favorite item at the yearly harvest. When the pilgrims came to America, turkey replaced the goose because they were in much more abundance, and easier to find. Now, this is only one of several stories that I have found about why we always have turkey at Thanksgiving.

Not only do we have turkey, but we fulfill our gluttony on other foods like cranberry sauce, dressing, chicken n’ dumplin’s, mac n’ cheese, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing…the list could go on and on. Most of the time, we have to have at least a little bit of everything so that by the time we’ve tried it all, we’re stuffed so full that we can’t eat any pumpkin pie. So all we’re worth at that point is to lay on the couch and watch football.

Ah, football. Yet another Thanksgiving tradition. What would Thanksgiving day be without the Cowboys or the Lions? I personally don’t care much for either team, but they have both become a part of the Thanksgiving tradition. It just has to be there to make the day complete. After all, football is part of what Thanksgiving is all about!

…or is it?

So, truly, Thanksgiving has been centered around food the entire time. The Pilgrims, when they came to America, barely survived at first. They immediately went through a harsh, devastating winter. By the next autumn, they had lost nearly half of their number. The harvest that year, however, was a plentiful one. So, they decided to celebrate this harvest, along with a group of Indians that helped them survive the harsh winter and to grow food throughout the spring and summer.

Ultimately, without God, survival would have been impossible. The Indians could have easily killed the Pilgrims in their weak state and kept the land as their own. The Pilgrims could have never found any help, and simply wandered around and died through that winter. God put everything in place for them to be able to survive, and ultimately flourish in this new great land.

So again, I’ll agree that food has a lot to do with Thanksgiving, but it is much, much more than that. For, without God, we are but lost and wandering in every aspect of our lives. God provides so much for us, that many times we take it for granted. We have so much to be thankful for, far beyond what we eat, what we wear, or where we live. The simple ability to be able to get up out of bed on my own each morning and walk on my own two feet is a blessing from God. How often is that taken for granted? To keep that in mind keeps things in perspective. I’ll never be able to thank God enough for what He has done for me.

Let’s see this day for what it really is. An opportunity to slow down and reflect on the things God has done for us, and to give Him thanks.

A week ago today, Becky and I were on our way home from church. The truck had been doing some weird stuff leading up to the day, and I was leaning more and more towards getting somewhere to trade it in ‘really soon’. Well, on the way home, it finally broke down on us. Turns out it was the differential gear – it just would just sit there and grind away when I put the truck in any forward gear.

So the decision was made for us. The next day, I had to take a day off work and we headed to Carmax in Knoxville. I’ve heard lots of good reports from people that have bought from there, and I knew I wasn’t getting a new vehicle, so that was my first choice.

We had the truck towed to the lot, and they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse (sarcasm). I didn’t get much out of the truck, and I still owed some on it. So I had to roll that over into the new loan for the new (to us) car.

We had looked around on the Carmax website for cars we’d be interested in. We had picked out an Altima and a Rendezvous to test drive. We both liked the Altima, but not so much the Rendezvous. We went inside to do some paperwork to see if we could get approved for a loan for that car. While we were talking, the dealer overheard Becky and I discussing gas mileage. He suggested the Prius.

I’ve never liked the way a Prius looked. I still don’t, honestly. But he convinced us to take a look at it. Becky got in and sat in the driver’s seat. She immediately fell in love. I got in and noticed right away that it wasn’t as small inside as it looks from the outside. So we decided to test drive it.

We both liked it. The price tag was a little bit higher than the Altima, but the gas saved would more than make up for the difference in cost. So we got approved for the loan and we drove it off the lot.

Since bringing it home, we’ve put about 500 miles on it, and so far, it’s averaging at right around 3 times as much gas mileage as I was getting in the truck! It’s not nearly as handy as a truck for moving things around, but it’s perfect to get me to and from work, and for any trips we might take.

About a month or so ago, a young lady in our youth group at church approached me and asked if I would be interested in speaking at an FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) gathering. I was honored to even be considered for something like that, and I jumped at the opportunity.

Since that time, I began thinking and praying about what God would have me to give that day. I was being led in a certain direction, then 2 of the young ladies that are in FCA and in our youth group told me what I should talk about. (I say that jokingly, but halfway serious also…)

Here’s what the deal was. At a late summer church event (a fun day to end the summer with lots of outdoor water games), I had the privilege to give a devotion to kick it off. I talked about how big God is, and how He meted out Heaven with the span of His hand. (Isaiah 40:12). In all fairness, I stole the thought from another preacher I heard preaching about it a few years ago. But it’s a great thought, and the youth were all amazed at how big God really is. So this is what they told me to speak on. This is also the direction God was guiding my heart.

So yesterday at this FCA gathering, I spoke to two groups at Central High in Wartburg. They have two lunch periods, and they meet during their lunch. I spoke along the same lines, and about how problems we face are like mountains. If God is so big to be able to mete out Heaven with the span of His hand, then the mountain of a problem we’re facing is a small thing to God and He has no trouble taking care of it, or taking care of us as we go through it.

They seemed to listen, and I really hope it was a blessing to them. I know it was to me. This was the first time I’ve done anything quite like this. I enjoyed it greatly, and my hope and prayer is that God somehow touched a life through me yesterday.

I saw this video a long time ago, but was reminded of it by someone on the radio on the way home from work. The video speaks for itself. I can’t stop laughing.

Yes, I have an addiction. It’s not so bad, though. I hope.

Sudoku. The puzzle game has its origins in France, and in Indiana. There is a grid, 9 squares by 9 squares with 9 3×3 squares inside. Here’s the idea:

• Each 3×3 square of 9 will have all numbers 1-9
• Each vertical row of 9 will have all numbers 1-9
• Each horizontal row of 9 will have all numbers 1-9
• There are no duplicates

I play the game on my iPhone. It’s cleaner than paper, and it’s like an endless supply of puzzles. And it keeps my brain occupied. I’ve included a couple of pictures – one of what the board looks like in ‘expert’ mode (obviously the hardest available), and one of what my best times are so far.

Try it out! If you don’t have an iPhone or iPod touch, you can find free Sudoku puzzles all over the internet.

I was amused this morning by a caller on the radio talk show I was listening to on the way in to work. This caller was a black man. He basically went on a rant and as a part of that rant, he called the black talk show host a racist towards blacks. Later on in some of the comments he made, the caller made blacks out to be dumb and couldn’t make their own choices as to what to listen to. The host called the caller a racist.

This caller is an instigator by self admission. He likes to argue. That said, he listens to the mostly conservative talk show so that he can call in regularly only to argue. This morning, the host played a clip of a song done by a private school that praised Obama and pushed his healthcare reform. I could write a whole other (short) post about that all by itself. But on the show, the host was talking about how in his own personal opinion (and I hold the same) the school shouldn’t be pushing political agenda, whether liberal or conservative. A school isn’t a political platform – it’s an educational institution. But I digress.

This caller called in as the first response to the comments made by the host. “Why are you guys on here EVERY DAY bashing Obama? Is it because he’s black??” (I put the words in quotes, but I admit I can’t remember his exact words – this is the gist of his comments though.) What this idiot failed to acknowledge is that every president has had the same ridicule and has lived under a microscope. Apparently he didn’t like it when the tables were turned and they started talking about his guy, and he made himself out to be an idiot when he began defending his views.

One other thing he said at the beginning of his call – the South is a dump. Yep, his own words: a dump. I can only assume, based on the rest of his comments, that he thinks it’s a dump because of its generally conservative views. I say to you, Dave, if it’s such a dump, leave. I happen to love it here.