Life on Snow Hill

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.

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.

Wow, where did the Summer go? It seems like just last week June bugs were flying all over my yard and I was trying to keep weeds out of the garden. I gave up on the weeds, by the way – they finally took over.

It’s nearing the end of September, and the weather is hinting at turning a little more cool. I’m finding myself surprisingly ready for cold weather. I usually dread it. But I’m looking forward to the fireplace being put to use again, and eating a nice hot bowl of chili while watching the Colts beat up on whoever their next victim happens to be.

I’m looking forward to working with the youth on the next Christmas program at church (We need to get rolling with that by the way!) and bringing in yet another new year. 2009 hasn’t quite gotten out of our grasp yet, but it’s quickly rolling on by. What will we do with the rest of this year?

On my way to work this morning I saw a church sign with the words, “Truth Hurts”. I’ve actually been thinking along those same lines lately. There are several things over the past few months that have been brought up during preaching I’ve heard, as well as things I’ve been involved with personally, that when the truth has been spoken, it hurts.

I began asking myself, “Why does truth hurt? What makes it so harsh?” Mind you, I’m not questioning the validity or importance of truth at all. Truth is what is needed, rather than untruths or incomplete truths to make someone feel better about themselves or accepted in certain cliques.

The answer to the question of why truth hurts I believe is two-fold. First I’ll quote a verse:

Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.  -Psalm 119:165.

Back in February during our youth revival, I heard a message preached about the Great White Throne Judgment, and the reality of Hell. It was one of the roughest messages I’ve heard preached on Hell in a long time. It didn’t bother me at all though, for my own life (It did bother me for those that were present who were lost and didn’t respond). Not because I’ve grown cold or calloused to the subject, but because I have peace about my eternal destination because of what Jesus has done for me, and the fact that I’ve accepted Him as my Savior. So my point is that when you line up with the truth that is spoken, it doesn’t hurt. Which brings me to the first part of my answer.

Truth hurts because it exposes where you are wrong. It doesn’t necessarily expose it for all the world to see, but it will expose it to your conscience and your very soul. At the very least, it embarrasses you because you know that you’re not lining up with what is right.

The second part of my answer depends on a person’s willingness to respond to the truth they’ve been given. If they choose to correct where they’ve done wrong, it can hurt. An example can be where a person has done someone wrong, thinking they were right in doing whatever it was. When they were told the truth about the situation, it required them to humble themselves to go to that person and make things right with them. That’s a severe beating on a person’s pride!

The start of a healing process sometimes hurts. I’ll use an analogy here. I got into a little bit of poison ivy a little while back. It wasn’t bad – just a few small spots on both of my arms. I figured they were small enough and insignificant enough that if I left them alone, they’d heal on their own. On my left arm, a couple of those spots became bigger and were beginning to blister. I tried waiting a few more days, but they weren’t getting any better. I eventually had to pop those blisters and clean the wound really well so that it would heal properly. I didn’t look forward to beginning that healing process – popping those blisters didn’t hurt all that much, but cleaning them was a little painful. Rubbing alcohol was the best thing I could get my hands on for the job, and it burns on an open wound! However, it was a good thing to do, because those blisters are gone, and now you can barely tell there was any poison ivy there in the first place.

So there you have my reasons of why I believe truth hurts. It is only my opinion, but I think it’s right. Remember, though, that truth doesn’t have to hurt.

Feel free to leave your opinions on the topic on the comments section for this post. I could go on and on about it all, but I think most other ‘reasons’ could fall under the two I’ve listed here in one way or another. I’d be interested to see what others think about this all, though.

Some of the teenagers put on a skit at church last Sunday evening. We (the men) cooked for the ladies of the church for Mother’s Day, so instead of church services we had a church dinner/fellowship, and this skit was one of the things that kicked it off.

I hope you enjoy it! Click here for a larger version.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been overwhelmed. Not in an “I’m so stressed out I can’t take it any more!” kind of way at all. Maybe it’s more of an “I’m so busy lately that I sleep much better at night!” situation. It’s true, actually – I’ve been getting such good, sound sleep lately. I just wish I could get more of it.

Things have been picking up at work, first of all. We have 9 servers that need to be rebuilt and reconfigured. These servers are what our virtual infrastructure runs on. “What’s that?” you may ask. I’m so glad you asked! In a nutshell, a virtual infrastructure is a set of servers and network configurations that run on other servers. This is a good thing, because on these 9 servers, we have over 100 virtual servers running. So rather than having over 100 physical, real servers sitting in our datacenter, we only have 9. But we still get the benefit of the power these 100 servers offer us.

At home, well, the weather is changing. Spring is here and grass is growing. Along with weeds. Flowers too. This means mowing, weed-eating (Gotta get that weed eater fixed!) and gardening. I’m honestly excited to start the garden again this year. It just needs to dry out long enough to be plowed and tilled really well so that I can get some seeds in the ground. Spring means it’s also time to start working on getting firewood for next Winter. I’ve blogged about that in the recent past, so I won’t say much other than that I’ve gotten a pretty good start, but there’s a lot more to do.

Lastly, but certainly not least, we’ve been busy at church. Becky and I are, as most of you already know, teaching the teenage Sunday School class. I’m also in charge of the youth choir. We’re also working towards getting a teen visitation program going, as well as other youth ministries. I’m not sure I knew exactly what I was in for when I became the Youth Director, but the Lord had it in His plan, and Becky and I have been reaping blessings from it already. We’re thankful the Lord is using us, and praying that He will continue to do so, doing our best to stay in His will. These youth are a great bunch to work with. Our prayer is that they’ll have such a desire for God that we’ll be the ones trying to keep up with them!

A few days ago I planted some seeds in potting soil in some containers in the house to prepare for warm weather for my garden. I planted tomato seeds, pepper seeds and broccoli seeds. Nothing has sprouted yet, and I’m impatiently waiting for that first something to come out of the dirt. These tiny plants will require water and sunlight to grow and become strong. Then once they’re moved outside they’ll require even more water, which we hope will mostly come in the form of rain. They’ll still require sunlight, of which they’ll have an abundant supply. One thing that requires hard labor, though, is keeping the weeds out of the garden. If the weeds are allowed to grow at will, they’ll choke out the plants that have been put there and they’ll not bear much fruit.

Beginning in the last week of February, we had a great youth revival at our church that lasted for two weeks. During that time, there was some hard preaching and some encouraging preaching. Each night, however, caused us all to search our hearts and draw a little closer to the Lord.

During those two weeks there were some seeds planted in our hearts. In some hearts those seeds even already began to sprout. The preaching we heard is what planted those seeds, and even provided the nourishment (water, which is a type of the Word of God). We were even exposed to a little bit of Sonlight when the Lord visited with us during the meeting. These were all of the requirements for those seeds to begin to grow in our hearts.

Now the revival meeting is over and we’re out in the ‘garden’ of the world. These tiny little plants still require a lot of care, and always will as they grow. The only difference between these ‘plants’ in our hearts and the ones in a regular garden is twofold:

1: The rain (water, again a type of the Word of God) isn’t going to always come all by itself. We’ll have to manually water those plants by getting in the Bible ourselves and saturating ourselves with it to get that same nourishment.

2: The Sonlight is always readily available, but we have to be sure we’re in a position to receive it, and let it shine on us. We have to always be willing and ready to let the Lord work in our hearts and lives.

The third thing again is that there are ‘weeds’ that we’ll have to deal with. There will always be things in our lives that try to spring up and take away from what our purpose in life is – to bear fruit in God’s service. We have to always be on the lookout for these ‘weeds’. Some of them look like real plants and look like they’ll be ok if we leave them alone and let them grow. Others are more obvious, but it’s tempting to leave them alone because it’s such hard work to get them out of our way.

All of these things are necessary if we want the great revival meeting we’ve just had to do us any lasting good. For all of us, no doubt, God showed us some specific things we needed to do – that is the seed. The preaching we heard continually watered that seed, and God confirmed it in our hearts when He made His presence known in the services.

Now it’s up to us to continue to seek God and keep giving those plants nourishment as they grow. If we ignore them, they’ll die and it will have all been in vain.

These days, anything can be a ‘god’ (Little g). A boat, a game, a gadget – whatever it may be that you find yourself unable to live without, whatever it is that takes up the majority of your time, or whatever it is that takes time away from the one true God.

I personally have several things that if I were to allow them, they could easily take first place in my life – the place God wants to be.  This is not to say that I have completely conquered those things that would become gods to me.  Far from it, in fact.

I find myself more and more having to be careful what I allow my mind to dwell on, or being careful about what I spend my time doing.  For example, I’m trying to get up earlier in the morning so that I can have more time to start my day off right in prayer and in reading the Bible.  But sleep is such a great feeling and I count sleep as a precious thing.  But that’s the problem with all of this – which is more precious to me?

This month has been a great month at our church – it is youth month, and the theme is “The Lord Jesus Christ, Our Souls’ Desire”.  You see, having the Lord first in our lives can go such a long way in having the rest of our lives line up with what they ought to be, according to God’s Word.  Having Him first in our lives means our priorities are more in line with what He wants for our lives.  Sports, activities and ‘things’ all have their place, but they must be after God.  If God doesn’t have first place in our lives, we will begin to lose sight of Him and begin to stray.  Other things will begin to take first place in our lives more and more, and God will soon be way down on the list.  We will become miserable.  We might have fun and be happy, but it’s only superficial.  Deep down, our joy will be gone.  That joy that only God can give will be nowhere to be found – until we get God back into first place in our lives.

One thing that has been stressed all month it seems is that we have to individually get alone with God in prayer, reading and meditation.  It’s easy to serve God while we’re at church, but a whole other thing to serve Him and seek Him when nobody else is around.  It is necessary, however, for us to be able to have a Spiritually fulfilling life.

It’s been said a few times this month that we can have all of God that we want.  I’ve heard it all my life, but lately it is becoming more real to me.  How much do I really want God?  Am I ok with just a little ‘dab’, or do I really want all of God that I can have?

It all goes back to who (or what) is in first place in my life.  If He isn’t in first place in my life, all the time, I’m ultimately going to go to church and put on a front.  I’ll be a different person outside of church – not necessarily a sinful person, but anyone would be able to look at me and tell that God wasn’t in first place.  On the other hand, if God is in first place in my life, all the time, first of all I’ll be the same everywhere you see me.  Second, you’ll be able to see something different in me.

I want that closer walk with God.  I want to do what it takes.  I want to spend time alone with God.  I want to meditate on His Word more.  What is my motivation, you ask?  I want Him to be my soul’s desire.  I want Him to be at the center of my life.

Our church hosted a Valentine’s Banquet this year for our teenagers.  As part of that banquet, the pastor, Becky and I put on a skit right at the beginning.  It’s “Rednecks’ First Date”.

Update: After numerous requests for the skit, I’ve decided to go ahead and link to it here. Click here for the download!

It’s been forever since I’ve blogged about anything at all, and this topic is definitely blog-worthy, so here it is.

Since Becky and I have joined Fellowship Baptist Church, we’ve been encouraged, blessed and strengthened.  Leaving Open Bible was a hard, hard thing to do, but the Lord led us and we are so thankful.

Every February, Fellowship has a month that is dedicated to the youth.  The first Sunday of the month was Youth Sunday.  We had Youth Sundays at Open Bible, so I was already familiar with most of the format and how things would work with the youth taking over different areas of the service.  I’ve always found it refreshing to see young people eager and willing to serve in whatever capacity that they could.  All of them put their hearts into it.  Although some of them were pretty nervous, they were able to get past their nerves and press ahead.

I was privileged to kick off Youth Month by preaching both services of Youth Sunday.  Although I fully believe I followed the Lord in what He wanted me to do, I always feel inadequate.  I do hope that someone was helped, not necessarily because of me, but even in spite of me.

Yesterday we had the group, “Breaking Ground” with us for both services.  They are a bluegrass Gospel singing group, and 4 of the group are preachers – all of them preached for us yesterday.  They all gave great messages and were all an encouragement to me personally, and I believe they were to the entire church as well.  They’re a great group of young people (The oldest in the group is 25) whose hearts are directed toward the Lord and His work.

I’m looking forward to the rest of the month – the last week will be a Youth Revival that goes all week long.  I hope and pray that will get all of us fired up enough to last all year long!