Life on Snow Hill

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.

A lot of preachers I’ve heard will always try to come up with a catchy title for a message around New Year’s Day.  To ‘Toe the Line‘ can mean a few different things, but one thing they all seem to have in common is that there is a strong presence of discipline involved.

Some of you, my loyal readers, will disagree with most of what I say here, so this is your fair warning.

Barack Hussein Obama is the worst thing that could happen to this country.  He will take away freedoms, and he is immoral in his fundamental beliefs.  I could go on, but I don’t want to make this post about politics.  My point is that this country has elected a leader who will do as much as possible to destroy our Godly heritage.

It’s been tried before, and will likely be tried again (and probably succeed).  For example, bills have been previously introduced in the U.S. Congress that would classify preaching from the Bible that sodomy is wrong and wicked as a hate crime, punishable by jail/prison time.  None have passed yet, but I won’t be surprised to see it within the next year with a Democrat led Congress.

So, my question is, who will stand up for what the believe in the face of government opposition?  Peter and the apostles told their government that they ought to obey God rather than men.  They were beaten for their stand for Truth.  Will we change our minds?  Or will we ‘Toe the Line’ and stand, unmoveable, when the liberals begin forcing ‘acceptance’ and ‘tolerance’ on us? (Funny how they preach tolerance, but won’t tolerate a Christian stand.)

This is the time that everyone carves up a turkey and visits with family.  It’s a great time of year.  We all usually eat way too much, and sit in front of the TV way too much watching football.  We enjoy our day, and enjoy being with our family, but we forget what the day itself is all about.

It’s not about family, football or turkey.  (I have a peeve about people calling Thanksgiving ‘turkey day’, by the way – we can have turkey any day of the year.)  It’s about being thankful.  But not just about being thankful – being thankful to God.  That’s why the day was set aside as a holiday in the first place – to give thanks to God.

• I thank God for my family, and I will be spending time with them during this holiday.
• I thank God for my church – He has richly blessed my life I believe as a direct result of following His leadership.
• I thank God for my health.  I don’t always feel that great, and I’ve been getting headaches lately (I need to get off caffeine), but there are people all throughout the world in much, much worse shape than I’m in.  Actually, I don’t have to look far at all to find someone in worse shape than me.
• Last, but definitely not least, I thank God for my wife.  We’ve only been married for 3 1/2 years, but she’s stuck with me during times I’ve been a real grouch, and any woman that can do that is truly great.

I could go on all day, but these are the things that are the most important to me.  God has richly blessed me, and I fail to thank Him as I should.

This story has already made national headlines.  Here is a link to a local TV News channel’s coverage of the story.  I won’t go into the details of the incident itself, so I urge you to read the story if you’re not already familiar with it.

What I did want to comment on is that I’m fairly surprised that there wasn’t someone in that church that was armed.  We’re in East Tennessee, a generally rural region, which is an area where most people like their guns, and quite a few follow the necessary steps to obtain a state-issued carry permit.

I’ve heard of way too many church shootings around the country in the past couple of years.  It seemed that each story I heard was literally closer to home.  I live about an hour’s drive from Knoxville, and this is the closest it’s gotten (so far).  I do have a carry permit, and I carry everywhere that it is legal.  I refuse to be in a situation such as the one these approximately 200 people were in – defenseless and helpless, their fate resting on the whim of an individual wanting to cause as much harm as possible.

Surprisingly, I haven’t heard the first thing about gun-control in this case.  Maybe, just maybe, they’re backing down a bit since the ruling of the Supreme Court on the 2nd Amendment meaning what it says.  But it could be too that they’re waiting until after the election to push it too hard in hopes that Obama will get into the White House.  Then they’ll really start pushing it.

On the church itself, I’ll make a few comments.  I don’t want to sound insensitive in these comments, so I’ll preface them by saying that if a gunman walked into a Hell Raiser’s biker bar and started shooting, it is just as wrong.  That said, a Unitarian Universalist ‘Church’ doesn’t stand for anything.  About the only good thing they believe in is the freedom of religious expression.  It is a lot of what this country was founded upon.  Beyond that, their beliefs consist of individuals developing their own personal theologies, tolerance of religious ideas (every religion has merit), and on and on.  Basically, anything goes, as long as it feels good.  Nothing is mentioned of the Bible at all on this particular church’s website.  Come to think of it, after browsing around a couple of other Unitarian Universalist ‘Churches’, I can’t find any mention of the Bible at all.

It was a violent incident that occurred in this auditorium, and I truly feel for the people that experienced it.  But I can’t bring myself to call them a church congregation, for they are not truly a church.

Due to several things that I won’t go into here, the church that Becky and I attend has disbanded.  So, we are visiting other churches looking for God’s will in where we ought to go.  This visiting has gotten me to think about how certain things are handled, and whether the way they are handled is Biblical or not.  One thing specifically came to mind at a church I visited a few years ago for a play.

I don’t recall much detail about the play itself other than it showcased several examples of people, young and old, and everywhere in between.  It showed their lives and whether or not they had accepted Christ.  They had a nice big stairway that led up to the gates of Heaven – I don’t remember how Hell was portrayed, but it was there as well for those who never repented.

The play was organized and directed by some company that the church hired.  After the play, an employee of this company (I’m assuming the director of the play itself) stood on stage and gave the gospel in a nutshell.  After that, he proceeded to call all of the youth to the front of the church.  He then led a mass ‘repeat after me feel-good prayer’ and declared all of them saved.

It would be great to be able to believe they all repented and received Christ as their Savior that night, but unfortunately it is not the case.  On the contrary, that man probably made most of them a two-fold child of Hell.  Simply because a lot of them went forward because their friends did, and others because a lot had already gone forward and it was the popular thing to do at the time.  For the rest of their lives, they’ll bet their eternal existence on that experience.

Everyone knows who Tim Russert was.  He was NBC’s political icon.  If there was political news, Tim Russert was there.  He is probably best known for his role as host of Meet the Press on Sunday mornings.  I’ve only had the chance to watch the show a handful of times as I’m either in church or on my way there when it airs.

Tim Russert died on Friday, June 13, of a heart attack.  He was on the job recording voiceovers for Sunday’s show when he collapsed.  He was rushed to the hospital where efforts to revive him failed.

I’m not that well informed on what kind of person he was.  I’m not even sure of his political views.  So I can’t say whether he was a good man, or if he was an anti-American liberal.  So I won’t get into all of that in this post.

What this news does make me think of, however, is the suddenness of death.  One minute you’re alive, and the next you’ve slipped off into eternity.  It kinda makes you think about how you really want to live your life, and how you want to be remembered.  It forces you to consider the legacy you’ll one day leave behind.  It urges you to make the right choices while you’re able to make them.  It makes you ponder what is really important in life.

I’m sure his family misses him dearly.  Let us take the time to think about how precious life really is.  Let us remember that life is not forever, and we only have the promise of this very moment – we have no promise of tomorrow.  Remember that we may not have a chance tomorrow to make that life-changing choice.

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, a local family built a gas station/convenience store in a little rural town. Everybody knew everybody, and it was a fairly clean, family oriented place. As time went on, the family decided to sell the store. Some guy from who-knows-where comes in and buys it. His first move was to apply for a beer license.

The entire community went to the courthouse to object to the application the evening it was considered. After seeing the outrage and hearing all the objections to the idea of selling beer out of that store, the owner decided to withdraw the application, much to the dismay of his wife. Most members of the community, myself included, put a couple of dollars on a table for the guy to pay him back for his application fee, since the good-natured guy decided he wouldn’t sell beer in the dry community. All was well.

Until one day, a few months later, the owner is now proudly displaying on his road sign, “COLD BEER”. From that moment on I personally never set foot in the store again. He knew the community didn’t want it, but was able to legally proceed because of a technicality on the laws regarding the distance between school grounds and an establishment that sells alcohol. The store is almost literally in the school’s back yard. Well, it was.

About a week ago I drove past the store, and saw that it had been burned. I hadn’t heard of anyone being hurt, and was concerned about that, but my first thought about the store itself was, “Good. It’s gone.”

Another recent event that I’m sure everyone has heard about is the news about Ted Kennedy. First, let me talk just for a minute about his record – his constant tearing down of America.

He is one of the (if not the) most liberal figures in modern government. His record is one of tearing down Christian values – values this country was founded upon. For example, he voted against a partial-birth abortion ban. In other words, he wanted to make sure it was legal for a baby to be murdered in cold blood during its birth.

He also is a huge supporter of gun control. Without going into a lot of detail on the 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution, I’ll just say that we are guaranteed the right to own firearms. He voted against a bill that would prohibit confiscation of legally owned firearms during a ‘disaster’. Much like the type of thing that happened after hurricane Katrina ruined Baton Rouge. Authorities started going door to door and confiscating everyone’s guns. The argument about the guns themselves is one for another day, but that is an illegal and communistic act to say the least. It reminded me a lot of what I’ve read and heard of Nazi Germany.

Last, but definitely not least, Ted Kennedy is also a proud public supporter of same-sex marriage. It is a wicked thing that God burned an entire city for, and still hates today. I don’t care what anyone says, God did not make anyone a sodomite – they make that choice on their own. But that is also a topic for another day.

Ted Kennedy’s record speaks for itself. He has done everything he can to tear down this country. As I’m sure most of you have heard by now, he has been found to have a cancerous brain tumor. They say the average survival rate for patients with this particular condition is about 15 months.

With all the wickedness he is allowing, and even actively supporting, I really have a hard time feeling sorry for him. That’s all I can really say about it. It’s poetic justice.

Some of the words and phrases I have used in this post were plagiarized from my dad. He put into words what I was already thinking, though…so I figured it was ok.

Tags: brain, kennedy, ted, tumor

I’ve never heard of Free Range Kids until just a few minutes ago.  Growing up as a kid, I pretty much fit the criteria of what a free range kid is, because I was allowed to ride my bike pretty much wherever I wanted, or play in the woods any time I wanted.  Of course, I grew up in an area where the traffic on my road consisted of a tractor, and maybe a handful of cars every day – including the mailman.

This post talks about how to deal with people who basically raise their kids in fear – not letting them out of their sight.  Ever.  While I also think that is a bit extreme, I’m not sure I’d be as extreme as some parents are either as far as letting a kid ride the subway alone or something like that.  The poster said she quotes stats such as kids being 40 times more likely to die in a car crash than to be abducted.  That may be the case, but my argument would be that a lot of criminals commit crimes of opportunity.  If a kid isn’t out on the street alone to be abducted, he won’t be abducted.  If he is, there is always the chance.  I’m not saying never let that kid out of your sight necessarily, but use some common sense.  If there are more kids out on the streets alone, there are more opportunities for kidnappers to abduct them.

Aside from that type of argument by ‘free rangers’, I totally agree with the idea of letting a kid be a kid, experiencing things (within reason – don’t let them start getting into trouble like getting into gangs or some such garbage) and learning as they go.  I did a lot of that myself growing up, and I survived just fine.

As for common sense, here’s some for you.  If a criminal/thug believes he is alone (i.e., won’t get caught) and sees an opportunity to satisfy whatever impulse he might have, be it stealing something, or kidnapping a little girl, he’ll do it.  I own a motorcycle, and had it sitting at the end of my house in plain sight, just as I had done for a couple of years.  My wife and I were gone for the evening, and upon our return found the motorcycle missing.  If the opportunity presents itself as easy prey, a criminal will take advantage of it in a heartbeat.  So again, while I’m all for not hovering over your kid 24/7, use some common sense, people!

I’ve been watching the news on this as much as I am able, but I haven’t been able to completely bring myself to a solid opinion on the whole matter.  On the one hand, it is a religious deal (although in my opinion it is a cult), and the government should stay out of it because of freedom of religion.  On the other hand, these are some young kids that appear to be unable to make their own decisions because of the rules the sect lives by, and they are being forced into arranged marriages at very young ages.

Some refer to it all as a statutory rape farm, which is probably the best description in a nutshell I’ve heard on it.  Others are comparing it all to sexually active teens everywhere else in the world, and they have a good point as well.

My whole thing is that these kids are being brainwashed from the day they are born.  They don’t know that it’s possible to be any different than how they are raised.  I don’t have any problem with people believing the way they want to believe, but when it crosses the line where they are brainwashing kids and forcing them into situations of questionable legality and ethics, then I have a problem.

Any way you look at it, it’s disturbing all around.

A comment I received this morning got me to thinking a little bit about religious hate (Thanks Betsy!) and that being the cause for wars.  Why do Christians, who are trying to do right, get blamed for everything wrong in the world?  Maybe I should say ‘true’ Christians.  A true Christian will hate certain things.  But that is not the cause for wars as this reader surmised.

What does a true Christian hate?  A true Christian hates sin, simply put.  What is sin?  The most simple place to start is the Ten Commandments.  Surely everyone is aware of the Ten Commandments?  You know…Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not commit adultery…  Shall I go on?  Honor thy father and thy mother, thou shalt have no other gods before me.  Oops..I guess that last one is too offensive?  There are no other gods.  There is only one true, living God.

So again I ask, why are Christians blamed for the wrong in this world?  A true Christian doesn’t hate a person – we are told to love our enemies, in fact.  A true Christian hates the sin in this world.  Everyone commits sin – no one is perfect, except Jesus Christ himself.  A true Christian will ask forgiveness for a sin that he or she commits.  He will not live in that sin.  So why are we to blame for what’s wrong in this world?

A true Christian will hate another religion because it is teaching error.  To teach that error is also a sin – it is filled with lies.  But a Christian will not start a war based on that hate.  A Christian will try to teach the truth as laid out in God’s Word.  Wars are not started over this kind of hate.

The kind of hate that wars are started over is the kind that the Muslims displayed when they killed 3,000 people in my country.  It is this kind of religious hate that is taught to children growing up that wars are started over.  In the Islam religion, if one doesn’t believe as you do, they are infidels and deserve to be killed.  Remember – they are the ones calling for Jihad.