A guessing game about Isaac

Here is the challenge. Answer the following question if you can.

Why did my 2 years and 4 month old Isaac find a clothes hanger on the ground and say, "Look Dada a mystery."?

I think I know the answer. You may get a hint from an earlier post. Please put guesses as a comment. If I have previously discussed this with you, then clearly you should not guess.

What do you do when you are having difficulty in your life? When faced with difficult times, it seems that often we look inside ourselves for strength and patience. “Can’t you just leave me alone so I can think?” is often our response to people wanting to help us when we have a difficult question to answer. As the church we have a responsibility to help encourage one another and pray for one another, especially when there are troubles or hard times. We should go to our fellow members of the Church body to ask them for prayer when it is needed. Don’t be caught in the trap of trying to rely on your own strength or wisdom in making it through hard times.

Daniel 2: 17-19
17 Then Daniel returned to his house and explained the matter to his friends Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. 18 He urged them to plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that he and his friends might not be executed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. 19 During the night the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision. Then Daniel praised the God of heaven

Only 2 Readers

Judging by my latest poll, I have only two readers of my blog. Luckily, they both seem to be glad I am back in the blogging world. I spent much of the afternoon playing Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution. Since it is graduation weekend (from high school) for two of my neighbors, I feel this is a great way to remember my youth. Though I did not have either of those games. I suppose I could really remember my youth, and go eat a whole frozen pizza. Instead I will enjoy the fruits of adulthood and eat food off a grill.

I think Isaac may have watched to much TV

I walked through the kitchen the other day, and Isaac was sitting next to a cup with a dinosaur on it. He went through the following discussion with himself.

"If you see a dinosaur, say dinosaur."
"I see a dinosaur."
"You see a dinosaur? Where?"
"Right! There's the dinosaur."

He also somtimes yells for help... in spanish.
"¡Ayúdeme!"

June 11

So we can run off a list of things we should do and not do. We might start with the Ten Commandments, or we might start with a different list from memory. We might say, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” We might then ask, “Why should we do these good things and avoid the bad things?” For that we might also run off a few answers. The reason that I want to mention today is one that I was reminded of this week. We should do good things and push away son because we are a part of one body together. As a part of that body we provide a representation of how people are going to judge the rest of the body. If I go to work with hair that has not been combed, then people are going to make judgments about me based on what they have noticed. If I go into a store I steal a pack of gum with my right hand and someone watches me, then they make a judgment about the rest of me based on the action of my right hand. Nobody would see that and say that I just must have a bad hand. So we should strive to do good works, and push away evil. Our actions reflect on the rest of the Body of Christ.

Ephesians 4:25
25Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body.

A commute by any other name...

As I am avoiding my commute to let Amanda sleep for a few more minutes, it can't be helped but to ponder the amount of time I am about to spend in the car. At this time of day it will probably be close to 1 hour. If I had left 1 hour earlier, it would likely of been 1.5 hours. The interesting thing is that yesterday Amanda rode with me to work and came back to pick me up. You might think this seems like a real wast of time. It turned out, that the total amount of time Amanda spent in the car was almost the same as a commute by myself. HOV priveleges help a bunch. Alas, today I will be driving alone. We have a tentative plan to ride together next Tuesday.

An Early Sunday Morning Run

Running on Sunday morning before church (The 7.2 mile loop). I am sure that must break some rule about the Sabbath (just kidding of course). If it did, then I am sure that many church plants around the world will be "breaking the rules" as they spend significant time and effort to get services set up to be held in movie theaters, schools, parks, hotels, homes, community centers, and I am sure many other places. So, good morning church plants everywhere. I hope your set up goes smooth today.

28 May

I love to read about the prophets. The great faith they show over and over again when confronted with hardship. They continually share the Lord's messages with people and stand as an example for others of how life should be lived. Not that everyone should go out and be fed by the ravens, but that we would all listen to the prodding of God, confess our sins, and spread the good news of God's love to others. If we think this is a hard calling, then we should look to the Bible for encouragement and understand the strength of God. We get from looking at the prophet Elisha a view of how much a person's faith can be strengthened when another person of faith invests significant time, teaching and love to the younger follower of the Lord. Elisha goes from working in a field on his family farm to working for the Lord as a great prophet in no small part because of the time that he spent following Elijah around the countryside. So we should all be encouraged and invest time strengthening those of lesser faith.

2 Kings 6: 15-18
15 When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. "Oh, my lord, what shall we do?" the servant asked. 16 "Don't be afraid," the prophet answered. "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them." 17 And Elisha prayed, "O LORD, open his eyes so he may see." Then the LORD opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. 18 As the enemy came down toward him, Elisha prayed to the LORD, "Strike these people with blindness." So he struck them with blindness, as Elisha had asked.

4 June

I have to admit I feel pretty tense this week as I write this (for no good reason). The situations that we have been put, and the people we interact with are often put there to help build us up to better Christians. When we do come across times that are causing us to be angry or impatient, then it is good to take a moment to reflect on the perspective we should have. That we have a God who loved us so much that He sent His son to die for our sins. Though we were still sinners he saw fit to show us this love. Also think on the example we can be to those around us when they become angry with situations that we respond to with grace and joy. The only way we can continually have this attitude is to seek the Lord in prayer and to seek to know more about Him by reading His Word and by learning from and fellowshipping with other believers. I pray that all of us would rejoice in the Lord in whatever situations we are currently living. No matter how big or how small our problems may be, we should seek to have the peace that is offered by God.

Phillipians 4: 4-7
4Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

May 7

When we give money to a cause, or in particular when we give money to a person even within the church, isn’t it a bit natural to question how the money is being used. We want to know that the person is using the money for exactly what they said they were going to use it. Sometimes our concern for the use of the money we give may be a sign of our lack of reliance on God. Sometimes it can be us being good stewards of what God has given us. The question for today is, “What do you do if you feel like things are being handled poorly?” This question can be asked about money or this question can be asked about other issues as well.

1 Corinthians 6:1-3
1If any of you has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the saints? 2Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? 3Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! 4Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, appoint as judges even men of little account in the church!

The answer is to handle the dispute within the church. One thing I like about these verses is that it says it is even better to have someone who is of little account within the Church judge the matter, than to go before the non-believers. It says they will know we are Christians by our love. We need to show our love in times that are good and in times of dispute. Showing grace in the face of disagreement is a powerful testimony.

May 14

One thing I love about reading the Bible is when verses that you have read before all of a sudden make more sense. This happened to me this week when I was preparing to give the lesson at XFold Youth Group. I had looked at a verse multiple times and it seemed interesting, but I was not sure what to do with the verse. One evening I read the verse again and it was very clear what it meant, and how I could apply it to my life and in the lesson. I find over and over again the Lord works this way. When I seek to understand His Word, He is faithful to help me understand. God wants to work this way in all of us. He does not expect us to just be able to figure out what everything means. He does not expect us to have perfect wisdom on our own. He wants us to recognize that we need his help to understand His Word. When we recognize this, He will not hold it against us, but rather He will give us wisdom.

James 1:5
5If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.

Where have I been?

I have found it hard to keep up the posting over the last 6 weeks+. The arrival of the new baby, and all the distractions with that have made it a bit hard. I have however been writing a weekly entry in the Pillar Church weekly newsletter "This Week at Pillar". I will post some of them here. Let me know what you think. The keyword will be Running Along.