Category — My Stories

On Monday my kids spent some time painting. My son doesn’t color or paint or do other art projects often, but when he does he is very productive. When I came home for work Monday afternoon, there were several paintings laid out on the counter to dry.

Yesterday, before I left for work we looked over the now-dry artwork. The boy asked me which one of the paintings I wanted to take to work to put up in my office. I couldn’t decide.

A bit later, after grandma had arrived and I was getting ready to leave, he asked me again. I told him to pick one out for me. Here it is:

Then he asked grandma which one she wanted. She made her choice, then the boy said, “But you have to pay me dollars for yours, grandma.”

Grandma and I both erupted into laughter. He clarified: “Daddy, yours is free, but grandma has to pay me dollars for hers.”

That’s my boy. Don’t do ANYTHING without charging someone for it. He has the entrepreneurial spirit I always wanted to have, but was never able to develop in myself.

Today he had a change of heart and told me, “I guess grandma’s can be free, too.” So, maybe he won’t be as successful as I thought. But maybe at least he’ll be kind and giving toward his family.

Calling yourself too considerate is like calling yourself too humble. It’s a bad idea—one that will make you look bad in front of others, probably because you deserve it.

Nevertheless….

Yesterday, I had carpet cleaners scheduled to come to my house at 1:00. This was a LONG OVERDUE cleaning to make my disgusting home look like the exurban palace that it used to be.

Or, something like that.

A little after 9 as I was studying away on the emerging church, the carpet cleaners called me. Could they come right now, or anytime soon?

Ummm….. Hmm…..

The one o’clock time was chosen very deliberately. The Son Person would be home from school camp at noon. The Daughter Person would be up from her nap. Grandma would be able to take them to her house to swim, so the Daddy Person (that would be me) could stay there and work while they steamed away evidence of my parental failures, pet neglect, personal sloppiness, etc.

But, for them to come any time before one would cause problems. One problem is that it would interrupt my desperately needed morning study time. A bigger problem would be that it would wake up the Daughter Person who desperately needs her naps.

I told them they could come at noon. The guy on the phone seemed a bit unhappy. They did come at noon and the Daughter Person woke up immediately after they started running the van-mounted vacuum motor which was positioned right in front of her bedroom window.

Still, even though they changed the perfectly planned schedule, I felt bad that I didn’t throw the whole plan in the trash and just let them come right then—at 9:01 A.M.

Do you think that my feeling bad is evidence that I am far too considerate of others?

I saw this card at Target last week while doing my Mother’s Day shopping.

(click here to see it big enough to actually read it).

The phrase “mother religious” at the top is a category/description marker in the slot where this card was placed. The card itself says, “God couldn’t be everywhere at once, so he invented mothers.”

I realize that “religious” is a very broad category for cards and that cards are usually designed to appeal to the least common denominator of public ideas.

But that’s precisely why this belongs in a category besides “religious” (”Deism,” perhaps?), because Christians [and many false religions as well, I might add] believe in the immanence of God. That is, we believe and teach that God is fully present everywhere at all times. This card denies that, making it heretical (or, perhaps “irreligious” or “sacrilegious” given the category marker).

Bottom line: it’s OK to buy cards at Target, just don’t shop there for good theology. A lot times I find a blank card with an image that I like on it and just write the text myself.

Here I am again working at Panera Bread, this time at home in Michigan. I won’t write a whole post this time about the person next to me. He’s one of those people who yells into his cellphone like it was on the other side of the Big House during the Michigan/Ohio State game. I can hear every word he says even though I’m wearing earbuds and listening to loud jazz.

Sheesh.

Anyway, I write today to apologize to all of you who have left comments on one or more of my posts. I have two things to apologize for:

1. I apologize for not posting your comments quickly. Let me make excuses explain: I have Wordpress set up to moderate comments, meaning that I have to actively approve them. Wordpress emails me when comments are awaiting my approval, but I had those going to an email address that I don’t use anymore. Oops. Since I use MarsEdit for all my writing, I rarely see the Wordpress Dashboard, otherwise I would have noticed this problem earlier. So, I’m sorry. Your comments are now approved.
2. I apologize for slandering you, my dear readers. I complained to someone recently that no one ever comments on my blog, though I know you’re out there reading. Turns out that I was wrong. You are commenting, I’m just not allowing them to be posted (see #1 above). That was my mistake and I’m sorry for blaming you.

Keep those comments coming! And, happy new year!

My daughter has a brief message of truth for you. You can watch it here.

My son recorded this same message a couple of years ago. His version is here.

Dear lady sitting near me at Panera in Greensboro, North Carolina,

I can hear the conversation you are having right now over lunch with your five hundred lunch companions. I’m sorry to be listening in. It’s not that you’re being too loud; you’re using your appropriate inside voices. But I heard you say the word “church.” I’m a preacher. What am I supposed to do? I have to listen. Your next statements might give me an illustration to use someday in one of my messages. This is especially true if you’re funny and dead certain if you are both foolish and funny at the same time.

Anyway, you mentioned hearing a sermon recently where the preacher talked about Moses bringing Joseph’s bones back from Egypt. You said that this was the only thing about the sermon that you remember. I’m sorry to hear that. It makes me cringe to think about what people who hear me retain from my messages.

Where was I? Oh, you said the preacher mentioned that Moses had Joseph’s bones and buried them with Abraham. Now you’re questioning whether or not this is true. Is it true? The good news is that I’m going to answer you. If you ever use “The Google” to look up this question, you might find my answer. If not, you’ll never even know I wrote this because I’m not going to interrupt six people at lunch. Two people? Nah, I probably wouldn’t do that either. I’m either too polite or too big a wuss. Take your pick.

In Genesis 50:25, Joseph commanded his descendants to remove his remains and return them to the promised land. He made them promise on oath, meaning they would be cursed by God if they failed to do it. Hebrews 11:22 makes reference to this passage also, but adds nothing new to the discussion.

In Exodus 13:19, Moses fulfilled part of this oath, taking the bones with him when the Jews made their exodus from Egypt.

But here’s where your pastor made a couple of mistakes, if he really said what you’re saying he said. According to you, he said that Moses buried Joseph’s bones in Abraham’s tomb. Two big strikes there. Here’s why:

1. Moses never made it to the promised land. He died before he got there. Oops. See Deuteronomy 34:1-5, and Numbers 20:1-14 for the backstory.
2. Joshua did bury Joseph’s bones, but not in Abraham’s tomb. Rather, Joshua 24:32 says that he buried them “at Shechem in the tract of land that Jacob bought for a hundred pieces of silver from the sons of Hamor.” This is a place where Jacob built an altar to the Lord, according to Genesis 33:18-20. Abraham, by contrast, was buried with Sarah in the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre. See Genesis 23:19 and 25:10.

Oooh, now two of your companions are talking about Calvinism. I want badly to listen in, but there’s too much ambient noise. I can’t make out what they’re saying. I can hear one of them saying that Calvinism-Arminianism is like a toilet paper roll: over or under, take your pick. Yikes! That’s bad theology, but you can be sure THIS WILL SHOW UP IN MY TEACHING OR PREACHING SOMEDAY. Probably repeatedly. For the rest of my life.

If you ever find this on the net, my apologies to you. I hope that this doesn’t creep you out too badly.

Grace,

Brian

I have a 3rd generation iPod which has a 30GB hard drive. I bought it four years ago and it has just worked great for me. I took it running for most of those four years. Running is very hard on a hard drive based device. Still, it served me well and didn’t freak out too much despite the pounding the hard drive was taking. I replaced the battery on this thing about 2 years ago and that has extended its life and usefulness for me.

Until now.

Over the last week, my poor iPod has had a daily nervous breakdown from which it cannot recover. When it starts up, it gives me the Apple logo for a long time, then goes immediately to the folder-exclamation point icon. This icon is the poor little iPod’s way of screaming, “I’ve completely lost my mind! I can’t play any music or podcasts for you!”

I have tried to resurrect this thing as I’ve done before using iTunes’ restore feature. I have also used the Mac’s disk utility to check the disk. It supposedly found and corrected errors on the iPod’s hard drvie, but still does not work. I even erased the disk completely using disk utility. No help. Right now, only a straight jacket or a coffin is appropriate.

I have a two year old Treo 650 which works just fine, but since the iPod is dead, I’d really like to replace the phone and iPod with one of them there iPhones. I don’t really need this device. I could afford to buy it, but I have other financial priorities right now that preclude me from spending any money on the iPhone.

So, I turn to you, dear reader, to beg. First of all, if you are part of the Calvary Bible Church family, this begging is not for you. You pay my salary with your tithes and offerings and that’s all you should be doing for me. And, if you’re NOT giving regularly to CBC, you should be doing that, not donating to my iPhone fund. So, CBC people are out. Stop reading now, please.

If you are a member of my family and usually get me some kind of gift for Christmas, I urge you to contact Suzanne and donate money to her. I want you all to rally together and give whatever amount you might ordinarily spend on a Christmas gift for me into a pool that will help me get my dream phone. If you want that to be my birthday gift as well, that’s even better.

Finally, if you dear readers would like to donate any amount, that is much appreciated. You can do that very easily by clicking on this:

Again, I do not need this, so if you choose not to give, that’s completely cool. But, if you can shake loose a few pennies for me, that is very much appreciated.

Thanks for listening to me beg. Now back to our regularly scheduled blogging.

Note: this post has nothing whatsoever to do with Apple’s productivity application called iWork. I have it, I use it, I like it. Someday, you might even see me iRecommend it. But not today.

Last Sunday (10/28), we added a new Sunday morning worship service here at Calvary Bible Church. Pastor Rowe preached from John 13, wrapping up that chapter.

This Sunday, as part of our normal preaching rotation, I will pick up with John 14, adding this new service to my Sunday routine. That means I’ll be here for the new 8 A.M. service, preaching 35 to 45 minutes there.

At 9:30 A.M., I will teach my usual Sunday School class on NT Survey. That will be another 40 to 45 minutes of me talking.

Finally, I’ll preach my message from John 14 again in the later service at 10:30—another 35 to 45 minutes.

In other words, this Sunday (and every Sunday from now until Christmas), I’ll be speaking in public for more than 2 hours during the 4 hour time time frame from 8 A.M. to Noon.

I know this is not exactly heroic. Some guys preach twice on Saturday and two to four times on Sunday. But, for me, this is an exciting change in routine.

Earlier today I was hurtling down US-23 in the left lane on my way to church. In front of me was a Nissan Xterra driving over the speed limit, but not as far over the speed limit as I wanted to drive.

The law and common courtesy dictate that this driver should have moved over into the right hand lane to let me pass. But whoever was driving this vehicle did not follow these common and legal conventions.

As I was experiencing a mild form of irritation about this (I wasn’t really in any hurry), I noted that the driver had an out of state license plate. I don’t have an iPhone, so I couldn’t take a good enough picture, but the license plate read: I TRST HM.

How wonderful to find another brother or sister in Christ out on the freeway. Praise Jesus!

Now, move over to the right and let me by!

This weekend our family went to the maul mall together to buy some new clothes for the kids. Instead of performing my usual role of Starbucks-drinking and child entertainment, I actually had to hang out in the store for reasons that are both unimportant and uninteresting.

Fortunately, Gymboree has a TV with all the favs running: Bob the Builder, Thomas the Tank Engine, Fireman Sam, and others, so all I had to do was keep an eye on the kids while they kept their eyes on the tube. And drink my iced mocha. And try not to be too bored.

There were two other kids sitting there watching TV and one of them turned to me and asked, “What’s five plus five?”

“Ten,” I blurted back at him with confidence.

“No, FIFTY-FIVE!” He responded with indignation reserved only for the dumbest of adults.

Outwardly, I smile at the adorable child.

Inwardly, however, I was thinking, “Look, kid. I have three postgraduate degrees. So you might want to take my word for it.”