Perelandra

Just got the 8th Wedding Anniversary planned and I am worried about the 10th one. Here are some ideas that I have. Mind you, I am drawing basically on two sources: Personal Experience and Travel Magazines (where…if you don’t have 10K to drop on a vacation, don’t even bother).

I don’t think I’ll be dropping $10k on a vacation, but I’d like this one to be something special. Here are some quick thoughts:

1. Cabo San Lucas - a villa. Can you say “Cabo Wabo”? Land’s End. And who knows what else.
2. Sandals. Like a cruise but on a beach with a nice pool. Clean, anti-septic, and out of the way.
3. NYC - all KINDS of possibilities here, but did I mention that our anniversary was January 22? Brrr….
4. Hawaii - I’ve always said that if I spend Hawaii money, I’m going to Fiji instead. See #5.
5. Fiji - grass huts in the bay, Pacific Ocean….YUMMY.
6. Bora Bora - See #5.
7. Bali - land-locked, different, beautiful.
8. Oaxaca (Oh-Ah-Ha’-Ka) - Mexican province, I just like saying it and letting other people know that I know how to say it. =-D
9. Italy - What’s the name of that lake again?
10. 7-10-14 night cruise - this would be cool. Sail the caribbean, the panama canal, and the Mexican riviera. Nice.

She’s not the camping type. Also, she doesn’t understand and won’t want to go to Australia or New Zealand. She also finds my south Pacific fascination amusing (Fiji, Bora Bora, etc).

BTW…the 8th Anniversary is a 5 night Caribbean Cruise. Ft Lauderdale–Jamaica–Grand Cayman–Ft Lauderdale. I can’t wait.

Wow. He got his start doing the PC thing. He’s even made a recent commercial for HP. Now he’s a Mac guy. =-D

http://www.blogmaverick.com/2007/09/16/once-you-go-mac/

How long before we see him standing between Mac and PC in a commercial “over there”? =-D Our online pharmacy is the perfect resource for people to get their drugs without any hassles or awkwardness. buy cialis We work hard to make sure you save money every time you shop with us. buy levitrabuy soma At our online store, you pay less and get more. buy viagra

Another story from the edge of the world: Grand Forks, North Dakota.

I was newly saved and staying up late reading and somtimes praying and I went home from work very tired that day. I was going to read a few emails and go to bed. A friend called and said “Come over!” I didn’t want to. I almost said “no”. But…my friend needed Jesus in the worst way and while this would not be the night I presented Jesus to him, I felt a push to simply do something that I didn’t want to do so I went.

It bears mentioning that the base where I worked was 15 miles away down a state highway where the military personnel and the state police played a game of cat and mouse. I was always the mouse, a very fast one, at least as fast as my ‘87 Olds Calais would take me. I’d obviously never outrun anyone in that car, but I sure liked pretending I could. 80mph was my standard cruising speed on the highway to work.

If I’d had my way, the next place I would have driven my car was to work (the base) and I would have been driving 80 mph there.

Instead, I took this little nudge to go visit my friend. As I said before, I was very tired and did not want to go and almost didn’t. He lived a few miles away and I drove no faster than 40 mph to get there.

As I was pulling into a parking spot, I heard a very loud metal-on-metal THUD and at a speed of about 2 mph. My steering wheel quit working. The driver’s side tie-rod end had pulled out of the knuckle that turns the wheel. At 2 mph, not 80, but 2.

It was the driver’s side steering that would have catastrophically failed at 80mph and would have very possibly cranked my car into the median if not into oncoming traffic. It might have ripped the wheel and associated suspension off my car and into who-knows-what.

I’m not saying that God always takes care of us physically because I know that he gives all of us, at times, to suffering so that we may share in the death and resurrection of Christ, that we may be sanctified by our suffering. What I am saying is that it overwhelmingly obvious to me that he took care of me that evening, and his message to me was, again, overwhelmingly, “I AM IN CONTROL!”

One weekend (circa 1994) as I was cleaning up my room in the barracks at Grand Forks Air Force Base, I picked up a tired old not-so-well worn NIV Thompson Chain Reference English Bible and chucked it in the trash. I hadn’t opened it in years but I was carrying it around for no apparent reason. I say not-so-well-worn because some Bibles are well worn from being studied and poured over. Mine was ragged from neglect. Simple truth.

It never made it to the dumpster. Even my ever-increasing godlessness couldn’t allow that. I picked it out of the trash, put it in the drawer, and left it there.

I almost threw my Bible away. How odd is that? I shudder when I think about it. I almost threw my Bible away. Now, I could have purchased another one, easy. I could have purchased 10 or 100 more. But this one is mine. Actually now it isn’t. I did eventually buy another Bible, a nice leather-bound ESV. The NIV is now in the custody of our second child who seems to like carrying around a Bible almost as heavy as he is.

I almost threw my Bible away. I’m glad God was there to keep me from myself.

I have been incredibly busy lately. Couple that with a blog that has been abso-freaking-lutely overwhelmed with comment spam that I have not been able to stop until now, and the blog has suffered. Look at the bottom for stats on spam comments that are now being automatically consumed without my intervention. I don’t remember the name of it, but it definitely works.

Maybe I’ll write something more soon. You like the new theme? A little hacking around in php and css and wordpress functions and it also puts the post date & time on each one. It’s great…for now. =-D

John Piper gave a sermon called "When is Abortion Racism?" where he poses a question concerning a link between abortion and racism.  It it sounds ludicrous at first, but assess the reality:

1.     Black women account for 13% of the female population but 36% of all abortions.
2.     Hispanic women account for 13% of the female but 20% of all abortions.
3.     Between 10 and 13 millions abortions have been performed on black women since 1973.  There are only 31 million blacks in America today.  That means that between 30-40% of the potential black population has been "aborted".  That’s huge.  Consider also the potential babies born to those who were aborted from 1973 and after.
4.     Consider that the founder of Planned Parenthood (the largest benefactor of the practice of abortion), Margaret Sanger, also led the “Negro Project” in the 1930s, which was designed to reduce the births of black children

And the numbers and correlations just keep piling up.  It’s amazing to me.  The practical implementation of  "A Woman’s Right to Choose", amounts to genocide.

Read the rest here:
Desiring God: When Is Abortion Racism?

I taught a Sunday School lesson a while ago called "Remember who God is when you read the Bible".  I used the example of Genesis 22, where God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac.

You see, I’ve been allowed to believe for several years that God was testing Abraham for God’s sake.  There are a lot of things wrong with that:

1. God had already chosen Abraham.
2. God had already ordained Isaac as the chosen heir.
3. God had already made a conenant with Abraham.
4. God did not need to know how Abraham would react to His commands, God already knew.  He’s God.

I said that God was showing His faithfulness to both Isaac and Abraham.  Abraham would was gifted with bags of faith for his obedience and seeing that God is faithful.  Isaac would have a first hand witness to the terror and beauty that is our God and continue the legacy of of God’s chosen people.

Somehow, I missed the larger point of the passage.  I’d said many times in this class before how the entire Bible, even the hard to read parts of the Old Testament, is about Jesus.  The whole thing.

So…Abraham raises his knife to kill his son as God had commanded and God said:

     "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him"

Then they found a ram, provided by God, and sacrificed that instead.

Then one of my favorite verses: Genesis 22:14 (ESV)

So Abraham called the name of that place, "The LORD will provide";[b] as it is said to this day, "On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided."

That day, God provided a sacrifice for Abraham so that God’s righteous penalty wouldn’t have to be paid:  The death of Isaac.

This is the introduction of substitutionary atonement to all of mankind.  It starts a long and bloody tradition of substitutionary atonement in the temple.  It comes full circle with the death of Jesus on the cross.

God told Abraham, "Don’t kill your son, I have a substitute."
Jesus tells us, "Stop killing animals, I am your substitute."

We’re all sinners, even Christians stumble and sin.  Only Heaven will permanently free us from the bondage of sin.  For our sin, Jesus came at the will of God the Father, and became a substitute for our sins. 

The ram was an imperfect sacrifice for the righteous claim of God on the life of Isaac.

Jesus was the perfect and righteous sacrifice for sinners like us.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,227159,00.html

I am not 100% sure what to think of this story, where the head of a large evangelical organization (is it a denomination, or what?) in Colorado Springs is caught up in a scandal and accused of homosexual soliciting. To top it off, he and the organization he heads actively fights pro gay marriage laws around the country.

That this is a scandal is no doubt. But there is a thread of hope in here that I want everyone who reads this to take note of:

Church discipline is being exercised, appropriately it seems.
Ted Haggard appears to be submitting to that process for the sake of the mission of the church.  He is saying, “The church is more important than my place in it.”

His niece who is part of the church discipline team says that this is a routine discipline process. They’ve already figured out what they are doing and they are working through the process of church discipline.

I don’t know if the man is guilty or not, but the church discipline process seems intact. It makes his church and him look a LOT better in MY eyes that there is a church discipline process that is being followed by members of the church, and also submitted to by one under accusation. On THAT note, I am very impressed.

I went to high school, and for a while, church, with Jim Jurgensen.  He’s a fantastic guy with a huge heart and The Boaz Project is one way that his love for Christ puts his feet on the street to show others Christ’s Love for them.

I saw a bumper sticker today that said “www.boazproject.com” and something (that I don’t remember word-for-word) about the orphans in Russia.  I think this is a beautiful effort that deserves your attention.

Hey!  They blog with wordpress too!  http://www.boazproject.org/blog/.

After 3 boys, my wife is scheduled to give birth to a girl on Sunday.  Find the album already for pictures of this very anticipated little life here:  http://memories.wingedwheel.net/main.php?g2_itemId=19

The main site, http://memories.wingedwheel.net/main.php will become a repository for our family albums.  Gallery2 is an awesome piece of software.

Back to the little girl, no name yet, but we are leaning on “Katherine Grace” or “Julia Marlese”.  Or a combination of either.  All I know is I need to buy a canopy bed and a shotgun.