I have a widget on my dashboard (dashboard is a Mac OS 10.4 thing :-D) that displays a daily verse. I am going to try to post it here on the days when I get a chance. Today’s is:
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Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.
Ephesians 5:1-2 (KJV)
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Today's Scripture


Well, I’ve been running like I’m headed to a fire all the time. I’m told it only gets busier from here on out. Such is life I guess. I finally had time to update my website with new pictures, and I hope to have time to update the links section soon. I also need to work on my CovenantBeliever.com website sometime soon.
I have today off of work for Memorial Day (I’m actually writing this on Memorial Day, but won’t be able to post this until Tuesday). Rachel was here in Tennessee and brought a lot of stuff with here, so I spent the afternoon organizing a little bit. I’m sure she will want to implement her own organizational scheme after we are married, but for now I try to keep a small semblance of order.

Really Busy

I’ve been very busy of late. Between trying to keep up with my work, planning a wedding and the various grasses and weeds of the spring/summer, not to mention my being allergic to almost any kind of pollen. It even seems that I’ve been too busy for God lately. I mean I haven’t done my morning Bible reading very consistently lately. It seems to me that if you are too busy for God, you are just simply too busy. But I don’t know how to slow down either. I was reminded yesterday at Church that the only way to have time for daily devotions is to make time for them. It’s amazing, Rachel and I used to both do our devotions in the morning and then we would email our thoughts about the passage to each other. I loved doing it, and yet I can’t seem to make time for it anymore.
I find it amazing that we can just get so busy we don’t’ have time for God, our creator. I mean, Jesus took time out of his busy schedule to come and die for us, surely we can sacrifice a little bit of time for daily devotions. So, when I get a little bit more consistent in my daily devotions, maybe I can then justify posting here more often… o but that requires time too, which is why I haven’t bee posting here very often in the first place.

Too Busy?

I write this post on this fine Sunday morning from the living room of my fiancée’s house, or rather, her parents house. It will be only 34 more days now until we are to be married. Sometimes, I feel like just a kid who has no business getting married. It’s funny how our perspective changes about things.
Before my parents started homeschooling us children, I went to a private Christian school. I can remember thinking that those high-school kids were huge and so big, and I wanted to be as big as them. Life had to be just cool if you were that tall and big right? Well, here I am at 23 years old, and it doesn’t seem that old to me anymore. In fact, high-school kids seem horribly young and immature. O, and they are much shorter and smaller in general than I seem to recall. I don’t know what happened to them all. I certainly don’t remember growing up. I am not quite sure what happened.
Perception is a funny thing. Peter’s perception of Jesus sure changed by the time he got to the end of Luke Chapter 5. Jesus asked Peter to do something and Peter thought he knew more than Jesus. But to satisfy him, he took a couple of his partners, launched out and lowered the nets. His perception of Jesus changed as soon as he lowered the nets. Amazing isn’t it? Suddenly, Jesus took on a whole new look to Peter.
Our perception of things changes throughout our life. It is a part of life I don’t understand yet, but somehow, I just accept it.

Perception

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A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
~Mark Twain
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Quote

It’s amazing the way things have changed over the years. When I was growing up, we didn’t have computers and internet. We didn’t have digital cameras and digital cell phones. We didn’t have CDs or DVDs. We didn’t have HD TV or all these fancy plasma screens and LCDs. No email, we wrote letters. No Instant Messaging, we called people.
You know how old I am? I’m 23!!! Things have changed a lot in a short order of time haven’t they? But no matter how much they change, we should endeavor to keep our focus where it should be. The potential that all the above mentioned things have for good can be turned into an equal potential for evil. What are we doing with the things God has given us? Do we use these things to honor and glorify Him?
You know, maybe we aren’t using them for evil necessarily, maybe we just dig a hole and hide them in it? I mean that maybe we are just not doing anything with what God has given to us. We don’t use it for evil, but we aren’t doing anything good with it either. Remember the parable of the talents? Not doing anything with what we have been given is not good. It does not honor and glorify the Lord. In fact, in that parable the servant that didn’t do anything with his talent was called wicked and slothful.
Am I saying that you have to have a blog such as this one in order to be effective? No, of course not. I am not implying that or anything of the sort. But what I am saying is that we need to be careful to not let the things God has given us lay idle.

Talents

Some of my first memories are of my dad and I out in a semi-truck somewhere in this big US of A. He started taking me with him in the truck when I was three years old. I remember that I loved to be with my dad. And at this place in my life I realize that there could have been nothing better for me. He quit driving when I was about 6 or so to work in a factory for a while, but I was again in the truck with my dad when he went back to truck driving. I was 11 at the time. He continued to be a truck driver until I was 15 and I went with him everywhere. Because I was homeschooled I could take my school work with me. Anything I needed help with from my mom could be done when dad and I got back home. And of course anything that dad could help me with, such as math, he could help me with right there as we were driving down the road (he is still much better at math than I will ever be).
As I said, I feel that this was the best thing that could have happened to me at that age. Children need their father, especially boys. They need an example of a man to follow. For those of us who subscribe to covenant theology, it’s easy to be all talk. When my parents decided that they needed to be raising their children in a more Godly fashion, they didn’t know anything about covenant theology. They read in Proverbs where is says to train up a child in the way he should go… and they knew that they needed to do that. We realize now that the things that we have come to believe over the years are part of something called covenant theology. It’s a big fancy term. Sometimes we can get wrapped up in something, and tell other people that that is what they should be doing, and we forget to do it ourselves. I know of people who can tell you how to raise your children, but you had better look at the fruit of the children that they raised before you take their advice. It’s time for those of the ranks of covenant theology who have been raised that way, to remember why they were raised that way. It’s not just another set of doctrines. We are trying to raise up a Godly seed. And my parents are living proof that you don’t have to know about some big fancy doctrine called covenant theology, you don’t have to know the order of salvation as taught by Calvin (or other great theologians), you don’t have to know what TULIP means, what you need to do is Train up your child.
For those who were not raised with covenant theology, you need to train up your child. To ALL who are reading this who have children. You need to train up your children.
Train them up in what? In the nurture and admonition of the Lord. If you teach your children the scripture, it means that you will have to learn that scripture too (or at least you had better). So if you don’t know the order of salvation when you start training your children, by the time you are done you probably will.
Am I saying that doctrine is not important? NOT BY ANY MEANS. But we must make sure our focus is right. The first thing we have to have is obedience. If you are obedient to the word of God when He tells you train your children (this also falls under that category of making disciples of all nations, by the way), then you are at a good starting place.

You don't need big terms


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It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.
~Mark Twain
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Today in church we studied the last chapter of the book of James. We have been going through the book of James for the last couple of weeks. Next week we start on the book of Philippians.
I just purchased a program called Dreamweaver, which is a webesign program, and I have been busy changing the sites that I manage over to that program, and redesigning the sites on the way. This program should make it much easier for me to manage the sites I take care of because it automatically updates the menu in all the pages if I change the template.
This week promises to be busy at work. We have a lot of projects going, and it can be difficult to keep up with them all.

Misc. Stuff

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I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels.
~John Calvin
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Gravity is not just a good idea, it’s the law.
~Douglas Wilson
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I have been listening to sermons by Douglas Wilson on marriage, and have really been enjoying them. They are excellent messages. Rachel has been downloading them as they become available, and as they are only available for a short amount of time on his website, I got behind on downloading them. So when I was in Peoria to visit her last I copied all the sermons over to my computer and then burned them to CD. So now I listen to one every morning on my way to work.
On my way home, if I am not talking to Rachel I usually listen to some sort of music. Once in a while I listen to Classical music, sometimes I listen to one of our local Christian stations (usually 94.5The Fish), or sometimes I listen to some of the Christian contemporary music I have on CD. The last couple of days I have been listening to soundtrack from The Lord of the Rings.
So there is how parts of my day go. Douglas Wilson’s latest sermons can be downloaded <a href="http://www.christkirk.com/sermons/RATable.asp">HERE</a>

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