Five Lies You Will Never Hear My Mother Tell About Me

This post came to me from nowhere.  My mom is not inclined to lie about me.  But it seems funny to me now to write this:

  1. Randy was always clean and organized, his room was always tidy, I never had to remind him
  2. Randy has always been a good manager of his money, he never spent his money frivolously on baseball cards
  3. Randy never said anything embarrassing with his mouth such as calling his grandmother fat
  4. Randy was such a mild-mannered child and always obeyed
  5. Randy always finished things he was supposed to do, like homework, chores and writing thank you cards

The truth is that I was a pig until I finally moved out and then I was still a pig until we had people over, then we figured out that my pigginess was probably a bad thing.  I’ve never been a good manager of money and am now reaping the rewards of that.  I’ve said so many stupid things in my life its just amazing I’m still alive.  I’ve had a strong opinion about everything, except for politics and religion.  I would disobey my mom like crazy, but my dad had me good & scared 🙂 [ok, not that scared].  I never finished many, many things, the last big thing I never finished was my parent’s house getting painted.  I owed them money for a small car accident (the other car was small compared to the Suburban), when my brother bought the house from my parents… he wasn’t happy with me either 🙂

For You Have Not Come to a Mountain…

Hebrews 12:18-24 is a powerful passage describing the contrast of the Old Testament Law with the New Testament position that the saint has.  The author of Hebrews writes with great brilliance as He points out the opposite nature of the Israelite at Mount Sinai and their relationship to the Almighty God and the saint’s relationship with the Almighty God in the New Testament.  One involves trembling, a sense of conviction and separation and the other a comfort and certainty.

Tonight at Bible study we looked at this passage and I was so impressed by the visual descriptions.  The graphical theology in this text is not unheard of in Hebrews, the author uses descriptive language to instill rich images in the mind of the reader, but this particular passage shows the weight of the Law in contrast to the waiting on the Lord.  When you read this passage meditate on God’s unfathomable presentation of who He is in both places yet how God’s work through Christ changes who we are in the heavenly place.  This is awesome.  We are sanctified by the blood that allows us to be present with the judge of all humanity.

Thankful Thursday: Mike Doyle

One of the elders at my church is Mike Doyle.  Every time I get together with Mike (and his wife and son) I’m blown away by their down-to-earth, practical lives.  Mike’s theology isn’t high-fa-luting, its not full of robust vocabulary, instead its sometimes terse, sometimes ‘vulgar’ [in the old sense of the word and not the raunchy sense], and often peppered with concepts that are familiar now that I’ve been around him for three years.  Mike loves to talk about beholding Jesus Christ.  Mike loves to talk about the Christian’s identification with Christ on the cross and afterward.  Mike loves to talk about how proud he is of his son, his wife or someone that he’s been teaching/discipling.

Mike loves the sheep he’s been assigned as a shepherd at Holly Hills Bible Church and I love being one of them.

Rewarded

Today I was skyping with my brother (as in video chatting) and we ended up talking about computers.  I must be totally rewarded (as in r*tard*d) because I ended up explaining to him why his next computer should be an Apple.  Yes, they’re great, but in the end I should have talked with him about something besides computer.  My relationship with him as a brother goes back far enough that we should get beyond 0’s and 1’s 🙂

Recent Reading

I’ve been reading a finance blog the last week, and since I’ve enjoyed it, I thought I’d pass along the link: The Simple Dollar.  There are many, many things that I’ve learned about the philosophical side of money growing up, but somehow I’ve managed to not apply them until recently.  We pay the price for those bad choices longer than the instant gratification lets us think about.  I’d gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today doesn’t do well when you repeat the transaction a thousand times.  Give it a look-see.  Look for more from me on the money front in the future, I have a plan!

Funniest Cruise Story Ever!

My old boss (and sort of boss now that I’m a contractor for the same company) wrote about his latest cruise – he’s still on it – but its been painfully stupid.  You can read about it here.

I would encourage you to leave a comment of your own cruise experience if you’ve been on one because it’ll surely be read by others who find this post amusing!

Jonesing for Indy

Today I saw my first photo of the Indiana star Harrison Ford in his getup for the next movie to be released next year.  I loved  the Indiana Jones movies growing up.  Harrison Ford was such a super-hero without the actual baggage of having super powers.  In other words he was so real life that I actually thought I could grow up to be a computer programmer.  Wait, no, I actually thought I could grow up to fight Nazis and bad guys in general while being concerned with archeology.  As it turns out I’m concerned with Archeology for Biblical reasons, but not for Nazi-fighting or actual digging.

Jonesing for Indy

Oh, and I’m glad I’m not a professor, but I’m glad I get to teach a Bible Study and sometimes Sunday School.  Those are teaching of a type I can handle.  I’m really, really glad that the ladies in those classes don’t write, “I love you,” on their eye lids.  Ha!

Subscribing to Podcasts: A Clever Tutorial

Hey, I know that some of you are dog tired of hearing me talk about RSS Feeds, podcasts and technology that you don’t need to use or want to use.  But trust me: your life will be better for it.  If you want to see one of the neatest podcast subscription tutorials, head over to coverville.com and follow the instructions on the ‘subscribe’ page.  They’re nifty.