As it gets later tonight I can see that as this war with Iraq is not going to be a super fast adventure in world domination.
This is sad for a lot of people and there is a lot of angst around the world.
I don’t think this is too much of a surprise because there are a lot of angry people out there anyway.
But as this war is now here I’d like to make a few observations, most of which I hope you already know.
If not, hopefully they’re useful.

Jihad

I have had some recent conversations with family and friends regarding the absolutely asinine
view that this war is political.
The US says that it is political: defending the US from missiles and terrorism.
Both of those reasons are legitimate politically, except that it ignores the religious reasons
that the Iraqis and the Al Quaeda members are doing what they’re doing.
Because the western thought process generally involves the splitting of the spiritual from the
physical and furthermore makes the spiritual purely subject opinion we don’t recognize that
someone else who holds a religious belief could not have this dichotomy.
In fact, ignoring the fact that Fundamentalist Islam
¹ hates infadels
(non-Islam) makes the US and the rest of the world more succeptable to terrorist attacks
and missing the point of any Islamic military action.

Mohammad taught Jihad (Holy War against the infadels), Saddam Husein is only living out Jihad, he is
a religious zealot.
While this could be an over-simplification I would point out that he is also a dictator, and he does
have obvious other motivations, but none overshadow Islam.
Saddam is at the very least playing that card to motivate his leaders, soldiers, civilians and most
importantly sympathetic Arabic governments.
Be wary of this man because he is engaged in Holy War.

In fact this Holy War goes all the way back to Abraham’s sons Isaac and Ishmael.
Isaac, being the chosen one (through whom the seed and blessing would come (Read Genesis chapters 15-22 for more)), and Ishmael being the son of the maid-servant (the rejected older child) were the fathers of the two battling ethnicities.
Isaac was father to Jacob who was later renamed Israel (father of the nation now known as Israel) and Ishamel was promised that God would bless his sons as a strong nation as well.
Recognize that there has been bitterness between the two groups that far back!

Back the Red, White & Blue

Further on this subject some while back (1 month or so) I received a chain email
suggesting that due to Romans 12:20 we not go to war with Iraq.

Romans 12:20

20 ?But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so
doing you will heap burning coals on his head.?
²

This is a good verse that, in context, is quite applicable to personal situations wherein if one
person (or small party) finds conflict that the believer should behave in this manner.
However, trying to make Romans 12:20 say that we should not defend the safety of our country and
that we should tell the president to not go to war misses the point of the verse and ignores a verse later on in the passage.

Romans 12:21 talks about overcoming “…evil with good.” and that seems more along the lines of
what the US government is trying to do!
One should not take one verse out of its surrounding context.
In fact Romans 13:1-2 (the very two verses after 12:20-21) talk about subjecting yourself to the
authority of the government because God established them and put them there in the first place.
This of course does not mean we should blindly do what Uncle Sam says to do, but it does mean that
we should not look lightly at what God is doing through them.

Conclusion

Pray.
Pray a lot.
Pray so much that you wear holes in the knees of your pants (or skirts or dresses or robes), but
remember that in what you pray you have an intercessor.
And your relationship with that intercessor is what is powerful, not the prayers by themselves.
While there is physical war remember that there is also Spiritual Warfare (Ephesians 6), but
remember also that the war has already been won.
We know the outcome – Victory was won at the Cross.

Maranatha (Come Lord, return for your bride, the church)!

Randy Peterman

Footnotes

1)
I recognize that there are more moderate/liberal forms of Islamic teaching, but because there
are more liberal forms does not mean that you can lump all of Islam together.
You cannot say that because you know (or heard on Oprah) someone who embraces a more peaceful
form of Islam that no Muslims are really that intense, only a few extremists exist.
Likewise it would be silly to say that all people who claim to be Muslim are extremists.
Fundamenalists (Muslim or Christian) almost always tend to be extreme, they hold to the orthodox

(traditional) teachings of their religion – they take it literally and don’t allegorize like
more liberal practicioners do.
That means that when Christ says that those who don’t receive Him as their savior will go to hell
Christian fundamentalists take it at face value.
This also means that if Mohammad tells Muslims to kill the infadels (Non-Islam) to save them from
worse terror that fundamentalists take it at face value.
Neither view is friendly to the non-believer – but both views are intellectually honest to the point
of obedience and taking something at face value.

2) The New American Standard Bible, 1995 Update, (La Habra, California: The Lockman Foundation) 1996.

OK, so I don’t stick with the look and layout for more than 3 months, and I’m sorry.
I spend more time working on a new look than I do adding new content.
I should be flogged, but I don’t have time for flogging.

Read This!

I’ve got some new stuff that I’m working on for the Bible section.
Note that its really early in its development.
I promise that as I get time I’ll add to it, since its theological you know it will get some attention.
I’m also working on a glossary of theological terms which I hope will be useful since most theological words go over the heads of the laity.

Abby

…is crawling now, she started Sunday night.
Jessica was so excited, I was in the bathroom (I know, too much information), and Jessica started calling for me.
I came out as fast as I could and got there just in time for Abby to look right at me and try to sit up.
It wasn’t crawling, but she did show me later.
I guess all of the pressure was too much.

This morning she got more shots.
This is fun, because as she gets older her emotions are much more developed so crying takes longer to stop (calm down).
But, she’s doing well, and she was glad to see me when I came home for lunch.

Opinion

Because this is my site, and I run the darn thing, and because I’m more opinionated than you (I know what you’re thinking. You’re wrong, I am more opinionated than you) I’m adding an opinion section.
This will house opinions on movies, music, life, and just about everything else that I want to publish an opinion on.
If you don’t agree with my opinion, feel free to write me, call me, email me, or send a messenger pigeon.
Remember, opinions are like belly buttons, almost everybody has one (with the exception of Adam and Eve and people who have them surgically removed).

Resting in Him,

Randy Peterman

News – 02-17-2003

This past weekend we moved a whole block down the street so that we could have a generally larger apartment here in Texas.
Abigail gets a bigger room, Jessica gets a bigger kitchen, I get a bigger rent check, it works out for everyone!
Truly, I don’t care that much about the bigger rent check, I think this will help us to be able to be more hospitable.
Jess’ mom, Linda, will be coming out shortly to visit us and help Jessica get things in order.
Abigail is going to help by giving live performances of a little girl growing up faster than we know how to handle.

While I’ve been working on writing this she’s dropped her teething biscuit 6 times.
On the 22nd she’ll be 6 months old.
This is insane for us as we’ve hardly recovered from her birth.
Abigail growls a lot, which is not typical of my experience with little girls.
She can squeak and gurgle little girly sounds but the next second her little growling bark comes shooting out to remind us that she’s a rough little kiddo.

Abigail had some fun earlier today when I was unpacking one of the boxes we had that had some percussion instruments in it.
I don’t know how much Jessica will enjoy the percussion in the long run but I sure had fun banging on that tambourine with Abigail!
Jess adores Abby and so do I, which is a good thing since she’s our daughter.

For Valentines day Jessica and I moved some things from our old apartment into the new apartment.
Pretty romantic huh?
Sometimes my romance level is so high I amaze myself.
Actually, Jessica and I celebrated V-day a week early to avoid the mad rush of the rest of the US and to help offset the business of the next weekend.

Speaking of our relationship and romance, Sunday the 16th marks 8 years of us being a couple!
On the 16th day of 1995’s 2nd month (wasn’t that a Yoda’ish way to say that?) I asked her to go out with me.
Jessica promptly replied, “I don’t know.” and went into her house and asked her mom’s opinion.
When she told me she asked her mom I set my ‘dating timer’ for 2 weeks expecting very little out of someone who couldn’t make her mind up by herself.
I was w-r-o-o-o-n-g!

Needless to say we’re still in love, and despite the occasional argument or night of sleeplessness due to our daughter we keep plugging along looking forward to what the Lord brings us each day.
Hopefully in 8 years we’ll be able to say the same thing only more emphatically.

Randy and Jessica and Abigail Peterman
700 E. Ash Ln #14208
Euless, TX 76039
Phone is the same as before, 
	if you don't have it email me 
	and if you're lucky, 
	I'll send it to you ;)

Resting in Him,

Randy

News – 01-25-2003

OK, its now deep into January of the new year and finally I am able to put up some more stuff here on the site.
I must confess that I learned two lessons last year in about one weeks time, and I think that those two lessons will comprise most of this ‘blog’.

Don’t be Hasty

I would assume by the volume of people who have seen Two Towers, the second installment of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy that you most likely have seen it.
If you haven’t seen it, you probably should.
If you don’t everyone will make fun of you and you’ll live the rest of your life in shame.
That was like hearing about people (Gen-X’ers) who somehow didn’t see Starwars in their lives.
Its not a perfect movie (Two Towers) but it is pretty good none the less.

In this movie you meet creatures called ents.
Ents are tree herders.
And they’re pretty much timeless.
With those two things in mind I think that the lesson that I have learned from them is quite simple: I am too hasty.
That is why I couldn’t update the site.

I went out with some Christmas money and bought some hardware to speed up the computer I had (making this new one somewhat of a ‘frankenstien’s monster‘).
The problem is that I didn’t research enough and was pressured by the sales guy at Fry’s Electronics and ended up not buying all the right components.
This has put my computer on a weird cycle of being hard to start.
Sometimes it takes me 15 minutes to get it going.
So, don’t be hasty!

Diving too Deep!

The other lesson I learned was in going too deep, too fast.
If you’ve ever heard me get excited about theology or programming then you’ve probably seen or heard me do this.
What I did was try to talk to several people at different times about theological or philosophical things that were WAY too deep, and I didn’t explain them very well.
The end result was confusion or me coming off as lofty or proud.

Neither of these things were my desire, but because I wasn’t quick to listen and slow to speak (Book of James ring a bell?) and careful with my knowledge I ended up not doing what I wanted to do.
What I wanted to do was share truth, which is a passion I have; Unfortunately passion sometimes leads to carelessness.
Thus, I don’t want to dive too deep, too fast, and dash the small chance I have of reflecting Christ.

We had a great Christmas, and we really did enjoy out family – hope to see all of you, and our friends too – as often as allowable.

Resting in Him,

Randy

News – 11-15-2002

Well, A LOT has happened since I last did anything to the website, but hopefully you’ll find some new treats here and there.
I want to say that Abby’s arrival has spurred the number of visits to this site to a record high, in fact had I not become the proud father of this little princess, the site hits statistics would have remained at their measly levels of 300 hits a month (thanks mom and Sha’i for keeping it that high 😉 ).
We’ve been insanely busy, and I’ve been working my behind off at work, trying to spend time with Jessica and Abby, and stay in the word.
Since I last posted any news…

• We went to Nevada to see family
• We had my aunt and uncle and cousins from CA visit us
• We all got sick (Yes, Abby too 🙁 )
• My sister-in-law looked at this site over 100 times.
• That is all

Going to Nevada was great, we got to see friends and family there, got to meet Mike Nelson’s future wife, meet Matt – an eligable bachelor, and…got to eat at Heidi’s!
I got to ride in Ed’s new Vokswagon, and for Ed’s overdue birthday, we went to Sushi, Jess was not impressed, but at least she tried it.
I got to hang out with my best bud Sean who’s been crashing in Berkley, CA.
We got to see Jen and Steve and Tim, who shared some of his favorite jokes with us (I don’t remember any or them, but I’ll tell you that the Chicken has been outpaced by many other animals in the road crossing business).
We also got to spend some time with Eric Class, my sister’s beau.
And, we got to be REALLY sad when we left. That was not fun.
Ohhh, one more thing – LAX is a crumby airport.

My relatives from CA, my Uncle Eric, Aunt Willette, and Hannah and Heidi (We missed Kim, who, being of the legal working age in CA, was unable to join us/them 🙁 ), were a blast to spend time with.
Hannah is the spitting image of Kim, her older sister (by 19 years), and Heidi was funny and finicky.
Uncle Eric shared theology and a sinus infection with me, and so that was fun.
We went to a Greek retreat that Tyndale was holding, my uncle was participating, I was just along to hang out with famliy (Yes, Jess and Abby went there too, there were more Peterman’s there than any other group).
Over all, it was fun, and Sunday night my uncle taught at Tyndale’s Sunday evening church service, it was excellent.

Pray for us as we’re going to be seeking the Lord’s will in all things, but this next year presents us with many opportunities, and many challenges, some we can foresee, and others we have yet to experience.
We will survive one way or the other, but we want to be obedient to the call, and as we sojourn we don’t want to get distracted by the things of this world!

Resting in Him,

Randy

The music has been removed from this site.
If you really want to hear it you can email me and I’ll do my best to send it to you. Thanks for understanding. – Randy