My Ramblings

Our 4 year old recently shared some great wisdom with us and I thought I should pass it on. School has started this week and our oldest son began a new grade in a new school. That will be its own post. However, as my wife and I were trying to prepare him for his transition, we talked with him about what he wanted to wear. His response: "My skin." trying to avoid the question. Our 4-year-old responded, "You can't wear naked." We still laugh about his wise words. So, if you can't decide what you want to wear, just remember, You can't wear naked.

About two months ago, after much prodding by my wife, I went to have a physical, my first one in several years. Aside from the occasional cold and stress headache, I am perfectly fine. I am a little overweight, but I have been working on that. According to my tests, I have good blood pressure, good good cholestoral levels, good bad cholesterol levels, etc. The only bad thing, besides my weight, was a high liver reading; not very high, just a little high. The doctor wanted me to wait a month and retake the blood tests.  I retook the tests and the liver reading was still a little high. The doctor ordered a sonogram to check my liver and ran extensive blood work to begin ruling out possible causes. After all the tests and the visits to the doctor, it was discovered that I have some slight fatty infiltration on my liver, which accounts for the high blood count. If the fat gets worse, it could possibly lead to serious problems. In short, I need to lose weight. I did not feel sick...

I spent the last week with my family vacationing along the coast of North Carolina (go Heels!). It was a great vacation. I missed two Sundays at our church and had a lot of work to do before I left to make sure everything was in order. I accomplished almost everything I intended to, and the stuff I didn't accomplish, I just left. Normally, when I go on vacation, it takes at least two days to switch from work mode to vacation mode, longer if things are left undone. I vacate for a couple of days and then I start thinking about work again. It was not that way this year. I worked late on Friday, but once work was done, it was done. I was able to let work go and not think about it again for over a week. I have no explanation for this victory, except that God was helping me. I thank God for that help, and all his mercy, love, grace, etc. God helped in another way as well. Many of you are aware of my former struggle with lust and addiction to pornography. The beac...

Wednesday was an interesting day for me. I have a monthly meeting with a few other senior/lead pastors for prayer and mutual accountability. This past Wednesday was our third meeting. Our times together have been helpful and encouraging and God has blessed our praying for one another. I joined this group especially for my need for and conviction about personal accountability in the lives of Christians. I won't speak of what is going on with the other guys in the group, but I will mention what's going on with me. Our times of sharing personal struggles, etc. for prayer have been good, but not great. We have only met two other times, but we are still only sharing surface-level struggles, things that won't be too bad of a reflection on us. This level of sharing is expected, but not really helpful.  Over the last couple of weeks, I feel like the Lord has been speaking to me about taking the next step toward vulnerability with the group. As we went around the group sharing...

What is it with today's business world? My wife and I were commenting today on a situation we faced. She and I had a conference call scheduled for today with a company we are hiring to revamp our church's website. Now, four hours after the time for the call, we still can not reach the company or the rep that we were to speak with. Granted, there may be a good reason for the missed meeting and I have been praying for the rep, in case something is wrong. On the other hand, this has become normal protocol for several of the businesses I have tried to work with here in Maryland. We have gone so far as to get referrals and check references only to sign a contract with a company and have them fail to follow through on their work. This has happened on several occasions. My wife is also a teacher and recounted for me the message she gives to students regarding the importance of punctuality. "When you get in the work world, being late will not be tolerated." Ap...

I recently received a solicitation to view an online parenting book. The book was titled, "A Father's Guide To Raising Daughters". However, it was the subtitle that intrigued me, "A Father's Guide To Raising Daughters: Because I Need One!!!" I felt better knowing that I was not the only one who failed to receive the instruction manual for my kids when they were born. For a while I thought I had figured out a lot of things about raising boys, that is until our second son was born. Even though both of our children are boys, they are nothing alike. They are 7 and 4 years old now, but my wife and I could tell they were two completely different individuals within the first year. They each have their own personality, they express love differently, and they respond to discipline differently just to name a few. So, what we do is take the things that we know and learn/figure out how to adapt them to work with each of our sons. Parenting is certainly an advent...

The more I thought about the peek-a-boo analogy, the more appropriate I think it is. I already mentioned the idea of playing hide-and-seek. There is another aspect to my relationship with God that wasn't mentioned. There are rather frequent moments when God just shows up. For example, I will be driving home after work and all of a sudden, wow! God's abiding presence fills me and the space around me. There is no question, God is there. He is always there, but not always like this. On many such occasions, my physical reaction to His presence is just to cry; not a cry of fear or shame, but more along the lines of the way my wife cries at all the Hallmark commercials. At other times I just laugh. Sometimes the laugh is because at the moment, it strikes me as funny. At other times, the laugh is a laugh of relief because God has reminded me that He is there. How silly I was to think that God did not know or care about what I was facing or going through. The ...