Remembering Who Is The Boss in 2007

Its New Years Eve. The night each year when ordinary people think about the future and how to change it. I'm not talking about a science fiction story or a visit to the psychic friends, I am talking about the very real sense in which we dream about the year to come. Dream? Absolutely, we dream. We dream about how to change things. We dream about our hopes and our fears and our triumphs. The interesting thing is that the roads leading to these dreams are the reflections of our past. We look back at all our decisions, some good and some bad. We see the mistakes and missteps, and the successes and the victories. This is a necessary activity because we learn from experience as well as from being taught.

Wouldn't it be easier if we could just be told what is right, and then we would act on it? It would, but we can't. Its not in our nature to submit to the authority and knowledge of another and especially God. We see this in Genesis when Adam and Eve were told what to do, and they made the decision to not “go with the sure thing.” They decided that they knew what was better. They backed the wrong horse as the saying goes. Satan sat there and fed them lies and they chose to do their own thing. “No thanks God, we got a great thing going here, but we could be like you so we'll see you on our terms.” Dumb.

Now I look back at my life and see all the ways in which I jumped at what I wanted to hear, or what I concocted in my own reckoning was right. I've made mistakes, and I've been selfish. I've made the mistake of being a truth unto myself. Dumb.
Here are some of my favorite Proverbs that remind me that my knowledge is insufficient to the task of running my own life.

Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisors they succeed.
Proverbs 15:22

Counsel and sound judgment are mine; I have understanding and power.
Proverbs 8:14 (I added the emphasis)

For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; but whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm."
Proverbs 1:32-33

Whoever gives heed to instruction prospers, and blessed is he who trusts in the LORD.
Proverbs 16:20

And from Jeremiah:
For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Jeremiah 29:11

These verses are just a few that remind me that God is the boss and that my decisions need to be based on what he desires. As this new year begins and I dream about things to come, I need to make sure that those dreams are in compliance with His will.

The Mind Is A Scary Place

I think I am going to start a semi-regular tag called Strange Delaware. In this tag I will discuss some strange things about the First State and some brief commentary on these events. Below is the first:

Today in Delaware History
December 29, 1983 After complaints of foul odors from neighbors, authorities entered the house of a Millsboro man whose body was found propped up in his bed. His 77 year old blind wife and 59 year old daughter denied that he was dead but said he was only under a spirit's spell. A medical exam found that he had been dead since 1980.


It never surprises me to hear about people that do strange things. Mental illness exists in this broken world and mentally ill people do weird and crazy things. What I find more interesting are the odd things groups of people are found to do. Lets look at the event above. Two grown women live with a decomposing man for three years insisting that he is alive. It is obvious that mental illness was involved here, but who was mentally ill? The easy answer is that both were. What a fascinating dynamic. How did they both come to this conclusion? Was one the leader and the other a follower? The human brain can be a very scary and strange place, and it shows that under the right circumstances and with the right stressors we can convince our of just about anything. Could these women have both been fully functional members of society until the father died? It is scary to think that at some point in your life, things could take such a dramatic twist.

Are You A Christian Or A Christ Follower

OK, I came across this video and it provoked some thought. Tell me what you think.


It brings to mind how many a Christian feels that they have to wear some sort of badge or participate in some activities to be a Christian. They need to read all the latest books, know all the latest catch phrases, and participate in all the latest Christian activities. The "industry" surrounding Christian community and education is just a targeted and profit driven as secular industry. They speak the same marketing language and have the same goals.....to turn a profit. The sad thing is that many people think that because they have read The Purpose Driven (insert noun here) that they are fulfilling their obligation to their commitment to Christ. Just another way to disguise works based salvation. I'm not saying that Christian material is bad, but we need to check ourselves constantly to make sure that we are Christ's disciples and not the disciples of the Pastor at the top of the best seller list that week.

An Exhausting Week

I am tired. I have had a really busy week, and it seems that sometimes the weekends are just as busy. It is so easy this time of year to get caught up in festivities, or even serving the Lord. I tend to pack my days with so many "good things" that I crowd out down time. Down time isn't the only casualty of this crammed schedule. The routine things of life that give us structure get pushed to the side in favor of the festive or the perceived immediate need.

I have shared recently about my desire to exercise more and to avoid sugar. This needs to be routine, but as with many other things it hasn't even made it to "routine" yet It has suffered from my packed holiday schedule like some other important things in my life. My blog is another thing that has suffered. I want this to be routine (in a good way), but running to this place and that has left me mentally drained to the point that when I am home I just want to sleep or veg.

I need to be more disciplined with my decisions on what to do with my time. So all you prayer warriors out there, send one up for me on this.

Is Pneumonia Not Sexy Enought?

There was a editorial from the science section of the New York Times in the last couple of days. It focused on Pneumonia and how it kills more people each year than Malaria and Aids around the world. There was an interview included with a Dr. who is part of an organization to raise money to increase vaccinations for children. The story really brought to light the lack of awareness of the effect of this disease and how if gets little press. This Dr. uses an interesting method to prove his point. He compared the number of deaths from a particular disease to the number of Google searches for that diseases name. What you see is an interesting correlation between the two. As the mortality rate for a disease increases, so would its Google searches. He had a chart that illustrates this very powerfully. The most interesting thing is that as you go up the mortality rate death toll and find Pneumonia, you see the Google searches drop dramatically.
My conclusion to this? Pneumonia isn’t political enough to have activist! AIDS is attached to a political movement closely associated with homosexual causes and they get a lot of press. Malaria is the bane of under developed countries where many human rights and poverty groups have their pet countries that they are trying to help. Is it possible that Pneumonia just isn’t interesting enough or it doesn’t have a big enough “hook” for the news networks to bother with? Pneumonia kills mostly children and the elderly, not people our society seems to value any longer. Now if only more celebrities and sports stars would contract Pneumonia, maybe we would actually see how this killer is more of a threat to the world than the AIDS virus.
Just to be clear, I am not saying that we should ignore AIDS or Malaria, I’m just saying that we should focus a little more on Pneumonia and its possible devastation of civilization. A pandemic is not our of the question.

Hanging With The Girls

Last night I had the privilege to sing at the annual Ladies Christmas T.E.A. at my church (GRPC). T.E.A. stands for Tuesday Evening Away and is a pep rally of sorts for all the women’s ministry that happens at GRPC and an evening for moms and daughters. Men in the church serve tea and deserts on china that table hosts bring and set up form their own china collections. There were about 400 women there last night. Not bad. This was the 16th T.E.A. event we have had and I have been privileged to be involved in many of those over the years. What can I say, the women of my church love to invite me to their events. I joke that the WIC committee hopes that the more they expose me to mass numbers of ladies, the more chance I will get married. It hasn’t worked yet, but if this is their sinister plan I applaud the effort.

The Not So Incredible Shrinking Me

As many of my family and friends know, I had Gastric Banding on 3/23/06. At my max weight I was at 430lbs and as I weighed myself this morning I am 364lbs. This gives me a net loss of 66lbs since the surgery. Not to shabby, but also not what I want. Why am I revealing something so personal about myself to the world? That would be because I am tired of the stagnation. I effectively stopped losing weight at the beginning of July. This isn’t because the surgery failed, but because I have been cheating the system. I lost the lions share of the weight in the first 4 months, and have be bouncing around in the same ten pound range ever since then. After the initial change and restrictions of post surgery, I started to do the one thing that is a no no in this process. I began to consume sugar. That’s right, the Great Satan of body weight management. I do have the ability to consume less overall food than before, but the food choices are the problem. Cakes and candy and Arnold Palmers with sweetened lemonade, these are the things that are stopping me. But wait, these aren’t the only issues; I also have not been exercising. I was encouraged to walk, just walk after the surgery. I haven’t seriously done this. I do have a legitimate issue with pain in my hip, but it should be overcome and not used as an excuse. So I am cutting the sugar and I have begun to walk on my treadmill. Last night I did 12 minutes and broke a good sweat. I’m shooting for 15 minutes tonight, and my ultimate goal is 45 minutes 5 days a week. I will be posting regular weight loss updates and ask you to pray and ask me how things are going. I need the encouragement.

RAV

Take a Bite Out of the Apple

I am rapidly approaching a point in which I will be forced to purchase a new computer. Now I have a laptop provided by my employer that I can use to work from home on occasion, and I have my desktop. My desktop crawls. I had it wiped and reloaded and it is still a dog. I just finished an online course provided by cnet.com on how to tweak you XP computer for speed and I have seen very little difference in the changes I have made. Its frustrating to me. So here is my dilemma, to Mac or not to Mac? I have become captivated with the Mac and am seriously thinking about going to that platform. Below is a list of things that I do regularly with my computer. Blog Use itunes. Surf the web Check my email Download pictures form camera and phone Use Skype Use Microsoft Office
All these things seem to be easy to do on a Mac just as with a PC. What to do….what to do? I am thinking sometime in February this will have to happen. Thoughts? Anyone?
I am also a little bit nostalgic for the very first computer I ever used....the Mac SE. I used this in highschool to learn how to use pagemaker for layout and design. WOW have things come a long way. It didn't even have a color screen. Check out these pictures.

Cubic Zirconium - Cheap or Beutiful

I was listening to a podcast on my way to work this morning in which the hosts were talking about how Apple has submitted a patent for a possible use in a rumored iPhone case made of Cubic Zirconium (CZ). OF course during the course of the conversation, one of the females on the show talked about how she would dump her man if he gave her a CZ ring. This made me wonder.

A CZ is definitely man made (except in very rare occurrences in nature), but it is also mega beautiful and has many of the same properties as a diamond. In actuality a CZ has more fire than a diamond does. So why would a woman dump a guy who gave her one? I would guess there are multiple reasons, some good and some bad. I think the culprit is that we as a culture have connected love and money. We have place value on love. The diamond industry has successfully integrated into our culture the notion that true love requires a monetary investment to prove itself. If you love a girl, then you buy an expensive piece of jewelry to prove it to her. Does this pervert love at its core? Does this valuable expression actually devalue love in some way? Diamonds were given because they were beautiful and precious, they still are beautiful but they are widely available. Now a CZ is arguable more beautiful, but less desirable. Just makes me wonder. I guess I need to set up a savings account specifically meant to buy a diamonds so that some day I don't get dumped.
RAV