Category: God
Nov 09
Happy Thanksgiving! . . . wait, is it over?
Did you have a Happy Thanksgiving? I sure did. Now onto Christmas! Wait a minute… the Christmas season started right after Halloween, right? Christmas music has been playing on the radio, and the stores have been decorated for a few weeks now. It seems like this pesky little holiday called Thanksgiving gets wedged into the mix and then gets used as an accelerant for Christmas called, “Black Friday”.
I am certainly not against Christmas. It is probably my favorite time of year. What I don’t like is that it seems like we allow everyone else call the shots when we are celebrating these holidays. Why does Halloween and Christmas garner so much attention and Thanksgiving comes and goes in a puff of smoke? We even actually get two days off for Thanksgiving—and none for Halloween. I guess we need one of those days to celebrate Thanksgiving and the other to start shopping for Christmas. We can’t even slow down long enough to let the dust settle.
The hijacking of these holidays serves one major purpose—to sell more stuff! The stores, TV stations, and advertisers start earlier and earlier to sell more and more. They couldn’t care less about what these holidays are really about. Family, friends, God, and country? Who needs it… Now let’s get selling! Thanksgiving pays the highest price, because we don’t buy anything for it. It is a time to stop, pause, reflect, and give thanks for all that we have in America.
Thanksgiving Day is a day set aside each year for giving thanks to God for blessings received during the year. We live in the best country in the world. We are the freest. We are the most prosperous. We are the most generous. We are truly a blessed nation. I feel very fortunate to call America my home. I am very grateful. Along with that, I have an awesome family and great friends. I am able to freely worship and exercise my Christian faith. I am not persecuted for my beliefs and can travel freely anywhere I choose. No other country in the world, besides Canada, celebrates Thanksgiving. That should tell you something.
So here is what I am doing. I am opting out of the hustle and bustle of this 30-second sound bite “holiday”. The retailers don’t have anything to gain by droning on about Thanksgiving, but we all do. I am going to take these few precious days to slow down and let the Thanksgiving aura persist before it gets snuffed out by the oncoming freight train of the Christmas season. I will then prepare for Christmas in its due season, because right on its heels is Valentine’s Day.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Nov 09
Creature Comforts
I am spending the weekend at a Men’s retreat (it’s really called a Men’s Advance) up north in Grand Rapids, MN. We get together with 160 other guys to spend time with the Lord. It is a nice reprieve from the day-to-day routines that can easily distract us. I drove the 3 hours by myself and I and I have my own room. The room is awesome and allows me to really spend quite time with the Lord.
As I was packing, I noticed how much stuff I was bringing for an event that was lasting only 2 nights. Before this weekend I thought I would only need to bring a small carry bag. As I was taking my third trip from the car to my room, I was wondering what in the world happened to that plan! I packed my computer, camera gear, video camera gear, clothes, games, food, and stuff to drink. I also brought things for helping the sleep experience be more like home. This included: a white noise generator, a fan, clock radio, and an additional pillow.
I often wondered if I was a little quirky in hauling all the “stuff” with me to help me sleep better. Even after all the things I brought; the pillow that was in my room was rock hard (I like soft pillows) – plus I brought a small pillow. I also sometimes get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, it was pitch black and I didn’t bring a “night light”. I also forgot a couple of other small things. I was just feeling a little out of whack!
This morning I asked another person how they slept last night, response: terrible. Why I asked. Because they didn’t have their spouse next to them, they usually sleep with additional blankets, and they had a bad recurring dream. As I asked others, they had various disruptions from there normal sleep routine and brought things with to help them sleep better. I was not alone!
It is easy to get used to the creature comforts that we surround ourselves with. It is easy to get distracted when everything is not in place. Even though I am not alone in bringing those small things to make things more comfortable, I will also not be distracted from spending time with the Lord because of it.
Now time to focus!
Oct 09
Feeling Like a Dope
White streaks of painted frost were sprawled across the yard as I ventured into the garage to start the process of replacing my lawn mower engine. I opened the garage door and the blast of the cool morning air set me back again. I proceeded to dust off the “Mr. Heater” from the top shelve and attach it to the propane tank. In a few minutes, my Dad would be here and I at least wanted to work in a little comfort.
It had been a couple of weeks since I was able to mow my lawn using my less than two year old mower. After hearing a disturbing noise coming from the engine area, I quickly brought it back to the garage, checked the oil and knew this was not good. I packed the mower up, brought it to the shop and waited for the report. As I expected, the engine was blown and by the way, it is was covered by the warranty. They were happy to put a replacement one in for me. Price: $1100 – $1500. I was stunned. I need time to think about this one.
I had the weekend to explore my options. After looking around for a replacement engine, I was able to buy one locally for $560 before taxes. It was a 24hp engine compared with the 22hp I had on it. It was cheaper than anything else I could find on the Internet. I ordered it but it would take another week before it arrived.
In the meantime, the grass kept growing and I pulled out my nice 22″ push mower and fired it up. I hadn’t used it in years – and yes I checked the oil. 1 acre + 1 afternoon = time to mow. 3 hours later I was finished.
A few days later, the engine finally arrived and it was time to dig in.
Dad arrived, we assessed what we had to do and dug in. We needed to move some of the engine parts from the bad engine onto the new good engine. We dropped it into place and cranked it down. The morning air warmed and we shut off the heater. The sun was doing it’s job. A break for lunch and then back at it. We got all the wiring back in place, hooked up all the pulley’s and belts and double checked our work. Last thing was making sure the oil was filled to capacity. A novel idea! I fired it up and all systems were a go. No adjustments needed!
So yes, I blew the engine. It is not an easy thing to fess up to. For cripes sake you should know better that that! A fairly new mower and this happens? But here’s the deal, even in those times of trouble, God is always working on your behalf. It was not looking so good and then the sky brightened and hope started to shine. I ultimately saved about half the amount of money by doing myself and I was able to spend time with my dad doing something we both love.
I am thankful for that . . .
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Jun 09
Supplement City – Part 2
Yesterday, I talked about vitamins and how we supplement our diets—to the exclusion of eating real food. The supplements act as a substitute for not eating well. Eat poorly and take vitamins. Additionally, vitamins are touted as being a health enhancer. Faster, cheaper, and better than the original.
A Biblical perspective from Jesus:
Mark 7:7-8 (NLT)
“Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God. For you ignore God’s law and substitute your own tradition.”
Today, I want to talk about how we use this method in so many other areas of our lives. How we substitute and supplement our lives through various endeavors. What is the reason we need to supplement our lives anyway? I think it is because we feel like we are not getting enough significance and depth in our lives to today. To make up the difference we substitute stimulus for depth. Some examples:
- We substitute busyness for meaning. The more we do, the more we think it equates to significance.
- We supplement our lives by being more online and fostering many friendships there. The quantity of friends makes us feel like we have also have a depth to those relationships.
- We overemphasize our own lives. What is a person’s favorite subject? Themselves. And people like to talk about themselves – a lot . . .
Spiritually we do the same thing. When we are having issues with some spiritual area of our lives we then try to fill in the gap of what we are missing. A problem with your health? Let’s focus on all Biblical healing issues.
I am not trying to hammer all these specific methods. I just think they miss the mark. When you eat real (good) foods, problem solved. When you have fewer deeper friendships, more meaning. When you are in HIs presence, all your needs are met. Focus on the root, and the rest takes care of itself.
Jun 09
Supplement City
I used to be a big vitamin taker. I would hear what the latest super vitamin is and make sure I was getting plenty of it. I did not know if I was deficient in any of these elusive micro nutrients, but I was going to make sure I was getting more that enough. Every ailment seemed to have a corresponding vitamin to help fix that ailment. Here is the definition of supplement
Supplement: Something added to complete a thing, make up for a deficiency
Now so much of our food is “fortified” with these vitamins. It is added to everything, even soda’s. The newest magic bullet? Omega three fatty acids. An article from USATODAY in 2007 alludes to this fact. If we are getting smarter and know more and more about vitamins and supplements, why aren’t people getting any healthier. In fact in the United States, we are going backwards with such issues as obesity and diabetes.
Why do we chase after supplements anyway? They can never replace the effects of the real thing. In other words, eating real food with that is high in vitamin C content will always be better for you that taking mega doses as a supplement. If you took all of the nutrients you could out of broccoli and took them as a supplement, it would not even come close to the effects of eating the real thing.
I think we all have been seduced into believing the power of these add-ons. We have taken our eyes off real food and put them on these magic little pills. It is very alluring to just take these specific supplements and wham-o, good health forever! Only it doesn’t work. The real key is to eat real food. Not processed or man made, the real deal. For more information on this subject, check out the book “In Defense of Food”, by Michael Pollan. It is a great book.
I have stopped taking vitamins. I have refocused on eating good healthy foods. Real food, not man made. By doing that, everything else will take care of itself. It will just work,because that is what it was intended to do. But I am not writing this as a discourse on food. I am using this as an example of the substitutes and supplements that we use on a regular basis in an effort to “ . . . complete a thing, or make up for a deficiency” in other areas of out lives.
I will talk more about that tomorrow.
What I am Reading
