That's no food prayer

Chandler used to only have the "food prayer" for any occasion. Whether dinner, bedtime prayer or any other time it was always the food prayer. I remember being struck when I first heard him utter an unrehearsed prayer some months ago.

Tonight he and Gabrielle are sleeping in sleeping bags in the playroom floor "in their house," which is constructed of a small folding table that Chandler is laying under and a smaller Fisher-Price type table Gabrielle is laying under as well as their play kitchen.

Chandler has apparently heard some praying for "strength" and tonight his prayer was as follows:

Dear God, Thank you for the strength.... (long pause) thank you for the strength to move the kitchen.

Thank you for the strength.... (long pause) thank you for the strength to move the table.

Thank you for the strength.... (long pause) thank you for the strength to beat Satan.

Please help Grandma to feel better and help Aunt Sue with her sickness. Amen.

Word for Word vs. Thought for Thought

I stumbled on this website while looking for another "Mars Hill Church" in Michigan. Instead I found this Mars Hill Church in Seattle. I was surprised to see this large, apparently "edgy" church was moving their pulpit/teaching ministries away from the NIV to the ESV.

I thought the Pastor's explanation was well worth reading.

Speaking of translations, I've enjoyed perusing this comparison by Phil Brown as well.

Through the Bible update - Part 1:Genesis

I'm pleased to say that my resolution to read the Bible through in a year, cover to cover, has survived to date. (This is probably a record for me for any resolution that I have ever made.) I have reached the vicinity of Deuteronomy chapter 10 and am currently really enjoying the retelling of the prior three books.

Anyway, to recap the adventure thus far I thought that I would just follow my yellow high-lighter through to this point to review (some of) what has stood out to me (no reflection on the first seventeen chapters of Genesis but I acquired a good bible highlighter around chapter 18 so that's where the review starts.)

• Genesis 18:14a "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" This hit me like a ton of bricks during a "dark night of the soul." There is nothing that I'm dealing with in my life that is a challenge for God, and the twists and turns that surprise me are no surprise to Him.

• Genesis 19:37 "The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day." At the conclusion of the sordid story of Lot's drunken encounters with his two daughters occurs this brilliant ray of hope that God can make something amazing out of such a sordid mess, because the son born to the older daughter became an ancestor of Ruth (the Moabitess), great-grandmother of King David and fore-mother of Jesus.

• Genesis 22:6 "I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you." Genesis 22:8 Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” What amazing faith! And Abraham's reward in verse 18, "and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice."

• Genesis 29:20b should be a Valentines message, "So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her."

• Genesis 31:19b "And Rachel stole her father's household God's." I'm not sure why I highlighted that. :-)

• Genesis 37:11 Following the jealous reactions to Joseph's dreams (by his brothers) it says that "his father kept the saying in mind." My center column reference connects this to Luke 2:19 where Mary "treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart."

• Obviously the story of Joseph in Genesis 39 is a wealth of profound truths, one thing that stood out to me was how God pro-actively caused Joseph's success in Egypt,
• 39:2 "The Lord was with Joseph and he became a successful man."
• 39:3 "The Lord caused all that he did to succeed in his hands."
• 39:21 "The Lord...gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison."
• 39:23c "And whatever he did, the Lord made it succeed."

• The second thing that stands out to me from Joseph's story is the passion with which he withstood the temptation from Potiphar's wife,
  
• 39:9b "How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?"
• 39:10b "...he would not listen to her..."
• 39:12b "But he left his garment in her hand and fled and got out of the house."

• And finally the great testimony of Joseph in Genesis 50:20 speaking to his brothers "you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good,"

Taking Up the Cross

An excerpt from my favorite devotional book from this past week...

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself
and take up his cross and follow me. Mark 8:34

This was the imagery that Jesus chose to illustrate the meaning of self-denial. We need to rescue this vocabulary from being debased. We should not suppose that self-denial is giving up luxuries during Lent or that "my cross" is some personal or painful trial. We are always in danger of trivializing Christian discipleship, as if it were no more than adding a thin veneer of piety to an otherwise secular life. Then prick the veneer and there is the same old pagan underneath. No, becoming and being a Christian involves a change so radical that no imagery can do it justice except death and resurrection-dying to the old life of self-centeredness and rising to a new life of holiness and love. (From Through the Bible, Through the Year By John Stott)

In a similiar vein, I've been contemplating this statement by my good friend Philip Brown, "...the Bible teaches and the pursuit of God-loving holiness necessarily produces a life moving in the opposite direction of most of modern culture."

Anita Kerr

I just wanted to pass along that Anita Kerr's (now Dalkin) mother passed away this past Saturday, Feb 17th. Those of you who attended HSBC in the early 90's will remember Anita from Salisbury, NC. This is the link to her mother's obituary and guest book.

Bette E. Kerr - Obituary

Church Gossip

Mildred, the church gossip, and self-appointed monitor of the church's morals, kept sticking her nose into other people's business.

Several members did not approve of her extra-curricular activities, but feared her enough to maintain their silence.

She made a mistake, however, when she accused George, a new member, of being an alcoholic after she saw his old pickup parked in front of the town's only bar one afternoon. She emphatically told George and several others that everyone seeing it there would know what he was doing.

George, a man of few words, stared at her for a moment and just turned and walked away. He didn't explain, defend, or deny. He said nothing.

Later that evening, George quietly parked his pickup in front of Mildred's house. Walked home....and left it there all night.

Don't ya just love ol’ George . . .

A little too "White Bread?"

Or maybe they just need to get out more? :) Gabrielle (4) was hesitantly delaying at the top of the slide at Chick-Fil-A.

Apparently Tammy was encouraging her from the floor when a friendly little black boy behind her exuberantly exclaimed, "Come On! Show `Em Whatcha Got!"

Gabrielle replied to him somewhat indignantly, "I do not have anything!"

Keith Drury visits Hobe Sound :,)

Apparently didn't get asked to speak in chapel since it was over Christmas Break....

Now south some more and toured Hobe Sound Bible College which was more than we expected... even saw a guy wearing SHORTS on the campus—whew! Otherwise a time tunnel--circa 1955.

He also visited Lakeland Camp while in Florida,

Floating with the current we found Lakeland Holiness Camp Meeting grounds, a place I last visited at age 12. Sure enough, while everything else changes, an independent camp meeting is predictably the same. It is sort of a "poor man's Brooksville" or I should say a "Brooksville for the separatist holiness movement folk"... that would be those who still don't cut their hair(women) but they allow themselves expensive cars--Caddies, Lincolns, and super-Buicks...interesting where one denies or allows excesses --all of us do I suppose. The "cultural Holiness movement" is holed up in places like this awaiting.... awaiting something.

What I Like about Nazarenes

Don't you just love re-discovering something that you had forgotten. I hadn't looked at Keith Drury's website, Tuesday Column, for months but ran across this very funny item this week:

Why I like Nazarenes....

Tony Dungy

Super Bowl Winning Coach Tony Dungy