| You Are 25% Normal |
 You sure do march to your own beat... But you're so weird, people wonder if it's a beat at all You think on a totally different wavelength And it's often a chore to get people to understand you |
Friday, June 30, 2006
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
I have mentioned here before that I receive a daily devotional via email from the Purpose-Driven Life group. This is the one I received today and although I knew this intellectually, I thought that the author just explained it in a really clear way and it hit me on a different level. Hope you enjoy it, too.
Just a little bit dead
by John Fischer
If you are anything like me, you have probably caught yourself trying to make your own sin out to be something less than the big sins that everyone else commits. You know, the biggies that are in the Ten Commandments like murder, adultery, stealing, lying … stuff like that. Certainly I'm not that kind of sinner. No, I'm a minor sinner. When I sin, it's more like “sin lite.”
Thinking like this creates a ridiculous state of affairs when it comes to Christ dying for all our sins while we attempt to rationalize them. Sure I'm a sinner and all that, but my sins are mostly the private ones that don't hurt anyone else. Oh sure, they may not hurt anyone else but they killed Jesus! Let's think about that the next time we're considering one of those little private sins. Did Jesus die less for my little sins than for anyone else's? Did my sins only make Jesus die a little bit? If sin means missing the mark (which it does), by how much I miss it is a non-issue. No one's out there measuring how far we missed it by. We missed it. Line up for the death penalty. (Thank God, this is where Jesus comes in.)
When you’re dead, you're dead. I'm not a medical professional, but I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as being just a little dead. Yet try telling your rationalizations that. Look at the silly consequences we create whenever we try to rationalize the truth.
There is no such thing as a little sin. Sin is sin, and the wages of sin is death, says the Bible, “but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23) You can't any more sin a little than you can get a little eternal life. There is only one way this works: Sin, death, gift of God, and eternal life, in that order, and they're all big time – full strength. Whenever we sin, we sin big, and we die big; but Jesus died big time, so that God could give the gift of eternal life … and that's big too! That's forever! To belittle any one of these is to belittle the rest.
So if you ever catch yourself comparing your sin to others and trying to tell yourself that your sin is less significant, just remember Christ died for our sins, and there's never anything little about that!
No one can be just a little bit dead.
REMINDER: If for some reason you do not receive your devotional on any given day, you can go to our website, www.purposedrivenlife.com, to read the current day’s entry.
John Fischer is the Senior Writer for Purpose Driven Life Daily Devotionals. He resides in Southern California with his wife, Marti and son, Chandler. They also have two adult children, Christopher and Anne. John is a published author and popular speaker.
Just a little bit dead
by John Fischer
If you are anything like me, you have probably caught yourself trying to make your own sin out to be something less than the big sins that everyone else commits. You know, the biggies that are in the Ten Commandments like murder, adultery, stealing, lying … stuff like that. Certainly I'm not that kind of sinner. No, I'm a minor sinner. When I sin, it's more like “sin lite.”
Thinking like this creates a ridiculous state of affairs when it comes to Christ dying for all our sins while we attempt to rationalize them. Sure I'm a sinner and all that, but my sins are mostly the private ones that don't hurt anyone else. Oh sure, they may not hurt anyone else but they killed Jesus! Let's think about that the next time we're considering one of those little private sins. Did Jesus die less for my little sins than for anyone else's? Did my sins only make Jesus die a little bit? If sin means missing the mark (which it does), by how much I miss it is a non-issue. No one's out there measuring how far we missed it by. We missed it. Line up for the death penalty. (Thank God, this is where Jesus comes in.)
When you’re dead, you're dead. I'm not a medical professional, but I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as being just a little dead. Yet try telling your rationalizations that. Look at the silly consequences we create whenever we try to rationalize the truth.
There is no such thing as a little sin. Sin is sin, and the wages of sin is death, says the Bible, “but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23) You can't any more sin a little than you can get a little eternal life. There is only one way this works: Sin, death, gift of God, and eternal life, in that order, and they're all big time – full strength. Whenever we sin, we sin big, and we die big; but Jesus died big time, so that God could give the gift of eternal life … and that's big too! That's forever! To belittle any one of these is to belittle the rest.
So if you ever catch yourself comparing your sin to others and trying to tell yourself that your sin is less significant, just remember Christ died for our sins, and there's never anything little about that!
No one can be just a little bit dead.
REMINDER: If for some reason you do not receive your devotional on any given day, you can go to our website, www.purposedrivenlife.com, to read the current day’s entry.
John Fischer is the Senior Writer for Purpose Driven Life Daily Devotionals. He resides in Southern California with his wife, Marti and son, Chandler. They also have two adult children, Christopher and Anne. John is a published author and popular speaker.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Friday, June 23, 2006
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Today was interesting. Arnel, Julia, Laura and I are all fasting for 30 hours. Our youth group is doing a "30 Hour Fast" to raise money for children overseas. Did you know that 29,000 children die of starvation a day? One every 3 seconds. As part of the event we held a scavenger hunt to collect food for a local food pantry and that was fun as I got to drive a group of the kids. Arnel is at church right now leading some "tribe" games. We will all eat again tomorrow morning. Funny thing is...yeah, I'm hungry, but no hungrier now than I was at about one this afternoon (eight-and-a-half hours ago.) I'm glad I don't have to be doing anything more energetic than sitting in this chair, though!
Not sure what this all means, but fun nonetheless.
| What Your Soul Really Looks Like |
 You are a warm hearted and open minded person. It's easy for you to forgive and forget. You are a grounded person, but you also leave room for imagination and dreams. You feet may be on the ground, but you're head is in the clouds. You believe that people see you as larger than life and important. While this is true, they also think you're a bit full of yourself. Your near future is calm, relaxing, and pretty much what you want. And it's something you've been anticipating for a while now. For you, love is all about caring and comfort. You couldn't fall in love with someone you didn't trust. |
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Let's see, just some odds and ends this morning...
Lillian's language use is really picking up, with her favorite word being "up." She is totally fascinated by "crucks" and "boods" (trucks and birds.) Her new favorite thing is "Itsy Bitsy Spider." She loves yogurt, grapes and watermelon.
Despite doing abysmally on a couple of her final exams, Julia pulled all As and Bs for her first year of high school, specifically 2 As, one A-, a B+, a B and a B-. Her overall GPA for the year was 3.45.
The plants in the yard are doing well for the most part. I am worried about two of the barberry but the rest seem fine, even have some things blooming.
Arnel has joined the leadership team for our church and we hope can help begin with the rebuilding process.
Isaac has finally succeeded in giving himself a hicky on his forehead from a plastic suction cup.
I think that's all for the moment, folks!
Lillian's language use is really picking up, with her favorite word being "up." She is totally fascinated by "crucks" and "boods" (trucks and birds.) Her new favorite thing is "Itsy Bitsy Spider." She loves yogurt, grapes and watermelon.
Despite doing abysmally on a couple of her final exams, Julia pulled all As and Bs for her first year of high school, specifically 2 As, one A-, a B+, a B and a B-. Her overall GPA for the year was 3.45.
The plants in the yard are doing well for the most part. I am worried about two of the barberry but the rest seem fine, even have some things blooming.
Arnel has joined the leadership team for our church and we hope can help begin with the rebuilding process.
Isaac has finally succeeded in giving himself a hicky on his forehead from a plastic suction cup.
I think that's all for the moment, folks!
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Friday, June 16, 2006
Interesting!
| You Communicate With Your Ears |
 You love conversations, both as a listener and a talker. What people say is important to you, and you're often most affected by words, not actions. You love to hear complements from others. And when you're upset, you often talk to yourself. Music is very important to you. It's difficult to find you without your iPod. |
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Busy day today...Julia is helping out at a kid's soccer camp this week so she was there for a bit in the morning. When she got done we all went to the local (next town but this is one of those places with a "tri-cities" area so next town is still really considered local if that makes sense,)Children's Zoo. It is the first time we've been there. Isaac and Lillian are both big animal lovers so I was looking forward to it. For Isaac's sake I would have loved it to be a little larger...he has never in his memory been to a big zoo. But, from a parent's perspective of walking around in the heat with five kids, it was a perfect size! Not much in the way of really large or exotic animals but still enough to be a fun day out. The best part...admission is $5 per person of any age, and there is a little train and a carousel that cost $2 each to ride. We were able to buy a year-long family pass that includes unlimited admission and unlimited rides for $55. We didn't ride the carousel as we had to get Julia back home in time to go watch her coach's soccer game...but we still would have spent $49 just today!
The reason we chose today to go is that they were having a special DEAR (Drop Everythign and Read) day. There were lots of local agencies there giving away little things like crayons, etc. and a couple giving away free books. We came home with eight free books and an audio tape! And to top it all off, we were able to meet Reese Haller and buy his two books for just $4 each, and get him and the illustrator to sign them! Most of you are probably not familiar with Reese Haller, but he lives here in Bay City and is the youngest published author. He is the same age as Gabe, who read and loved his first book. He's already finished the second one, which we bought today. Book three is in the works and due out in September. Check out.
As I said, after we got home, Julia went to watch one of her coach's play soccer. We decided that would be a good time to use the coupons that the other kids had for free kid's meals at a local restaurant, compliments of the summer reading program. We were right next to WalMart, where I had some pictures to pick up, so of course we had to run in and get those. Only, do you think I can really just "run in" to WalMart? Can anyone? A really cute clearance peasant skirt and a few other odds-and-ends later, we finally left and got home about a quarter past nine. Unfortunately, that was about 15 minutes later than Julia...who had to pee really bad. So, um, she did. In our backyard. I know, gross...but when you gotta go, you gotta go! Please don't remind her or us that we have no fences in our neighborhood...
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Just have to share another cute Isaacism...my, this boy has a way with words!
Tonight I would have liked to have the boys take baths but it was late when we were coming home so I was debating aloud between if they really needed a bath, or if it was more important to get in bed. I knew when we got home I'd have to right away get going on getting Lillian to sleep, so I said to Arnel that he'd have to give the boys a "once over" and see if they were clean enough to skip the bath. He replied that that was easy enough; he'd just smell them.
So, after we get in the house and get settled, Arnel jokingly starts sniffing Isaac and then makes a horrible face like he just smelled something awful. "Dad!" yells Isaac, "I always smell like that!"
Tonight I would have liked to have the boys take baths but it was late when we were coming home so I was debating aloud between if they really needed a bath, or if it was more important to get in bed. I knew when we got home I'd have to right away get going on getting Lillian to sleep, so I said to Arnel that he'd have to give the boys a "once over" and see if they were clean enough to skip the bath. He replied that that was easy enough; he'd just smell them.
So, after we get in the house and get settled, Arnel jokingly starts sniffing Isaac and then makes a horrible face like he just smelled something awful. "Dad!" yells Isaac, "I always smell like that!"
Friday, June 09, 2006
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Well, Julia has now officially completed one year of public school. Isaac tied a shoe by himself successfully for the first time today. But, my earache is back. And a package that the tracking says should have arrived yesterday still hasn't come. Went to the youth group summer kick-off barbecue today and had to chase Lillian all around...and was reminded that at last year's summer kick-off barbecue she sat up by herself for the first time. What a difference a year can make!
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Arnel says I need to blog this...I dunno, I guess it is a proud moment if you are a guy? Whatever...
Anyway, tonight was the last night celebration for the 2005-2006 youth group and we all went out to the pizza buffet. This afternoon our youth leader, Scott, calls me and says that Arnel was "talking trash" last weekend about Scott's taco-eating abilities and that Scott was therefore challenging him to a taco-eating contest at the restaurant tonight. Arnel, of course, took the challenge. Having approximately 17 years on Scott, he wasn't quite able to keep up, however and lost by a count of 18 tacos to 22. The "best" part of this is that if you will remember, this is actually a pizza restaurant...they have a little side bit of salad, pasta and taco stuff but it really isn't their specialty. In fact, the taco meat mix looked downright nasty. And yet they ate...and ate...and ate...As a matter of fact, at one point each of the guy's mistakenly put pasta sauce rather than salsa on their tacos...and yet they ate...And when Arnel finally conceded the contest, just to make it official I suppose, they both went up and got pizza and ice cream.
Don't know if it needs saying or not, but neither Arnel nor Scott were looking too good when we left the restaurant.
Oh, and here is a fun addendum. Tomorrow night is the kick-off barbecue for the 2006-2007 year! Hope they don't decide on a rematch with hot dogs!
Anyway, tonight was the last night celebration for the 2005-2006 youth group and we all went out to the pizza buffet. This afternoon our youth leader, Scott, calls me and says that Arnel was "talking trash" last weekend about Scott's taco-eating abilities and that Scott was therefore challenging him to a taco-eating contest at the restaurant tonight. Arnel, of course, took the challenge. Having approximately 17 years on Scott, he wasn't quite able to keep up, however and lost by a count of 18 tacos to 22. The "best" part of this is that if you will remember, this is actually a pizza restaurant...they have a little side bit of salad, pasta and taco stuff but it really isn't their specialty. In fact, the taco meat mix looked downright nasty. And yet they ate...and ate...and ate...As a matter of fact, at one point each of the guy's mistakenly put pasta sauce rather than salsa on their tacos...and yet they ate...And when Arnel finally conceded the contest, just to make it official I suppose, they both went up and got pizza and ice cream.
Don't know if it needs saying or not, but neither Arnel nor Scott were looking too good when we left the restaurant.
Oh, and here is a fun addendum. Tomorrow night is the kick-off barbecue for the 2006-2007 year! Hope they don't decide on a rematch with hot dogs!
Sunday, June 04, 2006
My hubby was so sweet today. I've had an earache for about a week-and-a-half. I think it is secondary to allergies. I am not one who likes to take medicine but I've been taking one thing after another, especially the last few days as it is just getting worse. Today I'd finally had enough and decided to stay home and rest all day. Arnel took all the kids to church with him, including Lillian, and they had a youth group luncheon/fundraiser afterwards. (Missed Laura singing, though.) Then this afternoon Isaac had a baseball game that went right up until youth group time (it was Laura's first official time to attend!) and again, he took all the kids to both of those. I soooo wanted to scrap during that time I had the house to myself but I guess I really did need the rest as I mainly laid around and slept off and on. And hopefully it was effective because tonight for the first time in some time I feel a little better instead of worse.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
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