Ansible-One

“All of us are happy — Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds on this day,” Waleed al-Bahadili said as he celebrated at the park. “The Americans harmed and insulted us too much.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090629/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq

I saw this quote today and kinda chuckled to myself as I read through the rest of the article. Iraqis feel that they have succeeded in a great victory over the evil Americans. How interesting. Last time I checked, their elected government was running the show while our soldiers fought and died for the freedom of the people there. By fighting in Iraq they fought for us too. Yet, the new schools, roads, industry, services, and everything else American tax dollars funded seem to be invisible to these people.

I know that isn’t true for everyone in the country. But this kind of comment makes me believe Iraqis feel they are entitled to everything they have been given. How many times in history has one nation attacked another, wiped out evil and restored personal liberties only to pack up and go? In its wake, it leaves behind a well equipped and trained army and a new civilian infrastructure so the populace can get a jump start on renewing their lives.

I cannot imagine a single red blooded American that would take any of our loss back at the expense of Iraq loosing its new freedom. Yet, Iraqis seem to be fueled by this entitlement drive. If the USAF leveled a rotting school house because it was used by Sadaam’s military as a base, why should we rebuild it with state-of-the-art…everything? Because America is different.

Americans take the ripping the world gives to us and keep going. We understand what freedom is and what it costs. We truly believe all nations and all peoples of Earth should have that freedom. At least, we use to believe that. Our nation, built upon Christian principles is slowly rotting away like the Iraqi school house. As Christ fades from the mind of the selfish and personal liberty is chipped away, the few that still believe are holding to their faith. But when we are leveled, will there be someone there to help us back up?

For the last couple years I have been lucky enough to join the youth at our church as they go on their mission trips during the summer.  This year I get to tag along again.  What is different this time is that my real purpose is to just be a driver.  Unfortunately there are no guys going but there are enough girls that the youth minister still wanted me there to drive and help with any chaperon type duties.

I offered that I bring my family along this time and they accepted.  This actually really helps for numbers.  We will have three adults able to drive and cover various duties as needed.  While my family is there, we will be doing separate activities from the rest of the group however.  This works well too.  Most of the activities at the camp are geared for high school ages and my sons is about a decade shy of being able to enjoy them.

So wifey and I are planning out various educational\homeschool things that we would want to hit while we are in Glorieta.  We are also planning on time that we can devote our full focus to God and the marvelous things he has done.  In addition to that we are planning meals, car activities for the kiddo, and a ton of other things.  Planning, planning, and more planning.

I know that we aren’t alone.  There are some that go bonkers about planning for trips.  Others don’t plan at all.  Life isn’t exactly a perfectly orchestrated adventure.  But when it comes to the Kingdom of Heaven, what’s the plan?  Thankfully God’s plan IS perfectly laid out for us.  Jesus teaches us how to love, and by loving God and each other we are fulfilling his command.  Everything else in this world flows around that.  So make plans, but realize that God’s plan is the one that always works.

Wednesday night Bible Study has been an awesome series diving into Daniel.  If you are interested in hearing it, the majority of the lessons are on www.fbcfb.org under Ministries\Audio.  I will try to add the more recent items over the next few days.

After seeing the bumper stickers yesterday, and hearing the message last night, I decided to skim through our TV channel line up to see just how bad things are.  My criteria was fairly strick.  If the show had cussing, suggestive content, violent content, or anything that I as a Christian father would consider detrimental, I would moved to the next channel.

I know this isn’t exactly scientific, but I skimmed through the channels hoping…for something.  On the TV, note that I disabled all of the spanish, government, local, and PTL channels.  So out of a possible 70 or so stations, the TV would hit maybe 45 or so.

Starting on 3, cussing.  4, fowl humor and cussing. 5, news, violent crime reports. 7, sitcom with suggestive content. 8, news, violence, 9, sitcom with with even more suggestive content.  It had been maybe 2 minutes and I had almost cleared the network TV stations.

By the time I got to cable, the content was even worse.  What am I suppose to do?  How can I combat this?  As an American the first thought is with my money.  I can show I don’t want it by not paying for it.  So I called the cable company on a mission to find out how much it would cost to drop cable TV and keep the internet.

The costs would increase!  Needless to say, we are keeping the setup we have, but we will be changing some things around the house.  Its kinda funny.  I told the sales rep that we were tired of the content that is being distributed.  That it is full of material I don’t want to see or let my family see.  That the only station that I was able to stop on last night was the Weather Channel.

His reponse was this.  “Well, I know what you mean.  But at least there are channels like Discovery and History that have good content.”

Really?!  I told him they couldn’t even stand up to the standard I was expecting.  Those channels are some of the worst.  They constantly bombard the watcher with material they state as fact like, the big bang started it all, or crime shows with bloodied bodies and violent reinactments.  They fail my test in a big way.

As high as my standards are, I know that God’s standards are higher and impossible for me to live up to.  But I try.  I try to do what He wants.

Thank you, Lord, for loving me and forgiving me even when I fail.

What a beautiful morning!  As I drove into work I watched the sun rise and the haze created a truly picturesque setting.  Traffic started build, ok no problem.  I exited and took the back way into work.

Right after I exited, I noticed a big white truck in front of me with a series of bumper stickers that all retorted some sarcastic or aggressive statement.  Then I noticed one on the bottom of the tail gate.  A bit more difficult to see, on purpose of course, this one was the most offensive of them all.  Using a curse word that is a favorite of many people I work with and commonly used on TV.

Well, it fit the profile of the truck.  Big white truck, insulting stickers on the back, it is Texas after all.  Our paths continued to parallel as I approached work.  At the next light I saw another sicker that prompted me to take the picture in the post.  It read, “Nerds for Jesus.”

Well, it could be anything, I know, but how does having 4 or 5 offensive messages posted on the back of your truck have anything to do with Jesus?  One of the greatest struggles Christians are dealing with today is hypocrisy in our ranks.

I searched out Nerds for Jesus on the net and found a small site.  They have the right idea.  Geeky people are Christians too.  Have a community, attract others, plant seeds, grow.  But the story of this truck gets worse.  As I pass the truck, I see the father inside tending to the child in a car seat in the back.  Now my heart sinks another notch.  All I can think now is the kid and how that duplicity will be built into how he is raised.

Maybe they should reread James chapter 3.  I reread the whole chapter, but these verses really stood out for me.

James ch 3:9-10 NIV
9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.

I censored the picture, but here it is anyway.  You get the idea.  If you really want the whole thing I will email it to you.

Can you see how this hurts Christians?
Will you see how it hurts God?
Make an effort to control your tongues!

Hi all, just a quick note.  Ansible-One has finished the majority of its new design work.  I picked out a new theme and updated some of the code to fix a couple bugs.  Some of the cool features from before are still here like the Cloud widget on the right.  It is now nicely integrated into the style.

So let me know what you think.  I will probably tweak the background a bit more but for the most part its done.  Woohoo!

Have you ever had the shock of emotion brought on by sadness and hope at the same time?

This happened to me yesterday.  A company outing ended with a “social” time afterwards.  I admit this was the first time I have ever been to a sports bar.  My colleagues loaded up on drinks as I headed for a table near the dart boards.  (For those of you wondering, no, I didn’t have anything to drink!).

We sat down and a couple of people played while we watched and talked.  Except for the noise and smell it was actually relaxing to get away from the office for a bit.  A friend was explaining how he had to find a way to burn off the afternoon since the family was heading to church and he didn’t want to get sucked into the melee.  Now, I don’t fault him at all for this attitude.  He is a good Christian man, faithful to God and his family.  His Wednesday night church experience however has very little to do with worship and study.  It’s more about, getting kids to places and not getting home very late.  Not a good combo when he has to be at work early the next day.

This is when despair decided to kick me in the head.  Ok, now this is going to sound like the beginning of a bad joke, but here it goes… a catholic, three Baptists, and an agnostic were talking in a bar.  As we were talking the agnostic asked about why Christians believe in what they do and what the differences are between us.  Granted this wasn’t exactly the typical situation for telling the experiences of belief…or was it.  The conversation soon veered away from faith, but why didn’t we stand up and answer his questions.  Why couldn’t we say, “Jesus died for our sins and yours so we can live with God in heaven forever.”  Were we afraid?  We are shocked?  My afternoon was filled with despair after this.  I felt like a failure.  We were taking one person’s absence from church lightly and the one there that needed to see and hear the most couldn’t have seen Jesus in us.

Later my despair changed to hope.  Even though I felt the exchange was a failure, a seed may still have been planted.  He saw us together and maybe he will continue to be curious.  With God’s strength, next time, we will be able to speak with authority about God’s plan for us.

Seems that society is picking up steam as it heads into the gutter.

Why!?  Why!?  Why!?

Why do we have be constantly bombarded by sinful trash.  My family is focused living Christian lives and we are doing our best to teach our son those values.  What scares me however, is how our culture has made it a point to ram sinfulness down our throats.

Wifey sent me a post on Yahoo of how a TV star’s wife is having a baby.  Ahh.  Buy wait, the star is a woman.  Sooo…ya.  Well, surprise, that is yet another program will not watch.  But what difference does it make.  When Christians teach that homosexuality is sinful, society then make Christians into the bad guys!  There are churches…many churches that are side stepping this issue now.  The are some that are basically looking away and contexting their way out of telling people they are doing something that God says is evil.

We are commanded to love.  But what do they think love is?

We should be praying for our children of our society.  So that they will have the eyes and ears see and hear the Truth and not be molded by the media and the sin that surrounds them.

A big theme through out the Bible is how man has a choice.  From the beginning God designed us with this innate gift.  Eve chose to eat the fruit.  Adam chose to follow her.  I chose my wife.  It was my choice to follow Christ.  In the same way, when I sin, it is my choice.

Some may see decisions as something much larger than whether to wear blue or black pants.   So what is a big decision?  Buying a car, a home, having children?  The decision to follow Jesus and God’s will is the single most important decision in everyone’s life.

The choice to follow Christ is what sets us apart.  God could have made us to blindly follow Him without a will of our own.  Imagine yourself receiving a reward.  Everyone in attendance is forced to tell you that you are wonderful.  Is that truly meaningful?  By making the choice to follow Christ and become a servant of God, it brings glory and praise to Him.  He wants us to choose.

Similar to Joshua’s challenge to the Israelites, we need to be challenged.  We need to make the choice to live for God.  I am challenging you today.  Do you live for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit or are you living for yourself?

Recently I taught the youth group at church since the director was unable to be there.  She gave me the material to look through for Sunday and I began to prepare for the class.

Needless to say, I was nervous.  I have taught little ones before, but had yet to teach the upper age groups.  Despite the number of reasons one might dream up for me teaching that day, it all really just comes down to me helping my sister by filling in.

The lesson was on The Shema.  Here is a very little bit of Jewish tradition and biblical history for you.  The Hebrews escaped from Egypt and then wondered in the wilderness for 40 years.  As the time approached for them to claim Canaan as God had promised, Moses needed to reiterate the law.  The book of Deuteronomy details these laws.

Shema in Hebrew is “hear” or “listen.”  Moses repeated addresses the people Shema Yisrael.  Hear O Isreal.  The Shema is the greatest commandment of these laws.  Jewish tradition will uses these verses as a pray in the mornings and at night.  As Christians, it’s a base line principal that we all should be living our lives by.

Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (NIV)
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

You should have heard something like this by now.  Golden rule, Greatest Commandment, etc.  We use them in songs and in prayer.  But how committed are we? That was the real point of the lesson.  The commitment.  God promised to give the land of Canaan to his children.  They were are verge of entering that land and taking all it had to offer for themselves.  All God asked them to do, all he asks us to do, is love.  Let’s read on for just a bit.

Deuteronomy 6:6-9 (NIV)
These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Moses plainly gives ways for the Israelites to be committed.  We do some of these things today.  Have you ever seen a T-Shirt or desk calendar with these words on it?  Of course.  One of the most important would be passing your commitment to your children.

Deuteronomy 6:10-12 (NIV)
When the LORD your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

Finally.  Moses gets to the point.  Here he reminds them that yes, God made a promise, and He is keeping it.  So also, we should never forget what He has done for us.  His Son, a sacrifice for our sins, because He loves us.  To sanctify our hearts so we can be with our creator forever.

I saw this praying mantis the other day.  I apologize for the cruddy picture my phone takes.  As we were walking back to the house after moving two loads of furniture, I paused for half a second and noticed this odd creature rocking slightly in the wind on the top of a car.  At first, I thought it was just a leaf, but once focused on the mystery I could see what it truly was.

After he was gently moved to the tree and shown to the family, we let him go on his way.  As people, we are not much unlike this little insect.  We too are God’s creation.  The mantis was purpose built as was man and both are capable of being harmful and helpful.

For the mantis, it will seek and destroy the pests in a garden.  However, it will also take out the beneficial members of its community for its own benefit.  Humans constantly do the same thing.  We can be helpful to one another, the community and the environment.  Yet, we are also willing to destroy these gifts with barely a second thought.

The next time you are walking through the yard and see a bit of God’s creation starring back at you, stop for a second and discover its beauty and detail.  And remember that it was made for a purpose, just like you.