There are actually two things happening this time of year that are both labeled as Christmas. One is a celebration of the coming of our Savior to begin his work of redemption; and that is meaningful to me. The other is an excuse to give a shot in the arm to the local economy as well as go further into debt; and I’m not overly fond of that ‘Christmas’.
As a Christian, how important are ‘right beliefs’? Does it really matter what I believe so long as Jesus is my savior and I live a good life?
The Sing Off is, I guess, a reality show similar to American Idol, but with one very dramatic difference. The judges are always positive and affirming, even while critiquing a performance; there is no drama or negativity at all. The contestants are all a cappella groups containing at least 5 members who, over the course of the 10 week competition have sung one or two songs a week of different genres with one or two groups eliminated each week.
But finally the final stretch came into sight followed soon by the finish line. I managed to cross in 1 hour 59 minutes and 35 seconds, a personal best by over 3 minutes for this course. I ended up finishing in 1847th place overall and 37th out of the 140 men in my division and that felt pretty good. And even better was that no one over 71 years old beat me this year.
As Thanksgiving rolls around again I find it appropriate to take the time to remember what I have to be thankful for. Included in this list is (are) …
Intellectual assent that God exists and that Jesus died for sins and was raised to life will not bring about my salvation; that is not faith. Faith includes earnestly seeking God and professing Jesus as Lord, both of which involve giving myself to him to do with as he desires. Faith takes me off the throne and puts God on it.
I am preparing to run a half marathon next weekend, my ninth in the past 4 years along with 2 full marathons. I guess that makes me somewhat of an expert on the topic so I though I would share some of my vast knowledge with those who might be looking to follow in my footsteps, becoming part of a growing movement of people of all ages, sizes and shapes who lace on a pair of shoes and stagger around a 13.1 or 26.2 mile course, just so they can eat a Cinnabon without feelings of guilt.
If you’re like me you probably have not given a whole lot of thought to this whole Occupy movement. I have known from the beginning of this movement that the 99% were protesting the 1%, the numbers referred to your economic standing, and that the movement was spreading across the country and the world. But exactly what they were trying to accomplish somehow escaped my cursory review of the news surrounding them.
Some of our Presidents I have liked and thought they did a reasonable job (meaning I agreed with their positions). And others were considerably less desirable in my mind. I am really glad I live in a country where we have some choice in who fills the leadership positions at the federal, state and local level.
This was the year we finally decided to put up a shed big enough to hold all of the garden and lawn tools needed to care for half an acre as well as store the lawn furniture during the winter. We had been making do with a couple of little sheds and leaving the furniture out all year, where it aged quickly. After looking at sheds for a while we decided, with his construction background, to build one from scratch instead, one that ended up being larger and nicer than initially planned.