Nonsensical Ramblings of Mark

Some things I done did learned last weekend: The brake lights on our 2005 Toyota Siena have a double-filament bulb. This is important. The blinker bulbs are single-filament. This is more  important. Blinker bulbs go on the top and brake bulbs go on the bottom. When I ask either of my sons to press the brake pedal to test out the installation of the brake bulb they will invariably ask, "Can I press the gas pedal now?". If I answer "No" once I will have to repeat it the next time they come out as they will either have forgotten that they asked the question, forgotten the answer, assumed that I may have changed my mind, or want to annoy me. In an attempt to silence the Inquisition-esque inquiry about pressing the gas pedal I realized that I can adjust the mirrors on the van to test the installation of either bulb as long as I take the bulb housing out of the van and hang it at a precise angle. Taking the bulb receptacle out of the van and hanging it at the right angle ...

About a week ago my youngest son mentioned that he lost his MP3 player and he was more than a bit sad. I had just loaded it up with a bunch of music that I thought he would like (everything from Petra to Messiah Prophet) and I knew that he was listening to it often. On my way home from work one night I had prayed that we would find it and it took me about 15 seconds to find it when I got home. It was face down on the front lawn and subjected to a bunch of moisture that was the result of, literally, a record-breaking stretch of rain. Needless to say it was in bad shape. Well, my wife suggested that I put it in a bag of rice to draw out the moisture. Now there are some open holes in the Sansa that I did not cover before I put it in so I had to shake some rice out of the player before I re-inserted it with those holes jammed full of paper. It took about 5 days, but I tested it this morning and it works as well as it did before it spent two nights nights exposed to the elements in Dudley F...

For a while I thought it would be cool to have a theme song . Now, I am no musician so I would have to rip one off and enhance it (maybe that's not the right word) so that it could be played when I was on the move. Well, the time has come for me to unveil it and, all humility aside of course, I think I nailed it. I have always liked the opening guitar rift of Roam by the B52's  so I thought that would make a good start. I opened up the mp3 in Audacity and cut the guitar riff out and pasted it into another file, and pasted it again, and again...it goes on for about a minute. I don't want to blow anyone's mind by making it to go for too long. I personally find that it is at the perfect length of awesome. Now, to play it so others can hear it when I, er, roam the building at work was another challenge I had. My trusty Palm Tungsten E has a pretty decent external speaker so, along with the DioPlayer application , I can play my theme song at the perfect volume as my Palm is...

I feel the dust and gravel under my feet I suppose you're walkin' down golden streets Everybody always forgave you A child of mystery And I remember you were merciful to me Hey Gene... Give Jesus a kiss for us - Hey Gene, The Choir I have to admit that I am more grace-oriented than truth-oriented. When I feel the tension between grace and truth I almost always choose grace. Now this may make me easy to be around, but it does not illustrate the perfection of the balance that God displays in these two areas. In other words, I can get too focused on grace at the expense of the truth and do not lovingly confront people like I should. So I may be making too much of this, but I am of the opinion that there is rarely a more graceless time in the life of our country than there is during an election. It seems that the two dominant political parties are so bent on winning that they have to pretend that they are the sole guardians of absolute truth. They call each other out on what seem...

The family was getting ready for work/school this morning and I was singing a song about the Prophets from DVD 9 of the What's in the Bible Series (God Speaks). Hilarity ensued: Mark: "These are the Prophets; there aint none finer. They're in two sections called the Major and the Minor..." Drew [from upstairs bathroom]: "I want an energy dome for my birthday." Mark: "I cannot believe that just happened." Nan: [facepalm] Mark: "I literally think my job as a parent is complete." Yeah...it's never dull around my house.

Yes, for those of you that know me pretty well that title may seem a bit strange, but at Northridge Church I actually teach the Bible lesson at our kids' ministry known as High Point . The kids there are fantastic and it is great to work with a bunch of talented, committed people and tell the kids about the bad news of their sinfulness and the good news that God has made a way to have their sins forgiven through His Son, Jesus Christ. Well, during the large group time (when I teach) there are two people up on the stage - a Host and a Storyteller (teacher). The Host is the funny one and the Storyteller is the straight guy and the one that has to reign the Host in as the Host is usually missing something that the Bible is trying to teach or has some hair-brained idea that he is trying to launch. Well, the past couple of weeks has found me in the Host role and I have to say that it is great acting silly and letting whatever comes to my mind fly out of my mouth. OK, not whatever comes...

Go and tell the whole world it's all right It's all right Go and tell the whole world it's all right My God is sovereign and strong And His will is ours to live... - Falling on Everlasting , I Am Terrified Will not the judge of all the earth do right? Genesis 18:25 Those of you that have been monitoring my facebook status updates know that our oldest son had a stint in the hospital due to pneumonia and an appendectomy. He is recovering nicely and should be feeling like his old self and more up and around in a week or so. Of course, no gym for two weeks and no soccer for the next four (which kills soccer camp) but God has been way too good to us. Through it all this one thing remains: my Sovereign, strong, loving God. And that makes it all right. I will tell the whole world that, regardless of how this could have turned out, even if we were still in the hospital with post-operative complications, it's all right. I pray that I will never, ever doubt this because it...