Nonsensical Ramblings of Mark

My oldest son blew me away last night with his Bible knowledge. Well, actually, he has done it a couple of times already. There was one conversation at the dinner table where he said he liked Abel better than Cain because Abel was a shepherd. I could have sworn that Cain was the shepherd, but he insisted. So, out came the Bible and we looked it up. Sure enough - Abel was the shepherd and Cain was the farmer. Good job, Son. Last night when we were just about to wrap up bath time he asked me what the name Jacob meant. I knew what it meant but wanted him to tell me and he did. He said it meant "tricky" which is a good 1st grade translation of "he deceives" or, more specifically, "he grasps the heal". So I then asked him the stumper question (or so I thought) of what his name was changed to. Well, he got that one right too: Israel. We then talked about what Israel meant (struggles or wrestles with God) and how Jacob got the name. We also talked about who Jacob...

I was ordering some books online for the youngest boy last night and recalled the book "Goodnight Moon" that I, unlike any other "children's" book, thoroughly enjoy. The last couple of pages where the bunny is says goodnight to "nobody" and finally goodnight to "noises everywhere" strikes chords in me that I cannot explain. The quiet old lady whispering "hush" captures my imagination as well. To see the juxtaposition of the two minds and how they react to the upcoming sleep is truly amazing. What a great book. I was reading in Acts chapter 13 last night and came across verse 41 which is actually Paul quoting Habakkuk 1:5: "'Look, you scoffers, wonder and perish, for I am going to do something in your days that you would never believe, even if someone told you.'" This is in obvious reference to the Gospel and the absolute marvel it is that God would be enfleshed (as it were) and shed blood to pay the price that was ...

From the "Yeah-I-Get-That" department: We were leaving the pizza shop last Friday night with the dinner we were going to share with my parents when the youngest decided to shout "Woof! Woof! Woof!" at the top of his lungs. I decided to just let it go for some reason until I noticed more than one person staring from their cars at him in utter disbelief and, I'm sure from the shock, laughing. It was at that point that I told him that was about enough of the shenanigans. Holy cow. I spelled shenanigans right. Powered by ScribeFire .

The cynic in me is not enamored with financial giving as a spiritual discipline. There has been a lot of talk lately within our church concerning this topic as we are looking to add on to the existing structure our church meets in and we need a lot of money to do it. It is funny because the same hymns/special music that are sung after a sermon on, for example, combating selfishness or lust seem to ring truer to me than those same hymns sung after a plea to be "rich toward God" financially. In my flesh I seem to equate those songs with a less-than-subtle attempt at manipulating me out of money that could go to other purposes - most of which have to do with me and my lifestyle. God will have nothing in my life that robs Him of worship and that includes my money. Again, I don't see why this is so hard for me to equate the eradication of lust as somewhat more of a priority than sacrificially giving money towards a project or a cause that will help build the kingdom. Why do I ...

I am amazed at the power of the human mind. There have been so many times that I have given up in frustration over trying to work something out. After sleeping on it and going at it the next day I seem to have no problem completing the task or seeing the error. Back from my run this morning (the first one in a while) I had a couple of ideas (one work-related and one ministry-related) that I think may merit something of value. I am working on getting the work one implemented now and doing some tire-kicking on the ministry one. All that to say that I am not sure where those ideas, or any ideas for that matter, come from. Why do they pop into my head when they do and what does the timing of their manifestation mean (if anything)? What is the genesis of the next idea I have and what processes are in place and running now so that it germinates into my consciousness? And who has known the mind of God? Who has become His counselor? Powered by ScribeFire .

I am wired to work. I would like to have known this (in my heart) in my growing up years rather than internalizing it now, but I guess late is better than never. Before going to work today I emptied the garbage and put some mole poison down in the front yard. Yesterday I was, once again, the storyteller for the High Point children's church program at North, I mowed the lawn picking up the leaves in the process, we cleaned out the bonus area of our basement and the oldest and I started a pretty good layout with the Thomas the Tank Engine track. I also had the chance to help the oldest with his math and reading homework. On Saturday I spent close to five hours cutting up the rest of the wood at the in-laws house after spending the morning with the boys and their friends. All of this is written not to pat myself on the back as to how busy I was, but to illustrate that more and more and by His grace I am beginning to realize that working satisfies me. That is no great mystery to Bible ...

Upgrading an installation of the Ubuntu Linux OS while Tourniquet is blessing my brain through my iPod is perhaps a glimpse into what life can be, but often is not. Well, I decided to take the plunge, download the .iso and upgrade from Ubuntu 7.04 to Ubuntu 7.10. There were only a few minor hiccups that had nothing to do with anyone but me: I almost blew away my Windows partition (yes, I still have one of those) which would have been a bit more than a minor inconvenience I had to restart the install because I forgot that the installation was going to do some mirror scanning for apt configuration and needed access to the world wide web. Of course that meant I had to set the proxy, but I failed to do that the first time through. Things look good for now. Samba is on there so the network connections to my lab PCs are all good. I would like to think that network printing is easier, but I will check that out. The iPod is much easier to connect to than it was with 7.04. I had high hopes ...