…what counts is a new creation…

One of my favorite bloggers, Liz Strauss is having a special even today in honor of her blog’s birthday. Normally on Tuesday’s she has something called Open Comment Night.

But today she’s opened it up for a whole day long extended play event. Stop over and check it out and have some cake while you’re there!

Liz Strauss over at Successful-Blog is having a blog birthday tomorrow. In light of that she is having a little contest where entrants must describe her blog in 25 words or less.

Since I’ve started hanging out at the Open Comment Night that Liz hosts every Tuesday night I’ve gotten to know her and have come to consider her a friend. I nearly had the opportunity to meet her when my work sent me to her home town of Chicago, but an unfortunate change of flights by my company got in the way.

Liz is a passionate advocate for Net Neutrality and her Net Neutrality pages (page1 and page 2) are an invaluable resource where anyone can learn more about the controversy.

The Tuesday night Open Comment Nights are often a highlight of my week. There bloggers from all around the world hang out for a while, bounce ideas around, build friendships, and sometimes even get a little silly. The only real rule that Liz strictly enforces is that everyone must be nice.

Liz is a master at building community. We could all learn a thing or two from her example (especially us church folks!)

So without further ado, here is my entry for the contest:

Successful-Blog is a fun community where you can rub elbows and learn from successful business professionals, writers, bloggers, and even a code writing donkey.

You’ll have to check out Open Comment Night yourself some Tuesday to find out about the code writing donkey!

Happy Birthday Successful-Blog! May you have many more Successful-Years!

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS Feed.

Update: I changed the code per Scott’s suggestion in the comments below. Now the search box actually works. Oops!

Hey guys! I’ve added a new little feature to CREEations that I thought might be helpful for some folks.

Over in the right side bar is a little search box where you can search eBible.com to see what the Bible has to say about stuff without having to go off to some other site. And it’s a good double check for me!

Here’s what it looks like.

Enter a verse or keywords
(John 3:16, love, living water)

Enjoy!

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS Feed.

Here in Savannah we are entering that absolutely wonderful time of the year when we can turn of the air conditioning and open the windows. Knowing that weather like this will get here eventually is what makes those six months in the blast furnace that they call “summer” down here bearable.

Of course having the windows open is leading to some interesting challenges. For starters some mornings I find it is a bit harder on my allergies, Savannah being the Allergy Capital of the Southeast and all. But hey, better living through chemistry, eh? I just keep taking my little allergy pill every morning and let it ride.

These days Fat Boy and Low Rider get an added dimension to their kitty TV. They can actually smell what they see through the windows. Since the boys are indoor cats, our resident cat whisperer, Gorgeous says this is added enrichment. And I can’t see how she’s wrong. Because sometimes it drives them absolutely bug-nuts. One or the other of them will start tearing from window to window, obviously frustrated because they can’t get at whatever is out there.

And then when we look it is usually just some birds at the feeder, or our neighborhood rabbit that comes in to eat whatever plants have sprouted from the uneaten bird seed under the feeder. Occasionally it is some other cat that isn’t sequestered like our boys are.

And then, every once in a while they go absolutely buggy because of a raccoon in the back yard. It is usually after dark since raccoons are nocturnal animals. And that makes them hard for us humans to see for sure. But we’ve caught enough glimpses that we’ve figured it out.

I’m thinking that the raccoons must be having a good year and the population is up somewhat. We’ve never had any in our yard before. I mean we live in a subdivision. It’s not like we are out in the country somewhere with lots of land around. And it seems there are more of them dead along the side of the road than in years past. There’s even a piece of road I travel every day that I’ve started to call Raccoon Alley because it isn’t unusual to see 6 or more carcases in a 2 mile stretch.

We think it is our backyard raccoon that caused another problem for us. The boys are still banished every evening because Low Rider refuses to let us sleep much past 3 or 4 AM on any given morning if he’s got roam of the house. We’d been closing them in Gorgeous’ office each night. Then this week she found about a 3 inch hole in the corner of the screen in her office window.

Now the way our house is built, we have big windows. Most of them go down to only about a foot off the ground level. They let in lots of light during the day and are at the perfect height for the boys to look out.

But apparently they are the perfect height for a raccoon to try to get in too. We know it wasn’t the boys because neither of them have their front claws so they couldn’t have gotten the tear started.

So, as a result of the attempted raccoon incursion we have moved the boy’s room of banishment from Gorgeous’ office to my study, litter pan and all. It’s on the front of the house, not the back so we figure that maybe the raccoon will be less likely to hassle them here. And Low Rider was kind enough to remind me the litter pan is in here as I’m typing this. Whew! Stinky!

But the whole thing begs a question. How do you keep a raccoon from tearing through the screen to get at your cats? And why would the raccoon want in at the cats anyway?

So now I have yet another minor home improvement project waiting for me. (And if you’ve read my post on Stupid Questions you’ll know that HIP’s are really not my thing.) And I’ll have to get on it soon because the hole may not be big enough for a raccoon to get in, but I bet Low Rider could wiggle through if he decided to. (No way Fat Boy could make it!)

Oh, and if you were looking for some deep spiritual insight from all of this, I’m sorry to disappoint. I just figured we could stand for a bit of a breather from all the heavy “what is truth?” talk.

Enjoy!

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS Feed.

The recent discussions with Marcus highlight an interesting challenge for Christians. How do we discuss the things Jesus said about truth when talking to folks who have a fundamentally different understanding of what truth is?

Folks like Markus don’t believe that there is such a thing as absolute truth and even if there was, there is really no way we could ever know it anyway. Because Christians belong to another school of thought that says that truth is absolute, fixed and can be known, we can come off appearing intolerant, judgmental, and even bigoted.

Now some of those labels have definitely been earned by some folks on our side of the discussion. But the question remains how do we have meaningful discussions when we don’t even agree on the terms we are discussing?

Many folks seem to think that this shift by many away from the idea of absolute truth is something new because it is part of postmodern philosophy. But differing understandings of truth have been around at least since Jesus’ day.

There is an interesting exchange recorded in the Bible between Pilate and Jesus during his trial. Take a look.

Pilate said, “So you are a king?”

Jesus responded, “You say I am a king. Actually, I was born and came into the world to testify to the truth. All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true.”

“What is truth?” Pilate asked. Then he went out again to the people and told them, “He is not guilty of any crime.

Pilate asks Jesus what truth is. But it doesn’t appear to be a sincere question. He certainly doesn’t put any effort into getting it answered. It is almost dismissive, like Pilate is saying, “Look, Bub. All this blah, blah, blah you keep spouting about truth is a waste of time. We all know truth not something fixed that we can actually know. Besides truth isn’t important here anyway.”

Jesus took a different view of truth. In the four gospel accounts, Jesus is recorded saying the word “truth” over 100 times. Most often he says it in the phrase, “I tell you the truth” when he prefaced some particularly important point, for example when he says, “I tell you the truth, anyone who believes has eternal life.”

Jesus also said, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

To him the subject of truth was fundamentally important to those who would follow after him. He said that not only was truth knowable, but when we found it, truth would be the very source of freedom for us.

And here’s the kicker. Jesus said that truth wasn’t some abstract set of thoughts or ideas that we had to hunt for and try to assemble. He rocks our understanding of the whole concept of truth by claiming that he himself is that truth. Jesus said of himself, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

Philosophers go around hunting for truth as though it is a collection of ideas, when in actuality the thing they are looking for is a person. Is it any wonder so many miss it?

When you read through the gospel accounts with an understanding that when Jesus speaks of the truth he is really speaking of himself, statements like the one he made to Pilate above take on a whole different level of meaning.

And that also may explain why folks like Marcus may be offended when we quote scriptures such as the one I mentioned in The Source of Wisdom, which says, “Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools.”

From the perspective that truth is relative and unknowable, than any statement that claims to state truth in absolute terms must be offensive.

But that still doesn’t answer the question of how to have a meaningful dialogue with someone whose understanding of truth is fundamentally different from our own. Is it even possible?

It doesn’t appear Jesus made too much headway with Pilate. Should we even try?

Or should we simply state the truth, allow others to take it or leave it, and move on?

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS Feed.

Update: Marcus has posted a very well thought and reasoned response over at his place, titled simply Truth, that deserves your attention. Head on over. Check it out. Maybe even drop him a comment giving your two cents.

Note: This post came out of a comment thread from the other day. Marcus took issue with what I had to say about the Source of Wisdom. Marcus has been a regular commenter here at CREEations and really challenges me to refine and better understand my own views. Yesterday he brought up some good points and, since my reply started to get rather long winded I decided to bring it out in a whole post. (I hope that’s OK, Marcus.)

Marcus,

If I sound pissed, I again apologize. It is definitely not the case, and I know it does nothing to detract from the stereotype of the “angry Christian”. I have a tendency to express my opinions strongly and can come across as angry when it is just the New York in me and the strength of my convictions coming out. My wife will attest that this phenomenon is much more pronounced in person! (”Its not so much what you say, Chris. It’s the tone.”) Really I’m not angry. I’m working on that. Sorry if I come across that way.

And I certainly agree as you mentioned that the followers of various religions all believe they have found the truth. And I really do respect differing beliefs, even though I disagree with them. It is one thing for various individuals or groups to believe they have found the truth. But there is no way we can stand on the outside, look at these different beliefs and say, “They are all true.”

Jesus, Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster, Lao Tzu, Muhammad, Joseph Smith, and L. Ron Hubbard (to name only a few) all said different things from each other that they each claimed to be true and have adherents that also claim that what they said is true. They each have given vastly different “instructions” on what it takes to have a fulfilled life and to be prepared for the afterlife.

But, Marcus, you and I appear to have a fundamentally different understanding of what truth is. Either that or maybe we place an entirely different value on truth.

I look at a diverse declaration of truth like that and say, “Because they make differing claims, they can’t all be right. Let me do my best to find the one who actually has the truth.” For me, my path to religion was a rocky search for truth. I wanted to know God no matter how much it challenged my understanding. And I looked at a lot of options before I landed on Jesus.

I’m not sure whether you are coming from a place where you see that they could all be right or if you are trying to say that it doesn’t matter what folks believe, because if it works for them it must be true.

When you boil it down to their essence, most all belief systems out there at their core are some flavor of “do the best you can (or follow this code) and hope it works out OK in the end.”

Then there’s Jesus. What he said was radically different in part because he said there is no way your best can possibly be good enough. He said that the standard for pleasing God is simple: absolute perfection. In order to please God we have to be just as perfect as God himself. Because there is no way any of us could possibly measure up to that perfect standard we are all doomed.

But, just as in any great epic story, after he hits us hard with the idea that it is impossible for us to ever measure up, Jesus says there is another way.

And this is where it gets really nutty because Jesus says some totally outrageous stuff. Basically he says that we’re in luck because it just so happens that he himself is God incarnate and if we follow him we’ll be OK because his God perfection can substitute for our impossibly flawed imperfection.

I mean, Marcus, here’s a guy that looks just like you and me (only more Jewish) who flat out says that he is God and we should follow him. It is totally preposterous, goofy, insane, and not much different than the leaders of most cults. Downright evil, really.

Unless it is true.

So after years of dismissing Jesus’ claims (mostly because people I knew who were Christians were so messed up and treated me poorly) and looking at many other options, I eventually decided to take a closer look at him. The evidence I found was really surprising.

Jesus validated his claims by performing a variety of different miracles including changing the nature of matter (turning water into wine), controlling the weather (calming a storm at sea), healing people of numerous infirmities and even raising people from the dead.

Impressive for sure, but the written record of miracles performed two thousand years ago by some guy was not enough for me.

But then, after he says all those crazy things about being God, he dies in a way that is pretty much beyond his control and that is accurately predicted in Bible passages from the Old Testament hundreds of years before. Interesting. But maybe it was luck? Perhaps. But looking at his life I found there are several things about him that were accurately predicted which he could not possibly have controlled, even things like where and when he was born, who his parents were, and the circumstances of his birth.

That’s even more impressive, but it’s still not enough for me.

Then Jesus takes the whole “I’m God” thing to a whole other level by refusing to stay dead after he is horribly executed. Even his enemies acknowledged that he was no longer dead in their bumbling attempts to cover it up. If he really was still dead, all they had to do was produce his body and the whole thing ends right there.

But he wasn’t dead any more. Hundreds of folks saw him alive after thousands saw him executed. It was no clever parlor trick or deception on the part of his followers. He really was alive.

This one fact of history is what sets Jesus completely apart from all the others. There is no cult leader yet who has raised himself back to life after he’s died.

I used to think that, well his followers made the whole thing up and then wrote about it a hundred years or more later and put down the stories in such a way as to make it seem true. The trouble is that modern archeology has put some of the New Testament writings to within 30 years of Jesus’ death. That means there were still people alive at the time who lived through the events and would have refuted them if they were not true.

Then there’s the lives of his followers. Would they have all gone to gruesome deaths, almost to a man, and hold to something if they knew it not to be true? I mean we are talking about horrific things like crucifixion (even upside down), beheading, being boiled or burned alive - no “humane” lethal injections for that group. No way they’d all face that horrible an end for something they knew not to be true.

Anyway I bring all this up, simply to point out why Jesus’ claims are different than the claims of others, before and after him. I don’t expect to convince you that Jesus is right. I just felt I should explain where I am coming from and why I believe his outrageous claims about himself.

But that brings up another interesting question. Should a person share with someone else information that he understands will vastly improve that other persons life, even if it conflicts with what the other person is currently believing?

Let’s say I see that you have some problem. It doesn’t matter what that problem is, a cocaine addiction, you eat too much and are obese, you spend money like a drunken sailor and are drowning in debt, or maybe you just drive without a seatbelt and are at a higher risk for getting smeared on the highway. It doesn’t matter.

If I see that there is a simple solution to your problem (and yes even something as overpowering as addiction has a simple solution. Abstinence may not be easy, but it is simple.) am I a better friend if I point out the problem you are having and offer up a solution? Or am I a better friend if I just let you wallow in your issue and eventually cause serious harm to your own life?

I would say the better friend is the one who speaks up and offers to help his fellow man.

Now that offer of help may be rejected outright. And it might even make the fellow angry. “How dare you say that I have an addiction! I can quit any time I want.”

But the rejection of that help doesn’t make the helper any less caring. And it certainly doesn’t make him hurtful or judgmental of his friend heading for trouble.

That’s the same way followers of Jesus perceive the issue of truth. Only it is even more urgent than a life and death issue. We are talking not only about a better life here (along the lines of a life free from addiction) but we are talking about the hereafter, which goes on for all of eternity. And forever is a long time. Too long to be wrong.

So when I get a little passionate about sharing what I understand to be true, Marcus, please understand how urgent I see the issue to be. As a former military guy I understand the importance of life and death issues. Eternity is the one issue that make life and death stuff look like choosing what clothes to wear to a party by comparison. Compared to forever, to me, life and death is small potatoes.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS Feed.

Do you ever wonder why the world is such a mess?

There is a reason for it.

Do you ever scratch your head at some of the inane things that are often said by highly educated folks in places like New York or Las Angeles? Or how is it that so many folks living on either coast so completely don’t understand the vast majority of the rest of our country living in the “fly over” states?

How is it that so many of the folks who head up so many of our educational, cultural, governmental, and corporate entities seem able to come up with such bizarre stuff? And then, if someone might happen to disagree, either look at them as though they are ignorant children or portray them as nasty folks for daring to dissent with what everyone knows to be true?

Did you know there is a reason that so many people think followers of Jesus are a bit loopy. (I mean besides the fact that so many of us have turned Christianity into nothing more than a list of do’s and don’ts and rail on anyone who isn’t keeping our list. That’s a topic for a rant of its own.)

Paul talks about this very topic in the Bible. It is a long passage. But take a moment and read the whole thing.

But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who push the truth away from themselves. For the truth about God is known to them instinctively. God has put this knowledge in their hearts. From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God.Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. The result was that their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they became utter fools instead. And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people, or birds and animals and snakes.

So God let them go ahead and do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. Instead of believing what they knew was the truth about God, they deliberately chose to believe lies. So they worshiped the things God made but not the Creator himself, who is to be praised forever.

The truth is that in spite of how poorly many of us Christians represent the person of Jesus, in the end folks won’t be able to use that as an excuse. The reality of God’s existence is evident in the world around us. People who insist on having “proof” that God exists before they will acknowledge him only need to open their eyes and look around.

Of course when you’re looking for an excuse, any excuse will do. For someone who doesn’t want to believe it doesn’t matter what “reason” for not believing they fix on. One excuse works just as well as another.

But after reading that bit from the Bible, is it any wonder that so many different religions have sprung up here in the last two thousand years? We humans have been hard wired with the desire to worship something, anything, even if it is ourselves. When folks reject God it is not uncommon for them to eventually begin to make up their own ideas of what God is like.

Many of the newer religious sects claim for their authority the fact that their founder was visited by an angel who delivered to them a divine message. Yet Paul has strong words about that too.

Let God’s curse fall on anyone, including myself, who preaches any other message than the one we told you about. Even if an angel comes from heaven and preaches any other message, let him be forever cursed.

You may think that the idea of someone bowing down in worship to a statue of a bird or a snake is silly, something that never happens anymore. Fair enough. Yet, if you think about it, how many folks do you suppose place inordinately high value on the world around us? There are definitely some who place a higher value on earth, and the other living things on it than they do on other people. They focus their energies on protecting these things at the expense of people’s welfare in the interest of caring for “Mother Earth.”

Some really do choose to worship the environment. How else do you explain inane statements like cigarette smoking is a significant contributer to greenhouse gases? I mean I’m no fan of smoking, but that is just silly. It seems to be a statement from someone who is claiming to be wise but has become an utter fool instead.

When we choose to reject God and instead focus on disproportionally emphasizing the things that God made, God in his mercy lets us go off in that direction. He could by rights strike us dead when we reject him, I suppose. But instead he chooses to continue to give us opportunities to change our mind and follow him.

The Bible says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding.”

James even lets us know how we can get more wisdom if we find we are lacking it.

If you need wisdom–if you want to know what God wants you to do–ask him, and he will gladly tell you. He will not resent your asking.

Rejecting God is a very dangerous business. We may believe we are doing the smart thing by doing so. But the irony is, the smarter we feel we are getting, the dumber the things we do and say as we get further from the wisdom of God.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS Feed.

There is a very disturbing, yet very accurate piece in the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page this morning about Port Security. The article is titled On the Waterfront — Still after the 1950’s Marlon Brando movie which tells a story about corrupt union activity on the docks.

Now I am on and off various terminals here in the Southeast every day as I have been for over 10 years. My maritime related background goes back nearly 20 years. And the WSJ has hit a nerve. Go ahead and read the article if you want a better understanding of one of the biggest reasons our ports security is still so very lax.

It has been common knowledge that there are some very unsavory folks with felonious records filling out the Longshoremen ranks. Don’t get me wrong, there are a great many Longshore union members who are hard working, above board, contentious, ethical patriots. (Yes some of them actually do work hard.)

Over the years I’ve heard tons of stories about stabbings, shootings perpetrated by the labor force both on the docks and out in town. The most memorable was the story about the longshoremen who supposedly carried a duffel bag on the job that he wouldn’t let anyone look in. Finally it turned out that he’d been carrying around his ex-wife’s head in the bag for days. Don’t know if it was true or not, but at least that story ended with the guy getting escorted off the port by the police. And I could see it happening.

Some operations I’ve seen were notorious for their pilferage, which is a fancy word for stealing. Usually is it is rationalized with the phrase, “Well, everyone is doing it.” No everyone isn’t.

And it is not unusual for a regular worker to disappear for several months, or maybe a few years while he takes a break at the county or state facilities because of drugs, or an assault, or robbery, or shooting (whatever) only to be right back on the docks when he’s served his time.

Now some will argue that a man shouldn’t be double punished by losing his livelihood just because he made a mistake. I am not unsympathetic to their point. However when it comes to security, past behavior is a pretty strong indicator of future risk. And I’m not so sure the WSJ gets the risk exactly right. I don’t think that even a felonious Longshoreman would knowingly agree to turn a blind eye to a cargo of plutonium. However I could see one taking a cash payment to “not ask any questions” about the particular cargo being smuggled in and do it unknowingly as a result.

The WSJ article points to a huge problem with the security of our ports: the power of the unions. The unions are actively lobbying against common sense security measures because they know it would create problems for large portions of their membership keeping their jobs. These felonious members pay their union dues compliantly and therefore their union bosses lobby hard and effectively to protect their jobs.

It is unconscionable that, more than 5 years after 9-11 we still do not have a national transit worker ID card. The government truly has no idea who is really working at our ports. For all we know, someone on the terrorist watch list may be at one of our ports today. And the only reason we don’t have an ID card system in place is because the unions don’t want the government doing background checks on their membership and bringing to light how large a percentage of their membership, the people actually present in the daily handling of our nation’s cargo, are actually convicted felons.

Instead we have a bizarre system where every individual terminal is responsible for creating their own security system. Some terminals have decent security. But more often it is a joke with the protection of our country being assigned to a $7 an hour “security guard” who often times is either too old, or too obese to actually offer any protection more strenuous than writing a name on a list of paper.

As a result of the current non-system, those of us who routinely go to multiple terminals (and I can think of 11 different terminals off the top of my head on the Savannah River alone) are forced to carry a stack of different ID cards for each of the different terminals. And the problem is even worse for the truck drivers who haul the containers around the country. For them, it’s like shuffling through a deck of cards in their truck to find the right ID each time they pull a container up to a different terminal.

Meanwhile the politicians keep passing bills with fancy sounding names to pacify the uninformed public into believing that port security is actually being improved. It sounds like they are actually doing something to help keep our nation safe. But really they are trying to convince us that naked emperor is really wearing beautiful clothes while they handicap the very folks they are bringing into the Department of Homeland Security to protect us by caving to the pressure of the unions.

Unfortunately, absent of any political leadership with the fortitude to stand up to the unions on this issue, it is going to take a 9-11 level event at our ports to shake our government into any action to seriously protect our ports.

And when the big one finally happens they will respond in their typical close-the-barn-door-behind-the-horse fashion by shutting down all port activity for days while they scramble to figure out what to do. If you think there was a recession and it was hard on our economy after 9-11 when passenger airline traffic was halted for a few days I have something to tell you.

You ain’t seen nothing yet.

Update: Michelle Malkin also notes the problem of Felons in Our Ports and how the problem is damaging to Homeland Security.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS Feed.

Gorgeous got home the other day and found the air conditioner had quit. Not a good thing to happen down here in Georgia. Fortunately for us the nights are starting to get a little cooler.

The other good thing is that we called our home warranty folks to arrange for a technician to come out to look at our A/C. No problem, they said, and arranged to have a technician head over to take a look see the next day some time.

We had a house guest who fortunately was a good sport about the whole thing. So we just opened the windows, got some fans working and made the best of it.

But then when I got up the next morning I realized the problem might be a little bigger than just a faulty a/c unit.

I got up at my customarily early hour, shuffled out to the kitchen, clicked on the light over the microwave (no bright lights first thing in the morning for me) and got started on my morning coffee making ritual. When I turned the coffee pot on I immediately noticed a couple things.

First the nice, not so bright light over the stove dimmed down to about half as bright. And I heard the box fan we had going in our bedroom stop. I poked my head back in the bedroom and saw that our alarm clock was also off.

Back in the kitchen I turned the pot off again. The light went back to normal and I heard the fan again. Yep. The alarm clock was back on, blinking 12:00.

Hmmm…. Ver-r-r-y Inteh-rehs-tink.

I decided maybe I better not make any coffee if the process was going to stress out the rest of the house like that.

Our house guest had also had to get up early to catch an early flight back home. Fortunately her alarm clock was battery operated and went off in good order. She had a fun time getting ready until we worked out that every time we turned on a light somewhere in the house it seemed to make the lights in the guest bathroom dim a little more. When we turned them back off, the brightened a touch.

Nothing like getting ready for the dawn patrol in a disco bathroom!

I decided a call to the power company was in order.

After a frustrating couple of runs through the voice recognizing automated menu (technically our power wasn’t “out”. It just wasn’t all on.) I was put through to an incredibly helpful and nice lady who took down all my weird symptoms and assured me they’d send someone out right away.

And she wasn’t kidding.

Right about 30 minutes later a Georgia Power truck drove up. Actually the side of the truck still said Savannah Electric, but they were just bought out this summer. The repair man did his electrical voodoo and said, “Yep. You’ve got a problem.”

Fortunately for us the problem was on his side of the meter.

Unfortunately he didn’t have the equipment needed to fix the problem. He said another truck was heading our way and they would take care of it.

A couple hours later another, bigger truck pulled up towing a trailer with an excavator on it. I had visions of them digging up our entire lawn. But the guys told me they could probably get to the problem with shovels.

Sure enough they got our power fully restored. Total time from first dialing the phone to the power company: less than 4 hours.

When they were finished, the guys explained to me that sometimes other utility companies accidentally nick the main power line going into a house when they are burying their cabling. The damage causes the power line to fail slowly over time. It is not unusual to have a problem like ours rear its head years after the damage was originally done.

I’ve had some time to think about our little power struggle this week with all my time in the car (I think it can find Jacksonville without me at this point).

Our struggle this week is a strong analogy of the struggle that followers of Jesus face every day. Jesus himself promised that we’d be plugged into the power of God in one of his last recorded statements.

But when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will receive power and will tell people about me everywhere–in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

All in all the New Testament contains well over 100 references to power. Most of them are talking about the power of God or of Jesus himself. But there are several that speak of the power of Jesus’ followers. For example check out these passages:

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. *

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. *

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. *

Yet somehow most of us believers operate as though we are only partially connected to our power source.

Sometimes things are like the air conditioning unit and simply just don’t work in our lives. Maybe we have some addiction or bad habit that we want to be free of, but can’t seem to shake no matter how hard we try. Maybe we are drawn to alcohol, smoke too much, have angry outbursts, eat way more than we should, spend time looking at pornography, whatever. Because we’re only partially connected to our source of power, we aren’t getting enough juice to overcome the bad thing which has control over us even though maybe we desperately want to.

Or maybe we seem to be tapped into our power source, but like turning on the coffee pot, we get unexpected results because we are not fully connected. Maybe we are very successful at work, but somehow our home relationships self destruct at the same time and we end up divorced. Maybe we pray though a big decision, feel we hear from God, step out and then, Kaplewie! Things blow up in our face. Not the result we expected.

Was God trying to trick us into making a mistake? Or is it more likely that somehow we were not fully connected to our power source?

Perhaps the reason so many see Christianity to be irrelevant to our society today is that we are so weakly connected to our power source that we don’t seem to be any different than anyone else. The only difference in many of our lives from those who don’t believe is that we get up early on Sunday morning while everyone else sleeps in. That’s not a great a selling point! Why would anyone want to follow Jesus if that is the only difference?

We were meant for more. More power. And more results.

Let me close out today with words that Paul wrote to one of the New Testament churches

I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS Feed.

Attention: This post gets a little gross. Read further at your own risk.

You have been warned.

I discovered at least one thing I want yesterday. And it is a very petty, purely self serving sort of thing.

But I really do want it.

I want to have a decent looking lawn. Well, more to the point, I want to be able to afford to pay someone else to maintain a decent looking lawn.

I’ve written about my disdain for yard work in general several times before, so it’s no secret. But just in case you might need a “Chris Cree hates yard work” primer check out these posts: Start with Yard Work to see an example of why I don’t like it in the first place. Then move on to Resident Evil and The Lesson of the Dog Poop to read about some hazards of working in my yard. Of course there are some times when it is useful to have a yard to mow as you can see in A Fool and His Anger.

Yesterday was another one of those “hazards of yard” work days.

The first thing I had against me is that I really don’t like going to the doctor. It makes sense, really.

I’ve run out of my allergy meds. And it has been over a year since I’ve been to my doctor because, fortunately, I haven’t been sick in a while. At least not sick enough to go see the doc. But they have a policy that they will only write out so many refills before they insist that you come into their office for a visit. Now I’m not apposed to going to the doc. I just don’t like to go in unless I’m sick. I don’t want to hear the “You’re in pretty good shape but you really should eat a little less and exercise more” speech. I know I should. I don’t want to pay for an office visit to hear it again.

The unfortunate result of my doctor visit hang up is that my sinuses are producing vast quantities of yuckiness. (Please remember I warned you this was going to get gross.)

It was tempting to let the yard go a bit longer. My neighbors have sure seen worse. However we’ve got some company inbound today and it is my job to make sure the outside of our place is presentable.

So, as is my custom, I waited until it got to about 88 degrees before I went out to cut the grass yesterday, just to make sure it was as unpleasant an experience as possible. I still haven’t figured out how I manage to do that almost every time. Or why.

Gorgeous had the presence of mind to head for the mall, smart lady that she is.

Did I mention it is love bug season? I left that part out. Love bugs are weird things. They are mostly harmless. The good news is they don’t bite. They seem to come out here and in Florida in large swarms for only a week or two. They are called love bugs because you almost always see them in pairs like in the photo.

They aren’t normally much of a hazard, except for your car. They have this nasty tendency to smash themselves all over the front of your car and windshield. Then in the hot sun their guts bake on and are hard to get off as they eat away the paint or get smeared around by your wipers.

But they truly were swarming yesterday. And the mower seemed to stir them all up. Fortunately there weren’t any bities out because I kinda got numb to having insects crawl on me because the love bugs were everywhere.

So anyway there I was out in the heat walking back and forth behind the mower producing more snot than a tear gas victim at a Miami riot. Every now and then I’d take a break and go inside, both for a cool-down and a kleenex. I’d try to hold off as long as possible and just keep the snotting to a minimum with some serious sniffling. Snort. Snort. Snort. All around the yard. I’m sure the neighbors were digging that scene.

Do you see where this is going?

I was about halfway finished with the back yard, just at the point where I could catch a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel of yard work suffering, snorting my way through, when it happened.

I snorted just as a pair of love bugs flew by my nostril. And up they went.

Fortunately I didn’t feel them go down the back of my throat. But I could swear I felt them crawling around inside my head. It definitely was a kleenex emergency of the highest order. I abandoned the mower, quickly made my way to the kitchen and grabbed yet another kleenex. And I blew into it. Out came the bugs. Drowned in my snot.

Totally gross for me. Fatal for them.

Now you can spare me the lectures about how I brought this on myself. I know that. Regardless the experience didn’t do much to improve my total dislike for yard work.

But it did make me realize how much I want to be able to afford to pay someone else to do it for me.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS Feed.