Tagged....

Whey Lay tagged me, and I hadn't forgotten. Let's see... I will go grab the list from his site and answer the Tag.

1. One Book that changed your life: I think the unspoken one on Whey Lay's site, but the one I will list here is the Bible. Without it I know I would have no hope, and probably wouldn't be anywhere near where I am today. The second best book I guess would be Luther on Vocation. Excellent book. The rest that I have read for fun don't compare to the value of the Bible or Luther on Vocation.

2. One book you've read more than once: I don't think I could list these. I was quite a bookworm until college, when time became a scarce commodity. I once took 14 books home from a library in High school and had them read in a week! I think it was something like 3000 pages of text total. I can't say I remember everything, but it was fun! ;-) Anyway, I think I have read half of my library at least twice. And that isn't a small collection- we have about 6 bookcases in our house, and need to buy another one. So in the interest of keeping this short- Genesis.

3. One book you'd want on a desert island: Besides an NKJV Bible, a book on a million ways to prepare seafood and coconuts. (I don't need a book on boats. ;-))

4. One book that made you laugh: Hmm... I think the last one I read was More Riddles by Bennett Cerf. This is one of the old "Beginner Books" series with a "Cat in a Hat" logo with a copyright of 1961. I was reading it for my daughter, but there are some nice silly riddles in there. Sometimes the best humor is the simplest.

5. One book that made you cry: The only book I could have cried on was Executive Orders by Tom Clancy. No- it wasn't the story line or the death of a character. Just at 1200 pages, it took me almost 2 years to finish! I wanted to cry- mainly out of frustration in the long delay from start to finish.

6. One book that you wish had been written: Heh... Why Relative Morality Causes Your Brain to Melt. Or something along those lines...you get the drift. Reminds me of the egg-frying, brain-on-drugs ads of the 90s.

7. One book that you wish had never been written: Anything by Karl Marx or any other socialist. Their arrogance and insistence on a godless culture is appalling. So many have died and been misled by their ideology. It is quite sad.

8. One book you're currently reading: Unfortunately, not really anything for pleasure. I am reading a book, but the title is upstairs. I will amend this list with the actual title. It is an entrepreneurial book that I am reading out of interest in the topic. I hope to pick up something from #9 shortly though.

9. One book you've been meaning to read: Anything by C.S. Lewis- I have been meaning to pick up some of his stuff, but haven't got the time- yet!

10. Now tag someone else. Hmm... who can I tag? I don't know- this will take some looking. I might have to answer this one later on.

Well, 9 out of 10 isn't bad I think. I hope this means my blog won't be hit by any nasty bad luck, viruses, horrible dislocations of bits or any other normal internet curse. ;-) (Sorry Whey Lay, I had to toss that in there. ;-)) All in good fun. Now you all know I read too much, but now I do too much. If I ever retire, I don't think I will ever notice. (Current trends means that retirement age will be about 152 years old by the time I can retire...)

Self-Deception

I have been trying to write about this off and on, except I kept forgetting the point just when I sat down to write it! I am going to keep it short, but I think you will get the idea.

To a Christian, it is easy to see that sinful man wants so badly to run his own salvation. It is a little harder to see, but still evident, that man also blames his actions for his failures. What a contradiction! You want to be saved by the same things you first blame when something goes wrong! "What did I do to get cancer?" "Why did I get into the car wreck? I must have done something wrong." "Katrina hit New Orleans because of ." God does allow for punishment in this life for things we do. However, isn't it also the defninition of insanity to also rely on e gloomy and deprethose very same works to save you? Thank God for His Mercy!

I think this probably isn't anything too deep to think about for the Confessional Lutheran. However, it bears repeating because it is so basic and easy to fall into the traps and lies we tell ourselves. It is a practice in self-deception that we can save ourselves, that we really "aren't that bad," or that we are ok anyway. If you don't come out of the service sobered (not drunk with your sinful self), then you either didn't hear the proper preaching of the Word, weren't paying attention, or any number of detrimental aspects. You should be sober and realize that you can't do it yourself, everything you have done is "vanity" (as in Ecclesiastes, written by Solomon), and your only hope is in Christ. To expect to either be happy and joyful, or on the flip side gloomy and depressed, is to expect vanity in place of real worth. It is something to think about and be wary of. Our works mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. Only the work of God (whether through us or not) is what matters. True self-deception is using the boards of the bottom of the boat to bail it out. It just doesn't work.

Exciting News

This post isn't a rant, but a blog of Thanksgiving- my wife has just found out that we are expecting our third child! Praise Him from whom all blessings flow! The tenative due date is April 26. I will periodically give updates as things progress.

Two posts in a day...

This is a record for me. I wanted to post this separately because it is so much more different than the other post. I just wanted to throw this out there.

Anyone who knows me, also knows that I hold modern science just above pond scum in its ability to reason. Evolution, global warming, and other concepts are, in a phrase, a pipe dream. (Ok- the why: pipe dream refers to the hallucinations of someone in an opium den- not only is it considered unreliable, but those "dreams" are also usually scary/horrifying and entirely fictional.) My thought relates to those who try to tie the Bible in with modern science and the creation story. They try to include evolution and say "Well God must have meant many years and used evolutoin to make the creatures of the earth." While that might SEEM reasonable at first blush, it violates the most basic principles of the Bible. First, that God doesn't lie. Second, if the Garden was perfect, why would animals need to die and mutate to be perfect? This adds contradictions and removes "original sin." (doubly bad) Third- if you are that unsure on the Word of God, why do you try and marry it with bad science? Evolution is so pitiful, I was able to destroy it twice in my biology class in 10th grade. If a 10th grader can see through it, it has some pretty big holes. Marrying that junk to the Holy Writ should be incomprehensible to anyone who cares about the Word of God.

Alright, I will end the rant. Just keep in mind that modern science still requires a team of people to do simple heart surgery due to the complexity. We still don't understand basic physics, and biology just now figured out that genes can work for multiple functions. This is not possible by chance- only by God. The more I see and understand, the more in awe I am of His power.

Teaching the Why

No, I didn't mean "The Who." How many times have you heard people say "I don't know why I do this this way..?" There is a mayor of a small town (I am not sure where the internet article is that I read this) that has stopped mowing his lawn. His reasoning "Why do we do it?" This led to a deeper thought that this touches on while I was doing my own mowing today.

The answer for mowing your lawn goes back to the late 1800's and early 1900's. It was quite fashionable to have a lawn of tall grasses. That is until they discovered that the insects (i.e. mosquitos, gnats, etc) and pests (cockroaches, rats, mice) that carry disease all love tall grasses. It didn't take long to connect that with plagues and the spread of disease, and those lawns weren't so fashionable if you ended up with a contagious disease (even the flu was deadly then). So the push mower was born, and the rest was history. Now why is this on a Lutheran blog site? Well, since people no longer know WHY you mow your lawn, they think it's purely ornamental. So you either get 1) no lawn mowing or 2) inane and anal mowing restrictions (such as your lawn must not exceed 2.1756380 inches in height.. (ok so thats a little extreme in measurement, but you get the idea). Alright, here is the tie in.

How many times have you heard "We don't need such an old tradition/method/etc for..." and you can fill in the blank with whatever is the topic du jour: abortion, gay marraige, contemporary worship, Lord's Supper, etc. They aren't taught the "why," and so are left to make it up. This is evident in everyday life when anyone teaches another person any task, method, or morality. They remember to teach the mechanations, the rules, and the expected outcomes. But hardly do they teach the "why." "Why don't you play with guns?" You/others get shot and die. "Why don't you drive drunk?" You and/or other people will get badly hurt and/or die. "Why don't we marry gays?" (Do I really need to spell this one out?) "Why do I have to...?" Every parent and Pastor has to keep this in mind when they teach their children/flock. First you explain the rules, and then the why. (I try and do this with my children regarding ledges and other dangerous/important details.) God has done this throughout the Bible, and provided not only the why, but the who, what, when, where, and how. If only human teachers were so effective.

Next time you hear someone asking "why" (or one of the many variations that mean the same thing), provide the "why." "Why don't we sing newer more upbeat songs?" Because they aren't founded on the Word, they are not beneficial to the congregation, and "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" will continue to be sung to the end of time- this pop-rock song won't make it till next week! Provide a why, and the questions usually end. Provide the why, and cause the doubt to wither instead of the faith.

A little sparse...

I apologize for the sparse posts, but I have been very busy lately, only to be compounded by a paper I am co-authoring with another engineer. So what little time I have is now less/non-existant. I will get back as soon as the time presents itself.

I did want to post a little thought provocation before I get too busy. In the USA, there is an "expectation", usually referred to as a "right," of privacy. My question is this- is it truely a right? Before you start to wonder how this applies to a Christian blog, think of it this way. Is our "desire" for privacy simply the fear of the publicly unknown things in our lives becoming well known? If there is nothing to hide, why hide? I think this goes back to the fallen man placing clothes on in the Garden of Eden. It isn't because it's needed, it's only because man wants to feel "protected and secure" from the sins he knows are there. (Knowing isn't necessarily a conscious knowing.) Anyway, I put this out to make you think, and possibly post your thoughts. This will be most "offensive" to Americans simply because it is such a part of the culture.

As a sidenote- privacy isn't explicitly stated in the Constitution. The only reason it exists is due to a Supreme Court ruling... interesting, huh?