Cooking During a Snowstorm

Three cheers for cooking during a rare October snowstorm with no power. Rice and beans for dinner!

"There Is No Condemnation"

by Don Francisco

Sittin' by my window on a rainy afternoon
Everything inside my head was playin' out of tune
I was thinkin' of the fool I'd made of me the night before
In front of God and everyone I'd sinned and sinned some more.

I thought of all the things I'd done, I winced at things I'd said
I wallowed in self-pity, I hung my worried head
Right when I was so far down that even up looked wrong
That's when Jesus gave to me the chorus of this song.

He said, "Satan the Accuser has been whisperin' in your ear"
You just tell him you're forgiven and he's got no business here
'Cause it doesn't matter what you've done
It matters what you'll be
There is no condemnation when the Son has set you free.

Now I could say that right away the sun burst through the clouds
And I just started singin' on the chorus right out loud
But actually I moped around and blew another day
Before I let myself accept the words I'd heard Him say.

He said, "Satan the Accuser has been whisperin' in your ear"
You just tell him you're forgiven and he's got no business here
'Cause it doesn't matter what you've done
It matters what you'll be
There is no condemnation when the Son has set you free.

So I can't criticize you now if you want to take your time
And cling to all your problems just the way I clung to mine
But now you've got the answer Jesus wanted you to know
He'll take your sin and guilt away if you'll just let them go.

There is no condemnation when the Son has set you free.

Leaving Soon

I'll be leaving work in a few minutes. I'm excited for the evening. The
plan is to make some more ginger snaps with the girlies (they love
rolling them into balls) and also bake some pumpkin bread. It will be
fun. I hope the family had a good day. I had quite a bit of shipping to
do today, which was nice. I enjoy shipping a lot more than counting parts.

A Sleepy, Somber Kind of Day

I am sleepy today. I'm doing my best to not let it affect my work, but I
wouldn't be surprised if it is... oops. Had a wonderful weekend with the
family. On Saturday went out to a dairy farm where we saw cows, took a
hayride, went through a corn maze, and got pumpkins and raw milk. Very
fun time. Sunday we took it easy. We spent part of the morning at the
playground and had a blast with the girlies. While they napped, I did
some baking. Later in the day we went to Trexler Park and ran into an
old friend. Then pumpkin pancakes for dinner. Another great day. But now
it is Monday, getting back into the swing of things. I miss Hannah and
the girlies. I have been counting today, tons of tiny electronic pieces.
It's annoying work, but I don't mind it too much. I only get annoyed at
how tired it makes me. I have been listening to some old music from my
friend Glenn: Elvis Presley, Johnny Horton, Glenn Campbell, Tennessee
Ernie Ford and Dolly Parton. I enjoy the music immensely, but I always
end up thinking about Glenn afterwards. So it's kind of a somber, sleepy
day. I am trying to stay awake and focused as I count and think about
good times with Glenn. Back to work.

I can't believe how much I look like my dad in this pic!

I can't believe how much I look like my dad in this pic!

This Afternoon

I will be stuffing our fancy new generator boards this afternoon. We
built an incredible new generator which has far more memory and
capabilities than anything we have previously had. It is all surface
mount and can be manufactured as an analog board for a drop-in
replacement of our old boards, or can be made all-digital for our new
systems. Pretty cool. I am currently stuffing the extra parts to convert
a few all-digital boards to analog. I have to admit, I'm getting pretty
good at using dual soldering irons to solder on the surface mount parts.
Fun stuff :-).

Test. Does this work?

Test. Does this work?

No Break for Me

Woke up this morning to find that Riley has diarrhea... funfun. Quickly
took stock of what we had: Toilet paper? No. Jug of Gatorade? No. Clean
underwear? No. So I made a run to Walmart while Hannah cleaned some
laundry. I got to work over an hour late and now it is break time but I
have no reason to take one because I came in so late. Ugh. But the thing
is, this has been a crazy morning and it is only 10am and I am
exhausted! But, alas, I must wait until lunch. Back to work...

Pondering the Beatitudes

A few months ago, our pastor asked me to preach for a Sunday while he was out. I excitedly accepted and then began praying to discern what God wanted me to speak on. It did not take long before I felt a peace that He wanted me to take the congregation through the beatitudes. These first twelve verses of Matthew five should be incredibly significant to us all. In these twelve short verses, Jesus lays out the most comprehensive list found in the New Testament of characteristics that define the people of Jesus' kingdom. As with the rest of the sermon on the mount, these are very practical, dealing with our everyday lives in this physical world. These are not spiritual ideals which we hope to achieve internally or some fluff like that.

Now as I started studying these, I began to realize just how radical they were. To make a long story short, I came to the understanding by the grace of the Holy Spirit that the mainstream church system of today is not representing Jesus. All of us who have put our faith in Him are His ambassadors on the earth, we represent Him to those around us. But while we should be characterized by these characteristics from Matthew 5, the church today is known by entirely different things (political issues, worship styles, hypocrisy, judgment, etc.) and are therefore blaspheming the name of Jesus. God cares deeply about how people represent Him. Remember Moses? God told him to speak to the rock, but Moses was upset with the people and struck the rock twice in anger. He misrepresented God to them as being angry and frustrated. But that was not the case. So God told Moses that because he misrepresented Him, he would not be able to enter the promised land. As Moses represented God to the Israelites, so we represent Jesus to the world.

The following are my own ponderings on the beatitudes, led--I pray--by the Spirit of Truth living within me. These are the characteristics we take on when we become followers of Jesus. Whether or not our life physically manifests these is dependent on our willingness to lay down our lives before Jesus and therefore let our inward reality become our outward truth. I was tempted while writing these down to write that these characteristics "should" define Jesus' follower or point out that we should "strive to" present ourselves as such to the world. But the awesome reality is that when we were first saved, we received as a free gift from God the righteous perfection of Jesus! When you look inside us now, you don't find darkness and depravity, you find Jesus! So the incredible reality is that we ARE defined by these characteristics, whether we show them on the outside or not. But now let us remember the words of Jesus, "For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it." It's when we humble ourselves and give our lives to Him that these inward realities become our outward characteristics.

• “Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5.3) – Followers of Jesus recognize that they cannot accomplish God’s purposes in the world by their own power. It is only by the work of God’s Spirit within us that we are empowered to live the lives He wants us to live.
• “Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted.” (Matthew 5.4) – The world we live in is in a sad condition. Pain, suffering, and hurt are all around. The condition of the world brings us to tears. Followers of Jesus cannot look at the world and ignore its terrible state, but instead acknowledge the reality and let it drive them to do something about it.
• “Blessed are the meek, For they shall inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5.5) – In the kingdoms of this world, the rich, the powerful, and the independent are exalted. But in Jesus’ upside-down kingdom, the least shall be the greatest. In His kingdom, humility is the standard by which greatness is measured, and the meek find themselves blessed.
• “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled.” (Matthew 5.6) – Righteousness is a gift given to us by our loving God and Savior. Followers of Jesus live to make that inward state their outward reality. While others hunger and thirst for the passing pleasures of a fallen world, we yearn for our lives to reflect the righteousness of Jesus.
• “Blessed are the merciful, For they shall obtain mercy.” (Matthew 5.7) – From whom much is given, much is required. Even though we each spent part of our lives ignoring Him, Jesus showed us mercy by giving His life for our sake. It is from the overflow of His incredible mercy given to us that we are left with no other choice but to be merciful to those around us.
• “Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God.” (Matthew 5.8) – God cannot stand hypocrites. Jesus’ followers live lives of integrity, where their outward lives match their inward reality.
• “Blessed are the peacemakers, For they shall be called sons of God.” (Matthew 5.9) – Violence has no place in the life of a believer. We know that “vengeance is mine, says the LORD.” Jesus told his followers to “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also. And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who asks of you. And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back.”
• “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5.10) – There is a huge difference between persecution for the sake of righteousness and persecution brought on because of pride, judgment and hypocrisy. Followers of Jesus whose outward lives match their inward reality will find themselves living radically different from the people around them. This is because the value system of Jesus’ kingdom is radically different from the value system of this world. This inevitably brings on persecution, but only for a time. Jesus’ follower look forward to a day beyond this where Jesus’ kingdom is fully in place and all pain, suffering, and sadness are things of the past.
• “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5.11-12) – It is an incredible fact that those people throughout history most characterized by humility, love, non-violence, mercy and righteousness have also been the most persecuted. They find themselves surrounded by a hostile world on one side and a power-hungry and judgmental church on the other. This is not an easy path to take, but it is the path that leads to Jesus. Blessings come to those who follow Jesus, and those blessings far outweigh the costs.

Time For Bed

It's late, time for bed. But before I go, I just wanted to write quick post. Today was a very good day. Everybody was grumpy, but for some great reason I was not :-). Church was absolutely wonderful. We had the best pre-reader class yet. Lots of singing and dancing, ribbon swinging and praise shouting, it was great. Then we watched an animated movie of Jesus' resurrection. We had my favorite helper in class, she's the kind of person so full of the Spirit that He just can't help but leak out all over everyone around her :-). I also had my guitar so we all sang a little tune about praising Jesus every day of the week. How many days does Jesus want? All of them!!! I love our little lessons we teach about Jesus. We talk about who He is and what He did. We talk about all the incredible things He made. We talk about His death and resurrection, but most of all we talk about His return. We talk about why He made us and why we serve Him. It really is a blast and I cannot help but feel uplifted in the Spirit following our weekly class. I find myself during the week wishing I was in class rather than at work or wherever. I wish our adult worship service was more like the kids's. It really does stink when form and order trumps the Spirit. I know that we strive to let Holy Spirit drive our services, but we still end up more-or-less following a script from worship through the carefully outlined sermon. Speaking of that, I am going to be preaching on May 29, which I am excited about. I am praying about what God wants me to speak on. I keep bouncing between Matthew, Romans, Genesis, Galatians, and Revelation. So it should be easy to narrow it down to one 50min sermon, right? We will see :-). On another note relating to church, my pastor's wife told me today that she is feeling that we should start a children's worship service which would run alongside the regular worship service. So rather than the children joining their parents and worshiping as a family, the children would spend the entire service apart from their parents, first in children's worship and then in their respective classes. I answered from my gut when she told me and said, "I'm sorry, but that sounds horrible!" As I continued talking, I realized I was bringing her to tears and I realized my wrong and apologized for my obvious lack of grace. But regardless, that is the polar opposite of what God has been working in my heart over the last couple years. I have been feeling more and more the impotance of keeping the family together in church. Jesus said, "Let the little children come unto me, and do not forbid them! For of such is the kingdom of heaven." He did not say, "Hey James, hey Andrew, why don't you take the children off over there and give them an age-appropriate teaching while I teach the adults. Rather, Jesus taught the parents while having a child actually sitting on His knee! And rather than use a child as an example of immaturity and childishness, He used children as an example for believers of pure faith. Rather than breaking up families and pushing kids off to the far corners of the church, I feel we need to bring them up front... and learn from them! Their purity of worship is astounding and their excitement at the person of Jesus makes me want to shout for joy! And if there is any institution which supports the unity of the family, I think it should be the church. Why not worship with our children in our arms? Why not teach the ones who cannot yet read to shout "Praise Jesus!" throughout the songs? Why not use each song as another opportunity to point them to Jesus and His love for them? Some of the best teaching moments I have with our girlies are during corporate worship. As we sing about Jesus returning I excitedly tell them what is going to happen! Plus they get to see me worshiping and loving on Jesus... what could be better than that? I have been studying Deuteronomy and God emphasized time and again the importance of bringing the children into all parts of worship as a means of teaching them God's truth and pointing them to Him. Sure the kids sometimes start jabbering during prayer and sure they sometimes want to dance in the aisles, but let me ask you this: What is wrong with that? They are children and learning and growing! And besides, I think we as adults should do more dancing in the aisles! Let me ask you this, why do you think the apostles time and again wanted to take the kids away from Jesus? It takes hardly a moment to know that they thought the kids were a distraction. Kids make noise, kids have a hard time focusing, kids laugh and decide to say something even when everybody else is quiet, but that is because they are children. They are still growing! This annoyed the apostles and they saw them as distractions and wanted to push them to the outskirts of the crowd. But once again I point out, Jesus did not see them as such. Jesus brought them to the front and even sat them on His lap. That same Jesus is the one I praise and worship every day. My pastor once said, "The children around Jesus must have been very well behaved and quiet and respectful for Him." But I followed up by asking him, "Then why did the apostles want them sent away?"

So there we go, you can see I am still processing all of this. I am praying that Holy Spirit will continue to work in me and show me and Hannah and our whole church what is right and how we can be more like Jesus. Regardless of where we disagree, I'm glad to know that our goal is the same: to be like Jesus. There we go, that's my post. Time for bed.

Trudging Along

Life is exhausting right now, to say the least. I had a feeling at the turn of the year that this was going to be the craziest time of my life thus far... and that has truly been the case. Between family, school, church and work I hardly have a moment to catch my breath. I cannot remember the last time I watched a whole movie or went to bed not feeling guilty that I had not finished enough schoolwork. In fact, it's going to be a major stretch if I am going to finish my classes on time. I trust that God is working in all of this, but I am just so incredibly exhausted. I seriously do not know what to do. I spend my days running at 100% and then when I have a chance to get started on school I cannot hardly hold my head up. It certainly does not help that I am working Saturdays now. But once again, I keep reminding myself: God has enough grace for this, God has enough grace for this, God has enough grace for this... if He didn't, I'd be in big trouble. But praise the Lord that God is God and never changes. He wants me here, right now, doing what I am doing. So regardless of how exhausting life is, I will praise Him still.

Great Day

Today was a great day. I was a little tired to start, but eventually I was able to wake up and enjoy the day. After work, Hannah went out to have some time alone and I had some fun time with the girlies. We looked at the new lift-the-flap Easter book that I got them. After reading the book multiple times and talking about Jesus, I thought it would be a good time to watch our movie about Jesus' death with them. Riley has never let us watch it all the way through (she gets upset when the soldiers show up in Gethsemane), but this time we watched the movie and flipped through the book at the same time, really emphasizing the events of that last week. Riley Joy was engrossed but Amity was content to just keep flipping open the flaps over and over again and did not pay any attention to the movie (she is much like Karis when it comes to watching movies). It was sad and hard to watch (even an animated version of those events), but I was most excited to get to the second DVD, which was the resurrection. So after Jesus had died, the camera zoomed out and faded into the credits. I quickly pulled out the next DVD to put in, but was unpleasantly surprised to see that it was cracked! Somehow the DVD had gotten stepped on or something and was cracked and unwatchable. It really stinks to watch Jesus die and not then be able to see Him rise up again. So we just talked about Him rising back up. But I hope we can replace that DVD soon, especially with Easter coming soon.

After putting the girls to bed, I had some great time with Hannah. We watched the Cosby show and then an episode of Dog the Bounty Hunter and had fun. Then we talked for a good while. I like her :-). So overall a good day and a great evening. Now for schoolwork...

The Best Medicine

I was just at a diner catching up on some reading for school. It is incredible how exhausting it is taking care of two children and a wife... :-). By the end of the day it is difficult to stay awake enough to get real work done. But that is what's nice about going to the diner every once and a while to study there. I'm able to stay awake and get work done rather efficiently. I had a great time tonight. I first spent some personal time with Jesus looking at Philippians 2 and then moved into Basic Bible Interpretation. In Philippians, I was blown away anew by verses 14-15 which say, "Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world." I think we often underestimate the importance of having a good attitude. These verses do not say that you become "blameless and harmless" and "lights in the world" by living some sort of legalistically righteous life, or by having a comprehensive understanding of theology, or by having a perfect attendance record at church. It says that being a blameless light in the world begins with simply having a good attitude. It is easy to complain and dispute but then rationalize it away based on my circumstances, but that does not lead to a blameless life. To be a light to the world, we need to have a good attitude, whatever the circumstances. Do we really believe that God is sovereign? Do we have an intellectual belief in His sovereignty or do we have an active, living faith in His sovereignty over everything that happens in this world? The truth is that He is sovereign, so to complain and gripe over circumstances is really to tell God that He is screwing up. But God does not screw up. Jesus is a perfect model of living faith in God's sovereignty. He had more reason to complain and gripe over His circumstances than anyone else who ever has or ever will live, yet He was 100% actively given over to God's will in faith. That's the kind of faith I am praying for, the kind that is living and active in me, causing me to always have a good attitude in the face of any and all circumstances. It is when I reach that point, that I will truly be a light to the world. When people see that, they will be directed straight to God. Isn't that neat? Our witness is inextricably tied to our attitude, which is then tied to our faith. I never want to underestimate the importance of having a good attitude.

I really enjoyed my reading in Basic Bible Interpretation. Roy B. Zuck is a wonderful writer and he has a way of infecting me with his own excitement over the Scriptures. When I read his book, I always end up excited to dig deeper into the Word. I have read other books dealing with Bible study and interpretation, but none have had the same effect on me. Today I was reading about literary styles in the Bible and was disappointed when the chapter ended. The Bible is doubtless the greatest literary work ever created... but would we expect anything less from a book written by God Himself? I really want to read Leland Ryken's book on the same topic, How to Read the Bible As Literature.

But over the course of my time reading and studying, I could not help but notice a man sitting alone a few tables down from me. The Spirit put him on my heart, so I went and asked him if he knew that Jesus loves him. He responded that he was agnostic but used to go to church (effectively dodging the question). I asked him again if he knew that Jesus loved him. He responded something like, "Yeah, probably, I guess." He then agreed to let me pray for him so I took a moment and asked Jesus to work in his life and pour out His love upon him. I asked Jesus to give him guidance and direction and to reveal Himself in an awesome new way. I ended by reiterating the fact that Jesus loved him and asked Jesus again to pour out His love in Peter's life for His glory. I am trusting in Jesus' name that He will do just that and will work in this man's (Peter is his name) life and really grab ahold of his heart. It was a neat moment. It is so very funny that I can go for so long asking God halfheartedly to open up ministry opportunities in my everyday life, but then when I take a small moment to pray for someone that God suddenly fills me with the most incredible desire to minister to everyone I see. It's funny how God works like that. I have found that there is no better medicine for a mediocre Christian life than to pray for the people around me. It is one small way of showing them Jesus' love, but it also in a neat way connects me to Jesus' heart and fills me with a desire to continue doing more for Him.

So I continue to praise Jesus. Isn't He wonderful? I love Him so much.