I am a Christian (yes, dorky, even), husband to my beautiful wife & best friend of TEN years and father of three adorable children. In my spare time, I like to play guitar and coach little kids' baseball.
I use this website to log my thoughts, happenings & whatnot. Sometimes my posts are work or web-related & sometimes they are family-related or just random.
I produce creative design and code for a living at Visual Notion.
For hundreds of years, Christians have quietly repeated fragments of Scripture or short prayers throughout the day to remain present to God. As the Russian Christian writer Anthony Bloom put it, “God is never absent . . . We complain that He does not make Himself present to us for the few minutes we reserve for Him, but what about the twenty-three-and-a-half hours during which God may be knocking at our door and we answer ‘I am busy, I am sorry’ or when we do not answer at all because we do not hear the knock . . . we are a great deal more absent than He ever is.” Having a simple refrain to call upon during the day helps us maintain connection to Christ and tunes the heart to hear him knocking at its door.
In the Crowded Mind: Learning to Pray Without Ceasing By Cameron Lawrence
From the article at InTouch.org
Last night, my 8 year old son wanted me to see what he had typed up on the old word processor we gave our children to play with. I told him I'd look after I finished cleaning up in the kitchen and he was nice enough to offer to help and, together, we loaded the dishwasher.
He was telling me that he thought what he had typed up was 'strongly'. I didn't understand what he meant and told him that didn't make sense to me. His statement seemed incomplete, to me... the adult. After we finished loading the dishwasher Jennifer and I went to look at what he wrote.
Moral relativism requires neutrality which is impossible. You can't proclaim to be neutral unless you are silent on an issue. Everyone has a point of view and once you express your view, you are no longer considered to be neutral.
If you take a stand on a moral issue and others judge you as being 'intolerant', you are thus judged as 'wrong' which is a moral judgment. To state that one person is wrong is to state they should accept your view to be judged as right, which, again is a moral judgment.
Men, notice the last portion of this verse (emphasis mine).
"Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered." — 1 Peter 3:7 (ESV)
There are two reasons for this: 1) For her good and the good of your relationship, 2) so your spiritual growth isn't hindered.
Psalm 25:4-5 (ESV)
4 Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths.
5 Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.
If you feel "disrespected" because someone else celebrates their American heritage in their own country, the United States of America, you obviously don't have a strong sense of contentment and self-respect for your own heritage.
No matter the day, I will not apologize for my heritage and country of origin.
My thoughts after Rick sent me the link to this story.
Attempting to isolate God to a particular day of the week and specific areas of our lives only, leads to a pretty pathetic existence.
To only "allow" God access to us and our life shows not only do we not trust Him or follow Him, but we don't really want Him to follow us, either.
This just shows that we want to look good; to look pious at a given time that may suit our whims.
It is not at all Biblical. It is not piety. It is merely hypocrisy at it's finest.
After Jobs' open letter, Thoughts on Flash, the Flashforks and iTorches have come out.
I've always experienced issues with Flash running on a multitude of Macs so I'm not heart-broken for Adobe's Flash. I realize Apple isn't perfect, either, but they do have a good model going. Although, many question their moves in regard to the App Store, it's been very lucrative for them and other app developers.
For me, I'm excited to get into mobile app development and mobile web app development. I see myself as starting with one foot in iPhone app development the other foot in mobile web app development and then possibly reaching out to the Android market later on, but the mobile web apps may take care of that.
Regardless, I need something new to learn and am looking forward to working more with HTML5, CSS3, Webkit, Objective-C and bridging the standalone apps and web apps.
The next 6-18 months should be very interesting.
Amazon, I'm still waiting on my books to arrive.
I was thinking about adoption this morning. How, as Christians, those who acknowledge and accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, that we have been adopted by the Heavenly Father; that is, God.
The Bible spans approximately 4,000 years of human history and God's interaction with mankind. We have a written account of God's character which remains consistent from one book to another while being written from the perspective of 40 people that penned 66 books that make up the Bible as we have it today.
"4 But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, 5 to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. 6 Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba,[a] Father." 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir." — Galatians 4:4-7 (NIV)
We have a Heavenly Father that has adopted us as sons and daughters through the final payment for our sins through the death of His Son, Jesus Christ. We have a God that has taken the time, over thousands of years, to get through to mankind; to tell us that He wants a relationship with us.
Don't you think that a God pursuing you and making every effort to get through to you is worth responding to?
Please don't spend all your time waiting for God to "call your phone", so to speak. He already has. He's just waiting for you to respond.
If you just need to respond more often, read your Bible, pray and get involved in a local Bible-studying church.
Just respond.
My son has a sweet tooth. Okay, he has a full set of Sweet Teeth. I warmed up the remainder of the baked cinnamon and cream cheese bread breakfast dish my wife makes that we love to eat. My son had eaten his portion, but my daughter, our middle one, hadn't eaten all of her's and said she was finished. My son knew this was a great time to offer to take care of that for her.