Thursday, January 27, 2022

In A Pit With A Lion

 

Our Winter/Spring semester of our church ConnectGroup is starting up next week.  We will be reading and discussing "In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day" by Mark Batterson.  Mark is the pastor of National Community Church in Washington, DC and is a best-selling author of 12 books.  When Mark was 19, he heard a sermon about Benaiah from the Old Testament who chased down a lion and killed it.  He decided at that point, that if he ever wrote a book, it would be about that passage.  The first chapter introduces the idea that some of our greatest opportunities for growth can come from facing fear in the face.  I look forward to reading and discussing his ideas on this with our group.  Let me know if you would like to read along with us.

Thursday, January 20, 2022

The carpenters

Some of you may already know that my wife and I are building a new home on Lake Hartwell.  We have been planning for a while and finally got started last month.  Things are proceeding slowly due to "the weather" and "the COVID", but some progress is being made.  We are thankful that we don't have any real deadline to move, so we are working hard to enjoy the process.   I came across this article written by a woman who is also building a home, and her experience has been positive so far.  She states that the workers are delightful and seem to take pride in their work and actually enjoy their work.  It made her start thinking about how our current society dictates that young adults need to have a college education (or 2 or 3) to make a difference in our world.   It seems that we have boxed out the possibilities of people being successful building, farming or fixing toilets.   Jesus was a carpenter and his disciples were fishermen.  I think her ideas are interesting and true.  I would love to know what you think.

Thursday, January 13, 2022

Cheer-full


College football is a crazy thing.  When I was enrolled in a SEC university in 1980, I decided to participate in the marching band.  That was the only year I marched.  I would have never imagined that at the end of that season, UGA would be celebrating its first National Championship in 38 years.   It would have been even more surprising if you would have told me it would be 41 more years until UGA would win their next title.  During those 41 years, I married my wife who attended UGA, sent my two kids to UGA, watched my daughter-in-law work the sidelines at UGA as an athletic trainer and fed hundreds of hungry students at our pregame tailgates.  College football is big business.  But it has also served as a rallying point for our family and friends to gather and cheer.  This year, Caroline and I joined our kids and one of their spouses (sorry Emily) in Indianapolis for the biggest game we have had in a while.  Cheers to UGA.  Cheers to family.  I hope your family has something fun to cheer for.

Thursday, January 6, 2022

Sad But True

I have mixed emotions today as I look forward to all the good that 2022 has in store for us and am also reminded of the 2021 insurrection that occurred at our nation's capital one year ago today.   I thank God for the freedoms that we have living in this country, but feel sick that some of our own chose to exercise their freedoms by attacking innocent people that were doing their best to protect those very freedoms.  My prayer today is for the families of the people that were injured or killed and that our legal system would do everything in its power to bring justice to the offenders.  I also pray that we are protected from further attacks from those inside our borders and outside of our borders.  This year I want to have open ears and an open heart to those that think differently than I do.