Cursed

Do you ever wonder why life is so difficult? Some people seem to have it easy, at least at first appearance, but for the rest of us life is a never-ending struggle just to make it day to day. This could be emotional, physical, financial, or spiritual struggles (or a combination of some, or all, of them), but nevertheless life is just hard! And no number of platitudes or self-help books will ever soothe the struggling soul.

I am going through a season right now where life is one step forward ten steps back. Every turn produces yet another struggle. Just when it seems things are going to ease up, some other proverbial shoe drops, and whoever is dropping those shoes is getting them from Imelda Marcos’ closet, because there are a lot of them…

So what do you do? You can survive anything for a time, but what about day after day, week after week, month after month, and in some cases, year after year of insurmountable odds? What do you do during those times that nothing that anyone says makes a difference because you know way deep down another disappointment is around the corner?

The bad news? There is no easy answer. I know you were expecting some profound revelation, but the reality is we live in a fallen, sinful world and there is nothing we can do to avoid pain and struggle (Genesis 3:17-19). So, how then do you cope? First, I am going to assume that your hope is in the Lord (Psalm 33:22, Psalm 38:15, Jeremiah 17:7, Lamentations 3:24, and many more). If not, then nothing I say will make sense. Unless you first place your hope there, then, well, you have no hope.

Here is a list of some things that you can do to help you through these seasons of struggle:

Pray (Psalm 55:22). God wants to be there for you. He should be the One you turn to before anyone, or anything, else. The only way to do that is to talk to Him! What makes God the perfect person to turn to is His consistency. You never have to wonder what God will say, because he has already told us in His Word (more later). We will discuss the value of friendships later, too, but even friends will fail sometimes (let’s face it – they live in the same fallen world you do). God, however, never changes (Hebrews 13:8). He will always be there when you call out to Him (Psalm 18:6). I learned recently about a great acronym to use when praying – ACTS. It stands for:

Adoration (of God)
Conviction/Confession (of our sins)
Thanksgiving (to God)
Supplication (for ourselves, but especially for others)

If you aren’t currently modeling your prayers like this, you should try it. Spend about 2-3 minutes in each category at first, and then build from there. Often we go straight to God and start asking for stuff. Which is fine. God wants us to ask (John 11:22). But God also demands worship, and is worthy of worship (Psalm 99:5). Change the focus of your prayer life to worship of God and to God and before you know it you will be more focused on these things, and not the issues of life. Granted, they won’t go away, but your heart will be a little less heavy (Proverbs 28:14).

Praise God through singing (1 Chronicles 16:9). Song has always been a way to affect mood. You can become blue, you can become solemn, and you can become joyous – all through the influence of song. Why not direct that song to the Lord? Song is important in the Bible, too. Rather than give many, many references just start at Psalm 1 and start reading. You will find more references in this book to song than any other, although the theme is prominent throughout the Bible. After all, it is a hymn book. The best “catch all” reference is, of course, Ephesians 5:19-20. This passage tells us to sing for the express purpose of “giving thanks always for all things to God.” Check out Colossians 3:16, too. How do you get started? I highly recommend a book called Then Sings My Soul by Robert Morgan. Robert has a gift with story. Robert put together a book with the background of 150 hymns. On the left side page the book also has the words and music to each hymn. Here you can find out many, many hymns were born out of adversity. They are wonderful stories, and to have the words and music right there means only one book to carry. If you make it through that one, he also wrote a “sequel” called Then Sings My Soul, Book 2 with another 150 hymns. You will be surprised at how quickly you will forget your worries when you focus on God through song. You will have no choice but to rejoice, and your spirit will certainly be lifted.

Memorize Scripture (Psalm 119:114). On November 8, 1965, Howard Rutledge’s plane was shot down over North Vietnam. He was captured and held prisoner for seven years. He endured brutal torture, sickness, famine and loneliness like nothing we could ever imagine. He suffered all day, every day. How could anyone survive such unbelievable experiences? Through the power of memory.

Captain Rutledge recounts his experience as a POW, and how the memorization of Scripture became vitally important to his survival, in his book In the Presence of Mine Enemies:

Most of my fellow prisoners were struggling like me to rediscover faith, to reconstruct workable value systems. Harry Jenkins lived in a cell nearby during much of my captivity. Often we would use those priceless seconds of communication in a day to help one another recall Scripture verses and stories.

One day I heard him whistle. When the cell block was clear, I waited for his communication, thinking it to be some important news. “I got a new one,” he said. “I don’t know where it comes from or why I remember it, but it’s a story about Ruth and Naomi.” He then went on to tell that ancient story of Ruth following Naomi into a hostile new land and finding God’s presence and protection there. Harry’s urgent news was two thousand years old. It may not seem important to prison life, but we lived off that story for days, rebuilding it, thinking about what it meant, and applying God’s ancient words to our predicament.

Everyone knew the Lord’s Prayer and the Twenty-third Psalm, but the camp favorite verse that everyone recalled first and quoted most often is found in the Book of John, third chapter, sixteenth verse. With Harry’s help I even reconstructed the seventeenth and eighteenth verses.

How I struggled to recall those Scriptures and hymns! I had spent my first eighteen years in a Southern Baptist Sunday School, and I was amazed at how much I could recall; regrettably, I had not seen then the importance of memorizing verses from the Bible, or learning gospel songs. Now, when I needed them, it was too late. I never dreamed that I would spend almost seven years (five of them in solitary confinement) in a prison in North Vietnam or that thinking about one memorized verse could have made the whole day bearable.

While many of us may never endure the untold horrors that Captain Rutledge endured, the power of Scripture memorization is just as important today. The ability to recall Scripture at moments of crises is fundamental to the survival of every Christian. There is tremendous blessing and power in knowing where various passages can be found and what kind of help and resources they can provide. I have peppered this post with lots of Scripture for this very reason. Commit these passages, and many more, to memory and add them to your arsenal in the fight we call daily living.

Find a friend (Proverbs 17:17). When I say friend, I mean one friend (Proverbs 12:26a). We’ve already discussed the pitfalls of running your mouth to everyone, but there is great strength in having one true friend to share your life and experiences with (Proverbs 27:17). God is all we need, but the void left in our hearts through the fall is oft times made more palatable by having someone physical there with us. The idea isn’t to replace God with this friend, but it is helpful to have someone that that will tell you what you need to hear (Proverbs 27:6a). The Bible also tells us that sometimes that friend can be more accessible than family (Proverbs 27:10b), and that this same friend can even be better than family (Proverbs 18:24).

These are some methods I am employing as I walk through this valley. I wish there was an easy answer, but there isn’t. However, I know that God will supply all my needs (Philippians 4:19) and that He is in control (1 Samuel 2:6-9) and will never over-burden me (1 Corinthians 10:13), even when it feels like it.

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New Feature

I'm trying out something new on the blog. As you can see, I've been doing a little writing, but the posts (rants) go a little long. I've found a way to show a preview of the post, with a link to "Read More!" if you want. This way you won't have to scroll through a long post to get to other posts on the Main Page. The only drawback is that the code I am using adds the "Read More!" link to every post, even if the whole post is showing. There was no way around that (if anyone knows HTML and can help, that would be great!).

Hopefully this will help and not cause confusion. I will try to make the break obvious so that you sort of know there is more to read, as opposed to a complete post. Let me know what you think!

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Regret

Do you have regrets? Boy, I know I do. When I look back on the years of my life, had I known then what I know now, there are many things I would have done different. If they still made the De Lorean, and flux capacitors were an option, I’d be all over it!

But is regret a Biblical principle? I mean, even God experienced regret, right (Genesis 6:6)... Do you think that Moses, after years in the desert, didn’t sit on top of the mountain looking into the Promised Land that he led the Israelites to but wasn’t allowed in, do you think he didn’t mourn that his actions, and his actions alone, were the reason he wasn’t going in? I guarantee he did!

It is interesting to note that typically the first reaction we have when confronted by something that should have been handled differently is to assign blame. Do you realize that assigning blame was the third reaction recorded in the Bible immediately after the Fall? When Adam and Eve ate the fruit that was expressly forbidden them, the first reaction they had was to be ashamed. The second reaction was to hide from God. The third reaction that Adam had was to blame others, specifically God and Eve. No one made Adam eat, especially not God. God did everything He could to keep Adam from falling, short of putting an electric fence around the tree. Adam knew what he was doing and did it anyway, but when confronted he shifted the focus off of himself and onto someone else, telling God that it was the woman that God had given him that made him do it.

Part of me likes the fact that Adam shifts some of the blame to God, by the way. To me it really shows the level of intimacy that God and Adam had. If God Himself approached you right now and confronted you with your sin, how would you react? You bet! You would be on your face so fast, crying out for mercy! But Adam is so comfortable with God that he thinks nothing of shifting the blame towards God. I’m not advocating the action, of course, but I am definitely jealous of the relationship. There is a certain familiarity that allows for this kind of behavior. It gives an example of the type of close relationship we will enjoy with our Father one day.

Back to the original point… When things don’t turn out like we planned it is often due to the choices we have made. When that happens we tend to point to circumstances, or other people, rather than taking responsibility. I had a boss once that told me that it irritated him when I would step up, admit to a fault, and take all of the blame. At least if I had whined about what didn’t happen, or should have happened, or what someone else should have done then there would have been a coaching opportunity, but when I admitted all the fault there wasn’t much left to say.

So what now? Ok, I regret what I have done. What is the next step? For that, let’s look at the Biblical words for regret. In the Greek it is metamellomai, or metanoeo (there are others that are similar). In the Hebrew, it’s the word nacham. In most modern translations these words are translated as regret, or they imply feeling sad for something. In my opinion, this is the wrong translation and the KJV gets it right here. In the Greek word metaelomai, for example, the prefix meta means “after”, but implies “change”. In other words, the original meaning for the word is not just feeling sorry for something, it signifies changing ones mind, but then also taking the necessary action of making a change for the better. Also, it is interesting to note that the word almost always means to turn from sin. So, what we are really dealing with here isn’t regret, it’s repentance! And that is how the KJV translates these words the most – repent.

It also implies grief. It isn’t just that I wish I hadn’t done something, but that I am so overwhelmed by it that I have no choice but to turn away. It’s a strong feeling. It’s not, “Oh, I’m sorry” and walk away. It’s “I am grieved by this and I am turning in the complete opposite direction to correct it”. In other words, there is no Biblical principle of regret. Then how do we get out of the cycle of action, sorrow, action, sorrow and so on? Remember I said in the beginning that the key was taking responsibility? That’s what God did. He was so grieved by the sin of the world that He flooded it, and killed everything except who and what was in the ark. That is repentance.

How do we get this in our lives? First and foremost, stop regretting. It’s unhealthy. All that does is keeps you focused on what is wrong and not what is right (Hmmmm… Where have I heard that before?). Regret is sin. Regret makes you a prisoner. Repentance sets you free (2 Corinthians 7:10). What happens when you repent? Read on to verse 11. It produces diligence, it gives you something to defend your faith with, it makes you irritated with sin, it strikes fear in your heart over sin, it produces an earnest desire to do what is right, it makes your mind active and fierce, and it makes you want to change everything! (By the way, this verse is a goldmine of word study. I encourage you to take the time and explore it on your own.) In other words, repentance makes you strong! It makes you a better Christian. To me, this means that repentance isn’t something you “do” after making a mistake, repentance is a constant state of mind. Repentance is the sharpening of your mental skills to be aware of sin and mistakes and to be so repulsed by it that you avoid it altogether.

Think of a ninja, or a strong warrior, or the hero in an action movie, or the war-hardened veteran. They all possess this uncanny skill of being keenly aware of everything all at once, giving them the advantage to be able to react quicker than anyone else, often before the enemy. It is a skill that is honed by being taught, unrelenting practice, and sheer experience. These are the guys you want on your side. They never let their guard down, and they even appear to sense danger in their sleep. This is the way we are supposed to be! Repentance isn’t an action that is performed afterwards; repentance is the state of mind that keeps you ever aware of coming danger. That is why we are told be diligent to present ourselves approved to God (2 Timothy 2:15). We aren’t told that we are covered by the blood, sit back, and enjoy. No! We are told be always be on the lookout (1 Peter 5:8) and to always be conscious of what is right so that we can avoid sin our lives (1 Corinthians 15:34).

Commit, with me, from this day forward, to be in that state of mind. Sharpen your spiritual battle skills. Read, study, pray, praise, worship. These are the keys to living a life free of regret.

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Anna's School Thanksgiving Party

Anna had a Thanksgiving party at school where the girls dressed up as little pilgrims and the boys dressed up as little Indians. They also had a "traditional" Thanksgiving meal. Anna had a GREAT time! Enjoy!

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Happy Thanksgiving!

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Help Plug Oh! Susanna's

I just came across this link where a writer at the Commercial Appeal (the newspaper in Memphis) was asking people to vote on the best donuts in Memphis. It's a little old, but take a minute and cast your vote for Oh! Susanna's and help with a little marketing!

And I'm totally serious when I say they are the best. Nor does have anything to do with the fact that they are family. They are really very good!

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Online Music Player

Do you like to listen to music when you are sitting at your computer? Do you ever wish you could program a radio station with music from a favorite artist or musical genre? Do you like a variety of music, but don't want the hassle of creating play lists in iTunes? Enter Pandora. If you haven't heard of it, or used it yet, I highly recommend it.

Pandora allows you type in an artist or album and it will create a personalized radio station with music that is similar to that artist and their musical style. For example, I am getting into the Christmas spirit a little early and wanted to listen to Christmas music, but I don't like the uber-wide variety of music most radio stations play at Christmas time. You can keep your honky-tonk Christmas and your Christmas parody, I like the classics. I typed in "Johnny Mathis Holiday" and Pandora started playing Christmas music from artists like The Carpenters, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, etc. The great thing is that I can rate the music and Pandora will learn what I like and don't like. If a certain artist or song is played that I don't think quite fits what I had in mind for the station, I can give it a thumbs down it won't play it again. Conversely, everything I give a thumbs up to Pandora will continue to play songs and artists similar to the ones I like.

Pandora has a wide variety of artists and songs, even if it doesn't have exactly the artist you are looking for. The downside is that you can only listen online, but if you really like a variety and want to play songs from a certain musical vantage point, all while sitting at your computer, then check out Pandora today. Oh, by the way, it is completely free!

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Peace, Part II

Melinda's brother Mark is the Executive Pastor at Burke Community Church in Burke, Virginia. Mark has been taking on some regular teaching duties at the church, and wouldn't you know it, he spoke on peace this past Sunday (10/28).

You can listen to the message here. Under "Attachments", there is also a PDF of the PowerPoint for you to follow. Enjoy!

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Peace

Have you ever wondered why we are promised peace that “surpasses all understanding” (Philippians 4:7 NKJV)? Why aren’t we just promised peace? Wouldn’t that be enough?

I was driving home from Atlanta yesterday and was really raging on the inside over some issues. As I was driving, I received an email note on my BlackBerry from a friend that said that for some reason the Holy Spirit had laid me on his heart and he was praying for me right then. (Side note – isn’t technology wonderful! I can be on the interstate in Georgia and instantly receive an encouraging word from a friend! I love it!). My friend was praying for peace. He didn’t know if I was even going through anything, but God told him to pray for peace for me and he obeyed.

I got off the interstate, sent a response, and after a short break I got going again. You know what? The rest of my drive was, yep, peaceful. The great thing was that I didn’t even realize it until I was almost home. I hadn’t thought about my situation much, and I certainly wasn’t raging anymore. God had answered his prayer.

So, how does that relate to Philippians 4:7? We love to quote that verse and tell people that are going through tough times that God is there and will grant us peace. But what about that second part. Let’s look into it…

First, we have to go back to verse 6. Simply put, in order to receive the peace we have to be praying. Even more we have to pray thankfully (see previous post). Once we are doing that, then we are promised peace. But not just any peace. It is 1) the peace of God, and 2) this peace will surpass all understanding.

So what is the “peace of God”? The Greek word peace here is eirene. The verb form of that word means “to join”. The peace part is certainly the traditional form of peace – no war, tranquility, etc. However, there is a deeper meaning to this word. To quote Strong it means “the tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and content with its earthly lot, of whatsoever sort that is.” Wow. Read that again. Whatsoever sort of your earthly lot. That pretty much covers all the bases, and we are quick to point out how this relates to our physical well-being, but don’t gloss over that first part! You must first be assured of your salvation. That’s where the joining part comes in. You can never have the peace of God if you aren’t first joined with God through Christ. When you are joined with God, through Christ, you have nothing to fear because Christ already paid the price for you. So why would you be worried about stuff here on earth? You can only have peace if your eyes are fixed on God!

And what about the “surpasses all understanding” part? This Greek word nous refers to the ability to sense spiritual and divine things. It’s a “sixth sense” perception that allows one to recognize good and hate evil, and have the discernment to avoid the evil. We obtain the peace of God, first, by having a relationship with Him thorough Christ, and, second, by being in tune with everything that is good and right in this world and not focused on the bad.

So, if we are to focus on good things, what does that look like? Continue on to verse 8. We tend to separate these groups of verses, but they are all related. Paul gives us the formula by telling us how to hone this “sixth sense” by thinking on things that are noble, just, pure, lovely, and of good report. We won’t break those down here, but you get the idea. Paul goes on to tell the Philippians that if they think on these things, and model themselves after him, inferring that he thinks on these things, then he once again promises the peace of God.

What does that mean for us? My situation above is a perfect example. My peaceful rest of the ride home wasn’t necessarily divine intervention in the sense that God reached down into my brain and re-wired my thoughts (not that I’m limiting God!). What really happened was that I, with God’s help for sure, changed the focus of my thoughts. I no longer dwelled on what was bothering me, but I thought about other things, good things, and that brought me peace. What we have to do is make that a natural habit. We have to be so joined with God that we are only in tune to the good in our lives and not the bad. It has to become second nature, involuntary. Referring back to Strong, it has to be a function of our soul.

One final note. Nowhere in this passage does God say that He will supernaturally remove you from your circumstances, or will remove the circumstance from you. He doesn’t promise a solution, He promises peace. Why? How will we ever learn to rely on Him if we know that He will simply bail us out of our predicament? You see, we tend to run to these verses when things go wrong. What we forget is that this isn’t a balm, this is lifestyle! If we don’t allow this type of behavior to control us, we will always be a victim of our circumstances and we will never have relief from our misery. Paul even tells us in verse 7 that what happens when this becomes a lifestyle is that this peace of God will guard our hearts and minds. In other words, we will never have to fear discouragement again! This deep spiritual perception about things will take over and we will always think on the good things. My peaceful drive didn’t come because my situation changed. I still don’t have hope in that sense. But what I do have is the ability to remember what God has done for me, what good there is my life, and simply focus all of my attention on those things. Then, and only then, will I have the “peace of God which surpasses all understanding”.

P.S. – Thank you to Wayne Kinde for listening to the Holy Spirit and acting on it. You were the inspiration for this post, my friend.

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Disappointment

There are varying degrees of disappointment.

You go to the ice cream shop and they are all out of Rocky Road and you have to settle for Turtle Tracks. Disappointed? Of course you are.

On the other extreme, you are expecting something big and get next to nothing. It’s the classic ending to Christmas Vacation. Clark Griswold is expecting a huge Christmas bonus. He’s been planning on it, and has even started spending it. What did he get? Enrolled in the Jelly-of-the-Month Club. What follows can’t be repeated here, but suffice it to say after blowing his top, all Clark can lament is “Where’s the Tylenol?” Disappointed? Understatement of the century.

I had a disappointment last week. Our pastor is very fond of reminding us that when things go awry you will always speak out of the abundance of your heart (Luke 6:45). When you are faced with disappointment how you react shows a lot about your inward character. I must say I wasn’t very proud of myself this week.

It just seems that you can only take so much. Clark Griswold didn’t fly off the handle because this was his first disappointment. After a series of let-downs you just come to the tipping point, to borrow a marketing phrase. It’s the proverbial pressure cooker. It builds and builds and builds, and the whole time you are keeping your composure because you want to maintain the image that you have everything under control, but eventually it’s too much and the top blows right off and all that you had pent up inside you comes spewing out. Not a pretty picture.

Now, I’m not sure that in situations like this you are really showing your true colors. I mean, let’s face it, you did keep your composure all the other times you were disappointed. My question is how do you strike the balance? How do you express frustration without becoming a raving lunatic? Proverbs 29:11 says that “A fool vents all his feelings, but a wise man holds them back (NKJV)”. So what is the answer?

The Hebrew word for “feelings” in the above verse is ruwach and has the connotation of spirit or, better, wind. Even more specifically, air or gas. It also has the connotation of vain or empty. You guessed it. The fool here is a windbag, or as we would say “full of hot air”. The other key word in the verse is “all”. Another inference we can make from the word ruwach is an uncontrollable impulse. Therefore, the fool is one who, without thinking it through or being careful, opens his mouth and lets everything uncontrollably come out of his mouth. It’s the action, not the attitude. A fool can have the most sincere motivation, but no discernment, so they say the first thing that comes to mind and keeps going without thinking.

For the answer we have to take a look at the second part of the verse. The proverb doesn’t just tell us who not to model, but tells who we should model. It tells us that the wise man holds back his feelings. Isn’t that contrary to everything we have ever learned though? Doesn’t modern psychology tell us that we need that venting in order to keep from blowing our top like Clark Griswold at the end of the movie? That we need a confidant that we can share all these feelings with? I don’t think that is what the proverb is saying at all.

Shabach is the Hebrew word used for the phrase “holds them back”. This is the only time that it is translated this way. It is translated more times as “praise”. Other words it is translated into that are similar are “glory” and “triumph”. What can we learn from this? I believe it’s all about PMA – Positive Mental Attitude. Not in the look-in-the-mirror-and-tell-yourself-that-you-believe-in-yourself attitude. If that is what you are doing, you are looking the wrong direction. The praise, glory, and triumph the word shabach implies is directed toward God. One other way the word is translated is “still” (where the connotation for “keep it in” comes into play). What does that mean? I think it means that our hearts need to be directed to God in quiet praise. We soothe our hearts by constant thankfulness to God for everything we have.

Why do we blow our top? Because we are focused too much on what we didn’t get instead of what we have. I didn’t get what I wanted this week, but I got something. Thank God. I didn’t get anything, but I already have enough. Thank God. I was wronged for no reason, but I’m alive and healthy. Thank God. I’ve had the carpet under my life ripped from underneath me, but I have people around me to help me. Thank God. No matter what is happening we have to constantly remind ourselves that in Christ we have something.

If you have never been to a Seder Feast you need to go to one. The Passover Seder is a Jewish ritual that commemorates the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt. During the Seder there is a section where praise is given to God for the favor He has shown us. There is a Hebrew word used in this section – dayenu. Dayenu means “it is sufficient”, or “it is enough”. Over and over again we are reminded that if God had only done one thing during the Exodus, it would have been enough. If God had only parted the sea, it would have been enough. If God only allowed the Jews to cross on dry land, it would have been enough. If God had only fed them manna, it would have been enough. All of these blessings are recounted as a way to show how God did abundantly more. But it’s the attitude to take notice of here. If God had only done one of these things, it would have been enough! Can you share that attitude? If God only gave you shelter, would it be enough? If God only gave you food for today, would it be enough? If God gave you a portion of what you were expecting (or thought you deserved), would it be enough? That is our problem – we constantly doubt our Heavenly Father who provides us everything, but somehow it’s still not enough for us!

If you want to know why you are constantly disappointed, and why every expectation you have is not met, look at your heart. Are you in constant quiet praise for what God has done for you, or are you constantly grumbling in your heart that you don’t have enough so that it eventually comes to a head and you erupt like a volcano? It is this kind of positive mental attitude that will keep you from disappointment. In this life, God has given you something. Rest in the fact that no matter what it is, it is enough.

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Doha, Qatar

Qatar is in Saudi Arabia. It kind of looks like Michigan without the thumb. Why do I bring this up? If you look at our ClustrMap, we have a little red dot there. This might be the most exotic place we get a dot so I thought I would share the reason why!

Mark Sears is one of the geniuses behind eBible.com (also linked to the left, and if you haven't used it yet, I consider it to be the best internet-based Bible program out there). I met him through Thomas Nelson. He has a company called Godspeed Computing and lives in Canada, outside of Calgary. His wife works for the University of Calgary and they are living in Qatar for three months while she works for the UoC over there. I have a lot of respect for Mark as an internet guru, and consider Mark a friend. If you are so inclined you can follow his adventure in the Middle East over at MarkSears.com.

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The Winter of My Blog Discontent

Well, it is October already. Only three months left in the year. Fall is on its way (although you couldn’t tell by temperatures here in the South) and Christmas decorations are already on sale. Once again time has slipped by and we haven’t put anything meaningful on our blog. If it weren’t for these occasional laments on not writing, we’d barely have anything on here at all!

The fundamental issue is that there is too much “regular” life going on and not enough (at least in our mind) “blog-worthy” life going on. People ask how it’s going and I tell them that that I wish something was happening so that I could say that something was happening! Life is fairly routine right now, and routine doesn’t make for good story. Oh, I’m sure that I could come up with some sort of political rant, or some other pithy observation but even the ol’ writing juices haven’t been flowing lately.

As a matter of fact, life lately has been a day-to-day trudge through the snow. Not particularly difficult, but slow and mundane nonetheless. You walk and walk and walk and the landscape doesn’t change much, and when you look back the wind has erased most of your tracks so it’s hard to even recall where you’ve been.

Sure every now and then you have this epiphany and realize that life is passing you by and you need to do something, but that moment usually comes while you are driving, or otherwise occupied, and by the time you get to where you are going and reality kicks in you soon forget all about it.

Don’t take any of this as complaining. Life could be bad. There are many people that have overwhelming circumstances that consume their time. Me? I’m just ADD and can’t seem to make the time to do those things that I want to do. As our pastor recently taught, sin and procrastination are definitely kissing cousins. Like Paul said – the things I want to do I don’t do, but things I don’t want to do that is what I end up doing. Sure I want to post something on the blog, but the reality is that I am consumed by everything else. The “everything else” ranges from essential things like work, to the non-essential things like watching the Cowboys on a Sunday afternoon (although those things could arguably both be considered essential, I have to draw the line at what pays the bills and what doesn’t. Too bad.).

You would think that with 5 years of time and life management experience under my belt at Franklin Covey I would be better at this, but like the old saying goes those who can’t do, teach. I could tell you all the principles of prioritizing, but putting those things into practice is quite another accomplishment.

So, here we are again at yet another milestone in the year and unless you have talked with Melinda on the phone recently you are no closer to us than you were a year ago. Shame on us! The quick and simple is this:

• Scott is very happy in his new position at Thomas Nelson. He has had the chance to work with a lot of great people on the front lines of ministry. If there was one thing he would like to improve it would be in the area of new business. What Nelson Ministry Services does is the best-kept secret in the industry and more people need to know about it

• Melinda has enjoyed some time off over the summer and then started a new job at the beginning of September. One of the biggest reasons she is working is that she is taking early childhood education classes and they are paid for as long as she is working in a pre-school environment. She is working at a pre-school in a local church and loves having a lot less pressure. She also has a great schedule that allows her to be home in the afternoons with the girls, which is a huge blessing.

• Jessica is almost half-way done with the 6th grade and continues to grow into a (even more) beautiful young lady. Everyone at the school loves having her there and enjoy being around her. The challenge we face is that this is her last year at Bill Rice Christian Academy. Where they used to go through the 12th grade, they made the decision to stop at 6th. We now have to start looking for a new school – one that holds similar values as Bill Rice, but won’t break the bank!

• Anna is getting so big it’s unimaginable. It’s tough to look at her like a 10 year old, but she’s growing up. To be honest we have really been struggling with Anna’s behavior lately and we (Melinda) is working hard to get her on an even keel. She is on a balanced calendar school schedule (“year round”) and is currently on her three-week break. That has been a God-send for everyone (especially for her teachers). Pray that we can discover what it is that is triggering her outbursts and that we can moderate her behavior.

Well, there you have it. As you can see nothing spectacular, but a lot of stuff to keep us busy. We will continue with a random post just to keep you coming back to see something, but will also continue to aspire to more. In the meantime, enjoy this fall season and see if you can find how many places in your neck of the woods that have Halloween and Christmas decorations right next to each other.

P.S. - We need more red dots on out map to the left! Tell everyone you know to at least look at our blog! Thanks!

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Blog Tune Up

O.k. - a couple of enhancements:

1. A new feature was added to the left called Cluster Maps (I first saw it on Mike Hyatt's blog, but I have to give credit to my friend Mark Whitlock for adding it to his blog and inspiring me to do the same). So, tell all your missionary friends, and anyone else you know in foreign countries to at least take a look at our blog! I would love to see red dots all over the map!!
2. Now that Google has taken over Blogger, the issue of separate users has been resolved, so now you can see when I post vs. Melinda posting. We will work on updating our individual profiles.

I hope this improves your overall experience with our little corner of the world wide web.

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Shameless Promotion

I don't want to turn anyone off with a bunch of promotion about upcoming Thomas Nelson product, however this time I just can't help it.

Yesterday we released a new audio project called The Word of Promise. Here is the description of the product:

A 20-hour, 20-CD, diverse star-studded audio Bible production of The New Testament. This multi-voiced faithful rendering of the NKJV New Testament is presented in a compelling, dramatic audio theater format.

The arresting world-class audio production immerses listeners in the dramatic reality of the Scriptures as never before. Complete with an original music score by prolific Italian composer Stefano Mainetti ( Abba Pater ), Contributions by Dove Award winners Michael W. Smith and Rebecca St. James, and ambient sound effects that are woven together with compelling narration by Michael York, the Bible comes to life for a new generation. The post-production, sound design and Foley (sound effects) are produced, engineered and mixed at Cerny American Creative in Chicago-an award-winning post-production facility ranked in the Top 3 in the nation for sound design.

Cast includes:

• Jim Caviezel (The Passion of the Christ, Déjà vu) - Jesus
• Michael York (Romeo & Juliet, Austin Powers) - Narrator
• Academy Award winner Richard Dreyfuss (Mr. Holland's Opus, The Goodbye Girl) - Quotes from Moses
• Academy Award winner Marisa Tomei (My Cousin Vinny, What Women Want) - Mary Magdalene
• Golden Globe winner Stacy Keach (Prison Break, Hemingway) - Paul
• Academy Award and Golden Globe winner Lou Gossett, Jr (An Officer and a Gentleman, Roots) - John
• Terence Stamp (Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Superman II) - Voice of God
• Kimberly Williams-Paisley (According to Jim, Father of the Bride) - Mary, Mother of Jesus
• Golden Globe and Tony Award nominee, Lou Diamond Phillips (La Bamba, Young Guns) - Mark
• John Heard (Prison Break, Home Alone) - Matthew
• Ernie Hudson (Miss Congeniality, Ghostbusters) - Peter
• TV Guide's TV's 25 Greatest Teen Idols honoree Luke Perry (Beverly Hills 90210, Jeremiah) - Judas & Stephen
• John Schneider (Smallville, Dukes of Hazzard) - James
• Chris McDonald (Happy Gilmore, Quiz Show) - Luke

To give you a better idea, here is a video from GodTube:

I have heard a lot of this project and it is truly powerful. It is virtually word-for-word the New King James Bible (there are some "scripting" elements to it to make the text flow better, like eliminating phrases "and he said", etc.), so it really lends itself to us for memorization. Or, just sit back and experience the Scripture like never before. If you have surround sound, even better! It's like listening to a movie!

I hope you don't mind the pitch, but I just had to share! Let me know if you any of you want to know more.

Scott

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Jott

Mike Hyatt (President and CEO of Thomas Nelson) has come through again with another cool productivity tip. It has so many applications I just had to share it with you:

Never Forget a To-Do Item

For more tips on life and productivity be sure to check out Mike's blog From Where I Sit (link to the left as well).

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Life and Whitewater Rafting

So, my friend Randy not so subtly pointed out that Spring has sprung and we are now into summer and there have been no updates to the blog. First of all, YEA! Someone actually does check our blog! :) Second, whew! Here is a quick rundown of the last 6-8 weeks:

• I started my new job (which has kept me busy)
• Melinda has quit her job (which, believe it or not, has kept her busy)
• Melinda has been taking some early education classes
• The girls finished up school
• Melinda's gandmother passed away
• We went on vacation to Colorado

These are just the highlights of what has been robbing our time lately. We will post details and pictures of our Colorado trip, but one of the activities we were able to enjoy was a whitewater rafting trip on the Colorado River.

It's interesting the parallels between the instructions we were given in case we fall in and our life lately. When we hit the water there were several Class IV rapids at the beginning. We were told that if we fall out the only thing you can do is put your feet out in front of you (like you are sitting in a recliner), hold your head up high, and float to calmer water where the boat would come get you and pull you in. Oh, and try and aviod the rocks! That pretty much sums up our life lately! We have been holding our head high, letting the river take its course, and avoiding the rocks. But, calmer water is ahead and we are waiting for the boat to come pick us up.

Thank you for being patient. Look for a vacation update soon. We are waiting for our pictures to be developed (our digital camera broke, so we took film cameras on our trip) and will post a slide show.

Keep checking back or, better yet, sign up to receive an email whenever we post something. Sign up is on the left!

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Spring Fever

The dogwoods are blooming, the grass is green, the oak tree in the front yard is bursting with leaves. Ah! Spring time! I never understood why you made new year resolutions in the month of January. You are entering the darkest, coldest part of the year. There is nothing environmentally that even remotely evokes a spirit of change. Spring, however, is the complete opposite. Birds sing loudest. Bugs buzz with vigor. People clean house. It's all about freshness and newness.

Which brings me to the subject of today's post: I have a new job. Like the proverbial 800 pound gorilla in the room, it looks/sounds funny just seeing it there out in the open, but it's true.

I have been with Thomas Nelson for almost five years now. I started off as a freelancer and four titles later I am currently a Senior Acquisitions Editor. All of this time I have been in the area of digital publishing - turning the books Thomas Nelson creates (specifically Bibles and Bible Reference products) into electronic versions. I have served passionately in this area the entire time. While here I have managed (and created) many top-selling software titles, and brought new strategies and relationships to Thomas Nelson. My heart, however, has always been in the relationship business. I love to be in front of people and talking with them and helping them see how what we have can help them. Hence the change...

Starting Monday the 16th I will be a Regional Sales Manager for Nelson Ministry Services. This division handles all of the sales to our author and large church partners. I will be covering the southeast helping authors such as Charles Stanley, Hank Hanegraaff, and John Maxwell just to name a few. I will be working with churches and ministries of all sizes, to help match Thomas Nelson product with their strategies to grow their ministries.

It's an exciting new venture, and I am most pleased that I can do it while still working for the largest Christian publisher in the US. Please pray for me as I transition. There is a lot to finish in my current position, and a lot to learn in my new one. Pray that I finish well here, and can start off running over there. More importantly pray I never forget that even though I am in sales, that my primary job is putting tools in the hands of people so that they can better understand God's Word. That, above all, is my purpose.

Scott

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New Feature

One of the ways I learn about cool things to do with blogs is by reading other blogs. I already credited Mike Hyatt with a lot of the tools I've added recently. Well, I've found another little gadget to add.

Look over to the left and you will see a couple of new sections that indicate whether or not Melinda or I are online via three popular instant messaging services - AIM, MSN (now Windows Live Messenger), and Yahoo!. I know you could just as easily pull up the messenger service and see if we are online, but a lot of people don't automatically sign in to their service when they log in to their computer. This way, if you are checking the blog (you are checking, aren't you? We've been getting more regular at posting! Better yet subscribe over to the left!) you can see if you want to sign in and chat.

O.k., I know what you are thinking and I admit it - I'm a gadget freak and things like this make me giggle like a school girl. There isn't any practical purpose to having it, I just think it's cool. You caught me!

Enjoy...

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Scott's Trip to New York City

O.k. - we really want to share photos on this blog however I haven't been very happy with any of the options so far. I thought Slide.com was going to work, but in the end I didn't like the results. Flickr produced great results, but it was a lot of work to get the actual show into Blogger. Also, both of those options required that I be online while I create the slide show.

The best way to accomplish what I wanted to do was to actually build a Flash slide show myself. That isn't easy! I'd have to program the Flash show, find an online place to host it, and then publish it so that I could link it here to play for you. Too much work (not that you aren't worth it!).

Enter Flash Slide Show Maker. This FREE (yes, free) desktop program allows you create a great looking Flash slide show, but also provides FREE (there's that magic word again) online hosting of the show through SkyAlbum.com. All I have to do is create the show and it will upload it for me. Once that is done I copy and past the link and, viola, I have a great looking Flash-based slide show on the blog! I love technology! There are a lot of great features to the software, but I will let you read about it yourself.

Now, on to the good stuff!

I took this trip almost a year ago, but it was great test for using the software. I went to New York to visit with the Sony Corporation and attend a conference. Like all of my trips, I had to squeeze a lot in a short amount of time. So, here is a summary of my three-hour tour of New York City!





I am extremely pleased with the results of the slide show, so after many empty promises we can get to work on putting up more photos for you to enjoy and catch up with us.

P.S. - I am going back to New York again in May, so I am hoping to see some of the things I didn't get to see last year!

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Spam Blog

The last entry about my sprain took a few days to actually post. I could write it as a draft, but when I attempted to publish it I got a message that our blog had been blocked by a spam-prevention tool because it appeared to be a "spam blog". What in the world is a spam blog? They had a handy link that explained it all:

The ease of creating and updating webpages with Blogger has made it particularly prone to a form of behavior known as link spamming. Blogs engaged in this behavior are called spam blogs, and can be recognized by their irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text...

If that last statement doesn't accurately describe this blog, I have no idea what does! :)

Scott

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Off Balance

O.k. - this settles it. Scott must lean to the left. Literally, not politically.

This past Saturday we watched our pastor's kids at our house. It was a beautiful spring day. Kids, a beautiful day, and Scott trying to keep up all spells disaster! While playing hide-and-seek, and chasing a much faster eight year-old to base, Scott rolled his foot over and sprained his ankle. Time to go inside!

He sat on the couch for a while and called to Melinda to check on whatever was beeping in the kitchen. She called him a wimp and asked why he couldn't check it himself. He called her over and showed her why. At this point his ankle was swollen and the pain was increasing. It was off to the emeregency room.

Final prognosis was a sprain (thankfully, it wasn't broken). When Scott asked what exactly that meant he was given this quote - "If anyone ever tells you they sprained their ankle and are back playing basketball the next day, they didn't really sprain their ankle. "Real" sprains involve torn ligaments". Although only an MRI would tell how bad the damage was, the doctor figured this was the case here. He was fitted with a large "boot" to walk around in and has to follow up with our regualr doctor this week.

The irony is that it is his left foot. You may remember he broke his left collar bone almost a year and a half ago (also trying to capture some long lost glory of his youth) so, he must have a tendancy to fall to his left.

The moral of this story? Same as last time - leave the running to the eight year olds. From now on Scott can referee from the sidelines!

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Housekeeping

A few items of update on the blog:

1. Our profile is fixed, so the whole family is back! There's even an updated picture (it's bigger, too, so you can actually see us!). This was a snapshot taken at Thanksgiving.
2. I've added a couple of little tools. The first is a service called Snap Preview. It allows you to hover over a link with your mouse (try it with the one above) and a small pop-up window will give you a preview of the website. This will help you determine if you really want to go to the site before you click and navigate away.
3. Obviously we have been sporadic in updating (we are trying to correct that!). I'm sure that you have better things to do with your life than coming back to our little corner of the web just to see if we've posted anything. Well, worry no more. Over to the left I've added a place where you can sign up and you will receive an email notification whenever we get around to posting something. This is a service from a website called FeedBlitz. There is no spam, you aren't signing up for anything other than this update, and you will never have to worry about your email showing up anywhere. I've used this for a while and I've never had a problem. You will receive an email the morning after a post has been made. We'll try not to clutter your inbox too much! ;)

Finally, I have to give props to where these cool tools came from. The President and CEO of Thomas Nelson, Mike Hyatt, is an avid blogger. He's been a huge inspiration for me wanting to blog. He's also a fellow technophile and helps keep me up to date on technology. He has an incredible blog and I highly recommend that you take a look, and subscribe to it. Those of you reading this in the business world will find a treasure trove of information here, but even if you aren't in business you will find a lot of what Mike says useful. I've added his blog, From Where I Sit, to the links on the left.

I hope you enjoy these small enhancements. Like I said, we are trying to get better at updates. Keep checking back, or better yet subscribe and look forward to a surprise in your inbox soon!

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15 Seconds

Scott isn't the only one in the limelight these days! Jessica is enjoying some fame via an article in the newspaper about her class at school. It wasn't on the web, so below is a scan of the actual article (to read it, just click for a larger image):

Today the class went on their "special field trip surprise". They went to Chick-fil-A for lunch, then they were off to meet the Mayor of Murfreesboro, go to the top of the AmSouth Bank building (the tallest building in Murfreesboro), and then to the park to play (although with the high expected to only be 41 today (and it's only 30 now!) I'm not sure how long that will last!).

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Almost Famous

Recently I had two opportunities to represent my job, and my company, in two high profile situations. I'm excited to finally begin to establish myself as an expert in the arena of digital publishing.

First, in November I was a guest on a nationally syndicated radio program called Point of View talking about Bible study software, and specifically our brand, eBible. It was a two hour radio program and I was the guest the whole time! Unfortunately, the link is gone on their website, but here is a link to listen for anyone interested. A few technical notes: The first 5 people can click and do nothing. After that, you have to sign up for a free XDrive account. If you do, you get 5GB of online storage for free. If you don't, I understand. Also, the file is 22MB and the interview is long. I will NOT be offended if you don't listen! :)

Second, The Tennessean, our local newspaper, ran an article today about the future of e-books. This article was prompted by a press release from our company about a new partnership I made with a software company. The newspaper called me and I spent a lot of time on the phone educating the writer about the world of e-books. In the end, we weren't the feature of the article, but I was quoted in it and the partnership was mentioned. Here it is, for your reading pleasure!

I just thought I would share with you a couple of successes for me lately. It's great to have a job you love, and have the opportunity to communicate that to others.

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Scott's trip to Washington DC

Happy New Year to all!!

We have been a little dry on posting over the holidays because we have a lot of pictures to share and I've been trying to figure out the best way to accomplish this. The previous slide show of my trip to Washington state was done at a site called Flickr, but in order to upload any reasonable amount of pictures you have to pay for the service. I wanted to avoid that. After much research, and even trying to do it myself in Flash, I found Slide. It's free and it even gives you all the code you need to put a slide show directly into a blog post. Before I had to do some HTML coding (a not so easy task when you have no idea what you are doing!). So far Slide seems like a great solution. Let us know what you think and we'll get more up as soon as possible (including the long overdue updates on each of us, and the house tour!). On a little bit of a technical note, I'm very suprised that Picasa doesn't support doing this since Google owns both Picasa and Blogger. Maybe in future updates...

Now on to the subject of this post. Below is a picture slide show from a business trip to Washington DC I took in November. Unfortunately, I left a few hours before Mark and Shary came home from Florida, so I didn't get to see them. :( This is a summary of about 4 hours of hard and fast sightseeing! All in all there are some good shots, so I hope you like them.

On a final note, Blogger has updated their site recently and in the transition my picture and my profile have become the default. I'm not sure why, but I will work on that quickly so that you can see all of us again.

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