Sunday scripture and other assorted thoughts

Based on yesterday's blog I wanted to include the picture you see here. Part of the report on NPR was about how Sammy Sosa has recently been accused of lightening his skin color. He claims it was the lighting, but I'm not so sure.

- On a more important topic, I am looking forward to teaching this Sunday and I hope you are planning to be at Greer High School at 10:30 for worship. The scripture for this week's message is from John 4. Go ahead and read John 4:1-42 if you want to have a head start on what we will be talking about. Also, when you show up on Sunday be sure and grab a name tag. You'll see why.

- Based on all the rain and wind of the last three days it looks like most of my weekend will be spent cleaning up leaves. Yippee!

- When you come to worship this Sunday check out how Chris is the oldest guy in the band by far. This week's line-up will feature two teenagers and three guys in their 20's. That means that Chris, Donny, and I will be the oldest people on stage by almost 20 years. I think that's pretty cool.

- Sherry and I will be heading over to Woodruff tonight to watch her cousin play football. The playoffs began last week, so we expect this game to pretty good. Woodruff finished the regular season undefeated for the first time since the mid 80's, so all the folks there are hoping for a state championship.

- I borrowed a Joe Cocker CD from the library yesterday. After listening to it I am convinced that he is the greatest white soul singer in history. He's even better than me when I sing along with Aretha Franklin in my truck.

That's all for now. See you Sunday!

Wanting what we don't have

I was listening to NPR on the way to the bank this morning when I heard something very interesting. The newest target audience in the world of cosmetics marketing are Indian men. The country of India has a population of 1 billion, half of which are male. So what, you may ask, is the cosmetic product that marketers are targeting towards men in India? It's skin lightening cream. Evidently, this had been a desire for Indian women for years and now Indian men are getting into the act of wanting their skin to be less brown. Now before we hear this and make a joke about Michael Jackson, think about the fact that Americans spend hundreds of thousands (maybe even millions) of dollars per year trying to look darker. Whether it's tanning beds, tanning lotions or just a good old fashioned sun burn, Americans will go to great lengths to change their skin color as well. Skin isn't the only thing we desire to change either. For years I've joked about how women who have straight hair pay money to make their hair curly and women with curly hair use irons and special products to straighten theirs out. I won't even get into what we do for different color hair or what men do who are losing their hair (can anyone say comb over?).

It seems like all of us humans, whether we are American, Indian, male or female, suffer from the same disease. We want what we don't have. Of course this goes well beyond skin color and type of hair. We can be completely satisfied with our house until we visit a home that's bigger and newer. Suddenly our home feels old and out of date. We can't enjoy the job we have now, because we are busy dreaming about how good things will be when we get a promotion. When we were in high school we couldn't wait to be in college, and when we were in college we couldn't wait to be done with school forever, and now that we are out of school and paying the bills we reminisce about how great and care free high school and college were.

The book of James says, "Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord's coming." I think we would all do well to remember that this life is not all there is. If you think you are too dark or not dark enough it's only a temporary condition. That bigger house you want probably has more issues than you realize, and even if you lived there it wouldn't be your permanent home. I believe we should always be striving to be better, know more, and go farther, but I also believe there are situations that it would help us to just be content. Be patient, just be patient.

More fun with YouTube

After vacation last week (which was great) this week has involved a lot of catching up and several long meetings. Since the blog is always the thing that gets pushed to the rear in weeks like this, enjoy this video. Chances are you've already seen it, but this one features a slow motion section that I had not seen before. Hope it makes you laugh!

Monday Musings

First of all, I don't even know what a "musing" is. It sounds way too girly for it to be something I would do, but I chose that for today's title anyway. Here's what I'm musing about:

- Follow-up to yesterday's message. I had a friend of mine ask me a great question after yesterday's message on money. He asked, "When I start to tithe, how do I do it cheerfully?" This question addresses one of the great biblical paradoxes. In scripture we are commanded to give 10% of our hard earned money away and we are also commanded to give it away cheerfully. For most folks the giving away of that much income is anything but cheerful. Here's a condensed version of how I answered my friend yesterday. The first time you give 10% you probably won't feel very cheerful, but as you continue to give, and as you continue to see that God is providing all of your needs even as you give away a large percentage of income, you will begin to experience a joy that can only come from being free financially. I also had another guy tell me that he actually enjoyed yesterday's message. That was a pleasant surprise. Maybe he enjoys root canals too.

- Donny has started a blog! Here's a linc to Donny's new blog. I will also add him to the blog roll in the sidebar when I get a chance. He will be following up on each week's message with some practical ideas and resources that should help you apply what you learn each Sunday.

- We are looking forward to hitting the road this afternoon for Williamsburg, VA. The last time we went we experienced a good bit of rain. This year the forecast is for sunny skies. That will make walking around much nicer.

Even though I will be out of the office this week I hope to blog a couple of more time before Sunday, but I'm not making any promises!

Lots of different stuff

Friday's here already? Maybe I'm getting old, but it seems like time is moving faster these days. Hope you are ready for a very random set of things to read.

- Here is the scripture for Sunday's message. I'm not going to tell you what it's about, because I want you to show up anyway. Of course, if you read the scripture it will be obvious. Let me just say this, it's a topic that people complain to the Pastor about if he teaches on it too often, but the Bible has tons to say about it. In fact, Jesus talked about this subject more than He talked about Heaven and Hell.

- I watched highlights on Sportscenter of game 2 of the World Series. Ryan Howard struck out four times last night. The woman doing the highlights referred to striking out four times in a game as a "Golden Sombrero". I have been a pretty serious baseball fan since I was 12, and I have never heard of a "Golden Sombrero". I've heard of a "Texas Leaguer", "high cheese", "round tripper", "dinger", "ribbies", "taking the bump", "frozen rope", "a look what I found catch" and tons of other baseball sayings. I'm thinking the folks at Sportscenter are trying to create a new term. I don't even know why four strikeouts would be "golden" and what does it have to do with a giant Mexican hat? I think striking out four times in a game should be called "guess I need to spend more time in the batting cage" or "Dang, I'm glad I didn't get to bat five times tonight", or maybe even "I'm overpaid".

- Sherry and I ate at Soby's last Friday night for the first time, and now I'm trying to figure out a way I could afford to eat there once a week. It was that good. Thanks to Chris and April for generously sharing their gift certificate with us!

- Our friends in Botswana need your old cell phones! If you have used (but still working) cell phones you can donate them to Moruti James ( the pastor of Old Naledi in Botswana) when he visits next week. Any used phones, other than Sprint, will work. You can bring them by the office next week.

- I haven't been to see a movie in a while, but there are several I'm interested in seeing. "Where the Wild Things Are" looks cool, and I'd like to see how the writers took a book with about 10 sentences and made it into a two hour film. The new version of "A Christmas Carol" should be good, although that animation like they used in "The Polar Express" is kind of creepy. I'd love to see "The Men Who Stare at Goats", but that will have to be a guy's afternoon out because Sherry draws the line on stupid looking films that star George Clooney.

I'm looking forward to seeing all of you on Sunday! By the way, keep washing those hands swine flu is still running wild.

Tribute to the Greatest of all Decades

If you graduated from high school when I did (1987) or in the handful of years before or after that, you will get a chuckle from this video. Thanks to my man Trey Frick for sending this to me. I'd love for you to leave a comment about some of your favorite things from the 80's. Enjoy!

Excuses, excuses

To my eight regular readers (yes it used to be seven, but Jimmy White now makes it eight) I need to apologize. Wednesday afternoon is far too late to post the first content of the week. Here are a list of excuses for why this has happened.

I haven't written on the blog this week because:
- I've been trying to hammer out a new health care bill with Jim Demint & Bob Inglis.
- An adverse reaction to the swine flu vaccine.
- Been too busy putting orange lights in the yard for Halloween.
- Had a painful bout with IBS.
- No time due to finishing up my first studio album of me singing Bob Dylan songs where you can clearly understand the lyrics.

Actually, there's no real reason other than the fact that I struggled a little more than normal writing this Sunday's message, and some normal pastor type things came up that slowed me down a little. Just normal stuff, but as a result the blog got put on the back burner. Here's some stuff you need to know now:

- Freedom loves Africa. As many of you know, we have been financially supporting Old Naledi Baptist Church in Botswana for the last year. Four of our folks spent a week there on mission this past summer. On Sunday, November 8 the entire service will focus on what God is doing there and how we can be more involved. It will be a special day. Also, next Thursday (November 5) the pastor of Old Naledi, Moruti James, will be here in Greer speaking at out new office about the ministry in Botswana. That meeting will begin at 7:00 p.m.

- Halloween Hoopla was a huge success again. Big time thanks to Shelley Kauffman, Chrissy Kemp, Crystal Schulte, Misty Corbett, and of course Donny for organizing the whole thing. Of course, there were over 100 others of you who volunteered to make everything go off without a hitch. Pray for wisdom for the planning team as they get together soon to evaluate everything and plan to make next year's event have an even greater impact.

That's all for now. The World Series begins tonight. I predict the Phillies win in seven.