Bible reading thoughts

reading through Judges and Mark. here are a few thoughts from today's reading:

Judges 4-6

one thing real quick...the Bible i am reading through does not mark it's verses, so you will have to dig through the text yourself to find where i am at. sorry, i know it is a pain...but you might find something you can comment back on! : )

k...judges chapters 4-6

story of deborah

• she was a judge and prophet. that was weird to me, thought the woman were supposed to keep their mouth shut??? (in the OT, of course...lol)
• people of israel continue to sin. not too much different from me so far!
• speaking of this time before the Lord called deborah to lead an attack, the author says that warriors became fat and sloppy, no fight left in them...God chose new leaders. at this point i am having to ask myself who the Lord is speaking to?
• the command is for all people to stop what they are doing and listen, listen to the story of the victory God performed for the israelites.
• clan of reuben had lots of division and camp-fire discussions. sometimes it seems like i am talking a lot...obeying very little
• "thus may all God's enemies perish, while his lovers be like the unclouded sun" there isnt much in between here.

that brings us to the story of Gideon

• people went back to evil! if you are following along in the story....you have to be saying, your kidding right? they didnt...yep they did! how often do we forget how good God has been to us and then we go right back to how we were?
• God's angel goes to Gideon and tells him, you are going to be the guy who saves israel from midian. Gideon is like, not me! I am from the smallest tribe and i am the runt of the litter! i have been dealing with this here lately. i have been thinking of the apostle paul...that when we are weak, He is strong and the Lord said to paul, my grace is sufficient for you. and for me too!
• God's promise to Gideon is this, " I will be with you..." i know that is more than enough, but i am praying for the Lord to make that real, more real than it is already for me.

have to get to Mark later. read Mark 7 that is what i will try and comment on later tonight, maybe sometime later this week. we'll see : ) have a good week!

no words needed...

no words really needed for this picture.  i am the crazy uncle from missouri that teaches his nephew how to properly handle and shoot firearms!  he hit a bullseye on his first clip!  he's a natural!!!

love ya sis!  dont be mad at me...lol

visit is winding down...

well it seems impossible, but 2 weeks has almost come and gone! 

 this week we have: went shopping, went fishing, ate good chinese, went to silver dollar city, had a birthday party (tonight for andrea!!), me and julian are going to shoot guns tomorrow, rode 4-wheelers, and jumped hay bales...(see pic below)

this was one of my favorite memories growing up around a "farm".  hay bales lined up and my brother and i would race across the top of them!  well, like father like son i guess, this is eric's new favorite thing to do.  julian opted to take time and teach kinley how to drive the golf cart..such a good cousin!

some time tomorrow we are off to the branson landing.  eric's "grumps" (self-named g-pa) has landed eric a gig playing the street drums with some young men who are street performers at the landing.  these young men use anything from 5 gallon buckets to 55 gallon drums to make a drum beat on.  grumps works at the landing and got to know them and he asked if his grand-son could play along for one song with them...they said they would love to have some help.  eric is pretty good at drums, he got an electronic kit for his birthday that he can play pretty good for a 7 year old!  should be a lot of fun.

anyway, going to go and enjoy the last couple of days with the family!  

weekend thoughts...

i was reading eric cooper a story tonight at bed time.  his devotional was on repentance...that happened to be our topic at North Point this morning.  (btw, great music this morning!) really it was a great service...it has had me thinking most of the day on repentance and re-thinking what it means to repent.  tommy gave 4 "little r words" that make up the big R word.  re-structure, re-think, re-arrange and reality check.   different than feeling bad or guilty or sorry, or an emotional experience.  i think i agree mostly with this theory...too much to unpack in a short post.  but you can kind of fill in the blanks in the 4 points.  

eric's devo was out of psalm 51.  this psalm is written by david right after jonathan confronts him after the adultery w/ bathsheba.  my favorite part about david's view on repentance is the Lord restoring the joy of his salvation...

i think i got more out eric's devotional time than he did...somehow i think that is ok.  i love hearing him asking God, in prayer,  to help his cousin Bud to have a great time in heaven.  and praying for his aunt shelby to be ok now that she is going to be living by herself.  i KNOW the Lord heard that prayer!

my cousin Bud's funeral was saturday.  another cousin of ours, tony, officiated the service.  i dont know how long it has been since tony has done a funeral or preached a message...but it was obvious the the Lord had gave him words.  the question of the resting place of bud's soul was heavy on my heart and our small group had just got done looking at the story of the prodigal son.  tony referenced how the son came to his senses. he then told a story of an instance in the last month or so of bud's life.  he was living with his sister and had  attended church with her, later that day or week...he was walking around singing praise songs from church.  i dont have time, nor space to share with you how huge that was for bud to be singing praises.  essentially he had come to his senses.  he was confessing with his mouth that Jesus is Lord.

sorry so long and kind of winding around...lots of stuff going through the head!  but i think it all has something to do with repentance...

roller coaster week

ups first

• great time camping with my nieces and nephew
• a lot of fun riding a sea doo and pulling julian (watching him fall off)
• i am the champion of egyptian war!!  man i bet the girls got tired of me whipping them at that game...haha
• loved sleeping in the tent with eric and julian
• it is always relaxing and tiring being on the lake
• i absolutely love spending time with my kids and my family

downs

• really missing my wife
• my cousin Bud, who is quite a bit older than me, has had really a pretty rough life that even at 34, i do not know much about.  Bud was like all of us, he had some issues.  some of the ways that he chose to deal with them, led him down some very harmful paths.  harmful to himself and to those who loved him.  i do not know the condition of his soul...in english, i do not know where he will spend eternity.  
• this breaks my heart on so many different levels.  
• this post by vince antonucci says how i feel right now.

i never want to have to talk about feeling this way again...

oh yeah...baseball is over : (

thursday night, eric and his team lost their final game.  they just could not get anything going.  it was a fun season, we all learned a lot and , actually, we look forward to next season.

posts will be limited this week, due to a busy schedule of hanging out with kids... : )  ( i normally make a lot of fun of people who put those stupid little faces next to their sentences...guess i am "one of those" people now) 

digging into galatians 3:21-4:11 and luke 15.  good stuff, new small group study tonight.  looking forward to that!  

it is past my bed time...g'night.  

pedicures and 4-wheelers

my nieces and nephew made it in safely on saturday. below are a few pics of things they dont normally get to do in california!

where does the pedicure come into play? aunt kim had taken the girls for pedicures sunday morning after church...then uncle daniel took them riding 4-wheelers with sandals on!! prob not the best scenario for a new pedicure... : )

looking forward to a great couple of weeks with these guys!!

couple of quick hits...

BIG baseball game tonight! eric had an exciting come from behind win on tuesday night to advance them into this game tonight! i love seeing him improve and enjoy something that i never did. this team was terrible, and i am not even going to apologize for saying that, they were awful at the beginning of the season. but talk about improvement, they have won their last 5 games. so win or lose, they have done GREAT!

little crazy in the office today, anyone else know what it is like to get price increases monthly!! let me tell you...NOT GOOD!

had a great lunch with some really good friends today. it is good to hear that the Lord is working in people's lives in work environments.

2 days till the kids get here! SUPER excited about that!! 2 weeks with, honestly, the best behaved teens/pre-teens i have ever been around.

i could not fathom this post by perry noble, 50 K .

had a great/unique prayer service at JRA last night. i will post about it later...

have a good night!!

leadership...

ok, i read a passage of scripture monday that has been on my mind a lot since then.  Mark 3:7-12  

early on in Jesus' ministry, people are flocking him to heal them.  apparently, he wanted to get away a little bit.  the demons, know who he is and they are scared to death of the guy and they start screaming out declaring who He really is.  b/c even back then that was a popular question...who is this guy, really? and Jesus has the perfect opportunity for even the demons to declare who he is and lead a pretty significant amount of people...well, to himself...and He says to the demons, DONT say anything! wierd, huh?  

THEN, even more weird, He picks and exclusive group to go up on the mountain with him, then he decides on the 12.  this is Mark 3:13-19 . here he unleashes the plan, ok...you guys, you 12...your gonna do it.  ready, ready, BREAK!  huh?  oh, i will be with you...but i am sending you out. and you, you are gonna have authority.  pretty much because...I, well...I hand-picked you.

huh, i wonder if this is true of me? and you?  i wonder?  what do you think?

a couple of things i am excited about...

Here are a couple of things that i am excited about...

• Eric Cooper won his baseball game tonight!!!  the tourney just started and they won their first game by scoring in the 2 runs in the last inning!  wow, that was nerve racking...lol
• Eric is improving tremendously, the whole team has made major strides.  they have won their last 5 games!  
• my nieces, Lillian and Andrea, and my nephew, Julian, are coming in for 2 weeks to hang out with their Uncle Daniel and Aunt Kim.  they get here Saturday!!
• i have a few business deals that are looking good...skeptically optimistic about those.
• i love what I see the Lord doing with Kris and Eric at C.F.C. 
• lunch with some old friends on Thursday!
• i am asking the Lord to open doors, and i am not going anywhere until He does

i know, some capital letters in there, it is hard to go back and forth from business mode to easier, less high strung mode.

experiment

welcome to my little experiment. 

why an experiment?

• i hate the thought of posting my thoughts and ideas on the world wide web.
  
• i do not want to be "misunderstood". nor do i want to seem like a hypocrite.
  
• i am afraid of being "over-exposed".

so, why do it?

• i love the idea of networking with people that it is hard to stay in touch with.
  
• i love the thought of an accountability to journal.
  
• God sometimes gives me ideas that could inspire people...it could happen!
  
• i am at a place where i feel like i have something to say. - sounds silly, but until now i didnt feel this way.
  
• most important, i feel like the Lord is leading me.

there are only a hand full of you that know about this little spot on the world wide web.  so, welcome. comment, email,  and please stay in touch.  always feel free to discuss anything that you would like to.

brothers and sisters...

i love watching my kids interact with each other. eric is 7, kinley is almost 3 and they are definitely brother and sister. she wants to do everything he does, whatever he says...she either repeats or says the exact opposite, and he tries to boss her around a little every once in a while. but eric does a great job or watching out for her and she benefits greatly because of it! sometimes though, he treats her like she is older than she is. he sometimes thinks that she ought to understand everything he does, he can not understand why she doesnt want to share everything like she ought to. he likes to brag that he can beat her down the drive way on a foot race. eric will sometimes get mad if you try to help her win and he doesnt understand that you are not trying to beat him, but just trying to help her out a little.

sometimes i think we are like this. it is a great picture of what happens when we try and lead people into a growing relationship with Christ. i sometimes get too focused on what i am doing and i forget about the others around me. sometimes i think i am older than i really am, so i try to act like i am in control or really know what i am doing. sometimes i forget that it is all about being unselfish and loving people more than i love myself. sometimes i forget that not everyone is at the same place on their journey towards Jesus.

i have learned a lot sitting and relaxing in church, and i have learned a ton from watching my kids.

hope you had a great 4th of July!

one pic from vacation

me n kinley aren't scared! (just dont look at our faces!)

changing gears

it seems like forever ago that i wrote the last post on be-laxing. it seems like forever ago that i was be-laxing! we have definitely shifted back into high gear. lots of changes...here are a few.

no longer in a "church affiliated ministry"
we dont have a "church home"
i am now 49% owner of Lily Chemicals
i am working with the chemical business more now than ever
eric is 7!!!!! (holy cow)
i am 34!!!!! (how did that happen?)
we are looking for a church home
i love the stretch of resting and transition the Lord is taking me through right now
loving that my nieces and my nephew are coming to hang out with us for 2 weeks!!!
LOVING SUMMER!!!!
missing some really great teen-agers and great people over at C.F.C
praying really hard for Lincoln James Peebles (my little nephew)
praying really hard for Eric and Kris @ C.F.C.
looking forward to date night with my wife tonight!!!

ok, that is kinduva total run down of things, not only changes....but it is ok! i am directing this deal...lol