A good time was had by all... (especially the idiot next to me! not Bonnie, but rather the guy on the other side of me! thanks for the help ginny!)

Last night, Bo and I went to the Rangers game. (Mad props to Dennis Garcia for the free tickets!) We had a good time. The Rangers got spanked by the worst team in baseball, but we enjoyed the game anyway. I am soooooo disappointed. I had a foul ball hit right to me, but I didn't get it. I lost it in the background, and by the time I saw it again, I couldn't get my hand on it. To add injury to insult, the ball hit me on the knee, and I am swollen and sore. Oh well, I had a good time anyway.

We had an interesting individual sitting next to us at the game. We had this guy who felt the need to talk to everybody, drink massive ammounts of beer, and lead everybody in forming the wave. He tried to talk to me, but soon figured out that I was not amused with him, so he left me alone (though bothered everybody else).

The boys...

Last week, I was house-sitting for a family in Crowley. They had two great dogs, Bear and Gus. Gus was a sweet, unassuming bird dog, who would take as much petting as you would give him, but would not come searching for it. Bear, the yellow lab; (aka the biggest lab in the world) would beg for a pat on the back. They loved me, and followed me everywhere I went in the house. When I would go to sleep at night, the boys would sit outside my door. When I woke up in the morning they would still be there. Geo and Thomas, I now know why you guys wanted a dog.

A blessing from God...

In 2002 I was blessed of God to go to England for 3 weeks. I went with a group from SWBTS. We studied Baptist history, and toured many of the important sites of Baptist history. I was so blessed, and refreshed by that trip. I often look back upon it as a blessing from God. As I write this post, a group from SWBTS is in Oxford enjoying the time of their life. I wish them as wonderful a trip as I had. I also would like to say, that I am jealous of them as well. I wish that I could go back.

My most poignant memory of the trip was on our day trip to Tewksbury. We stopped our coach, and walked a few blocks, turned left down a little cobblestone alley; where we saw the oldest surviving Baptist church in the World. We went inside and lifted up the old boards covering the baptistry, when Dr. Leon McBeth began to tell the story of how the congregants of the church would meet at night in order to not be found out. He told us how they were considered dissenters that could and would be punished for their beliefs. He recounted how those devout believers in believers baptism by immersion would line up and form a bucket brigade, from the Cherwell river a hundred yards away; so as to fill the baptistry bucket by bucket. He then recounted how they would form that same line to empty the baptistry as well. I remember thinking, "Wow, these people took baptism, and the faith so seriously."

I later realized that there were countless others that struggled and even gave their lives for the faith. It inspired me to take faith seriously. We do not deal with pebbles when we think about and communicate our faith. We are dealing with jewels set in casings of gold. Our faith, our savior, our God, our commission; are all precious. They are more precious than anything. We should treat them as such.

In honor of Big D...

I was rummaging through some of my books the other day, when I found this wonderful piece of artwork. This is Big D's rendition of me as a televangelist. If you read this, and know Big D's phone number; give him a call and give him some love!

The Norm that norms all other norms*...

Today, I was reading another in a long list of Dr. Mohler's articles on the renaming of God issue. (See this)

In this article, Mohler hits the nail on the head: We have no right to rename God. What is happening here is that there are some who wish to give God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit new names which help people understand who they are. (In fact, these people wish to give names to God that promote their own theological construct (a seriously flawed one I might add.). These constructs promote the acceptance of homosexuality as norm, and the acceptance of women as head shepherds, and a long list of other Biblically incorrect ideas. The issue boils down to this, who holds the power of meaning, who has the right to say what a text means. Those who wish to rename God claim for themselves the right to force meaning onto the text (in this case the Word of God). They say: "I can impose what I believe this text to mean, no matter what the author clearly states. I have more knowledge, and I have evolved so that I know your thoughts better than you do author!" Whereas, in reality, the power of meaning lies completely in the hands of the one who writes the text (in this case God, & the inspired author). The problem that those who wish to rename God have, is that they are their own gods, and wish to form YHWH into a "god" which they can control. May this episode teach us and show us the need to remember that the Bible, God's Word; is our norm. It forms our thinking, our thinking does not form it! The Bible is the norm that norms all other norms!

*Taken from Dr. Mohler's presentations at ETS Southwest regional meeting 2006.

I felt like a little kid...

I have been house-sitting for a family down in Crowley. They have a beautiful home, and everything is quiet there and peaceful. There are no trains going by 6 times a night. There are no people shooting outside your window, and no traffic speeding by 24 hours a day. But that was not the real reason I had such a wonderful time. The real reason I had such a wonderful time house-sitting was that the people whose house I was sitting, had a pool! It was a beautiful, crystal blue pool. It was cool, and refreshing to lounge in. And lounge in it I did! I went swimming everyday! I was a pool fiend. You probably don't care, but I was excited.
(I spared all of you the torture of seeing me in the pool, so I used the stock photo above.)

Oh that this might be said of us all...

I was reading Dr. Mohler's blog on apologetics for the postmodern world today when I came across this quotation.

The famous skeptic philosopher David Hume was once observed on his way to hear George Whitefield preach one of his five o'clock morning messages on Christ. The observer chided Hume: "I didn't think you believed in God." Hume replied, and referred to Whitefield: "I don't. But I am convinced this man does."

I encourage you, live a bold faith in God and in his Son!

A interesting assessment of liberal "christianity"...

While reading Dr. Mohler's blog, I came across this quote talking about the decline in mainline church attendance.

When your religion says "whatever" on doctrinal matters, regards Jesus as just another wise teacher, refuses on principle to evangelize and lets you do pretty much what you want, it's a short step to deciding that one of the things you don't want to do is get up on Sunday morning and go to church.

You can read the rest of the article this quote was taken from here.

Shootin' stuff cures a multitude of ills...

Well, as you all know, my hopes of England winning the World Cup have been dashed, and I was truly sad for a little while after Saturday's match. However, I did not have much time to be sad because Emily's birthday party was Saturday afternoon. So Bonnie and I drove out to Weatherford, cooked some burgers, talked, laughed, and had a generally great time. We then got to the highlight of the night (at least for me), the shooting. Thomas set up some targets in his backyard, and we mad mincemeat out of them. All my stress was blown away with each one of those targets I blasted.



Bonnie and I enjoying the day.


Here's Thomas "Dead-eye" Winborn




The girls got into the pistol packin'fun giving us their rendition of Charlie's Angels.

I'm sad...

Well, my mighty Brits fell to the Portuguese today. They fought valiantly, and lost on penalty kicks. I am disappointed, but understood that they didn't really have the best team. They played well though, and went deep into the Cup. Now, I think that I will support...


Germany