The Spirit Assisting

http://www.godrules.net/library/pink/255pink25.htm

This is a piece written by an rank Calvinist that has blessed me encouraged me and brought me to tears (which isn't hard). Please please please take some time and read it. Seriously. Pick a quiet morning, do your devotion, then come read this. Its like 4.5 pages printed out so i'm sure you can handle it.

Well on another note we lost a family member yesterday. Our beloved male beagle Bandon (Goobie) was hit by a car on the road. I was listening to music on the way to work yesterday and this song called "pastures new" came up and its just so sweet and somber it reminded me of how much we're all gonna miss him. I put together a collection of the pictures I have of him and embeded the song I was listening to so take a minute and remember the best little buddy on 4 legs any of us ever had. If you've got a favorite memory (or several) post them to comments, I'll go first.

Another free slideshow by Smilebox

Cargo Dog

The lamest part of most long hikes is the pig... By pig I mean your back pack. Despite ones best efforts its usually heavier that you'd like. That why this year I invested in upgrading the Humphrey's regular Lab into a sleek, designer, fuel efficient, 2010 cargo-dog. There were a few colors available but I went with the green.

Yesterday I took Jane out on one of the cross country ski trails to test it out. I loaded her pack up with 5 Liters of water, 11 pounds. I was a little concerned she wouldn't like it or it'd be too heavy and cumbersome for her but she didn't mind a bit. She would stop to shake occupationally and would forget it was there and bump it into stuff. She did however spent the whole walk trying to get me to throw sticks for her so... yeah she wasn't too distracted.

-a five finger action shot-

So... I got some new shoes for crossfiting in. They're called Vibram 5 fingers and the idea is that they're the closest thing to bare foot as you can get with out having to do the "Alaska

tenderfoot walk".

The work out of the day (WOD) today was called Josh to commemorate SSG Joshua Hager, United States Army, who was killed Thursday February 22 2007 in Ar Ramadi, Iraq.

For time:

• 95 pound Overhead squat, 21 reps
• 42 Pull-ups
• 95 pound Overhead squat, 15 reps
• 30 Pull-ups
• 95 pound Overhead squat, 9 reps
• 18 Pull-ups

16:16

I'm tellin' ya its tons of fun and you're welcome to join!

lately

I got over staffed today. Thats where they have too many nurses on the schedule and they call you up at 0545 to see if you want to stay home. Course at that time I don't even know what my own name is or what planet i live on let alone that I'm up to my eye balls in student loans and need to work. They prey upon my weaknesses and rob me! I talked to the Mrs. Boss and she said If I wanted I could take my name off the list, I think I will.

Although I did have a pretty good day today. I read part of an article written by Pink I believe about the roll of the holy spirit and how he silently help our infirmities and intercedes for us. How often is the believer cut deeper than thought possible yet is not undone? How are we stayed back from the brink of irrecoverable despair though confronted with it sometimes so frequently? The Spirit.

I spent some time in my garage gym today. Yesterday I PR'd on the clean and jerk with 175lbs (ground to shoulders then over head. I got a personal best on two lifts today: the snatch (pulling a barbell from the ground to over head in one movement) and the press (pushing the bar from the shoulders to overhead) 127.5 lbs and 122.5 lbs respectively. Then I did a short Metabolic conditioning workout with double unders, pull ups, and dumbbells hang squat cleans with 2 45 lbs'ers. left me good and gassed after 11 min. I really have NO idea how all you people can stand not to crossfit, its like my own personal street drug...

The struggle to eat for performance continues to be a struggle. I've got a lot of moose meat and chicken breasts in the freezer but cooking takes so much time and I get bored of what I've got pretty fast. I'm starting to mess around with making curries and Indian food. I got what I thought was curry paste but its a "10min simmer sauce" (read: loaded with sugar) so my nose is running 2nd to the insulin spikeng systemic inflammation.

Below are some pictures. We've got the chicken curry (I'm pretty much in love with coconut milk.), some sauteed sweet potato (that is one sweet potato).

If me talking about working out has left any of my readers sighing and bored I'd just like to leave you with a helping of "don't for get you asked" and a side of "shut up fatty"

Bon Appetit!

Nurse Caleb

This is a video our hospital did as a funny way of illustrating why its important for nurses to check on their patients more often. In the video our very own Caleb Humphrey makes his film debut as a self absorbed air headed nurse who does his best but often misses the bigger picture. He is of course very humble about what a good job he did but hopes to star in bigger rolls as the summer movie season sets in.

(Actually he said "I can't believe I lowered myself to do that")

The American Idol

I want to take a moment today to talk about a serious subject: Sin. Not the sin of lust, not pride, not covetousness, nor hatred or laziness, but something every bit as serious and prevalent in our lives (mine included).

Idolatry.

Miriam-Webster online defines idolatry as 1 : the worship of a physical object as a god 2 : immoderate attachment or devotion to something. (I think its appropriate to add the idea of inappropriate –reliance- upon something)

Anyone regularly attending a sound Baptist church (and all of you should be) knows Israel’s sordid history with idolatry. They also know how seriously God takes it and that in the end it took 70 years of captivity by a foreign power after countless smaller occupations before Israel finally put her idols away.

This was the first sort of idolatry mentioned above. The golden calf in Exodus and the golden image Nebuchadnezzar set up in Daniel are both examples of worshiping a physical object as a God. The widely accepted reality that God is an amorphous omnipresent spiritual being has largely done away with this practice in western civilization.

Our western worldview might ask: “Why were so many nations attracted to idols? I have no desire to pray to some silver statue I just paid $10 for!” I’ll tell you why. Idolatry allows people room to sin. Do you think that Molek and Baal had the same standard of righteousness that Jehovah does? Look at the temple of Diana in Corinth. Diana was a goddess of sexual pleasure. What happened after Israel made the golden calf? They all “rose up to play.” (not as innocent as it sounds for the record).

The western idolatry that pervades our culture is a more subtle, externally acceptable and internally deceptive form of its eastern and historical cousin. But make no mistake, idolatry is still deceiving Christians, destroying lives, and leading the lost away from Christ’s blood today.

At this point I want to lead you (and myself) in examining our lives to see if we can find any idolatry. Remember that second definition (immoderate attachment\reliance or devotion to something) Its going to be the one we struggle with more so than the first (making an object deity)

When we go to examine our lives looking for idols we need specifically to look for things that are taking Gods place. If we trust in, hope on, wait for, look to anything to do for us what God has said he would do then that is the ugly face of idolatry. Remember Jesus said hate was like murder and lust was like adultery. God is absolutely concerned with our internal thoughts and motives no matter how they’re expressed (or not) in our actions.

Think about each of these individually.

What do you trust in?

Think about every aspect of your life. What do you trust to get you to work safely; your car? To do your work correctly; your intelligence?, To build your house; your effort? To find your spouse; your discernment?, To raise your kids; your commitment?, To lead your church; your knowledge of scripture? FOOLISHNESS! Unless the Lord does all these things we are helpless and hopeless. Solomon said he didn’t know how to go our or come it, he also said: “Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it”

What do you hope on?

Consider the following thought patterns: “If I lose 50 lbs then I’ll live longer and I can do more for God.” Vs. “God help me live more healthy for your honor and Glory, extend the life you’ve given that I can serve you with it.” Can’t you almost see a Pharisee\publican difference in the heart of these two desires?

What do you wait for?

I’m guilty of thinking: “If I can just hold out till I get married and have a family then life will be worth living.” Remember Isaiah 40:31 “But they that wait upon –a change in their circumstances- shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint, right? WRONG the verse reads “But they that wait up on the LORD shall...” Having a Family or getting a better job can be idols to comfort us or give us hope if they are allowed to occupy territory in our hearts that should be reserved for God. He alone should be our comforter and hope!


What do you look to to solve your problems?

There is an important distinction between knowing that we are what we are by Gods grace and trusting in our own ability to pull ourselves up by our own boot straps and forge ahead. Often our hearts say “Thanks for offering to help Lord, but I’ve got this one, you can sit it out. I’ll take it from here. I think I’m smart\able\stubborn enough to handle this little problem.”

How often does our heart pray:

O my Education, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me. O keep my future, and deliver me from a lack of employment: let me not be ashamed; for I put my trust in thee.

Or:

Delight thyself also in simple pleasures; and they shall give thee satisfaction, the desire of thine heart. Commit thy way unto sleep and sweet bread and they shall bring it to pass.

Reading these great psalms so foully corrupted is offensive but when we live like this is 1000 fold over offensive to our holy God. Commit yourself today to finding just one idol in your life and Pray that God would help you pull it down and put him in its place.

Here's a great tool to go idol hunting. Ask yourself what you want. What do you REALLY want. you might want money: Why do you want money? To be more secure to feel safer about the economy? If you're trusting in your money to make you more safe and secure in your life then you're worshiping money! Find what you're trying to accomplish with your desires and if its to get something God has promised to give you then its an idol. God can use money to make you more secure but we need to trust in the source of the power(God) and not the tool the power might choose to use (money).

Remember the fastest way to make sure any of you endeavors will fail is just to trust an idol for success. God will give you failure to show you that only he is the living and true God.

Let us who know our savior beat our breasts afresh with the publican and cry out “God be merciful to me a sinner.”

For those of you who aren’t Christians I’m sure if you’re honest with yourself you can see idolatry in your own life. So what of it? Does that necessarily mean you’re a bad person?

Lets look at some of the other commandments and find out how you’re measuring up to Gods standard of rightness. If its just the one you might be ok right?

How about the commandment not to take Gods name if vain. Ever used God name in the place of a filthy 4 letter word?

Or how about lying?

Ever dishonored your parents?

What about coveting, desiring something that wasn’t yours?

As I mentioned above Jesus said Gods standards were so high he saw unjust hate as murder and lust as adultery. Ever done either of those?

What about theft. Ever stolen something?

If we’re honest with ourselves then all of us have busted every one of these commandments wide open. If someone kills they’re a murderer right? Lies they’re a liar, steals they’re a thief, lusts they’re an adulterer.

So if after just a short examination you and I have found we are lying, thieving, blasphemous, murderous, adulterers at heart, as well rank idolaters. Considering this do you think we deserve to go to heaven or hell when we die? If God is a just and holy judge he can’t let us go free and still be called just any more that an earthly judge can let a guy who rapes and kills little kids go free. Imagine the convict says “I’ll never do it again, I made a mistake. I’m so sorry” we’d say: “well you scum bag you should be sorry, but not as sorry as you’re gonna be after we stretch your neck.” How would you feel about a judge who let a guy like that go free. He ought to be hung right next to him!

The fact is that we’ve broken the law and that the only punishment acceptable to God is eternity in the lake of fire. Right?

Ok but what about all this God is merciful and forgiving stuff. Won’t he forgive me? He can’t let your sin go unpunished but there is a way for you to get out of paying it yourself. When God became a man he lived a perfect life and died in our place. If you come to a place where you agree with God about your sin and place every ounce of hope you have on that savior then you can be delivered from the punishment you rightly deserve.

People who say that their God wouldn’t send people to hell are, ironically, IDOLATERS!
They’ve created a God to suit themselves. The God who doesn’t judge sin is a partaker of their sin just like an earthly judge who lets the guilty go. How much more merciful and Glorious is our God who didn’t have to provide himself a sacrifice but chose to out of his abundant goodness?! Think about it, one God is good the other is a wicked monster.

Christians are not perfect they are just forgiven

Repent and be saved.

Jesus is waiting but he wont wait forever.

Have some bologna ya fat head!

Not amused

I have no idea what's going on here but i'm not impressed.

- Pug

This is just some thoughts on liberalism that i'd written down and wanted to make a more concrete paper but I couldn't really nail down what I wanted to say. In the end its all good stuff (I think anyway) but its a little disjointed. Pug unrelated

In the wild if an eco system isn’t abundant enough to support the population of a species then the species starves and the population is reduced until the eco system can support them. Equilibrium. In the wild no animal has the right to live. If it can live, through luck, skill, desire, trickery, thievery or stubbornness: then it does. If an animal isn’t able or desirous or otherwise fortunate enough to make ends meet then it dies.

The individual only has the rights it can keep from being taken. Here life isn’t sacred and the causing of another life form pain is simply a byproduct of you attempting to continue your existence.

This is the very essence of a free market system. You and I can start whatever business we want and it is allowed to succeed or fail depending entirely on its own merit. It doesn’t matter if the family is depending entirely on its success to survive if its doesn’t make money it goes under no remorse. If a leopard can’t kill anything then it and its cubs die the slow and miserable death of starvation.

We can apply this principal to economies, if allowed to naturally grow or fail then the system will get stronger and stronger, or more accurately the strongest system will rise above the rest. How strong do you think the population of African lions would be if every weak sick old and injured lion was allowed to eat an even portion of the zebra steak? The fact is that the only way for a pride to maintain itself is to leave behind those who fall behind. BRUTAL!!!

We are not animals, we don’t eat our young and we shouldn’t be indifferent to the suffering of others. So what should we do when we see our fellow man falling behind? Should we feed him? Should we ask our government to feed him? Should we tell him tough luck? This is where the great divide comes between liberals and conservatives. Liberals tend to be short sighted and emotional in their thinking. “Pain (or misfortune or any bad thing/situation) is the worst thing on the earth and we can’t allow it.” This is why liberals are the ones trying to spend our money feeding needy Nigerians or creating other socialist programs.

These principals are no more real when considering human families/populations/economies. The reality is that our increasingly pseudo-socialist situation is very similar to this idea of a pride of lions who feeds its weakest members. To apply this rule of the jungle to human lives is a difficult thing to do. Its not as though our ability to perceive pain, hunger, or cold is any more real than that of raccoon but the fact remains that people don’t generally like to watch others suffer when they live in comfort. The problem is that when they start asking their government to just give food to people to keep them from starving they don’t realize that its being taken from them.

Economics was described to me as managing a world of unlimited wants with limited resources.

Take the struggle to end world hunger. To illustrate the principal we’ll try ending lion hunger. We don’t drop a dead zebra out of a plane every time we see a hungry pride trying to make ends meet while they watch the cubs starve and they elders grow lean. Why not? Don’t you have any compassion?! Can’t you see their pain and anguish!? Its because life is brutal. The problem here is that we’ve been taught we have rights and we don’t. Lions don’t have rights! And though we’re different from lions in that we have souls we are exactly the same in that we have unlimited wants and limited resources. If we get more resources what happens? The same thing with lions there’s just more mouths to feed. There’s always going to be the unlucky ones no matter how great our ability to grow food.

Feeding hungry people is something liberals do to feel good about themselves but it really just perpetuates the problem. People look to their government to do something about so they don’t have to feel personally responsible. When you look at how the poor were treated in the bible they never became wards of the state it was always up to individuals to take pity on them and provide. When you treat the symptoms instead of the disease all you get is more disease.

The reason its left up to the individual to decide who gets a helping hand and who doesn’t is because individuals can tell when they’re being manipulated and a government can’t. If a man and a woman have a family but neither of them can find work and that’s all the information the government has to operate on then it has to either help all families in this situation or none of them. However if it was left up to the individual to invest their own hard earned money into helping their neighbor they can take into consideration the fact that this family has worked hard their whole lives and are honest and want nothing more than to have work to do. Or that the family is lying, manipulative, lazy drug addicts and proud of it. This is what being a “player” is maybe you’ve heard people use the phrase “I’m a playa!” There is an America sub-culture of people who make it their job\livelihood taking as much as they can get with out working and they are proud of it. They play the system. The government it too big picture to tell who is who. But individuals investing their own money aren’t.

This is why I don’t care if its humiliating for your neighbors to have to go get food stamps. What’s humiliating is that you won’t help your neighbor yourself. You have your government deal with it so you can sleep an night. In the mean time the system is bleeding money in inefficiency, unnecessary jobs, and red tape beurocrosy.

So what is the solution? What do we do about it?! The same thing as lions do, work your hands off; strive, struggle, fight, grow, sniff and scurry, win at all costs. Our nation can ‘fight world hunger’ itself into irrecoverable debt because its not a hole we can fill. You don’t help people learn to work for themselves buy giving them the fruits of your work, you teach people to be ‘players’. America needs to stop getting played and refocus.

The fact is that if a system is broken, take communism, to the point that its people will starve then the people who invested in the system deserve to starve just like lions who crossed a river to an area where there’s no food. The people die and then other systems that aren’t bogged down with false ideals rise up and take their place (hence a reduction in net suffering after a temporary increase in current suffering) Liberals are never able to do this because as stated above they’re short sited. If every time someone took hostages we just dropped a bomb on the whole building and said “sorry hostages, guess you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Know what would happen? -a reduction in net suffering after a temporary increase in current suffering- In other word people would quit taking hostages.

Ok this has been mostly an rabbit trail of disjointed thoughts. Hope you enjoyed, post thoughts to comments.