Holy Days

It has been a while. I have been busy. Enough of that.

It is the Christmas season and I am predictably depressed. I usually am at this time of year.

Bah! Humbug!

I hope writing this helps me get over that, because there is nothing depressing about Christ's birth (in & of itself). The depressing thing is that we have taken the greatest reason for real celebration in the history of the universe and turned it into a celebration that is primarily for the benefit of Walmart, Target, ... the people who sell Christmas presents. Somebody else said that first, but I can't remember who it was...maybe CS Lewis? If you know, leave me a comment.

I need to remember that the Highest Person - the Pre-Existent Entity - the One and only God decided for His own reasons to lower Himself down to my level for my benefit. The incomprehensibility of the decision is part of what makes me believe that only God could have made it. Wow! Again I say: Wow!

I feel a little better now.

I am planning a trip in a few days. Many hours in the car with my wife and youngest daughter (16 years old). This can be either a grumpy time or a fun time. It is up to me. I choose fun, if for no other reason than because it is funner. We will take a notebook PC and watch DVDs (not the driver, but everyone else. The driver can listen.) I will continue teaching my daughter to drive. We will listen to audio-books. We will not hesitate to stop and see anything that is interesting. I will enjoy the company of my family. Life is too short to choose grumpy.

I feel even better now.

Thanks for listening.

And may God Bless you and yours this Holy Day season.

Truth and Consequences

I am reading a book titled: "Welcome to College" by Jonathan Morrow. I am on chapter 6 and (so far) I recommend it heartily. Chapter 6 is titled "Wanted - Seekers of Truth" and it starts with a quote from CS Lewis that I find profound:

"If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end. If you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth - only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair."

Wow. That's all. Just wow.

I have always believed that truth is just about the most important thing (after God...and the 2 are related) that there is. But leave it to Jack Lewis to say it succinctly and with a punch.

We have met the enemy and he is us (Pogo)

I just read a post by singer Charlie Daniels, in which he told of his experiences as a young boy in World War II America. He is still inspired by what the country did by everyone putting aside their differences and pulling together. (http://www.charliedanielssoapbox.com/view_topic.php?id=7860&forum_id=4) My father & my uncles fought in that war. My mother tells about knitting hats and scarves (by the dozens) for soldiers ... about saving tin foil and scrimping on everything - to further the war effort.

I remember being a teenager in the US of A in the VietNam War era. The country was divided and unhappy with itself. The people running the country were not trying to win the war, but (IMHO) trying to use the war to their own ends. We lost that war.

Now we find ourselves in another war - against radical terrorists.

Which paradigm will we follow? The answer to this question is the best indicator of our chances of winning this war.

My suggestions:

(1) Vote with our dollars - do not watch or listen to media that promulgate unpatriotic stories. This will include all the normal news media outlets. They are liberal and - worse - self-serving. (I predict that you will be amazed with what you can do with the time this frees up.) Eventually the advertisers will get the word and quit supporting these guys.

(2) Vote with our votes - let the litmus test for any politician be that he is willing to put the needs of the country first - not with his words, but with his deeds. If he works (legislatively or administratively) against the best interests of the country then vote him out. This will likely mean that a lot of incumbents will be voted out - with a consequent loss of power for their constituents. We will be voting against our regional best interests - but for our national best interests.

(3) Write your congressman & senators. This is amazingly easy to do today, in the Internet era. Write them and instruct them on how to vote on issues that are currently before the legislature. They are supposed to be representing you, after all.

(4) Pray for revival. (This is the most important of these 4 suggestions.) 2 Chronicles 7:14 - "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."

May God Bless the United States of America.

Hard times coming? - my solution

The more I look at the current situation, the more I believe that we may be headed for 1930s-style economic hard times. I am not certain, but I think that the odds are better than 50-50 that this is so.

If this is the case, then what should I do now?

I recently read an article by Dr. Gary North (www.garynorth.com) which I think expounds it pretty nicely. He puts forth the idea of thrift as the right personal economic paradigm for hard times (& for good times, too - but the payoff really comes in hard times).

Thrift is defined (very generally) as living on less than you make.

And there are 2 steps that (Dr. North proposes and I agree) develop thrift:
(1) Pay God first - that is, give to you local church before you pay any other bills.
(2) Pay yourself second - that is, put a significant chunck of money into some sort of savings plan ... after you give to the church, but before you pay any other bills.
North suggest 10% of gross income for each of the above items & that sounds like a pretty good number to me.

I have practiced both of these steps to develop thrift for several years now. I pay my bills pretty much every payday, and I symbolicly write the check to my church (& to the missionaries that my wife and I support, ...) first - right under the paycheck deposit in my check register. This reminds me that I am paying God first. (Actually, this is all done online nowadays -direct deposit & online billpay - but I still list the entries the same way in my check register.) And I have money taken directly out of my paycheck to go into a savings program.

Now, my savings program is not doing so well right now. Yours probably isn't either. But that is not the point. The point is that I have gotten into the habit of thrift. And I have (ask my kids...).

Also, it would be difficult to quantitatively prove that I have received an adequate ROI from my giving to the church. But that is not the point. The point is that the money is all God's anyway and this is the way he has told me to allocate it. And if I live the way he says, then I can quit worrying about economic hard times that might be coming. It is easy to prove that God provides an abundant (much more than merely adequate) ROI. In fact, the term ROI is inadequate. The truth is that God is my security. With Him, I am doing fine. If I was without Him, I would be the poorest of the poor. And this situation will only be exacerbated if and when we experience economic hard times.