Rockstanding

More from the reunion: Just how many children did Archie and Nellie (Call) Brott have and what are there names? My Aunt Bonnie, with assistance from my Uncle Archie, gives it a shot:

After much urging from my family, I bought a new lawnmower last week at the local Sears store. Like I told my wife, I’m very comfortable buying electronics, but buying tools and machinery leaves me more uncomfortable. I looked at several stores before we settled on the 625 series Craftsman mower.

My current mower, a Snapper, I bought 13 years ago for $75 from one of my neighbors. He used to go to estate sales and buy lawnmowers and then fix them up. So I don’t know how old this mower really is, but I got a great deal on it and it has run for years. Still, my family hates it because it is loud and is not the easiest to push around the yard. I’m the only one who mows our yard, so I don’t care. But now that the kids are old enough, we decided it was time to get a more family-friendly mower. And now the time has come.

Because I want to use my new mower the right way, I’ve been reading through the owner’s manual. You know, how to use it correctly, maintain it and generally avoid cutting off a needed toe or finger. As I’ve read it, I realize that it is sort of like a bible of lawn mowing. There are things to do and things not to do on the path to happy mowing. Here are some of them that I’ve read:

• If you feel uneasy on a slope, do not mow it
• Clear the area of objects such as rocks, toys, wire, bones, sticks, etc. which could be picked up and thrown by the blade. Bones? Maybe cutting the grass isn’t the problem.
  
• Be sure the area is clear of other people before mowing. Stop the machine if anyone enters the area. That’s not a great incentive to get that lawn mowed: “I saw someone while I was mowing so I stopped.”
• Never direct discharged material toward anyone. It’s a lawnmower, not a gun.
• Never assume that children will remain where you last saw them. So true. That is, unless it’s summer, they’re teenagers and they are watching television.
• Never run a machine inside a closed area. It’s easy. The lawnmower is for the grass, the vacuum cleaner is for the carpet. Lawnmower outside. Vacuum inside.
• And finally: Mower blades are sharp and can cut. And you thought this machine was for BENDING the grass.

Today is my birthday! To celebrate my family took me to one of my favorite places to eat in Grand Island, Sutter Deli. I had a delicious bowl of chicken noodle soup while Ruth Anne had the oriental chicken salad, Andrew the simple pepperoni pizza and Liz the Sutter Deli club. Four stars all.

On this milestone day I am thankful that in the past year God has mercifully loved me and guided me. I have failed him often, but I know that God has stretched me to hopefully be the man he wants me to be, or at least closer to that man.

I also am thankful for the many people God has put in my life to serve his purposes both to serve and be served by. God is good, and I am hopeful at the start of another year of getting closer to Him for his sake and my happiness.

I’ve been reading through Alex and Brett Harris’ book “Do Hard Things” and I can’t overstate how much I like it and strongly recommend it. As a parent of a teenager, I am constantly doing battle with our culture’s low expectations for them so it is encouraging to see two young men who are giving a great message that we all need to hear.

One of the things Alex and Brett talk about is that the whole idea of a special class of people called “teenagers” is a 20th century idea that has strongly taken root. In their research for the book, they discovered that even the word “teenager” did not exist publicly until 1941 and that, in an effort to protect children from cruel labor laws at the turn of the 20th century and instill universal education, we created a period where children are not yet adult but no longer children. We created the low expectations. In “America in So Many Words,” it is described this way:

Thus the years ending in -teen became something new and distinctive … The teenager remade our world. The concept is … subversive: why should any teenager enjoying freedom submit to the authority of adults? With the discovery of this new age, ours has been the century of the teenager ever since.

What does the Bible say about teenagers? Absolutely nothing. But it is not silent about youth and expectations. Instead, in I Corinthians 13:11 it says: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” Furthermore, in I Timothy 4:12 it says: “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.” And finally, in Romans 12:2: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world!”

What does our culture say? There is a joke that if Hollister (or American Eagle) said breathing was uncool, 92 percent of all teens would be dead. So, maybe it’s time for all of us to start thinking more highly and expecting more from these people we call teenagers. I leave you with the wisdom from I Corinthians 14:20:

Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.

I love to go to church. We only have one service at our church, and it happens to be on Sunday morning. But it is a special time for me to be there with my spiritual family and worship my heavenly father.

But I know that not everyone shares that passion. And, usually, those people are the youngest among us. Being at church is something that, in our society, is becoming an increasingly unique experience. After all, we are not prone to gather and stay in one place for that long. Thus, it becomes hard for children to appreciate, let alone adults.

That is why I found this article to be so useful in helping my children — and other children, I hope — learn to appreciate being in the service from a young age. We don’t give them enough credit for what they can understand. If we really believe that our children can grasp enough to be saved at an early age — and I really believe that — then we should also encourage our children to be a part of the service, as best they can, as fellow worshippers.

HT: Desiring God

This is something that has become a big event on our calendar: Big Band Night. Last night we had the thrill of seeing Liz perform a solo on one of the songs. For your enjoyment, here is a clip.

Last night was Awards Night at our church’s AWANA program. AWANA? What is it, you say? AWANA is a program for children that, according to its Web site, “helps parents and churches worldwide raise children and youth to know, love and serve Christ.” Go follow the link to find out more about it, it’s quite the program.

Because I work evenings, I don’t help out there. My son is involved as a clubber (like in a member of the club) and my daughter volunteers. Every Wednesday, dozens of kids show up at church to play games, listen to an adult tell them how to live as a Christian and learn verses from the Bible. If they learn enough verses or complete enough assignments from their workbook, they earn things. Not that learning the precious word of God is a bad thing, but AWANA is there to make Bible memory a fun thing. And these kids have fun.

Maybe I worry too much, but I pray the verses these children are learning are sinking into their hearts and making them tender for God. I think it does happen because every year there are children who will come to Christ. It is a beautiful thing. But, like anything, there are those whose hearts remain hard. The fun and games keep their minds from the hard truth that they are sinners in desperate need of a savior. After all, how much fun is it to know that you are doomed to hell unless you come to Christ?

It is a delicate job trying to keep 20-30 children happy while also getting them to learn what God says about who He is and what that means for them. I am thankful for the adults who volunteer their time to listen to children recite verses or give them counsel. It’s important because there are many kids whose only relationships with Christians occurs on Wednesday nights.

So I sat and watched all these children receive awards for their work (or lack of work, in some cases) during the year. My prayer for these children, my own included, would be that these years in AWANA aren’t pushed aside when they are too old to be clubbers but that they are treasured as a time when their thirst for God and his word increased and they turned to the Bible.

Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord! — Psalm 119:1

Because of personal connections, I have been made aware that this is National Medical Laboratory Professionals Week. While I appreciate people who turn a keen eye on small things and handle things (bodily fluids) that would make most of us squirm, the main reason I’m bringing this up is because my wife is a lab professional. I deeply appreciate her ability to keep a calm perspective when others (like me) might not be thinking as clearly. It takes all types to get things done and she is the kind of person who — and this is often a great burden for her — pays heed to the details without letting her emotions overcome her judgment.

Thinking about my wife, it makes me thank God that he gives us minds to think deeply on things. As with her work, we can think deeply on the tiny, small things God has made us with and be amazed at the way we are designed. Even as I sit here, I can look out my window and see the purple flowers budding from the trees in the front yard, swaying gently in the breeze while birds sing and bees hover from blossom to blossom, doing the work God intended for them. Those things, small and big, obvious and hidden, are there even though we often don’t give them a second thought. Why not? Well, there are countless thoughts that shove them out of the way — where am I supposed to be in the next half hour, what am going to have for supper, what is the next thing on my list of things that I need to do.

That’s not shallow thinking, but it doesn’t often lend itself to a sense of wonder either. So, while I’m appreciating those who look at the small things and think deeply about them, I will force myself to think deeply about how great God is and how wonderfully he has formed the world around me.

This is usually what’s going on behind me as I type. Kind of threatening, but I’m glad he’s on my side.

Tags: StarWars, family, fun

I am one of many, I suppose, who have received a forwarded e-mail saying that Barack Obama is a Muslim who was sworn into office on the Koran and talked in hysterical tones about what he will do if he becomes president. And then, I have received a followup e-mail from someone else on that list who has pointed out that Obama points to ‘affirming his Christian faith’ at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago and that he has been attending the same church for 20 years. He talks about his faith in this interview with Christianity Today.

I wouldn’t say the man is a wild-eyed Muslim trying to take over the United States in the name of Allah. Rather, he is a Christian like many others in that he believes in a gospel that, in his words, is about “prioritizing the least of these over the powerful.” In other words, he is about a social gospel that makes Jesus the great equalizer and defender of the poor. There’s nothing wrong with that, except that his gospel stops when it comes to defending the most vulnerable — the unborn. While he carefully crafts his words in the CT interview, there is no doubt about his position concerning the rights of those who are unborn.

Obama is absolutely right that we should encourage adoption and really care for the women who are going through pregnancy. Obviously, there is a need to strengthen families and we all need to look for ways to build up families in our communities. Yet his talk about unwanted pregnancies belies his real beliefs concerning the issue and puts him at odds with what he says he’s all about — looking out for all people.

The celebration of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the anniversary of the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision coincide during this month. If we think about the struggles for civil rights for blacks and the struggles for life for these tiny people, we see that there is a great evil that is being perpetuated daily in our country.

Consider this from John Piper:

My aim is that just as once even though the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case of 1857 held that Black slaves were property without rights as free persons, yet today we view that as unthinkable; so also even though the Supreme Court in the Roe v. Wade case of 1973 did not give the unborn the rights of free persons, nevertheless the day may come when that too is viewed as unthinkable. Racism might—and often did—result in the killing of innocent humans; in our history, it often did. But abortion always results in the killing of innocent humans. Between 1882 and 1968, 3,446 Black people were lynched in America. Today more Black babies are killed by white abortionists every three days than all who were lynched in those years (Life Education and Resource Network).

This is a tragedy of huge proportions. I would suggest looking at the link below to challenge your thinking as a Christian.

When Is Abortion Racism