Tag: Thought to Ponder

Thought to Ponder Part I

I had a couple of thoughts for y’all to ponder that came from a couple of sermons over the past couple of weeks. So today’s installment is from Jan 13th.

Jeff Bridges has a definition of ungodliness that caught my attention. He stated that ungodliness is living one’s everyday life with little or no thought of God. So based on that definition, our pastor asked us to rate how ungodly we are on a scale of 1-10 stating that everyone is on the spectrum because none of us have “made it.” Most of us aren’t even in the high good numbers because we really don’t tend to regard God daily like we should.

Next we were asked a series of seven questions to ponder:

1. What’s the effect of listening to God’s word on my life? (listening and reading is not enough; we have to put things into practice)
2. How do I make decisions in difficult circumstances? (who or what do I regard first?)
3. How often am I anxious or fearful? (anxiety and fear are temporary athesism; its a reflection on not regarding God or his soverienty)
4. Am I partially or selectively obedient? (Do we define areas of importance for our obedience?)
5. How often am I self sufficient instead of being consciously dependent on God?
6. Am I very aware of what others think of me instead of God? (Whose favor do I seek? Who would I rather be honored by?)
7. Am I letting the Spirit live through me or am I mostly going it alone with only the outward appearance of change?

“Selective Reductions”

The Revenge of Conscience is an article by Albert Mohler about current trends in abortion and is not for the faint of heart. I do recommed it to anyone who wants to get some interesting facts to share about the slippery slope that ‘physicians’ are finding themselves sliding down.

I believe it’s time for a new Silent Scream video (also not for the faint of heart).

Scriptures to Ponder

For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness (Gen 1:3),” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down but not destroyed.

II Corinthians 1:3-4

Continue reading “Scriptures to Ponder”

Will you Worship or Whine?

For the past few weeks I’ve been reading a book called Biblical Womanhood in the Home edited by Nancy Leigh DeMoss. It has wonderful insights into developing what it means to be feminine in the eyes of God, how to be truly beautiful, our responsibilities as women and how to pass on a biblical perspective of being female to the next generation. Each chapter of the book is written by a different author including Carolyn Mahaney, Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Barbara Hughes, P. Bunny Wilson, Mary A. Kassian, Susan Hunt and Dorothy Kelley Patterson.

Right now I’m reading a section by Nancy and it was so good that I just wanted to share an except:

When God puts challenging circumstances in our lives, we either worship or we whine. I’m ashamed to say I’ve done more than my share of whining – even about ministry. “Oh, Lord, I’m tired of traveling. Do I have to go there? This is so hard! Why do I have to deal with that person?” I am reminded of the children of Israel in the wilderness who murmured incessantly. “If only God had just let us die in the wilderness,” they whined. One day God finally said in essence, “You want to die in the wilderness? Okay, you’ll die in the wilderness!” (see Num. 14:2, 28-30). Be careful what you say when you murmur – God may take you up on it.

Lord, don’t let me be a murmurer, let me be a worshiper. You remind me daily of how good you are. Thank you for being you and showing me your love, provision, mercy and blessing in this time of decision making. It’s hard but you are greater than all things, you are bigger than all things and I will praise you wherever you place me.

Alpha Male

That’s not my term; it’s Valerie’s. The word to me draws up pictures of Gorillas in the forest. But the other night, as we were driving home, I was whining about the fact that I have so few friends, particularly guy friends. Due to a weird quirk in my personality, not having a lot of friends doesn’t normally affect me so much – I don’t get lonely. But what bothers me is that it seems pretty consistent that whenever I meet somebody I think I ought to be able to get along with, I don’t like them. This is particularly true when the person is a guy with any kind of position or prestige, or strong character. Almost inevitably, I don’t like them: they’re too harsh, too rude, too proud, too wrongheaded, too unopen to correction. Normally, I like to think of myself as an easygoing kind of guy, but it seems like I have something in me that rebels whenever I think I ought to make a friend, and I just can’t get along with half the men I meet.

Valerie summed it up in two words: “Well Kyle,” she said, “You’re an alpha male. And these other men you keep having problems with, they’re alpha males also, and you recognize that in them – it’s part of what makes you think you ought to get along so well. But when you see them leading in ways you don’t approve of, it sets off triggers so that you want to fix them.” Of course, being a dutiful wife, she also assured me that all my judgments about these other men are of course correct, that the things they’re doing that get under my skin are betrayals of their weak character, and that I’m perfectly justified in disliking them. In short, I am the very image of Jane Austen’s Mr. Knightly, and not merely a jerk with control issues, which gratified me immensely. But in one step she punched my equality button and registered an incipient dislike of silverback gorillas.

Continue reading “Alpha Male”

Do You Weep?

For the past couple of days I’ve been listening to a teaching on Jeremiah 9:17–19:

This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Consider now. Call for the wailing women to come. Send for the most skillful of them. Let them come quickly and wail over us until our eyes overflow with tears and water streams from our eyelids.’ The sound of wailing is heard in Zion. ‘How ruined we are! How great is our shame.’

…and this morning was really good. Continue reading “Do You Weep?”

To Pick a Church

I was listening to a sermon series the other day given by a pastor to a group of graduating seminary students on identifying the most important attributes in selecting a Church. In other words, how do you make your list of needs vs. wants?  I wanted to have a discussion around this with several friends but since I don’t have a blog myself, I asked Kyle and he has graciously allowed me to post a guest blog here for discussion.  (much easier for everyone to post their thoughts rather than keep it on a massive email!)

Kyle lived with me and my brother in Charlotte a couple of years ago for around six months and we have stayed in touch during his time in up north.  I live in the
Charlotte area and work for a Fidelity Investments company in their finance department.  I teach Sunday School and work with a very small youth group at my Church here in
Charlotte.  I enjoy photography & ultimate…but enough about me.

I thought it would be a good exercise to think through these questions and try to develop my own list before listening to the sermon series.  Now granted, no Church in the world is perfect but I suppose there should be some consensus on the most important attributes.  At its core, this also addresses at some level what is the purpose of the Church but I hoped to keep the discussion centered on specific attributes.  I would like it to be a discussion format where you not only give your list but support your choices.  I prefer something hopefully deeper than just opinions lest we slip into what my father would term “pooled ignorance.” 

So – lets hear it – what do you think are the most important attributes for a Church? 

Andrew <><

Older Parents

“You need to finish your schooling before you have kids or you’ll never get done.”

“You need to be financially secure before you can even think about having kids otherwise you’ll be in debt for the rest of your life.”

Now how many of you will honestly raise your hands and attest to the fact that you’ve either had this said to you or have said it yourself? There is a growing trend in our society to put off the birth of children until upper levels of education and/or financial security is obtained. I am no different in this matter; in fact I’m almost finished with my Masters in Public Health and will be working for a few years to pay down educational debts before becoming pregnant for the first time. I would like to say though that I am starting to think a bit differently about the societal message that says “wait, wait, wait.”
Continue reading “Older Parents”

Nasty little secrets come to light.

I’m doing homework….yeah I know that’s not a big deal or unusual, but something I read needs to be shared with a larger audience.

I’m reading for my HS755 course on Organization and Delivery of Acute, Long-term, and Community-based Care.  I’m sure it sounds boring, but I actually have found the readings and classes quite insightful.  Recently we’ve been focusing on hospitals: accreditation, report cards, standards of care, and today’s illumination, routine accidents.

Here’s some figures that I thought were rather disturbing:

Accidental Deaths in the US

  • Commercial aviation deaths – 329 
  • Drowning deaths – 3,959 
  • Deaths from falls – 14,986 
  • Motor vehicle deaths – 43,649 
  • Deaths from medical errors – 120,000 

A Harvard University School of Public Health professor named Lucian Leape first discovered that 1,000,000 people are injured by medical errors during hospital treatment and 120,000 die as a result.  He likened it to having a jumbo jet plane crashing every day.  Leape and his collegues examined medical records for a 1991 report and found that “one of every 200 patients admitted to a hospital died as a result of hospital error.”  Not only are these numbers not reported to the public (had you heard anyting before now…I hadn’t), but only between 5 and 10 percent are actually reported to the hospital itself because medical professionals are so afraid about letting down their patients by admitting they aren’t perfect and risk losing their liscences because of errors that might or might not have been avoided. Continue reading “Nasty little secrets come to light.”