Cost? Pt. 1

Last week our pastor challenged us with a simple question: What is it costing you to follow Jesus? The idea is simple. When we choose to follow Jesus there should be some kind of cost involved. Now before you get the wrong idea I’m not saying we have to pay for salvation. Salvation is a gift given to us through loving grace. However, in accepting the gift you become overwhelmed with the need to serve, give, preach, teach, etc. no matter the cost to yourself.

Or you should to some degree. I’ve been mulling the question of cost over in my head for a few days now and I still don’t have all the answers. Honestly I DON’T see where there is a cost involved in my life.

I sacrifice sleep on Sunday mornings to help get things setup and occasionally run sound. I don’t see that as a cost. I enjoy it. It was and is part of what I’ve felt a calling to do for awhile now. Two or three years ago I was in the same boat as 80% of people who go to church. I would show up on Sunday, socialize with some friends, study the Bible some, and then go warm a pew seat while I listened to the sermon. I was a consumer Christian.

Then we did a study on our God given talents and how we could use them to serve the Church and local community. That was followed by a study on taking risks and getting out of the mindset of playing it safe. I was charged and motivated, but I had no outlet. I tried and tried to get involved and never could quite find any needs to fulfill. So I went back to warming the pew.

God kept calling. It was an insistent call that I was wasting away spiritually. It was time for a change. Fortunately my wife was hearing the same call so we visited another church. The church was also a solid, Bible based church that also happened to need a congregation that was willing to serve to keep things going. So here we are today still serving and still enjoying it.

But does that count as a cost?

FYI

I wanted to let you know about Sphere of Hip-Hop's radio show. I dig their website and the radio show is fresh too. Would you consider checking it out? This Saturday night at 8pm Eastern / 5pm Pacific they are doing a special 1 Year Anniversary show and it's a 3 hour Top 50 countdown. Lots of dope music! Hit up their Myspace profile at Myspace.com/XMRadioShow to get more info on the show and to listen to an exclusive commercial featuring emcee Braille.

Simply visit the XM Radio Online trial page and fill out the information to receive your online trial subscription. If you dig the online version, a standalone XM Radio Online subscription costs just a few bucks per month. Then you can catch the Sphere of Hip-Hop show every Saturday night!

Get more information on Sphere of Hip-Hop at any of their websites including:

* Sphereofhiphop.com (online magazine)
* SphereofhiphopMP3.com (download some tunes)
* SphereofhiphopTV.com (watch videos and live performances)
* SphereofhiphopStore.com (online hip-hop shop with CDs, vinyl records, downloads and some other stuff)
* Myspace.com/Sphereofhiphop (add the main Sphere profile as a friend)

One last note

I'm writing here more often because I want to exercise my writing muscles. I guess you can add me to the ever growing list of people who want to write for a living. I don't quite have my voice yet and I'm not sure exactly what I want to write. To that end I hope to add different kinds of writings to this blog. Look for reviews, story snip-its, and anything else I can come up with as well as the usual.

Compassion

If you haven't taken the chance to use the Compassion International widget in the sidebar, please do so now. Each one of the tabs on the bottom will bring up links to blogs, pictures, and videos taken in Uganda this week and the impact that Compassion is having on lives there. The stories are very moving and will really put your life in perspective if you let them.

Shallow?

I'm not sure wanting the $500 makes me less shallow.

BTW- The site I linked to contains content that some, maybe even most, would find offensive. If you are easily offended either don't click or don't complain to me.

Death at 70mph

I'm one of those people who doesn't necesarily understand the full scope of the situation until after it passes. 5:20 Tuesday afternoon I'm driving home as usual. I'm a little over a mile from my exit and I decide to pass a semi as we are starting up an incline. As soon as I switched lanes and started accelerating I knew something was wrong.

My first thought was that I had hit the airflow coming off of the truck. My steering wheel went to jello, but I was able to complete my manuver and catch my exit ramp a few minutes later. As the car started to decelerate I could feel the thump-thump-thump of a flat tire. So I pulled over to a parking lot at the top of the ramp and changed the tire, with some assistance from a kind passer-by. I couldn't find anything wrong with the tire, it didn't appear that I had run over anything. I threw the flat in the trunk and went on my way.

Later on in the night I sent an email to my boss to let her know I would be late arriving to work as I needed to get the tire fixed or replaced. It finally occured to me that my tire spontaneously went flat. . .AT 70 MILES PER HOUR.

Here I thought I was blessed with 60 degree weather when I was changing the flat.

Somewhat anti-climactically it turns out the valve stem on the tire had failed and I had to replace the tire. Fortunately the tire was covered with a road hazard warranty so the replacement didn't cost much more than it would have to fix the flat.

This Just In

90% Geek

A Significant Question

Shaun Groves struck a chord, no pun intended, with me in this blog entry. He wrote about how an incident early in his life has had a lasting impact on his view of himself and his continual drive to do better. I think we all face the same problem. I've met plenty of confident people in my life and everyone of them deals with insecurity in the face of their perceived significance. Now some people deal with it better than others, but we all deal with it.

I personally feel as though I have to live up to the expectations of my friends and family. I see myself as just average. After reading this blog you may see me as below average. I keep striving to do more and do better so people won't see me for the fraud I am. In the past year, maybe two, I've managed to come to some peace with those feelings. In the past few weeks there have been a couple of times that I feel like I'm living up to the hype.

It isn't up to me though. My worth shouldn't be planted in how other see me or how I see myself. Jesus died for me and that makes all of the difference. That takes all of the expectations away. I didn't start this post with the intent of bringing God into it. It just happens. The changes in my esteem coincide with other changes that have happened in my life, my marriage, and my relationship with Jesus and the Church in the past year. It is this continual growth that will allow me to reach the potential and plans that God has for my life. It is liberating, so liberating.

I know in the days and weeks to come I will inevitably chide myself for not doing my best or my all whether I have or not. I will get mad that I've slacked or I've done just enough to get the job done. I will convince myself that I'm not as smart or clever as others think I am. Even as I write this entry I consider that it may very well be self congratulating blather. I'll say that I don't care what others think, but I do. I'll re-read it and harshly criticize it in my mind. I'm my own worst enemy in this way and in those really dark times when I've shut myself down I have to remember what God through Jesus has done for me.

Check out Shaun's blog when you get a chance. The Compassion International widget on the right hand side originated from there. He has some wonderful insights, but most of all he's down to earth and personally I feel his writing blows mine out of the water. Have I ever steered you wrong?

A Different Perspective

I was checking a friend's blog when I noticed he had run into circumstances similar to what I had run into a week or two ago. We both faced what seemed to be insurmountable problems with the structure of our homes. In his case he lost electricity because, to generalize the problem, the breaker box was fried,. In my case our bathroom flooded because the main drainage pipe out of our house was clogged with a tree root. Two major problems that happen to two guys unexpectedly. Both problems presumably come with a high price to resolve.

I would like to say that we both reacted the same way, but I can't lie even on the internet. As I read his story I saw grace and patience in abundance. I read has he put his money where his mouth is and had faith that God would take care of him and his family. I marveled as he saw God's hand working through the whole problem, even when I'm sure he was getting frustrated. Then I wondered why I didn't have that same faith and insight.

It isn't as though I couldn't have had it. I'm getting ahead of myself though. Journey back to last Labor Day. My sister-in-law and her family were coming to town to visit and stay with us. Not an hour after they got here we started having problems with water in the bathroom floor. My wife had taken a shower and when she got out there was two inches of water in the floor. We didn't think anything of it until we ran the load of towels we used to clean up that mess and another one appeared. Our plumbing wasn't at a total loss, we could still use sinks and the toilet. However the shower and laundry were out. My sister-in-law's family checked into a hotel and we made due for the weekend. We were fortunate to find a plumber to come out on Labor Day and take a look at the problem. He ran a snake down our drain vent and cleared the line. We thought it might have been a tree root, but we weren't sure where the line ran through the yard and the plumber was confident we wouldn't have any problems for awhile. Two weeks ago it happened again. So I called the plumber and worked from home while he ran the snake through the line again. Three days later it happened again. The plumber was pretty sure the line would have to be replaced, but he had me call MSD(Metropolitan Sewer District) to make sure the problem was not on their end of the line. They came out, marked the line as being under our driveway, and told me the problem was around 35 feet in, but they only handle the first 25 feet. So I called the plumber, he came out and cut through the driveway. That was Monday.

Tuesday the plumber returned with a Bobcat and an assistant and started digging straight down. Turns out the line that was there was our water line. So the plumber called to have the rest of the utilities marked in our yard. Wednesday he came out and started digging across the front of our yard parallel to the public sidewalk until he found the line, then he dug back down the line, and replaced the clay pipe with PVC. Twice after that we had some additional issues that cause out bathroom to flood both times. The problem has been fixed on a long term yet temporary basis for now.

Two years ago, maybe even as recent as a year ago this would have been devastating. There would have been much stress and many arguments throughout the week this was happening. There was still stress and still arguments, but not as many. The point is despite the fact I can work from home during these emergencies and despite that I knew God was in control of the situation, I didn't rely on Him as much as I could have. I had so much to be grateful for in this trial. I have a house, someone was there to help us with the bill, and there is no extensive damage as a result of the flooding. If I would've prayed more and focused on the blessings I had, much like my friend is doing, the arguments and stress could have been avoided.

Having said that I'm not trying to beat myself up over the situation. It's reading stories like this that inspire me. It gives me hope that as I continually walk with God, He will change my heart so that in the future I will stop and know that He is Lord.

Thoughts on Roe vs. Wade

35 years have passed since the crucial case of Roe vs. Wade was decided by Supreme Court. I listened to the radio news report of the many groups of Pro-Life advocates that marched in D.C. against legalized abortion. It made me stop and think about that decision and how I do or should react to it. I realized my brain tried so hard to make the issue black and white in the same way the most ardent proponents on both sides of the issue try to make it black and white. I think as Christians we especially polarize the issue as if to say it is the lynch pin to our salvation. It is something I think about a lot and I have my conclusions, but those conclusions don't gel with generally accepted conclusions.

I am Pro-Life and so is my wife. We will not have an abortion. I know the arguments against and the ramifications of that statement. It is something I've prayed about, it is something I have faith about, and if we don't share that faith, I may not be able to explain it to you to your satisfaction. That is just the way it is. The sticking point is where my belief intersects with the rest of the world.

I don't feel comfortable imposing my choice in the matter on every other person on the planet. I don't see this as an issue that the court should have ever decided one way or the other. I feel that if abortions were made illegal, it won't stop them from happening. I realize it will slow down the rate at which they will happen. I realize it will cause a lot of women to think twice about what they are doing. I also realize that many more women will be harmed because the choose to have the abortion anyway in an unsafe environment. I think that Planned Parenthood and other Pro-Choice organizations are bending the truth when they argue for the woman's right to abort, especially when they reportedly won't allow an eleventh hour change of heart. I think that many Christian organizations are over-the-top in their zeal to stop abortion and condemn those who perform or have abortions.

I find the dark irony that many Pro-Life advocates want to save the baby, but have no problem ending the life of the criminal. I find the sad irony that so much energy, money, and time is spent trying to save the unborn at the expense of those who are already born and are starving in third world countries. It is my belief that the Church, while certainly working under good intentions, has dropped the ball in so many ways.

I think that for every Pro-Choice counseling center there should be a Pro-Life counseling center to offer an alternative. I feel that if a woman changes her mind at the last minute, she should be allowed to walk away and have the baby. I feel like a woman's choice isn't limited to the time period after sex has happened and a baby can just as easily be avoided by abstaining or at least using birth control. I get tired of hearing about the medical cases and the rape victims, not because I don't believe they exist, but because they form such a small percentage of the argument. Most of all I get tired of hearing about the woman's right to choose when eight times out of ten that right is clearly reflective of our selfish society.

I think that as the Church we need to have more faith in God to change the heart of people. I think we need to quit using the government as a mechanism to enforce our morality on everyone else. It doesn't work. Its our job to go out and love the world. It is our job to care for the sick, the poor, and the hurting. When we depend on the government to do that job, we get lazy.

We need to look at our motivations and ask ourselves if this is truly furthering the kingdom of God.

What would you do?

So I was looking at my server today trying to salvage a couple of sites I had setup. I recently replaced my router with one that is a bit faster and easier to secure, but it uses a totally different IP scheme and I lost all of my router mappings. I think I have everything re-mapped correctly, but I'm still having issues getting the domain name to resolve to the server. Should I keep trying to has this out or should I scrap the current server, upgrade to the latest version of Ubuntu, and rebuild everything?

On the one hand I don't really feel like doing all of the legwork to get the problems resolved, on the other hand I don't really feel like reloading everything either.

This is the end, the end, the end of our story

Well, maybe not so much the end as of yet, but it is nearing. With all endings there must be new beginnings. Sometime in the next few months I will stop blogging here and setup my own wordpress blog on my own server so I can maintain control of my own content.

Maybe I'll be switching careers this year, although this seems less certain. I'm really burned out with working in the computer industry professionally. At least I am burned out with the parts I have been working with. I'm thinking of switching to web design as one of my options. However, I also think this might be a time to look for something completely different. I just don't know what yet.

Welcome to 2008, here is to new beginnings and brighter days.

That explains a lot

I noticed my downloads were happening quicker. I tested my speed again and the results were quite amazing.

'Cause tomorrow is another day

I bloody well hate days like today or weeks like this week. It's been hard. I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed with a project at work and I'm having a lot of problems facing the work at hand. I feel like I've let my productivity drop off, but I don't know how to get around it. I haven't worked out in a little over a month. All in all things need to change before they get worse. I don't know if it is the weather, gray days, or it is my flee instinct. I actually think it's something deeper. I am and have been very discontented lately.

On the flip side I have mapped out some goals for the coming year to further my technical education.

Then flip back and I'm feeling overwhelmed by the financial situation we are in. I'm having a hard time letting go of somethings and I'm having a real hard time making the necessary spending changes in my own life .

Yeah, just add me to the list of whiny people who have nothing better to blog about :)

With a melon?!?

Another week in the books and what a week it has been. Nothing really stood out as wrong, but Monday through Wednesday I was absolutely not with it. Periodically, although it seems more often than not lately, I go through these periods of low ambition. It could be burn out from pushing myself to hard, it could be a complete lack of interest in what is going on in my life. Whatever the cause, I have a hard time being motivated to do anything. Read, listen to music, throw myself into optional projects at work, etc. Days like yesterday and today make up for it. I throw myself head long into life and get things done. If I had more days like this I could TAKE. OVER. THE. WORLD. BWHAHA BWHAHA BWHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Ahem.

I'm feeling much better now.

Oh, and could everyone take a step back and reevaluate their driving practices. Seriously, 50% of the accidents that happen could be avoided if we all drove like we cared a bit. Get off my bumper, use your signal, and stop when the light is red. That's all I ask. Don't get me started about motorcyclists either. That's a blog post for another day.


"It's a good thing we didn't say anything about the knife"

It's been a week.

It's been a week. I can't say I'm looking forward to the next week either. Hopefully I'll be better at managing my time so I can do more things like updating this blog and publishing a new podcast.

I'll be adding some rants to this blog pretty soon, they should be entertaining if nothing else. Tell your friends.

How Fast Are You?

From Home



From Work(wish it was from home)

One Year, roughly, Update

I was reading over what little I had posted in the last year. I noticed I put up some information on trying to diet and lose weight with direction from my doctor. Earlier this year I had a follow-up appointment with the sleep clinic and while my sleep has vastly improved, my weight hadn't. To add insult, or a wake up call depending on when you ask me, the doctor there said he would write a recommendation for me to have Gastric Lap Band surgery. The procedure is not as severe as Gastric Bypass, but garners the same results. Either way it is a procedure which is the last thing I want. At that time I was determined to prove him wrong by my appointment next year.

I just had a six month follow-up with my general practitioner and it was a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that I have cracked the 300 lb. barrier and now weigh approximately 297 lbs. The bad news is that my blood pressure is up a bit and we are looking at changing my medication around. I wanted to be further along at this point in the game, say about 275-280 lbs, but I'll take the ground I've gained so far.

Since our dog passed and I'm not obligated to walk her in the morning, my exercise has dropped off. I really need to get back into the gym.

I'm moving back here. Frankly I find this to be a better platform in which to create. That and I'm really getting tired of the 'True' dating site ads on MySpace.

If only I could find a way to post to both blogs to keep readers happy.

Who am I kidding, readers?

On Death and Dying

If you look in my pictures you will see a picture of our basset hound Lady. In the past month Lady was diagnosed with cancer. It started with a lame leg, which the vet originally thought was soft tissue damage. Three weeks later the x-rays clearly showed a tumor on the bone. The biopsy confirmed cancer, a rather agressive form at that. The vet thinks it started somewhere else in the body and the tumor is an outgrowth of that. The cancer is so aggressive that the vet did not recommend trying to treat it at this stage and instead to make her as comfortable as we could for as long as we could.

It has been three weeks since then, Lady has lost a lot of weight and as of last night she is starting to lose her ability to move around. Her good back leg works sometimes and sometimes not at all. We called the vet and determined that she is probably in a lot of pain and it is time to let her go. Today at noon we will be putting her to sleep.

It's going to be a rough day