CROSSTALK

You just gotta love the wonderful world of East Texas. People say that the seasons are unpredictable around here, I totaly disagree. Lets see, in Summer you can bet your bottom dollar we will have lows of around 80 and highs around 103 with a heat index of HELL, aand in Winter Fall it only drops temperature about 3.5 degrees with a little more wind. That is why it is called fall here, the temp. drops 3.5 degrees. Winter brings lows in the mid 50’s and a bunch of rain to keep the tropical humidity going, feels like a sauna, so you do not need to use you local spa, and Santa can dress ahead of time for his hawaiian vacation after all those cookies .Then comes Spring and the glorious pollen, yes the green stuff that makes you want to take a pair of pliers and tear off your nose. You just have to adore the wonderful sinus pressure and chest congestion. Pollen is natures way of getting back at all the stupid people who trash up the environment. So now we suffer from headaches, body aches, and voices that resemble yoda on a jedi mission.  So now you tell me, is this not the East Texas repeditive schedule. I should me a weatherman!

Ahhh Monday’s, you got to love them. It is crazy that we constantly think Mondays are horrible. yeah we go back to work, start all over in the ritual of everyday life. But hey, we still have it, life that is. Is it just me or does it seem that every week seems to go the same. Wake up, coffee, bathroom, drive to work, lunch ( with someone if you feel frisky! lol) work, home, kids and wife, dinner, t.v., bath kids, kiss kids, put kids in bed, take shower, put kids back in bed, get kids drink of water, t.v., catch kids hiding out of bed, and finally go to bed.  Sound familiar? well I am going to try to mix it up, heck yeah I am all baout living on the edge! So here is what I am going to do … ready? Wake up happy ( though wking up normally stinks because it is early and dark), shower, kiss wife adn kids, go to work, eat lunck with someone who needs to be loved, Drink coffee in the middle of the day so I can have energy to play with my kids after work, bath kids and kiss them as we watch a family movie or play a game, put kids in bed and read them a story, stay with them until they fall asleep, and finally turn the tv off so I can talk with Mary.

  Ok so this is going to be hard, but it is necessity, just for the record, the family is the hub of all ministry and example of love. Jesus set the bar of quality time with his mom and disciples. I think slowing life down and relishing every moment is the key to true happiness and the center of contentment with God and God alone. If we take time to see the detail of love in all of his creation we see the multitude of love He lavishes on us. it is amazing that through love the world and all that is in it was created, and in all created things resides Gods love! Thank you Dad!!!

Last night our family made a trip to K-Mart to get a few items adn my boys first pocket knives! Well after making our rounds through the toys, sporting goods, automotive, video, adn finally chasing mom and sister throught the clothes department, the boys adn myself ended up looking at clearance racks in clothing. As I was looking at some pants on a box rack, I hear Josiah, my oldest at 7 years old, sounding out words. And in the back of my mind I am so proud because he is very smart and loves to read, to bad the next thing I hear is ” Daddy, what does f*** y** mean?” AHHHHHHH, was all that went through my mind as I looked at him and said, ” Where did you hear that?” Well he did not hear it, he read it inside of the clothes rack! Someone took the liberty of sharing their very small adn ignorant vocabulary skills in the line of my child sight. So not at all mad at him, he had no clue, he was only practicing what he was taught in reading class, he felt horrible.

 I guess my thought is now we shoulddo more preparing than sheltering. Do not get me wrong sheltering is good, but we can’t do it forever. Josiah had no clue what the word is or even meant, and though we have parental filters, blockers, eyes in the back of our head and interview all creatures who come in contact with our kids, sin will creep in somewhere, so we have to equip them to fight it and recognize it. So I challenge anyone with children please feed them scripture morning and night and teach them to pray. They have no other defense or solid foundation outside of the two.

Man it is so crazy listening to talk radio today. Whether it is “Christian” or ‘Secular”, it is all about they did me wrong, or theydo it wrong, or public school sucks, homeschool sucks, it should be home church or traditional, progressive, contemporary,….. oh my gosh! What are we thinking. Fact is that it is no different today than it was all through history, especially American history. Look fact is is that our country was started by a bunch of hacked of Catholics from the church of Englund, who wantd reliogious freedom! Well religion hasno freedom, it wraps you up like a burritto and smothers the lfe out of you through repetitious guilt, constant commitment to do something, and telling you how horrible you are. But real faith in Christ releases us from bondage of religion, at least that is what I read. Jesus let us go from the burden of religious oppression and set us free in truth and grace. No life here is not butterflies and roses as a Christian, but this is as bad as it gets for us. So when you here people bashing Christianity, remember Jesus said they wuld hate us, so where is the suprise? America has always been in a ditch, in the beginning we killed people and animals for land, in the first few centuries we owned people and treated them as animal or worse, this continued all the way up until the fifities. then we go into today where it is all about selfish ambition and get all you can. So the church should not be mad at the world, this is as good as it gets for them, we should be pursuing the lost adn praying dilligently for their salvation in Jesus. If you do not like the pblic school system, then sell your home and make a monetary sacrifice and pay for Christian school or homeschool! Understand, tis is the lost peoples haven, and our field of harvest! Our vacation for eternity will come soon enough, lets focus and take as many with us as possible adn share love with people in a world of selfish hate!