God is great.

Consider this from Psalm 19:

The heavens declare the glory of God,and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,and night to night reveals knowledge.

And then consider this:

Image above: How Big is the Milky Way? Imagine that our entire Solar System were the size of a quarter. The Sun is now a microscopic speck of dust, as are its nine planets, whose orbits are represented by the flat disc of the coin. How far away is the nearest star to our sun? In our model, Proxima Centauri (and any planets that might be around it) would be another quarter, two soccer fields away. This is the typical separation of stars in our part of the galaxy.

I put my hand over my mouth. Soli Deo Gloria.

Simple, but vital

Thought this little tidbit in Peter King's weekly column was interesting:

I'm sitting on the edge of a hospital bed in Massachusetts General Hospital-West when my surgeon approaches. It's Thomas Gill, the Red Sox and Patriots orthopedist. He's the third person out of eight or nine who would ask me the same question that day: "Which knee are we operating on today?'' I tell him the left one, and he takes a marker and writes "YES'' above my left kneecap. "The reason we don't put an 'X' here,'' he says, "is because if you put an 'X' there, how do you know that's NOT the one to operate on?''

You have to know that there was an event at some point that made this necessary. I can just hear the surgeon saying, "Okay so the left knee...now was that his left or my left? Scapel, please...."

Another Three Things

Before I get to the three things, I would like to offer a special thank you to Comfy Denim. Your careful consideration and comment on the Smurf-Care Bear throw down question was very helpful. Our family will consider the matter resolved.

Or not.

1. I do not take enough risks and it has crippled me as a Christian. I value comfort and quietness over helping people and winning souls. I have often used the "I-need-to-know-God's-will-on-this-matter" excuse for inaction. I heard someone say over the weekend that we will use that excuse when considering working with the poor or volunteering at that abortion clinic, but when is the last time you needed to know God's will in order to go see a movie or take a roadtrip. Yeah, sometimes I use "knowing-God's-will" as a delay tactic.*

*I am not trying to belittle knowing God's will, but if it is unclear then simply obey and serve
someone, right?

2. I now have a new phobia. We found a dead rat in our garden this morning. He was dead, but I hated him anyway. Snakes? No problem. Spiders? Okay. Roaches? Well, I guess. But RATS? DEATH TO THOSE FILTHY RODENTS! I wish they had been late to the launch of Noah's ark.

3. I haven't followed the news that closely, but I think that the healthcare debate is not really about health. It is about money. And greed. If it was really about health, we would shut down McDonald's and Wendy's.

Deep Thoughts

We have some really interesting dinner table conversations. Last night, we tried to sort out the following question: If there was a fight between the Care Bears, the Smurfs, My Little Ponies, and the Strawberry Shortcake gang, who would win?

Mrs. Underdog said that the Care Bears would win, because bears eat other animals. This seems like good logic until you consider that there are thousands of Smurfs. The Shortcakes are named after food, so they would be the first to go down. And My Little Ponies? Come on, when is the last time you heard of a pony winning any sort of conflict?

This is a debate for the ages, I suppose.

Spin class

I have grown accustomed to the pain of doing spin class with Lance Armstrong as our instructor.

I have trained my body to arise before life begins at 5:30am to get to class.

I have built sixteen gallons of water into my daily routine to combat dehydration.

But this morning, on that blasted bike, I encountered something that I never could have prepared for. Something that destroyed my workout and left me questioning my very existence. Something that emerged amid peddling and brought tears to my eyes.

What was it?

Mid-workout salsa burps.

Sentences

I was listening to a John Piper sermon while I was painting this weekend. One thing in particular stuck with me. Piper said that we all must have sentences. Sentences that we consistently return to. Sentences that we retrieve when we encounter difficult times. We cannot remember whole books. Most of us cannot remember paragraphs. But we can remember sentences.

This got me thinking: What are my sentences? What are the bedrock truths that I run to when I don't understand life. I was able to think of three.

1. God is sovereign over all things and he is doing ten thousand things around me that I am not aware of. This shapes my worldview. Romans 8:28 must be true---all thing are working for my good, whether I can see it or not.

2. This is not the end. This life is merely the preface. There is nothing that I cannot endure in this life that will not be worth what my Father has in store for me in eternity. “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,nor the heart of man imagined,what God has prepared for those who love him” (I Cor. 2:9). Life is but a vapor.

3. People are more important than things. This is an easy truth to say, but a hard truth to live out. I preach to my kids to "consider one another's interests ahead of their own", but their dad often places a premium on keeping things "nice". This is an area of sanctification for me.

So what are your sentences?

Recent meditation

I have been thinking a lot about these verses in Proverbs 30:

7 Two things I ask of you;
deny them not to me before I die:
8 Remove far from me falsehood and lying;
give me neither poverty nor riches;
feed me with the food that is needful for me,
9 lest I be full and deny you
and say, “Who is the Lord?”or lest I be poor and steal
and profane the name of my God.

What a really gutsy thing to ask of God. Lord, just give me enough for this day. Not more, not less........

Because You are the bread of life.

Because You have written my name on the palm of Your hand so that you will not forget me.

Because You love me more than the sparrows and they have all that they need.

Because You hate it when I worry about tomorrow.

Becuase Your mercies were new this morning.

Because they will be new again tomorrow morning.

Because You command thanksgiving.

Because You are faithful to Your children.

Becuase You know what I need before I ask.

Because You want me to desire you more than a full stomach.

Because You are good and work all things for my good.

Because you never fail and Your steadfast love endures forever.

Barely a post

Sorry for the lack of posting. Mrs. Underdog had the Strep throat and the rest of us suffered too.

I would like to dedicate this cartoon to Mrs. Underdog:

Picture

I changed the picture. It was a close contest between the picture you see at the right and the following images. You probably see the image more than I do, so if you think one of these is more fitting, comment and let me know.

Don't Waste Your Life

Will you regret the risks you did not take when you stand before Jesus?

Three things

1. I was in a Barnes & Noble the other day. They have this section with coffee table books at really low prices, but they are such bad coffee table books that I'm afraid that you might not be able to give them away. They had one entitled "Evil Serial Killers". Do you really need the adjective? Isn't being evil kind of a pre-requisite to serial killing?

2. I think that maybe we need to set some parameters around the sale of athletic jerseys. I saw a gentleman that was tipping the scales at somewhere over 300 lbs. wearing the jersey of one of the Dallas Cowboys cornerbacks. There is just something unbalanced about someone that is not fast wearing the jersey of someone that is fast. I propose that we not produce XXXL replica jerseys with the numbers and names of small, speedy players. "I'm sorry, sir, but we don't have any Deion Sanders jerseys in 3XL. Maybe a nice Leon Lett for a gentleman of your size...."

3. The 4th of July is now over. I often wonder what the origniators of a holiday would think of our celebration. I think that our nation's Founders would approve of our fireworks and feasting, but I bet they would question what we have done with the independence they purchased with their blood.

What Grace looks like.....