It May Seem Right…

Proverbs 14:12 says, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death."


I've read this a hundred times before but today it really saddened me.  There are people I know who think they are wise but they refuse to live by God's standards.  They may be very intelligent but they refuse to know God's truth.   Their life choices lead to pain and destruction but they blame others or bad luck.  Evidence of God surrounds them but they just won't see it.

To those dear people:

If you think you are an accident of evolution and your existence serves no real purpose, then have believed a lie about your value.

If you feel a sense of outrage, injustice, or right or wrong, then you cannot deny a moral standard may exist that transcends you.

If a standard exist and you compare yourself to it, then you know that no human being is perfect.

If it's possible that a God exists who really loves you, then you know nothing would be more important than fixing the distance between you and a perfect God.

If you've ever really looked at Jesus, then you know that reconciling us to God was his primary purpose.

If you don't make peace with God through Jesus Christ, then you'll never have peace at all.

Random Thoughts 10/18/13

• I hate being away from blogging for more than a day a two; a week and a half is unacceptable.  But throw in a funeral, some extra counseling, a good book, a migraine or two and other miscellaneous good and/or bad busyness and voila… a week is gone!  But becoming a better writer requires both good reading and practice, practice, practice.
• November 1 and 2 is the men's retreat at Mission Lake Christian Camp.  Be there!
• Our national debt jumped over $300 billion in one day and now tops a record $17 trillion.  We are hopelessly addicted to giving ourselves stuff, promising that our grandchildren will pay the bill.  The old quote goes, "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."
• It started the last few years with stores opening late on Thanksgiving evening, to beat the stores that opened at midnight, which were trying to beat the stores that opened at 5am, which were trying to beat normal stores that opened at decent hour.  Now Walmart, Target, JCPenney's, and Macy's, among others, will all be open in the evening on Turkey Day.  Soon enough, Thanksgiving "family get-togethers" will consist of a quick brunch so the dads can watch football alone, the moms can go spend money the family doesn't have, and the teenagers can work their minimum wage retail jobs alone on a holiday.  I guess that's how most of us live most of the year anyway.  Seems we might be doing it wrong.
• I think my fantasy football team is fairly solid and probably deeper than average.  Drafting and trading for good players isn't too difficult, as closely as I follow the game.  Thus I feel like I ought to be doing better than I am, sitting here at a very mediocre 3-3.  But some years are like that, luck runs against you or you realize too late that your strategies are not going to pan out.
• KU is ranked #6 in the USA Today Coaches Poll.  Oklahoma State is at #12 and Wichita State is at #16.  Baylor, K-State, and Iowa St. also received votes but didn't make the top-25.
• In the next month or so, I'll no longer be under contract with DirecTV.  I've been a mostly happy customer with DirecTV for almost 14 years in four different homes but it'll save us a little money to bundle our TV and internet together with Google Fiber.  Doing my research in advance I'm finding a few small issues with Google Fiber TV like equipment issues, missing channels, etc.  Have any of you Google Fiber TV customers experienced any issues?

Ron Swanson on Art

My favorite person in (fictional) government giving an opening speech at an art show:

"Welcome to Visions of Nature. This room has several paintings in it; some are big, some are small. People did them and they are here now. I believe that after this is over, they'll be hung in government buildings. Why the government is involved in an art show is beyond me. I also think it's pointless for a human to paint scenes of nature when they can just go outside and stand in it. Anyway, please do not misinterpret the fact that I'm talking right now as genuine interest in art and attempt to discuss it with me further. End of speech."

Random Thoughts 2/4/11

• The Super Bowl is this Sunday!  The church will be open to all at 5pm.  Bring a 2-liter and some snacks!
• Coolest iPad cover yet, with stealth anti-theft feature!
• The NFL owners are hinting that they may be willing to negotiate their demand for an 18-game season.  I smell a rat.  18 games (up from 16) is a ridiculously bad idea for the players, who can barely survive the 16 games they play now.  To me, this seems like a negotiating tactic.  The owners throw out a terrible and untenable idea that they know the players will never accept and then "reluctantly" back down from this position as they negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement.  Tricky owners, you can't fool me!
• I had a brief, 11-hour migraine headache today.  Ergggggghhh.
• I got my first real scratch on my iPhone screen yesterday.  You can't see it unless the you catch the glare while the screen is off but you can feel it.  That's frustrating; I'm so careful not to drop it or put it my pocket with my keys.  Oh, well.
• Surprise, surprise.  A recent study found that "questioning revealed that men who do not eat meat were also viewed as less masculine than the others – even by vegetarians."  Previous research had found that vegetarians are seen as pacifist, weight-conscious [i.e. vain], and liberal.  I'm shocked.  The stereotypical effete, metrosexual pantywaist comes off as less manly?  It's hard to believe.
• Here's 10 great quotes from real-life Madison Avenue advertising man, David Ogilvy.  Profound stuff if you're trying to persuade or sell or even just communicate something.

Go Spain?

"There's only two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures and the Dutch."

Random Thoughts 4/26/10

• Failed Raiders QB JaMarcus Russell has reportedly ballooned up to 300 pounds and will soon be released. Here it comes: I told you so.
• Our son, "brown bear" Elijah, turns 6 on Wednesday. He's getting the Nintendo DS for which he's been asking for six months.
• Jay Leno is not doing any better than Conan O'Brien and this chart proves it. Personally, I'm still boycotting the Tonight Show.
• Get old Bible commentaries from College Press for free. Available as PDFs here.
• Great quote on Limbaugh's show today: "The problem with socialism is socialism. The problem with capitalism is capitalists."
• I'm having trouble getting into American Idol. We watch it each season but I just don't seem to care about this season. We've watched a few episodes this year on fast forward, especially the results shows, watching an hour episode in about five minutes.
• The Chiefs picked up eleven rookie free agents yesterday. Nobody very noteworthy but you never know. At least there will be more warm bodies to take reps in training camp.
• The evil Wall Street types like Goldman Sachs give way more money to the Democrats than they do the Republicans and they always have.
  

Quoting President Lincoln 3/21/10

From The Portable Abraham Lincoln (you'll recognize this from when it was read in the movie Saving Private Ryan):

To Mrs. Lydia Bixby

Executive Mansion,
Washington, Nov 21, 1864

Dear Madam,

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,

It's like poetry; Lincoln's command of the language is something we just don't see much anymore.

[Go homeschooler!]

A Little Quiet Time

Quietude, which some men cannot abide because it reveals their inward poverty, is as a palace of cedar to the wise, for along its hallowed courts the King in his beauty deigns to walk.

Charles H. Spurgeon

Random Thoughts 6/10/08

I have bunch of links from the past several days to share. Here's a bunch of good reading, among other thoughts:

• Strategically plant trees to save on home energy costs. I have a great shade tree on the Southwest side of our house; I'm sure it saves us a bundle on those hot Summer afternoons.
• Here's a great new (to me) term: bete noire - French for the "black beast" meaning someone who is particularly disliked. I heard Dick Morris call Hillary "the bete noire of blue collar American men." Asking men to vote for Hillary was too much like asking them to elect their mother-in-law president.
• Obama. Looks great. Sounds great. Offers next to nothing of real substance. Have you seen the youtube video of him trying to articulate his foreign policy? I mean seriously! Do you hear what he's saying? And this goofball might win!!! Make sure you click "more info" to read what the video author wrote about this clip – it's good stuff.
• "Last week Democrats tried to kill the economy in the name of solving a problem that doesn't exist." That the lead sentence in this article about congress' attempt to fix global warming when it's not proven that our efforts can affect temperature in either direction.
• Was the war in Iraq worth it? Before you give a knee-jerk, uninformed response, read this.
• All the buzz is about the new iPhone, but have you watched the guided tour to Apple's new MobileMe service? That's exactly how it should work – your phone, your computer, and your work computer all sharing contacts, calendars, and emails seamlessly. Apple is calling it "Exchange for the rest of us."
• I got a call at work today asking if anyone in our church is selling English Bulldog pups. Uh… I don't think so… Better luck next time.
• Don't know anything about Black Liberation Theology? Read here.
• Best line this week: "Historically, performers, of any kind, singers, actors, actresses, storytellers (i.e. fiction writers) and the like, occupied the lowest rung in society. And for good reason - they didn't do anything constructive." - William Zeransk

Time to Despair

Do you need to laugh because otherwise you'd cry? Do you need to know that someone out there identifies with the crushing meaninglessness of your hum-drum life? Then despair.com is for you!

Calendars, posters, t-shirts, etc. – this website knows just how to take the wind out of your sails. I picture Solomon surrounded by these messages when he wrote Ecclesiastes. Here's a few of my favorites.


This sums up my opinion of about 90% of paid counselors and psychologists. They don't actually fix anything; they make tons of money while making you feel better about perpetually dancing around the issue.

Starting at Home

Which is most important to the education of a child: the school? the federal government? the local government? the parents?

Parents and local governments are too inconsistent, some argue, and teachers, ultimately, must do as they're told. So the real power in education must start with the government bureaucracy and politicians. The government, we're told, will assume responsibility for every child, making sure they all receive equal training to be productive members of society.

But the more the federal government gets involved (regulating by the giving and withholding of federal funds) the worse our students perform. Generally speaking, the longer the student is in public schools the lower they perform in relation to students in other countries.

Try to confront this failure and you'll run smack into one of the most powerful unions in history. This union ensures that there is only one answer to every education problem: spend more federal money on it (thereby increasing federal control).

But teachers and parents know intuitively that students are best helped by support from Mom and Dad. Emotional support, security, moral training, and discipline are foundational to well-rounded and well-educated citizens. Ronald Reagan said it best:

Our leaders must remember that education doesn't begin with some isolated bureaucrat in Washington. It doesn't even begin with State or local officials. Education begins in the home, where it's a parental right and responsibility. Both our public and our private schools exist to aid our families in the instruction of our children, and it's time some people back in Washington stopped acting as if family wishes were only getting in the way.

We don't need more money and regulations to manufacture more faceless workers for the state, thoroughly programmed by the state but only barely educated. We need more solid homes in which to nurture solid citizens. To the degree to which we don't have the solid homes necessary, we must have stronger churches and communities. But the problem is better addressed when the government trusts its people to do a better job than it has proven itself incapable of doing.

The Direction We're Going?

"In war, resolution. In defeat, defiance. In victory, magnanimity. In peace, good will."

–Winston Churchill

Ah, remember when leaders had values and integrity, before they triangulated their poll-driven policies? I could be wrong, but it seems that our country is about to take a hard left detour into juvenile, naive self-absorption:

• Abandon the Iraqis.
• Abolish the border.
• Raise taxes.
• Squelch the economy.
• Grow the government.
• Neuter the military.
• Wallow in filth.
• Promote the lowest common denominator.

We've been sliding this way for decades, but we may be less than a year from jumping in with both feet. We'll implement a European-style socialism and get European results: low production, high unemployment, ineffective defense, the loss of national identity, cultural decline, and free health care.

Good luck with that.

I'd like to think that the nation will recoil after four years of secular socialism, but Europe has wallowed in it for decades.

The new Hillary/Obama virtues:
"In war, equivocation. In defeat, litigation. In victory, smugness. In peace, self-obsession."

Random Boxing Day Thoughts 2007

• Happy British class system reinforcement day. Go to Snopes.com and get the scoop on Boxing Day. While there you can check out the veracity of those last few email forwards you received.
  
• From the blog of a librarian: "Save the Easily Offended: Ban Everything!"
• Speaking of libraries and thin skin, my old haunt, the Joplin Public Library, has a display of cultural artifacts from the Islamic Society of Joplin. The JPL has always loaned out its display cases to any non-profit group in the community, but this is the first time for a Muslim group. So, some Southern Missourians (pronounced: Muh-zirrins *wipe nose on sleeve*), legendary for their cultural sensitivity, have begun calling the library staff names like "terrorist," "murderer," and "anti-American." Way to go, guys. Classy.
  
• Rural roads in Kansas are getting centerline rumble strips to jolt sleepy drivers awake as they drift into oncoming traffic. According to reports, "from 2002 to 2006, there were 658 fatal crashes on rural, two-lane highways in Kansas… there were 141 fatal crashes on four-lane urban highways."
  
• This is a National Tie Month and wouldn't you know it, I received a tie for Christmas. It's a KU tie but I typically only wear ties on Sunday and KU won't have a Sunday game until mid-March, when they play in Big 12 Championship game. I'll have to find an excuse before then. Three times as many ties are sold in December as are sold in any other month, although you'd think June (Father's day) must surely be close.
• By the way, the Jayhawks are 12-0, the only undefeated team in the Big 12, and ranked third in the nation. They're kinda good.
• The family is starting to complain of sore fingers, tennis elbow, shoulder pain, pulled muscles and other Wiinjuries. Shannon's mom and brothers were having a blast playing the Wii yesterday, mostly boxing and bowling with a little golf. I bowled my first game over 200 yesterday, ending the tenth frame with three strikes! I know that it's not real but it feels real enough to prompt pride in your accomplishments.
  

Tossed To and Fro and Carried About

"Liberals used to be the ones who argued that sending U.S. troops abroad was a small price to pay to stop genocide; now they argue that genocide is a small price to pay to bring U.S. troops home."

Jonas Goldberg

Quotations to Remember

• "There is no greater mistake than to suppose that platitudes, smooth words, and timid policies offer a path to safety." Winston Churchill
• "An appeaser is one who feeds the crocodile hoping it will eat him last." Winston Churchill
• "A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel." Robert Frost
• "How do you tell a Communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin." Ronald Reagan
• "It isn't that Liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so much that isn't so." Ronald Reagan
• "Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life." John F. Kennedy
• "You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life." Winston Churchill
• "Broadminded is just another way of saying a fellow's too lazy to form an opinion." Will Rogers
• "To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society." Teddy Roosevelt
  

If You Don't Tick Like I Tick…

…you're a heretic.

My favorite Emo Phillips joke (I know, I know, there are so many) is also my favorite religious joke. I first heard this joke in the mid-nineties while in Bible College and even repeated my version of it a sermon or two. As with any good humor, there's always a kernel of truth.

I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump. I ran over and said: "Stop. Don't do it."

"Why shouldn't I?" he asked.

"Well, there's so much to live for!"

"Like what?"

"Are you religious?"

He said, "Yes."

I said, "Me too. Are you Christian or Buddhist?"

"Christian."

"Me too. Are you Catholic or Protestant?"

"Protestant."

"Me too. Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?"

"Baptist."

"Wow. Me too. Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?"

"Baptist Church of God."

"Me too. Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?"

"Reformed Baptist Church of God."

"Me too. Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915?"

He said: "Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915."

I said: "Die, heretic scum," and pushed him off.

Random Thoughts 3/21/07

• It's the first day of Spring, did you get your free cup of iced coffee from Dunkin' Donuts? I'm not sure what iced coffee has to do with Spring, but I'm still wrestling with why one would want iced coffee to begin with. I was also surprised to find that there are only two Dunkin' Donuts stores within 100 miles of Kansas City (one in St. Joe and one in Lawrence); this is Krispy Kreme country!
• True colors shining through? "Peace protesters" in Portland, Oregon burned American soldiers in effigy and burned upside down American flags. I thought everyone supported the troops? But now that recruiting stations are being vandalized and masked protesters are turning violent, their anarchist, anti-American bent is on display for all to see. They have the right to peacefully assemble but that doesn't cure their ignorance or their hatred. What a noble thing it is that our troops would fight and die for people like this.
  
  
  
• Tanner had to go the dentist today because of his run in with Kelby at Graham's birthday party. The dentist will determine whether those teeth need to be pulled… I'll keep you updated as soon as we find out more information.
• Professor emeritus of biogeography at the University of London, Philip Scott, said recently, "Climate is governed by everything from the tilt of the earth, to volcanoes, ocean currents, sun spots, cosmic rays, solar sunspots, meteors and reflection from the land. So to put it all down to one factor - human CO2 emissions - is just not credible and the idea that politicians can control the climate is nonsense." Al Gore disagreed in a hearing for Congress' Energy Committee where one Democrat on the committee declared him "a prophet" in this religion of climate change. Gore pleaded for repentance as he stubbornly clung to his dogma, in spite of the evidence. Czech president Vaclav Klaus told congress today that global warming has "turned into a religion" that has replaced communism as the greatest threat to personal freedoms. I wonder who they'll listen to?
• It's going to time to mow the yard soon. Yuck. Winter just isn't long enough when it comes this topic. Oh well…
  

History Test, part 2

Here's a blog that will tell you more about the History of Abraham Lincoln's party than you ever knew. It's a lot of the same information (and more) that I used in the post, History Test.

Did you know:

• that the infamous Dred Scott decision fell along party lines and that Dred Scott's lawyer was one of the founders of the GOP?
• Republicans appointed the first woman ambassador to a major country (Italy)?
• that Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, hero of Gettysburg, was an ardent Republican?
• the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment (portrayed in the movie Glory) was raised by a Republican governor?
• the first Hispanic to serve in the cabinet was Republican?
  
• that FDR's notorious executive order 9066, putting Japanese Americans in internment camps wasn't formally rescinded until President Ford in 1976?
• Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass were Republicans?
• at one time the Confederacy was considered a Democratic Party uprising against the government and the Ku Klux Klan was considered the terrorist wing of the Democratic Party?
  
• in 1922, a Democrat filibuster in the Senate blocked passage of a Republican bill to make lynching a federal crime? The Democrats formally apologized in 2005.

Finally, end my rant against the Democrats, let me quote Oliver Morton, governor of Indiana during the Civil War and later US Senator.

“Every one who shoots down negroes in the streets, burns negro school-houses and meeting-houses, and murders women and children by the light of their own flaming dwellings, calls himself a Democrat. Every New York rioter in 1863 who burned up little children in colored asylums, who robbed, ravished, and murdered indiscriminately in the midst of a blazing city for three days and nights, calls himself a Democrat. In short, the Democratic Party may be described as a common sewer and loathsome receptacle into which is emptied every element of treason, North and South, every element of inhumanity and barbarism which has dishonored the age."

Ouch.

This post is dedicated to John "Birch" Elliot.

Sowing Hypocricy

Certain things really burn me. One of them is when people (and since I mean politicians, I'm using the term "people" loosely) feign religiosity. Don't patronize me!

It just grates on me to see a politician, whose religious devotion must be so private that it's virtually invisible, make a political stop at a church shouting "Hallelujah" and then go to Jewish conference wearing a yarmulke on his head. I can just picture the politician's lackeys asking on the campaign trail, "Sir, will you be needing your cross necklace, your American flag lapel pin, your yarmulke, your red ribbon, or your prayer rug today?"

Hillary Clinton was at First Baptist Church in Selma, Alabama, the other day (just 42 years too late for the marches to Montgomery) and quoted from Galatians 6:9, "And we know -- we know -- we know, if we finish this march, what awaits us? St. Paul told us, in the letter to the Galatians, "Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due seasons we shall reap, if we do not lose heart."

Poor Hillary probably doesn't know that the immediate context is about true motivations and hypocrisy. Paul says in the preceding verses, "Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life."

I really believe that politicians who put on for church audiences in order to get elected will reap exactly what they sow. Don't mock God.

Our Worst Enemy

I'm infuriated. Why? Because people I know and care about are in harm's way and the politicians in Washington are playing politics, encouraging the enemy!

This afternoon, Congress voted for and passed a non-binding resolution against the President's troop surge. The surge that is already working by the way. The Iraqi PM said today that the surge has already been an indescribable success. The Baghdad morgues saw an 80% drop in civilian deaths this week. The militias are being fractured and their leadership arrested, killed, or driven from the country. We have a new and gifted leadership (which this same Legislature approved of unanimously – explain that to me) and new tactics and rules of engagement to make a difference in that country.

Besides that, we're doing the only thing we can do without betraying millions of Iraqis and setting the stage for larger Middle East Sectarian War. Saudi Arabia and Syria have already said they would "protect their interests" in Iraq if we leave.

But have no fear, Islamic fascists, anarchists, and jihadists, our own politicians will do what you can't! The American Congress will pull the plug on our troops, at the risk of their lives, and pull the plug on free people across the middle east, dooming them to political, sectarian, and religious oppression.

Women's rights in the Middle East? Gone. Lifting an ink-stained finger for democracy? Gone. Protection from genocide? Advancement out of the Dark Ages? Freedom of Speech? Freedom of Religion? Gone, gone, gone, and gone!

Way to go Democrats. Way to go white-flag Republicans. Way to go cowards. Don't persevere when you can still take the path of least resistance.

And by all means, go ahead and claim to support the troops and then actively jeopardize them, as the Wall Street Journal said, "[with] a resolution that does nothing to remove American troops from harm’s way in Iraq but that will do substantial damage to their morale and that of their Iraqi allies while emboldening the enemy."

Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) has said, “For the Senate to take up a symbolic vote of no confidence on the eve of a decisive battle is unprecedented, but it is not inconsequential. It is an act which, I fear, will discourage our troops, hearten our enemies, and showcase our disunity.”

If there is one historical truth in fighting the United States, it's this: It takes the American Congress to defeat the American military.

How did our victory in 1968's Tet Offensive become the death knell of defeat in Vietnam? How did we lose that war without losing a single battle? Because the American Congress, fueled by a disaffected people and driven by a seditious media, made it so. Mistakes on the battlefield and in the war room could be dealt with, but not the Congress pulling the plug. When our soldiers left, the Viet Cong insurgency was essentially defeated. South Vietnam fell because North Vietnam invaded the country with conventional infantry, tank, and artillery divisions after we were already gone and after the American Congress cut funding to South Vietnam.

So here we go again. The surge in Iraq can be a huge victory and we might still abandon the fight because of politics.

I'm so sick about this and now the Senate is holding a special Saturday session tomorrow to pass a similar resolution! Why would they do this? Because many politicians on both sides of the aisle have licked their crooked fingers and stuck them in the air and, behold, the political winds are blowing against persevering in Iraq.

The sirens call, "This way to political power and popularity." And our ship is steered toward the rocks. Again.