Elaina is Saved!

I have been listening to praise tunes daily and "religiously" every day for the past 4 years. Elaina and I love to sing those songs of praise together. I pray for at least two hours every day while driving and between praise songs. Elaina, age nine, has been asking alot of questions over the past four years, and tonight she asked the Holy Spirit, and He answered!! Awesome!! My daughter and I are spending eternity together with our Jesus!!!

Tonight, on our commute home from Nashville, Elaina was saved! Jesus saves at 70mph!! Wow! She got really quiet while listening to Shaun Groves CD "Invitation to Eavesdrop". The particular song that she listened to a few times back to back was "Abba Father". I asked her if she was okay once and she quietly spoke "yes". When we arrive home, I hug her, tell her that I love her and she began to cry. We prayed right there in the car, crying together, and she then said that Jesus forgave all of her sins and saved her!

I quickly hugged her and told her that now we will spend eternity with Him together! Angels are dancing around the thrown tonight!

She went inside and told her sister and her step mom. Then announced it to Dee and then Uncle Kevin when he arrived. She called her mom to tell her all about it too. She is so excited and happy to be a part of God's family now!! I am in awe of the saving power of the Holy Spirit, and thank God for giving us faith. It is so sweet!!

Happy Birthday Elaina

Nine years of my life and all of yours have led us to today. Happy birthday sweetie.

I love you

In Search of Sabbath

This entry spawned from a quick read I had last night from a book entitled: "The Ten Commandments Twice Removed". My wife received it from someone yesterday and handed it off to me shortly after I walked in the door. I accepted it, read it, and had a little study digging up all kinds of past feelings and thought on the subject of the Sabbath and Sundays.

There are 52 references to the word "Sabbath" in the New Testament. That is one for every week in a year (just my own thought about the number results in the search). According to the book, "The day of the Lord" was changed by the Roman Catholic church, and when Protestants left they carried Sunday as the day of worship. I have long struggled with this, and it condescends everything about the seventh day as being a day of rest since the Creator indicated it as such following the sixth day and declared it sanctified and holy. According to scripture, the sabbath is supposed to begin at sunset on Friday, and end at sunset on Saturday (one day, according to the definition by our Creator in Genesis). It is also the only commandment that we are asked to "remember", yet we "religiously" forget it every single week that we worship on Sunday. Why is that?

Why do Protestants worship on Sunday when it clearly indicates throughout the Holy Bible, that the sabbath is on Saturday? Why do we disregard the fourth commandment (Exodus 20:8) despite the elaboration of four verses to stress the importance for us to remember it? We don't disregard the other nine (I don't hear about Christians promoting and disregarding the other commandments). Is it because the fourth commandment is a "do" commandment instead of a "don't" commandment?

I know that the Pharisees ruined the sabbath with more law than one could stand regarding what you could and couldn't do on that day of recognizing the Lord. For them it was about tradition and "the law" and being righteous, rather than being humble, obedient, and thankful to our Lord on the day that He set aside for us to rest and worship Him.

What happened?

The authors seem to be "inspired" by what it says in the scripture. With religious tradition and background aside, the Bible does not stress a change of the day, nor that we disregard the sabbath or deviate from the day that God endorsed from the beginning. Why are we so arrogant, disobedient, and consistent to endorse a practice of not observing the sabbath?

So, what about this mouse?

A couple of days ago, I hear this :scratch: :scratch: :scratch: in the kitchen garbage can. My oldest daughter asks me about it and I tell her that it is one of our mice friends in the garbage, and she looks big eyed and concerned about what we should do. So, I cleverly pick up the garbage can and take it out onto the back porch and set it down. I pull off the lid and carefully remove the half full liner to find the mouse in the bottom of the can, trapped and unable to jump high enough to escape the plastic walls of the can. I call my youngest daughter out, and both are leaning over looking down at this captive mouse and talking and laughing at it jump, jump, jumping and getting no where.

I am used to setting spring traps and let the trap do the dirty work of :gulp: killing the pesky little varmints, leaving the deformed little carcus for me to scrape off of the trap into the field behind our house. Then forget about it. Now I have this captive little woodland creature that could star in the next Cinderella movie. :sighs: What to do, what to do.

The mouse was a topic at dinner that night. What should we do with it? Kill it, release it, experiment on it? (Shrills "No Daddy!") Well, you get the idea, it is still in this can on the back porch and what typically is my problem has quickly become a we problem and are at a loss as to how to handle this diplomatically in doing the fairest thing for us and the mouse. :smiles:

Yesterday, when I picked up my eight year old from school, we talked about the mouse again. Can we feed the mouse? Should we stop and buy an tubular environment for it to live in? Should we just capture it and put it in a glass jar with a holes punched in the lid and keep it for a few days? What do we do when we get tired of it? I suddenly have a solution to offer. We shall extract the mouse from the bottom of the can (hence rescue it from it's prison) and wisk it off into a jar with breathable lid (holes punched in it). We keep him for a day or two, and then take him for a little car ride over to grandma's house on Saturday to show her (and get a laugh out of freaking her out with it). Once grandma has gotten over the fact that the grand children have a mouse for a pet, we carefully and quietly remove the lid, look around to make sure no one is watching, then tip the jar over and let the mouse out at grandmas. By the time I finish with the entire disposal scenario, she is cackling uncontrollably about it. It was the hardest that I think she has ever laughed at something.

I must say now, after two days, the mouse has been a real source of conversation, creativity and laughter at our home.

So, I hung the moon this morning...

My three year old daughter looked at me this morning with this unmistakable expression of "wow, you are my Daddy".

Expressive Me: Smiles and says "Man, that is so cool when that happens".
Analytical Me: Gives her hug and wonders how much that look will cost.

The Prayer Closet

There are times when I jump up and shout it out. There are many more times that I just don't think what I have to say would contribute much to any side other than mine own. That is when I choose to remain silent and listen.

My primary social tendency is to express. My secondary social tendency is to analyze. Therefore, I will more effectively communicate in an environment that stimulates discussion, as long as pondering the subject and details of the conversation is not measured on an egg timer.

Seeing God for the First Time

I can't begin to describe the shame I will face when I meet God. Despite my salvation, and my desire to be with Him, I will be on my face in shame of all that I have done, or not done before Him. It is the man on God's right that will stand and recognize me. My eyes will be wiped of their tears, then I will enter the kingdom and live with them forever. I get goosebumps thinking about it. We can read it in the Holy Bible everyday, over and over again, but all jaws will drop and be in awe of our God and his Son on that day.

Will Jesus recognize you?