Chris & Abby (and family!)

While playing Bejeweled on facebook just now, I started thinking some deep thoughts (because what else am I going to do while playing something as mindless and time-wasting as Bejeweled?).  Many thoughts raced through my mind, but I dwelt primary on two ideas.  The first idea, which had to do with the gospel being the greatest asset that any pastor has, I will dwell on some more and use as the devotional topic for the associational pastors’ meeting on Monday.  The second idea, which had to do with the hopes and dreams for our children, I will write about now.

I sometimes hear people say, “All I want is for my children to be happy.”  I want to respond, “Really?  Is that all you want for them?”  I hope not.  There are more important things in this life than happiness.  Happiness is fleeting.  As I wrote a couple weeks back, “happiness is an occasional thing based on circumstances.”  I was talking mostly about our own happiness, but it (of course) applies to our children as well.

What’s more important than happiness?  Having a relationship with God through the grace provided by the sacrifice of his Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross.  3 John 1:4 says, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.”  The apostle was writing about his spiritual children; that is, those that he told about Christ and were saved because of it.  But the verse is also so true when we think of it as referring to our biological children!

Yes, we want our children to be happy.  But this is not all that we want for them.  We want them primarily to be walking in the truth.  We want them to know Jesus Christ.  Certainly, this will bring them the greatest happiness that they will ever experience (for all eternity!).  God does not call us into a dull relationship with Jesus.  Through that relationship, we find fulfillment in being who we were created to be from the very beginning.  As John Piper says, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.”

I heard a friend recently say that we shouldn’t be thankful just one day per year.  That’s so true!  While Thanksgiving is a great day to gather as a family, enjoy a meal, and share a few reasons we are thankful for God’s blessings, why do most of us only make this an annual practice?

I read about a study this morning that sought to answer the question, “Does counting your blessings really help?“  The researchers found that it did.  From the article, “Just writing down the things you are grateful for each day appears to cause to improve your overall emotional outlook.”  This shouldn’t surprise any of us.  We all know the power of positive thinking.  Although the so-called “laws of attraction” are complete nonsense, there is a grain of truth in it.  When we have a positive attitude, we will generally be happier, healthier people.

I commented on a friend’s facebook status this morning who stated that he “would like to know what it is like to be truly happy.”  After a few others talked about moments of happiness due to events in their lives, I made this comment:

I agree that happiness is an occasional thing based on circumstances. I’m generally happy (except when I’m not). But we can also have a contentment in life that goes beyond happiness so that despite circumstances (good or bad), we can have a joy that is deeper than happiness. This is through faith in Jesus Christ alone. Philippians 4:12-13. I realize that most of the world disagrees with me on this point, but I’m speaking from my own personal experience.

I think I’ve blogged on this before, but I’m truly grateful for where I am.  This isn’t because I’m in the greatest place financially or because I have perfect children or because all of my family is healthy all the time (because none of those things are true).  But I can have joy through all stages of life because I have Christ.  He is my treasure, so every day I have reason to be thankful.

Not really, but it was the first catchy title I could think of.

But like many homes around the nation, we’ve been infiltrated by ladybugs.  About a week and a half ago, we started seeing a few of them around the house.  It wasn’t a huge problem, just the occasional ladybug here or there.  Actually, I thought they were kind of cute.

I don’t think they’re cute anymore.

It didn’t take long before the creatures (the “Multicolored Asian Lady Beetles”) were outnumbering us.  Surrounding us.  Holding us prisoners in our own home.

Literally.

Yesterday late afternoon, there were so many on our front and back porches that we didn’t want to open the doors, as this would allow more of them to fly into our house.  We wanted to walk to the park and have a picnic, but decided to have our picnic indoors instead.

We’ve been defending ourselves as best as we could.  Abby has been vacuuming them up a couple times a day, and I have a bottle that I’ve been collecting them in.

All these ladybugs caused me to think about God’s creation.  Nothing too deep, just random thoughts about nature.  I thought about how our very language testifies that there is a God.  We call animals and insects “creatures,” which, just as an employee has an employer, must have a Creator.  I thought about how a Sunday School teacher at my church recently taught his class that we are to respect God’s creation, and not squish a spider outside in his web just because we can.  God has given us authority over creation, but it’s still His creation, and we are to protect it, respect it, and be in awe of it.

So even though they’re not native to this country, we should respect them as much as possible, especially outside.  But when they’re in my house, they’re on my turf, so they better hide.

Kem Meyer blogged this morning about how people often want to grow in their faith, as long as it doesn’t affect their pocket books.  I recognize that this is the case for many believers.  But for Abby and I, as long as we’ve been married, this has never been the case.  It’s not because we haven’t struggled financially.  It’s not because we haven’t had periods of time when we’ve had to balance every penny in hopes that we would not bounce a check.  We’ve been there.  But giving offerings at church has always been a priority for us, and we’ve never compromised that discipline.

The truth is, God doesn’t need our money.  He wants our hearts.  “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).  Giving an offering joyfully to God is an indicator that we’ve already given our hearts to God.

And why not give?  God has promised over and over in his word to bless those who trust him in this way.  One of my favorite passages on this topic is one that Abby memorized last year, and that I have recently memorized as well, Malachi 3:10-12:

“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house.  Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.  I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit,” says the Lord Almighty.  “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the Lord Almighty.

I say this not to brag, but to encourage.  If you’re in a tight spot, and don’t think that you can afford to give, I know that you can.  The poor woman who came to Jesus knew that she could (Mark 12:41-44).  I encourage you, if you are in this position, not to focus on giving, but focus on God’s grace.  When you remember what Christ sacrificed for you, it becomes that much easier to sacrifice for Him (and I’m not just talking about money anymore, but that’s another post altogether).

This week I found a couple tapes of sermons that I preached a long time ago.  One of them was from ten years ago when I started college, the other was from six years ago when I finished college, got licensed for the gospel ministry, and was moving to go to seminary.  My favorite thing to do while walking to and from the church building is listen to sermons.  So I decided to listen to myself, using the Walkman cassette player I bought for a quarter at a yard sale a couple months ago.  I expected to hear lots of errors.  I expected to hear a nervous voice.  But I was very surprised!  For the most part, I presented logical exposition of Scripture.  For the most part, I sounded natural and comfortable as I spoke.  As I listened to myself, I began not only to analyze myself, but to learn from myself.  Here’s what I learned and was reminded of:

1. As believers, we ought to want to be witnesses for Christ.  It’s not just an obligation, but a desire of our hearts.
2. The character of God is our motivation for sharing the gospel.
3. As much as we look up to the godly people in the Bible, they were sinners, too.  They weren’t perfect.  What set them apart was their willingness to be used.  They said ‘yes’ to God.

I uploaded a clip from each sermon so you can hear me, too.  I’m saving the whole messages for myself.  Maybe one day I’ll release them.  Maybe.

Download mp3 clip of my sermon from 1999

Download mp3 clip of my sermon from 2003

First upfront I will tell you I take horrible pictures and forget to take pictures too so I can’t give as good of a “picture” of my day as I would like. But here was our itinary and some of my favorite purchases!

First we stopped at “Family Health Foods.”

Jenny and I had a wonderful time going up and down the isles looking at the supplements, herbs, and other health foods. I got some local super hot peppers and some garlic from there as well. My favorite finds were these purchases though:

Empty Capsules! The only other place I have seen these is Nolt’s Bulk Foods in Liberty, KY. What does one do with empty capsules you ask? Well we do a lot of natural remedies around here and one of our favorites is raw garlic. So good for so many things and makes a great natural antibiotic as well. But I’m not a big fan of the taste of raw garlic so I like to chop it up and stuff it in my empty capsules when I take it!

Manuka Honey! Honey is a great ointment for burns and scrapes and cuts. It has a lot of properties that have been shown to speed wound healing and also has antibacterial properties. Manuka Honey though is honey from New Zealand where bees are getting their pollen from the Manuka trees. This plant in itself is medicinal and I believe where we get Tea Tree Oil from (another staple in our natural medicine cabinet).  But the honey that bees make from the Manuka Tree has been shown to be extremely effective in treating burns and also MRSA infections. With MRSA getting more and more common I was happy to find some of this without having to order online and pay shipping and this little jar will last for many a scraped knee or cut finger!

Xylitol Gum and Candies! These are probably not THAT hard to find but I had just recently learned about them and had yet to run across any gums or candy that were purely sweetened with xylitol. It is a sugar substitute that has showed a lot of promise and has been used for decades in other countries to prevent tooth decay. Soft teeth enamel runs in my family and this is one thing that I am hoping will help save them a few cavities. There is something about this sugar substitute that helps kill the bacteria in your mouth that causes cavities. And the other plus side to this- its one of the few sugar substitutes that to me still tastes like sugar. I’m not a fan of most sugar substitutes. I think they taste too fake. This tastes like regular gum or candy to me though!

Next we headed to Beachy’s Bulk Foods.

It was pretty crowded. I didn’t get any pictures inside because I was too busy just trying to find the things I was looking for while trying to keep Corban content and also stay our of other peoples way. I got a lot of stuff- blueberry jam, flours for baking, a bag of lucky charms type marshmallows (yes just the marshmallows my kids are going to love me when they find out I bought that for them!).

I also bought some seasonings, spices, and soup mixes. The only thing really unique that I bought there was Black Cocoa. And I really had no idea how it was different from regular cocoa or what I would use it for, it just intrigued me and mmmmm pregnant lady has got to buy chocolate something. After getting home I read it has a higher alkalinity than most cocoa so I’ll have to be careful in subbing it in some of my baking but it just has a slightly different taste and obviously will give your chocolate baked goods a deep dark fudge chocolate color. I read when I was looking it up yesterday it sounds like this is the cocoa they use in oreo cookies to give them their dark color.

After our shopping we headed to Yoder’s Kitchen which is THE place to eat in Arthur. Because of the Cheese Festival going on it was also super crowded. But they still seated us fairly quickly and the wait was worth it. Buffet food I’m sure is always better when the place is crowded and the food is all super fresh but this was fabulous home cookin! They had some wonderful fried chicken, super mashed potatoes, yummy bread with apple butter and Amish peanut butter (pretty sure that is peanut butter and marshmallow cream mixed together- not fancy but tasty!), and they had a vegetable beef soup that tasted just like my Grandma Price’s used to. I have heard that sometimes they have a “Stuffed pepper soup.”  But that is not an everyday thing they carry on their menu. I’m hoping to be there someday when they are serving it though- it sounded so yummy!

Next we headed towards the cheese festival. I do think it would have been fun but it was starting to rain and parking was a little crazy and we decided to just have a quick look from a distance. If the weather was nicer and we had more time it might have been nice to have a closer peek but there is always next year. Or the BBQ cook off festival next month to try and make it to.

Last stop was Country Salvage Store. Louisville has a pretty nice salvage store. Sometimes you go and find not too much but sometimes I would find a lot of really great deals on things that had just barely expired (like soda, granola bars, cookies) or even some great deals on things that were not expired but just had been over stocked – like mango orange juice made for starbucks and some pepper cheese that I’m pretty sure is what Subway uses and somehow they had just ordered too much and sold the bulk extra at a great price to Salvage. And by great deals I mean easily 50-75% off the retail price. I was hoping this one would be similar but it was more like a typical grocery store. Some salvage stuff but the salvage stuff did not have all that great of prices or a very good selection. I did buy some local produce they had at it. They were selling “candy onions.”  I’d never heard of candy onions before but they were big pretty onions and they did smell really sweet. I’m looking forward to frying them up with some potatoes this week!

That sums up the highlights of my purchases. I don’t have a picture of my tour guide. But Nancy and I were going to go with her mother in law, Jenny and then Nancy got sick. Jenny was sweet enough to take me anyway and I got to hear stories about her twin boys when they were little (who are now grown men that attend our church) and also Jenny is a pastor’s wife so I got to talk with her about her life as a pastor’s wife. We had a sweet time of fellowship in the car and she was an excellent tour guide of Arthur for me!

Before moving to Nokomis, I talked about walking to my office at the church building on a regular basis.  I thought that since I would live just a mile from my office, walking there daily would certainly be reasonable and would be very good exercise for me.  It took me a month and a half, but I’m finally including this as a part of my daily routine.  And I’m not only walking one mile a daily, I’m averaging about four miles a day!  I walk to my office in the morning, then back home for lunch around noon, then back to my office after lunch, then back home late afternoon.  Four trips equals four miles.

The walk is quite pleasant.  Most of the walk is shaded by trees, so even on hot days, it’s not too bad.  I really like the street we live on.  It’s very quiet, and the road is made of brick, which adds the nice small town feel that we love so much.

I pass two other church buildings before arriving to Grace Baptist, where I am the pastor.  The first church that I walk by is the First Baptist Church of Nokomis.  It’s an American Baptist church, and it’s the only other Baptist church that I know of in town.  I spoke with the pastor there before we moved here, but I’ve yet to meet him in person (though I did hear him preach once a few months back).

The other church building that I pass is the St. Louis Catholic Church.  Again, I’ve yet to meet the priest, but I’ve heard that he used to be Baptist.  I look forward to meeting him as well.  The Catholic Church is the largest church in town, and they also have a school in town.

After passing the Catholic Church, I turn onto Union Street for the second half of the walk.

This is one of the busier streets in Nokomis, because it is one of the ways in and out of the town.  In fact, Grace Baptist is located right on the edge of town, where many people come and go.  Personally, I think it’s in a great location, with lots of room to expand.  After walking down Union Street a while, I finally see Grace Baptist peeking above the corn.

There are corn fields on either side of the church building.  It’s crazy how fast corn grows.  When I candidated at Grace at the end of June, the corn was barely in the ground.  All you could see was a big dirt field.  Now the corn is taller than I am!

At last, I have arrived at Grace Baptist Church!

Okay, maybe that title is a little bold.  What I mean is that I think more young people need to be open to the idea of getting married sooner rather than later.  I’m not saying that everyone should getting married right out of high school or college.  Certainly I’m not advocating people getting married merely because they are old enough, but to tell a person not too get married just because they are young is also equally absurd, especially if every other aspect to consider is lining up (maturity, finances, etc).

Marriage is a hot topic.  It’s hot because it is one of the most personal issues that we can ever deal with.  What we (and those around us) decide about marriage will for a large part determine who we will become, what we will do, and what our society will look like.  It determines not only the present world, but the future world as well.

Just this morning, I read two articles on marriage.  The first dealt with one man’s opinion as to why he thinks the federal government should overturn the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996.  In order to keep this from being a political blog, I won’t comment on his entry except to say that just because some people groups have practiced other definitions of marriage in the past (or even today), this does not mean that God intended marriage to be anything other than one man and one woman.

The second article I read was Albert Mohler commenting on an article in Christianity Today regarding why Christians ought to marry earlier.  The trend is that people are getting married later and later.  I took the opportunity while in seminary to take a class that Dr. Mohler taught: Theology of Marriage.  In the class, he gave even more points as to why early marriage is a good thing.

Personally, I can attest to early marriage being a good thing.  Abby and I got married when we were 21 years old.  We’ve never regret that decision.  Our anniversary is a week from today, and we love that we’ve been able to experience the blessings of marriage together for these last 7 years now.  We also started having children when we were 24 years old (we have two now, with one on the way).  We’ve never regret that either.  Being parents of young children while we ourselves are still young has had huge advantages.

Getting married and having kids is a part of growing up.  I think a lot of people want to delay that.  But consider the blessings as well, and examine why you’re delaying it.

In just a couple weeks we will be small town people.  I’m a little nervous.  I assume we’ll be looked at as the “new people” for the next 5 years at least.  And I’ve heard many people tell me I’m in for a culture shock.  For a long time now though I’ve pictured myself living in a small town someday and although I’m sure there will be a little culture shock for this “city girl” I’m ready for the challenge.  Here are the things I’m really looking forward to about life in our new town:

• Relationships. I know relationships go both ways they can be great or be a headache but I’m looking forward to having relationships with the people I live near and this is a place where everybody knows everyone.  That is especially appealing to me when I think about raising my children.
• No McDonald’s.  Actually I like McDonald’s and most other fast food places.  But I wish we ate less of it and when you only have 2 fast food choices in town it makes it a little less tempting and for that I am happy!
• No traffic.  There isn’t even a stop light in town.  I take that back I think there is one of those 4 way stops that has a blinking red light instead of stop signs.  That’s it though.
• Slower pace.  I noticed when we moved from St. Louis to Louisville that the pace of life seemed a little slower in Louisville.  I’m thinking that small town life may be a little slower still.
• Chickens and gardens.  I’m not good at gardening and have never owned chickens either but both sound so nice to me.  I may never own chickens and may never have a garden that produces much but I will have friends that will and I can admire their chickens and gardens.  And if I’m nice enough they might even give me a few eggs or zucchini every once in a while!
• Quiet.  We live on a very busy 4 lane street.  They don’t even have streets this busy where we are moving.  I am so looking forward to sleeping without the sound of cars zooming by and the occasional siren.
• Stars.  When I look up I see street lights right now at night time.
• Walking.  We are within a mile of 2 parks (very NICE parks too I might add), a library, Dairy Queen, and Church.  With quiet streets and lots of sidewalks I hope that in the spring and fall we do lots of walking around town.
• Cost of living. With housing much more reasonably priced than the city and not as many stores and restaurants just down the street to call out for impulse shopping the cost of living is really nice in a small town.

So off we go to become small town folks.  I hope that we adjust well because I love the idea of retirement in a small town someday too!  I will say there are some things I will miss about Louisville and I’ll save that for another post.  But most the stuff I miss about city life I think I can get my fix by visiting St. Louis (2 hours away) every couple months or so when we visit family.

Abby and I are amazed at how much God provides for us.  Though we live off of very little income, God blesses us financially and takes care of all our needs.  Here’s an example.

We’re moving to Illinois next month where I will pastor Grace Baptist Church.  We’ve been looking for a house for the past couple of months so that we’ll actually have a place to live in when we move.  But so far, we haven’t been able to find a house that seems like a good fit for our growing family.  Last week, though, we got a call from one of our new church members who has been keeping an eye out in the neighborhood for houses that come onto the market.  Long story short, God has provided a home for us in town that we can stay in for free while we continue our search for a house that we would like to buy.  We met the owner yesterday, and it was such a blessing to hear her share her desire to serve God and be a good steward of what she has.

Even though I know other Christian families who really struggle financially, and that this line of thinking is similar to the “prosperity gospel” which I reject, I can’t help but praise God for His provision!