For Christmas this year I received a number of gift cards/certificates for Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Thank you, all who gave! I had more fun picking things out that you can begin to imagine. Below is a list of the items I purchased:

Reformed Doctrine of Predestination by Loraine Boettner
Grace Unknown: The Heart of Reformed Theology by R. C. Sproul
Treasuring God in Our Traditions by Nicole Piper
Truths We Confess: A Layman’s Guide to the Westminster Confession of Faith: Volume 1: The Triune God by R. C. Sproul
The King James Only Controversy: Can You Trust the Modern Translations? by James White
Evangelism & the Sovereignty of God by J. I. Packer
Soul-Winner: How to Lead Sinners to the Saviour by Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Will Vinton’s Claymation Christmas Plus Halloween & Easter Celebrations (DVD)
Not Too Late by Nora Jones (CD)

This is a video from WorshipGod06. Ryan Ferguson recites Hebrews 9 and 10 from memory. Powerful? Unbelievably so…

And before you lazily say you cannot memorize like this (note that Ryan memorized the entire book of Hebrews), read what Dr. Andrew Davis has to say.

I know this is completely self-serving. So be it. My official Amazon wish-list.

I picked up a new cell phone for Tami the other day. She was eligible for a credit toward a new phone from Verizon because we have been with them for more than two years, so I used that and got one that has bluetooth capability, and grabbed a wireless headset to go with it.

So we were on a date last night, sans kids (oh, the quietness!). When we sat down in the restaurant I remembered that I needed to call my sister about some plans for this weekend, and I asked Tami if I could borrow her new phone.

Shortly thereafter, Tami was asking how to set up the headset to work with the phone, and we hooked them up together while waiting for our food. She then put everything back into her purse, and we enjoyed talking and eating for the next hour.

A short time after we finished eating, my sister called, and Tami answered the phone. No sound. “Hello? Hello?” Nothing. Then we realized that the headset was still connected, and we needed to use it to talk. My sister patiently stayed on the line, and Tami finally got the headset on. And then my sister told her what was going on: apparently the “redial” button on the headset in Tami’s purse kept activating, and had dialed the last dialed number (my sister’s) numerous times throughout dinner! So she got to listen in on our conversation, and enjoyed more interruptions of her evening than even a telemarketer could provide!

Sorry, Amy. Your techno-goober brother is down 0-1 to technology…

I just read an article about Zorbing. What a trip!

And for more info, read here.

Since the site redesign is not complete, pictures and blog entries are not easily available together. That is not so bad right now, since I have been inconsistent with both! But tonight I posted 76 new images, for those interested. Many are just snapshots, but there are a few in there that I really like.

Enjoy!

Pictures from July 2006, in all their unedited glory!

Last night Tami and I heard some whimpering coming from Timothy’s room. When I went in to check on him, he was curled up in his bed, mostly asleep, crying on and off a bit.

I shook him awake a little and asked him if he was okay, since he was a bit sick over the past few days and I was concerned that he was not feeling well. He mumbled something I did not understand, and I asked again.

“The door is closed!” he whined.

“What door, Timothy?”

…mumbling, then “The door on the rocket.”

Me: “The door on the rocket is closed, and you can’t get in?”

“Yeah.”

“…Okay, well you go back to sleep, get into the rocket with Wallace and Gromit, and enjoy a trip to the moon.”

On the way to the final meeting on our missions revival at church last night, I was asking Lindsey in the car what Bible person she had studied in school. She said “Moses, and how he parted the sea and all that stuff. But I already know the whole story.”

She went on: “And we talked about the 12 things that God did…what are they called?”

Me: “The ten plagues?”

“Yeah, I was confused. The ten plagues.”

Me: “The frogs, and flies, and blood…”

“Yes. Timothy, all the water everywhere turned to blood!”

…a few moments of silence, then she said “But I really don’t understand. God told Moses to talk to Pharaoh, but He told Moses that Pharaoh would say ‘no’! I just don’t understand why God would tell Moses to talk to him if He already knew he would say no. I just don’t understand.”

And as only God could work things out, two things immediately came to my mind. The first was Dan Phillips post at TeamPyro on Tuesday, which I already linked to last night. Wow — even down to the same story in the Bible.

And the second thing, related to the conclusion in Dan’s post, was part of the catechisms we have been teaching both the kids: “Lindsey, you already know the answer. It’s the same as the answer to this: Why did God make you and all things?”

“For his own glory.”

God is good.

This post will likely ramble a bit, but gettings things “down on paper” often helps me evaluate more completely. It would be a bit severe to say that I have been overwhelmed lately. I have not been, thankfully. But I have been caught in a whirlwind of activities and thoughts that will undoubtedly continue for some time.

The blessings lately (beyond the “normal” blessings of three awesome children, an incredible wife, vehicles that run, and good health, to name a very few) have been two specific jobs that have come, post-”9-to-5,” that may prove to be validation of future involvement in additional development and consulting work (or not). They come at a time during which Lindsey’s school has started again, and various semi-annual bills become due. A few weeks ago I officially registered with the state as a business, and received my “you better pay us quarterly” welcome letter from Olympia, so I am official.

I have worked recently in a renewed effort on the pedal car I started two years ago for the kids. I expect to have it completed to a point that it can be driven in the next week or two. It still needs a lot of work, including paint and tons of finish work, and including the way-cool, obnoxiously loud brass taxi horn that will adorn its side.

We had a missions revival at church this week. Ignoring the fact that the Holy Spirit is really the only one who can “schedule” a revival (I fully understand the point/intent, however), the effect of such a series of meetings on an individual is undoubtedly related to the individual’s willingness to be affected. Combine this with recent reading I have done from Spurgeon, MacArthur, and Dan Phillips, recent email conversations with two great missionary friends, posting interactions on Slice, and general messages from John Piper, and the result is, ultimately, a bit of a frustration related to the limited amount of time I have to devote any time to “extra” study of topics that interest me. And closely intertwined with that, perhaps a bit of frustration related to how much time I should devote to study of particular topics.

As with most things, it comes down to priorities. I have always struggled with this, since my areas of interest cover so many topics (magic, movies/movie-making/video production, RC models, model trains, woodworking, tinkering/building/creating, software development, photography, music, apologetics, etc.). It is not possible to maintain so many different interests and really be any good at any of them, while making any effort at becoming a better father, husband, and Christian, and all that those entail. Folks like Tim Challis amaze me in that they can make such an impact on so many people, while seeming to have it all together all the time!

I would love to complete the “series” I started on Bible translations. I would love to post regarding my recent (superficial) reading on the doctrine of grace and related discussions. I would love to post and study on reaching Mormons with the true Gospel of salvation by faith alone. I would love to be able to read Romans in a single sitting with no interruptions, and learn how to read/teach expositionally. I would love to have a weekly cup of coffee with a couple of brothers to pray and really talk about life. And I would love to get this ugly site redesigned!

And so this post ends. No real answers. No pearls of wisdom. Perhaps nothing more than a baring of my thoughts to the benefit of someone with similar wrestlings. Refocus on what matters. Set priorities and stick to them. Say “no” more often to men, “yes” more often to God.

Sleep is necessary, and I am off to see how much I can find. Soli Deo Gloria!