Keith Green - Born Again (New Song)

Trial vs Temptation (updated)

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are in the Dispersion: Greetings. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.   James 1:1-3.

The question at church last night was:  What is the difference between a trial and a temptation?  (Some translations use the word trials in the verse above, and others use temptations.  We made the determination that the correct word was trials.)

Our pastor set up the discussion by defining trials as something God sends to draw us closer to Him, while temptation is something satan sends to try to pull us away from God.  I wasn't sure if this was a good stepping off point, cause I knew where it would send us.  But awaaaay we went.

As I told a sister afterward, "I try to stay off my soap box, but I just can't."

Sickness and disease do not come from God.  They are not His will for us.  It still appalls me that people have this view of God where He will put illness on his children to draw us closer to Him!  Where is that in the Bible?  You can't show me, because it's not there.  You may show me a verse and render an inaccurate interpretation to try and prove it (usually by going to Job, who was under an inferior Covenant) but on this side of the cross it simply is not a tenable argument.  God is not the author of that.  Can He use it?  He can use anything, but that's not my point.  My point is: Cancer was taken care of at the cross.  Let's stop building our theology on what we don't understand (i.e. - I prayed for someone to be healed, they weren't, and so God allowed them to stay sick until they died, therefore he wanted them to stay sick until they died, and in conclusion God gave them that sickness and wanted them to die.)  This is how a lot of folks seem to build their view of God.  It's not Biblical.  God's name is 'Jehovah my healer'.

Can you imagine Jesus going up to someone, putting a hand on them, and saying, "I love you, so I'm going to allow you to suffer with migraines, because it will build character and draw you closer to me."  For the life of me, I can't find any example like that anywhere in the New Testament.  I do, however, recall a leper saying, "Lord if you are willing, you can make me clean."  To which Jesus said, "I am willing.  Be clean."  And the dude was healed (this is in Matthew chapter 8).  Notice also that in Jesus' reply he used the words 'I am', once again showing us an attribute of the great I AM; that attribute is one that we need to get through our heads and into our hearts:  Willing.  Not only is God able to heal us, He is willing.

Okay, I got to get off my soapbox (again!), cause it's time to go to work.

New show that might be worth something.

I've watched a little TV lately and have noticed a potentially good show: Billy the Exterminator.  This dude, along with his family, go in and get rid of your pest problem. 

Check it out.  After all, now that the Bachlorette is over, you don't have anything else worth watching.

We did it!

My wonderful wife and I got the monitor back up!  I wasn't so sure we could do it, but I used an online tutorial to diagnose and repair the problem.  Cost us about $10 total for capacitors, solder, and soldering iron.  Beats the heck out of a new monitor, let me tell you.  Also got the new wireless router going -- Yeah buddy, we are streaming Netflix movies through the Wii now.  I also picked up my new pair of glasses (lost the old ones in the Atlantic during the 4th weekend at St. Augustine).  Replaced the battery in my truck, since it decided to die Monday.  Good news on that is it chose to die in our driveway, so no getting stranded in inconvenient places, and there was still some pro-rated warranty on the battery, so it only cost me $35 instead of $77.  Got the grass cut AND weed-eated yesterday.  It has been a busy week!  Friday we are heading to Atlanta to celebrate my birthday.  42.  (The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything, you know.)  Awright, my minions, I must go to work now.  Peace.

Last Blog Standing

I'm thinking of changing the name of my blog to the above.  Since everyone in my blog roll is giving up the ghost.  No more Wunderkraut.  Will is MIA.  Madison has gone underground.  The only one left is Cullen.  And me.  There will always be me...

I will not go quietly into that good night!  RAGE RAGE AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT. 

Which is actually quite apt, since I still haven't fixed my monitor.  The contrast on this old thing is awful.

RAGE RAGE!!!!  I will not go quietly!  I will be the last blog standing!  And then some!  Awright, I gotta go to bed.  I'm getting sleepy.

Monitor problems

The monitor on our computer failed today.  I'm able to post this because, being pack rats, we had an old one shoved away in the attic.  I'm missing that flat screen already, let me tell you.  But maybe I've found the problem.  I managed to get the monitor apart without cracking/breaking anything and found three blown capacitors.  Tomorrow I'm going to try my hand at soldering in some new ones.   Pray for divine favor.

To the uttermost ends of the earth...

Me and the boys were taking off trash today, riding about two miles to the nearest dumpster in my pickup.  I was speaking encouraging words over them, telling them that God has a plan for them and that they are going to do wonderful things with their lives.  I didn't get too specific, just speaking general good words, but once I finished Caleb said, "We're going to be prophets.  We're going to tell people about Jesus.  Even in other countries."  Which thrilled me of course, since I hadn't said a thing about prophets, but I had to laugh as he said, "Even Alabama."

All I can say is watch out world, here they come.  (Especially you folks in Alabama.)

Peace.

Photoshopped Jedi

Found a picture of Levi wielding a light saber and photo-shopped it up.  Tomorrow is a night off from church, so we are watching 'Return of the Jedi'.  Rockin'.

Airpocalypse

If these guys don't make it big then nobody should.

Carpe Blogum....nay, I say.

For those who have been wondering where Crotalus has been, I've got a newsflash.  Hey, I've got a life here people!  I mean c'mon, I can't be at the computer blogging for my legions of fans ALL the time.  I've got other responsibilities, fun to have, happiness to pursue, bills to pay, a job, a family, as I said before: A LIFE.  Geesh, some folks think all I have to do all day is sit around and blog for their enjoyment.  Now I know how William Shatner felt in that Saturday Night Live skit.  Get a life people!  Stop reading this blog right now and go out there and Carpe Dang Diem!

My thoughts on LOST

Emotionally, it was a satisfying end.  But only in that regard.  And it's apparent that's what the writers were going for, since they left so much unsaid or unexplained.  No, I didn't need every detail spelled out, but some things had been built up to the point to where you just knew an answer was forthcoming.  The biggest  for me, as my wife can attest to (since she is surely tired of hearing me talk about it) was the Dharma Initiative.  They devoted an entire season to the time traveling back to the seventies so the main characters could infiltrate the place.  In my mind, Dharma was the Big Mystery that would eventually be solved.  I'm still not sure what purpose it served in the big scheme of things.  For the last several episodes we've been fed this Island Mythology that was revealed and then summed up in very short order, even then without answering much. 

I'm glad all the characters got closure, because I don't think many of the fans did.  The writers wanted to tell an epic, the only problem is they let it get too big for them to manage and, in my opinion, did not know how to get to where they say they wanted to go. 

Hey Gramps, where you goin' with that gun in your hand.

So, Chicago has this statute outlawing the possession of handguns.  Seems the criminals don't want to go along with this:
 

An 80-year-old Chicago man shot and killed an armed man who broke into his two-story house in a pre-dawn home invasion Wednesday on the city's West Side.

At about 5:20 a.m., the homeowner and his wife, also in her 80s, discovered the intruder entering their home through a back door. The homeowner, who had a gun, confronted and killed the burglar on the doorstep, police said. Cops said the intruder also fired his gun during the struggle.

Read the whole story here.


Good thing the homeowner didn't abide by the statute either.  Like I always say; the day they make it illegal to own a handgun here, is the day I go out and buy one.

Peace.  (Through superior firepower.)

SWAGGER WAGON

LOST!!! It's all so clear to me now!

Wow.  Just wow.  Last night’s episode of Lost cleared up EVERYTHING for me.  It’s all so obvious now. 

My predictions based on what we learned last night:

Benjamin Linus will take off that incredibly realistic mask, revealing that he is an alien reptile that wants to eat all the humans on the island.  Hurley WILL eat the smoke monster, which will at first seem like a good thing, until it emerges from his other end and actually becomes even more dangerous (now that it has a sulfurous stench that doesn’t kill you, but makes you wish it had).  Jack and Sawyer will realize their true feelings for each other and build a little bungalow for two, right next to the light house so they can wake up and enjoy each morning sunrise together.  Kate will realize that she no longer serves any purpose and will simply wink out of existence.  Sun and Jinn will come back, their survival due to the Dharma shark which happened to swim by and neatly bite Sun’s leg off, thus freeing her, after which a friendly sea turtle gives them a piggy back ride to shore.  Kate will pop back into existence just long enough to shoot them both in the head for no reason.  Desmond will become a professional wrestler in the alt-time world, wearing a brown and yellow polka-dotted mask and going by the name of the Tootsie-Roll Bandit.  John Locke will put on a tuxedo and top hat, wheel himself to the nearest street corner, and gyrate around in his wheel chair for money.  He will collect about thirty-eight cents during his first week and then go back to substitute teaching, his dream of being a tap-dancing-street-performer forever crushed.  Vincent the dog will become the star of a sitcom spin-off called: Lost: A dog: goes by the name of Vincent. He will win an Emmy and go on to feature films.  Charles Widmore will spontaneously combust.

Watch and see how right I am.

Frank Frazetta

Frank died yesterday, but I just now found out.  The man WAS fantasy art.  Rest in peace, Sensei.