So I have been trying to get everything ready to go to Panama for my missions trip lately.  While getting a few things ready, I realized I didn’t have a camera that I could take with me and snap a few quick shots of while I am there.  I started hunting and I came across a Kodak m1033 at Target.

RedKodakm1033

Of course I had to go with red.  And I also got the camera on clearance! I think it will be perfect to throw in my backpack and won’t take up much room at all.  The camera is fantastic quality for what I will use it for.  I am not expecting to be a professional photographer with this thing at all.  I just want to use it to grab a few memories.  It takes SD and SDHC cards so I am good to go there since I only have about 20 of those laying around the house.

Expect to check out some cool new photos on my pictures page!

Quick Hits

17 May
2009
  • Church at Southeast this weekend was really good. We are in a series called “The Kingdom” and he brought up a lot of good stuff that made my spiritual muscles work over time.
  • I worked incredibly hard around my house this weekend. I fertilized, weeded, edged, round up’ed, watered, and everything else.
  • Still been praying very hard over some extremely important decisions in my life and direction for my life and career.
  • Giving as much as I possibly can to advance the Kingdom for Jesus has been in the forefront of my life. I can’t stand to rob God, so I have decided to give as much as I can. It’s crazy how much I’ve been able to give, but I know I can do better.
  • Numbers have also been important lately. God convicted me tonight to invite a specific person to church. So I better get on top of that tomorrow. I don’t want to be a cause of causing hell to be crowded.
  • It becomes more and more clear everyday that being a follower of Christ is not doing something specific. It is constantly furthering my relationship with Jesus.
  • I have to start going to work at an earlier time. Not to thrilled over that, but it’s something I have to do (for now).
  • I got accepted to go on a missions trip to Panama in July. I started getting some stuff together for my trip that I will need. And yes, if you are reading this you will probably get a letter requesting money for me to go to tell other people about Jesus. Get out your check books baby!
  • We need to stop focusing on what is wrong in our lives and start focusing on Jesus more. He is THE answer to any possible need or question we may have in our life!

Now what?

10 May
2009

As you well know, we all have choices. We have simple choices such as choosing on a daily basis whether to go to work on time or to sleep in.  While we are alive, we will never be able to avoid the next decision we must make. The decisions that we make directly affect our future and what type of life we live.

I want to include God in my decisions because when I make decisions on my own without Him, I am not allowing the Holy Spirit to guide me. I want to do my best to be obedient to the will of God and submit to His authority. We must listen to the God’s voice in our life or we will continue to make selfish decisions for our life. Let me give you a couple of examples of the most important decisions we can make:

  • We live in our sin but we realize the need for Jesus to be our Savior. Now what?
  • We accept Jesus into our life as Savior. Now what?
  • We have the passion in our hearts to tell others that are far from God about Jesus. Now what?

You may have all of those wrapped up, but consider these choices that can have a drastic impact on your life.

  • You keep fighting with your spouse and are considering divorce. Now what?
  • You want to have a child, but because of physical issues is seems impossible. Now what?
  • You are an extremely passive man that is scared to spiritually lead His family for Jesus. Now what?

Yes, we get thrown into bad spots in our life and it can even feel like we are placed in unfair situations. There is no way we can get around that. It will happen. The question that we MUST ask ourselves is, now what? How will we respond?

When you are faced with a decision that will affect you and those around you, the choice to live God’s will or run is staring you in the face. Now what?

Gotta clear the air -

At work today had a conversation with a female that we’ll call “Suzie”.  Not quite sure how we ended up on the topic, but we started talking about the Bible.  (You can tell this is going in a great direction by having a Biblical conversation in the corporate arena). Anyway, the part that just brings me to a boil is what Suzie said:

“I mean, I’m a Christian and I believe in Christ but I don’t take the Bible literally.  It was written by man so it can’t be taken literally. God didn’t create woman from Adam’s rib.  People just take the Bible too literal.”

Whaaa?  Seriously?  How retarded is that? Very.

To which I promptly replied in my effervescent knowledge: “Suzie, I gotta tell ya.  God really doesn’t care whether you think it’s truth or not or whether it should be taken literally or not.  It’s God’s word.”

Honestly, Suzie’s whole attitude initially made me want to smack her in the face with the end of a garden hose. I’m just sayin’.

Yes, God cares about us but not our stupidity of needing Him to validate Himself to us.  He’s God and we’re not.   I want God to soften Suzie’s heart so she can take Him at his word and truly belive with nothing holding her back.  I pray Suzie believes in the words God has already spoken and the one’s He is speaking now.

Extremely frustrating, but it’s an opportunity to bring somebody closer to Jesus which I am totally for no matter how mad they make me.

Since I have been completely ignoring my physical health lately, I thought it would make for a perfect blog entry.

I have played baseball almost my entire life.  Since I played a lot of baseball I had to stay in great physical condition which meant I had to work out a lot.  I learned to love working out and it has become quite the coping mechanism. I feel like it relieves stress and gives me a chance to release energy like I can do during the day while I’m at work. You see, I like working out late at night and working out for a long time. As you can tell I have somewhat of a passion for working out and I have learned something important:

The hardest part about working out is walking through the front doors of the gym.

The block for myself is finding reason enough to get up off the couch, go put on my Under Armour, and driving 2 miles to the gym. I have to be intentionally motivated to stop doing what I have been doing and change my actions to put in the work to gain a result. Once I get to the gym and get going, nothing is going to stop me until I feel like I am done. Like myself, I highly doubt that when you start working out you are just going to give up, pack it in, and go home.

I think this idea also applies to my relationship with God. The hardest part of growing closer to God is taking the first step.  At times, it’s tough closing my eyes and praying that first word. It’s tough opening up the cover of my Bible to read the Word of God.  And yeah, it’s extremely hard to invite Christ into your heart to be your Savior. Why are these things so hard to do? Why is there always a mental block to that first step of faith towards God? I have no idea, but I do know the first step is always the hardest for me.

I’m not sure how I jump over the first step hurdle that is always in my way.  But the more I jump over the hurdle, the easier is the next time.

So I have seen a ton of these come through on Facebook lately.  Kind of a crazy little trend right now, but I thought I would put mine on my blog instead.

  1. I secretly love to sing (and would love to believe I am halfway decent at it)
  2. I have a kat named kitty
  3. My favorite band[s] of all time are Five Iron Frenzy and Casting Crowns.
  4. I’m a geek that doesn’t own any form of an iPod
  5. I am a Linux (more specifically, Ubuntu) fanboy
  6. My secret addiction is Puffs Kleenex with Vicks.
  7. I have a brother that is 14 years older than me.
  8. I love building things with my hands (think wood working stuff).
  9. I really enjoy helping other people even if they take it for granted.
  10. I love being sarcastic.
  11. I don’t dance like a white person.
  12. I drink Sweet tea by the gallon.
  13. I was named after my grandfather – Charles Wheatley Boleyn
  14. I have a motorcycle.  More specifically, a red Honda CBR600RR.  And I like to drive it very fast :)
  15. My family used to go to the beach for vacation every summer.  I wish we would resume that tradition.
  16. Due to a traumatic experience when I was younger, I hate meatloaf.  Meatloaf is the only food that I refuse to eat.
  17. My feet are so flat, it’s not even funny.  Trust me, these dogs are always bark’in.
  18. I do not like watching horror movies.  I just don’t enjoy the feeling I get while I watch them
  19. My two coping mechanisms (for when I’m frustrated, angry, mad) are cleaning and working out.
  20. No matter the time or place, the kryptonite to this Superman is BBQ chicken.
  21. I will pwn you at Bible trivia! (Yes, I said pwn.  If you don’t know what that means, go ask your kids)
  22. I get most of my shirts from GAP, pants from GAP, and shoes from Sketchers.  Even thought I am starting to pick up a few shirts from Express lately.
  23. I’m extremely picky about the shoes I wear.  I prefer flip flops (even in the winter)
  24. I have rheumatoid arthritis
  25. I can’t think of something for the last one, but since I said I was going to tell you 25 things I have to have something here to fill in the blank.

A quick story

29 Dec
2008

I’m up late working so I thought I would share this little blurb with you.

I had lunch today with a good friend of time.  As we were talking, my friend admitted several events from past decisions.  They were large, life changing decisions, but they didn’t shock me.  My friend then said, “I hope this doesn’t change the way that you see me and the kind of person you think that I am.”

I told my friend that those past decisions didn’t affect the way I viewed them. I also told my friend that God doesn’t judge us on just a couple of our decisions either so why should I look at you any different than the way God looks at you?

I’m just sayin.

What an awesome day!

10 Nov
2008

I should have seen it coming from a mile a way.  My morning started horrible as I was 30 minutes late to work and I felt like my immune system borrowed a couple of virus samples from the CDC.  I walked in the door and someone told me just to “turn around and go back home” as I shouldn’t even bother coming in today because it was that bad already on Monday morning.  I really should have listened because extreme suckiness ensued.  3 dead domain controllers and 2 crapped out VMware boxes running about 15 productions servers later, I finally got to go home.

I only have two words for Mondays: bite me.

I just bought the coolest pair of shoes ever.  They are so freakin comfortable.

They are Sketchers and I love them!  You can go buy yourself a pair here.  I don’t know what it is, but I just have this thing for white shoes.  I think they look so stinking cool!

Motivated Babble

7 Nov
2008

Been pondering a lot lately what I want to with my life.  Came up with a lot of ideas, but no final conclusion.  That’s not out of the ordinary, but I do have a strongly increasing burning desire.

I want to sing.  Yep, that’s right; I said it.  I want to sing, loudly.  I like singing passionately at a high volume.  Honestly, that’s all I think that shows what’s really attached to my words.  I want to belt it out like my life depended on it (or someone else’s life for that matter).

How do I go about doing this?  Not sure yet, but I’m working on it.  Hmm, maybe it’s time I stop trying to work on it and really start praying about it.  And no, I haven’t really prayed about this before.  I mean I’ve chit-chatted about this with God in passing conversation, but no “spilling my guts confessional dialog” on the subject. I want to find someone to really help hone my skills.  That would be my ideal plan, but things don’t exactly how I plan them most of the time.

We’ll see where this goes from here but I think now is a perfect time to do something with this misshappen desire.  I can’t fathom how this would come about, but it’s what I am passionate about.  Oh yeah, I don’t have to fathom it.  I just have to walk in the tracks laid out for me when the time arrises.

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