chrismc.net

better weekend in review

Each week I will try and post my weekend in review.

Hope this works

God has spoken

Perhaps you don't agree with Obama/Biden. But it is a historic day, and a good day for America in many ways. I will celebrate that tomorrow and the day Obama is inaugurated. Only history will tell if Obama becomes a great leader.

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except by God’s appointment, and the authorities that exist have been instituted by God. (Romans 13:1)

Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? - election day

 

Acts 4:23-31

23On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. 24When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. "Sovereign Lord," they said, "you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. 25You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David:
   " 'Why do the nations rage
      and the peoples plot in vain?
26The kings of the earth take their stand
      and the rulers gather together
      against the Lord
      and against his Anointed One.^[c]'^[d] 27Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people^[e] of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. 28They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. 29Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. 30Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus."

31After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

 

So today is election day. I voted. I do believe we all should. But this year was different for me. It was the first time since I became old enough to vote that I was not excited. Not because I do not like the candidates, although I don’t like either. I really can’t find a ton to like about Obama or McCain. It seems to me we should not have to choose based on who will do the least harm. But that is really not why I am not excited.

I ask only one thing from our government. Allow us to live in peace. Pave roads, protect the citizenry, preserve freedom, yes all of that. But the government seems to think it ought to do that and a whole lot more. The government, republican controlled or democrat controlled will never come close to achieving the Mission God has given the church. I am disappointed in some of my brothers and sisters for putting so much faith in one candidate or another. I am not a republican or a democrat, no I belong to the party of the Lamb. I do not believe government is a friend of the church. Yes in our part of the world government tends to stay out of Church matters for the most part. But as America becomes increasingly secular so will our government.  That is neither good or bad it just is. I do not need nor want the governments help in accomplishing the Mission of God. The government ought not try to do what God has called His Church to do. We should not rely on the government to do what we ourselves are unwilling to do.  Instead I will rely solely on the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I believe if we are doing what we are called to do we will annoy our leaders both republican and democrat equally.

There is a lot of evidence in the Bible (Have you read the book of Acts lately?), and the world today that when the government actually stands against the church, the church grows. If you were at Worship here on Sunday you heard Mooi tell stories of how God has been working in China for the last 40 years to grow the church against brutal oppression. Yet here in the West when the church has so much power and resources, we seem to be shrinking. I believe the church must learn to speak truth to power no matter who is living in the White House. One way we know we are doing this enough is when they start beating us down! Acts 5:40 We ought to be making both republicans and democrats mad on a regular basis.

It certainly looks like Obama will win today. While for reasons I mentioned above I am not an Obama supporter (nor McCain!). I do see the historic significance of such a day, and I am proud of America. Not for electing a black person, but for making it even possible. I do not envy him. Because he is the first he carries so much pressure. There is much that can be approved upon from the past 4 administrations. Like every candidate I have seen all the way back to senior class president in High School, I am afraid Obama has made more promises than he can’t keep.

I have not read too much about the irony of the first black president coming from the same state as Lincoln. It is one of the weird quirky ironic things that happens in history.

No matter what happens, tomorrow about 50% of the country will be disappointed with the outcome. I pray our next leader shines. I hope he is everything he said he would be. If he is, he will be as equally hated as he is loved. That is life in America today. Hopefully we in the church can heed the words of Lincoln, and put the divisive nature of politics behind us.

I will end this post with a quote from Abe:

Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; each invokes His aid against the other. The prayers of both could not be answered... The Almighty has His own purposes." Knowing this, we treat each other charitably, and look to God for something better: "With malice toward none; with charity for all... to bind up the nation's wounds - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."

8/29/08

this is where I will be chillin' for next couple hours if anyone needs me.

8/23/08 cheney plane

Jackson hole.

8/23/08 jackson hole

4 days 'till CareFest need a laugh?

I thought this was pretty cute. I can't even imagine what life is like with these guys!

 

the story of the pink vacuum

T he first vacuum Laura and I bought together was an Oreck Vacuum. We had a black lab at the time and Laura is a clean person. A very clean person. There will be no pet hair in our house! So we did some research and splurged a little on a vacuum. The thing ran like a champ for eight years. The only thing that stopped it was the great flood of '07. We got an insurance check for a new vacuum.

I did not know that Laura was getting tired of the Oreck and felt something different was in order. In the past eight years vacuum technology has really advanced. These new bagless wonders seems to be the answer to cleaning up our dogs (we have two now) hair. Laura even borrowed a Dyson to see how it sucked up the pet  hair. It did a really good job and for $650 it should suck the color right off the carpet! We went back to consumer reports and decided to get a Hoover which I liked because it was only $150. But the thing sucked and not in the way a good vacuum should. It was heavy. Only like 20 pounds, but when you have a split level it is a problem. And it could not handle the pet hair at all.

Now here is where the story gets good. Well to us anyway.

We decided we must go back to our first love, the Oreck.

We went back to the same store we bought the original which is only 5 miles from the house. We showed up at 10:30am kids in tow figuring the store would be open. It wasn't. It should have been open at 10:00am according to the sign on the door. We quickly started searching Google on my cell phone and on our Garmin GPS unit for the next closest store. We decided that one in St. Charles might work, even though it was about 12 miles from where we were. Ahh just then the lights came on. Life. We got out of the car and made our way to the door. It took a couple of minutes for the salesman to open the door. Warning #1 was the store was not open at 10am. Warning #2 was the guy had a portable phone in his ear when he opened the door. He barely opened the door for us even though we both had kids in our hands. I could tell this might not go well. It took him a minute to dispatch the caller on the phone.

I noticed the heat in store had to be about 85F. Ugh, we have got to make this quick. I wondered if they turn the heat up on purpose. You know to make quicker sales.

Ok now, nobody, I mean nobody browses vacuum's. People go to the Oreck store to purchase vacuums. That is it. I am thinking we are in and out of there in under 15 minutes tops. But no.

Vacboy: "Sorry I was late opening up, how can I help you".

Me: "Well we need a new vacuum. We liked our old one but it got flooded so here we are."

Riiiiing. The store phone rings again. Dude. Don't. Answer. It. HE ANSWERS THE PHONE!!!  OK, he will tell them he will call back. Nope. He takes the call and walks into the back room and shuts the door. What the?

Laura gives me the "I can't believe it" look. He was gone for about 5 minutes. The kids have already tried out all the vacuums and are ready to go home. Great.

Vacboy comes back from critical phone call. I notice he looks very nervous. I mean very very nervous. What is going on with this kid. Should we be nervous? I am getting nervous that we might not purchase a new vac!

Vacboy: "Sorry about that. Do you know what you are looking for?"

Us: "No it has been 8 years since we were last in your store, so could you tell us what is new and different."

Vacboy: Well we have these two models right here. Rolls out a black one and a gray one.

 I notice there seems to be quite a few different models laying around but what do I know.

Us: "So what are the differences?" Me:Hoping for a quick sale "What are the prices?"

Vacboy: "Uhhh well, the black one is $750 and the other one is $500.

Now I am like greeeeeeeeaaaaat. No way we are throwing down two plane tickets to California on a vacuum cleaner!

Vacboy: "one of them has a larger motor than the other."

Laura: "oh the more expensive one."

Vacboy: "No actually the cheaper one."

He might have been right about that, but we were thinking this is making up answers.

He doesn't say he has anything cheaper even though we were clearly surprised and disappointed by the selection.

Kind of a long awkward pause at this point.

Laura: "So what can you tell me about these canister types hanging on the wall."

Vacboy: Shrugs shoulders!  "Uh well, what can I say, I am a stand up vac kind of guy." And that was his answer. Holy. Moly. He had nothing more to tell us.

Had I been drinking coke it would have been coming out my nose at this point. But I managed a straight face.

Another customer walks in the door. My wife wisely suggests the Vacboy help him out and thankfully Vacboy took the bait. Laura gave me the lets bail look. I was already two steps ahead of her and had already corralled one of our kids. We were gone.

Dude. How the heck do you not sell us a vacuum? I practically handed him my credit card when he opened the door.

Laura and I could not believe the twighlight zone we had just exited.

Too make our long story short, our Garmin found another store 6 miles away. We went for it. The guy at that store was the owner of the store we were just at. We let him know about our experience and he was most apologetic. He sold us the vacuum we wanted for about $249 bucks. Normally double that but they had a web special and we did not want the smaller vacuum that sucks up bowling balls but not dog hair. (That is another story.) Still expensive but we know it will last us at least 8 years (guaranteed for 10) so that comes out to about $25 per year for a vacuums not including bags. The owner was very sorry about our experience and threw in some  free bags. O yea we got a pink one. Which was the exact same one Vacboy said was $750.

Best Game Ever

This is pretty amusing. They picked Hermosa beach to do this which is next to my home town. I spent some of my summers at the beach in Hermosa beach.

weekend laugh

I have this weird fascination with juggling. These guys are the best. By the way the TED website has lots amazing presentations from all sorts of people. Worth bookmarking.

The Raspyni Brothers are hilarious.