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This photo was taken by our daughter, Sarah Timmons, or my wife, depending on who you ask. We were in Rehoboth Beach, DE on Easter Sunday, 2011.


Several years ago, on the way home from a family vacation, I picked up a notebook and quickly recorded an incident that had occurred involving our son. Eventually, I used that story to illustrate something about my spiritual walk as a believer in Christ. Thus began a deliberate attempt to document the significance of everyday events. Almost any ordinary circumstance in daily life can become fodder for another story. This, almost by definition, lends itself to a blog.

Of course, many of the entries here are just ordinary diary style stuff... the stuff of ordinary blogs. Good grief, I don't want to be ordinary.


Monday, October 24, 2011

Boys and Their Trucks

The last words from the nurse before I left the medical center were “don’t make any important decisions today”.  The anesthesia tended to leave one in a fog for some period of time.  I failed to follow her advice, and by 6:30 that evening, we had a new truck.

I had been driving a ‘93 Chevy S-10 4x4 for the past 7 1/2 years.  With 175,000 miles, and showing signs of old age, it seemed prudent to begin looking for a replacement.  That process had begun roughly six months prior.  No sense in rushing.  It was apparent that the truck I wanted with the parameters I had set would be difficult to come by.  So I diligently looked, checking the crucial internet sights almost daily.  I had just told my wife that my patience was reaching an end.

I returned home from my medical procedure confined to light duty.  Wanting to make the most of the time, I went on a local dealer’s web site and looked at their inventory.  Finding nothing, I filled out a form to alert them of the vehicle I desired, and got my first call within a few hours.  The salesman did not have anything like I wanted, but would let me know if anything turned up.  Within the hour, he called back.  A truck had been traded that day.  I should come take a look.

The truck when we bought it, November, '10.
Since this salesman was only doing what I had requested, it was only fit to respond.  I took my whole family down to investigate.  It was, in fact, everything he had described, and exactly what I had been searching for.  The price was a little higher than what I had hoped to pay, but we made the decision that it was worth it.

That evening before going to bed, my daughter asked if I was “excited” about the new truck.  I wouldn’t use that word to describe my thoughts.  I had things going on in the back of my mind that put a damper on any “excitement”.
                            
The following morning, my wife jokingly/somewhat seriously told me she was hoping I wasn’t worried I had made a poor decision under the after-effects of anesthesia.  No, I was pretty confident my head had been clear by 6:30 p.m.  But I did confess that something was nagging me.  So I had to walk through all the possibilities to try to determine what that might be.

Were we being good stewards with that money?  I may have gotten another year or two out of my old S-10.  I had wanted to move to a full sized extended cab 4x4 to have the room to take our four kids to the beach fishing.  I suppose I could have made due with another S-10, and abandoned the fishing idea.  And of course there was that irksome thought of the possibility of the whole U.S economy crashing again, this time even worse.  Then there are the unemployed who would be perfectly content in my shoes to keep driving the Chevy while just trying to feed their families.  Oh, and what about saving for college and retirement?

But this “new” truck was ten years old with 100,000 miles.  The four wheel drive was practically a necessity. Moving to the full size would accommodate more tools and materials.    

To no great surprise, I was approaching the problem with my typical analysis.  The best my logical mind of the flesh could do was to create a burden that caused my brain to hurt.  I could see both sides of the mental argument, and neither outweighed the other.

The following day, I was pondering on Jacob.  We had been studying the stealing of the birthright and blessing stories.  The Lord always meant to bless Jacob, even from the time he was in the womb, but Jacob worked his hardest anyway to try to gain that blessing.  It would appear that he just didn’t trust God to do what He was planning to do anyway.  Or perhaps he was missing the main point...

Somehow, The Lord is able to take what you are reading and apply it to your own life, often unexpectedly.  Ugh.  You don’t suppose I had an issue of trust here?

We added a cap and ladder racks.
While all of those concerns I was pondering may indeed have some legitimacy, it occurred to me that perhaps the problem which The Lord wanted to put His finger on was trust.  I believe The Lord has provided for us in the past.  I believe that He is providing for us right now.  But apparently it was my trust that He would provide for us in the future which was at stake.

Money in the bank represents security to the eyes of flesh.  Certainly it is prudent to save for the future, but fear of actually using those funds for a need now because we will need them in the future, well, that has doubt written all over it. 

In my mind, Jacob seemed unclear about what the blessing actually was, and how it would come about.  So he worked feverishly to make sure it happened.  He could not rest in the promise that God would bring it to pass.  I found myself almost unwittingly wrestling with a concern about future provision.  I would have to decide if I could continue to trust The Lord and rest, despite an unseen future, or fret.  The Lord needed to do a work in my fretting department. 

After coming to this conclusion, I spoke about it with one of the friends with whom I was studying Jacob.  He gently reminded me of one of the key points we had been discussing.  I was neglecting the bottom line of the Jacob story.  The real substance of the blessing which The Lord intended for Jacob was Himself.  And He would ultimately be manifested through Jacob and his descendants in the person of Christ.  The world would be blessed through Christ.

The Best Truck, Ever, October, '11.
So what I was seeing had to be adjusted slightly.  The bottom line of my truck purchase quandary is this - I don’t know what the material provision will look like for my family in the future.  But there is no need to fret about it, because I do know we are blessed beyond our expectations in the person of Christ.  This doesn’t mean we can handle our finances irresponsibly, and it doesn’t mean we won’t go through slim times - more than likely we will.  But Christ has been given to us freely, therefore we have ALL we need.  What our future holds is simply a fuller understanding of what we already have now in Him.  And that will sustain us through whatever the next twenty years bring.

Post Script:  I have been driving this truck almost a year.  I pride myself on not being materialistic, but I love this truck. I have not, not for one second, regretted buying it since this story was written.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Sarah's First Car

(Warning:  The following entry contains a childish word which may be offensive to sensitive eyes.  Proceed at you own risk.)

After parking our car at the Apple Scrapple Festival in Bridgeville on Saturday, we elected to walk rather than ride the bus into town.  Sarah and I strolled along, and decided to pick out the kind of car she should get when she is able to drive. 

The cars we liked were few and far between, so we began to identify those we did NOT like.  At the top of the heap was this car.


We decided that in the unfortunate event she was forced to drive such a poor excuse for a cool vehicle, then at the very least we should give the car an appropriate name to ease her pain.

There is nothing more fun than to quote lines out of movies we like.  Lines from two different movies, "Hoot" and "RV", came to mind immediately in our car naming process.

The name for the car we choose was the "Smallish, greenish, squarish, rolling turd".  Elias thought we should add the phrase "with turbo" at the end, which we agreed was a nice touch.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

'53 Chevy

Today we attended the world famous Apple Scrapple Festival in Bridgeville, DE.  While there are too many awesome things to mention about our day, one in particular deserves mention.  We stumbled upon this car, which is a cleaner version of the car we had in mind for Katherine's first (see "First Car", August 7, 2011 post).  We don't care for the baby crap color.








We also found this car, which we like much better.  It appears to be a '51, but has basically the same body style.

Much to our disappointment, neither car was for sale.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Scrapple Diplomacy

In a discussion about the appropriate conduct in a questionable situation, I accused a friend of being a legalist.  It was in jest, of course.  But nevertheless, the friend claimed to be insulted.  A few days later, I sent a text to the friend.  "What do I have to do to be forgiven for calling you a legalist?
Rapa Scrapple

"How about a scrapple sandwich" the friend replied.

"Done".  Well, that was easy enough.  A short time later, the friend texted back "when can I expect payment?"

I posted a potential date on a shared Google calendar for our families to have breakfast together.  I followed up later with the text "The fact that scrapple made the Google calendar speaks of its great importance in life.  It has become a tool of diplomacy."

"I think its diplomacy would only be effective for a select group of discerning palates" was the response I received.

Later, a brilliant idea struck.  I wondered if Sussex County was ready for a Scrapple cart.  We would sell one thing... scrapple sandwiches and coffee.  O.K.... two things.  I needed a new venture into which I could pour my heart.

A few days later, I asked another friend what they wanted for their birthday.  "More time, and world peace" was the request.

I informed the friend of my new and evolving theory that if you were to serve scrapple sandwiches in the United Nations, I'm pretty sure the entire group would be put in a frame of mind in which world peace would follow.  But sorry,  I can't do much about the issue of time.

Breakfast

We were being harassed by a fly at breakfast while trying to eat our baked oatmeal.  Asher had gotten up from the table, and was watching his mother swat at the fly.  Finally it landed, and with the swift hand of my wife and her swatter, it lay dead on the edge of Asher's cereal bowl.

"I'm finished", he declared.

Christine Shenali Print

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

The Rubber Band Boat

Our oldest son is the definition of a budding scientist.  Even at the age of eight, he had a natural grasp of the scientific process:  develop a hypothesis, devise a means to test it, fail, regroup, repeat. 

Elias’s latest work was a rubber band powered boat.  Well, not really a boat, but a tube with a rubber band running through it and a stick on one end, acting as a propeller.  He was very excited about his invention, and eager to do put his prototype to the test.

Unfortunately, his plans were interrupted, as we were having company over before he could finish.  Part way through the evening, my wife called for our boys, who had both retreated to the bathroom sink, where Elias was busy playing in the water with his creation.  Tina called for the boys to stop and come out to join us.  No response.

Repeated calls produced one of the boys, but Elias remained in the bathroom, apparently ignoring his mother.  I do not like the boys ignoring their mother.  So I joined Elias in the bathroom and closed the door.  I gave him a very stern talking to, repeating for the hundredth time the necessity of responding to his mother.  He began to cry.  He cried because he saw the anger in my demeanor.  He eventually pulled himself together, and we rejoined our company.

The next morning while taking a shower, this incident came back to my mind.  It was a Monday, admittedly not my favorite day of the week, and I was already in a melancholic mood.  As I recalled the incident in my mind, the impact of it hit me full force.  What had I done? 

My son was immersed in something that drives him.  He was in his own little world, as he often is.  While I am sure the sound entered his ears, he may not have even heard his mother calling.  That little world will serve him well one day, and the fruit of it will probably serve others as well.  He will use that little world to create, to invent, to think of things others have not yet considered. 

I was not thinking of any of this when I lectured Elias about the virtues of listening to his mother.  I was only thinking of what I wanted of him. As I stood in the shower, I thought of how I had walked all over his little experimental world and verbally punished him for being lost in it.  And as I pondered on this, I began to sob. 

I believe that moment in the shower was brought about by The Lord Himself.  It was a flash of intense clarity out of nowhere.  I was reminded of how little control I have of my anger in certain circumstances, and how it totally blinds me to the real situation at hand, as anger always does.

That lack of control is the reason I have so much trouble with those who claim that the way to follow God is simply to be obedient.  There are some situations, such as this one, when the problem begins to manifest itself before you have time to even make a choice.  There is no time to choose to “obey” in such circumstances.  It would seem that in some situations, we are practically powerless to “obey”.  While it is true that I am no longer bound to sin by Adam, there is a refining that definitely has not taken place in this area.

As I stood in the shower, in just a few moments, I was made acutely aware of that lack of refinement.  But I saw much more than guilt from failure.  Guilt alone serves little purpose.  I saw a hope for the future.  I was struck by how the only way for me to behave any differently is for The Lord to do a work in my heart BEFORE the opportunity to stumble occurs again.  Once He does that work, I will respond much differently to my son, and without apparent effort.

So I fall before Him and lay all this out there -  “God, if you don’t do a work in my heart, I am sunk.  My “best” just isn’t working here.  Thanks for reminding me of how totally dependent I am on You to do this work.”  Now, I stand on the ground that indeed, this is a work He wants to do.

First appeared in the July 2009 edition of the Manna. http://readthemanna.org