Avoiding Evil

Today is reformation day, which commemorates Dr. Martin Luther’s posting of his Ninety-five Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. This was of course an act that triggered a nation-wide movement we call the reformation. The reformation was a rediscovery of the Word of God and a turning from the unbiblical practices of the Roman Catholic Church to what we know as protestants today. The Roman Catholic church was plagued with false doctrines and superstitions such as purgatory, salvation through good works, and indulgences. It took an Augustinian monk and university professor named Martin Luther to recognize a problem, turn to the Word of God, and stand up against this Roman Catholilc heresy. He wrote his ninety-five statements concerning indulgences, good works, repentance, and other topics and posted it to the church door on October 31st, 1517. This was not an act of defiance as some make it out to be. The church door faced Wittenberg’s main thoroughfare and so the church door functioned as a public bulletin board. His theses was simply a message to the public asking anyone to come and debate these issues. His openeing paragraph said:

“Out of love for the truth and the desire to bring it to light, the following propositions will be discussed at Wittenberg, under the presidency of the Reverend Father Martin Luther, Master of Arts and of Sacred Theology, and Lecturer in Ordinary on the same at that place. Wherefore he requests that those who are unable to be present and debate orally with us, may do so by letter.”

Luther’s Theses did not become a big issue until it was taken and translated into german using the new movabletype printing press. Once it was translated and printed it was given to mass amounts of people and thus Luther’s simple posting of his Theses turned into a big deal and the Catholic church decided they had to deal with it. This sparked a conflict that essentially led to the creation of the protestant churches as many seperated from the Roman Catholic Church and it’s practices. If you are interested you can read more about this by visiting spurgeon.org.

By grace God’s Son, our only Savior,
Came down to earth to bear our sin.
Was it because of thine own merit
That Jesus died thy soul to win?
Nay; it was grace, and grace alone,
That brought Him from His heav’nly throne.

In honor of reformation day I have discovered this little commercial that I thought I would share with you. It’s just a little diddy that is meant to raise awareness of this holiday. Click Here to listen or right click the link and choose save as. Enjoy.

Happy Reformation Day!

I got up at 3:30 a.m. yesterday to take my grandpa to St. Louis to get surgery. Apparently he had two slipped disks in his back and a narrowing in his neck that was pinching the nerves in his spinal cord. This was causing his hands to go numb and his legs to stop working, which was getting so bad that he had to use a walker and sit down all the time. He is 81 1/2 years old and so we were worried about the surgery, but it turns out everything went ok.

When he came out of surgery yesterday he had a tight grip and he could move his legs and everyone who came in to see him got to see him showing off. He would raise his legs way up and grab onto their hands. It is so amazing to see how fast this works when they remove that pressure from the spinal cord. He has lots of work to do now in rehabilitation, but I am looking forward to the day when he can go trout fishing again, cause I know that is what he wants to do.

This is shaping up to be one of the most packed weeks on my fall schedule. I am going to convention on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in Springfield. I come home and do youth on Wednesday night and on Thursday I am taking my grandpa to St. Louis for surgery. On Friday I am taking our youth group to reality house and on Saturday we have church workday where we work on projects around the community. On Sunday afternoon we have a speghetti dinner and on Monday we have fall festival which is our halloween alternative event. I’m going to need a vacation!

Today one of Kendall’s cousins and a friend of mine was getting married and we were asked to sing in their wedding. This was an outdoor wedding done at a nursery in Washington, MO. All in all things went pretty well except for the weather. It was about 49 degrees outside and the wind was blowing like crazy, while a few hundred people piled under this big white tent. Despite the usual cell phones ringing, kids running around every where during the wedding, and the attempt to light candles on a windy day, nothing major happened or went wrong… until we started to sing that is.

First, Kendall and I stood up at the point that we were supposed to sing and as it turns out the pastor (who was Kendall’s uncle) decided to add a Scipture verse and a prayer and so we stood up in front of a bunch of people for awhile which really confused the sound guy. Once that was over and we finally got up to sing, everything was going well. People were smiling, we were doing pretty good, and then suddenly at one part of the song the entire crowd gasped, to which I was thinking “we must have hit a really bad note.” At that moment I looked over my shoulder and actually saw what the crowd was fussing about. During the song a huge gust of wind came through and tipped over a piller which dropped a fern that fell right on top of the bride and groom. What do you do now? Well, we just kept on singing and I tried not to laugh my head off.

Sadly enough, we were the last act and then the ceramony was over… just a few more minutes and they would have made it out without any big problems, but instead ole mother nature (or God with a sense of humor) dropped a potted plant on their heads. Once it was all said and done, I sat down in my seat and thought to myself… did that just happen?

Today I took several teenage boys from my church on a dude’s night out. We went to St. Louis Mills where we ate, raced go-karts, played laser tag, and played arcade games. We had 13 boys go and it was a blast, yet it did not prepare me for what would happen to me the rest of the evening. Once I got the boys back home at about 10:20 p.m. I stood out in the church parking lot waiting for some parents to arrive. I had told my nephew that I would take him home and so he was hanging out with some of the other youth as we were waiting. They started having these races across the parking lot to the flagpoles and back (we have a very large parking lot) and I should probably mention that my nephew had just finished chugging a 24 oz Sprite before the parking lot racing extravaganza. Parents come, church is locked up, alarm is set, and all is good to go. My nephew and I get into my car and head off down the road towards home.

I was getting ready to turn onto the overpass to get on the highway when I suddenly had a craving for a frosty beverage from Sonic and so I passed up the overpass and pulled into the restaurant. I do believe that this was divine intervention, which I will explain later, because at the point that I pulled into the parking lot of Sonic my nephew said that his stomach hurt and then about 2 seconds later he begins to vomit in my car. Now, we are not talking a little spurt of vomit as he holds his mouth and tries to get out; no we are talking about a full throttle, mouth wide open and a tidal wave of puke pouring out of this kids mouth. The raunchy smell of warm Sprite came over me as I sat there stunned at what was taking place before my eyes. When I finally got my wits together I unlocked the doors and told him to open the door and lean out to puke. My poor nephew, covered in his own chunks, leans out of the car and continues to lose his dinner in the Sonic parking lot.

I live nine miles away in another town, we are in the middle of Sullivan and the only place I can think of to go was to Kendall’s house. I should also mention that Kendall, my fiance, is having a girls sleepover at the same time that I had the dudes night out, but I decide that this is the closest place to go to get my nephew cleaned up and to get some of this puke out of my car. So I am racing through the streets of Sullivan like something out of 2 Fast 2 Furious when suddenly I hit the railroad tracks and he begins to vomit all over again. I am speeding through town, I’m trying to call Kendall who is not answering her phone, and my nephew is continuing to shower warm sprite and chewed up bits of this evenings dinner all over himself and my car. There was so much liquid coming out of this boy that it sounded like someone stirring a big bowl of spaghetti and yet I knew that there was so much puke already in my car that there was no point in stopping now.

I finally made it to Kendall’s house, pulled into the driveway, ran up the steps, banged on the door, and her mother answered. I very calmly said “I need Kendall, no others girls, no one else, I just need Kendall”

Her mother said, “Is there something wrong?” To which I replied, “yes, my nephew threw up all over himself and my car and I was wondering if I could borrow your daughter and maybe a few old towels that you don’t want anymore.”

She went and grabbed some towels and got Kendall and I went back outside to evaluate the situation. I tossed a towel to my nephew who began to clean himself off and then I peeked into my car, and at the moment that I physically saw the vomit, it was all over for me and I went running to the yard where I hacked and gagged and almost lost my dinner. I can’t handle the sight of this stuff at all. Two or three more times I came back over to the car to try and clean it up and each time I ran back to the yard to make a pile of my own. Unfortunately Kendall had to come out and clean my nephews puke out of my car. Did I mention that I have the best fiance in the entire world and that I don’t know how I ever lived without her? She got him some clothes to change into; then she knelt down at my car and began to clean it up. I came over to help a few times, only to run back over to the yard gagging. Had I not went to Sonic I would have gotten onto the highway and he would have done this while we were driving down I-44, which is why I considered the Sonic stop divine intervention.

If all this wasn’t bad enough, I get home at about 11:30 and began to clean out my car some more. There were a few chunks here and there that I was able to sweep up at a distance with our shop vac in the garage. I rolled down the windows, opened the doors, and left it out there to air out and dry. Then I went outside to check the furnace. We have one of those outdoor wood furnaces that heats the house and the hot water heater in the winter. My parents are gone for the weekend and it was slightly colder than I thought it was going to be so I needed to see if the fire was going. While I was out there I had a few papers I wanted to burn and so I opened up the furnace only to see a few logs left and a fairly nice flame burning. Next to our furnace is a big shed where we keep all the wood. I toss a big load of papers into the furnace and walk over to the shed to grab some wood to throw in the fire. I toss a couple logs in and go back for more. When I came back I was shocked to see a fiery inferno from Hades bursting out of the open door of the furnace and bright yellow flames shooting out the top of the smoke stack. In a panic I reached up and kicked the door closed and sealed it shut with the latch and immediately the flames stopped coming out of the smoke stack, but large amounts of smoke came pouring out. After a few minutes I thought to myself “this has calmed down now” and I proceeded to unlatch the door again. I slowly began to open the door when suddenly it blew open with the same fiery flames from Hades pouring out of the door and almost knocking me backwards, to which I kicked the door shut again, latched it, and said “to heck with this” and came inside. After much prayer I am hoping my house doesn’t burn down around me while I am sleeping tonight.

Now it is about 1:30 a.m. and I am just sitting here pondering my day and asking myself, did that just happen?