Gleanings of Wheat

Note to self: This is what I'm planning our week to look like, food-wise. Thurs Lunch: Hot dogs & fruit Dinner: Middle Eastern Pita Salad Fri Lunch: PB&J Dinner: Chicken nuggets* & veggies Sat Lunch: Spaghetti* Dinner: Oven Roasted Potatoes & rice Sun Slow cooker ham & beans Mon Lunch: Summer Couscous Salad * Dinner: Left overs Tues Lunch: PB&J & popcorn Dinner: Left overs Wed Lunch: Spaghetti* Dinner: Pizza Thurs Lunch: Salad & fruit Dinner: Pancakes, bacon, & fruit Notes *My youngest has food allergies, so I'll be using rice pasta on the spaghetti night, rice flour for the chicken nugget breading, & am planning on swapping quinoa for the courscous.

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. (Romans 6:4-5) Perhaps what is most interesting to me right now, is the hope...the basis for our santification does not begin and end with Christ's atoning work on the Cross. Oh, it most certainly starts there! But it continues on through His resurrection. Christ is not in that tomb, rather He is at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us - and it is that fact that should give us our hope for today. We come boldly because our King bids us come. We cry "Daddy" because our Savior is risen. We make war because we have armor and strength that is not our own. We have hope because of an empty tomb! When I feel as though I will never have victory over my sin I can...

Yes, I exist. It's kind of awesome. Shout out to my favorite 11 year old pest (this means you, Hannah!)...

I just finished reading through Helen Roseveare's " Enough " (very brief book, easy to read, encouraging) and as I read chapter 6 it occurred to me how shallow my trust is. Even though I know God is huge, and powerful, and endlesslessly merciful, somehow I still manage to have this poor view of God's sufficiency for me in Christ. As I read the chapter (really the whole book, but it clicked particularly in this chapter) I realized that when I hear the word "enough" I think of it as something like "skimping through, enough to get by...but barely" rather than what Ephesians 3:20 says: Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think , according to the power at work within us, Immeasurably more than I could ever imagine. Enough. That's what Christ is for me. He Giveth More Grace He giveth more grace as our burdens grow greater, He sendeth more strength as our labors increase; To added afflictions He addeth...

This was my reading from Spurgeon's Morning & Evening devotional today. So encouraging! Morning “Faultless before the presence of his glory.” (Jud1:24) Revolve in your mind that wondrous word, “faultless!” We are far off from it now; but as our Lord never stops short of perfection in his work of love, we shall reach it one day. The Saviour who will keep his people to the end, will also present them at last to himself, as “a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but holy and without blemish.” All the jewels in the Saviour’s crown are of the first water and without a single flaw. All the maids of honour who attend the Lamb’s wife are pure virgins without spot or stain. But how will Jesus make us faultless? He will wash us from our sins in his own blood until we are white and fair as God’s purest angel; and we shall be clothed in his righteousness, that righteousness which makes the saint who wears it positively faultless; yea, perfect in the sight of...

I've been in the midst of a trial for some time now - I think in large part to the fact that I just don't learn. Though God has provided in huge ways yet I am prone to worry, I am still prone to try and control situations on my own...at the bottom of it I'm still prone to unbelief, to distrust. It is easy for me to be discouraged by this, but I'm also aware of the fact that I've grown (by the grace of God) a lot in the past few years. I know I'm more aware of my sin, I see it better than I used to, and that gives me great hope because I know that I would not see it if it were not for Him...I see these things because He loves me. It is my hope to fight my flesh, to see these trials as tender mercies from His hand, to grow more deeply in love with Him. I've been reading a lot of Spurgeon lately; I've always loved what I've read by him, but it seems like my reading plan has me going through a lot of things dealing with trials. I thought I'd share ...

A friend of mine mentioned that she bakes her oatmeal to me a week or two ago...craziest thing I've ever heard! Turns out it is really good! I made some today for the kiddies, here's the recipe I used. 3 cups rolled oats 1 cup brown sugar 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 1 cup milk 2 eggs 1/2 cup melted butter 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 3/4 cup dried cranberries Directions Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). In a large bowl, mix together oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt. Beat in milk, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla extract. Stir in dried cranberries. Spread into a 9x13 inch baking dish. Bake in preheated oven for 40 minutes.

I'm cheating today and going to work through chapter 9 and the epilogue of Tim Challies' book,  The Next Story . Chapter 9 deals with the subjects of privacy and visibility. Digital Footprints It is commonly known that everything you do on your computer will typically leave traces behind. Between cookies and caches and system event logs one can glean a lot of information about a person's computer usage. This is often why people addicted to online pornography are so habitual about clearing their browser history, they try to remove traces of their addiction - of their sin. But even if you successfully clear all evidences of your browsing history and computer usage from your computer, are you aware that those evidences are often likely still out there? Every time I search for something on Google that search is logged into a database. Somewhere out there, perhaps in multiple backups, there is info about my search history. Tim points out, quite rightly, that on some...

I know I'm running behind schedule with these posts on The Next Story , but this time the delay was Blogger's fault. Anyway, this chapter deals with authority and truth - specifically how the technologies that exist are reshaping the way we define truth and downplaying the importance of authority. Truth according to Wikipedia Wikipedia is huge, with over 15 million articles (3 million of them in English) to say that there is a wide variety of information available - for free - is the understatement of the year. One of the amazing things about Wikipedia is the fact that anyone can update an article. If my son knew about it he'd likely be on there reading everything that has to do with Star Wars and could probably fix a few errors he might find. This is great news in that an article can quickly be fixed if something false is found in it; no need to wait until the next edition like magazines, newspapers, or an encyclopedia. The downside? Not everything that gets publis...

In chapter 7 of The Next Story Tim addresses the idea of "more is better" in regards to information and argues that "[amid] all of our information, we have little time for wisdom" (pg 139). The question is - what is wisdom? My church is currently going through a bible study on the book of Proverbs in our small groups and a couple weeks ago we defined wisdom as "rightly applying the truths of God to our lives," in other words, wisdom is walking out what we know is true. Wisdom in action is James 2:17 personified. But how do we gain wisdom? Our starting point as Christians must be God. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. (Proverbs 9:10) But what of the world? What of the technologies and trends permeating our culture? Is there a desire for wisdom or merely for the collection of data, of the sorting of that data into information? Tim notes a trend present, that we hear little of the application...

Earlier today I was working on the Chapter 6 walk through of The Next Story and I typed up a nice little section of content based on one quote that really didn't fit with the rest of the post. I got sidetracked and followed a rabbit trail. I know, a chapter on distraction and I'm all over the place. It's awesomely funny. Anyway, I really wanted to share those thoughts but didn't want to clutter up the original post. Here you go: Following a rabbit trail What if our consumption and use of these devices has trained us to assume that greater speed and greater capacity are universal virtues? What if we have transferred the virtues of digital devices to our own lives? (pg 122) This isn't where Tim goes with the rest of the chapter, but this last quote really got me thinking about my kids. I'm so used to doing things efficiently that I'm (to my shame) often impatient with them because they don't approach things as I would, or get things done as quickly a...

The sixth chapter of The Next Story deals with distraction, which is fantastic because I feel like I'm always distracted! In fact this post was interrupted by Twitter notifications via TweetDeck and I'm not gonna lie, I clicked over a few times before finally exiting the program. Have you ever noticed how much beeps and notification lights fill our lives? The alarm clock that wakes you up, the dryer going off, the cell phone in your pocket, the list could go on and on. We're called, from the moment we awaken, from one task to another by notifications and beeps. Is it, then, any wonder that we find it so difficult to focus on one thing? Eventually the problem of distraction becomes more than something that just happens to us; it defines our identity...We become so shaped by our devices that we lose our ability to focus. We are transformed from people who respond to the beep to people of the beep. (pg 116) Tim argues, and I would tend to agree, that as we have allowed ...

In the fifth chapter of The Next Story Tim addresses the concepts of mediation and identity. His illustration for how digital revolution has shaped our cultures and lives is by comparing and contrasting the two greatest military tragedies of the US - Pearl Harbor and September 11th. Because we are so surrounded by technology, news travels faster, we're able to hear more about an event as it unfolds. Where the people that lived during the Pearl Harbor attacks waited days and even weeks for more detail about the events of that day; the generation that lived in the US during September 11th were not only able to find out something had happened, but were even able to tune in and watch the tragedy unfold. Tim points out that unless you were near Pearl Harbor on December 7th, you're not likely to remember exactly where you were or what you were doing when the attacks happened. Conversely, because of television millions of people watched as the towers fell and can tell you with amaz...

Make has a great compelation of kitchen tutorials you all should check out. In completely unrelated news, I'll be posting tonight from The Next Story. I ended up having a pretty full weekend, so expect a few posts to happen more closely together.

In Part One of The Next Story Tim guides us through the history and way our digital revolution has come about and shaped our culture. In chapter 4 he begins to probe the implications of the digital revolution specifically for the Christian. The theme - communication. Tim begins the chapter talking about the straits of Gibraltar and what the implications of this were on society during the slave trade. He discusses how as men traveled and they got past Gibraltar they felt free from the moral, familial, and religious constraints of their home. "[E]very man became a bachelor once he was beyond Gibraltar" (pg 67). This anonymity lent itself well to indulging in sin - after all, nobody would ever know! You know, except for God. The problem? This new found freedom was just a different type of constraint, a different type of bondage. Without law and without oversight, there was great freedom, and yet, as Newton would testify, there was also great captivity. In all the freedom ...

So, my game plan tonight was to make this version of sesame chicken . I asked J if she wanted to help, she said no, so I started making dinner. I went to check on her brother and I came back just in time to see her tip the bottle of sesame seeds upside down. You know how in the movies something is falling and they shoot it at half speed to make it dramatic? You know how the inevitable "No!" really sounds like "NNNNNoooooooooooo!"? Totally what happened. I thanked her for her help and sent her off to finish her movie while I finished dinner. This is what she left me with: This is the end result: Considering there was way too much sesame, it was pretty good! I'll remake it without her help and let you know my final verdict. Recipe 1 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 cup toasted sesame seeds, divided 1 teaspoon black pepper 1 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional) 5 (6 ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast ...

Chapter 3 of The Next Story is a great history lesson. Tim walks us through what he calls "Digital Prehistory" - think pony express - right on through our current place in history as far as technology goes. It's a lot of ground to cover, 200+ years, but you certainly come away with a feel for how fast the digital revolution happened. I feel silly rehashing this chapter, so just go get the audio book and listen to it for yourself. I will, however, leave you with a few really interesting quotes. Quotes Though they [Americans in the early 1800s] lived eighteen hundred years after Jesus, they could make their way across America no faster than Jesus made his way across ancient Palestine. (pg 48) Until the telegraph, information was valued for its ability to assist in understanding and solving particular problems...But in the age of telegraphy, information became an end in itself and was increasingly disengaged from context or local....Its value was not in its usefulnes...

Yesterday's post was pretty long, but necessary to touch on most of the chapter. Thankfully chapter two doesn't go to so many different topics; rather the aim of chapter two is to understand technology and how it shapes cultures. Tim opens the chapter by discussing how new technologies always involve risk and opportunity. As a society we tend to focus more on the opportunity of new technologies while the risks may not become apparent for years down the road, "[we] find ourselves naturally drawn to the benefits and opportunities...but rarely pause to consider the risks" (pg 36). Example: I remember when we first got cell phones we were excited to not have to worry about missing a call from a customer or if the car broke down we could call for help. That's the opportunity. The risk? Never missing a call. Once people know you have a cell phone there becomes this expectation that you're going to answer it 24/7. You go long enough like that and you end up feel...

I'm a big fan of writing in books - I know some people are completely horrified by that, but for me it is a huge indication of how much a book is making me think. If a book is really picking at my brain/heart there's marks all over the place - this is precisely why I hate the library. Don't get me wrong, the cheapskate in me loves not having to pay for books, but then I have to constantly write down interesting quotes on a paper. It's such a hassle. Recently I've taken to Facebook messaging myself the quotes, that way I don't have to risk losing them or having my kids color all over them. What does this have to do with The Next Story ? As I was reading the first chapter I was especially glad that Zondervan gave me this book...lines and notes galore. Chips Off the Ol' Block & Mythic Proportions Tim starts of the chapter with a story about how his son paces through the house when he is on the phone and how Tim realized that it is because he also paces...

On Friday I babysat my nephew for a few hours, and while I was babysitting I decided to do some laundry while I played with him. At the time I was wearing a sweatshirt and Sammy got it pretty dirty so I tossed it in with the load in the washer... Fifteen minutes later I realized I didn't have my phone. It came out of the spin cycle looking quite clean, and effectively a brick. My 8 month old smartphone was now less useful than the dumbphone I'd had for 2 years before this one. Try not to envy me guys. I know it's hard. All of my contacts were in that phone. With the exception of five phone numbers I couldn't get hold of anyone because I don't actually know most people's numbers. My schedule and important dates, my apps, my mp3s, my pictures...basically every thing that I use on a daily basis, gone. You know something? It was pretty scary. As I drove the 45 minutes back to my apartment I felt exposed - what if the van broke down? How would I call for help? H...