Happy Veteran’s Day

Happy Veteran’s Day.  Thanks to all who have served our great country and fought for freedom at home and abroad.  You are appreciated more than you realize.

I’ll be out of town for the next week.  Blogs will be at a minimum.  Thanks to all of you who read.  It’s a blessing and quite humbling.

You Can’t Make Science to Mean Something it Doesn’t Mean

I’m not a scientist.  My science classes in college were geology, meteorology, and food science.  The best I did in high school was a B in honors physics at a public school.  And even that grade should be investigated.

So allow my non-scientific mind to think through something with you.

Often in debates about evolution and creation, I hear people argue for evolution (that is, the origin of the universe via big-bang) by saying, “Science proves it.  Science is not faith, it’s fact.”   They do this by talking about carbon dating, fossils, and the fact that Noah couldn’t really have had all those animals in the ark.

Well, science is “fact” if you are talking about how a tree grows, how a car moves, or how my heart works.  You can prove those things.  But science cannot prove the origin of the universe.  “Yes it can!” people tell me.

No.  It can’t.

Why?  When we refer to science, we usually mean “systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.”  We come to this knowledge of the physical world by using the scientific method, which Merriam-Webster defines as “principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.”

You cannot re-create a universe as vast, complex, organized, and beautiful as ours in a test tube in order to collect data about how it began.  It just can’t happen.

So if you hold that the origin of the universe is due to a randomized explosion of atomic particles, that’s fine by me.  Just don’t call it science.  Call it what it is: faith, belief, and religion.

Happy Boss’s Day

Make sure you wish the head honcho a Happy Boss’s Day today.  I bet you didn’t know there was such a thing.

And now I bet you wish you didn’t know.

Happy Birthday, Carly!

Today is my fiancee’s 23rd birthday.  Here are 23 reasons why I’m thankful for her.

1. She loves Jesus.
2. She wants to be a mother of a lot of kids, and wants to adopt international children.
3. She quiet and gentle, which is pretty much the opposite of me.
4. She trusts me (and wants me) to lead our family well and be a courageous husband and father.
5. She likes to cuddle and watch movies.
6. She works hard every day at a job that could be quite intimidating.
7. She is absolutely, physically gorgeous.
8. She laughs at my jokes even if they aren’t funny just to make me feel good about myself.
9. She was confident enough to say yes to dating me even though I was leaving for Africa.
10. She said yes to marrying me even though I was leaving for Africa.
11. She is continually patient and gracious with me when I am hard to love and don’t deserve it.
12. She has been amazing in planning our wedding while I’ve been gone.
13. She wants me to follow the Lord’s call to the pastorate, trusting him despite the trials it may bring.
14. She’s more concerned about helping me become a godly man than hurting my feelings.
15. She isn’t concerned with a six-digit income, a large house, an expensive car, fame, or status.
16. She puts up with my long monologues because I’m too verbose to say something in less than 5 minutes.
17. She is not satisfied with mediocrity.
18. She is very laid back and likes when I take charge and make decisions.
19. She loves summer and hates winter…but loves Christmas, which is awesome.
20. She doesn’t blog or Twitter like I do.  (I couldn’t imagine two social networking junkies in one house.)
21. She has traveled internationally and knows about and loves other cultures.
22. She loves missions and wants to give money for the sake of the gospel.
23. She loves me and wants to be my wife.

I love you, Carly!

Blogging and Broken Computers

My computer is in the local HP shop this week.  Nothing internal, however.  The hinge to close the screen is poorly designed and has been slowly deteriorating since I bought it in January.  It’s a Compaq…so I don’t need to say much more.

So blogging will be slow this week and through the weekend. In the meantime, here’s some random thoughts or things that have come up over the past day or so:

• Wedding planning is really fun, especially when you are less than four months away.  I like details.  I think they like me, too.  But I love my bride-to-be, and I know that she loves me too.  What a blessing she is to me.
• We are studying Nehemiah for our staff Bible study here in South Africa.  It might be the best book on leadership ever written.
• I just bought Leading on Empty by Wayne Cordeiro.  It’s about watching for, recovering from, and avoiding burnout in ministry.  I’m almost 25 so I’m hoping to apply the watching for and avoiding parts.  The first 30 pages are very good.
• Jesus’ voice will raise the dead — every single person who has ever lived — and judge them (John 5:28-29).  That has implications for your life.
• Jesus’ intercession for us is the thing that is keeping us saved (Luke 22:31-32).
• I’m glad that my hope is not in a bunch of college kids who play football.  Otherwise after Nebraska’s game against Virginia Tech this past weekend, my life would be ruined.
• My time here in SA is almost done.  In the past 2 months, we have seen more gospel vision, passion, and fruit than in the previous 7 months combined.
• I really have a craving for tortilla chips and chunky salsa.

New Feature on the Blog

On the right sidebar you can find a small, new feature on the blog.  It’s under the title “Random Posts.”  You can click on the link and it’ll take you to a random post on this blog.  It might be completely pointless, but you might find it fun (and beneficial!).

The Answer is Always ‘No’ Until You Ask

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Paul Tripp on How Good Things Become Bad Things

Paul Tripp shows the progression of how good things in life become bad things, and then proceed to ruin our relationships. (This isn’t an exact quote, just my paraphrase.)

Desire is basically an “I want…” Jesus did this Gethsemane. But then he said, “Father, not my will, but yours be done.” Well, our desire then morphs very quickly into a demand: “I must…” Desire then morphs further into a need: “I will…I cannot live without it.” When you call something a need, you have made yourself unwilling to live without it. A need then morphs into an expectation: “You should.” The Expectation leads to disappointment: “You didn’t…” Then disappointment leads to punishment: “Because you didn’t, I will…”

Then you will say to the other person, “Because you haven’t delivered what I want in this relationship, I won’t stick a knife in your chest, but I will rise to the throne of creator, and I will treat you as if you are dead, for however long it takes, to satisfy my personal vengeance.”

Check out the full DVD (6 sessions).  You won’t be disappointed.

Out of the Blogging Loop

Sorry again for my frequent absence from the blogosphere.  I’m not at my apartment in Pretoria this next month.  I’m in Johannesburg with an American missions team.  My internet time is inconsistent.  I’ll try to post things when I can, but for the next 25 days, things will be light around here.

Thanks for reading.  As always, it’s humbling and such a blessing to have all of you stop by the blog.

I’m Baaaack

Okay so that wasn’t as dramatic of a title as I could have hoped.

I arrived back in South Africa today.  I had such a wonderful two and a half weeks with my beautiful Carly.  We had an incredible time of growth, laughter, conversation, and getting some business/life/marriage details done (like buying a 2006 Honda Civic!).

Hopefully I’ll be able to rest tonight and have some fresh posts tomorrow.  However, I will be away from regular internet again this weekend. Perhaps Andrew and Jordan will post more (wink, wink)???