Missing God

During the past few days, I have been trying my best to prioritize a few things. I have made time to fill out job applications. I have made time to focus on my health/physical fitness. I have even made more time to spend with my family; however, I have failed to make time to spend with my Father. You would think I would make time to spend with my Creator, the God of all the Universe, but I have not.

Before I took my current job, I read my Bible, spent time in prayer, and in devotion with God. Now, I barely read what I need to help teach my daughter's Sunday School class. I miss my God. I miss spending time trying to stay in touch with the Holy Spirit and conversing with Jesus. I do pray every morning, but I have yet to make a specific time to read His Words. I am a little lost without my Guiding Light.

I know God is there, even if I don't see Him. I just want to spend about three days refocusing myself to do His will and seek His direction for me in my life. When is the next holiday break?

The Return of Meerkat Manor

Sunday I was scanning through our plethora of DISH Network channels and I came across a most pleasant surprise on Animal Planet. Meerkat Manor is returning to the air-waves on June 6th. I love this show. The show will now be called Meerkat Manor: The Next Generation. Sean Aston, the host for seasons 1-3 will not be returning, instead the new host will be Stockard Channing. I will miss Aston's voice, but I'm sure Ms. Channing will fill in quite nicely.

If you go to the Meerkat Manor web-site you can answer trivia questions and play games, catch up on past and future episodes, view pictures of the meerkats, and even find a zoo near you that has meerkats in their exhibits. Recently The Caldwell Zoo in Tyler, TX just added meerkats to their family of animals.

My family and I are anxiously awaiting the return of the Meerkats. Who will unite the Whiskers? I can't wait to find out.

Movie Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Krystal Skull

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Krystal Skull was an adequate sequel to the first the films. It had its moments of action, humor, adventure and treasure seeking. It even had a few "surprise" relationship twists in the film. However I cannot give this movie the excellent review I would have loved to give it. Shia LaBeouf did a great job as Mutt Williams, and Karen Allen's return as Marion Ravenwood was a good site to see. Harrison Ford once again did an excellent job as Indiana Jones, but his age was starting to show.

My son, Caleb, and I went to see the movie this past Saturday. We both came away a little disappointed. The fact that the movie was a little to Science Fiction left us with a bad taste in our mouths. We expected the intrigue and the historical treasure hunting, but not ****SPOILER**** Inter-dimensional Aliens. It left us feeling bewildered that Lucas and Spielberg would have let the series move in this direction. The addition of the Soviet Russians was a nice twist, but they had better "bad guys" in the other films.

Overall - I would rate the film 3 out of 5 Stars just because it is Indiana Jones after all.

Memorial Day Plans

Thanks to the current "crisis" in the prices of gasoline, our Memorial Day plans will not involve travel. We plan to stay home for the weekend and maybe grill some burgers and watch a movie. I am hoping that we get to watch Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Krystal Skull. If we can't do that we may just have a family "camp out" in our living room and watch some movies on the DVD player.

Since Texas is having a "tax free" weekend to encourage the purchasing of energy saving appliances, I plan on going to Wal-Mart or some other store to buy two or three new ceiling fans to replace some that are no longer working properly. I might spend part of my holiday weekend working on that.

It is supposed to rain in our part of Texas this weekend, which means I will probably spend Memorial Day (Monday) mowing my yard, unless I get it done this afternoon. Maybe I can convince the kids it will be fun to go through all their "summer" clothes and sort out what fits and what does not. That will surely make Monday a special family day. (Ha-Ha!) Not to mention I will be filling out some new job applications. (See Previous Blog)

Oh yea, I almost forgot...our family just purchased Wii Fit, which is a family game designed by Nintendo for the Wii System. It incorporates many different levels of physical fitness and health activities that you can work on. Wii Fit, measures your weight and helps you set goals to loose or gain your needed pounds. It also gives suggestions and tips to eating healthy, exercising, and maintaining good posture. The best part is it makes it fun. You can do Yoga, do strength exercises, aerobic exercises and exercises to improve your balance. So far our family loves it.

Calling All Prayer Warriors, We Need Some Prayers

The Devil seems very determined to keep my family from having a great summer.
It's time we do a little fighting back! So pray hard fellow saints, pray hard!

First prayer request...My wife, Jamie, had her first mammogram early last month. (Click here for more information about that.) It seemed the doctor found something so they scheduled her for a follow up visit, which happened today. After a second test, the doctor decided to perform a biopsy on the "abnormality". It is probably not anything to worry about, but of course we are concerned. Her mother and both her grand-mothers are survivors of breast cancer.

Second prayer request...I found out today that the Adult Education Program at Kilgore College is doing a little "reorganization" and as a result, I will no longer be employed as of July 31st. So, just like last summer, I will be job hunting. So far I have found out that 3 school districts near me, including my last employer, are looking for Social Studies or History teachers. I am even checking out a possible General Manager position at a local hotel chain. It's a start.

Third prayer request... My wife and I wish you to pray for the success of our new home-based business. We recently signed up to be on-line travel agents. If you wish to book a vacation, come check us out at Four English Peas Travel. We want more than anything to honor God with this new business. So pray that we do just that.

One thing to know about us is, that we fully believe that God will lead us through all of this! After all He is the God of "Miracles and Wonders" according to Psalms.

Why do we run from what we are so desperately longing for?

The past couple of days I have noticed a theme, that keeps popping up in books, movies and in everyday life.

The theme is that "God is relentlessly pursuing us in order to show us his love! Our response it to run away from what we are so desperately longing to have." God offers us mercy, grace, love and eternal life with Him. These are the very things most people on this little planet so desperately want in our lives. Instead of accepting this we tend to run from it. Why?

Maybe we are afraid of seeing the reflection of our ugly, deformed, sinful self. We must come face to face with the fact that we are sinners and have no chance to heal ourselves, no matter what we do.

The book Captured by Grace tells the life stories of several famous folks, including C.S. Lewis, John Newton, and Paul the Apostle, and how they compare their lives as running from themselves and a very loving God, only to find out that when they finally run into God and He captures their hearts, that they finally realize that they have been running from what they have been seeking all along.

I watched the movie Finding Nemo with my family on Sunday. I have seen this movie many times before, but I never caught this particular theme. Nemo is amazed that his father has overcome impossible odds to find him. His father tells Nemo, "Don't you realize I would do anything to find you! I love you!" Hasn't our Heavenly Father done the same thing for us. He went through "Death" to pursue an everlasting relationship with us.

We know that God is there. We know He calls out to us daily to join in fellowship with Him. Why do run? What are we scared of? Are we so afraid of facing up to our own sins? Are we afraid that we are so ugly and scarred that God cannot really want a relationship with someone so sinful? I guess we are. Why don't we just quit running and let God capture our heart? When He does he will transform us into such incredible people, we will start running again. This time running with God in pursuit of others who flee the grace of God, that they are so desperately looking for.