O Holy Night. . .

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

What a great God we serve! He was not content to let us die in our sins, but sent Jesus to reconcile mankind to Himself. It is something that is beautiful, but at the same time mysterious. Why would He choose to save us when we have nothing within us that is of worth to Him? Why would He offer grace to men who have committed every sin and defilement imaginable? Why would He send us the most precious gift we could ever hope for? 

LOVE. It is the deepest mystery that we will ever ponder, and no matter how hard we try, we will never see why, but this just means we should worship Him all the more. As "O Holy Night" suggests, we need to fall on our knees in adoration of our Saviour and our God. As you, hopefully, spend time with your family and friends, remember to fall on your knees and Thank God for the greatest gift ever, Jesus. 

Have a Blessed Christmas. . .

Lyrics to Ponder: O Holy Night

ummm. . yeah, no

So yeah, I'm about to embark on one of the most difficult scholastic week of my life with all my finals, so I'm not going to be able to post this week. What I am going to ask of you fine citizens is the pray for me. As I told a friend this weekend, I have ADD on crack right now (for those of you who don't understand that analogy, I can't focus for anything), so please be in prayer for that. At the end of this week, I shall be departing the humble midwest and go back out west to the Beautiful, Warm, San Francisco for a couple of weeks. I will update you later this week. Thank you. You guys rock. . .

Apologies & Flying papers

If I have learned one thing since getting to Indianapolis (I pray that I've learned more than 1 thing in 2.5 years) it is Tony Dungey's saying about getting things done. "No Excuses. No Explanations." Just do what you say you are going to do. Here I feel like a politician (I am the President) I guess, but no excuses. It has almost been 2 weeks, and these videos dont take THAT long to record. To be honest though, things are winding down in school and much of my focus has been there. And I did go on vacation for a week of that and Thanksgiving was in there (which I had 3 dinners that weekend, which didnt leave much time for this), but these are not excuses, this is just me filling you in.

This is also me saying, I won't promise another one in this post. I promise I will post again (Lord willing), but I can't give you an exact time frame. It should be less than almost 2 weeks, but once again, not going to promise. . . . . .ok it will be less than 2 weeks. promise.  Until then, enjoy and comment to your heart's content. Thank you once again for supporting me and taking interest in my kind of odd and very unbelievable life.

In closing, I did want to say that God really is good. Since I didn't post over Thanksgiving, this should kinda be that too. I know that I am blessed beyond recognition. Every morning I wake up and I thank God for everything. Families both here in Indiana and back in California, a place to live, friends who encourage me and keep me looking forward, food in my fridge, running water, opposable thumbs, a nice new bed someone gave me FO FREE, about a billion other things that I could probably go on for longer than any of you would care to read for. But if you are reading this now, I appreciate you and am thankful for you. I know the people who read my blog (am not thankful for Mr. Blog who named this website) and I want you to know that, to steal a line from Wicked "I know I'm who I am today because I knew you."

More than anything else, I thank God for Him being God. I thank Him for grace and mercy. For His love that enables me to love Him and others in return. For never leaving nor forsaking me. For revealing that I am nothing without Him (and I am fine with that, because I never plan to be without Him). I know that if suddenly I became like Job in the Old Testament and everything gets taken away for the rest of my life, I would have nothing but praises for Him. Thank you Father. . .  

Quick Note

For some reason, the audio for the video I recorded last night is gone. So it would defeat the purpose of putting it up. Since I had special commentary on it, I have to wait till I my guest comes back from school today to record it again (and I will answer Heidi Stone's and Galadriel's questions also). . My apologies. . .

7 Brides for 7 Questions. . .

(This has absolutely nothing to do with brides or the movie 7 brides for 7 brothers, but i wanted to be creative with the name.)

My utmost apologies for 1) not getting this out last night as I said I would and 2) for it being so long. It is like reading a really really long blog except you can actually hear me saying what I say, so think of it as time getting to know me better. Here are seven things you might not have known about me (and if you did, you probably didn't know the extent of how strange the things were). Thanks

Answers. . .

So here are the answers you were looking for. I'm sorry they took so long. . .

P.S.- Cari, I will do the Tag tomorrow night. . .

Question

As I explained in the video, go ahead and ask as many questions as you want and I will answer them (edited) the best that I can. Happy Questioning!

Tribute

So I'm sorry (to all those who care. . . . . hahahahahaha. .yeah right) that I haven't been able to post the last few days, but between school and life, things have been crazy. BUT on the upside, I recorded the greatest video in the world. BUT that was about 7 minutes long, so you will never see it. SO I made a Tribute to it about my Indiana/California family trees. SO now it is your job to get the word out (it's a give and take relationship) and tell everyone about my blog. 

Not much new news. I have not learned Thriller (see Cari's Blog) and I probably never will. .sorry Cari. . .until this weekend, Grace & Peace. . .Richard

OK some more bad news. The video I was trying to upload was about 100x the size it should have been, so thats why I couldn't get it up all day. So without ANY further ado, the video (just ignore that part about the beginning and end of the video because it isn't there. . . . .sorry)

Square One, Genesis, Origins, Beginning. . .

Well, here I am. I never thought I would do this. Years ago when Blogs (what a weird word) started I argued that I would never get one because my life was dull and boring and no one would care about my thoughts. Now times have changed. My life is just as dull and boring as it was then, and I'm still not convinced that people care about my thoughts, but something else has arisen. Something from deep within. I am at a Crossroads (literally at Crossroads Bible College and figuratively with me starting to realize what being a man really means) in my life and I need a way of getting everything out there so I can figure things out. What things to release and what to hold onto. What to pursue and what to sacrifice.

Being pretty busy right now and not being able to stop and figure out all these things at once, I will let a lot of things out here in my blog. Please feel free to comment and come on this journey with me. I don't know where this will go, but I do know that this is what I need. Feel free to pray for me, laugh at me, cry with me (I will not cry on camera, don't worry), and give me your two-cents when it is called for. 

This will be the first of many Thank You's, but I want you to know that it is heartfelt every time. .Thank you. . .