I Have Chosen This Temple

I was reading in 2 Chronicles tonight and ran across this passage where Solomon had asked God to hear his prayers and the prayers of the people of Israel that were offered at the newly-built Temple. God replied in chapter 7, verses 15-16:

I will listen to every prayer made in this place for I have chosen this Temple and set it apart to be my home forever. My eyes and my heart will always be here. (NLT)

After I read that, I got to thinking. God doesn't dwell in the Temple anymore (Acts 7:48), but He lives in our hearts. That means:

1. God will listen to every prayer of MY HEART
2. God has chosen ME/MY HEART to set it aprt to His home forever
3. God's eyes and His heart will always be on, with and in ME/MY HEART

How awsome is that!

Me and My Punkin

This is a picture of me and my Punkin during Spring Break this year. Tonight Brooke had a girls night out with her friends, so Punkin and I had a Daddy/Daughter date night. We left on the motorcycle a little after 5pm and headed to the library first. The Southwest Branch by our house closes at 5pm on Friday (we found out when we got there), so we headed to the Southeast Branch which also turned out to be closed. As we were riding up, Amanda saw the Tails and Trails dog park, so of course we had to stop and see the dogs there.

After that, we went to Blockbuster to rent a Wii game for tonight (and the rest of the weekend). Making decisions is not one of the things Amanda likes to do, and if there is any time constraint involved, it is just plain stressful for her. I was patient, and we finally decided on Mario Galaxy. We played it tonight, but so far, neither one of us are real impressed with it. I certainly am not $9 impressed with it (rental fee).

From there, we headed to the Dollar Tree (Amanda's favorite store in the entire world!). I gave her $5 and let her go. She found a few treasures for herself and picked out a present to give an older, single lady at our church.

I had originally planned on trying out this pizza place in Mansfield where you watch them make your pizza and then you take it home to cook it, but Amanda had pizza for lunch and wanted something else for dinner. Something else = McDonalds. Eh, it's ok. I can always eat McDonalds. We had a good time just haning out and talking over fries, burgers and chicken nuggets.

Last stop was by Red Box to pick up a movie for tonight. I had already looked for a kids movie. I reserved Benji: Off the Leash. All I can about this movie...that one prison warden in Arizona that makes all of his prisoners wear pink underwear and work outside to pay for their onw meals. I think this guy might want to get this movie and make his inmates watch it. Yes, it was THAT PAINFUL!

The movie didn't get over until 10:30pm and which time Amanda was extremely sleepy. She had one mess to clean up before bed and I got to listen to her cry "I'm so sleepy" while she cleaned it up. We crawled into her bed to pray, she said how much she liked Daddy/Daughter date nights and I'm pretty sure she was asleep 30 seconds after that.

Had an awesome night...me and my Punkin.

Street/Trial Riding

I Don't Know Where I Am

A woman in a hot-air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

 

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, "You're in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.

 

"She rolled her eyes and said, "You must be a Republican."

  

"I am," replied the man. "How did you know?" 

 

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct.  But I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost.  Frankly, you've not been much help to me." 

 

The man smiled and responded, "You must be an Obama Democrat."

 

"I am," replied the balloonist. "How did you know?" 

 

"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you are going.. You've risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air.  You made a promise you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem.  You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but somehow, now it's my fault."

They Make the Light Flash for a Reason

We had a plan. Pastor prayed, the plan began...and just after I turned the video camera on it went off, battery dead. I plugged the camera in and let it "charge" for a couple hours last night. Too bad I never checked to see if the little red light was flashing that means the camera was charging. It turns out I plugged it into the half of my UPS (uninterrupted power supply) that does not work.

So what did I miss? Well, next Sunday (May 10) is Pastor David's 60th birthday. We could not let an occasion like this go by without much fanfare, but the problem was how to make it a surprise. The staff and church leadership always does something for Pastor's birthday, we mention it to the congregation, and on "big ones" (like 50 and 60), we do a big church party. It's not like Pastor expects a birthday party, but I'm thinking since he's turning 60, since we always do something for him, and since his birthday is on a Sunday, he has to have it in the back of his mind that something is going to happen. That's why I suggested we do something today, a week before Pastor's birthday. He wouldn't expect anything today, right?

We began talking it over as a staff and came up with the idea of combining his party with the church picnic. The only problem with that was the fact that the picnic was scheduled at the end of the month. If we did a party then, it would seem like a "guilt party" because we forgot his real birthday. That's when our events coordinator, Pat, came to the rescue. She told Pastor the date we had scheduled for the picnic would not work for her and asked if we could move it to today, May 3rd. The picnic was moved and party planning began in earnest.

So "the plan", as NOT captured on video, went like this. A letter went out to the congregation and asked them to stop by the youth building when they got to church this morning. Those that brought cards/presents dropped them off in the youth building and everybody grabbed a party hat and a party blower. These were smuggled into the sanctuary and hidden until the appointed time. We always have an opening song and then Pastor opens the service in prayer. As he began to pray today, people quietly and "prayerfully" put on their party hats and got out the party blowers. When Pastor said "amen", he may have been startled by the noise as the party blowers sounded and he opened his eyes to a party-hat-clad church. Immediately a video started showing pictures of Pastor over the years and a couple happy-birthday-videos from friends. After the video, we told Pastor that the picnic was also a party for him. Somehow we moved back into worship, had a good service and a good message, and then had the picnic/party afterwards.

I didn't mention that in the midst of all the planning the weather did not cooperate this week. LOTS of rain which makes for muddy church grounds. On Thursday, we decided the chances were GREAT that we would have to move the picnic into the sanctuary, so rather than wait and try to take down all the chairs and set up 18 tables on the fly, we set up the sanctuary for the picnic. When people arrived today, they were asked where they wanted to sit, "table or chairs". This made it a little bit interesting for the ushers as they took up the offering, but it was different and it was fun.

So we had GREAT Texas BBQ for lunch, sang Happy Birthday to Pastor, took ten additional minutes to light all 60 candles on his cake, showered him with gifts and gift cards and had a great time. Lots of volunteers helped clean up so everybody was home before too late this afternoon. What a great day!

Happy Birthday a week early Pastor David. We love you!

FYI - The picture at the beginning of this post is from Pastor's 55th birthday party, not today.