Our Life in Pictures

For the twenty-seven of you that frequent TOTP and have been frustrated by the lack of postings, I apologize.  I'll try to do better.  Here's a peek at our life from the last couple of weeks......

Georgia and Loden picking each other's boogers.

Leslie the chauffeur.

Annie and West walking down the boat ramp.

Watching the A-Team before bedtime.  They want to name #6 Murdock if it's a boy.

West at the bear cave.

Annie chose Fudd Rocker's for her birthday lunch.

Jonesy greeting me when I got home from work one day.

Georgia and Loden stayed up too late.

West singing in the shower.

SIX

Yes, the rumors are true.
Speculation can come to an end.
Leslie is with child once more.
I don't like the word "accident" being used in reference to a baby, but this was a big surprise for us.  We definitely did not expect to be expecting #6.


Let me back up about a year......
We had been steadily running out of room in our house.  After my bonus and our taxes were done last year we were finally prepared financially to begin shopping for a new home.  After looking around the market and not being able to find a good match, we looked into having a home built, got connected with a great builder and agent, and decided to design our new home ourselves.  Around this same time our friends, Jason and Brenna Clark, announced that they had decided to become UncomfortableForOneYear.  They were choosing to downsize their life, giving up a job, square footage, and comfort in order to serve the poorest of the poor in our community.  We were proud and inspired by their decision, and also dosed with a big shot of guilt.  'Are we really just a heartless one-percenters who just want to be comfortable in our bubble?'
We pressed on through the year, through the fun and frustration of having a home built, and in December we were ready to move to our new home.
Then, the week of the big move Brandon Baker, our church's youth minister, and his wife announced that he would be resigning from his position and that they would be joining Jason and Brenna in planting a new church, Impact Temple, to serve and evangelize the least of these in Temple.  They too are downsizing, giving up comforts, and giving of themselves to do Kingdom work.  And here we were moving into the huge house of our dreams with two garages and a chandelier in the laundry room.  Again, we were proud of them and almost ashamed of ourselves.
Don't misunderstand.  Throughout our home buying/building decision we wanted to be able to use our new home as a tool for Kingdom work, hosting a home group from our church, being able to provide meals or a bed when someone needs it.  A home to share with our kid's friends through their growing up years who might need an example of a mommy and daddy who are still married, under the same roof and not screaming at each other.  A place to allow us to raise our kids close to wild things and God's creation.  A place to teach them to work.  I read a quote recently that said parents are so focused on giving their kids what they didn't have that they forget to give them what they did have.  That's what we want to do.  Give our kids and anyone else who shares our home with us, whether for an hour or a week, a place to put down roots that will grow into faith, hope, and love.
So after we moved in, even though things were still cluttered and boxes, I felt like I had hit all of the big ones in life.  Education-check.  Wife-check.  Job-check.  Kids-check.  House to grow old in-nevergonnamoveagain-check.  Now we just had to wait a few years to become grandparents to cap off the perfect life.
We hadn't completely ruled out having more kids, but I think Leslie and I had both settled in our minds that we were done.  We designed this new house for the 3 girls and 2 boys that we already had.  But then we were reminded that when something claims to be 99.9% effective it also means that it is .01% ineffective especially when it's up against someone as virile and potent as I am and a woman as fertile as my wife.
And here we are.  Trying to wrap our minds around having kid #6.  Asking each other over and over, "What are we going to do?"  "What are we going to drive?"  "What do we name this one?"
We are overwhelmed.  Joyful and scared to death.  We're going to need a lot of help and encouragement.

For more of our thoughts on having a large family, check out these posts from a few years ago......
by Leslie- http://justinandleslie.blogspot.com/2011/01/glorious-but-not-so-glamorous.html
by Justin- http://justinandleslie.blogspot.com/2011/01/in-response.html

Please follow and support our friends' efforts with Impact Temple.

A Christmas Verse

Have you come across a familiar scripture or heard someone speak on a verse that punched you in the gut?  I heard a sermon on John 1:14 a few months ago that hit me like a Stone Cold Stunner.  

It hit me again this Christmas season in this verse from the Christmas classic, Joy to the World.

He rules the world with truth and grace 

And makes the nations prove

The glories of his righteousness

And wonders of His love 

And wonders of His love

And wonders of His love

The wonder of His love is that in all of the stories found in scripture of Jesus interacting with people, He fully expresses truth and grace.  The woman at the well, calling the Pharisees and Lawyers "You brood of vipers", all of his conversations with Peter.....

 I've always been pretty good with the truth part, but struggled with showing others the grace that Christ has shown to me.  Just this morning while reading the paper I came across this article...

My initial reactions were: She should have made a better choice of a mate before she started making babies, She should get a job, Oh great, one more welfare case has moved to Texas.....Then I remembered He rules the world with truth AND grace.  The message of Christmas should bring joy to her world too.  Yes, most of those things I was thinking were true, but if I am to be a Christ follower I should confront those truths with grace rather than bitterness.

Now just as much as I struggle with lots of truth and not enough grace, there are lots of folks who go heavy on the grace and neglect the truth.  As a result we get a culture that says anything goes like in the book of Judges where "In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes."

We can rejoice this Christmas that a King has come and that He has come full of truth and grace.  

St. John's gospel doesn't begin with a Nativity, but it does proclaim Joy to the World.

The Gospel of John Chapter 1

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome^a it.

6There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

9The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

15(John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ ”) 16Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. 17For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and^b is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

Quit Yelling At Me!!!

This post could also be titled "Embracing Social Media" or "I'm Getting Old".

Over the years here at TOTP I've tried to not be a whining and complaining blogger, but rather to be an observer.  Sometimes probably usually it's pretty easy to figure out where I stand at the end of an observation, but I still try to do my best to observe without the groaning and moaning that I see in many forwarded emails and or facebook check-this-outs.

I remember throughout my growing up years occasionally coming across my dad's old 8-track tape case. It's probably still at my parent's place if you want to check it out.  It held Johnny Rodriguez, John Denver, Charlie Pride, and Fleetwood Mac among others.  His cassette tape collection included Hank Jr., George Strait, and the Maines Bros Band.  (Thank you, Dad, for introducing me to good music.  Thank you to Dad's dad for introducing me to Willie.)  When I continued to come across his collections through my high school and college years I began to wonder why and at what point in life a person stops caring about what's new and stops buying music (This is strictly a music discussion, nothing more) and wondered if and when it would happen to me?    Well, I'm there.  There was a time in my life when I'd buy 1 or 2 albums a week.  Now it's 1 or 2 a year.  My life is far from music free though.  Thanks to new stuff like youtube, Pandora, and the mp3 player that holds all of those hundereds of albums I bought back when, my life is filled with a limitless supply of the old good stuff.

WARNING

This remainder of this post may contain some trace amounts of whining and complaining and I may sound like a grumpy old man.

I confess I'm not a very good texter.  I've had a facebook account for almost 2 years now, but rarely post anything other than links to TOTP.  I don't twitter.  I don't hashtag, pinterest, or instagram.  Most of my texting is with my wife and thankfully she doesn't yell at me, but it seems like everyone else does. Why is it that folks are always exclaiming things?  I've heard English teachers say that a person should only be allotted three exclamation points for a lifetime, and that most people should finish life with one left over.  I find it easier to forgive grammatical idiocy on facebook, but when someone is sending me a text it's personal.  I feel like they're yelling at me.  I feel like I'm being bullied and the 87 posters at my kids' school say that is very bad and that I should tell someone so I'm telling you.  

I guess the thing that really has me baffled is that the same people who refuse to use any other form of punctuation in any of their texting feel the need to use four exclamation points in one text.  In one text they've used up their lifetime allotment plus one of someone else's.

In Other Justin Explores the World of Social Media News.....

The preacher down the road posted a question on facebook recently and I came up with a theory.  His question asked why he should check out the Duck Dynasty show and he received the expected responses for and against it.  After thinking about it I came up with a theory that goes like this.......If you like JenHatmaker's blog you will probably like Duck Dynasty.  If you like RachelHeldhyphenatedEvans blogs you probably won't, and you probably take yourself too seriously, voted for Obama twice, and need to be on some sort of laxative/antidepressant cocktail regimen. 

If you aren't familiar with those blogs they are kind of like Time of the Preacher except they post regularly, go viral via facebook, and produce income.  But the best chance at an education you've got is listening to me talk so stick with me here at TOTP.

Wisdom vs. Foolishness

I've spent a lot of time over the last couple of years reading Proverbs to my kids.  I also listen to a lot of Dave Ramsey and Andy Stanley, both of whom often teach from Proverbs, so the theme of wisdom vs. foolishness has been on my mind continually. 
The Bible is a pretty thick book.  It could probably be boiled down to John 3:16, but by the Providence of God it also contains lessons to help us through this temporal world.  Even beyond the Proverbs, just about every Bible story has a wisdom vs. foolishness lesson.  It seems to me, in our 2013 world, that there are lots of folks who love the Gospel message, but eschew the wisdom that is there for the taking.  Wisdom that if it is sought after and acted upon, can result in blessing. 
Of late, I've tried to avoid the hot button issues of our day here on TOTP, (which has contributed to my infrequent posting this year) but regardless of your political persuasion or emotional investment in certain issues there are wise and foolish paths to choose.  All to often I've seen foolish choices dressed up and labeled with love, compassion, fairness, or righteousness and seen wise choices ridiculed as hateful, intolerant, too liberal, or too conservative.

Is it sinful to be a fool?  No, I don't think so, but I do believe that whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. 
"I have the right to do anything," you say- but not everything is beneficial.  I have the right to do everything, but I will not be mastered by anything.  - I Corinthians 6:12
I can't help but think how it much it must grieve our heavenly Father when we choose foolishness over wisdom, curses over blessing. Jesus came and died for me even though I'm a moron.  I've played the fool.  I've made foolish choices.  I've been blind to wisdom, listened to foolish advice, acted on foolish desires.  But He came to redeem me and wants me to be transformed by the continual renewing of my mind. I want to seek wisdom and I want to plant the seeds of wisdom in the hearts of my children. 

I'd like to challenge you to read through the Proverbs.  There are 31 chapters so you can read one for each day of the month.  Keep in mind what you've read as you live your day to day, read the paper, or watch the news. 

The Adventures of Wilder Good

 

 A man of too many friends comes to ruin, But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.  Proverbs 18:24

We meet thousands of people in our growing up years of childhood and adolecence, but I've discovered this about life:  When you come out on the other side you'll find that there just are a handful of true friends that stick.  

S.J. Dahlstrom is one of those friends of mine.  He speaks truth into my life.  He's a man's man and inspires me to be a better father.  Now my friend is releasing his first book and I think you should buy a few. 

If you want to teach your kids about nature and care of the environment without all of the political baggage of Earth Day, buy this book.

If you want to be inspired to raise your kids in the spirit of Deuteronomy 6, buy this book.

If you want to inspire your boys to authentic manhood, buy this book.

If you want your girls to form a true vision of what to look for in a man, buy this book.

You can pre-order now at Amazon or check out the website at www.wildergood.com

Here is the official description....

The Elk Hunt: The Adventure Begins (number one in The Adventures of Wilder Good series) is a book of fiction for young readers. Twelve-year-old Wilder Good goes on an elk hunt with his mentor in Colorado. The narrative is classic adventure story, in which an idealistic, modern ethos of hunting evolves—one in which hunting is not just harvesting a mature animal for food, but is a process for developing relationships with others and for becoming a stronger, more courageous individual.
As Wilder attempts to keep up, he seeks to prove himself a worthy companion to his older male mentor, Gale Loving. Gale takes Wilder on outdoor adventures because Wilder's mother is struggling with cancer and his father is occupied with her care.
The two characters live in rural Colorado. They drive to the San Juan Mountains for a one-day hunt for elk. During the hunt, Wilder is trusted with a rifle of his own. Both the narrative and the accompanying illustrations emphasize the importance of gun safety. During the hunt they have to face their fears and the limits of their strength as they deal with threats from fatigue, injury, and a wilderness predator. The story ends positively, and while The Elk Hunt is written with young readers in mind, readers of all ages will recognize and appreciate the characters and delight in the adventures of Wilder Good.

S. J. Dahlstrom is a writer in west Texas. In his writing he draws on his experiences as a cowboy, minister, husband, father, and boys ranch founder.

2nd Quarter Update

Under Construction....

Father's Day...

In Athens at BeltonVBS...

 
 Getting autographs from the Go Fish Guys....