Do You See The Glory?

I’ve realized recently that I am a rare entity and becoming more rare each year.  I’m on the endangered species list.  I am one of few Christian parents that still believes in Santa.  I would not be surprised if we start seeing Santa clauses (not Claus, but clause) in church doctrinal statements saying something like the following:

Article 3b -  We believe in not believing in Santa.  Believing in Santa is detrimental to the emotional and spiritual health of our youth.  We believe that Santa is a spawn of Satan, or possibly even Satan himself in disguise.  And it is our mission to make sure children know the truth about Santa.

Maybe not those exact words, but something very similar.  One of my friends that has gone over to the dark side sent me this list of reasons why Christians should hate Santa.

1. If you take the “n” in the middle of “Santa” and move it to the end of the word, you have “Satan.”
2. Satan has always been trying to take the glory from God and His Son, Jesus, just as Santa does today at Christmas time which is supposed to be a celebration of the birth of Christ.
3. Santa is given attributes that only belong to God.  In the song, “Santa Claus is Coming To Town”, Santa is described as one who “sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake; he knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake”
4. Related to the above, like God, Santa judges people based on whether they are good or bad–of course God allows believers into heaven, but unbelievers are judged based on their deeds
5. Santa, like Satan, is attracted to hot places–he likes to enter houses through chimneys
6. Santa, like Satan, hangs out with little beings with pointy ears (elves/demons, respectively)
7. Most depictions of Satan are reddish in color, and Santa always wears red
8. Satan is called the Prince of the Power of the Air, and everyone knows that Santa has power over the air as he flies about on Christmas night delivering presents.
9. In the Polar Express, the only ones who could see Santa and hear the sound of the jingle bells on his reindeer, were those who “believed.”  Again, Satan (oops, I mean Santa) is counterfeiting an important Biblical doctrine that is supposed to be directed at God–faith.
10. Santa lives at the North Pole in extremely “cold” temperatures.  But this is just to throw everyone off and keep them from associating Santa with Satan who lives in extremely “hot” temperatures in hell.
11. Where God the Father is truly the “Father of Christ”, Santa is called “Father Christmas”–again, an attempt to usurp God’s attributes and titles.
12. And of course, to a little kid, when Christmas is approaching, Santa is probably more important than God because of all the wonderful toys he will bring them on Christmas morning.  When one day Santa (the gift giver) is discovered to be a fake, non-existent, figment of the imagination, why would the kid continue to believe in God, the ultimate “Gift-giver” who gave His Son so that all who believe and trust in Him might receive the “gift” of eternal life.

There you have it.  Maybe they should just put that in the church doctrinal statement.  But I can’t end with that.  That would be only one side of the coin.  I have another very wise friend that wrote a rebuttal.  I know you find that hard to believe… that I have two friends.  But just go with it for now.  Here’s his response, edited slightly from its original format to fit your TV screen.

We do the whole Santa thing and have fun with it.  We very much emphasize Jesus’ birth throughout the season.  My 9 year old figured it out a long time ago.  My 7 year old still has an amazing imagination (you might could convince him Star Wars is real) but I think he gets it.  My 6 and 3 year old daughters still think he is real.  We enjoy the innocence of it.  I also believe it is personal conviction of how you handle it as parents and don’t fault either way as long as the major emphasis is on Jesus and the Santa stuff is left behind with the opening of presents.  By the time presents are opened for us Santa is forgotten and Jesus is the focus of the day.

I have seen the argument about them associating fantasy of Santa with Jesus.  I would tell the parents in that situation if you are not living your relationship with Jesus in a real enough way for your kids to tell the difference between that and how you live in relation to Santa, that is on you, not Santa.  My kids see their parents live their faith out daily and we talk about Jesus daily.  Santa gets a little time for about four weeks at best (if it was up to Wal-Mart it would be about 6 months). And he is not talked about every day even during that time.  We don’t go somewhere weekly and sing songs to him about how we love him and worship him and want our lives to reflect him.  We don’t confess to him our sins and so on and so on.  There is a VERY clear picture presented to our children of the truth of Jesus by how we live and talk.

As a youth minister I am much more concerned about parents whose relationship to Jesus and His bride seem more like a fantasy because of how they live and prioritize than I am about what they do with Santa.  With high percentages, I can predict who will stay and who will leave their faith by knowing and watching their parents.  Not a 100 percent science but pretty accurate.  And I can tell you, no student has ever come back later and told me they left the church and their faith because of Santa.  It almost always comes back to parents whose faith was convenient.

And to those who crow about the fantasy stuff hurting their kids and stuff…living through your 6 year olds’ athletic career does a whole lot more damage…not to mention reliving glory days on the softball field as if you are playing baseball again…geesh could there be a bigger fantasy world  :))

Oh and as long as my kids are around we are leaving cookies and milk for Santa…I ain’t giving up that tradition….mmmmm…cookies..

Trey Bledsoe

Bravo Mr. Bledsoe!  We can only hope that you do not charge for your awesomeness.

First, my wife has told me that my previous entry about the sin of overeating might offend overweight people, and that I might come across as critical.  Since I myself am overweight, and have struggled with my weight for most of my life, I just assumed everybody would understand that I was talking about myself in my previous post, as much as anybody.

This post is a follow up to my previous one, The Church Approved Sin.  So if you haven’t read it yet, you might want to read it first.  I mentioned that overeating is an unusual sin, in that you can often spot it in people you may pass in Wal-Mart that you have never met.  That reminded me of the book we had to read in 11th grade, The Scarlet Letter.  In it, Hester Prynne had to wear a scarlet letter “A” on her dress as a punishment for committing adultery.  So everybody that saw her knew what she had done.  Overweight people do have a little in common with Hester Prynn.

Then I was thinking, what if that were the case with all of us and all of our sins today?  I guess the kids have a version of this with Pinochio.  Everybody knows when he lies.  What if our sins were somehow plastered across the front of our shirt, or forehead.  Imagine what your shirt would say.  I don’t really want to think about mine.  I’d probably need the 2XL shirt.  How would life as we know it change?  Do you think you would still have the same friends?  Same job?  Would you lose your friends?  You job? Your family?

Then I began to think about how this would effect church.  Hmmm…. Interesting.  I’m guessing most people would think this would be a bad thing.  But’s lets think about it.  If everybody’s sins were known, it would really cut down on the judging of each other.  Everybody would not have to put on their fake Sunday smiles, and could just be real people.  Forced transparency.  That would change a lot of our relationships at church.  Maybe then churches everywhere could actually be places of healing like they are supposed to be, instead of a place of pretending to be somebody we are not.

Churches today have a wide range of approaches to dealing with sin.  Some churches just ignore sin in hopes that it will go away.  Some churches go on the offensive and try to scare or guilt it out of people.  I think most churches fall somewhere in between.  They claim to take a hard stance against sin, and then they pick and choose certain sins to preach against, some more than others.  The church has made it clear it is against homosexuality, pornography, lust, and adultery.  It’s against murder, at least when it’s for no good reason.  It’s against gossip, except for when somebody is asking for prayer for somebody else.  Preachers denounce greed, especially the ones driving $40K cars and living in million dollar homes.  I could go on for ever listing sins the church preaches against.

But have you ever noticed any sins that the church doesn’t really mind.  Sins the church tolerates, or even encourages?  How many sermons have you heard on gluttony, overeating, indulging, or just being fat?  I’m sure there have been some preached, but I can’t remember ever hearing one.  If it were to be found out that a church leader were involved in homosexuality, pornography, or adultery, how long would they be in their position?  Or they would at the very least be suspended and/or required to go to counseling.  But if a pastor is overweight for a year, or more, does anybody even mention it?  Or even think twice about it?

I will admit, overeating is an unusual sin.  It’s a sin that’s difficult to hide.  One can hide sexual sins, or illegal drugs, alcoholism, pride, hatred, at least for a while.  We all have sins that we have gotten good at hiding.  If you see somebody walking down the street, you have no idea of what sins have entangled them.  But if they overeat, it’s pretty easy to spot, even if you’ve never met the person.  I can’t really think of any other sins that you can spot from a distance like overeating.

I wonder why we, as a Christian culture, have decided to tolerate overeating.  And not just tolerate it, but Christians love gathering together to shovel down hoards of food, and we call it “fellowship”.  I remember all the Homemade Ice Cream Socials I went to as a kid.  No wonder I loved going to church.  Parents get into the act too with their kids.  How many times have you heard a parent say, “Be sure to clean your plate, because those poor kids in Ethiopia don’t have anything to eat.”  Who cares if they were full a long time ago.  And we know that those kids in Ethiopia will be very happy to hear that we cleaned our plates.  I’ve always wanted to go to Ethiopia, because let me tell you, I’d be very popular there.  They would love me for all the plate cleaning I’ve done in my life.

“Same Kind of Different As Me” by Ron Hall and Denver Moore

A friend gave my wife this book, and they both suggested I read it.  I didn’t really want to, and don’t have much time to sit and read, so they gave me the audiobook version.  I listened to it whlie driving to work.  Once I began listening, I couldn’t put it down… or turn it off.  I don’t think any book I’ve ever read has made as much of an impact on me as this one has.

“So what’s it about?” you are probably asking.  It’s very hard to describe without feeling like I’m making it sound boring.  Its a true story written by the 2 men involved in the story, Ron Hall and Denver Moore.  Have you ever seen the TV shows where they pick two families that are as different as possible, and then swap the moms, and both moms end up in totally different worlds than what they are used to?  Well these 2 men are from as different of worlds as there could possibly be.  And this book takes you through the compelling story of where these two men began and how their lives unexpectedly crossed, and the relationship that develops between them.  Both men learn invaluable lessons from each other, lessons that you might not expect, lessons about people, lessons about God… lessons that we all should learn.  We catch a glimpse of what it is like to see people through the eyes of Christ, and then see what results from living it.

If my review has not motivated you to wnat to read it, here’s some ideas of what other people thought of the book.  On Barnes & Noble, 44 customers reviewed the book and all 44 gave it 5 stars.  You can’t get a higher rating than that.  On Amazon.com, 210 people have reviewed it, and 193 gave it 5 stars.  12 more gave it 4 stars.  So only 5 out of 210 gave it lower than a 4 star rating.  As far as customer reviews go, it is #82 on the list of Amazon’s highest rated books of all time.  This is out of all the millions of books they sell.  It’s #19 for all non-fiction books Amazon has for sale.

This book made such an impact on me that I purchased about a dozen in both hardcopy and audiobook format to give to friends.  And I’ve only given a couple away so far, so if anybody would like to read this book, please just let me know and I’ll give you a copy.

Gramm, our 9-month old, had some turkey today. You would never have known it was turkey by looking at it, or probably tasting it either. Here’s a short clip showing what he thought about eating turkey on his first ever Thanksgiving.

This email discussion between a chiropractor’s office and one of their clients is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read.

Here’s a video clip Beth took at Jaxon’s most recent TaeKwon-Do class. They were bandanna sparring, which is where they have a bandanna tucked into their belt behind them, and they try to grab the other person’s bandanna. It’s pretty funny. You can tell Jaxon just loves this stuff. The kid he’s sparring with here won the mini-tournament his class had.

Nate Huss is a fairly new artist that is getting some recognition here in November for his promotion of National Adoption Month. You see, Nate was adopted himself, along with 7 other adopted brothers and sisters. The 23-year old Huss said in a recent interview:

I’m thankful to God and to a biological mother that I never knew who chose the option of life for me. I am a planned mistake, a blessed gift. Growing up with wonderful adopted parents and seven amazing brothers and sisters of different nationalities–I have been blessed to get to appreciate life at its’ fullest.”

Nate and one of his brothers wrote this song to their birth mothers. It’s pretty touching.

Our family did something this past Saturday that we’ve never done before.  All four of us took a family outing to the Mall.  Of course Beth and I have been to mall many times, and Jaxon has been a few times.  Actually, it’s been a long time since I’ve been to the mall.  I think it was last Christmas since I’ve been to a major mall like the Parks.  As we got to the mall and began walking around, I quickly felt very “out of place”.  It was like we had just landed on a different planet.  I actually used to like going to the mall.  I’m not sure how to describe them, but they people there are much different than the people I’m used to being around.  I’m sure that probably says something about me and my little sheltered world.  As we were walking from store to store, there were 3 young guys, probably age 18-20, walking right behind us, talking very loud, and just using every kind of profane word you can imagine.  They dropped the F-bomb probably about 10 times in a 20 second period.  I’m thinking, what kind of people would have such little respect for women and children as to talk like that around them?

Later that night, I was in the Wal-Mart parking lot, and there was, what I assumed was, a family.  It was a man, a woman, and  2 small children.  The woman was talking to the man, and she let out a string of F-bombs.  At first I thought she was mad at him and about to slug him, but when I looked they were both smiling.  At that point, I realized that there are many kids growing up today that hear that language all the time from their own parents.  So why would these young people growing up today think it’s disrespectful to talk like that?  That’s how their own parents talk to them.  It’s sad that’s what our society has come to.  But for those of us that rarely make it outside of our own little protective bubble, we really need to venture out a little more and see how the rest of the world lives.  I guess for me, that means going to the mall.

Now and Laters - For those of you that enjoyed “Now & Later’s” as a kid, have you tried any of today’s Now & Laters?  If you have, you will understand why I suggest they drop the “Later” from their name and just call them “Nows”.  They used to be very hard candy that lasted a long time and you really could enjoy both Now AND Later.  A small pack of Now & Laters would last all day.  If you buy the same small pack now, it will last about 5 minutes.  The candies are now really soft, kind of like a Starburst, and just melt quickly in your mouth.  I guess they needed to sell more candy.

Straws - Do you remember when you used to get a straw from a restaurant, and you could just hold it in your hand and hit it on the table or on your leg and the straw would shoot out of the paper?  Straws were very easy to open.  Nowadays, when you try that with a straw, you end up bending the straw because it does not want to slide out of the paper.  Then you end up having to tear a little hole in the top of the paper and try to pull the straw out with your teeth.  I don’t know what they changed, or why they changed it, but they need to go back to the old straw packages.

Chili’s - If you were one of Chili’s early customers, you would know that the early Chili’s were much different than today’s version.  I remember visiting my uncle in Houston when I was a kid, probably around 1980.  He told me he was going to take me to the really good new restaurant, Chili’s.  I had never heard of it.  We went, and the atmosphere was pretty similar to today, but the menu was very different.  First, the name itself, “Chili’s” did not refer to the Chili pepper you now see in their logo and on the restaurants.  It was originally named “Chili’s” because of their chili, which they would put on their hamburgers.  They would serve you a big hamburger topped with chili in a basket.  They were good… mmm.  They also had a “Verde Burger”, which they put guacamole on.  Also very good.  But you won’t find either of those on the menu today, however I believe they will put chili on a hamburger as a special request.  But it’s kind of strange that was their original namesake item, and now it’s not even on the menu.  Another thing Chili’s was known for was their french fries.  I’ve always considered myself an expert on french fries.  Chili’s was the first restaurant that I remember having “seasoned” fries.  It was a huge breakthrough in the fry kingdom.  Now pretty much all restaurant have seasoned fries, but it did not used to be that way.  And the original Chili’s burgers did not come with fries as they do now.  Back then, you would order a basket of seasoned fries which would serve 2 or 3 people.  I believe they also had some good onion rings that were also served in a basket that served multiple people.  So you would order a basket of fries and onion rings for everybody to share, family style.  I guess they changed their ways over the years, but sometimes I miss the old Chili’s.

I created a couple of caricatures from one of the on-line sites for both Beth and me.  You can choose from a bunch of different features to create the most accurate caricatures possible.  I think both of these are pretty good representations.  It was fun.  As you can see, I married way over my head.

Rusty

Jaxon began taking TaeKwon-Do this week.  He’s only been to two classes, but so far he loves it.  Here’s a few pictures of the class.  Some are not so clear becuase I’m taking them indoors with a moving subject.  You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.  The first one is when they were practicing their kicks.  This was the first time Jaxon had done it, so he was watching the kid next to him to see what to do.  In the 2nd one, Jaxon is actually kicking the shield.  In the 3rd one, he’s doing some kind of spinning kick, although I’m not sure that’s what he was supposed to be doing :-)  And in the last one, that blur is him jumping over the pads.  His biggest problem so far is dealing with that big mirror in front of them.  He just loves watching himself in that mirror.  And for some reason, I just keep feeling an urge to yell out during class, “Sweep the Leg! Johnny!”

OK, imagine you are watching a stand-up comic and he gives the old line, “My friend is soooo worthless…”  And of course the crowd responds in their monotone shout, “HOW - WORTH-LESS - IS - HE?”  And then the comic comes back with something like, “My friend is so worthless, he has to pay his boss to go to work.”  Or, “He joined the Army and they traded him to Mexico for some magic beans.”  Ok, can you think of a better one?

I like to wonder about Jesus, as you can see from some of my previous posts, Do You Ever Wonder? and More Wondering.  I wonder how Jesus would do as a stand up comic.  Would He be funny?  I would guess he could be funny if He wanted to.  Actually, I think He would be very funny.  Some people may not realize it, but He said some pretty funny things.  He actually was the first ever to come up with an answer to the question above.  In Luke 14, Jesus was talking to a large crowd, and He was telling them about the costs of being His disciple.  He tells of a couple examples about considering the costs before deciding to commit oneself to something.  Then, in the last verse, he suggests that a person who begins the discipleship journey, but does not follow through with actually becoming a disciple is as worthless as salt that has lost its flavor.  Jesus ponders if the salt can be made salty again.  Then he answers His own question in the negative, and says that flavorless salt is not fit for the soil, nor is it fit for the manure pile.  So putting this into a way we can understand it, lets say you consider yourself a Christian, but have not followed Jesus in becoming His disciple.  And let’s imagine Jesus had a pile of manure.  And if you were to step in the pile of manure, Jesus would say, “Hey dude, get out of that.  You are messing up my pile of CRAP!”  So his answer to the earlier mentioned question would be, “This guy is so worthless, he would ruin my pile of crap.”

Yikes.  How many people that claim to be Christians do you think are messing up Jesus’ crap piles?  Sadly, probably a lot.  I sure hope I’m not one of them.  I pray that I would be a useful addition to Jesus’ pile of crap.

Last Saturday, we went and visited the Campfire Creek Therapeutic Riding Center, run by Emily Oliver.  They minister to children who have special needs.  As we’ve found out on Saturday and through talking with them, horses can be very therapeutic.  It’s a very interesting ministry.  I got in contact with them through some friends, the Putman’s, who volunteer there.  The ministry is needing some T-Shirts made, so I offered my services.  I enjoy doing T-shirts for ministries because I know most all of them are on a tight budget and they are helping people.  Emily invited us to come out and see the place and graciously offered to let Jaxon ride, which he’s never done before, except on the ponies they have at the parties, that go round and round.

So we went and Jaxon got his first riding lesson.  Emily was wonderful with him, and he just loved it.  He had on his new snakeskin boots, jeans, and bandanna.   The horse’s name he rode was Star.  To get him to walk, Emily told Jaxon he had to say, “Walk on, Star”.  And boy did he love that.  I’ve heard that phrase a few more times since we’ve been home.  When we finished, and were on the way home, I asked Jaxon if he would like to come back and ride again.  He said, “Yes, every day.”  Here are some pictures of our visit.  There’s a lot more of Jaxon, Emily and Star, as well as a few of Gramm.

Pictures of Jaxon’s First Horse Riding

You might find it hard to believe, but I do have more in common with Tony Romo than just good looks, mad skills, and having to deal with man crushes and chicks digging me.  We have both recently broken the pinky finger on our throwing hands.  This is very problematic for both of us, considering he is trying to lead the Cowboys to a SuperBowl and I was trying to lead our church softball team to a couple of Division Championships.  The similarities are eerie.

I say “a couple”, because that’s how long it’s taken for my finger to heal.  I broke mine in the first game of the summer season in early June.  It hurt the entire summer season, and on into the Fall season which just ended last week.  And actually it still hurts when I hit it or get it squeezed, 5 month later.  Romo is hoping his finger will be healed enough to play well after only 4 weeks.  But he does have a few advantages over me in the healing process.  1) He is younger. 2) He has more medical technology available to him to speed the healing.  And finally 3) He does not go to church on Sunday morning.  This last point could the biggest advantage.  I’ve learned that the one thing that has probably has deterred my healing process the most is all the hand shaking that goes on Sunday mornings at church.  And if you haven’t noticed, church people like firm grips when they shake.  It’s like a sign of spirituality.  The more spiritual, the harder the squeeze.  And I just have to grimace and fight back the tears every time the most Godly men grip my hands and try to smash all my fingers in to a single flipper.  So recently I’ve been trying to meet and great more of the heathens.  My pinky thanks me for it.

So we’ll see how Tony does later tonight, if his avoidance of church has helped his pinky finger.  And just in case you were wondering, we did win both of our church softball championships in the summer and fall.  The Band of Brothers rule.

It’s time to teach Jaxon to tie his own shoes, so as I usually do, I did a little research on the internet for tips on teaching kids how to tie shoelaces.  What I found was quite amazing.  First, I had no idea how many different ways there were to tie your shoes.  I would have guessed maybe 3 or 4 options, tops.  I found a great website all about tying shoelaces called Ian’s Shoelace Site.  It’s got way more information than I ever thought possible about tying shoes.  It has 17 different techniques to tie ones shoes, which was a little overwhelming at first.  But after a little reading, there’s one knot that is clearly the easiest and quickest, and he happens to call it the “Ian Knot“, which just happens to be his name.  I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.  It’s surely not the way I learned to tie my shoes.  And I was even a little skeptical at first because it looked too simple, kind of like a sneaky magic trick.  So I grabbed a shoe and tried it out, and was very surprised to find that it really is as easy at it looks.  It’s also the fastest way to tie a shoe.  Seems like about 1/3 of the time it takes me to tie a shoe my way.  And it results in the same knot as the “Standard Shoelace Knot” that I use.  So I’m going to give this a go with Jaxon, and will probably even try to change the way I tie my shoes.  I imagine that will be something difficult to change after 30 something years of tying them the same way.  But I figure, “Hey, if people can change wives after 30 years, surely I can change my shoelace knot.”

Jaxon, my 5 year old, wore out his old bicycle, so we went to the bike store last weekend to look for him a new bike.  I tried to get him to get this one, setting out in front of the store, but he wasn’t too keen on it.  So we went inside to see what else they had.  It’s been a while since I shopped for a bike.  It was probably 6 or 7 years ago the last time I was in a bike shop, and back then, you had pretty much 2 choices, a mountain bike or a road bike.  Mountain bikes wery very popular then.  Now, BMX bikes are big sellers, so the store had a lot of them, and in several different varieties.  The salesman told me that the BMX Freestyle bikes were very popular and are very strong.  They are built with extra strength to withstand all the punishment they take.  The Freestyle bikes are the ones the kids do all the tricks on.  So I figured that was right up Jaxon’s alley.  Here’s the one we ended up with.  It’s actually a full size 20″ bike.  So we won’t have to worry about him ever outgrowing it.  He’s completely fearless on his bike.  This picture here shows something very rare, Jaxon riding with shoes on.  If we didn’t make him, he would do everything barefoot.  His feet and toes are always scabbed and scarred from the asphalt, concrete and metal that is always tearing his skin off.  He wrecks on his bike several times a day, and always has fresh wounds to show for it.  Notice the big bandage on his elbow in the picture to the left.  You can see the blood soaked cotton under the bandage.  He had just done that about 5 minutes before this picture was taken.  That was how he found out that his new bike does not have coaster breaks.  He stopped his old bike by pedaling backwards.  This bike has the hand brakes.  So he had an accident the first time his backpedaling didn’t stop him.  But the injuries never bother him much more than the time it takes to check out his new battle wound, and maybe going inside for a bandaid.  He loves to do all the tricks, like riding while standing on his seat.  I can’t imagine what he’ll do when he gets a chance to ride on a ramp.

I’ve never done this before, and it probably won’t be the last time, but here’s a link to a post in another blog that I’ve found to be very entertaining.  For those of you that have spent many years in church, I think you will too.  The blog is titled, “Stuff Christians Like”.  I’ve also added it to my blogroll in the margin, a list of other blogs I like and follow.  It’s mostly a look at all the funny things Christians do and think.  This specific post is about money.  I especially like the conversation he has with his wife.

Stuff Christians Like - Arguing About Giving from Gross or Net

If you enjoyed the Cone on the Throne, I think you’ll like this one as well.  Not too long ago, Jaxon and I were in Family Christian Store in Cedar Hill, doing a little shopping.  Jaxon decided he needed to use the restroom.  For their public restroom, it’s a small, single multi-gender restroom, on the back wall, just probably about 20 feet away from the cashier.  It was much like a home bathroom with a single toilet and sink, and a lockable door.  We go over to the restroom, and of course it’s locked, meaning somebody was in there.  So I told Jaxon, we just have to wait, because somebody’s in there.  The store was pretty crowded at the time with probably 3 or 4 people in line waiting to pay for their things just a few feet away.  Then we heard the door unlock, and the door opened and a teenage boy came out.  The next thing I know, Jaxon is saying, in his loud 5-year old voice, “Ewwwww!!!”  Scared of what was coming next, I began to try to stop him from talking, by both saying “Shhh…” and putting my hand over his mouth.  But as usual, his mouth was faster than my hand.  And out came, sounding more like shouting than talking, “Ewwwww… Something smells like Doo-Doo!!!”  At that point, I just pulled him into the bathoom and shut the door behind us as quickly as possible.  We spent a little extra time in there as I tried to explain to him not so say stuff like that out loud, and also hoping that by the time we came out, nobody would remember what he had said.  I feel sorry for the teenager that had to go about his shopping, after Jaxon proclaimed his business to practically the whole store.  Parents, be on the lookout.

There are quite a few scary verses in the Bible.  Here are a few off the top of my head that I would think would have to be considered:

James 3:1
Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment.

Only scary for teachers I guess.

Matt7:23
“And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’

This is a verse about a group of people thinking they were Christians, who find out they were wrong, after it’s too late.

Matthew 6:15
“But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.

Hopefully either we all forgive everybody, or this verse doesn’t apply to us.

Luke 9:23-24
And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.  “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.

Being crucified daily… losing our life… Do we really do this?  If not, then we cannot follow Christ.  Or maybe I’m misunderstanding again.  Sounds scary to me.

Rev 21:8
all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.

All liars?  Hopefully either I will not be a liar when that time comes, or again, this verse doesn’t apply to me.  Scary.

Lately I’ve been chatting with a friend of mine, and he mentioned this verse.  It’s pretty scary as well.

Revelation 3:16
‘So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.

For a little context, read Rev 3:14-19.  Jesus is talking to the church of Laodicea.  Sadly, I believe the vast majority of Christians in America are lukewarm, including myself most of the time.  We go through our lives just trying to get to the next thing to do.  Nobody sees a passion for pursuing Christ in our lives.  I’m not sure why.  I think we have become so comfortable in America that we just don’t want to change our comfy lives.  Most churches are full of lukewarm Christians, and even worse, most church are ok with it.  As long as people keep showing up for church, putting on their Sunday face, and giving their money, that’s the main thing.  How do we combat that type of thinking?  I know I’ve been frustrated in the past (and now), and I’ve just come to the conclusion that there are no churches passionately pursuing Christ, or at least none that I’ve come into contact with.  So do I just give up on the idea, accept it, and try to make the best of it?

What’s the scariest verse in the Bible to you?