Of Deafness and Potato Chips

This is so weird.

I had to use a pile driver to chip out the tile in our bathroom. Very loud. As a result I felt (and still feel) like I have pounds of cotton stuffed in my ears. Everything sounds as if it's coming through walls.

So Ben and I return the pile driver to Home Depot and hit Subway for lunch. I open my bag of Lays Potato Chips and eat one. It tasted stale as if it wasn't crunchy. I had Ben try one to see if he thought it was stale. Nope, it wasn't. Because the crunchy sound was muffled in my suffering ears, it didn't feel crunchy. It felt WEIRD. Who knew?

I wonder what deaf people think of potato chips.

Deep thoughts at the Dentist

So I'm sitting cranked back in the dentist chair waiting, waiting, waiting.... I'm not wearing my glasses so I can't read any of the propoganda which means I had to just sit and think. I prayed for a bit, but admit I don't do that as well as I might, but it did lead to thoughts arisen from my last post (I know, the right word is "aroused" but nope, don't think so).

Faith. According to the Bible it is believing in what you hope for. But like the fellow who said to Jesus, "I believe, Lord, help me with my unbelief" I have to wonder if faith is sometimes acting on what you struggle to believe.

I don't struggle with disbelief in God. The resurrection must be believed if one is intellectually honest, and therefore I have no struggle with belief in the Son, His atoning work on the cross and arisen from the tomb.

I firmly believe that God is at critical work within our world and in each and every life.

Where I do struggle is believing in how I fit in to the whole thing. Why would God care about my prayers? How can my actions matter?

And yet I know they do. Odd that I know but struggle with belief. Faith is carrying through with what is true whether you believe or know or not. That is what I think the fellow means when he says "help me with my unbelief."

Nor do I think my "struggle" is a bad thing. Faith is fairly empty if one believes or knows fully. It's easy to inhale oxygen under normal circumstances, but there exists a highly-oxygenated water (made in a lab) that one can actually breath. It has yet to be experienced by a human, though. They hold a rat under until it "drowns" and takes a breath and finds it can breath. The next time, they still have to drown the rat - it "knows" it can't breath liquid (even though it can). People have TRIED to do it, but they always thrash their way out rather than draw liquid breath, and since it's not legal to hold someone under, it's never been tried. These people KNOW and BELIEVE they can breath it, but they do not have FAITH they can breath.

Interesting, huh?

Define...

Depression. What is it?

Is Biblical "flesh" spiritual?

When the Bible talks about "flesh" it means, oddly enough, just that. Our "meat." It's not some spiritual geegaw. The devil does not have claws sunk into it. Our flesh certainly moves us toward sin, but only ascetics thing flesh itself is evil. The five senses have no moral boundaries. If it tastes good, we want it. If it sounds good, we want it, if it looks good, we want it, if it feels good... well, you get the idea.

"Want" is okay. "Must have" not so much. "Five-sense-satisfaction instead of God" real bad.

God does not call us to eschew our senses, but to balance them. The ascetics on a mountain-top refusing all pleasant sensation are not hearing from God (a brief fast is good, an extended asceticism is a deprivation of what God happily gives us).

When we over-spiritualize the wisdom of the Bible we miss simple truths. I asked my class last Sunday what "flesh" is. They didn't know. They thought it was sin. Or a symbol of evil. Each of them thought when the Bible says "flesh" it has some other spiritual meaning.

We are flesh. Our glorified bodies will be of flesh. People have been, and eternally will be flesh. Our danger lay in choosing flesh over spirit.

Oh, Joseph, What Does My Dream Mean?

I dreamed myself a dream last night...

In the dream the Rapture (or something similar) occurred and Heaven's waiting room was a campground with a set of unstaffed administration buildings at the center (and rustic restrooms not far away). Mike Y. suggested going in and finding out what our real names were - the name God gave us when he created each of us. Seemed like a good idea so the Y's and Lynette and I went in where there were boxes and boxes of window envelopes. In each were a yellow card with our real names. M&M and Lynette found theirs easily, but instead of an envelope I had a bag a peanuts with a message tightly folded up in mine. Unfortunately, the note was wet and the ink had smeared to illegibility.

I woke up perplexed. What did the dream mean? Why was I left out? And then it dawned on me...

I was afraid of going to shell.

BWAHAHAAHAAAHAAAA! (real dream, no kidding)