Happy Thanksgiving!

This truly is the most wonderful time of the year! And this year there is much to be thankful for. A beautiful wife, a wonderful son, a great family, a new house, the best friends, an awesome church. God is so good and greatly to be praised!

New Family Photo

Line Upon Line - Live Again

Well, it's taken several weeks, but my Line Upon Line podcast is back up and running.

If you had subscribed to it before you'll need to delete the feed in iTunes (or whatever program you may be using) and re-subscribe.

He sure is cute...

my boy...

Have you ever seen anything so cute? (him of course... not me)

I honestly never knew that you could love so much... Don't misunderstand, I love my wife so very much, but this love for our son is different (I'm quite sure that any parent will understand that).

We had a scare early yesterday morning. Andrea got up to feed Ethan and as she was walking down the stairs at 4am she slipped on the edge of one of the steps and stumbled down a few of them. What I heard from our bedroom was her slip and fall and then the baby started crying. I jumped up faster than I think I ever have... I was so worried that they both had been hurt, that in the fall she had dropped him. She didn't drop him, praise the Lord they both were fine, but I don't know that I've ever been so scared.

I was worried about becoming a dad. More worried about having a child then taking over the as the senior pastor of the church in fact. I have sensed what I can only describe as a supernatural infilling of agape love for this little child of ours. I have several nieces and nephews; and they are certainly cute, but never have I wanted to just sit endlessly and stare at them. Pretty crazy if you ask me :)

Of the people, by the people?

The election is over and I for one am thankful that it is. The signs are going away, the commercials are done, the door hangers will not be found for at least a little while... but now let there be anger and outrage!

The 2008 election season will most certainly go down in the books as a big win for Democrats and those leaning toward a liberal worldview; there is of course but one major exception. The push for traditional values in marriage were upheld in Florida, Arizona and (Praise God) California.

I, like many, expected that the race for Prop 8 in California was going to be tight and I anticipated a certain level of discouragement for the losing side, but I am honestly surprised by the 'furor' that is now coming from the No on 8 crowd.

I gladly voted YES on Prop 8! As a result I'm labeled as "little minded", "hate filled", "bigoted", "ignorant", "homophobic" and "intolerant". The No on 8 protestors are angry, loud and passionate about pushing forward their agenda. Be certain, we Christians are well on our way to experiencing a form of religious persecution in our nation that we never expected or prepared for.

>An interesting article...

Interesting audio clip

I stumbled upon this earlier this morning and found it rather interesting.

During his presidency, Dwight Eisenhower had Ezra Taft Benson as his agriculture secretary. Benson would later go on to be the president of the LDS church — kind of interesting. But the below audio was given by Benson in 1965 as he referenced an conversation he had had with one of Russia's leaders (Kruschev).

Click here for audio clip.
Transcription

“I have talked face to face with the godless communist leaders. It may surprise you to learn that I was host to Mr. Kruschev for a half day when he visited the United States, not that I’m proud of it. I opposed his coming then, and I still feel it was a mistake to welcome this atheistic murderer as a state visitor (Could you imagine if a cabinet member said such a thing today?). But, according to President Eisenhower, Kruschev had expressed a desire to learn something of American Agriculture — and after seeing Russian agriculture I can understand why. As we talked face to face, he indicated that my grandchildren would live under communism. After assuring him that I expected to do all in my power to assure that his and all other grandchildren will live under freedom he arrogantly declaired in substance:

“ ‘You Americans are so gullible. No, you won’t accept communism outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism. We won’t have to fight you. We’ll so weaken your economy until you’ll fall like overripe fruit into our hands.’

“And they’re ahead of schedule in their devilish scheme.”

Exercise your right!

Must Read Article(s)...

If you have a few minutes I recommend that you read Jonathan Rosenblum's article at Jerusalem Post, "Think Again: The end of the special relationship?"

Many Bible students that hold a 'futurists' view of Prophecy have wondered what might move America away from its pro-Israel foreign policy stance in the last day's. Rosenblum identifies one possibility, which may begin to come to pass as soon as next Tuesday.

ALSO!!! perhaps you've seen in the news over the last few days, there have been two near 5.0 earthquakes in relatively the same area of Iran over the last 2 weeks. Some officials (Israeli and Iranian) are now saying that one (and perhaps both) were not earthquakes, but rather Nuclear Weapon tests. Interesting chain of events.

Still interested? Check another article here and here.

Sleepless in Escondido

The thought and idea of having a baby was an easy one for Andrea... for me, not so much. In fact for a couple of months I didn't even want to talk about the subject (a "moratorium" of sorts). Three days of actually having Ethan and I cannot imagine my world without him. Don't misunderstand - I'm just beginning to barley scratch the surface as to the change that is taking place as a result of having a baby. Some of the change (i.e. sleeplessness) isn't easy, but he sure is a blessing.

I had to run up to Murrieta this afternoon to teach my class on Isaiah at the Bible College and all I could think of the whole time I was there was getting back to see Ethan and Andrea. Ok, so I thought a little bit about the actual text (chapters 28-33), but my thoughts kept straying. How could they not when your wife texts you with pictures like this...?

this one is actually from yesterday, but you get the picture.

The sweetest thing...

Look at all that hair

Ethan David!!!

I think I can honestly say that this has been the most difficult, awe inspiring day of my life!

Ethan was born at 11:39pm on the 25th... 7 lbs 13 oz and 21 inches. God is truly gracious and good. Andrea is doing well - and at 2:15am Ethan is well, asleep in my other arm as I type on my iPhone :)

Big bucks... no whammies

$700,000,000,000.00
It is just such a huge number. At current count that puts the bill at about $2,300.00 per American (cencus.gov puts our current population at 305,259,245).

It is kind of interesting that this $700 billion number keeps coming up. Last week 401k retirement accounts lost $700 billion in one day. We are are also being told that we are sending $700 billion overseas for energy annually. There was a time when a billion was a big number. Now you have to have at least a billion to get on the Forbes 400 list... and I was so looking forward to making that list - bummer.

???

Doesn't seem like a good idea.