Throughout The Bible, God is urging people, literally and figuratively, to humble themselves and worship The Lord. People who "don't know how to take a compliment" are perhaps more aware of the tendency to become "big headed" and stray from God.
God doesn't expect to be breathing down our necks watching over our shoulder all the time. He knows we need that from Him, but He also knows we don't want that from Him and most of us never will. Even in the Garden of Eden, God is not depicted that way. God came to Adam and Eve while they were desperately trying to cover their nakedness to check on them and say "hi" but instead found them defiled by the poison of the fruit of the forbidden tree.
We need God to keep us from hurting one another, to keep us from depriving one another and being self serving. "There are children starving in Africa" was once a famous saying given to people who threw food in the trash. Some of that is due to government oppression and some of that is due to improper farming techniques but none of that is because someone bought a bowl of oatmeal from Starbucks and didn't finish it. The reason people across the world continue starving is because people are selfish. Yes, the United States and other governments that are modeled partly based on its at-the-time radical design do not mandate that The Uber Rich solve the world's problems. The Beauty of BATMAN is not that The U.S. gov't mandated Bruce Wayne use his resources the way that he did. The Beauty of BATMAN, and any story of a Good Samaritan that you see on the news from time to time, is that they CHOSE to do the right thing. It's absolutely meaningless if government mandates it. Christianity is not mandated by the US gov't because God does not want people forced into His kingdom. God's fellowship is indeed contageous for those who have exposure to it, but there will always be those who simply refuse to partake in it and they are given a time to reconsider their decision.
Humility is not the same thing as low self esteem, but I'd argue that it's better to have a low self image than to boast about your strengths because God is sovereign and he can take away whatever accomplishments we credit ourselves with just as easily as he can dispense them.
As I noted in an earlier blog post, us with much gifted are expected to pay it forward. I don't think I posted it in that wording, which is a paraphrase of the summary of one of Jesus' parable teachings. I think that blog post was in regard to a parallel to The wisdom that God granted King Solomon and The knowledge that has been granted to what is now known as The Modern World. But the point I make here is that you can't give too much. If you accidentally overgive to God and slip on your mortgage payment, what seems like disaster may rear its head, but will ultimately transform itsself into a blessing. The ultimate blessing however is far beyond the walls of a six story home with marble flooring and the day to day life that lives within it, with or without your continual presence.
The land will not always be a source of thorns and thistles. It will not always demand our sweat and blood. We will not always feel compelled to cry every so often. You can choose to wait for proof that such Hope exists or you can take the route that C.S. Lewis and Lee Strobel did and come to the conclusions they reached and find true peace in this life as well and in turn find a way to make this world a little brighter for others too.
Thursday, November 29, 2018
Bestseller Steven
CD Universe had a banner on their homepage that was recently taken down, a link featuring Stephen King - based movies & TV series on DVD and Blu ray.
It stood for almost a month if not more, and apparantly nobody noticed his name was mispelled. They had it spelled Steven King. I finally got around to emailing them about that earlier today and they responded saying that was a typo and they were working to fix it immediately. They seemed grateful for me pointing it out, but now I feel rather sorrowful that I didn't let them know sooner. Obviously I was the only one who gave enough of a damn to let them know they'd made a mistake there, but maybe it's not so obvious. How many people, I wonder, thought they'd entered some kind of Somalian pirate operation when they saw Stephen King's name misspelled? At best, one might suspect CD Universe to be some brat teenager operating from his parents' garage or something, not knowing a lick about how to efficiently run a mail order retail operation. I guess The World may Never know.
It stood for almost a month if not more, and apparantly nobody noticed his name was mispelled. They had it spelled Steven King. I finally got around to emailing them about that earlier today and they responded saying that was a typo and they were working to fix it immediately. They seemed grateful for me pointing it out, but now I feel rather sorrowful that I didn't let them know sooner. Obviously I was the only one who gave enough of a damn to let them know they'd made a mistake there, but maybe it's not so obvious. How many people, I wonder, thought they'd entered some kind of Somalian pirate operation when they saw Stephen King's name misspelled? At best, one might suspect CD Universe to be some brat teenager operating from his parents' garage or something, not knowing a lick about how to efficiently run a mail order retail operation. I guess The World may Never know.
birth of girth: "I'll fire you tomorrow"
Fire it or fry it...either way.
Been fluctuating weight wise. I guess that's more than some ppl can say shortly after Turkey day. I've read more scripture through the month of November than I did in October, which isn't saying much at all, if memory is treating me right. Still very off course with it. Need to do it. Need to want to do it. Neither seem to be motivating me to action. At least not in an urgent sense. idk. Fooollishnesss!
Got $105 total for my birthday. I have $2 of it left and I think only maybe $30 of that money was spent on anything of discernible quality. And that's counting the portion I gave to the church. It just seems weird that everything I want is either too damn expensive to even consider or it just doesn't feel right for me to buy.
I don't know why I was posting about my ideal bookshelf the other day, the other week, whenever that was. I don't read much of anything except random stuff I find online while searching / researching products that I might buy someday. I guess it's like a friend of my mom's once said -- "I think you like the idea of reading more than you like reading" That's somewhat true. I do like reading. I even enjoy reading The Bible when I come across something that doesn't read like The Oxford Dictionary. Sometimes I find myself having to weave my way into the words of The Bible, like walking through a dense forest and trying not to get my clothing snagged in a throny twig. The New Testament definitely requires more of The Holy Spirit's presence than I've been asking for. It reads like a rotating on/off switch. Much of it is like a Hellfire sermon except it's not directed at anybody in particular for anything in particular. Which is how any sermon is really. It's not meant to be personalized down to a T. Sometimes a specific sentence doesn't apply to you at any given moment. All of scripture is applicable. It's not up to the reader to determine how though. So, enter The Holy Spirit, perfect timing, as the books of The New Testament had not been written as of its entrance to the world.
Friday, November 16, 2018
oh really? I could have done THAT...
..I mean, I was going to...never did, but I would've......
Yeah well someone else -- who was actually able (and committed to doing so) -- actually did it.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1948221055/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_2?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1
One thing noted in the book is that the movie posters and newspaper ads (and subsequent VHS cover artwork) was often more terrifying than the movies themselves could even possibly be and they even sometimes wrote out those claims.
I don't think I ever had htis particular idea in mind. But it would've been nice if I had enough savvy and knowledge to contribute to a book that contained VHS cover-art. I was not in any state back in 1988 or even 1991 to have seen the ads that Mr. Gingold the author describes in this book but a lot of the imagery was replicated for the initial home video releases of these movies, so I understand what he's referring to largely. I was reading a excerpt from this book online and the author noted that there were major theaters, at least in NYC, that played PIECES (1983). Many people refer to that movie like it's an underground sleazebar movie that you'd have to byapss a street full of drug dealers to see. I seriously had no idea that PIECES had piqued so much interest from moviegoers. I always saw it on the video store(s), just figured it was there in lieu of a better movie that didn't exist (Really, how many square feet do you really need to host a collection of movies that people are glad they paid to see after they finally see them? You can go as far back as the 1940s and you still only have about 2,000 noteworthy titles and most of those noteworthy titles are just a little too noteworthy for the avg person's liking and that's assuming that each noteworthy film has had sufficient marketing so that people know the damn thing exists and can decide for themselves, which is often not what happens, even when a film isn't really all that bad, and then many times people will refuse to see a given movie just because it's old. My cousin does not like THE BREAKFAST CLUB because the characters' hairstyles are "ridiculous". Seriously? And someone was commenting that getting kids of today to see Brian de Palma's CARRIE was like pulling teeth because youth today just assume it's one of those "weird films from the '70's" -- and you gotta admit, the '70's was a rather odd decade for movies. I wasn't alive then but I can see it's true just by the blu-ray.com pre-order lists. I was looking at the customer reviews for a movie titled BAD RONALD (1974) that I originally stumbled upon in the pages of the 1999 edition of VIDEOHOUND and, gosh, it's like Adam & Eve, grabbing ahold and biting the forbidden fruit having no idea the ramifications. Society had its flaws at that time as every society does and always has, but not only has MLK's dream not become a reality...we've lost sight of the Reason MLK was so successful to begin with and we've become so entrenched in our respective atitutdes about sex and sexuality that we refuse to incline our ear toward that Reason, trying to use the failure of humans as excuse to blame God for everything we've done wrong.
I think what's real sad ultimately is that violence has become such a desireable trait in many circles of this nation ("this" nation being the U.S.A., for any one not Americanized at the time of this reading :-
And even people who understand the violence of violence, still don't seem to recognize that violence is not simply an act or a type of act. It's what goes on in your mind. It's something that flows through one's veins with the blood, like the strength of a tidal wave. It's a hard thing to let go of. At least for me it is. It's a little easier to ask God to cleanse me of it, but it's not nearly as easy to mean it with all of my heart. I think that's the state that most people are in. Thanks to "science", we as modern men & women feel OK knowing that God or any other God-like deity is simply a set of fairy tales that people wrote down. How do we know this? Because we don't know there IS a God. 100 years ago television was still in its infancy stages of conception. Nobody knew TV would exist. God being unknown to some people does not mean he does not exist. It simply means He hasn't been discovered.
"The world does not recognize me because the world isn't looking for me" - Jesus, The Christ
Yeah well someone else -- who was actually able (and committed to doing so) -- actually did it.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1948221055/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_2?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1
I don't think I ever had htis particular idea in mind. But it would've been nice if I had enough savvy and knowledge to contribute to a book that contained VHS cover-art. I was not in any state back in 1988 or even 1991 to have seen the ads that Mr. Gingold the author describes in this book but a lot of the imagery was replicated for the initial home video releases of these movies, so I understand what he's referring to largely. I was reading a excerpt from this book online and the author noted that there were major theaters, at least in NYC, that played PIECES (1983). Many people refer to that movie like it's an underground sleazebar movie that you'd have to byapss a street full of drug dealers to see. I seriously had no idea that PIECES had piqued so much interest from moviegoers. I always saw it on the video store(s), just figured it was there in lieu of a better movie that didn't exist (Really, how many square feet do you really need to host a collection of movies that people are glad they paid to see after they finally see them? You can go as far back as the 1940s and you still only have about 2,000 noteworthy titles and most of those noteworthy titles are just a little too noteworthy for the avg person's liking and that's assuming that each noteworthy film has had sufficient marketing so that people know the damn thing exists and can decide for themselves, which is often not what happens, even when a film isn't really all that bad, and then many times people will refuse to see a given movie just because it's old. My cousin does not like THE BREAKFAST CLUB because the characters' hairstyles are "ridiculous". Seriously? And someone was commenting that getting kids of today to see Brian de Palma's CARRIE was like pulling teeth because youth today just assume it's one of those "weird films from the '70's" -- and you gotta admit, the '70's was a rather odd decade for movies. I wasn't alive then but I can see it's true just by the blu-ray.com pre-order lists. I was looking at the customer reviews for a movie titled BAD RONALD (1974) that I originally stumbled upon in the pages of the 1999 edition of VIDEOHOUND and, gosh, it's like Adam & Eve, grabbing ahold and biting the forbidden fruit having no idea the ramifications. Society had its flaws at that time as every society does and always has, but not only has MLK's dream not become a reality...we've lost sight of the Reason MLK was so successful to begin with and we've become so entrenched in our respective atitutdes about sex and sexuality that we refuse to incline our ear toward that Reason, trying to use the failure of humans as excuse to blame God for everything we've done wrong.
I think what's real sad ultimately is that violence has become such a desireable trait in many circles of this nation ("this" nation being the U.S.A., for any one not Americanized at the time of this reading :-
And even people who understand the violence of violence, still don't seem to recognize that violence is not simply an act or a type of act. It's what goes on in your mind. It's something that flows through one's veins with the blood, like the strength of a tidal wave. It's a hard thing to let go of. At least for me it is. It's a little easier to ask God to cleanse me of it, but it's not nearly as easy to mean it with all of my heart. I think that's the state that most people are in. Thanks to "science", we as modern men & women feel OK knowing that God or any other God-like deity is simply a set of fairy tales that people wrote down. How do we know this? Because we don't know there IS a God. 100 years ago television was still in its infancy stages of conception. Nobody knew TV would exist. God being unknown to some people does not mean he does not exist. It simply means He hasn't been discovered.
"The world does not recognize me because the world isn't looking for me" - Jesus, The Christ
some said what
My bookshelf (not counting leaflets and random pcs that I'm not entirely sure I want to throw away)
NOT DEAD YET by Phil Collins
SEVEN TYPES OF AMBIGUITY by Elliot Perlman
DAILY LIFE PRINCIPLES by Charles F. Stanley
NAKED SURRENDER by Andrew Comiskey
DEAD DEAD PERSON by Benjamin Weissman
THE LATE WORK OF MARGARET KROFTIS by Mark Gluth
HOLMAN CHRISTIAN STANDARD BIBLE by God
NIV PEW BIBLE by God
STUDY BIBLE (can't remember the exact name of it) by God
Stuff I'd like to add to it
THE DEAD ZONE by Stephen King
CUJO by Stephen King
PET SEMATARY: by Stephen King
IT by Stephen King
THE REASONS I WON'T BE COMING by Elliot Perlman
COWS by Matthew Stokoe
AD NAUSEUM: NEWSPRINT NIGHTMARES FROM THE 1980'S by Michael Gingold
MAKING GHOSTBUSTERS by Don Shay
GHOSTBUSTERS: THE OTHER SIDE by Keith Champagne
GHOSTBUSTERS: ANSWER THE CALL by Kelly Thompson
THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS OMNIBUS VOL. 1 by IDW
Hmmm....
seriously, if I added all those to what I have my medium sized bookshelf would still be halfway empty and beyond.
guess I'll worry about that when (or if) I have an opportunity to do something about it. Can probably pad it with other stuff, collectibles that are currently on my general media shelf, such as this Ghostbusters coffee mug, boxed, (stupid design although the box is really rockin') and the Genesis Live album box set if I ever get my hands on it. The AD NAUSEUM book looks really oh so cool. It's like $25++ tho, and I seriously doubt I'll ever acquire it. I don't know who on Earth would consider buying it for me. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one halfway convinced that I'm not promoting Satan by buying stuff like that. I would be however a very poor steward of my money if I spent the little I have on it. So there u go.
Hmm...
Friday, November 9, 2018
Q details
I type exactly what was intended and some letters show up as numbers and some numbers show up as symbols. For instance the ? shows up as +
The 0 comes up / and gmail shows up as g0a53
Amazon gets turned into a0az6n
Is there a setting that i need to change or ....??
Sony Vaoi ancient a hammedon
Built in keyboard
Upgraded to Windows 7 at some point...
Don't know the model # or how to locate it
Updates are possible. Ask for em. Hopefully I'll be notified of requests via email as i don't constantly use Quora.
The 0 comes up / and gmail shows up as g0a53
Amazon gets turned into a0az6n
Is there a setting that i need to change or ....??
Sony Vaoi ancient a hammedon
Built in keyboard
Upgraded to Windows 7 at some point...
Don't know the model # or how to locate it
Updates are possible. Ask for em. Hopefully I'll be notified of requests via email as i don't constantly use Quora.
2 x a fyre
I had my daily bread twice this week. I for wgatever reason have been waking up around 5am. I set my Daily Bread alarm for 5:45 a few days ago. I woke up to it yesterday. I was already a little sorta awake. Decided now or never.
Managed to do the same today except i was awake before the alarm went off.
Then i had a peanut butter & honey sandwich for breakfast.
Slowly the sparks are rising.
Managed to do the same today except i was awake before the alarm went off.
Then i had a peanut butter & honey sandwich for breakfast.
Slowly the sparks are rising.
Thursday, November 1, 2018
ig gigs agagn
Been using my YouVersion Bible app lately, more so than the One Year Bible. I'm almost finished with it, after almost 2 years. Meh. The app is neat. I like the print sizing. It helps a little to have a name for the sections. It gets me thinking how deeply in tune to The Spirit the people who do that sort of thing need to be in order to do their jobs. People who read The Bible are allotted the freedom to misuse it, but The Bible is never defeated. God's Word has stood intact and unchanged for almost 2000 years.
One can debate the merits of the prophecies and how they prove anything or if they do. People out of the faith say that The Bible predicts the rise and fall of Alexander The Great with such pinpoint precision that the prophecy must have been written after the fact (which makes no sense, but whatever). But beyond the prophecies of The Bible, there is absolutely no possible way to refute any of it unless you pick it apart and remove it from its context. If you are looking to refute The Bible, there will always be someone who is able to come up with a valid counter-refute that neutralizes that argument. The fact is it comes down to how much you want to stay down and how down you are before you realize how far down you are. People can sink so low that they can't do anything about it even after they realize what's happened if they ever do at all. Sure, God can save you, but it's like people who have 150 pounds of weight to shed vs. people who have 50 vs people who have just 10 or 20. The weight comes off easily if you're committed. God gives people who choose to lose weight a free pass by allowing them to shed the first half of their excess weight with minimal effort. But then you get down to your last 10-30 pounds. Then it becomes a struggle. That struggle, IMO, is our Earthly payment. It's us paying our small down payment to get to Heaven, so to speak. And it's a reminder of our dependence on Him who is responsible for all good things that come to us since we are prone to forget to give thanks and respect to The One True King.
anyway. Haven't read any of it the past few or so days. I read the book of Daniel last week, the whole thing (it's actually a pretty short book) I think...I did start reading it in the One Year Bible and then tried to pick up my place from where I left off via the YouVersion app...not sure if I started at the beginning...come to think of it, I don't think I did...I think I started on chapter 3. There's like...8?...chapters...idk.
Anyway. I also read some of the New Testament and then got lazy and just focused on one segment. That's the beauty of the One Year Bible. It takes the guesswork of how to divide time between The Old Testament & The New Testament. There is a lot of parallel between The Old Testament & The New. But there's also stuff that isn't covered in The Old Testament because mankind was in such a sorry state without The Holy Spirit that being given the advice that is given in The New Testament would have been utterly pointless.
It's hard to believe I hadn't written anything at all in October.
I just finally tried Starbucks' Caramel Apple Spice. It literally tastes like apple pie in a cup. The grande here in my outer suburb of Atlanta is $4.19. A little pricey I suppose. I definitely don't intend to buy more than 2 more this month. I might not even have more than 2. Getting out of the house is a bit cumbersome b/c my sister's 4 month old is still nursing and has to be fed every few hours. It was a challenge just to get groceries today. If there hadn't been a Starbucks right beside ALDI, I probably would not have gone today.
One can debate the merits of the prophecies and how they prove anything or if they do. People out of the faith say that The Bible predicts the rise and fall of Alexander The Great with such pinpoint precision that the prophecy must have been written after the fact (which makes no sense, but whatever). But beyond the prophecies of The Bible, there is absolutely no possible way to refute any of it unless you pick it apart and remove it from its context. If you are looking to refute The Bible, there will always be someone who is able to come up with a valid counter-refute that neutralizes that argument. The fact is it comes down to how much you want to stay down and how down you are before you realize how far down you are. People can sink so low that they can't do anything about it even after they realize what's happened if they ever do at all. Sure, God can save you, but it's like people who have 150 pounds of weight to shed vs. people who have 50 vs people who have just 10 or 20. The weight comes off easily if you're committed. God gives people who choose to lose weight a free pass by allowing them to shed the first half of their excess weight with minimal effort. But then you get down to your last 10-30 pounds. Then it becomes a struggle. That struggle, IMO, is our Earthly payment. It's us paying our small down payment to get to Heaven, so to speak. And it's a reminder of our dependence on Him who is responsible for all good things that come to us since we are prone to forget to give thanks and respect to The One True King.
anyway. Haven't read any of it the past few or so days. I read the book of Daniel last week, the whole thing (it's actually a pretty short book) I think...I did start reading it in the One Year Bible and then tried to pick up my place from where I left off via the YouVersion app...not sure if I started at the beginning...come to think of it, I don't think I did...I think I started on chapter 3. There's like...8?...chapters...idk.
Anyway. I also read some of the New Testament and then got lazy and just focused on one segment. That's the beauty of the One Year Bible. It takes the guesswork of how to divide time between The Old Testament & The New Testament. There is a lot of parallel between The Old Testament & The New. But there's also stuff that isn't covered in The Old Testament because mankind was in such a sorry state without The Holy Spirit that being given the advice that is given in The New Testament would have been utterly pointless.
It's hard to believe I hadn't written anything at all in October.
I just finally tried Starbucks' Caramel Apple Spice. It literally tastes like apple pie in a cup. The grande here in my outer suburb of Atlanta is $4.19. A little pricey I suppose. I definitely don't intend to buy more than 2 more this month. I might not even have more than 2. Getting out of the house is a bit cumbersome b/c my sister's 4 month old is still nursing and has to be fed every few hours. It was a challenge just to get groceries today. If there hadn't been a Starbucks right beside ALDI, I probably would not have gone today.
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