Last weekend we celebrated Independence Day here in the states. Our family joined a bunch of friends who camp every year at the state park just up the road. They bring their boat over and spend a week on the river dragging the kids around on inflatable toys.
When we arrived, the boat had just pulled up to the dock and we noticed the father carrying his son up the hill to the picnic area. Come to find out, they had been dragging kids behind the boat in a tighter and tighter circle when the inflatable hit the wake and the boy went flying, landing awkwardly on his back. You could tell he was in a lot of pain but was brave enough to hold back the tears.
What was interesting about this scene was what happened next. Several of the women in the group huddled around him in prayer calling for Jesus to heal him. This went on for quite some time. Meanwhile, the men were also huddled saying stuff like, “Give him a few minutes, he’ll shake it off and be back on the river in no time.”
Sure enough, he was fine after resting for a while and was back on the inflatable in no time.
Later, I heard that same group of women commenting on how fast Jesus had healed this boy. They kept using words like miraculous and super natural to describe the event. It was as if the kid would have been bound to a wheel chair for the rest of his life if they hadn’t called for healing.
This was where I had this really uncomfortable cynical feeling come over me. My first thought was, “Wait a minute, if the atheist kid in the next campsite had this happen to him, would he have been in a wheel chair for the rest of his life?”
I kept my mouth shut and nodded in agreement.
I’ve talked about this healing thing before on this blog and am still wrestling with it. My scientific mind wants double blind tests and lots of data before coming to any conclusions. I’ll admit it, I’m the Thomas in the blog world.
I can see God sitting on his throne like Darth Vadar, pointing a finger at me and saying, “I find your lack of faith disturbing.”
So please set me straight on this healing thing if you have any insight. The only thing God promises in the Bible is that he will be with us if bad stuff happens. But does that mean we’ll have healing on demand?
So I’m sitting at my desktop computer this morning, surfing the web and up pops this warning that my browser isn’t safe and that I need to click here to install some software to protect me. Ugh, I thought. This doesn’t look good. So I did a little research only to find out that it wasn’t from Microsoft or Mozilla, but in fact was malware.
While I was taking a class in the big city last week, I had the chance to watch a TLC marathon of Jon and Kate Plus 8. I hadn’t heard of this family until a month or so ago when they started showing up on the tabloid rags at the grocery store. I watched this marathon in amazement as they would go about their days, totally disconnected from each other and trying to manage eight kids in the process.
This week, I sat down with one of our new student hires to explain to him the big picture about how the power system works and how each piece fits together. After my so called speech, I was amazed by what had come out of my mouth. I actually talked with authority! It was interesting how stuff came out that just a few years ago I hadn’t a clue as to what the names of the equipment was let alone how it worked.
Videos of tech journalist Leo Laporte has become quite the memes lately on Youtube. First, his
It’s official. The Ranter is now the father of a college student! I can still remember as if it was yesterday, my wife and I walking around the Loma Linda Hospital campus trying to induce labor by foot. Oh the memories. Our littlest one starts Kindergarten next year, so we’ve got dozens of graduations yet to go.
So here’s some random thoughts from the week.
Last week, I promised to try to speak more positively around the people I contact regularly. So here’s an update on my progress. The day I wrote that post, I came home to find my oldest daughter sitting on the lawn tractor in our back yard. I thought to myself that this would be a good time for some positive speak. I had my speech all written out in my head about how great it was that she was mowing the lawn without being asked and what a good job she was doing.
A few weeks ago I was musing about bringing out the best in your kid by focusing on what they do well instead of what they do poorly. This week it hit me that I need to speak in a more positive way to them.
It’s been a strange spring in the northwest. Typically we get all of our rain and snow in the winter and then spring comes to melt everything away with a few weeks of heat wave temperatures. This causes the farmers to panic as they watch their irrigation water for the summer flow down stream in a matter of a few days. This year was different.
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