Wind Damage

For the past several days, weathermen have been predicting the chance of severe storms ushered in ahead of a cold front. They were right on the money. There were several tornado warnings and we were under a tornado watch for most of last evening. The front finally made it to Wagoner at about 11:40 last night.



I decided to get up and make sure rain wasn't blowing in, as the winds were raging. Gusts were in the 40-50 mph range. I first checked the dining room window and, sure enough, rain was coming in. As I looked in my half-sleep mode, I noticed that rain was splashing in off of my gas grill. That was odd because it is normally on the back porch/stoop and it is a good distance from the dining room window.



As the morning light came and I was able to get out and look at it, I found that, not only had it been blown from the porch, but it appears to have some damage, too. All the guts were out of it, which shouldn't be a big deal. The left hand shelf was broken off at the screws. That isn't good. Also, the OU SOONERS grill cover was GONE. We later found it about 100 ft from the grill, around the corner of the house.



It obviously could have been worse. I know that. Someone about 75 miles away had their house completely destroyed by straight winds. I just found it interesting that it messed with my grill so bad.

This morning, the skies are clear. The wind has stopped for now. It is supposed to blow pretty hard again later. The temps are crisp. It was a nice 46 degrees when I left the house at 7:25.

I hope you have a good day!

Comments working again

Someone told me that they couldn't post comments today. I changed it from embedded comments back to the original format.

It works fine now.

State of Confusion

Last night, during the Obama Joe Biden (say it fast) acceptance speech, I witnessed what appeared to me to be a religious service. Or at the very least, a religious experience for the participants. I saw weeping. I saw hands raised in praise. I even saw one woman mouth "Thank you, Jesus".

How is it one person can say, "Thank you, Jesus" when others are saying "Oh! God why?" Many are looking at Obama as being the "savior of America". I don't see it that way.

Let's be clear about this. No man will save America. Our trust should be in God. If McCain would have won, I can't imagine anyone saying that he was the "savior of America". It is rather scary to me that people are calling Obama the "messiah" and Obama isn't denying it.

"For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect." Matthew 24:24

Am I calling Obama the anti-Christ? No. I am saying to not follow anyone but Jesus.

We need to pray for Obama. Proverb 21:1 says, "The king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes. " Let us pray that God would use Obama for good in this nation. Pray that God would make Obama's heart completely His. Pray that God would heal our land. Pray that our nation would humble itself and call out to God, once again.

Nothing has changed from yesterday. God STILL sits on His throne!

Racing Heart

Yesterday, I was given the honor and privilege of delivering the annual missions sermon at the 96th Annual Meeting of the Muskogee Baptist Association. I have known for many months what I wanted to preach on. I chose II Kings 7:3-9, where the lepers where sitting outside the gates of Samaria which was being besieged by King Ben-hadad of Aram. A desperate situation was inside the city and they were resorting to cannibalism to survive. The lepers were also starving, but hey were outside the gates. They got the idea to go to the camp of the Arameans to see if they would have mercy on them. They didn't know that God had scared them off and the camp had been abandoned.

The lepers found food and ate their fill. Then they carted off silver and other loot and hid it for later. Finally, their consciences got the better of them and they decided that since this was a "day of good news" they better not keep it to themselves. They went back and told the city that salvation could be found in the camp.

I likened this to the Christian's journey: salvation is found in Jesus; the new believer gets his fill of the new blessing (discipleship), then goes and tells others of the blessing (evangelism/missions).

Well, it seemed to go OK. I interspersed stories of our time in Africa in the sermon and tried to make it very personal. Before the meeting started (like a few months ago) I was told that I would have 2o minutes for the sermon. When I looked at the program yesterday afternoon, I found that I had actually been allowed 45.

The sanctuary of the church where the meeting was held didn't have a clock for me to go by. There was one on the pulpit, but the battery was dead. I forgot to take my watch off and lay it there (but we all know it doesn't mean anything when preachers do that!).

Well, I got confused on the time. I kept trying to snatch glimpses of my watch, but mixed up. As I finished, I was proud of myself for finishing 20 minutes early. As I walked away, I began to think about it some more and then realized instead of finishing 20 minutes early, I had actually gone over by 40 minutes!

A wave of humiliation/grief/lament/sorrow/embarassment swept over me. I had been afforded this incredible opportunity and had unabashedly abused it! My heart began to race and I started sweating from all the adrenylan in my system. I was losing my breath! My heart was pounding!

Finally, as I thought more about it, I decided to take another look at a program. Then I looked at my watch again.

I HADN'T gone over 40 minutes! I was only over by 8! And since we were a few minutes late anyway, no one thought a thing about it!

Another funny thing that happened during the sermon was that my phone began to ring. Now, I had it on vibrate, but everyone who knew me (I thought) knew I was going to be preaching at about this time. However, my good friend, Quinn, from South Carolina, wasn't aware of this particular addition to my schedule. He ended up leaving a voice message asking me who the quarterback for Texas Tech was, (as if I knew or cared!).

Sorry I didn't call you back, Quinn!

I voted today

I registered Democrat when I moved back from overseas, mostly so I could vote in the local races. Here is rural Oklahoma, the Democratic party is generally the conservative party, at least when it comes to county commissioners, mayors, sheriffs, etc. I was number 77 in my precinct to vote. When I went to sign the book, my wife, Sally, had already signed it. She voted this morning on the way to work. She said she was number 26.

I did vote for one or two democrats today. (Not Obama) Most of the folks I happened to have voted for were Republican. I think if everyone in Oklahoma who were Republican at heart would actually register that way, we wouldn't have any Democrat candidates!

I love exercising my right to vote. What a privilege! What a responsibility!

I am excited that all the political ads will be over tomorrow! Actually, I heard that they will start campaigning for 2012 by November 15.

A Great Family Day

Last Saturday, we took a drive to look at the fall foliage here in NE Oklahoma. Ok, so it isn't as great as Maine or New Hampshire, but its all we got.


One of the first things we did was stop at a grocery store and buy some picnic goodies. This was a spontaneous idea, otherwise we would have brought it all from home. We found a nice State Park on Lake Tenkiller. We were all alone and had a great time.


We all enjoyed skipping rocks on the lake.


Yes, there is a little bit of color in those trees!

Better late than never

Well, these pictures are a bit late, but I've been a bit busy...


Emily was the Uni-brow witch from the Far East


Audrey was the poor little hobo


Together they made quite the pair.

They didn't really want to go Trick-or-Treating this year. They wanted to stay home an pass out candy. However, they finally gave in and went to a few houses.

We didn't have many children this year; probably 30 all together...

Audrey carved the pumpkin all by herself this year.

Crazy Phone Call

As I'm sitting here in my church office this morning, I just received a call from the Association of Chief's of Police requesting a contribution.

"Gary" asked to speak with the person who is in charge of making charitable contributions. I informed him that we, as a church, do not make those types of donations, but would be happy to receive them from his organization.

"Gary" made the comment that he thinks that we probably already have too much money, but that is "another thing".

I immediately asked to speak to his supervisor. He said his supervisor was in a meeting. I asked to speak to his supervisor's supervisor. He said that's who he's meeting with.

I told him that I didn't care that they were in a meeting, I wanted to speak to the supervisor immediately. (I am surprised he didn't just hang up on me.)

The supervisor came on the line and told and asked how he could help me. I explained the situation and told him that the comment was inappropriate and and was unappreciated and was offensive. He went on to tell me that they were in a collection campaign for something or other. I interrupted and told him that I didn't care WHAT they were doing that the comment and call was inappropriate. He finally agreed. He said that they weren't supposed to call churches anyway. He said he would take our number off the list and speak with Gary. I asked him to take our home phone number off the list, as they had called us many times at home.

My goodness! What is this world coming to?

Drastic Measures

My friend, Steve, has taken drastic measures to control his son. He had a "special purpose" room built to contain the rambunctiousness of a nine month old. Here, the child is pictured imprisoned in this special room.

Click here to read the whole story.


Love ya, Bro! :-)

2008 Voter Guide

Click for larger image

[HT: Eternity Matters]

A little fun from the next president

Here is John McCain on SNL . Good stuff.

Something isn't right

My family went to the local Chinese buffet for lunch after church today. It is right across the street from our Wal-Mart.

Something I don't understand is why the gasoline was back up to $1.97!?!

I think there is a conspiracy in our town about gas price fixing anyway. I think this may prove it.

Time Change

Well, It appears that I have a little time this morning to do some miscelaneous blogging.

I forgot to set my clock "back" one hour.

The worse thing is, I even got up earlier than normal. Egads!

$1.95 gas

Yep, gas in Wagoner is now $1.95.

As my friend Jacob said, "Come on $1.50!"

Oklahoma 62 - Nebraska 28

I didn't get a chance to watch any football yesterday. Looks like I missed a big day.

Now, it looks like the Cowboys and the Raiders are the teams to beat!

Boomer Sooner!