Website Change!!

GO TO WWW.SMOAKSIGNAL.COM FOR THE LATEST POSTS!

Our website has been radically changed and now I will be blogging on its homepage. I will keep this blog in place for the previous posts on it. I will continue to interact here with comments from the previous posts.

So, let smoaksignal.com be your place to go for updates and be sure to interact there.

The Uncommon Needs blog will continue and I hope to find new items to add there as well.

Thanks to all and I hope you enjoy the transition.

iGrace

This past Christmas, my seven-year-old son was surprised by his grandparents with an iPod Touch. It was amazing how quickly he figured out how to use it and where the “app store” was! It wasn’t long before we started downloading appropriate apps, games and music. It has been almost five months and this gift has not grown old. In fact, we have had to put time limits in place to prevent too much gaming. 

We have also tried to use this gadget as a tool for discipleship. We found there were many Bible apps available for it, but the other night, the concept of the iPod became a tool. 

What if God Designed __________________ to Make us Holy More than to Make us Happy?

I'm shamelessly borrowing a subtitle from Gary Thomas' book Sacred Marriage except I put a blank where the word "marriage" goes. Maybe there are some other things that can go in that blank. Gary makes a great point in this book that many Christians go into marriage with expectations which have been shaped more by our culture than by Scripture. When I share the subtitle of this book with folks and say, "What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?" their brows wrinkle in repulsion!

Osama bin Laden Deserves a Special Place in Hell...and so do I

The news of Osama bin Laden's death brought mixed emotions. In one way, it brought a feeling that something had finally come to an end, though terrorism is still a threat. In another way, the anger over what happened on 9/11 and price our military has paid in the subsequent wars found a bit of satisfaction. But as I watched the reaction in the media and online, I also got a bit uneasy.

Extra! Extra!

So, my hometown paper, the Aiken Standard, did a story on the book The Lord Struck the Child. It was great and surprising that it made the front page!! The full story can be read here! Thanks to Michael Gibbons for doing the article and hope folks will find the book, be blessed by reading it and bless others by purchasing it.

Part of Me

The year is flying by. I suddenly realized the other day that May is fast approaching. That means May 22 is coming. That was the day Macayla was born and that was the day Macayla went Home. Nine years. In some ways it feels like a dream that we have woken from but the residual of its emotions remain. Other times it is all too fresh and real. There are times, more often now than before, that the memories are sweet and bring a smile to our hearts. But May 22 is such a mixture of dread, pain, love and hope.

I dread that we will have to walk through that day. Less than a month away and it brings pain already. But there is such love that stirs there too. Love for our girl who smiled when we couldn't and laughed in the midst of a hard road. Love for our girl who drew us and others closer to Christ. Love for our girl and her dry wit, a love for her brother, a love for music, a love for dogs, horses and cats. But there is hope also. As of May 22, we will have made it a year. We will have traveled this trail of grief for a year and survived. Hope because our girl is no longer in pain, but quite to the contrary, she is whole and full. She is in the presence of our Lord and if we could see what she sees and fully know what she knows now, we would be throwing a party.

Part of me wants to skip May 22. Part of me wants to hide on May 22. Part of me wants to celebrate on May 22. Part of me rejoices and part of me aches.

The Whirlwind of...Everything

My son asked if I had ever thought of living in an early time of history, like the first century and if it would have been better. It made me think about how full of distractions our lives are. We live in a whirlwind of digital and graphic information constantly bombarding us with noise, words, and ideas. So, I thought, why not add a little post about overcoming this problem. My phone just rang and pulled me away from writing this. While in that conversation, I realized I had not eaten breakfast and so I pulled out a bowl and milk for some cereal. However, the conversation went longer than expected and I never actually poured the cereal in the bowl. After hanging up, I came back to the laptop to finish this post, realizing as I sifted through images to add to it that I left the milk sitting out on the counter and I had not eaten anything. I also have to hurry up and finish so I can run to the paint store and get the stain to finish the second coat on our deck. Looks like a few more tweets, emails and facebook responses just came in too.

Being Heavenly Minded Makes us the MOST earthly Good

Special Offer on a Special Story

Here is the latest offer to save money on the book The Lord Struck the Child! If you already have a copy, buy one (or 2, 3, 4, 5 or so) for someone you know. Remember, every dime made above printing cost goes to a different charity each quarter. None of the money goes to me. Right now, we are supporting Camp New Hope in North Carolina. We are about 1/3 of the way to supporting a family for a week at the camp.

Reading the book will bless you, buying the book will bless others.

Resume of Rubbish

It seems my American upbringing has tainted my idea of success. Our culture promotes a go-get-em attitude and positive pragmatism. If something works, it is valuable and if it doesn't work, well it should be abandoned. Unfortunately, our patience to see weather something works or not tends to be short. No doubt our can-do attitude has helped us accomplish much, but so often it tends to be the Achilles heal of my spiritual growth and ministry. When I don't see results quick enough, I wonder if I am using the right methods or if I'm on the right path.