HARMLESS THOUGHTS

I suppose that when most people start to think about what they have learned in the last year of their life, it happens in January. But as a teacher, I start to think about it in May. I am working on a top ten list of what I have learned in the last year of my life. You can read the first one here . Here is #2 - I love being a teacher. I mean it, I really do! Now, there are plenty of things that go along with the job that I don't like. For example, the paperwork, the endless responsibilities, the low pay, etc. But I love it! This year has been the best year when it comes to getting to minister to students. I have had countless opportunities, and God has given me the Grace to handle them all. There is nothing more wonderful on this earth than doing exactly what God would have you to do. Nothing compares.

Towing the van home........$43 Fuel pump & other parts....$86 Fixing the melted pieces ...$52 Saving about $500 by doing it myself...............$500 Being 31 years old and crawling under the van again with my dad ...........priceless All around, it has been an expensive week for me. But as I have said before, God is good . And even in this He is good. I honestly don't know how people can survive without Him. p.s. Thanks again dad, for all of the help that you have given me. Not only coming over and helping with the van, but also showing me how to be the kind of man that would even attempt to fix his own car! I can't ever thank you enough.

"Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; let thy glory be above all the earth." (Psalm 57:5) Have we forgotten the creator? The creator of the heavens and the earth... and the creator of us! Like Jeremiah the prophet, God could say to us, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you..." ( Jeremiah 1:5 ) He is planning out and orchestrating our lives to conform us to the image of His son. ( Romans 8:28-29 ) He knows the best way for us to be us ! He is the creator, we are the creatures. We can't forget that. In order for us to live the most peaceable, enjoyable experience that we can live, we have got to get that right. It is true that order in nature depends upon right relationships; to achieve harmony each thing must be in its proper position relative to each other thing. In human life it is not other wise. The right relationship with our creator would be to have Him as our Lord. Many of us would ...

My van broke down. Just at the worst possible time. Just when I am at my busiest. Just when we are getting ready to move. Just when we need the extra money. Just when we need everything to be working right. Just when a broken-down-van could be the straw that broke the camel's back. My van broke down. It was a gripe. It was a complaint. It definitely didn't fit into my schedule! But there it was, nothing to do about it except get to work on it. My dad came over the next day and we dug in. After some fiddling and tinkering with a couple of other things, we began to accept the fact that it was the fuel pump. Now, I don't want to go into any great detail on the mechanics of fuel pumps, but this time I think it is important. The fuel pump on a Chevy Astro, like the one that we have, is inside of the fuel tank. (Now I don't know the genius that decided to put the fuel pump in the tank, but one day I would like to give him a big pat on the back, and...

A couple of weeks ago my good friend, Jonathan Lambeth, asked my to prepare a testimony for Chapel. The testimony was supposed to be about what God has taught me this last year. At first, I was like, "no problem! This ought to be easy. I have learned a lot this year." The problem was that God really had been teaching me a lot this year. So much so that it seemed that it was going to be difficult to pick one thing out. So, I decided to do a top ten things that Mr. Harmless has learned this year type of scenario. I would like to share all of those things with all of you via -- da blog. Only, I am not going to do a count-down. I also threw away the original paper that I had the ten things written on, so these may not be the exact same ten things. Anyway, here is #1 -- God is good . I could type about this one all day. I am not going to, but I could easily talk about this one. It doesn't matter what happens to us in this life, we can never say that ...

About two seconds before this picture was taken, my son was just "stretching" his arms...

Flight 207 was cancelled. The cancellation of flight 207 will make me a single parent for a day. Only one day. It doesn't sound like much, but when I started thinking about all of the things that I needed to get done in order to get my boys to their proper destination, I started to freak out! We're talking diapers, extra clothes, blankets (or "bunnas"), pack-n-play's, shoes, coordinations with the baby-sitter, breakfast, phone calls, drinks, more extra clothes, instructions, and all of the things that I am going to forget... It is mind boggling. All of you mommies out there: I salute you! ... and please, please don't let the next flight get cancelled!

The flames whipped across the wide open field. Dancing and turning, waltzing away. Through valley, over hill. The tempo ever faster. Headed my way. Burning, Consuming shaft after shaft of tall slender grass. Those with feet ran. Those with wings flew. But I stood my ground, like him before me stood. Rooted and deep my toes clenched the earth; holding on to rock and dirt. "'cause that's who I am, and here's where I'll stand." ---------------------------- The flames flowed toward me like an incoming tide of heat and hatred and pain without care. Burning, Consuming mile after mile leaving nothing behind, but death and darkness and gloom-filled despair. And with a shell so thick from years on this plane, buffeted by wind and sun and rain, I thought to myself, "bark it is still bark. Not stone or steel, and burn it will. But here I stay, regardless of what comes, I'll stand where I stand ...

My wife is awesome! The last few times she has left town she has gone out and bought me several meals worth of easy food to make. The last time she left, she left me with the boys. But we were doing good because of her provision . This time she not only left me with food, but she also left me with a menu. She listed out all of the food that she had bought as meals that I could make. Very thoughtful, but she neglected one item on the menu: The quesa-hamburger-dilla ! You see, she forgot that I love to experiment with whatever I come across in the fridge. I mean, if you have two foods that you like... why not put them together and make an even better food! Here is the recipe for my quesa-hamburger-dilla . Ingredients: flour tortillas shredded cheese (any kind) butter hamburger patty (already grilled on the grill) salsa Directions: Get the skillet nice and hot. Drop some butter into the skillet and let it melt. Put the first tortilla in the skillet. C...

Here is a poem written by F.W. Pitt. Phil Keaggy put this poem to music several years ago, and that is where I first heard it. It has always been one of my favorite poems, and I thought that I would like to share it with you. Maker of the Universe As Man, for man was made a curse. The claims of Law which He had made, Unto the uttermost He paid. His holy fingers made the bough, Which grew the thorns that crowned His brow; The nails that pierced His hand were mined, In secret places He designed. He made the forest whence there sprung The tree on which His body hung; He died upon a cross of wood, Yet made the hill on which it stood. The sky that darkened o'er His head, By Him above the earth was spread. The sun that hid from Him its face, By His decree was poised in space. The spear which spilled His precious blood Was tempered in the fires of God. The grave in which His form was laid Was hewn in rocks His hands had made. The throne...

I almost put a post that said: So, how do you like my new design? I would love to hear your feedback. It is a combination of the old design and one of blogger 's new designs . Let me hear those comments! But then I thought about it. I just spent several hours working on this stupid thing. And frankly, I don't care if they like what I did! Am I having a bad attitude?

Well, Blogger has changed some things around. Some of the changes I really like. But it is going to have to mean changing my template. I am not too excited about that. I don't remember where I got the template that I have, but I like it, and I am not looking forward to going back and changing all of that stuff. Oh well...

Ok, Mr. Harmless doesn't know that I'm posting this because he is off in dreamyland and would hate it if he knew....but, I thought you all would like to hear what he said about you this past Friday night. We went to the Junior/Senior. It was our first time attending for various reasons and my heart grieves that it is our last. It was lovely...really. I didn't know what to expect because of the criticisms that I had heard from non-attending students (Paul...you big geek-you missed it). What I found was a really emotional evening with lots of students that I believe are great. Really great. I talk often of all that you guys have in our school while failing to mention what we have in you. Despite the questionable entertainment and the eating of the gold fish(es), I walked away grateful for being invited to such and event. On the way home we were re-living the night and Mr. Harmless began the whole "I hate that we are moving" conversation that happens on ...

Like all good teacher's lounges, there is a coffee maker. I am usually the first teacher here in the mornings. The only person that ever beats me here is the Highschool Principal, Scott Grass. But Mr. Grass doesn't drink coffee. So, when I get here, one of the first things that I do is get the coffee going! (I could talk alot about coffee, but I will save that post for another day.) I normally head straight up stairs, set my stuff down, grab my coffee mug, and head to the coffee-maker. While the coffee is brewing, I will usually unlock the rest of the doors, unless Mr. Grass has beat me to it, and then go back and wait for the sweet nectar of life to finish its perking. Now in the teacher's lounge there is also a sink. Above the sink there is a sign that reads: Teachers, please wash your dishes. "Let everything be done decently and in order..." That sign is right above the sink full of dirty coffee mugs . Now, I have to be honest, this ...

God is the creator. Do you believe that? I mean, do you really believe that? He made you. He formed you. He came up with the idea of you. Before he thought of you, you weren't. And I'm not just talking about your body; I am talking about the very person that you are! Your personality is a perfect design, by the perfect designer. There is nothing about you that He doesn't already know... not because he is observing you, but because you are his creation. Because of this, He knows how you can be the best you that you can be! But in order for this to happen, in order for us to fulfill our purpose for which we were created and to have the richest fullest life possible... we have to surrender. We have to stop doing things our way, and start doing things His way. C.S. Lewis puts it this way: The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become -- because he made us. He invented all the different people that you and I were intended to be.......

As you may have noticed, I am reading several books right now. I am not reading any of them particularly fast, but I am definitely plugging through them. (If you scroll down the right side of this blog, you can browse the books that I am currently reading.) One book that I thought would be a drudgery is The Pursuit of God, by A.W. Tozer. But I have found it is one of the most insightful books that I have read in a long time. Since it wasn't written in this decade, it is a little bit more difficult to read. Probably because he uses words with more than one syllable. Nevertheless, Tozer has succeeded in, once again, making a point that I would like to share with all of you. Right at the end of a chapter about the presence of God, he starts talking about this thing called receptivity. He begins by saying: Why do some persons "find" God in a way that others do not? Why does God manifest His presence to some and let multitudes of others struggle along in the...