Luke’s Notebook

The past few weeks, I’ve been praying a lot, and it really seems like God has been emphasizing a couple of things in my life. One thing that has been coming to mind if the ability to simplify. I’ve been realizing more and more that there is just a tremendous value of having simplicity in life, being able to find joy in little, every-day things, to not require much, to not put a high price tag on your happiness.

See, when we really think about it, I think it’s so easy to find such a huge number of blessings that we have, even in the most humble of circumstances. What kind of gets me in trouble is if I let myself think that I need certain things to function well. For instance, I could be tempted to think that I need the Internet, or that I simply must be able to watch TV, or I need a certain amount of friends, a certain amount of recreational time, and so forth.

The truth is, all I need is to have Jesus in my life. He should be my source of joy and peace, and it would be a big mistake for me to try to draw happiness from anything else. And I guess what I’ve been learning lately is I really don’t need very much.

This is kind of ironic timing, because we’ve been kicked off the Internet pretty well all day today due to freezing rain that has stuck to our antenna on top of our house, thus killing our connection to the Internet. So I guess it has kind of been a wake-up call, realizing just how different things have been without being able to check my e-mail, check up on FamTeam, read the news, write in my blog — so many different things — throughout the day. No question that I rely on the Internet for a lot of things! Work, social, ministry, information, music — there’s so many different reasons to be online!

Well, while that’s all well and good, I think God is wanting to be extra careful that I have a healthy approach to the computer. Almost anyone who knows me knows how much of a passion I have for computers, the Internet, web design, this here blog, et cetera. And while a lot of that, I think, is good and even God-given, I do have to be careful to not let it control me, to not be a slave to it. After all, too much of a good thing can actually be a bad thing.

And one thing that I’ve kind of realize – almost to my surprise, really – is that I can function without the Internet. If my computer blew up, I would still live. If my friends or acquaintances all decided to take a trip to the moon, I would still be in good shape. If FamTeam suddenly went kaput, life would still go on. I’ll be honest to say I don’t want any of these things to happen, obviously, but I need to be ready and willing to die to them, to not tighten my grip and say, “No, God, I will not give this up!

Tonight, as Paul and I were heading home from the YMCA, we stopped by a gas station in Belleville. As we were gassing up, I decided to run in and get a soda. I was walking across the lot and approaching the doors when I overheard a lady, who must have been in her late 20s or early 30s, talking on the pay phone outside the gas station.

She was talking very loudly, and it was obvious that she was very distraught. She didn’t seem angry, really, but was just extremely upset. From what I caught of her conversation, she must have been talking to her ex-husband or ex-boyfriend, because she was exclaiming that she had taken time off of school to see her child, and she was apparently in disbelief that things wouldn’t work out, or that the ex wasn’t being cooperative — something along those lines.

What struck me right away was she did not seem mad, but just very rattled as to what was going on. For some reason, my heart just broke for her. I only caught pieces of a few sentences, but it was obvious that she was in trouble. It almost seemed like she was crushed.

Without even thinking, I just immediately started praying in tongues for her as I was going inside the store. By the time I came out, she was gone, but the whole ordeal — maybe lasting 15 seconds — left a huge impact for me. I just felt so sorry for this lady, as it seemed like her world was just falling apart. Even throughout the evening for the past several hours, she has been on my mind and I’ve been praying for her.

I don’t know why it stuck with me so much. I don’t know what her circumstances are, but she just seemed completely broken, and I so much was hoping I would be able to do something to help. I don’t know what I could have done, so I’ve just been lifting her up to God.

This tiny little incident has just been another wake-up call to how unceasingly thankful I should be. How about I’m thankful for the fact that there is peace in my family, and not turmoil like so many others unfortunately experience? That is just one of so many things that I need to be constantly thankful for. I’m sure this lady would have been thrilled to have some peace.

It’s so heartbreaking to hear of situations where there are disputes, especially within a family. It makes me all the more determined to do whatever I can to strengthen my relationship with family members here and now and then eventually in marriage, hopefully, to do the same, to have unity and togetherness, where peace can reign and extinguish sparks of argument or dispute.

I haven’t had a whole lot of regular or casual entries lately. That’s definitely not a bad thing, because it feels like God has just been putting so many things on my heart lately that I’ve wanted to hurry write out while I remember. So I’m certainly not complaining, but I’ve also realized how the scope of my entries has been quite a bit different the last little while.

Paul, Mark, and I went to the YMCA this morning. We had another really, really thorough workout, especially with the chest and shoulder muscle groups. One way I knew it was a good workout is I could barely do three push-ups afterwards, and then I promptly collapsed on the floor. I also ran a half-hour on the treadmill at the end of the visit, which was real good for the cardio side of things.

Anyway, today was another gorgeous day in this area. Temperatures were somewhere around 70 degrees, and the family took advantage of it by going out to the woods to take our annual family photo.

So after a lot of positioning, clearing of leaves, and the like, we started snapping photos. After about 25 pictures, we had to call it quits and hope that we had gotten a keeper in that batch.

Turns out the photo turned out very well! Mark has been editing a few of them, and we have a finalist — which looks really great! We plan to get Christmas cards printed up over the next few days, and we’ll send those out to family and friends all over, as we do every time around the holidays. We’ll probably also put it up as Photo Of The Day in the near future.

Another neat thing was Wizzy and Caleb spotted a bald eagle on the bank of our bond! It was actually picking up a dead catfish out of the pond, and then it was perched near the shore. Mark, Jude, and I went out to try to get some photos and video footage of it, but it flew away into the woods before we could get too close. Mark did snap a few photos, and they’re actually going to be up as tomorrow’s (Tuesday’s) Photo Of The Day. It was really neat to be visited by a bald eagle!!

One last thing. A few entries ago, I mentioned the changes I made to the Photo Of The Day setup, specifically with regards to archiving. I did essentially the same process with Dad’s Diary, and now all of the archives are in the database, which makes them very easy to access.

It’s a big relief to have both of these sections converted to use the database, because that gives us a whole lot of flexibility. I’m glad to have that done!

Well, thank You, God, for another gorgeous day. God is so good.

You know, one trap I find myself falling into from time to time is comparing myself to the world. Whether it’s my standards, feeling too conservative — whatever the issue may be — I realize just how dangerous it can be to use society as a benchmark instead of comparing things to God’s standard.

What I mean is it’s easy to look at my approach to life, juxtapose it with today’s culture, and figure that I’m doing pretty good as it is, that maybe I’m already too conservative or too idealistic — or if nothing else, I certainly wouldn’t want to get any more extreme. I mean, after all, look how different I am from the world!

The big problem with this is the world’s standards are constantly changing, usually decaying, so I know I can’t base my standards on the world’s. If I did that, I could get duped into thinking that I’m already “pretty good” compared to most of the world. Instead of striving to reach the standards God has set for me, I would just be happy to be a cut above the norm.

So I guess what I’m learning more and more is that I absolutely should not look at society’s standards and acceptable practices when I hammer out how I’m going to approach any given situation.

A reason why this is dangerous can possibly be explained using this analogy. If I was 50 pounds overweight but everybody around me was 100 pounds overweight, I’m going to feel pretty thin. If I don’t have some objective standard to compare myself to, then I don’t know what to reach for, and therefore, I’m just going to be pretty happy with being better than the world, even if it’s only being 90 pounds overweight.

So basically, I know that it’s not smart of me to base any of my decisions on, “Well, let’s see, the norm is to do it this way, and if I want to be a tad more conservative, perhaps I should…” I think that’s flawed from the get-go, because that’s not an objective standard.

The only true objective standard is God’s, and that is exactly what we should be shooting for in every single area of our life. We should never be content with being “good” compared to the American public. God doesn’t tell us to behave 30% better than your average Joe; rather, He tells us to be completely obedient to Him. If we do that, we can let the chips fall where they may. Perhaps in one area you’ll be exactly where the culture is morally. In another area, you might be 200 pounds lighter, so to speak.

To kind of summarize, I know my focus should always be on doing exactly what God wants me to do, no matter what the consequences are. If that means looking like a real weirdo to most people, so be it. If it means fitting in, so be it. I really shouldn’t care about that. All I should care about is being 100% surrendered to Him. If that means I have to die to certain parts of myself, then that’s what I should do. If God is calling me to let go of certain parts of my life — even if they’re not inherently sinful — then that’s what I should do.

The bottom line is I know that I shouldn’t compare myself to my family, to my friends, to celebrities, to anyone at all but the objective standard that God has set for everyone.

What a shame it would be if I would get complacent because, in my eyes, I’m already a decent Christian. God never called us to be decent Christians. He wants our all. And the thing about that is we know when we’re giving Him our all. We know when we’re trying to hold back on something, even if it doesn’t seem like a big deal.

I love God! I’m such a sinner, such a wreck, so desperately in need of mercy. Thank You, God, for sending Jesus to wash away my sins! How hopeless I would be without the blood to purify me. What I wrote here is what I honestly want to do. But though I try, I fall short over and over and over again. Thank You, God, for forgiving me!!

Jeremiah 33:34

For I will forgive their wickedness

and will remember their sins no more.”

God is so good. There is so much to be thankful for.

Yesterday, Paul and I managed to have a very thorough workout at the YMCA, and it was the perfect way to answer the Thanksgiving Day feasting. It was probably one of the hardest times to make myself get up and get ready for the Y, go there, and actually work out, but I’m very glad I did it! At the end of a long weight-lifting session, I ran on the treadmill for a half-hour for a real good cardio workoout.

Also, last night we had the “FamTeam Live” webcast (which is normally held on Saturday evenings), and I think it was one of my favorites. We had such a great discussion about choosing to being thankful and joyful day-in and day-out. I know I got a lot out of it.

We’re actually going to be re-airing the webcast this evening at 9:00 PM CST, so if you would like to catch it, feel free to do so! All you have to do is go to the FamTeam Message Boards, then go to the “Live Webcasts” section. You’ll see a thread started by me with a link to tune in. Click on that later this evening, and you’ll be good to go! This webcast ran roughly 90 minutes, so from 9:00 to 10:30 PM is when you’ll be able to listen.

It is another gorgeous day outside, and that’s just a drop in the bucket of things to be thankful for!

I’m not exactly sure how many calories I consumed today, but I think it’s a bad sign when, subconsciously, I want to stay as far away from the scale as possible. Something in me knows that that wouldn’t be a pleasant experience. I feel like the scale is calling out my name and is laughing at me. Oops. :-[ Guess I might want to keep going to the Y, huh?

Seriously, Thanksgiving was terrific. Even though the holiday Thanksgiving is about to be over, there is absolutely nothing stopping me from taking this gracious and joyful attitude into tomorrow, the next day, and so on.

I really should make every day Thanksgiving!

… minus, you know, the pies and stuff. :-[ That could get me in trouble in a hurry. But in a all seriousness, why not choose to live with the same joy and grateful heart on other days? If I really am thankful, I ought to show it. And if I’m not, then just I need an attitude adjustment because I really should be extremely thankful.

First off, happy Thanksgiving to everybody!

Psalm 100:4-5

“Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.”

Colossians 3:15

And be thankful.

Let’s use this day as a springboard to be thankful just each and every day. We are so incredibly blessed, and we have such a tremendous amount to be thankful for.

By the way, earlier today I went to the YMCA for my fifth visit in two weeks. That’s good, especially since Mom and the chubs baked some 12 or 16 pies earlier today. I… have a feeling there won’t be many left over after tomorrow. :-[

It looks to be a gorgeous day, though — 62 degrees and sunny in late November! Wow! It should be a beautiful day out here in Illinois. Hope the weather is nice where you are!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday. Be safe and, above all, be thankful!

This has just been a really neat time, as God seems to be really stressing the basics in my life and, it seems, in the lives of many others’! It’s like there are these fundamental things that are so vital to walking with God, and yet it can be easy to forget about them and find ourselves drifting away from the closeness we have with Him.

I’ve been talking recently about integrity and how I’m learning more and more that it is something that should be applied to every single situation in life; that there never is a situation where it’s acceptable to bend the truth, tell a lie, or be deceitful.

On Sunday morning, I posted that section from 1 Peter 3. Funny enough, an hour later, we were talking about those very verses during our church service, specifically “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” Kind of interesting that I had just read that exact verse earlier in the morning, and then Dad brought it up during our discussion!

Anyway, kind of staying with the theme of simplicity and focusing on the basics, I happened to read 1 John 2 this evening…

3We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. 4The man who says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love[b> is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: 6Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.

9Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. 10Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him[c> to make him stumble. 11But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.

5Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

It’s remarkably simple, and it dismisses so many potential sticking points for debates over doctrine or whether or not somebody is a “good enough Christian.” If we keep God’s commands, if we live like Jesus did, we really do know Him. We can declare whatever we want, but if our heart isn’t to be like Jesus, then we are in real trouble.

We have such a high standard set for us — to walk as Jesus did. God knows our hearts, though. I might be able to perform the “Christian act” pretty well so as to convince people, but if my heart isn’t right there striving to obey Him, if I’m harboring resentment towards someone, if I’m trying to be of the world, then I’m guilty of it all.

I guess what I’m basically learning throughout this all is there is no holding onto any hint of sin. God hates sin, and if we are knowingly holding onto anything — even if it’s a seemingly small or insignificant sin — then we are guilty of everything.

We are never going to be perfect, and it would be impossible to live without sin. But, God is the only one who can judge our hearts. When I sin, He knows if it’s a slip-up on my part or if I’m willfully diving into it. There is a massive difference. Christians will never be perfect, but we have got to be trying for it. You can’t accept a certain amount of sins “because we’re all human.”

God calls us to perfection, so we need to strive for that. And if we are striving for that, God knows that, and His incredible grace will bridge the gap.

I’ve been doing a lot of work on FamTeam lately, and today I managed to accomplish quite a daunting task. Our old Photo Of The Day system was kind of cumbersome and outdated. Back when we came up with the system, it was definitely the easiest and most practical way for us to have a POTD, but in the years that have passed it’s kind of been left behind a little bit.

Anyway, I managed to essentially make the Photo Of The Day database-driven, which means the file names, dates, and captions are stored in the FamTeam database, and now it’s a piece of cake to snatch a caption from any given date.

The reason this was kind of difficult was that we had each day’s photo saved in a separate HTML file. For instance, today’s photo would end up being archived as 11-21-06.htm. Since we have over 1,700 archived photos, it would be such a chore to have to manually open up each file, find the caption, copy and paste it into the corresponding row in the database.

Long story short, through plenty of trial, error, and Googling, I managed to basically extract the captions from the HTML files, and now they are there in the database and they show up for anyone browsing through the archives.

The captions go back to early 2003, and the photos themselves go back to August 19, 2001. Over five years’ worth of photos! That’s pretty impressive. It’s kind of neat to go back and see what was going on a year ago today. In fact, I think I’ll do just that.

Ah, here we go! A good one. A behind-the-scenes snapshot as the family gathered to take this year’s Christmas photo. That was a year ago already? Wow! I guess we’ll have to be taking a new one soon.

Anyway, I’m pretty thrilled to have this task finished with, because I didn’t really know how possible it was to get those captions without a tremendous amount of work. Thankfully, PHP is flexible enough to allow you to extract data like that. The programmers deserve a pie.

For the first time in quite a while, I feel really sleepy. And that’s a good thing, I think, because I have been having a very hard time falling asleep ever since we got back from our trip. So maybe this will be the start of something grand. Anyway, I want to make an entry real quick because it’s been a really interesting day.

Around noon, a bunch of us drove over to the Columbia YMCA for an afternoon workout. Paul, Mark, Jude, and I spent a lot of time using different free weights, doing bench presses and all sorts of other chest and shoulder exercises. We must have had a good 90-minute workout, and Paul and I stayed an extra 20 minutes to get in some cardio work on the elliptical machines.

This evening, the same four of us went over to Howell Symphony Hall in St. Louis, where the St. Louis Cardinals were having a red-carpet premier of a new film covering the 2006 playoffs and World Series. Paul and I went as members of the media, and we were hanging out on the red carpet for a long time before the screening began.

There weren’t a whole lot of players or well-known personalities on the red carpet, but we saw Cardinals president Mark Lamping, chairman Bill DeWitt, Jr., the mascot Fredbird, and also relief pitcher Josh Hancock. The highlight for me was when they had two ladies walking the 2006 World Series trophy down the red carpet. I think I ended up with some really good footage of that.

We went inside the symphony hall and watched the film, which was about an hour-and-a-half long. It detailed the Cardinals’ and the Tigers’ playoff runs through the Division Series and then the Championship Series, and it focused in great detail on the World Series.

I’m glad we made the trip over to St. Louis. It was pretty interesting! Definitely a unique experience.