So in honor of me, here are three great things that I love about who I am!

1) I am a extrovert, and I love it: I can talk with anyone, become your friend if you let me, and always be enthusiastic about other peoples lives!

2) I am a total geek! And its great. I embrace my desire to know more about technology and the way things work, and I still love comic books because they let my imagination run wild.

3) I am loyal: I will remains steadfast in what I commit to be whether it is as a husband for Karina, a friend for many of you, or even as an employee, as long as you keep me in that position I will do everything I can to maintain it and keep doing it even if a few bad days roll along.

If you have a blog, by all means, do yourself a favor and put something similar up. Remind yourself on why you love who you are, because most people are going to be ready to let you know the opposite side of things.

Cheers!

It isn’t interesting that we look up to those in our present day who seem to be getting it all right. Why wouldn’t and why shouldn’t we? They are doing well, they show us we can do better than we are currently achieving. It is not per-se inspirational… but it is something to try and achieve. It would almost be absurd not to applaud those who have done well, we should congratulate them and learn from what they are doing that seems to just work.

However, if I continued down that vein of thought it would be a steaming pile of platitudes that would more or less reaffirm how crappy I might be feeling and that would get tossed around like chimpanzees having a tantrum.

My mind drifts over to the failures who have pulled themselves out of their self-pitying muck-ridden mire and risen above the challenges that use to bog them down. Remember some guys who were given a chance by Jesus? A bunch of fishermen, who though they enjoyed their lives on the boats I am sure, probably realized they would never have the authority to challenge anyone on their beliefs or questions on their faith. They were sheep.

But then one day, one crazy bearded fellow, who has an undeniable authority that needs no declaration comes up, says, “Drop what you are doing and come with me.” And they do. They didn’t have to, but they did. They knew the jig was up and the world was about to be turned upside down. Kings would be toppled and peasants would assume the throne. They followed him throughout the one kingdom who should have embraced him with open arms, rallied behind him with proclamations of joy and faith, existing leadership and all. But instead that leadership, that kingdom, out of fear of losing their positions of success, insulted this man of divine authority. They tried to set him up for failure, they questioned his truth, they conspired to kill, and to set his people apart from him. And why? Because they were trapped in their personal success.

And when the time passed, and the divine authority died, rose again, and returned to his kingdom above, he passed his authority onto those who had been successes… Wrong… He passed it onto The Sheep who broke away from the rest of the herd. He gave them unbelievable authority over the very nature of the world, defying all natural precepts. And they too would pay for the authority given to them. But they would succeed in the end.

This is obviously an extremely truncated concept of Jesus, the Disciples, and the events of their ministry. But the major question we should be asking ourselves are… If Jesus came, would we recognize him for who he is? And if we did (because I believe many of the Pharisees did but did not want to lose their authority) would we lay down all of our trappings of success and allow ourselves to become his sheep. Would we let ourselves be seen as failures in order to rise above and be successes? Or would we stand in the way, and look to those who would promote our successes in order to stand in the way of HIM?

Well its been a heck of a week as Karina and I moved 85% of our material posessions up to my parents place in Oregon last Sunday, and then I traveled back to finish my last week of work to collect my severance pay and now we are back again in Oregon. 15% of our stuff is still with Karina’s folks in Redding, but we will deal with that when the time comes.

I want to apologize to my readers because I have pretty much not blogged in the past 6 months… I like blogging and I am going to make a concerted effort to do more of it in this next season of Karina and my life.

I am taking a week off of hunting down jobs after the move to Oregon, not because I am lazy and want to collect UI benefits, but because I have a wedding to officiate this weekend and I need a week just to figure out what I am going to say.

I have a few prayer requests for this new season

1. Please pray for Karina and I as we deal with what is probably Karina’s biggest permanent move she has ever made and is getting used to not having her folks so close, pray that we have patience with one another as no doubt stress will be a factor in the next several weeks.

2. Pray for Karina and I as we attempt to find jobs that allow us some financial peace and security.

3. Pray for Karina and I as we also attempt to find a church to call our home and as we get involved in various ministries, youth and missions at the top of the list, though no doubt my bass will get dusted off here soon.

4. Pray for Karina and she is being such a trooper and attending atleast 2 schools simultaneously for the next year trying to finish her degree and still walk from CSU Chico next may.

Thanks for being around for me everybody,

Zach

However, I cannot in good conscience also defend the behavior of the nation. We act a bit like a spoiled child when dealing with other nations who have been around a long time. Granted that does not make these nations always right in what they do but it should afford them a measure of respect.

But this is not a diatribe againt nations or for political agendas. It is a thought that should be shared. If our nation is still in such a young phase then now is the time when the people should be disciplining and educating the nation into the adult it shall become.

My hope is that we shall grow this nation to be like Jesus. When you look at his actions he was a man who stood upon his convictions, who took action when necessary, who helped those who could not help themselves and was a beacon of hope and grace even to those who could not stand him.

What will you do to raise this nation?

So to quote the infamous country artist Toby Keith…

“I wanna talk about me,  wanna talk about I,  wanna talk about number one, oh my-me-my, what I think, what I like, what I know, what I want, what I see.”

What to do? What you know is best for you. It is different for everybody in execution. For me? Getting back into my old testament research. For someone else? Their daily psalm, proverb, rereading the gospel, journaling, painting, sketching, singing, building, talking to God, praying.   I am sure the possibilities are as endless as the God we worship.

So lets garbage out stale spirituality and get ourselves something fresh and ready for consumption.

Read the Marvel news post here.

This could be the end of all comic book things I hold dear… I mean seriously? Disney? Escape to Witch Mountain? Duane Johnson? This could spell disaster for all that Marvel has worked hard to create in my humble opinion.  Your thoughts?

And yes Matt. If things get bad enough I might just renounce Marvel and head over to DC.