Chismville

We will be hosting our 4th annual Reindeer Antler Party at our home on December 15th. Those of you who know us in San Diego: please come!

Why do I call it a Reindeer Antler Party anyways?  It sounds like such a silly name, doesn’t it? Well four years ago, before I was married or engaged, I had my best friend staying at my place for a month: Patrick Crais. We were both bachelors who hated all the negative comments about bachelor-life (i.e. “Bachelors don’t know how to throw a good family party, host a party, cook, have a clean home, bake, etc. They are just good at making TV dinners, macaroni & top romen!”) So Patrick came back one evening with a few sets of cheap reindeer antlers and said, “Let’s have a party!” So, we took the challenge, invited a bunch of people, made coffee, sang Christmas Carols to my neighbors, made coffee, talked, made coffee and oh…did I say we made coffee? I must love that stuff!

Well, our title party name is not very exciting, but we sure have had a lot of friends trying to break down our door to attend. Oh yeah…the best part is now: I have an amazing wife to help make our Antler Party even more successful and popular. Our first year, we probably had 30 people. With the help of Joli last year, we had about 50!

So…if you are in the area: swing by for lots of fellowship, sweets and what else? Ha you guessed it! COFFEE Drinks!

I have to explain something about my title above before sharing what this is all about. There are lots of investments that have been awesome: my family, faith, work, etc. So, when I share this little story, this is simple fun stuff! In other words, it was the only thing that came to mind when I thought of what I would write about.

Four years ago, I had not been reintroduced to Joli yet (not till January). Anyways, in the fall of 2003, I went to Supercuts (as usual) to get my monthly haircut. I was one of those single suckers who did not have a care in this world, so I was easy prey for the stylist to sell me expensive hair products every few months. Sometimes I was able to pat myself on the back and strongly resist the monthly temptation of buying another cool labeled hair gel!  On this day however, I was sold on buying a combo pack of some VERY expensive shampoo and conditioner. The conditioner bottle was around $35!

To make a long story short, I made sure I used the products sparingly and make every drop count! After Joli and I got married, she began cutting my hair: saving me hundreds annual on products and haircuts!

This past week marks then end of my one bottle of the expensive conditioner I bought for men too. It took me 4 years for two reasons: 1) It was expensive, 2) men don’t use conditioner often too!

So…I thought that taking 4 years to use one bottle of a hair product was one of the best investments I ever made. It was sad to drop it into the trash can this week. It has become somewhat of an antique piece in my shower!

Not sure why I am writing about it…just felt like it I guess!

Just wanted to take a moment and say “Happy Thanksgiving” to all of our dear friends, fellow Grace Church folks and extended family around the country. We are thankful for all of you! God is so good!

We are truly thankful and truly miss today Joli’s family back east. We sure wish that one day we can spend a Thanksgiving Day with them! We love you Mom East, Pops, Jen, Kendra, Heidi, Eden, Emily, Kirstie, Seth, Joe and Katrina! Can’t wait to see you all in less that 4 weeks! (Jesse & Daniel Wold too: love you man!)

Today we will be headed over to my parent’s home in the central part of San Diego (west from us). We typically have thanksgiving at my great aunt’s home who is around 90 or 92. She fell and hurt her elbow so was not able to cook this year! Can you believe it? She still is a trooper!

On the home front, Joli is now getting close to the three month pregnant date! We are looking forward to baby #3! She is still quite sick these days, so it has been very hard for her to manage the kids while I’m at work and continue her studies. I don’t know how she does it. We did not know she would be pregnant this fall, so she was already signed up for two intense fall 8-week courses. She is almost done (2 more weeks) though! Yippee! I’m almost done with my accounting course too, so we’ll be able to enjoy each other and relax more in the evenings.

Our home is currently on the market! It looks like the listing will be for $295-330,000 range. So far: only 3 families have looked at it. We plan to rent a larger home for the next few months or even a couple of years until the market in San Diego settles down. Right now, it is getting worse everyday! People were buying $800,000-1,000,000 homes for the last couple of years, lots of fancy cars and expensive furniture all on credit. So now, our market has begun to slide downhill: getting faster each week! If we can’t sell, we’ll stay put…but I think I want to get out, hold onto some cash and wait for a home a little bigger than ours to be more affordable when things come to a halt. It is a challenge to trust the Lord, but this is what He calls us to do: wait on the Lord and be of good courage, as the Psalmist reminds us in Ps. 27!

Well, thanks for reading. Enjoy this amazing day God has given us. Oh, and if you have a moment, please read George Washington’s First Thanksgiving Proclamation: View Now (very powerful)

The day before Thanksgiving, Verizon Wireless will begin selling their latest and greatest new phone: the LG’s Voyager. Being the techy that I am, I have done a lot of research on this phone to see just how great this new “invention” is compared to the popular iPhone that came out last July.

It is a very neat little phone for non business people. If you are on the road a lot and do a fair amount of emailing and text messaging, this is not the phone for you.

In short, I am very surprised Verizon and LG put so much time and energy into this phone when it is NOT as good as the iPhone. Apple is such a smart company and hard to compete with, in my opinion. Plus, Verizon is not marketing the phone very well. How many months ahead did we know about the new iPhone? Atleast 6 months in advanced. I spoke with a business prospect right after the iPhone was released, and she said her son bought three: 1 for him, his wife and his BABY girl! He even waited in line to get one! Verizon is a good strong company, but they just do not have the creativity that some of the other companies have: like AT&T. I am so impressed with the way AT&T did their marketing campaign in San Diego. Of course, they spent over a Billion dollars to announce the “New AT&T.” However, everything they do: their phones, their billboards, their commercials seems to be a cut above Verizon. Verizon seems to be the giant chanting the same old thing, “Yeah the iPhone is cool, but we STILL have the best network! Beat that!” Well, I think Verizon Wireless has got to be a little worried if they don’t step up their creativity, marketing efforts and their overall message to compete with AT&T. If Verizon has the best network, why are their still millions and millions of AT&T customers? Because they have cooler looking phones and features, which causes an emotional buy!

So, I thought about buying the voyager as a Verizon customer, but I will stick with my Palm Treo for now. That is another thing about Verizon: their Treo! They have sold a very similiar design for at least 3 years now! For those who love a new and different look, they will be getting real bored of the same ol’ Palm Treo.

As some of you know, I returned last week from a couple day Men’s Conference with my church: Sovereign Grace Ministries. The messages were simply amazing! The conference focused on some of the following theological topics: justification, Biblical repentance, sanctification and true Godliness.

One quick example would be a Christian must pursue Godly Christian living (holiness) yet first with the proper view and understanding of his standing before God: a saved sinner saved by God’s amazing grace. Our justification by Christ should cause us to want to grow and Know our Savior more without the guilt and legalistic feelings.

The messages have been made available by the church who hosted the conference in Phoenix. Please take the time to at least listen to the message by Rick Gamache on the person of Jesus and Justification.

View Church’s Conference Complete MP3 List

Sermon on Justification
Jesus Christ: The Perfect Man
by Rick Gamache

I came home from work early yesterday afternoon to find that Joel and Chalice were extremely tired! Joel would NOT take a nap and Chalice was woken up by Joel’s crying. So, when I got home, I calmed Joel down a bit and took Chalice back into her room. It was so funny when I first picked her up. In the past, I have not been a very good daddy when Chalice cried. I did not like hearing the screaming, so I would pick her up and put her in her crib to cry away! This is not a good parenting technique, and Joli has, in her perfect way, reminded me that I should not provoke my children to wrath! :O) So, Chalice was crying at the feet of Joli, who was studying, and I came in and picked her up. Chalice knew exactly what I was going to do and quickly clinged to Mommy! It was too funny! She bent over backwards when I swooped her up in my arms and headed for her room. This time, I laid down on the large green beanbag with her still in my arms. The second she realized I was not putting her in her crib to howl away, she started to settle down!

Here is the best part, I was able to calm my little girl down until she fell into a deep sleep on my chest! I cannot remember a time when she ever fell asleep on my chest! It was one of the coolest moments with Chalice! It has taken me awhile to get use to having a little girl around the home. She is so sweet and innocent even when crying! Me? well, I am a pretty selfish father who enjoys peace and quiet! So the Lord is teaching me to love my children unconditionally as HE loves us. He does NOT love us because of our performance, nor should we love our children more if they behave! I am learning more about how I am to be a loving and caring father, and what awesome examples us fathers have for us in the Scriptures.

Ok…so the sweet and calm daddy/girl time I had with Chalice lasted about 30 minutes. I then heard a VERY loud crash in Joel’s room, and I knew I had to check on him. When I moved Chalice into her crib, she woke up and did not sleep again. By the way, Joel was fine! Oh well…fun while it lasted!

I just got home from an awesome several day men’s conference with the west coast churches of Sovereign Grace Ministries! It was held at our sister church in Gilbert, AZ: Sovereign Grace. It was a sold out event with 800 men and teenage boys (14-18 years old). We had around 70 of our men drive to the event as well!

I can’t begin to explain how wonderful this conference was for me personally. I know that all the men I spoke with thoroughly enjoyed it too! For me, I pray that it will be life changing over time. I say over time because C.J. Mahaney exhorted us at the last session to not expect to go back and change completely right away. In other words, don’t go home and try to apply everything we heard! He said start with one application!

In the coming days, I will write more of my thoughts on the conference and what we all learned. For now, I will close with my personal application of the “one” takeaway. By God’s grace, I hope to create a more guarded time in God’s Word each morning. What I mean by that is that I hope to set aside a special time to meditate on God’s Word with little or NO distraction! This will involve some sacrifice and discipline, but I believe it is an area God has been working on in my heart for quite some time. I am easily distracted with the days events, family, etc. Lord willing, as I seek the Lord in His Word, He will begin to help me in other areas of sanctification!

In short, I am glad to be home. Now we all go back to normal life, but for the Christian man, we must be encouraged that we can leave the conference resting in the hope of the Gospel! I have a lot to learn but my faith is secure and the Spirit of God is working!

I have been trying to find a way to take short videos of family events and posting them on our website. There are a number of ways to do it, but there are a lot of limitations too! I spoke with my business web designer, and he suggested uploading my videos to a site called GodTube!

So, my mom recently took Joel on a little outing where he got to ride on a pony. I took her 1 minute video clip and posted it here for you all to see: View Clip

Also, Joli showed me the website the Beaty family is building in memory of Randy Beaty. Currently there are 3 songs that Randy wrote just using an iPod microphone and guitar. He did an amazing job. I am wondering how God will use Randy’s music now that He called him home! To visit the website and listen to his songs: Click Here

Today, Pastor Mark preached on Psalm 107. He did an excellent job giving us all a brief overview on the entire passage. It is a very long chapter and could take a week of Sundays to preach through it.

Verse one pretty much sums up the meaning of the entire chapter:

“Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!” Psalm 107:1.

The book of Psalms are 150 of written poetry that express a heart of worship to God. They are filled with thanksgiving to a  good and holy God. In Psalm 107, the psalmist gives us 4 examples of rebellion by the people of God: they were wondering in the wilderness and complained, were afflicted for their sins, some sat in darkness and died and others went down into the sea and perished. Whatever their distress or persecution, they called out to God to save them from their troubles when things got really bad! Each time they called out, God rescued them.

So, the main message for all of us is that God saves sinners not on the basis of any merit or goodness in them. Psalm 107 were examples of our human depravity and an inability to be saved apart from Jehovah.  God could have looked at his people and said, “No! You need to suffer a little longer and then I’ll think about saving you.” or “You don’t deserve mercy from me you disobedient people!” No! God did not do that. Each time his rebellious children sinned and then cried for help, God saved them:

“Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress” (Ps. 107:28).

The psalm reminds us that God is the one who is sovereign over all things, and it is because of His governing over all things that distress, persecution, sadness happen. However, because of his steadfast love, he is slow to anger and abounding in love to save those who cry out for help! So what are we to do as Christians?

Verses 31-32 say it best:

“Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man! Let them extol him in the congregation of the people, and praise him in the assembly of the elders.”

Wherever we go, whatever we do, let us be reminded of the goodness of God and tell someone about it! You never know how God might use us to bring a lost sinner home.