Walking...

Matthew's new favorite way to locomote is starting off by standing, taking several haphazard steps, and then falling (diving?) into the waiting Mommy or Daddy's arms. Here are some cute pics of the action:

Someone asked, “As you think about moving to a completely new & different place, what are some of the worries (irrational ones would be more interesting :)) that pop into your thoughts and leave you with the funny feeling in the abdomen somewhere?”

Here are some things that came to our mind (Some are more rational than others:)

We are worried …

…how we will handle new foods (never drank yogurt before =).

… about being stuck in the house, not able to go anywhere with the kids (Becky).

…Mike won’t fit in with his co-workers (Becky).

… we’ll get there and we won’t have something that we could only get in the states, but didn’t think to bring (Becky).

…we will offend someone by saying the wrong thing.

…about not knowing how to budget for living in foreign country.

…about what will happen when we have different levels of concern about various trials that come up. It will be much more intense because it is just us.

…about falling into the toilet.

...the kids won’t remember who their relatives are.

…we’ll have more kids too quickly.

…we’re not doing the right thing.

…people won’t understand if we go over there and nothing happens.

…our family won’t grow spiritually (Mike).

Isn't it great we can "Cast our anxiety on Him because He cares for us."

Here's a poem I've appreciated. Enjoy...

The Incomprehensible

By Isaac Watts (1674–1748)

FAR in the Heavens my God retires:
My God, the mark of my desires,
And hides his lovely face;
When he descends within my view,
He charms my reason to pursue,
But leaves it tir’d and fainting in th’ unequal chase.
Or if I reach unusual height
Till near his presence brought,
There floods of glory check my flight,
Cramp the bold pinions of my wit,
And all untune my thought;
Plunged in a sea of light I roll,
Where wisdom, justice, mercy, shines;
Infinite rays in crossing lines
Beat thick confusion on my sight, and overwhelm my soul.…
Great God! behold my reason lies
Adoring: yet my love would rise
On pinions not her own:
Faith shall direct her humble flight,
Through all the trackless seas of light,
To Thee, th’ Eternal Fair, the infinite Unknown.

Prayer and the Computer

(I wrote this a few months ago, but it is just as relevant.)

It could look like computer worship. There I am, head bowed in front of my laptop, occasionally glancing up to scroll down, and then bowing again.

But it is not idolatry. It is my pathetic attempt to regularly pray through the church roster. I have an electric roster in which I type in the prayer requests people give me and the requests I suspect people need even if they don’t tell me. It’s all stored on my hard drive, awaiting retrieval.

But I don’t retrieve it—at least not as often as I should. Today was an anomaly, because things were particularly slow. Usually when I have a free minute to spare, I open Microsoft Outlook and send emails to encourage folks and follow up on prayer requests. Or, I open up a blank Word document and begin working on the next sermon to encourage and challenge us. The prayer requests I’m given are significant. A wayward child to be saved, cancer to be healed, godliness to be developed, and the pursuit of holiness weigh heavy on my mind. I strive to do what I can to see these requests answered.

Why, then, do I so often miss the obvious application of praying for those prayer requests to be answered? Why does regularly start out as once a day, then drop to once a week, and then even less—mirroring my commitment to change the oil in my car (was it every 3,000 or 30,000 miles?)? Why is prayer not the first response in addressing the burdens God has put on my heart and those I care about?

Maybe because computer worship is the case after all. The computer is very predictable, isn’t it? I double-click “prayer roster” and it opens; I click send and receive, and I send email; I—as a curious fool once did years ago—type ”format c:” and I lose all my documents, my dad’s documents, and the entire operating system—whoops. I think I’m searching for the same predictability in prayer that I get with my computer.

I want godliness in my life and the congregation, but prayer finds no “godliness” file that I can open and run. I want to see people in the community trust Christ, but I cannot, through prayer, export “trust Christ express” and send it to them in an email. I want us to grow in our knowledge of God, but I cannot, through prayer, download that knowledge into our minds and hearts. I cannot, through prayer, run a “pride scanner” which will search and destroy the pride that hampers everything I do. Prayer is stuck in antiquity where hoping and waiting were the norm, and it has not been brought into the computer age where we can get instant results with simple commands.

But do you see how disgustingly idolatrous and blasphemous this desire for computerized prayer is. If I want prayer to be an operating system , I want God to be a the computer. I reduce the God of the universe to a Pentium processor that will perform the tasks which I command.

I have missed something absolutely crucial. God is not the means to an end, like a computer that has no inherent value—at least not for me—beyond information it gives me. God is the goal. His character is the most valuable treasure in the universe. Prayer is designed to put me in the position of humble dependence. Waiting and hoping are beneficial means of orienting our lives to depend upon God.

If God is not the goal, I have no choice but to restart, and ask myself, what do I really want. If God is not my goal, (which honestly is often the case for me) my first prayer request must be that he would be, and I must repent of my desire to make other things—even good things—of a higher value than God.

An update on our leaving process--things are looking optimistic and we're planning on doing orientation the beginning of August and getting on a plane about 2.5 months after that. Better start packing!

Am I excited? Yes! It seems more and more real that we're actually going. I've been doing some reading and starting to clean out closets (we have collected so much stuff!). I'm looking forward to being there and getting to know real people there. But yes, it will be hard to leave, especially our family and church family, especially grandparents, so at this point feelings are definately mixed.

A Thanksgiving Thought

Something to be thankful for... Worship together. I've missed the last two Sundays in a row, first for labor and delivery and then to keep Anna at home while she gets used to the world. I was reminded of how much I enjoy singing together with other believers. God commands us to worship Him, to sing "Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs." But singing a good hymn or praise song with a sanctuary full of people is also a huge blessing to me, and something for which I am very thankful.

Anna Michelle is finally here! She was born 3:26 AM on Christmas Eve, right on time for Daddy's birthday and only 31/2 hours past her due date.











We brought her home on Christmas Day. So far her favorite thing to do is sleep, although I suspect that will change as we get past the first week. Her second favorite thing to do is eat, of course.

Matthew thinks she is interesting; he likes to come look at her and touch her head (with alot of supervision and help from mom) when he's not busy telling us (again) that there are "balls" on the Christmas tree.

I have to go to the dentist tomorrow. Yuck. It is my own fault. I hadn’t been in many years. Needless to say, he has had a lot of work to do. Tomorrow is my fourth visit in the last couple of months.

I don’t like the dentist because I don’t like pain. I say that we a sense of conviction, however, because it really isn’t that much pain. I visited people in the hospital today who would have gladly the exchanged their cancer meds for my dentist chair even without the Novocain.

Nevertheless, it is still one of those uncomfortable things that, had it not been for the fall, would not exist. As I lay back in the chair, my jaw cramping because it does not get any wider and needles being put in my mouth, God brought me to rest in part of redemptive history. I was so thankful for Christ condescending into this human sphere of existence. I know Christ never sat in a dentist chair. But it was probably far worse dealing with teeth without regular cleaning. He had all sorts of uncomfortable things happen to Him that he would not have experienced had he not condescended into this sphere of the flesh (All this before the Cross, which I think would be just blasphemous to compare to my dentist chair experience). This discomfort brought me to appreciate God’s active love of sending Christ who also experienced discomfort.

I’m also thankful for the saints who have gone before us who have reflected deeply upon biblical truth. I would not have come up with the insights in redemptive history of Ridderbos or Vos on my best day, let alone in the seat of a dentist chair. That’s why it was so good to read these insights ahead of time. They are rocks to land on when my mind is looking for solid ground.

By the way, tomorrow the dentist is going to fix a broken tooth. I cracked “tooth number 7” while playing around on my bike on the front yard—the only lasting injury of 5 years of competitive mounting biking—go figure. I’ve had it fixed before, but it never lasted. This time the dentist said he will make it shorter, but then cut away at the gum to, “give the illusion” of length. And with a satisfied grin on his face, he said, “I wonder why no one has thought of that before.” Answer: Because there are NERVES in those gums. In light of his brilliant idea of that I though to of a plan myself. My dentist (who I actually do really like, and I really hope is not reading this) could lose about 10 pounds. How about we cut off the excess around the belly to “give the illusion” of being slender? I wonder why no one has thought of that before!

Matthew's first birthday was a hit. I'm not sure which he liked better, new toys or ice cream and cake, but there's no doubt that he was loving the party!

Welcome to Our Blog

Greetings! You found us online. Hopefully this will be a useful spot to keep in touch with what's up with Mike and Becky -- how we're doing and how we're thinking. We aren't making any promises often we'll post this early in the game, but we plan to post regularly. We'll let you know whether "regularly" means monthly, weekly, or daily when we get a little more used to this blogging thing. Just a hint: more comments will inspire more posts!