Camping - April 08

Our small group checked out the weather, ignored the potential rain and went camping. So far every time our group has gone camping we have been rained on so why should this time be different. (if you would rather just look at all the pictures just go here :) http://picasaweb.google.com/stevemurp/Camping08SmallGroup

This time we went to Lake D'Arbonne and it was a pretty nice place. Since we are all into "ruffing" it we made sure all the campsites had water and electricity.

So here is the quick review of the great time we had.

We brought bikes, but didn't really use them (well the kids did - I wanted to hit the trails!)

From Camping 08 sm...

We thought this tarp would keep us dry from the rain.

From Camping 08 sm...

We need a much bigger tarp. Or as many tarps as Flecher had on his tent. Because that night it rained and we got wet. After dinner (Chicken was great!) it rained and we all ended up in our own tents and went to sleep.

Then we had pancakes for breakfast thanks to the paperplate spatula master!

From Camping 08 sm...

Then my parents came up (most of the pictures came from them :) ) They brought meat for lunch and a boat.
Before lunch we had a giant nerf dart tag battle extravaganza

From Camping 08 sm...

Dad got to take a bunch of the kids on a little boat ride around the lake. Fletch got a work out paddling his Pirough around the lake. Then it started to rain again.

Then it stopped raining and a couple of us went fishing.

From Camping 08 sm...

We went hiking and went in circles. It was pretty funny.

We had a great time. I can't tell you how thankful I am for this group of friends and my family. I do feel very blessed.

Allergies

Today we went to see an allergist for a second opinion on what we need
to do for Ethan. There is good and bad news.

Good news: The doctor said to let Ethan eat what ever he wants to for
10 days. He wants to see him back May 5th to see if food is really a
big issue. So tonight he got to choose what he wanted for dinner and
he ate his weight in french fries! Tomorrow I plan on making a "real"
cake and for breakfast we went all out and got Cheerios and Pop Tarts.
:) Time will tell whether or not this is a big mistake.

Bad news: The doctor did environmental tests on Ethan and Caleb and
they are both allergic to EVERY kind of grass, many types of trees,
cats, rag weed, house dust, dust mites etc..... Their backs were soo
swollen from the "prick" test. The doctor said they are very allergic
to many things. He wants to do allergy shots. This in a way is good
because in theory in about 3 to 5 years they could be allergy free.
Its bad because they have to have shots twice a week for several
months. Then the shots tapper down to once a week.

We are suppose to make our house as dust free as possible. He said to
get rid of the carpet, stuffed animals, put allergen covers on the
pillows and mattresses, the list goes on and on and on. If you think
about us, pray for us. Although these are minor irritations in our
lives, and I should be very thankful that none of this is life
threatening, it still feels like an insurmountable task to take care
of.

Knowing God by J. I. Packer - Reflection chapter 8

Chapter 8 has been talking about the majesty of God.

He ends the chapter with 3 thoughts that have made me think... so I share with you.

1. Isaiah 40:25 "To whom will you compare me?
Or who is my equal?" says the Holy One.

This question rebukes wrong thoughts about God.

"Your thoughts of God are too human," said Luther to Erasmus...
We need to learn to acknowledge the full majesty of our incomparable God and Savior.

2. Isaiah 40:27 Why do you say, O Jacob,
and complain, O Israel,
"My way is hidden from the LORD;
my cause is disregarded by my God"?

This question rebukes wrong thoughts about ourselves. God has not abandoned us any more than he abandoned Job. He never abandons anyone on whom he has set his love; nor does Christ ever lose track of his sheep. If you have been resigning yourself to the thought that God has left you high and dry, seek grace to be ashamed of yourself. Such unbelieving pessimism deeply dishonors our great God and Savior.

3. Isaiah 40:28 Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.

This question rebukes our slowness to believe in God's majesty.

The rebuke is well deserved by many of us. How slow we are to believe in God as God, sovereign, all-seeing and almighty! How little we make of the majesty of our Lord and Savior Christ! The need for us is to "wait upon the Lord" in meditations on his majesty, till we find our strength renewed through the writing of these things upon our hearts.

I think I get stuck with question one. I get stuck limiting my understanding of who God is and what God is capable of to what I am capable of and limited to. I keep wanting to push my understanding. Like when I read and study about the stars and see how "high the heavens are" I think to myself. God breathed this all into existence. And with the universe so big that he would even acknowlegde the existance of this tiny little speck of matter in this big universe is amazing... Let alone the thought of His acknowledging me. But I don't think I live acknowledging daily the power and majesty of God in my life.

Pictures - Pictures - Pictures

Ethan goes to a pool party

Rock Solid Musical

Angela's House	cuddly
Caleb Soccer 2008

THE CUT

Well, it only took 1 year and 2 months. I had to get to 8 inches to donate my hair to be made into a wig for someone who lost their hair because of cancer. I went with Pantene's wig program called Beautiful Lengths. Mainly because their requirements were only for 8 inches.

Here are some pictures(Ethan took most of them):

This experience was much harder than I would have ever thought. I never realized hair was such a big deal. Ever since my hair started getting significantly longer than I had ever grown it before. I began having conversations literally every single day about hair. Never in my life would I have ever talked this much about hair. I would have women that I hardly knew that go to church with me. Come up and touch my hair and tell me how beautiful it is. Asking me questions I never thought I would have to answer: "what do you do to have such good hair? How do you take care of it? Is it naturally curly or do you curl it?..." I never realized the significance of hair until I grew it out. It really means a lot to people. While I am very glad to have cut it off. I was tired of the head bands and everything else I can now sympathize with women with long hair. I am realizing that the hair I am donating will hopefully give some woman a sense of peace and confidence in a time of trouble in her life. Because after every conversation I have had over the last year... I now realize: hair is important.

What is funny is my hair has been trained over the last year to be pulled back in a head band. Now that it is short... it wants to stick up and out all crazy.

Well, one of the things that I was praying when I first started all this was that I wanted this to be a reminder to myself of how I wanted my life to be a living sacrifice. I don't know how much that actually happened. It certainly started feeling like a sacrifice, because I was so tired of the long hair. I don't know that I will ever do that again, but I look back at this year and I hope that God has used me to make a difference in his world. And it wasn't just the hair...

Rock Solid - Caleb was in a musical!

Where Have You Seen God Lately?

This question was asked of me recently, and in light of my lack of updating this blog I thought what a good question to respond to. *and if you are brave enough after reading all this, you are invited to answer the question yourself.

I have seen the Holy Spirit at work through our small group.

Angela's House

Through a connection to a woman in Ruston to Fletch Hyacinth in our small group. The short version of the story is Fletch saw the condition of the house she and her kids were living in and he felt that after seeing what he saw he couldn't not do anything about it. Our small group after hearing the story decides to join Fletch in helping out. We raised around $3000 mostly just from our group and have built on a 20x16 room on the back of the house. We started on Easter weekend and are now about to put flooring in this weekend. It has been amazing to see the changes and the sense of hope Mrs. Angela has been showing. She has cleaned up her house and is trying to clean up the yard. It is just another step of her trying to clean up and take control of her life. I was there last night listening her tell her story to a neighbor. She was just talking about how God has brought her from the low place she was in to where she is now. It was fun to know that we are apart of that story (we may be the tail end of her story so far, but we are there). I hope that this is a bit of a catalyst for our small group trying to live deeper and richer lives that looks more and more like the life that Christ really intends for us.

I have seen Jesus in the establishment of new relationships. Because of Jill and her desire to see and help the world. We have opened our home to students to stay as a part of the English language program. Jinnapang(see earlier post) is from Thailand and it was a complete joy to have her stay a couple of months with us. Through her Jill and I have made many new Thai friends. People that I would have never ever met that are apart of our life now. I am so thankful that my wife found out about and made this opportunity happen. On the spiritual side it has been pretty challenging for me to have discussions with someone that not only comes from a country on the other side of the planet and English being a second language, but also doesn't have a Christian background. Most everyone I have ever talked with whether Christian or not has at the least a similar understanding of how the world works and of God whether they believe or not. So it has challenged me to 1. try and explain what I believe. 2. It has made me really think "what do I really believe?" It has been a joy to discuss similarities and differences between Buddhism and Christianity with these new friends. These new friends have been coming to our small group, have helped out at Mrs. Angela's house and come over for dinner. I hope they have experienced the love of Jesus through just seeing how we love each other and take care of each other.

I have seen God at work in the lives of the people taking Financial Peace University that I am teaching right now. We have split the class into two nights. My brother Chuck and Michael Brewton are helping lead on Sunday nights, and I am leading the Wednesday night class with Mark Graham. The course is 13 weeks long. We just finished week 10. At the beginning of the course I asked everyone to write down on a note card how much debt they had (not including house mortgage!), when we added up the two classes total debt my heart sunk. It hurt so bad to see that between 30 family units (some single and some married) we had a total of $1,005,000 in credit card, car, student loan, and medical debt. These are just the average people in our community and at Trinity UMC that are just in slavery to this debt. So where have I seen Christ in this? In just 10 weeks these families have worked very hard on changing their behavior. They have doing crazy things, like trying to live on a budget with a plan, doing the 'baby steps', like doing the debt snowball (sample form), they have sold things, they are trying to take control of their life and they are starting to see the fruit of that. Last night I asked them to write down on a note card how much of that debt they have paid off just since the start of the class. And this is only from the Wednesday night class (and not everyone was there last night) they have paid off a total of $61,000 in just 10 weeks. This is the power of applying God's principles in stewardship to your life at work! I am seeing these peoples lives change.

So where have you seen God lately?