Thankfulness Day 7

•November 8, 2011 • Leave a Comment

In keeping with the reality themed “Things I’m thankful for” this day’s thankfulness is for something I have yet to receive – my wife. I am thankful I am not married yet. I am thankful that one day she and I will be, unless I hear directly from God, walking down the aisle (with walkers, canes and AARP cards if need be) after exchanging our vows.

Why am I happy I’m single? Because I thought I was ready up to now. I thought I understood what marriage was – wine, roses, occasional arguments (followed by make-up… well, nookie) and a sense of togetherness that would make Snow White and Prince Charming jealous.

I know now that I’ll never be fully ready. It’s always going to be a challenge, full of moments that take my breath away and moments that make me wonder what the heck I was thinking. Moments that are perfect and moments that are far, far from perfect. Some days I’ll get it all right – I’ll notice the new haircut, the nails, the shoes and I’ll know there is no correct answer to ‘Does this make me look fat?’ and other days I’ll answer that question and sleep on the couch for the next few nights.

So I’m thankful that I’m single right now. Because it’s given me time to realize that I’ll never be ready – and only through prayer and hard work can I ever be remotely close.

- For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. – Jeremiah 29:11

Thankfulness Day 6

•November 7, 2011 • Leave a Comment

It’s difficult to come up with something to be truly thankful for thirty times in a row… I could go generic but I’m trying to be a bit more real than that… So tonight I’m thankful that I live in a country where we have freedom of speech. This freedom is so, so important and fragile and must be preserved if this union is to last…

“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” – Voltaire

Thankfulness Day 5

•November 6, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Today I’m thankful for my home church. Before I came here I was lost, sick, depressed and alone. Mom and Dad dragged me kicking and screaming (well, sulking) and one day I finally accepted Christ. Since then I haven’t looked back. God is good and I’m proud to call FP home.

Thankfulness Day 4

•November 5, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Today I’m thankful that I have the opportunity to use my God given talent to help meet the needs of many different ministries – including my home church and others.

Thankfulness Day 3

•November 4, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Today I’m thankful for the friends I’ve been blessed with – both old and new. Your love and support – even the “what are you thinking?!?!” supportive smack across the head – helps to keep the darkness that once consumed me at bay. Without you my life would be a sad and lonely place.

Thankfulness Day 2

•November 3, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Thankful today for my sister – Alecia, her daughter Morgan and her boyfriend Keith. There’s a family addition on the way and I know they’re all going to do awesome. I can’t wait to meet my nephew!

Thankfulness – Day 1

•November 2, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Thankful tonight for my parents, Phil and Jana. They spent years of their lives raising my sister and I and just when they could take it easy and spoil the grandkids – they took in a 3 year old who needs their love and guidance as much as I did. Mom, Dad, love you both and thank you for everything!

Starts with P…

•August 11, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Kills the soul.

Damages every relationship you have with the opposite sex.

Blocks true communion with God.

Rhymes with ‘Corn’.

If you haven’t guessed yet, you can stop reading now.

Instead of the usual self searching confession I am attempting something new today: Offering people suggestions on how they can keep the crap out of sight. Not hiding it in a drawer somewhere – but keeping it out of your house and out of your kids hands. If you think your kids are immune you’re kidding yourself (no pun intended). Porn is like sand at the beach – no matter what you do you’re gonna find some if you’ve surfed that day. So, like a shower at the beach here are a few ways I’ve found to wash the sand off. Occasionally some will still pop-up (I’m looking at you, google image search) These are all ways I protect myself so I can attest to their success – they work. Even so if you’ve struggled in the past you need to seek some help outside of yourself – I suggest XXXChurch.com and their X3 Pure program. It’s awesome and worth every penny.

Now, on with the show!

When it comes to internet there are several ways to filter – you can filter on your desktop or laptop but that leaves every other device wide open for abuse – think iPod touch.The other choice is filtering your entire network. There are a couple of ways to do this:

DNS filtering

Running your own filter on your entire network.

There are probably more that I’m unaware of but this isn’t a networking class – it’s a self-help session.

DNS filtering is pretty robust and has the advantage of being totally free (for personal use) and extremely hard to bypass.

The way the internet works is (basically, again not a networking class!) this: you type in an address – say ‘google.com’. To a computer google.com doesn’t mean squat so it has to get the real address (74.125.67.106) and directs you there. The service that does this translation is call a Domain Name Server or DNS.

One of the companies that handles DNS is OpenDNS. OpenDNS offers free(!) filtering to registered users of the service. They’ve also got several awesome tutorials on how to set up the service. It’s extremely robust and like I said – hard to bypass (unless you’ve got the password to the router).

Running your own (I said running, not rolling your own :) ) filter can be a pretty daunting task. It’s basically running a piece of hardware or software that looks at everything going to/from the internet and filters out the stuff you don’t want. I use a product called ‘Untangle‘ running on an older PC I purchased just for this use. Like OpenDNS it is robust and  free for home use. They offer some paid options but with these two in place I don’t think they’re necessary.

Running these every device on your home network is protected to some extent. This includes your PS3 and Xbox and your kids iPod touches. This is nice, until you’re on a road trip with the promise of ‘free wi-fi!’ for your laptop. In this case there are several options to run local filters on your laptop – XXXChurch has X3Pure, Covenant Eyes has their program, etc. etc. I highly recommend finding and using one of them.

——

Now for the greatest leak in the above mentioned services: your smartphone. Unlike your iPod touch or PS3 your phone isn’t dependent on your home network for its internet connection. So we’ve gone to the effort of building a giant dam with a hole in the middle… Your iPhone.

I can only speak as a Verizon user but I’ve discovered they now offer content filtering for free (!). They’re pretty basic levels (think R/PG/G in terms of levels) but they work well. I’ve got them set up on my iPhone and my MiGo access point and they do their job. Again, I’m on Verizon so I cannot speak for the other providers. This trounced other efforts I’ve seen like using only a 3rd party browser or totally locking out the browser.

—–

The key to all of these is someone who’s willing to control the passwords to these two services. That pretty much prevents you from ‘accidentally’ turning them off. It also helps because you’ve probably also got a good accountability partner there. Someone to call when things get tough. Everything I’ve read recommends against using your spouse as your accountability partner so a trusted same-sex friend is probably a good choice.

—–

 

That’s it! That’s what I use every day. I’m blessed with some friends who are willing to ask the hard questions and can remember the passwords so I can do occasional maintenance (upgrades/etc). You don’t have to fight it alone!

 

Now, for you AT&T/US Cellular/Sprint/Virgin Mobile customers out there: What options do you have for filtering?

Want

•July 25, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Who are you doing it for? Are you doing it for your spouse? For your future spouse? For your kids, parents, sister, brother, grandparent, aunt or uncle?

Why?

As I sit here tonight and listen to the crickets tonight I wonder who I’m doing it for.

Why do I work on my house, why do I mow the lawn, wash the car, get out of bed, eat lunch… Why? and for whom?

Is it for myself, so I’ll have nice things, won’t die, will have a warm/cool dry place to sleep at night?

Why do I do it?

“Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than the birds” Matthew 6:26 (The Message)

God doesn’t need me to do any of the things I do – nothing I do or don’t do will change his eternal plan. They were set in motion before the dawn of time and will continue far beyond our ability to comprehend. We can understand a million, a billion or even a trillion. But we can’t understand forever. A trillion is much, but it’s not even a penny when compared to eternity.

God doesn’t NEED me or the stuff I do.

Even when I don’t mow the lawn. He WANTS me.

Even when I don’t want to go to work. He wants ME.

Even when I reject him. HE wants me.

That makes all the difference in the world.

HE makes all the difference in the world.

All the difference.

Not certain if I have a point… I’m just getting some thoughts down while they’re fresh in my mind.

 

So I ask – why do you do what you do?

 

~Matt

 

A u-haul full of memories…

•July 22, 2011 • Leave a Comment

While heading to my parents house recently I drove past three of Oliver Springs’ bigger churches. The churches with signs in the front used for (usually) trite witticisms – gems such as:

God answers Knee-Mail

CH RCH – what’s missing? U

and

This church is Prayer-Conditioned

The biggest problem with the signs at two of these churches is their signs aren’t big enough to hold an entire message so they split it in two, one on the side for those of us bound east, the other for the west-bound.

This particular sign was one I’d seen before – just not bifurcated as it was. The side I saw first was this “hearse pulling a u-haul”. In the interest of not running off the road I didn’t get a chance to see the other half of the message so I was stuck with that image for the next 10 minutes. For some reason that image resonated with me – a hearse hauling a u-haul packed full of stuff that’s going to do the corpse a whole lot of nothing. I’m pretty certain that my corpse isn’t going to want to curl up in my chair and watch Eureka after I die – (unless George Romero was a precog – but in that case watching Eureka won’t be it’s primary goal either) So my stuff isn’t going to matter to anyone other than my heirs.

So my thought is this: Life is the hearse. Everything we gather around us does us no good when the hearse gets to the cemetery. Our lives are a funeral (not the sappy sad funerals but Jazz and/or Biker funerals – funerals about celebrating the life of the deceased, not mourning our loss). The possessions we gather shouldn’t take up space in a u-haul – they should take up space in our hearts and memories. We should collect friends and loved ones not Hummel figures or beanie babies.

Our hearts and memories aren’t like a U-Haul. U-Hauls can only haul so much stuff before they’re overloaded and dangerous. Our hearts are like the Tardis  or Hermione’s bag. Our heart and memories can never be filled. We can say that someone has led a full life but that is untrue – they may have led a life that seemed filled to the brim but a life can never be truly full – there is always room for more. Our schedules can be filled but our lives can never be.

So let us live a life stuffed with experiences, friends, loved one’s and let us leave the u-haul out of it. The closest we can come to immortality before Christ returns is in the hearts and memories of those we’ve loved and affected. Our chair (other than the faint butt print and maybe some spare change) isn’t going to remember us – even if our hearse is hauling a u-haul.