Get a hold of a real God

The more and more I hear about Tim Keller's book The Reason for God, the more I want to read it. And this quote, from a blog I read, only helps that cause.

If you don't trust the Bible enough to let it challenge and correct your thinking, how could you ever have a personal relationship with God? In any truly personal relationship, the other person has to be able to contradict you. For example, if a wife is not allowed to contradict her husband, they won't have an intimate relationship. Remember the (two!) movies The Stepford Wives? The husbands of Stepford, Connecticut, decide to have their wives turned into robots who never cross the wills of their husbands. A Stepford wife was wonderfully compliant and beautiful, but no one would describe such a marriage as intimate or personal. Now, what happens if you eliminate anything from the Bible that offends your sensibility and crosses your will? If you pick and choose what you want to believe and reject the rest, how will you ever have a God who can contradict you? You won't! You'll have a Stepford God! A God, essentially, of your own making, and not a God with whom you can have a relationship and genuine interaction. Only if your God can say things that outrage you and make you struggle (as in a real friendship or marriage!) will you know that you have gotten hold of a real God and not a figment of your imagination. So an authoritative Bible is not the enemy of a personal relationship with God. It is the precondition for it. —pages 113-114

(hint hint - my birthday is coming up)

Hate the Game, Not the Player

With correctly guessing all but one of the Elite Eight (grrr Davidson) and correctly guessing all #1's being in the Final Four, my score is up to 55.

Go UNC!!!

To Fear What Will Never Be

My sin is to fear what will never be.

I forget to submit to thy will

and fail to be quiet there.

But Scripture teaches me

that thy active will reveals a

steadfast purpose on my behalf

and this quietens my soul

and makes me love thee.

"Shortcomings" in the Valley of Vision.

CrossWay Life Blog

This is your public service announcement in the midst of March Madness.

My church, Crossway Church of Lancaster, now has joined the ranks of bloggers and blog sites. The CCL Life blog is another way for the pastors to communicate to the church body. One thing I have found helpful is that you can have the option to have their posts emailed to you. I like this feature and have it for this blog. It's good for me, because often time, I only have time to check email and not surf the web.

So check out the CCL Life blog. Today's post by Doug is about the single ladies meeting a couple of weeks ago. I recommend everyone read the post. While it, I believed, served us single ladies, it can be applicable to anyone in an "identity crisis." Here's a quote that may pique your interest.

Whenever we choose to identify ourselves at a shallower depth than the deep soil of our common salvation in the gospel, we will quickly find the branches of fellowship become brittle as we shrink in our capacity to love and serve those who are different than us.

This has been your public service announcement. Our regularly scheduled postings on March Madness will resume shortly.

it doesn't matter why you picked them, as long as they win

So on Sunday, I was asked/challenged on my decision with UNC to win it all. I believe the words were "who would pick ANY team from the ACC?" While I had an informative and pretty indefensible response to pick UNC, because of who the questioner/challenger was, I decided to say, "I just like their uniforms. Don't you think it's a pretty blue?"

Needless to say. I left this person speechless.

GO UNC!!!!

Round #2

Score after Round #2 - 33.

All my final four teams are still in. The next round should be good. Sweet Sixteen here we come!

If you would like to get an updated bracket, go here http://www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/mayhem/brackets/viewable_men

Round 1 Recap

My score after round 1 - 21.

Thoughts -

Gonzaga - You lost and yet it's still so fun to say "Gonzaga!"

Duke - Didn't do so hot there..I think UVW can beat you. I have UVW taking you in the 2nd round.

Marquette - Stunned. I guess ranking does matter.

W. Kentucky - Stunned. I guess ranking does not matter.

Notre Dame - WOW. I almost picked you in the 1st round. That will teach me to stick to my Irish roots.

San Diego - biggest upset. Messed up the next round for me since I had Connecticut in there.

Siena - where is this school located? :)

But all my final four selections are still in.

Looking forward to Round #2.

Here's my bracket

http://sara.e.rankin.googlepages.com/SERMM2008bracket.pdf

Thoughts?

Who's got the madness?

Well, it's here. March Madness has arrived. UNC is #1 in the East and it looks like it will be an exciting tournament.

Go here http://sportsline.com/collegebasketball/mayhem/brackets/viewable_men to print out the brackets and see if you can predict who will make it out of the 64 into the 32 onto the Sweet 16 making their way to the Elite Eight, the Final Four and then finally arrive to the Dance.

My prediction - UNC and Memphis with UNC winning it all of course.

Let the madness begin....

The God who says Yes

From time to time, I read articles that I think will benefit readers out there. Here's one about remembering and trusting in God who says yes, even though sometimes it's no. I've heard it before and it's mentioned in the article, but when God says No to something, He's saying Yes to the best. How I often remind myself of that.

Enjoy!

http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001701.cfm

Fill in the blank fun

I like the month of March because ___________________.

My answer hands down - MARCH MADNESS!!!!! UNC ALL THE WAY!!!

What's your answer? Post in the comments.