- Alabama is about to hire a new football coach. This consumes the conversation of my family right now. When I call to check on my chemo-therapy-saturated mother, and her sister (Aunt Judy to me) or mother (Mama Jean) answers, before I am allowed to speak to my sick mother, I am forced to give the latest update on the Tide's coaching search. Our family is a crazy crew. Seriously. Mama Jean calls me often not to check to see how my love life is, but to talk 'Bama football. This reputation is so well-known among some of my old Harding buddies that last year our fantasy baseball league was named "Philip's Gramma Loves Bama."
On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, ESPN Radio's Mike & Mike in the Morning were naturally discussing Thanksgiving. And the question of the hour was, "Will football be on during Thanksgiving Dinner at your house?" They went back & forth, and one of the Mike's said, "I just can't imagine sitting around, eating a fine meal, and listening to Grandma say what she's thankful for ... only to have to hush her up because there's a big 3rd down play." You see, at our Thanksgiving Dinner, it would be Grandma hushing up the person giving thanks to check out that 3rd down play.
Anyways, Alabama's new guy looks to be West Virginia's Rich Rodriguez. If I had to guess, the press conference will be Friday morning in Tuscaloosa. I couldn't be happier. When it comes to the people who are credited with being the innovators of the spread offense, it is "Coach Rod" & Randy Walker (former Northwestern coach who passed away this summer). Urban Meyer seems to have a lot of "media cred" for being a spread guru as well, but when you talk to coaches, they credit Rodriguez & Walker.
I've got high hopes. - We're studying Acts on Wednesday nights at church. Walked through Chapter 7 tonight. Two things jumped out at me:
- The early church seems to have been REALLY unskilled & uninterested with playing the political game. The people in positions of power seemed to know how to manipulate the political system, but the early church didn't. Nevertheless, the early church continued to win people over & grow. Interesting.
- Anyone ever notice how Peter's sermon & Stephen's sermon end very similarly? Peter ends his by saying, "God has made this Jesus both Lord & Christ -- the one YOU CRUCIFIED." Cut! Bam! Stephen ends, "You betrayed & murdered him (Jesus)." Cut! Bam! The text says that both audiences were pricked at the heart, though different Greek words are used. And that's where the similarities end. Peter gets to baptize 3,000; Stephen gets intimately aquainted with some of the more hand-held sized geological formations of Jerusalem.
What made the difference between Peter & Stephen?
- I wrote about my dream vacation today on a group blog that I'm a part of. You may find that interesting.
- By far, the coolest 2 year-old I've ever met is Corbin Cherry. He's the son of my friend, Daniel Cherry. That little guy is so much fun to be around. I got to hang out with him a little Tuesday as I helped D.P. (Daniel Paul) move some stuff into his new house. Corbin gave me the tour of his new digs, starting with his bed-room. We ate lunch together, along with D.P., Rachael, & Anna. I then got to show Corbin around my pick-up truck for the first time. He liked the sound of the flow's. ;-)
Everytime I'm around that boy, I think, "I've got to get me one of those." That, and I'm constantly impressed with the parenting skills of the Cherry family. If there was a way for the Cherry's to raise everyone in the world, I'm convinced we would achieve Utopia. - One of my favorite verses in the Bible: Psalms 37:25.
- "I was young and now I am old,
- yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken
or their children begging bread." - And finally, I want to commend to you the discipline of memorizing Scripture. There is so much value in memorizing the Bible I can't even begin to describe it. My favorite part: I'm never bored anymore. If I'm sitting in a waiting room, waiting in line, bathing, or cooking, I can go over memory work. I'm in the process of memorizing the book of James with a group of buddies. We're into chapter 2. You gain insights into passages & books at large via memorization that you would never be clued into by casually reading over the same portion of text.
Part of my love for this, I think, is that I think it first my personality. I've always struggled with reading big portions of Scripture. I've only read the Bible through in a year only once. I even tried a read-the-Bible-through-in-3-years plan -- still too much for me. I've always liked to take smaller sections of Scripture & just ruminate over them. If you're like me, then memorization is definitely for you!
If you have a group of prayer buddies, recommend this to your guys. Or if you don't have a group of guys, get some together & sell them on this idea. Pick a book. Or for bigger books, pick a section (e.g. Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' last words [John 14-17], etc.). Other ideas I would recommend are any of the Pastorals (1st and 2nd Timothy & Titus), Philippians, 1st Peter, and Jonah.
That's all folks. Thanks for tuning in.
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3 comments:
I can't wait for next month when we get Potent Potables!
That was a good read - so many things to relate to and even threw in a bit of Acts! Gulfcoast Getaway will be great. Look forward to seeing you then.
Philip, this was a good article. I couldn't get the picture out of my head of a grandma telling someone to shut up so she can listen to football. Excellent. Also, I liked your Acts thoughts. And, thanks for the exhortation to memorize scripture. It's helpful to have handy if you're in a conversation with someone and don't have your Bible on you. Oh, and your comments are way more hip than mine. Carpe Diem.
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