Sugar Shots at IHOP

Last night was great. Long, but great.

I was so irresponsible. Yeah, I think I was irresponsible enough last night to last me the next 6 months. Back to maturity and responsibility.

Ryan asked me to play bass last week for Axxess this week (you know, last night), so I worked from 7-4, then I had to go home and get me checkbook because I wrote my last check to CLay for my Venti Pumpkin Spice Frappaccino (see, I started out my day irresponsibly) so that I could write a check for the rest of November for Malachi's daycare, which is way more expensive now (it went from 20 to 65 a week), but I need to look at the blessings and not the problems, because 65 is way better than 95 a week, and God keeps on blessing me, even though I REALLY don't deserve it.

Sugar Shots at IHOP

Last night was great. Long, but great.

I was so irresponsible. Yeah, I think I was irresponsible enough last night to last me the next 6 months. Back to maturity and responsibility.

Jesus' Authority (Mark 11:1-26)

In keeping with the idea that Jesus’ authority is the theme of Mark 11:1-26, the theological implications of these scriptures for everyone, believer and non-believer, are much the same. First of all, Jesus is Lord. He does possess authority--authority to speak a curse to a fig tree and the fig tree wither; authority to enter into the temple of the Lord, a sacred place, and clear the moneychangers out; authority to tell his disciples to enter a village and take someone’s colt, explaining simply that the Lord is in need of it; authority to be worshipped and granted a triumphant entry into the holy city of Jerusalem; and authority to promise his disciples that they can pray for anything and they will have it.

To the non-believer, the implications are fairly simple. To know Christ is to know not just a man, but a man who holds total and complete authority. The Jesus that they are told about is more than a man: he possesses the authority of God, thus leading them into the knowledge that Jesus is the Christ--he is God.

To we who are already in the faith, acknowledging that Jesus is Lord and making him Lord of our lives, these scriptures remind us of who Jesus is. It reminds us of one of many important parts of Jesus’ complex nature. When we read about Jesus in the gospels, we envision in our mind a man-walking, talking, teaching, breathing. When we study this section of the gospel, we see more clearly the authority of that man--a glimpse of the position and power from which he descended to earth. If we apply this realization of the authority that Jesus has to our lives, starting with our hearts, it becomes obvious to us how worthy he is of a triumphant entry into our hearts, how we must make our bodies which he has called his temple a place of prayer, how the authority of his Word holds power great enough to change our hearts and lives.

Essentially, in realizing Jesus’ authority, we may put him in his proper position of honor and glory.

Made for the Glory of God

So, it’s not a whole lot that I wanted to share, but as I was going through my Bible study it just jumped out at me (it’s pretty cool how God does that sometimes, isn’t it?)

So okay, the Nooma guy’s basic point was that we are the reference point for the lost and dying world around us to see God, right? So get this. Isaiah 43:7 says, “All who claim me as their God will come, for I have made them for my glory. It was I who created them.” The Bible study I am doing is by Beth Moore, and she brings up this great question—what does that mean? Define glory, God’s glory. And I start going through these Bible verses that she gives about His glory and you discover that in some ways, it’s really undefinable.

Isaiah 6:3/Numbers 20:6/2 Chronicles 5:13-14/Psalm 19:1/Psalm 29:9/Isaiah 42:8
John 1:14/John 2:11/Hebrews 1:3/2 Peter 1:3

And after reading all of these and writing out how it seems to me that glory can be defined according to each verse, it seems that God’s glory is, as simply put as possible, His representation of himself. As Beth Moore puts it, “God’s glory is the way He makes Himself recognizable.”

Then we put two and two together and come up with this wonderful concept—that if God’s glory is the way He shows himself, the means by which He makes himself recognizable, and we are created FOR HIS GLORY, then that means that, essentially, He made us in order to show Himself IN us and THROUGH us.

Which basically is the same thing that the video was talking about.
And pretty darn cool if you ask me. Psalm 19:11 says that the Heavens display the glory of God, and Isaiah 6:3 says that the whole earth is filled with His glory, and I guess it just makes you feel pretty good that He made us for glory, too.

Malachi and I had a BLAST yesterday when I got off of work yesterday. We played basketball and jumped on the trampoline and sat in chairs under the carport and talked (well, okay, he talked and I attempted to translate and understand)...we played on the playset and I pushed him on Tabi's old tricycle with a flat tire.

Tucking Cars In and Growing Pains

Yeah, so my child is TOO cute.


Night before last, he asked for my three model Beetles and he was playing with them all over the place--they were driving on walls and down the hallway...

Now, Tabitha (my 9 y.o. sister) has this Barbie/American Girl doll bed...

It was getting late and I heard Malachi over by the fireplace saying, "Night night, night night beep-beep"...

I wonder what he's talking about so I go look and he has tucked all three cars into the bed, along with a small teddy bear and a pocket-sized New Testament Bible. And I just want to eat him up he's so precious. See, he always sleeps with a bear...in fact, sometimes he goes to sleep with two bears. And before we go to bed, I try to read a story to him, usually out of his Bible storybook.
And then he loves the movie Cars (he watches it at least once daily), and in the movie, Cars are people, and so, to him, putting Cars in bed and tucking them in with a teddy bear and Bible makes perfect sense.

I think it was the same night that he got growing pains for the first time. Well, we're pretty sure that's what they were. We get in bed late and went straight to sleep, and then I'm startled awake by Malachi screaming in pain and crying, "Mommie, mommie"...I asked him what was wrong and he said, "Huht (which is tranlated hurt), bo-bo (which is an ouchie, owie, boo boo, whatever everyone else called it when they were a kid)" and it took me the longest time to figure out what he was saying because he was crying so uncontrollably and flipping around all over the bed, and then he just kept crying "My weg (leg), my weg!" It was SO sad! I prayed over him and shortly afterward he quieted down and fell back to sleep. A couple of hours later, he wakes up crying again, except this time I think I'm gonnna be able to fix it, so I go get the electronic massager thing out of the hall closet. I plug it in and turn it on and he started screaming like a banshee, terrified blood curdling screaming and trying to get away from the thing...needless to say, that didn't get rid of the cramps because he wouldn't let me get close to him with it...he had but one thing to say about it--"scare me, scare me!" So, I prayed over him again, and again he quieted down and fell right to sleep. I remember murmuring a very grateful "Thank you, Jesus" as I dozed off.

30 minutes of sweet sleep went by and...

my 5:30 alarm goes off and I'm getting in the shower and ready for work and running on 4 hours of sleep, because I'm a Mama, and that's how I do. =D