Received this email recently:

Just thought I would drop you an email and tell you how much I enjoy your posts that are emailed to me. I work out on a drillship in the Gulf of Mexico and your emails are something to look forward to for a little bit of the light side for me. Anyway, God Bless you! Sometimes the way does seem overwhelming and you can’t see the end but . . our Lord can.

And keep the faith, God has plans for you and I’m sure they include the lady of your hopes and passions. Thanks again and Merry Christmas.

Awesome.

Tags: blogging, christ, Christmas, drillship, email, faith, God, gulf of mexico
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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There have been various prayer movements in the United States focused on praying for change in our government, the most popular that I know of being TheCall.  I’m sure a lot of young Christians now are probably devastated by the election results, at a loss to explain why God would seemingly ignore their heartfelt prayers.

While some proponents might argue otherwise, the whole point of these movements have been largely to effect political reform.  They were overly focused on what was happening with our government, but not what was happening in the churches.  In short, we were praying for the wrong things.

Our churches are in complete disarray, deluged with religious fads and heretical teachings, with a community of believers that are more concerned about prosperity than they are about holiness.  Whatever the world does, we imitate it at every turn, whether it’s coming up with our own version of “American Idol” or turning our churches into entertainment centers complete with built-in basketball courts and coffee shops.  We’ve become so preoccupied with meaningless creature comforts, and through it all we’ve allowed an entire generation of Christians to be deceived by the rampant heresies that have overwhelmed the body of Christ.  And yet in spite of all this, we’re holding prayer vigils outside the U.S. Supreme Court building pleading for God to give us more conservative judges.  And how has that been working out so far?

Here’s the deal:  God is not concerned with our governments so much as He is concerned with His people.  And since judgment must first begin in the house of God, our focus should always be on taking care of the church first before anything else, ensuring that we walk soberly, with our minds on heaven rather than on political issues of the day.  All the nations are as a drop in the bucket to the LORD of creation anyway, and more notably, the lesson of history has shown us when a remnant of God’s people repent and seek Him with their whole hearts, things then have a way of working out for themselves without any active intervention on our part.

This will soon be an extraordinarily distressing time for Christians, yet I believe it is not intended for our destruction, but rather to encourage us to seek the LORD once again in a spirit of true repentance and broken heartedness.  Whom the LORD loves He rebukes and chastens, and He admonishes us all to “be zealous therefore, and repent.”

So for those of you have become disillusioned and even bitter about the direction our country has been heading in, don’t despair.  God has not abandoned us, and while we may experience grievous times, it is in those times that we will find true faith and revival.

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace.  In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. – John 16:33

Tags: abandoned, america, christ, christian, Christians, church, churches, country, despair, election, God, government, heresies, holiness, judgment, lord, nation, peace, prayer, prayers, praying, religious fads, remnant, repent, repentance, revival, sin, thecall, unanswered, world
Categories: Christians Gone Wild
 
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If I were to be perfectly fair, there really is much to be thankful for. I have a roof over my head, food on the table, a stable job, a loving family, and a smokin’ ride.

But I always have a tendency to focus on the negative. I get reminded of all the disappointments of life, all the unanswered prayers, all the times when it feels like God left me here to rot, and I get angry instead. I’m upset that I have to spend yet another Thanksgiving without knowing who the love of my life is, if she even exists. Upset that once I go into work next Monday I may have to gear up for another fight with my union and the department I work for, with no resolution in sight. Upset that my health may never get better, and that I foolishly put myself at risk for life threatening diseases. Upset that no matter how hard I try, my blog doesn’t appear to be getting any traction. Upset that my career prospects are quickly going down the toilet.

So yeah, while there may be some things to be thankful for, there are plenty more reasons for me to remain an ungrateful bastard.

But for whatever reason, I trudge onward with hope. There are times when I really despair, but even in my darkest moments I always dream of a better future. I always hope.

So, if there was one thing I should be thankful to God for above all else, I guess it would be hope. I hope that the present darkness will lead to morning light. I hope that I will someday soon meet my true love. I hope for a better future for both my family and those who remain stedfast in their faith in Christ, even in trying times. I hope for the safety of our troops and their speedy return. I hope peace will continue to reign in the hearts of all my dear friends.

I hope.

Tags: anger, better future, christ, dear friends, despair, disappointments, God, head food, hope, lord, love, present darkness, thankful, Thanksgiving, traction, trudge, true love, unanswered prayers
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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I’m often criticized for taking a lone ranger approach to life, and while it’s true that I’ve always been a loner, I’m not against looking for help when I really need it. I knew if I wanted to build a successful blog that I was going to need some kind of support to help me get going, and one of the things that held my site back in particular has been this irritating problem where the footer just wouldn’t stay where it belonged. It kept jumping all over the place and screwing my sidebars up, so as a temporary fix I removed the sidebars from most of my pages. That wasn’t really a solution though, so I started checking around for blog designers I could hire to fix the problem for me.

If I could tell you how many emails I’ve sent out to designers that never got returned, you’d never believe it. You’d think they’d want my business, but I guess I’m not enough of a lucrative prospect for them. Snobs.

Finally, one designer got back to me and worked on my site for a couple of hours, then gave up. He also left one of my sidebars crooked, but promised to look into it, as well as look into a javascript solution I suggested to him to fix the footer. I didn’t hear back from him again until almost a week later, where he sent me a “Dear John” type email suggesting that I’m better off going with a complete revamp of the site. Sure, what’s another 800 bucks or so to destroy the months of work I’ve put into my blog and replace it with whatever crap they had in mind?

Man, when you want something done…

That weekend I rolled up my sleeves and went to work on the blog myself. I only had a rudimentary understanding of CSS, javascript and whatnot, but I kept at it for the whole day and by some miracle of God, I managed to pull it off. The footer issue was finally resolved.

I spent a few hours more banging my head on the keyboard, trying to get my sidebars looking right across different browsers, but without much luck until I started using Firebug, which is quite possibly the greatest web development tool ever invented in the history of mankind. I was able to test and check the results of CSS modifications I made in real time, rather than saving the file, uploading it, reloading my browser, and repeating as necessary ad infinitum. It also helped me locate what file was causing my site to take forever to finish loading, and after I got rid of that it was like I had a new blog all over again.

Deal with THAT, you cheapskate freelance web designers.

Seriously, I learned a lesson here. One, that God is merciful. Two, that people suck big monkey balls. In the end, I realized my project here was going to be a solo operation after all. But I do faith that whatever I can put my mind to, I can achieve, not because I’m so talented and all, but because God is capable of opening up my understanding, and within His will, I can “do all things through Christ, which strengthens me.”

Tags: blog, blogging, christ, code, css, dear john, design, designers, firebug, footer, freelance, God, javascript, keyboard, lone ranger, loner, miracle, people, snobs, solo, success, tongue, troubleshoot, whatnot
Categories: Blog Fog
 
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I’ve been so bombarded with the aggravation I’ve been getting at work that I haven’t been able to take a moment to weigh in on the Virginia Tech shootings until now.

What can someone say, really, to such a senseless act? What factors could drive someone so far over the edge that he would meticulously plan a rampage that involved murdering innocent people, many of who probably didn’t even know him? After all, the pain and suffering he evidently experienced is something we all go through in life. I have certainly felt divorced and disconnected from the world, unloved and unwanted, but something like that would make me want to take a nice long nap on the train tracks, not go and shoot innocent people up.

I have to admit I’m a little annoyed by the collective response to this tragedy though, which reveals some of the deeper problems I believe ails our society. When a tragedy like this happens, we usually see candlelight vigils, rallies, and of course, those ever popular ribbon campaigns, all of which seem to serve no other purpose than to demonstrate how much we care (Ooooh, look at me, look at me, I’m wearing an orange ribbon, which means I’m a wonderful, caring person who actually gives a hoot!) There has even been a call for a day of silence where bloggers and commentators alike are encouraged to refrain from blogging, or commenting on blogs for 24 hours.

This always struck me as a rather self-indulgent, Hollywood way to convey sympathy to those who have lost loved ones so shockingly and tragically, even if it had been done with only the purest of intentions. But more notably, it runs contrary to what Christ taught us through Scripture on how our works of charity ought to be made. We are admonished by Him to do such works as secretly as possible, which would prove to ourselves (and to God) that such acts of kindness are not made with the desire to garner favor from others, but out of a genuine love and concern for others. That’s why I tend to see these public shows of support as the equivalent of what the hypocrites Jesus spoke of did, who loved to sound the trumpets and wait for a crowd to gather before they performed their good deeds.

It’s not to say these public rallies have no place at all, but I do think they’ve become embarassingly overemphasized in today’s day and age. That much was evident to me when I noticed the scarcity of sites that were offering drives to donate monies to the victims’ families (to pay for funerals, counseling, memorials, etc.). I only managed to find one so far, but there may be others as well. If you’re interested in donating, the school has created a memorial fund here:

Virginia Tech Memorial Fund

Tags: acts of kindness, aggravation, ails, bloggers, blogging, christ, commentators, day of silence, donate, donations, fund, giving, glory, hoot, hypocrisy, nap, pain, rallies, rampage, ribbons, Scripture, shootings, silence, suffering, suicide, tragedy, unloved, vigils, Virginia Tech, virginia tech shootings
Categories: News Fit To Blog
 
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The other day I was having a discussion with a friend of mine about an album cover for the group Trouble. He had recently bought the CD and after showing it to me, I noticed a few disturbing things about the album cover and pointed them out to him.

The cover depicted an explosion with a cross on either side, and in the middle of the explosion there appears to be a man with long hair screaming (an image of Christ?). Under the ground you can more clearly see the image of a huge skull. The sky itself shows a billow of smoke with an image of a face on it.

When I saw this I knew exactly what it was: the destruction of the cross at Calvary. Interestingly enough, the name of the place where Christ was crucified was called Golgotha, meaning “the place of a skull.” (John 19:17). See the connection here? The ground depicting an image of a skull… two crosses on either side of an explosion where the middle cross used to be… it wasn’t hard to see how blasphemous it was. I explained all this to my friend. Maybe he’ll see the same things. Maybe he’ll realize sometimes people are not who they profess to be. Maybe he’ll understand such album covers represents the work of a mind under wicked influences rather than under God’s own influence.

“You’re an idiot,” he said.

Of course I am.

Tags: album, album covers, band, billow, calvary, CD, christ, cross, crosses, explosion, God, golgotha, image, long hair, skull, sky, trouble
Categories: Tangled Webs
 
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