my pea brain

Matthew 4 tells a story of temptation and spiritual strength, but its odd how verse one skims over 40 days of hunger, wonder, and life. This video is an insightful look into verse one. enjoy

First I must define “Quegestion”. It is definitely an Eric Franklin original but its not really that creative. A Quegestion is the combination of a, you guessed it, question and a suggestion. i.e. Do you want to grab some stuff from the store on your way home? Clearly the person asking this question couldn’t care less whether or not you want to go to the store, this is just the way they have chosen to word that they want you to stop by the store on your way home. Why am I blogging about this? Quegestions drive me nuts. It’s not like it’s hard to figure out what Quegestion users want most of the time, I just have a sneaking suspicion that this is their sinister way of getting me to do what they want. What if for instance the Quegestion went something like this: I need some things from the store, will you stop by on the way home? Clear. Not misleading. To the point.

The subject of my “study” has been my wife. She is the first person I noticed using the Quegestion with consistency, and apparently there are a lot of things that she wants me to do but is afraid to come out and say it. Maybe she thinks it is more polite for her to make me feel like it was my idea to go to the store. How manipulating! At first I thought that maybe this is a gender issue and all wives do this to their husbands, but I know guys who are excelent Quegestioners. Then I thought, maybe it’s a personality issue. Type A people can be quite controlling at times and my wife is extremely type A (self diagnosed). Then it came to me to me the other night in the voice of a two year old little girl that lives in my house. “Daddy, do you want to get me some milk?”

Notice the score at the end

As I stood in line to make my selection at the Redbox (great invention by the way), I realized that if I would have been here 10 minutes earlier I would have avoided the guy who was renting 10 movies. I was trying not to be judgemental, but I couldn’t help but think that the mans family will probably not see daylight all weekend.

It’s not easy to pick out 10 movies, it takes alot of time. It takes alot of time…alot…of…time. I was tempted to suggest to the man that you can go online and rent your movies before you ever leave the house and then pay at the box and it just spits em right out. Then I realized “why didn’t I do that.”

Apparently this wasn’t a solo mission, it was an all out family outing. Two very outgoing and unruly children climbing on the machine. The elder child found a friend in the pregnant lady among the crowd now forming behind her dad. While pointing at the ladies belly, she says, “What’s that?”

“A baby” the pregnant lady replied.

“Are you married?” said the little girl.

Nervously the lady responded, “No, I’m engaged,” all the while super dad is deep into movie selection. Not even a courteous smile or a moment of correction, dad is in the zone.

One of the children jumped off of the machine and announced to the crowd “I’m going to the car.”  She bolted into the drive-thru lane and off to the car she went. Dad must have had a weak moment because it appeared that he heard the announcement and turned to look at his child with one foot already in the street. He yelled her name and reached out all the while holding his place in line. It was like his feet were glued to the spot in front of the Redbox. I wish I could see what he was thinking, “Do I save my child from traffic, or do I lose my place in line…Oh…hmm…why does this have to be so hard… Ahhhhhh!”

What would I do? After I was done with my heroic daydream I came to the realization that even though I would have probably left the Redbox and dove after my child, I’m not always super dad. Like when I am glued to the game and Sadie wants me to ” You count, I hide.” (hide-and-seek), or when Cole is obvoiusly in need of comfort and all I can offer is, “I’ll be there in a minute buddy, let me finish checking my e-mail.”

Ouch! Ok God I’m tracking.

This clip would be great for a talk on contentment or true fulfillment. parts of it

Let’s start with the down first. It seems better to leave you on a good note.

one down. I have been off of work now for two months. There has been good come out of this, but it can’t be soon enough till I can get back to what I know. I just recently found out that the owner had thought I had been working all along (I don’t even want know what that means). I’m sure there is an end…but when?

two down. It is becoming ever more aware to me that people aren’t always who they seem. The longer you get to know them you either find out that they are not the great guy you thought they were, or they aren’t that great of guy but they continue to get worse. I’ve been a little discourage lately in some people I previously had some hope for.

three down. I have come to the realization that I am going to have to start running again. At one point in my life I was a running fool. I loved it, couldn’t miss it. Those days are gone. My mirror tells me to run but my rear tell me “lean on me”.

one up. I’ll be 30 in about a week and a half. For some this might be a traumatic event, but I think I’m coping with it pretty well. If anything, I’m just realizing that my time here is passing by very quickly. It’s getting harder and harder to say ” I’ll get to it later” or “There is plenty of time for that later”. Refuse to do nothing. Live today.

two up. baseball is ready for take-off. College baseball has started and MLB spring training games start tomorrow. I’m like a kid on Christmas morning.

three up. Have you ever just had a feeling. You can’t explain it, and you don’t know what it holds. There is some excitement building in me that I can’t explain. Usually it means that there is going to be a change…soon.