Month: March 2010

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Here’s My Bracket

For the last several years, I have filled out a March Madness bracket, I usually go with my “mind picks” and not my “heart picks”.  I usually try to spend a little time thinking about who really has a chance and how things might work out.  Last year, I was second, if I remember right, in my bracket – maybe third.  Not so this year.  This year, I am casting caution to the wind and am going with my heart and soul!

As you know I am a huge West Virginia Mountaineer Fan, so this year I am going in all the way and picking them:

click on this pic to see my entire bracket

That’s right.  All in – I am going all in.  I am stepping out on faith in my Mountaineers, and placing my hope in them that they will not disappoint.  The bracket has several heart picks, even though I was torn on a few teams and picked then to win a game against my better judgment ( PITT).  However, I figured it made the conference look better if your opponents win a few as well.

Buts that’s been my theme for 2010 – being obsessed, going all in, and I felt this was a good way to demonstrate that in a tangible way, a way to express and consider this idea of  not being ‘lukewarm‘.  But really if the Mountaineers win, I will be extra excited, but I still have my life to live, my own job, my own responsibilities that will not really be impacted.  Same way if they actually lose a game in this tournament.  I will be disappointed, but I will still be a fan, and my life will go on(after a night of mourning!).   I am not actually casting my entire hope in them.  However, I do want to cast my entire hope in Christ, I want to be obsessed and go past just being a fan.  I  am stepping out on faith in my Christ, and placing my hope in Him. And this is a place where it actually can make a difference.  You see, I may get made fun of (especially by my SEC loving friends) for my Mountaineer pick, and I may be pitied, but really not to much extent.  But if I am wrong about putting my hope in Christ, 1 Corinthians 15 says I am “to be  pitied more than all men.”

But, I know that He will not disappoint.  Later in the same chapter it says this:

57But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

58Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

So, lets not be cold nor hot, lets not sit on the fence.  Get in!  All the way in.

Oh, and one last thing:

Lets Go Mountaineers!

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Cothrom An Lae Shona Duit

Well Jason is sleeping in this morning enjoying his much deserved and needed vacation, yesterday afternoon when I spoke with him he was forcing his eldest son to push mow part of the yard, oh the joys of parenthood!

Well Happy Anniversary! Wait you thought I would say Happy St. Patrick’s day but no this day is not known as that in my household. On this day 9 years ago I married my beautiful bride. It has been 9 years…. 4 years of the Army, 3 children, and here we still stand. Many of you may be saying 9 years, that is nothing! Well, I believe in this day and time, every day is an accomplishment. There are so many people who give up so easily and call it quits. Marriage isn’t easy, it takes work, many days you can’t stand the person on the other side of the bed but you keep going (I of course have never felt that way, my wife is wonderfully perfect 😉 ). So on this day every year when everyone else says Happy St. Patrick’s Day, I will always say Happy Anniversary because of the beautiful wonderful woman who 9 years ago today, agreed to be my wife. But in the spirit of the day Cothrom An Lae Shona Duit (Happy Anniversary in Gaelic)!

Mark 10:7 (New International Version)
7’For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,[a]

Ephesians 5
25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing[b] her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself

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Why Me God?

Well, for the day, Jason has given up the reigns of the Daily Buffet and passed them off to me, Ray. There is much more pressure than I thought there would be! Jason does a great job and I hope I can live up to his high standard for the post today.

As I was deciding what to write about today, an event in my life kept coming to mind. A couple of weeks ago the stomach bug was making it’s rounds around the Russell household. Passing from child to child and then to me. As I was making my way home from Unum in the middle of the afternoon sending my half digested lunch back into the box from wence it came. I started questioning, questioning why God would create such a miserable illness and why I had to get it? I even said it out loud to my wife Marti, what is the point? why would God create such an illness? I truly felt as if I was going to die and was upset that I had to endure this sickness. Well as fast as it came the stomach virus was gone and I was better. Since then I have thought much about my question of that day. You see so many times we see bad things happen to people and we say well God is in control and He has a plan. A person has cancer and we say God has a plan, an earthquake kills thousands and God is in control, a drunk driver kills a co-worker walking in to work and well God’s will was this but let me get a small little stomach virus and I question God?! Is my faith so weak? I pray not but it is something to think about.

Anytime I think of trials my mind is always drawn to Job. Job dealt with so much he lost his things, family, and health. His wife and friends told him to curse God and die but he wouldn’t do it. Job did however get frustrated and question God. God allowed this but then responded:

Job 38
The LORD Speaks
1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm. He said:
2 “Who is this that darkens my counsel
with words without knowledge?

3 Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.

4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.

5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?

6 On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone-

7 while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels [a] shouted for joy?

8 “Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,

9 when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,

10 when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,

11 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?

12 “Have you ever given orders to the morning,
or shown the dawn its place,

13 that it might take the earth by the edges
and shake the wicked out of it?

God put Job back in his place and sometimes we need to be put there ourselves, to understand that God’s plan is not our own:

Isaiah 55:8 (New International Version)

8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.

So today as we are out in the world let’s not just say God has a plan when bad things happen to us or others but truly believe that God has a plan for all things that happen even if we don’t understand why.

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Ides of March 2010

The Ides of March.  The middle of the month that switches personality – is it a Lion or a Lamb?  One month before your taxes are due. The day that good old Caesar was warned to watch out for his “friends”.  And for most of us another Monday, to get up and tackle.  Since this is such a memorable day in most peoples mind with it catchy little nomenclature, this can be a day for you to keep renewing and transforming yourself.

Just like with Caesar there may be things (temptations, emotions, situations) out there, not just today, that are wanting to trap you.  Use today to identify those things and develop an approach to stay strong.

13Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong.  1 Corinthians 16:13 (New International Version)

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Days of our lives

Its good to be back home, where you know the only nastiness on the remote is your own nastiness.  This week has left me a little brain dead, so I have a simple thought to share this morning.  Last week I finally finished Crazy Love by Francis Chan.  This sentence has stuck with me:

I concur with Annie Dillard, who once said, “How we live our day is…. how we live our lives.”  We each need to discover for ourselves how to live this day in faithful surrender to God as we “continue to work out [our] salvation with fear and trembling”(Philippians 2:12).

I agree as well.  And that’s why its important to focus on your days, for they comprise your life.  And that’s also why I think vacations are good.  They allow you to step away from your day and evaluate if they are adding up to the life you want.  Next week I will be doing that, and there may be some guest bloggers keeping the buffetting going.

13But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. (Hebrews 3:13 (New International Version))