Just blonging along

November 3, 2008
I guess I am a couple of days late on this… That is for the unofficial international month of blogging. I cannot say that is its real name, but November is considered that month for blog posting. It is a challenged raised to us to post a blog every day… Oh well already missed that. But still I want to rise to the challenge if even a couple of days late. I do have things to say, I do have opinions and stories to share so once again… here goes… (yes I like ellipses).

So here it is Monday, the 3rd say of August. What do I have to say? I think for starters I will report on my weekend. I was left alone this week end. And for Alan that is not a pleasant thing. I would much rather have people around me, even if they are just sitting there quietly. AnnMarie was at a woman’s retreat and Emily stayed at a friends. I stayed home and did chores... I did 5 loads of laundry, caught us up on downloading some favorite programs and I made homemade split-pea soup. It was my first time. I also had to go and do some foraging. In fact I went out three separate times on Saturday trying to stock up on stuff, and check the mail. I also watched a few episodes of StarGate Atlantis, Prison Break, Numb3rs and StarTrek Enterprise (thanks Kit for those DVD's). So here my wife was off being spiritually refreshed and I was just living in the flesh… such is life at times. Sunday on the other hand was another deal all together. I got to go to Chernighiv, which is my habit for the first Sunday of the month. I got to share at my friend, Valeriy’s home church. God has been talking to me about a topic… Long and short of it – We cannot be saved by works, but we were saved for works. Want to know anymore… read Ephesians and who knows I may yet get to blog about it.

But it was a great trip. I always feel used of God when I go there and I am also well received. Valeriy and I have some great theological discussions. This week we were talking about the duality of our existence as Christians. Both redeemed of God, yet living in a body that does it best to try to lead us astray, and has wants that are often contrary to our new redeemed nature. My argument was that our new redeemed life should exert control over every aspect of our life. Valeriy argued that we will always being living lives driven by flesh. Some things like jobs and food feed the flesh, other things like church, the bible and prayer feed the spiritual side of us. It was fun to wrestle with what the scriptures say and present our points with God’s word. I’m not sure either of us convinced the other of anything but it was good all the same wrestling with it and hearing his side. I am discovering that Ukrainians have some strange ideas (well strange to me anyway) about faith and spirituality and I am working at sorting out what is culture and what is scripture.

So now it is Monday. I’m trying to get back on track. I have done my scripture reading… still need to pray, had breakfast, studied some Russian and need to work on my course rewrite (will it ever end?). I’ll call this it for now… let’s see what tomorrow brings.

The preacher dude