My Part of the Conversation

One of the things I love about the New Testament is that it chronicles how people didn’t get it.  It’s not this clean book where people hear something, understand it, and accept it over and over again.  It shows their struggle, mistakes, and misunderstandings.

One of the best examples is a passage I read today (Mark 8:14-21).  Pharisees had earlier tried to test Jesus, demanding miraculous signs from heaven.  Jesus later tells his disciples to “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod”.

The disciples don’t understand, and discuss it with each other.  One says, “It’s because we have no bread.”

I can just see Jesus shaking his head, wondering when they’re going to get it.  So he asks them, “Do you remember how much was left over when we fed 5,000 with 5 loaves of bread, and when I fed 4,000 from 7 loaves?”

He doesn’t ask “How much did I make?” or “Didn’t you see what I did?”  He asks “How much was left over.”
In other words, he says they says they shouldn’t be worried about bread at all.  He could feed them for a week on leftovers from a sparce meal if he wanted to.

How many times have we seen Jesus work miracles in our lives, take care of our needs, or provide direction when we needed it?  Yet, we’re still tempted to ask him if he cares about us, where he is, or if he’s abandoned us.

I can see him shaking his head.  Don’t you remember when…?

Yesterday, I was at the mall with Hudson and took him by to see the Easter bunny (or the “hop-hop” as he calls rabbits).
What he didn’t know, was that his mamma was inside the bunny outfit.  Kate works the stand for a little extra money during Easter and Christmas.  Hudson never figured out that Kate was inside that costume.  Actually, this is the only picture he smiled for, but it turned out pretty good.

Man, he’s growing up so fast!

Cause, I’m not really sure.

I feel a little like Dr. Jekyl, as he opened his mouth and began letting the bubbling liquid slide down his throat… then feeling burning all over and feeling himself forced out of consciousness in favor of… Mr. Hyde, that strange, evil alter ego.

No, this isn’t a devo on Paul’s “sinful nature” from Romans 7.  This is LSU basketball.

Before continuing- my parents are Texans.  Born and bred.  My dad is even a graduate of Texas A&M (gig ‘em!).   My mom got her degree at Stephen F. Austin.  I was even born in Texas while they were finishing their masters’ in Alpine, TX.  We have deep Texas roots.

Yet, I have been routing against Texas all week!  First, I routed against the Aggies.  Then, I routed against UT, which was much easier because they are natural enemies of Aggies, but Texans look out for each other, right?  Why am I routing for Louisiana?  “I do what I don’t want to do” - (why do I keep coming to Romans 7?).

Even more, I keep routing for the Suns.  When I was a kid, I HATED the Suns.  With a passion.  I was a Utah Jazz fan through and through.  But, now that the one-two-Stockton-Malone punch is gone, I suddenly find myself routing for explosive offense of the Phoenix Suns.  I grew up in Phoenix, it makes sense, but I’m going against my heritage, and that feels wrong.  Still, can you believe Amare is finally back?!!!

Anyway, my loyalties are changing.  Watching teams win makes a difference.  I still rout for the old favorites, but routing for teams while they are winning is a heck of a lot more fun.

Basically, sometimes I prefer Mr. Hyde.

At our church, we have something cool we get to do several times a year. In an attempt to help bridge the high school students into the college ministry, we started having several sporting events we play against each other. They get kindof competitive at times, but overall are good community events for our guys. We even have trophies we pass back and forth each time (even though most of the “passing” has been the high school keeping it!). We play flag football, softball, volleyball, and basketball twice a year. Tonight’s the basketball game. Gotta get that trophy back! Here’s a picture of me holding it when we won for the second time in a row (before they took it… grrr…).

Probably the think I miss most about being at Harding was clubs sports. This gives me a bit of that fix, and I even get to play from time to time.

Tonight’s our basketball game. I’ll keep you posted.

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Roger Butner and I have been teaching a class entitled “Inside the World of Today’s Teenager” on Wednesday nights. We told those in class we would make the materials and resources available online.  So, I made a page for the class with all of those documents listed.  You can find it at http://www.blainetucker.com/teenworldclass.