richard's notions.

During the past five years, I've been putting the mantra to a very specific test with astounding results. I hum the mantra, asking Go for more real ministry, then following the nudge of the Holy Spirit, I ask a complete stranger, "How can I help you?" Many of them correct my grammar, but others just say, "Beat it creepo." But once at the Atlanta airport, in transit between real holy ministry events, I walked up to a stunning divorcee business woman, wearing all sorts of expensive Italian accessories. I blurted out, "What can I do for you?"
"Beat it creepo," she said.
"No, really, what can I do for you?" I said.
"I'm going to call security if you don't leave me alone," she said sideways.
"No, really, what can I do for you?" I said again.
"Oh, you must be one of those guys with the Jabez mantra," she said. "Six others beat you already." She paused. "Here's what you can do then," she said. My eyes lit up-it was one of those Christian sentence moments, I could tell.

She looked directly at me and said, "Be human! You're too ethereal and ghostly. Your fingers aren't even touching your briefcase, for Pete's sake," she said. "Grow up. Doesn't the Incarnation mean anything? Life is more than passing out Christian sentences. Pure religion is to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction. Show me how to see the glory of God in the ordinary things of life; show me how to be faithful and find meaning in the quotidian; show me how to 'eat my bread with joy and drink my wine with a merry heart' like Solomon says. Show me how to raise children so that, from them, generations will rise up and count me blessed. Show me how to live life artfully. Show me...."

She kept shouting after me as I wandered off.

Douglas Jones, The Mantra of Jabez

posted by Richard Okimoto at 08:18.

Ask and ye shall receive.

On the docket for tomorrow's prayer: "Pray for the ministries of Christ Church of Searcy, Arkansas and their pastor Todd Davis." Glory to God for this privlege!

posted by Richard Okimoto at 21:25.

I feel the need to go garver for a while.

I will leave you with this little known fact: At some point, my pastor's football team beat Uncle Rico's in '82.

posted by Richard Okimoto at 11:05.

Just about every night, Ashley comes into our room, stands next to the bed, and says to me, "Daddy, can I get in there?". And I pull her up in with me, always with the expectation of taking her back to her bed in a few minutes, when she is asleep again. Usually it's about three or four hours later when I take her back, though.

Anyhow... last night this all happened as usual, except for one thing. Instead of me carrying her back, she got out of our bed, and went to her own. Out of her own volition. Just because. I still had to get up and go in there, because Geneva got a little freaked out when Ashley crawled back into bed with her.

I guess she got tired of having to share the bed with Daddy, Mommy and Fiona.

posted by Richard Okimoto at 09:03.

If ever you're having a tasty dessert, and you think, 'hey, whipped cream would be good with this", but then are informed that you do not have any heavy whipping cream in the house, do not consider using some of the half&half that you happen to have as a substitute. It just doesn't work probably won't do what you expect. The milk, you would likely learn, takes precedence over the cream.

posted by Richard Okimoto at 22:24.

Oh crap... I'm on the bubble!




via Mark

posted by Richard Okimoto at 07:48.

Good post from Leithart on Baptism and Justification

posted by Richard Okimoto at 14:42.

I just saw a student... a college, now... standing in the hallway, picking the crusts off a sandwich.

posted by Richard Okimoto at 14:56.

There's a new pope... Joseph Ratzinger was elected. He'll be known as Pope Benedict XVI

posted by Richard Okimoto at 12:50.

buzzz.

So I cut my hair last night. Not Too Shabby.

Megan made it look nice.

posted by Richard Okimoto at 08:12.

I bought some clippers the other day, and I think I'm going to cut my hair tonight. We shall see what sort of damage I incur.

posted by Richard Okimoto at 14:12.

In our household we've recently started a weekly tradition. Friday night, we have Pop N' Pizza. We've had it for three weeks now, I think, and Megan has improvied exponentially in the pizza production. She makes the dough, and every time it gets much better. It won't be long before the Papa is going to have to step aside as the Pizza king.

Anyhow... this past Friday Geneva ate her piece, and asked for another, and then after a bite or two of the second piece, she said, "Daddy, my tummy says I am all full".

Another incident with the girls... Saturday, they were in their room playing when Geneva came screaming out of her room. With Ashley following shortly. I took them aside and questioned them to find out what happened. Geneva said Ashley pulled her hair. I asked Ashley what happened. She confessed to pulling her hair, and also said she called her a "stinky underwear". It was very, very difficult to not laugh. Megan couldn't do it... she went to another room. I had to cover my face momentarily. It was unacceptable behavior, but man, it was really funny. And what's more, when I told Ashley to say to Geneva that she was wrong to pull her hair and call her names, she had to say what the name was. She said it three or four times during the session of discipline. Cracked.Me.Up.

posted by Richard Okimoto at 11:35.

Today I was informed that, "as a result of the completion of a comprehensive review of positions across the college", I am getting a pay raise, effective April 29th.

Exciting.

Which leads me back to what I said earlier about cool things happened to me. I've got so much 'cool thing' in my life that God has given me, that I'm not in a position where I need on more cool things. I mean, my cup was already running over... and He just keeps pouring and pouring.

posted by Richard Okimoto at 14:46.

This morning I was listening to the Bible on my iPod, and felt like my mind kept wandering, and I had to remind myself to pay attention because I had just missed what was said. Then I looked down (dangerous, I know) to see where I was (I was listening to 1 Peter) and saw that I was in chapter 2. "Wow", I thought, "chapter one longer than I thought".

And then it ended.

And then I realized that shuffle was on, and it was skipping around the chapters.

Sheesh.

posted by Richard Okimoto at 14:34.

This is just funny...

I was looking at the M&Ms website, and there was a survey, so I decided to take it. Here are a few statements you're supposed to rate...
a) I often speak about chocolate candy to my friends
b) When I speak about chocolate candy to my friends I usually give them a lot of information
c) Within the last six months I have spoken to a lot of people about chocolate candy
d) During a conversation about chocolate candy, it is very probable that I would convince my friends about my ideas
e) My friends would probably consider me a good source of advice for chocolate candy
f) I have nothing important to discuss with anyone.

Okay, so I made that last one up. But, man, if you can even "Somewhat Disagree" with any of the othres, then it has to be true. Who sits around talking about chocolate candy?!

Also, in the department of how often do you (or your family) eat m&ms, I put multiple times a day, because M&Ms are the treat we use for potty training, and Ashley is in that process.

posted by Richard Okimoto at 14:05.

In looking for the link to that post about Mark Horne last year, I ran across these excerpts of dinner conversation.

I need to do more of that.

posted by Richard Okimoto at 13:44.

Internet worlds are colliding.

Mark, is posting about Mark, via his LSW.

I don't know if I can handle it. Mark Horne was already involved in one colliding of internet worlds for me. Now he is invovled again with Mark, otherwise known as the RumorSage. And there was recently a small crashing of worlds when I joined the Wrightsaid list, and Mark (the Sage) was a member, and welcomed me. I didn't expect that!

How small is the world wide web, anyhow?

posted by Richard Okimoto at 13:35.

Yesterday I listened to this talk by Joey Pipa on 'Contemporary Attacks on Justification'. I don't know why I did it, really. Perhaps as an exercise in self-discipline? I held my speaking aloud to myself to just three or four instances. But, really, it was largely crap. A few outright untruths, and plenty of half-truths.


We watched Hotel Rwanda last night. My reaction can be summed up in saying, 'My God, how can this be?'. Megan and I both cried throughout. I put Steve Schlissel's sermon, 'Postmillennial Thinking in a an Age of Tribulation' on my iPod to listen to this morning.

posted by Richard Okimoto at 12:14.

The summer between my sophomore and junior year of high school, I moved to Japan. And, seeing how I didn't know anyone, and there wasn't a whole lot going on where I could meet people, I spent pretty much all my time working.

The fruit of that summer of work was a nice component stereo system. It was top of the line. The speakers were probably four feet tall, and had a fifteen inch subwoofer in them. I delighted in that system. When I moved off for college it stayed in my room, and when I'd go home for vacations it was always happy to be played again.


And now I hear of a garage sale my dad had. And the stereo is gone. And, the part that really hurts is that it is gone for $50. sigh

posted by Richard Okimoto at 10:34.

One reason RSS readers are inferior to actually visiting a blog...

http://www.thisclassicallife.com/weblog/

posted by Richard Okimoto at 14:38.

Person 1: The bible is equally as clear about people falling away, and forgetting about the sins they were cleansed from, and trodding over Christ's blood by which they were sanctified, and flipping off the Spirit.

Person 2: XXXX, this is very difficult to understand. How can someone be cleansed from sins, but not be forgiven from them? It sounds like a perfect contradiction.

Person 1: See, it sounds like 2 Peter 1:9 to me...

posted by Richard Okimoto at 14:09.

Yesterday we went up to the Peaks of Otter, and went on a short, but exciting, hike to Johnson Farm. It's about a 2 mile round trip... but taking the girls kicked it up a notch. G&A were in a double jogger (when they were't walking), and F was on my back. It was pretty crazy. The trail became quite narrow in some places, and there was a fallen tree at one point. We had to lift the stroller over it.

But, in spite of all the naysaying fellow hikers, we made it to the farm, and the girls had a good time running around. Geneva was a bit disappointed, because for some reason, she thought we were going to the zoo. We think it's because I said we might see some animals (and we did... several deer). But, we're going up to the national zoo some time this spring, and she'll get her fill of animals then.

Anyhow... it's was in the 70s yesterday, and quite sunny. Wonderful day.

posted by Richard Okimoto at 08:22.

After reading Douglas Wilson's Autobiographical Fragments, I thought to myself, "Why don't cool things like that happen to me?".
And then I realized my folly and thought, "I wonder how many cool things like that happen to me and I don't even give a second thought of thanks and recognition to God".

posted by Richard Okimoto at 21:19.

Jon Barlow gives some good, necessary points for a fruitful discussion

For good, productive dialogue, here's what's needed at a minimum:

1. An attitude of self-risk. All "sides" of an issue have to be willing to approach each other with humility, with the idea that 'I could be wrong' or even 'I could have misread him'

2. Trust. All 'sides' of an issue need to trust that they are all doing their best to understand each other and be understood, rather than hiding from each other.

3. Preparation - all the participants in a discussion need to be prepared and educated about the issues to be discussed.

4. Academic Freedom (for lack of a better label) - the idea that we can hash out these issues without worrying about being labeled a 'heretic' during the process.

5. Creative "best hopes" - each side has to treat the other as if they were honest and forthright and as if they were fair and judicious. Of course, it is possible that there are malicious and "bad" people on any side of this issue, but you have to leave that aside in productive debate and pretend as though each party is sincere and in it for the right reasons.

From the comment of this post

posted by Richard Okimoto at 15:47.

Hey, look! The Gospel of Matthew has a literary structure... it must not be literal history!

posted by Richard Okimoto at 10:36.

One of the free iTunes downloads this week is a song called One Evening by Feist. I really like the sound of it. I haven't really paid much attention to the words... it could be a horrible song. But the sound of her voice is great, and the music really smooth. It actually has a little bit of a BeeGees feel, now that I think about it.

I'm enjoying it. And it's free!

posted by Richard Okimoto at 18:52.

One charge (in a list of many) against a proponent of the Federal Vision...
"Yours is paradoxically both a legalistic system and an antinomian system."

Do I even need to make a comment?

posted by Richard Okimoto at 12:13.