Wednesday, April 30

Cognitive Surplus

Clay Shirky answers the question "Where do people find the time" in regards to all the information people are flooding onto the internet. I thought it was really eye-opening. It's approximately 15 minutes long.

Enjoy.

Tuesday, April 29

A Little Clarity

Do you ever have those moments where it just becomes so clear that you don't have any thing figured out?

We go through our lives planning, learning, doing, and yet sometimes I have this realization that - well - I'm just kind of stumbling along. Yet I put on this facade of having things together. I put on this air of confidence. Sometimes I even manage to fool myself into believing it. When someone else has questions and they turn to me for advice and/or answers, I confidently state my "opinion" on the matter. As if, somehow,(through my whole twenty seven years on this planet)I've managed to figure something out.

I know it's cliche, but the older I get the more I realize I don't know. That's a rather unsettling thought. How ignorant will I be when I'm 70?

These moments of clarity shed a little light on 1 Corinthians 2:2 "For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified."

I feel a burden to remember that this is all I really know. This is all I need to know. I need to let others know that Christ is all I know.

1 Corinthians 8:2-3 And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. But if any man love God, the same is known of him.

Sunday, April 20

A new start

Well, my wife started a new blog today: http://www.hknapp.blogspot.com/

We'll see if this one goes a little better than the last one. :-)

Thursday, April 17

*deep breath*

Well, it's official now. :-) My wife and I have decided to see if we can sell our condo. We're going to leave it on the market for 6 months and see what happens. If it sells, we're going to move out to the country about 10 minutes northwest of Morton.

Mom & Dad Pfaffman own a 3 bedroom ranch that they're going to rent to us. It needs a little work, but Heidi & I enjoy that type of thing and we'll work out a labor-for-rent deal, so that should be good.

We have mixed emotions about selling. We really enjoy our condo and it's location, but we should be able to save faster if we move, so we're going to give it a shot and see what happens. I counseled with several people about selling and tried to think about all the angles. In the end, it just made sense to list it. We're resting in God's sovereignty, knowing that if it's supposed to sell, it will, and if not, then it won't. We serve a good God who always has our sanctification at heart. We're thankful.

If anyone knows someone who's looking for a place in Morton, here's the link to our ad.

Also, if anyone has any good advice on selling your own home, I'd love to hear it. I feel like I'm in a little over my head here. :-)

Thursday, April 10

Mathemagics!

This guy multiplies 3 and 4 digit squares in his head like it's nothing! His grand finale is doing a 5 digit square in his head outloud so we can hear how he does it. Truly amazing.




Wow!! This guy blew me away. The human mind is an amazing thing!

Monday, April 7

Pensive

Mondays...

Need I say more?

Actually, this Monday hasn't necessarily been bad, but it's still a Monday.

I had an amazing weekend. Eight young couples from Washington went to the Heimer cabin in Taylor for the weekend. It's a beautiful log cabin sitting between two ponds on almost 1300 acres of rolling forests and fields. It's an amazing place to relax and enjoy nature. The weather was beautiful. We fished, rode 4-wheelers, shot clays, shot bows, relaxed in the jacuzzi, and had an all-around great time.

Worship just seems to come so naturally when you're surrounded by and close to God's creation. Sunday was another great day of worship in Taylor. It was good to be "home", as I'm so often reminded when I visit there now.

But there's also a bleh feeling that accompanies the end of a weekend like that. Your heart yearns for everyday to be like that. As we climb back down into the trenches where worship requires a more direct act of our will, we yearn for that ease of praise that comes from being in a beautiful setting.

I'm thankful God gives us those times of recharging!

The weekend brought up a lot of thoughts that I'm not prepared to put into words. Thoughts of how blessed we are as a people and how we so often take it for granted and don't use our blessings to spur us to praise, but rather to selfishness and pride. God forgive us. Thoughts of how blessed we are to have Christ and have an amazing support group of friends who spur us upward and don't drag us down. Thoughts of pain for those close to me who are rejecting Christ and His salvation.

It's all very sobering.