Adventures in Denver: Moving....again.

Monday, July 23, 2007

Moving....again.

Well, we are packing our stuff for what seems like the hundredth time! For anyone not up to speed on our lives, we have moved once a year for the last 4 years, and so this will be move #5...but luckily we are only moving like 6 blocks this time. And, as an added bonus, we are probably going to be blessed with 95 degree weather and upwards of 90% humidity...so basically, the sweat will be running like water. :0

Elijah has apparently entered the "fall asleep in random places" phase of his life, and so we were able to take this photo while he was "watching" cartoons.

Two days ago I had taken a break from some serious packing, and was able to get the camera out just in time to catch this photo of a notorious pirate running around our apartment, yelling "I a pirate....jump!"

I have been trying my hand at ebay lately, and was doing pretty well at first, but apparently I just had a run of dumb luck in which the random object from around the house that I had chosen was actually desired by some strange person in either New York or L.A. (with names like Ford Zenabou, and Arubusa Heimendinger-something-or-other). Alas, my luck has failed, and the latest round of clutter I had hoped to turn into profit has proven to be much less desirable. Who knew that a broken computer moniter would sell much faster than a signed, framed, original drawing of Ray Charles? It is a crazy world I tell ya!!

Kim and Elijah and I went for another ultrasound today, and it was confirmed that our baby will most likely be a little girl. Together with the doctor we stared at the strange ink-blot-like shapes that grew and danced in black and white and grey in the odd, rounded portion of the monitor. Every once in a while, the doctor would intimate to us things such as "Those are the ventricles, see, right there, and there are four, which is just how it should be.", or "Mmmm...that thoracic arch looks normal...and the septum too." To these we would reply, "Oh..um, ok, that's good.", while straining our eyes to attempt to figure out what exactly we were supposed to see before he deftly changed the views. However, the good news is that after ten minutes of that, the doctor said that everything looks great (heart, bone structure, kidneys, etc.)! So that is definitely nice news to hear. I was slightly disappointed, though. The doctors had made this ultrasound seem different and more important than the other by calling it a "Level-Two" ultrasound. Ignorantly, I had assumed that up until today I had been forced to view my children through lowly "Level-One" ultrasounds, and that now I would be seeing a crisp, clear picture of our baby, maybe even 3-D, with the blue and red glasses and everything! But, alas, no such luck, and I was not able to tell any sort of differnce, or advantage, between the level one and two systems. Oh well, at least our baby is healthy! :)

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Coming to a Place of Deception

By Michael Wells

James 1:14, “But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.”

Galatians 5:16-17, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.”

I am starting to believe that people are deceived because there is something in them desiring the deception. First, if Satan has the ability to deceive all men, then all men would be deceived. Obviously he does not have that kind of power. So what does he look for in a man that would allow for a deception? Satan is looking for something in the heart of man where the deception can begin. It would be impossible for Christ to deceive any person, for there is nothing in Christ that the flesh desires. True Christianity cannot deceive, for again, nothing in the flesh wants anything at all to do with Christianity.

Christianity has one message for my flesh: “Move over!” So what is it that makes man’s heart open to deception? I believe it is the desire of a heart that says, “I can be God.” Rephrased, it is the desire of the heart to be independent from God. This is why the Mormon religion is so successful; it is cleverer than the early Catholics who embraced the local gods of the people, or just gave them different names. As you know, many “Catholic” countries are rife with blends of Catholicism and witchcraft. Haiti is an example. However, the Mormons offer something more: man can actually become a god. Man can invite his wife to his celestial kingdom, where she can be eternally pregnant. This “deception” has incredible drawing power to those who have suffered under the hand of their unjust god, or who have served a god all of their lives. After all, who would not want to believe that he could become the one who hands out punishment and receives gifts from others?

Such a person is deceived with a ludicrous teaching, but moving past the cobweb to the spider, we see at the root a heart that says, “I want to be God.” Deceptions all offer the flesh something, and Christ is always taking something away from the flesh. When someone converts to Mormonism, or any of the other “-isms,” I never feel that the Mormons won one while the Christians lost one. Instead, I believe that the person, in believing the deception of Mormonism, actually revealed a heart previously hidden that is anti-Christ. Again, we see that nothing is working against us. God is permitting all the “-isms” for the revelation of hearts. The germ of every cult is this promise of keeping the flesh alive through some kind of God-playing. The amazing thing is that it holds any attraction, when it is so much easier to have a God than to play God.