Welcome to my Blog

A month ago a friend of mine and I were sitting in a bar drinking some beer samplers, and sharpening each other like iron. I told him about this idea I had for an invention, it was a murphy theatre seating arrangement, where instead of having a murphy bed that folded down out of a wall, you could have a row of theatre seats that folded out of a wall, so that you could have a place for people to sit when you have a large number of people over. It would be particularly useful for people who host community groups or small church plants in their homes. A small market niche admittedly. He suggested that i create a blog and blog about what was going on in my life and people could take my ideas and turn them into actual inventions, and i could give away my ideas for free  and just ask that if people develop them they send me one for free.... at least that was his logic, i think he more wanted a blog to expose me to the ridicule of comments and posts and world wide mockery. Well this weekend i was in Seattle for my daughter's 4th birthday party (a party celebrating the age of 4, not the fourth birthday party she has had this year) and another friend of mine asked me how it was going in Wenatchee (we recently moved here in January of 2009.) I told him, and i also told him that everyone asked the same questions so you forget who you have told what to, and you get tired of the same answers over and over, and he suggested the blog as well as a way to inform people who want to know, and who want to pray for us, two things that I am excited about. So I began this blog. I don't know what i will do with it yet, or what direction i will take it, but it will probably have a combination of random comedic observations of daily life, personal updates about myself, my family, and our friends, (though my wife's blog covers that in a more approachable and tolerably feminine way), and a selection of what i am reading currently and how that is affecting me. I suppose i will simply leave this as an introductory post and share with you simply where the Take a firm grip title comes from.

I'm tired. I'm searching for where to anchor my self, my heart, my mind, my soul, my strength. As a christian, and a person who God has called to serve him with everything i have I know that the overwhelming answer is to anchor myself in Jesus. I can say those words a thousand times but the great task of my life will be how to embody that beyond a cheesy religious expression of piety and in a real penetrating way that changes how i think and live.

The title and the quest of this for me comes from Hebrews 12. 

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God....Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. strive for peace with everyone.

That is the ESV which i have in front of me, the part that talks about drooping hand in the NIV reads, "take a firm grip with your tired hands" and that has always been a great verse for me. And that is what i am trying to do now with my life, to take a firm grip, to mark out a straight path. And to do it in such a way that creates peace with everyone...