"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."

"Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple."
~Barry Switzer

I played out at an open mic tonight at The Evening Muse, apparently the place to go for acoustic shows here in Charlotte. It was a cool little eclectic bar, nice venue. Order was decided by a lottery when we first got there. Jeremiah pulled out a number for us...#1, great. So we went first. He played djembe to a couple of my songs that he'd never heard before. It was a good time. The other performers varied from not good at all to quite excellent. My favorite was a guy from Ireland named Andrew Farmer. The first song he played was called Don't Run Away From Grace (check it out on his myspace). Then he offered a classic northern Irish bar song which was phenomenal. I wish I could've recorded it for you, it was that brilliant. Seriously, check out his stuff. I recommend it. And see, you never know what kind of free publicity an open mic gig will get you!

"We'll retire 1-0 internationally." I like the sound of that. Not sure how the 4 hour time difference or clay surface or British accents affected the team, but another double digit penalty week doesn't instill much confidence. Now I suppose I shouldn't complain with a 35-7 victory, but then what am I suppose to write about? :) One disclaimer, for the first time this season I wasn't able to watch the game on tv or online so all my observations come from Gino Cappelletti and the radio broadcast. I must say, I'm pleased with Brandon Meriweather's growth as a solid safety. The guy's a ball hawk, no doubt. And Brandon Tate had a decent showing for his first game in a year. But ten penalties, most from the offensive line, is unacceptable. Against a good team, that's gonna come back and bite you. All in all, we're 5-2, first in the division, with a brutal next 5 games on the schedule. A good week for a bye.

Tragedy. That word seems to be coming up a lot lately. Whether it’s teenagers randomly robbing a house and killing whoever they find inside or a father beating his wife to death before taking his own life. These kinds of things happen everyday all over the world, but when it hits so close to home we’re forced to face it. Why does God let these things happen? Perhaps He’s not powerful enough to stop them? Or maybe He’s not as loving as people say? When everything falls apart somebody has to answer for it, so we level our questions at God, the One who’s supposedly in charge of it all in the first place.

God’s sovereignty means He is in control of everything. That’s part of what it means to be God. He says, “My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure” (Is 46:10). Nothing can frustrate His plans. If His plans could be frustrated then there is something higher than Him and He is not God. But God’s sovereignty does not stand alone, it is accompanied by other characteristics like His infinite wisdom, His infinite justice, and His infinite goodness. This means that not only will He always do what He wants to do, but it will always be the perfectly wise, perfectly just, and perfectly right thing to do.

So if God controls everything, why does He allow evil to exist? If we were in control of the universe then surely our goal would be to make everybody happy. Our idea of happiness is that there would be no evil or pain or suffering. But remember our wisdom is finite. Because evil exists, that means somewhere in God’s infinitely wise plan there must be some good reason for evil. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts,” says the Lord (Is 55:9). Indeed there is some comfort in the fact that our God knows far more about these things than we do, and that these events do not fall outside of His all wise plan.

In the Old Testament, the events of Joseph’s life will rival any tragic story you’ll hear. The youngest of 11, his older brothers beat him up, threw him in a well, and then sold him into slavery in a distant country. In Egypt, a false accusation tarnished his reputation and landed him in prison for many years before God finally rescued him. As an older man recalling the events of his life he had this to say to his brothers, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, the preservation of many people alive” (Gen 50:20).

Even our salvation was accomplished as the result of evil. In reference to the greatest crime of all time, Peter prayed, “Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen” (Acts 4:27-28). If it were not for the greatest evil in the history of the world, we would never know the extent of God’s divine love and grace.

Our comfort then is this, all the evil in the world cannot frustrate God’s plans. In fact, it is within His plan and He will accomplish His good ends through it. From where we stand we can’t always see what those good ends are, but we can rest in the fact that the all wise Creator of the universe sees all things and knows all ends. He is good. He is just. And His will will prevail.

In no way is this a comprehensive answer to all the different questions that surround this topic which theologians have wrestled with for centuries. If it only raises more questions in your mind, then what an excellent opportunity for you to continue exploring the depths of our great God. In the meantime, may the grace and comfort of our God be with you always.

What can I find to complain about when the offense puts up a franchise record of 59 points and the defense posts a shutout with 5 turnovers and -7 passing yards?! Well first of all, the weather was our 12th defender today. Titans were dropping passes and fumbling the ball left and right. But Pats defenders were missing a lot of first tackles (snowy and slippery I know) and Tennessee got some huge run plays. Now the shutout definitely deserves credit and they took advantage of the Titans mistakes, but if it weren't snowy I'm not sure this would've been a shutout the way Chris Johnson was running. On the offense, here I'm definitely pleased. I'm glad they didn't throw out half the playbook for the weather. I'm glad to see Brady with plenty of time to throw, great accuracy, and finally hitting some long TDs. Maroney and Green-Ellis were solid on the ground. They'll have to keep it up the rest of the season with Morris and Taylor both injured. Overall, it was a good show against a bad team, admittedly a little better than expected, but I'm not getting too excited because it was against a winless team. It was a good building block towards a tough November. And as if today couldn't get any better, the Bills upset the Jets in OT to give the Patriots sole possession of first place in the division.

Thursday was our first day taking fan photos before the NASCAR qualifiers. It was pretty rainy in the early afternoon and cold all day. So between the weather and since it wasn't the race yet there really weren't that many people around. I took about 70 photos over the 5 hours we were out. The boss was going to send out an email with the list of people he wanted back for race day on Saturday. When the email came out...I wasn't on the list. I was kinda disappointed because that means either my pics weren't very good or I didn't take enough, but mostly because it was a fun job and now he probably wasn't going to ask me back again. I looked back at the pics and they weren't all that good, but I knew if I had another chance on a day with more people I'd do a lot better. So I was sulking most of Friday and this morning, but as I was praying today I reminded God (myself) that I trusted Him to provide for my needs whatever that may look like.

So I finally found my first job in the area. It's only a weekend contract job, but work is work. This weekend I'll be at Lowe's Motor Speedway taking fan photos during the NASCAR race here in Charlotte. Basically it'll be two full days of wandering around taking photos of crazy redneck NASCAR fans who've been camping here in their RVs all week, half of whom will probably be drunk through the whole thing anyway (not to stereotype or anything!). Then afterward they can go online and purchase their photo if they like. All in all it should be fun, getting paid to take pictures, can't beat that! Plus free admission to the race...woohoo...I'm trying to contain my excitement...how unfortunate that this blog post can't communicate my sarcasm...I mean, enthusiasm. :)

Well I guess we know one thing for sure now...Denver is legit. Everyone was saying they're not really a 4-0 team but they went out and played some tough ball. I gotta hand it to them...mostly for Josh McDaniels sake. It's a lot harder to hate a team (sports hate) with such a good guy as a coach. How cool was it to see him trade hugs with Ben Watson and Steven Neal after the game...and he was so excited. As much as I hate to drop a game, that makes it a little easier to swallow. But this post isn't about the Broncos...

Did you ever wonder why Amos 1:6-8 mentions four cities of the Philistine Pentapolis (Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, and Ekron) but not the fifth, the large and important city of Gath? Ok, it probably never crossed your mind, you just read right over it, even if you were reading Amos, which you probably weren't in the first place. Well, I'm going to tell you anyway! If you flip a few pages over to Amos 6:2, you see the prophet use Gath as an example of what's going to happen to Jerusalem and Samaria because they're such idolaters. Back in 2 Kings 12:17, we read that Hazael, king of Aram (modern Syria), went up and destroyed Gath. Archaeologists have discovered a massive, man-made seige trench around the remains of Gath and a destruction layer in the city that dates to that same time period. Also N. Israel/Syrian style pottery was found at the bottom of the trench. Seems like good evidence that Hazael built this trench when he beseiged and destroyed Gath. He planned to go and do the same to Jerusalem, but king Joash paid him off out of the temple treasury. When Amos was preaching against the sins of Israel and Judah, the destruction of a big city like Gath would have been a vivid example of God's wrath poured out against those who reject him. I love how archaeology makes seemingly insignificant passages like this one come alive!

Halloween 'decorations' just make me laugh...every time.

It's an exciting time to be a Patriots fan! The number one thing I noticed today was defense making tackles. Baltimore did rack up some yardage, but not very much after the catch. The game ending drive made me a little nervous, that was a little too close for comfort, but in the end, if Mark Clayton can't catch a ball thrown right to his hands, they don't deserve to win anyway. It appears we're back to our "bend-but-don't-break" defensive scheme of a few years back. That doesn't inspire a lot of confidence, but the swarming and hard nosed tackling are signs of a playoff worthy defense. I'm not ready to label them championship-caliber yet, but there's still a lot of season left. On the other side of the ball, we managed 80-some rushing yards against a stingy run defense, just enough to balance the attack and keep the blitzers honest. Brady seems to be getting better every week, though I'm sure a healthy Wes Welker didn't hurt. I have to wonder if no Joey Galloway is a sign the end may be near for him. And I'm glad to know we can still get a Red Zone touchdown, finally. I was beginning to wonder if we were purposefully trying to pad Gostkowski's stats. Overall, a solid win over a good team, even if it did take a few well-timed penalties to keep us rolling. Making the most of your opportunities, that's what makes a good team.