Barry Bonds

This weekend we had a bout of simultaneous puberty with our boys. It was the darnedest thing. One morning they woke up and were changed. It’s like living with Wookies. Hairy chests, aggression, deeper voices, disregard for authority… My only explanation is possibly the new Balco Barry Bonds gummy vitamins or it could simply be heredity (I blame the genes on my wife’s side of the family).

Either way, keep Sasquach and little Yedi in your prayers… we’ve already run out of razors and red meat. If this keeps up, I’ll have to ship them off to live with the Power Team.

It’s your duty to vote! Marc Ecko the buyer of the Barry Bonds record breaking home run ball has setup a website to determine the fate of the historic ball.

Here are your choices:

1) Send it to the Hall of Fame “as is.”

2) Sent it to Cooperstown with an “*”  branded to the ball as a reminder of the steroid era.

3) Banish it into space.

 Go here to vote.

This is truly amazing [compliments of MudPuppy]. It’s a geographical map of baseball teams and their fan base. Enjoy. The pic can be found here.

I love baseball and Barry Bonds makes me sick. There is so much in baseball that is dishonest and has nothing to do with the game. Barry has brought shame to the game, but he’s not the only one.  He’s just the only one relishing in a glory that is not his. But how many of us do this – relish in glory that’s not ours?

Last week, when I was speaking to a group of youth at a camp about evangelism I asked, “how many of you here have saved someone.” Most raised their hands. Then I quickly retorted, “Christ is the only one that saves, not us.” We don’t save people. We can’t. We’re called to share the good news and be a ready instrument of God, but we will never saved anyone. We never will.

Knowing that Christ is the Savior and not us is a humbling thought. How often do we relish in an event when kids are saved or the Lord really moves, as if we had something to do with it? I used to be concerned with numbers when I was a youth pastor and worked for a church that worshiped numbers. Then I began to realize that it doesn’t matter. Nothing in this world will stand. The only thing that lasting is Christ’s work within us. Is what Barry has done an accomplishment? Not really. He hit the home run, then marched around the bases and then when he stepped on home plate he pointed to heaven as if to thank God [for giving him BALCO]. It’s just amazing how we celebrate nothingness in name of God.

John the Baptist (and yes I believe he was a dirty baptist) said it best, “he [Christ] must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).  So where in our lives do we need to decrease so God can do his lasting work? I’m just amazed, excited and humbled that in light of this that He still takes me along for the ride.

God Provides vs. Man Supplies

Take some wisdom from George Peppard (A-Team) 

More craziness from the Bridge CC (Kevin Bussey and Stuart Delony)