Earthworks

Yesterday, we started work on a retaining wall at the far end of my property beside the garage. The purpose was to increase the gap between the garage and the soil, so that a car could be parked there. It took us most of the day to get rid of the soil, and dig the holes for the posts. Fortunately we had a plethora of helpers.



Thanks goes out to Jono, Nato, Matthew, Taramitsu, Carl, Nick, Sam and Louise. Mention must also be made of Alex, who did watch for a bit.



Many of us are burnt, tired, and have blisters on our hands. Some even braved bee stings. Nevertheless we came, saw and conquered.

Merry Christmas

I hope you all have a blessed Christmas. God bless you.

Comments

I am not particularly fond of blogger comments, so here's hoping I can get my enetation ones back. But at least as a temporary measure all you fans can have your say.

Two Things

1. Yes I know that my comments are not working. Hopefully this will soon be sorted out.



2. I have resigned from Tip Top as of Monday. I will finish there on January 28, and then will take February as a holiday, before starting work for Covenant. Yay!

Quote

I am currently reading "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel. So far I'm finding it a really good read.



Here is one of the characters on agnostics:-

To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

Men - Be Disciplined

Discipline seems to be a dirty word these days. And the trademark man is undisciplined. He has no time for schedules and rules. He is the free man. Ever free to do anything, ever able to do nothing. He makes great plans. He achieves none of them. He has great ambition, and many ideas, but he can never fulfill them. He always plans to be better. He always gets worse. He is undisciplined man. He is always potential man, never actual man.



Men, we are nothing without discipline. If we lack it, we are not men as a men should be. Truly great men, are truly disciplined. Look at the greatest man ever - Jesus. His life was a disciplined life. He was a man who fasted, was tempted in the desert when hungry, yet resisted. A man who woke up early after hard days to pray. A man who was disciplined enough to follow a path which lead to death.



Jesus is our role model men. So how do we become like him? What are some practical steps we can take?



We need to be stewards of our time. I think we need to limit our entertainment time. We must kick our TV watching habits, or our computer game habits... whatever we spend much of our spare time doing. These things can be good, but we must remember that these things cannot take precedent. In the gaps we create, we need to insert prayer, scripture reading, and scripture meditation. We must become readers. We need to read books by wise Christians. We need to spend time serving others.



We need to become men of our word. Cut back on what we do, so that what is left can be done well. We need to make sure we keep our word. We must be at places on time. We must ensure this is possible, by arranging our timetables wisely. If we cannot make it to something, we need to let the appropriate people know. If we must be late, we must let people know that we will be late.



We must be disciplined in our use of money. We need to set aside some for God, some for saving for future need, some for everyday living, and a very small portion for entertainment. We need to see our money as God's money. We need to think of our future wife, who we biblically need to support. We must therefore be wise stewards of our financial resources.



There is so much more to say, but I will leave you with a very relevant Proverb.



Proverbs 20:4 - A sluggard does not plow in season; so at harvest time he looks but finds nothing. Men, if we do not do the hard yards while we are young, when it comes to the crunch, there will be no fruit for us later.

Visitors

Nathan is coming to stay. Yay!

Men - Love God Above All

When I wrote my last post, I planned to elaborate on each point I made. So today I am going to have a look at the first point for us men.



For us to be men whom a Christian girl would want to marry, we need to have God above all else.



What does this mean? It means that our relationship with God should be the focus of our lives. It should be the purpose of our lives. It should be our lives.



Entertainment should not be our primary focus. Ladies should not be our primary focus. Work should not be our primary focus. Money should not be our primary focus. In all that we do, we must see how it achieves our goal of loving God above all else.



The Bible says that we must love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Our whole being should exist and function in an effort to love God. If loving God is not at the root of something, we should not do it.



But practically, how can we achieve this? If we want this to be a reality in our lives, it's going to take work. Each morning before we start the daily grind we need to commit our ways to the 'boss' of our lives. We need to listen to His word, and ask Him for His help. We cannot love God above all because of anything within us. Even our love for God comes from Him. Therefore if we do not ask Him to help us, and rely on ourselves, we could be setting ourselves up for failure.



Furthermore, we need to constantly and consistently remind ourselves who we are living for. We need to constantly and consistenly analyse our motives and our actions. It comes so naturally to us guys to think the world revolves around, depends on us. We think of everything in terms of how it affects us. How does it makes us look? What will people think of us? What will happen if I stick with my conscience and disagree with my friends? When our minds start to think "what good will this do me", or "how is this going to make me feel", we need to urgently ask for God's help that we may be able to refocus our priorities to His priorities.



Men, a part of our daily struggle will involve battling this will to be god. This will that wants to put us on the throne. We must resist this and focus on God. We need to see ourselves in the light of Him and His word. Another help with this problem is to be others focussed. When we look towards the needs of others, we find ourselves worrying less about our own wants.



As Jesus said, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

What Women Want

Believe me, I am no expert. But you all know that. That's why I'm still single.



Nevertheless, I do talk with the opposite sex, and they have certain expections about men. Attention all single men, start reading here. They know what they want, and won't settle for less. Here is what one woman said to me recently:-



"I just think that men are being immature and not seeking to seriously consider marriage..... You should be aiming to first honour God and second learning how to lead and care for a women.... If a man isn't going to make the effort to impress you with all areas of his life then is he really worth it?"



I also happen to know guys, so I'm going to let the ladies into a few little secrets, and you can all go happily marrying each other. Guys care about a few things too. Unfortunately we all to easily are swayed by outward appearance; so you ladies who are looking good often have a headstart. Further to this, most guys do not like nags, bossy women, or feminists. Sorry.



Now to solve all the problems you single people are having, I have begun some checklists for your own lives. Feel free to suggest additions as these are by no means exhaustive.



Men

1. Love God above all.

2. Be disciplined and committed.

3. Be caring and understanding.

4. Be a leader.

5. Do not act as if women are second class citizens.

6. Be a Christian thinker. Don't be shallow.

7. Be full of humility.



Women

1. Have a submissive spirit.

2. Be respectful in language toward men. Do not run them down in front of people.

3. Be a Christian thinker. Don't be shallow.

4. Don't go overboard on outward appearance, let your inner beauty show as you become a better steward of God's resources.



Anyway. Go to it. I expect to see you all married within the week.

Men

I believe that one thing we Christian men struggle with deeply, is spiritual discipline. Discipline full stop actually. This is reflected in our lack of commitment, our lack of zeal, and sadly laziness.



Because of these flaws, we tend to be out-stripped by women in apparent spiritual growth. Women in general seem to be more disciplined; more committed. This has become obvious to me, especially in the church context.



When we are not disciplined in our day to day living, chances are, our spiritual lives are not disciplined. Lateness, not keeping our word, lack of commitment to something we have committed to, wasteful use of money, wasteful use of time, and lack of zeal for anything which has no entertainment value are all marks of a spiritually undisciplined life.



So what do we do men? It is all about self discipline, and this is grunt work. We must discipline ourselves to be committed. When we say we will be somewhere at a certain time, we need to make very certain that we will be somewhere at a certain time. When we say we will do a certain thing, we need to make jolly sure that we will do it. In contrast, if we do not plan on doing something, we need to make sure that others who need to know, understand that we are not going to do it. Let us be men of our word. Let us spend time on things of value. Let us be disciplined.