Jonah Paper Finished

I just put the finishing touches on my Historical Biography of Jonah paper.  It was supposed to be 15-25 pages, and it weighed in at 28.  I was also hoping to finish it on July 23, and right now it’s technically July 29.  It’s not due until Monday, but I start RD Retreat that day and was hoping to finish my other 15-25 page paper by Monday, too.  It looks like I’ll have to start it this weekend and continue working on it after RD Retreat and before RA Retreat.  Hopefully I can finish by the August 7 deadline.  I’m not looking for pity.  Studying the historical context of Jonah was absolutely fascinating, and I’m looking forward to digging into Deuteronomy 6:6-9 later this morning after getting some rest.

With August fast approaching, I don’t know how much time I’ll have for blogging.  At the same time, I learn so much during this busy month that it has to spill over somewhere.  To let it overflow in public writing is one of the most profitable ways to let it out, in my opinion.  There are other ways, but this can be a good one, too.  I’ll wait and see how the Lord leads.

Sometimes I sense that this blog has grown less encouraging and more trivial.  That certainly hasn’t been my goal, but I think that the intensity and depth of the posts has started to pale.  If that’s true, I sincerely hope to reverse it.  Every day there are new post-titles that spring up in my head, but I haven’t been faithful to meditate on them and write them out.  I’ll try to do that more often, not because I believe that anyone out there is hanging on my every word, but because I do think that there are a few out there who can be encouraged from day to day in the same way that I’m encouraged by some of the blogs I visit regularly.

For now, I’ll leave you with words far better than my own.  These are the words that I’ll be spending a lot of time with over the weekend.  It is my earnest hope that these words are what will characterize my family as well as the local covenant communities that we get to be a part of throughout our lifetime.  Certainly the words of God are more precious than gold.  If you have them and understand them, you are richer than you know.

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.  You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.  You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.  You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates (Deuteronomy 6:6-9).

i.e. and e.g.

In case anyone’s wondering, it’s still hot.  It seems to be cooling off in the late afternoons, though.  Today, for instance, weather.com registered the 5:00pm temperature like this:

Fair
106° F
Feels Like 127° F

I was kidding about it cooling off in the late afternoons.  How in the world does 106° feel like 127°?  In a word: humidity.  The graphic should read Unfair.

On another note, I’m in the process of editing a written document, and I thought it might be good to mention the difference between two often-confused abbreviations (they’re friends, not twins):

i.e. means “that is.”
e.g. means “for example.”

They’re not supposed to be used interchangeably, mainly because they don’t mean the same thing.  And you’re really only supposed to use words interchangeably when they mean the same thing.  I think that’s pretty reasonable.

Maybe some of you who are well aware of the difference can give me some example sentences.  Be creative.  Just don’t mess it up and encourage wrong usage even more. :)

Everyone Was Happy

Richard Wurmbrand spent fifteen years of his life in prison in Romania for preaching the gospel.  He was not treated well in prison.  And there’s a word for that.  It’s called torture.  Here’s what he did to pass the time:

“It was strictly forbidden to preach to other prisoners, as it is in captive nations today.  It was understood that whoever was caught doing this received a severe beating.  A number of us decided to pay the price for the privilege of preaching, so we accepted their terms.  It was a deal: we preached and they beat us.  We were happy preaching; they were happy beating us — so everyone was happy.”   – Richard Wurmbrand, Tortured for Christ

What am I supposed to say after reading that?

110°

If you were to go to weather.com right now and type in “Newhall, California” as your location, you would see something like this:

Partly Cloudy
110° F
Feels Like 119°

For those of you who go to Master’s and live in Santa Clarita nine months out of the year, you can be glad that this is not one of those nine months.  Going outside is like walking into a big wall of hot.  Notice the humorous graphic above that informs us that it’s “Partly Cloudy,” too.  It actually is partly cloudy.  The humorous part is what it would be like if there were no clouds today.  Humorous in a heat-rash kind of way.

If it were like this at the end of August, I think there would be dress code mutiny on campus.