Christmas Pictures

Hey - you can check out pics of our first Christmas Tree at our photo blog. Merry Christmas!

Love

Sorry about the forever-since-last-time thing - things have been busy.

But, the other night, Kristy and I read an interesting point in our devotions - from a book by John Piper. It talked about love.

It proposed that we have adopted a very worldly view of love - we've adopted society's view of love: that if we are loved, we will feel exalted, like the center of attention. But, God, in loving us, wants us to make HIM the center of attention. It's a pretty interesting perspective.

God wants what is best for us - and that is himself. He is the best thing - of all things.

Grace,

Des

The Media Moment

There is a new really neat podcast coming out of The Salvation Army Western Territory. It is done by Josh Cowing and Richard Brown (of MediaShout, and animalproductions.com) who are both part of the Western Territorial Media Ministries Team.

It's very cool - they talk about media ministry and tools related to media ministry from a Salvation Army point of view.

The website for the podcast is:

http://mediamoment.blogspot.com/

Grace,

Des

real

Lord, make Calvary real to me
Open my eyes to victory in Christ for me
Lord, make Calvary real to me

Sorry I haven't written in forever. I have a lot of 'projects' that I'm currently working on and that takes up a lot of my extra time. I have a LOT of ideas that I want to share . . .

soon, very soon.

Grace,

Des

Apartment Hunting

I know that I can't LIVE in this thing, but we did see this today as Kristy and I were browsing places to live in Asheville, NC.

Grace,

Des 

Perspective

God is amazing - use this in your worship today.

http://www.troybrophy.com/projects/solarsystem/index.html

How big is God?

Grace,

Des

A New Design!

Hey - Hope you like the new look. I was getting bored of the other one, and since I've been playing a lot lately with web design stuff, I figured I'd give this a try. You can probably figure out that there is a considerable amount of TWEAKING to do, but I really like it. The 'insert bill' image at the top I took one day at a vending machine . . . I think it may have been at camp.

Anyway, let me knowwhat you think of the new look.

Des

My Wife - Scary Crow Lady

My beautiful wife on Halloween!

Grace.

Des 

It had to be perfect!

In case you didn't realize, it had to be PERFECT.

Des. 

Happy Halloween

Kristy and I carved our pumpkin last night! It was super wonderful. To see more of our fun, go to http://desmerizingpics.blogspot.com.

Have a scary day!

Des  

Time

If you've ever had any difficulty reconciling the concept of God existing outside of time . . . C.S. Lewis handles it amazingly in two books: 1) Mere Christianity and 2) Miracles. The ideas that he puts forth in Miracles, I've been reading for two or three days now and I'm still reeling from it. I can't quite get my head around it.

In Mere Christianity, he says what one would expect him to say - generally that God sees everything as we understand present - past, present, and future he sees as an instant. It really is a good passage and you should definitely read it.

In Miracles, however, he takes it a step further and says that since everything occurs in an instant, future events (i.e. prayers) can affect past events. A paraphrase of Lewis' quote is that a prayer prayed at noon can affect events at 10:00 am. That's amazing - and hurts my head when I really get thinking about it.

In any case, it's worth a read.

Grace,

Des

Some Interesting Pics

Ok, I've officially added a lot of photos to our photo blog at http://desmerizingpics.blogspot.com.

Check 'em out.

Grace.

Des

Our Anniversary in the Mountains

As of Sunday, Oct 23, Kristy & I have been married for 1 year. We took the weekend and drove through the TN and NC mountains - drove through the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. It was fantastic. I'll put some pictures on our picture blog so you can see some of what we saw.

It's really nice to be able to take a weekend away, like that. It helped me realize that I don't make enough time for myself or my wife. So I will now.

Anyway - nothing more interesting to say here for now - I'm on vacation for a couple of days so I've shut my brain off.

Grace,

Des

The NEW iMac G5

It will be mine . . oh yes . . . it WILL be mine!

This was one of the announcements by Apple today . . . along with a new video iPod and a new version of iTunes, that supports video download.

Grace. 

The more things change . . .

You know in the 1940s and 50s many people sat around and listened to the radio . . . and longed to by a television. Then people sat around a TV, longing to be apple to have a computer in their house. Then people wished they could some how be connected to an international network, a world-wide-web of computers as it were.

Technology sure has advanced . . .

So, what does it say about civilization that I am sitting around listening to a radio broadcast of the Toronto Maple Leafs over the internet?

Hmmmmm. Either way . . . GO LEAFS!

Grace.

Who am I living For?

I am beginning to realize how much I am living for other people instead of for Christ. Not that I haven't always suspect such . . . but far too many of my hours are spent in an attempt to please people, for our mutual benefit.

Honestly, I realize that I have made decision relating to my church because of issues pertaining to my job. I don't like that. Perhaps its one of the difficulties of working within The Salvation Army . . . not too many evangelical churches are as, if not likely more, well-know for their social service work and agency-ness.

In any case, it's a viable and valuable church, nonetheless. And, a church that I am proud to be a part of - even when people ask me if I go to church at a thrift store.

All I need to do is to take ownership of it - to make my faith practice about my faith, about my relationship. I admittedly have not done that - certainly not to the degree that I really want to. My most worshipful times were during CharminUltra ministry nights (see http://charminultra.blogspot.com for more info).

And I think it's about time to do it again.

Des

The SA Race Car

This is a Race Car - whose owner, having some advertising space left over, decided to donate it to The Salvation Army. Not sure WHERE the race actually took place . . . I THINK it was Hickory, NC. But either way, it's pretty cool

Daily Bread

I've been thinking today about financial blessing and prosperity theology . . . that God wants to bless us and give us abundance.

I don't think it's true.

I think God wants to bless us when it makes for Him to bless us, according to His perfect will. I also think that he wants to withhold blessings . . . . according to His perfect will. I also think that He brings pain . . . according to His perfect will. Some say that He can't cause pain/evil . . . I don't think it much matters what you think about it. I don't think pain, either physical or otherwise, is evil.

It is hard for me to think that we should pray to God for 'blessings', where blessings are defined as more than what we need. Jesus said "Give us, today, our daily bread". The most I can figure that He prayed for would be to have his impending crucifixion taken from Him . . . which was immediately followed by, "Not my will, but Yours be done."

It's easy for me to get uptight about money . . . not for materialistic reasons . . . just to make sure that there is always enough there. It would be easy for me to pray for financial blessing . . . but I don't think that's what God would have for me, and I certainly can't, in my mind's ear, hear Jesus praying for it.

Give me, today, my daily bread.

Grace.

Des

Funny Spam

Unlike John C. Dvorak, I do indeed get spam. Only tech geeks will get that reference . . . I submit it for your consideration.

I don't know if it was an attempt to bypass some keyword filters that sort by references to drugs (e.g. Vioxx, Valium, etc), but check out the spelling on the drug names in this email that I got at work:

• Vlazgra - $3.3
• Levigtra - $3.3
• Ciallis - $3.7
• Imitnrex - $16.4
• Flomtax - $2.2
• Ultrdam - $0.78
• Viopxx - $4.75
• Ambiien - $2.2
• Valhium - $0.97
• Xanacx - $1.09
• Sosma - $3
• Merixdia - $2.2

What the heck is LeviGtra? Or VioPxx? Or, my personal favorite, Valhium?

Anywho, I thought it was funny.

Grace.

Des

Camera, anyone?

SALES PITCH ALERT!!!

If anyone is interested in buying a 4.0 Megapixel Minolta Dimage S414 - I may have an incredible deal for you. Kristy and I are buying a new digital camera and, since there's no need to have two, I figured I would give the world a great opportunity to own a good little camera. It's a little bulky (i.e. it's no ultra compact), but it really does take some REALLY good photos. Just about everything that I've posted on this blog, at least, were all taken using that camera. More images at http://placesihaveeaten.blogspot.com. The pictures there aren't at 4.0 Megapixels either, I had to resize them considerably so they wouldn't take forever to download. The images that you see when you enlarge are at 2.0 MegaPixels, so the originals are much more defined.

I'll include the memory card (SanDisk Ultra II Compact Flash, 256 Megs - 117 pix at a time at highest resolution), a case, plus I'll even throw in a set of energizer AA NiMH rechargables (with charger)!

That's right . . . Oh yeah . . . I'm the price king . . . I realize that I haven't mentioned a price yet . . . I'm the king so I don't have to.

If you're interested let me know (desmondcsmith@gmail.com), I'll cut you a deal.

Grace.

Des