Middletree

I'm a die-hard baseball fan, but after last night, I'm done for the year. This thing traumatized me. I'm frustrated, deflated, and demoralized. I had to put my kids to bed while one was in tears. I barely slept. I tossed and turned, then when I woke up, I was still shaking. No sport is worth this. Game 7 is tonight. I thoroughly expect the Cardinals to win handily. But I won't be watching. I'm taking my wife out to a movie. The emotional investment I am making in the Rangers is not worth it; an investment in my marriage is a much better one.

Unlike when I was growing up, we don't watch much TV in our house these days.  As a kid, I watched so much TV I actually had the schedule memorized. You tell me a network and time slot, and I'll tell you what's on, even if it's a show I don't like.  But by my 30's, I had narrowed down my TV interest to just a couple of shows, and then when the kids came, we thought it best to keep it turned off. They still watch videos, of course, and I may watch a late-night rerun here or there. But for the most part, we keep it turned off. The one exception, since the kids turned 5 or 6, is sports. We watch some football and some baseball, especially when the beloved Texas Rangers are on. Mostly, they play on Fox Sports Southwest. Because we don't have cable or dish, we don't get FSSW, so watching a Rangers game is a rarity. A few Friday night games during the regular season, and then the playoffs. For the second consecutive October, the Rangers are in the third ro...

John Eldredge's latest title, "Beautiful Outlaw" is his first since switching publishers. After a longtime association with Thomas Nelson, he's now writing for Faithwords, home of the great Billy Coffey . [Disclaimer: I was given a copy of the book for review purposes] The subject of "Beautiful Outlaw" is none other than Jesus Christ Himself. Eldredge feels that many (most?) Christians have a distorted, incomplete, or one-dimensional view of Jesus, and he feels so strongly about this that he wants to set the record straight for all believers. My take on this book is mostly positive. It's well-written, engaging, and anything but boring. The reader will be enlightened and encouraged to love Jesus more, because once you know Him, you can't do otherwise. Eldredge takes many familiar stories about Jesus and expounds on them in an informative and inspiring way. I am praying my way through this book, asking God to reveal Himself to me, and, while I ...

If you're not familiar with Sarah Young's "Jesus Calling", I highly recommend it. It's a collection of many of her journal entries where she felt God was speaking directly to her. The words are presented to us in His voice, from His perspective, and contain wisdom which pertains to all of us. As part of their Booksneeze program, Thomas Nelson recently sent me a copy (free for review purposes) of their new "Jesus Calling" devotional bible .It's the New King James translation, and the "devotional" portion is quite extensive, and very well done. A friend saw it at my house the other day and called it a "bible plus", an appropriate description, if you ask me. A "devotional" bible can sound like a great idea, but result in something not so great. Bookstore shelves are full of devotional bibles which consist of the personal opinions of authors, or which seem to be a blatant attempt to capitalize on the popularity of some...

Great things about the regular season: 1. Rangers get the most wins ever for the franchise (96). 2. Michael Young gets 213 hits, tied for the lead. This is special, and probably underappreciated.  Each year, maybe 5 players in baseball get 200 hits. Young has done this 6 times. 3. Napoli and Beltre, two Angels rejects, help us beat the Angels. 4. The Rangers win the last 6 games, refusing to coast after they clinched. 5. We did it with several solid starting pitchers, not just one Alpha dog.

Billy Coffey showed promise with his first novel,  "Snow Day", which was good overall, and great in places. But the leap forward from "Snow Day" to "Paper Angels" is a giant one for the author. From the very beginning, this story had my attention, and it never let go. The main character, Andy Sommerville, is a lifelong bachelor who owns a gas station. A severe injury puts him in the hospital and forces him to face many non-physical wounds from his past. Wounds which didn't so much shape him into the man he is as much as they derailed him somewhat from what he was made to be. As he is shown the meaning and importance of each of these hurts (represented by various mementos he had collected over the years), a new friend named Elizabeth helps guide him, addressing each wound by first peeling back the bandages that had covered them, sometimes for decades. Most people have wounds that have stayed with us for years. What sets Andy apart is that he has a...

Isaiah 64:8 "But now, O LORD, You are our Father, We are the clay, and You our potter; And all of us are the work of Your hand." Some years ago, it was pointed out to me that our relationship to God is described in several metaphorical ways, all of which matter. Some authors/teachers have even been known to rank the relationship descriptions in some way--for example, in levels of intimacy: Clay/Potter Slave/Master Sheep/Shepherd Subject/King Son/Father Bride/Groom While I cannot argue with the theology of such a ranking, it does have the unintended side effect of causing the reader to dismiss the relationship descriptions listed earlier on the list. It's just as important to understand the potter/clay dynamic between us and God as it is anything else. He mentioned that particular picture dozens of times in books by no less than 4 biblical authors: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Paul, and John. Yes, He's our loving Father, but focusing only on Him as Father can lead us...