Don't Beat Around the Bush

A passionate man of God, gifted speaker, and powerful leader for evangelism, Luis Palau unashamedly proclaims Truth and ignites fires of spiritual fervor. I am truly blessed to partner with Luis and the team in the Kingdom work - and, seriously, I get paid to serve God and assist the effort of telling people around the world the Good News of Jesus Christ. Such a blessing I do not take lightly.

Today Luis spoke at our weekly chapel (which happens only occasionally, as he keeps a very busy travel schedule) on a life in surrender to Christ.

Sidenote: In case you didn't already know, I've been asking God to help me surrender the past year and a half. (I'm learning it's a process - and something to be chosen daily... hourly... moment by moment.) And since that time, you would not believe (or perhaps you would...) how many sermons I have heard on the topic of surrender. Not just at one church by one pastor on a surrender bent... oh no - we're talking half a dozen pastors at as many churches in Oregon, Washington, and Colorado. Not kidding. I think the Holy Spirit is on my trail - or, rather, I hope I'm on His.

In any case, I found it reassuring, amusing, refreshing, encouraging, convicting, and thought-provoking to hear another message on surrender.

And Luis cuts right to the chase. He doesn't get distracted by the arguments from the world. He measures everything against God's Word. He speaks Truth. He keeps the main thing the main thing. His heart is for people to know the Living God.

I want the power of the Holy Spirit to be evident in my life. This idea of Christ living in me... the old self dying... ALL being made new. When I look at my relationship with God, I see all the ways I fail, all the choices I should have made, all the ways I could have more wisely used the precious time God gives me, all the opportunities and promptings I ignore... and all the ways I don't measure up. Good intentions don't cut it.

Priority. Balance. Surrender.

Must keep the main thing the main thing. Cut loose distractions. Have the branches pruned. Live a fruitful life in the Spirit. Surrender everything to Christ. Seek God first and foremost - forever.
A willing vessel. I'm willing. And weak.

Please pray for me.

Lamb Song

For El... : )
(sung to the tune of 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star')

Little baby lamb so sweet,
won't you let me hear you bleat?
Just a little "baa" to say,
"Would you come to me and play?"
Little baby lamb so dear,
is that your small bleat I hear?

Story behind this... I drove to Eugene today to visit a friend, El. And along the road, there are a bunch of farms with sheep. One field in particular held dozens of ewes and their babies -- SOOOO CUTE!!

In talking with El, both of us shared a moment of enjoyment over the adorable lambs (for she had driven past the same farm several weeks previous)... so I thought up the song about them on the drive home.

Shipwreck!

For the President's Day holiday, Jenny and I spent a much needed day at the coast. We started at Cannon Beach.
Suddenly, within a matter of a minute, a thick misty fog rolled in.

We decided to drive up the coast a mile to Ecola State Park. By the time we parked and grabbed our picnic lunch, the mist was already clearing.

After a quick 3 mile hike, we left Ecola and headed north to Ft. Stevens at the most northern tip of Oregon to see the "Graveyard of the Pacific" where over 2,000 ships have sunk since 1792.

(Apparently there's a rather nasty bar and unpredictable currents where the Columbia River flows into the Pacific. They've since built a jetty and dredged it, but it's still not the happiest place to navigate.)

This wrecked ship is the Peter Iredale which ran aground in a densely foggy storm in 1906 - thankfully, no one died.

(I really liked it.)

Sidenote: Don't let the flipflops fool you - it's not as warm as it looks. The air was decidedly cooler and the wind had picked up significantly the closer we got to the very tip of Oregon -- I've got another coat on under the sweatshirt.

Now.Then (1906).





The south jetty to control the currents where the Pacific Ocean and Columbia River meet.
The cold, desolate mouth of the Columbia River. (The land across the water on the left is Washington, on the right, Astoria, Oregon.)

A bit of an adventure coming home... drove on a deserted old logger road for 40 miles. A bit eery, we passed only 2 others cars the entire time on that road. We did, however, see several large herds of elk... but no pictures -- too dark by that time of night.

Overall, a very good day indeed.

The Artist's Exhibition

Quite without expecting it, I stumbled upon two art exhibitions yesterday...

After not very many hours of sleep, I awoke early. On a whim I opened my blinds to see if it would be another beautiful foggy morning; but to my utter surprise, there was beauty of quite another sort: the sky was a cacophony of pink and yellow cloud strokes of the sunrise set against the gray-blue sky of the dawn. A moment of worship... involuntarily my soul leapt in joy and awe and praised the Artist (who alone across all time and space is worthy of praise anyways).

Someday I'll go to the top of a mountain in the wee hours just to be there when the sun greets the horizon for the new day.

I had to leave my third floor window view for a while to get ready for work. When I returned, it looked like another winter morning... gray with undefined distant light -- which evoked even greater appreciation of the awe-filled moment.

The second exhibition is along the same lines. But first some background -- I was meeting a friend after work. Because of the length of the drive and the typical "rush hour" traffic between Beaverton and Newberg, I knew I needed to leave work "on time" at 5pm. And after an especially stressful day concluding a packed week, it seemed everything prevented me from leaving the office when I had planned to. Therefore, I was already running 20 minutes late... and the traffic was brutally unforgiving.

It was in this condition that I drove upon the second masterpiece. Driving the back roads route - but still in the suburbs - I happened to look away from the line of cars in front of me. My eyes were greeted by the half-bow of a vibrant rainbow. Surprised by joy again! And the song playing on the radio was about God's holiness and greatness -- and I sang in full, awestruck agreement.

But the story doesn't end there. At the top of another rise (for there are quite a few hills between Beaverton and Newberg), the Artist had painted a glorious sunset. Reds, orangey-yellows, and dusky purple - wispy brush strokes of clouds - contrasting the deepening blue-gray of the night sky…

The rainbow to my left. The sunset filling the right. And every one of the four Christian radio stations was playing songs about God's holiness. Amen.

My soul peaceful and overflowing with joy, my equilibrium restored by my Maker and impervious to the traffic... and when all was said and done, I arrived 2 minutes early.

God is so good.

How blessed by my Creator to experience His Majesty so vividly - twice - in the same day when I wasn't even looking for it. How often do I miss those timeless moments? Though I can easily say to expect the unexpected, I need to apply it better in my own day-to-day.

Master Stallers

I have observed yet again -- multiple times in one night -- another universal (well, in my experience) shenanigan of children: stalling. Is this a learned thing...or is it innate? Do they really think we adults don't know what's going on? They're testing my leniency. And I must keep in mind that for them there is power in thinking they're getting away with manipulating the system. Tonight I'm struggling with the balance between leniency and discipline, being reminded again that God is so amazing. He holds all things in perfect balance.

Ultimately, I pray for balance for myself (not just in shaping the lives of children, but in all areas). But for the moment, it would be nice if they would just fall asleep. :)

The Truth about "Chocolate Squirrels"

It's taken me months to finally set up a blog because I know myself well enough to think I probably won't do a good job posting to it. But a week ago, I offically created my blog page. And ever since, I've been trying to think of something brilliant to post for my first-ever blog post. But brilliance eluded me -- and it continues to do so.

Therefore, because food is such an easy topic for me to discuss, you get to read about the cookies I made yesterday.

...They look like chocolate oatmeal no-bakes...but they're not. They're different. They're Les écureuils au chocolat.

I can be honest. I have this serious, serious problem. I like experimenting with food. Usually I pass under the radar - no one would ever know what they're eating isn't normal. But this time?

First, some background... chemically speaking, normal sugar we Americans consume - sucrose - is a chemical compound of glucose and fructose. Glucose is half as sweet as sucrose, and fructose is twice as sweet. I like to cook with fructose because I can use half as much sugar for the same sweetness. And, it's not a fake sweetener. It's honest to goodness sugar from fruit. Just isolate it, and -voila!- you've got a granulated sugar that looks like normal sucrose sugar, but is twice as powerful.

Why I knew deep down I was set up for disaster (even though I did it anyway):
The base for chocolate no-bakes is, basically, fudge. Fudge is candy. And candy is finicky. It's hard to make. Candymaking is an art and a science. And it slightly terrifies me because if you make a mistake, chances are good the candy won't turn out like it's supposed to. And, of course, sugar is one of the key elements that makes candy what it is -- the texture, the hardness. All the science is in the sugar.

And I messed with it.

Instead of sucrose sugar, I used half as much fructose. And it was going really well - smooth, chocolately, fudgy as always. I thought I had gotten away with it.

Yeah... then I stirred in the peanut butter and vanilla. And the whole thing fell apart. Literally. It was still the color of dark chocolate, but gone was the smooth fudgy texture. It looked sort of curdled. And then... just to add insult to injury... the whey separated out.

I braved tasting it. It tasted normal -- great, in fact. And it smelled normal. I proceeded...

I added the oats. The final step. (It didn't occur to me until after I added all the oats that... I cut the amount of sugar in half. A 28.5% volume decrease of the total fudge volume. Therefore, it would have made the most sense to decrease the amount of oats by at least 25%. Unthinkingly, I added it all. But I digress.)

Two things I have learned.

1. Oats absorb the whey that separates out, making the finished cookie slightly gooey-chewy.


2. Fudge made with half as much sugar by volume as it really needs does not set up without the assistance of the freezer.

So...other than being a little more oats and less fudge -- and significantly less sugar -- than my usual rendition of no-bakes, these cookies almost looked like no-bakes. But the texture... it just wasn't holding up. (literally!) Of course I made the cookies to bring to a party. And I didn't have time to start over. And I didn't want people to think they were no-bakes because they might get their hopes up and then be disappointed.

The naming.
With the help of my roommate, Jenny, I tested several names. Chocolate Blobs. Chocolate Granola-ie Blobs. Chocolatey Granola. Dog Piles. (We were, after all, going to a superbowl party... :) )

"You, know," I say, "we could always use French and call them les écureuils au chocolat."
"It's perfect!" Jenny says, laughing. "What does that mean?"
"Uh..." I hesitate, "Chocolate Squirrels."

Lots of laughing.

But for better or worse the name stuck. And after some quality time in the freezer, so did the fudge-and-oat-blobs we were calling cookies. We brought them to the party.

"Oh, chocolate no-bakes!!" says an unsuspecting guest as soon as we walk in. Just what I was afraid of.

"No, no, these are Chocolate Squirrels," I reply convincingly. (Jenny is behind me snickering -- which doesn't help when you're trying to be convincing.)

You should have seen the look on the lady's face. "Chocolate... squirrels..?" she repeats doubtfully, making sure she heard me right.

"Yep."

But, hey, they tasted good. And, seriously, since they had half as much sugar as the real thing, that would make them some of the best-tasting "reduced-calorie" cookies I've ever had in my life.