Rick Nier...Woo!

Let's take driving, for example. I'm in the process of teaching my son how to drive. He's the second child I'm teaching, so I feel like I've got a good handle on what needs to happen.  It's not like the first time I took my oldest out driving, started her at a stop sign in our quiet neighborhood and assumed she would know how to turn the steering wheel. Man, if street signs could talk, they would tell you about the day a crazy, tiny ginger played chicken with them. We're only a few lessons in with my son, but so far, so good. One of the things I'm teaching him is that you have to pay attention when you're driving. This would seem obvious, but my experiences with so many other drivers tells me it isn't.  via GIPHY Nowhere is this more painful than at four-way stops. It may seem confusing, but only if you don't understand how a clock works. (You see, the driver to the left yields to the driver on the right, and then it works around the

As a parent of teenagers, I wonder what it must have been like to have the sort of relationship God had with Noah. God talked and Noah obeyed. Build a boat, God said. Noah built a boat. Put your family and pairs of animals on the boat. Noah put his family and pairs of animals on the boat. Ride out this storm for a year. Noah rode out the storm. Get off the boat, plant a vineyard, and get really drunk. Ok, nobody's perfect. Parenting my teenagers is nothing like any of that. Clean your room, I said. I didn't hear you, they respond. Do your chores. Do I have to? Are you even listening to me? What did you just say? via GIPHY On a positive note, none of them have planted a vineyard. People often express a desire for the kind of close relationships heroes from the Bible had with God. Noah, for the most part is a good example. Genesis 6:9 says " he walked in close fellowship with God." How many of us are willing to walk in close fellowship with God

via GIPHY I don't know about you, but I have a lot of questions when I read the Bible. Even from the very beginning. I'm four chapters in and there is a lot happening. Adam and Eve have become the scapegoats for all of us to blame. Cain became the first in a long line of cases of sibling rivalry. Then we read about some of Cain's descendants. Then some interesting commentary happens. Adam and Eve have another boy. Seth grows up and he has a boy. And check this out; "When Seth grew up, he had a son and named him Enosh. At that time people first began to worship the   Lord   by name." ~Genesis 4:26 Excuse me?!? This is when people first began to worship the Lord by name. Really? How is that even possible? I'm one of those guys that accepts we don't know how long Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden. How much time passed between Genesis, chapter two, and Genesis, chapter three? It could've been weeks, coul

via GIPHY We often ask why Adam and Eve, after having eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, did not eat from the tree of life. After all, surely they knew what was to be gained from doing so. God seems to indicate that He needed to evict them from the garden before they did so in order to keep them from gaining eternal life in a manner that was not intended.  One might, with evil intent, wonder why eating from the tree of life was not their very next move. Again, God admitted they had elevated their nature in knowing good and evil.  I think I found the answer. "At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves." ~Genesis 3:7 They were too busy covering their shame. It makes me wonder... How often do we miss out on life because we are dealing with the consequences of our sin?

Do you know what a whipping boy is? I looked it up. It's  a person who is blamed or punished for the faults or incompetence of others.  The problem with a whipping boy is that he is whipped so often people begin to assume he deserves it. Or the boy just accepts his fate and acts into the very nature of who people believe he is.  But who is defending the whipping boy? Who is taking a second look and asking if the boy really deserves all of the ire he is receiving? Today, it’s me.    via GIPHY Social Media is the Whipping Boy  Social media is just entering its adolescent years, and like many adolescents, it is acting in some strange and unconventional ways that make people question what is going on.  Many words have been written about the dangers of social media, none the least of which would be the supposed separation from real life interactions. But it doesn’t take a highly educated look to put some things together and note that, for our youngest gene