One TV station and no radio...

I moved in October to a house in West Seattle. My wife and I decided not to get cable. We are poor and cable has way too many channels. It sucks the life right out of you. With cable, I can watch bad television for hours and see reruns of MacGyver, and watch the Scottish pole throwing championships and forget to go to sleep. It is not good for me.

Our friend, Tony, let us use his TV and so we plugged it in and found out that we get one TV station.......Fox. Any time of the day, I turn it on and there is some form of the Jerry Springer show or a Judge-in-Court show. At least at night we get American Idol. But for me, as I turn on the Television, when I see the show, "Two and a Half Men," it is the perfect way to make me turn off the set and do something else.

And since I lost my radio in my Jeep to some guy who must have thought it was his, I depend on two sources for my information....

1. The internet
2. The Bible

I am trying to read through the Bible in a year. I am using a plan that picks out readings from four different sections. I have already read through Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Acts, and am mostly through Matthew, and the Psalms.

I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I wake up and brew my Starbucks French Roast coffee (since my wife works at their corporate office) and put way too much French Vanilla creamer in an oversized cup and get my reading done for the day.

These are some things that I dwell on...

a. The Old Testament is not easy to read.
b. Acts is awesome.
c. It is better to read this than watch TV
d. That I am glad that being a minister of the church is different now than being a priest in the Levitical Exodus times.


The priestly job back in the day was not for the faint of heart. You had to kill a lot of animals and burn them and wipe the fat on the side of the altar. You also had to determine what skin diseases were clean and unclean. You also had to judge people and determine what they needed to do to fit into the community...which necessarily involved casting some people out...

Not fun.

I am not sure I would even qualify. Since you had to not have a defect. "...whether he is blind or lame, stunted or deformed, or has a broken foot or hand, or has a humped back or is a dwarf, or has a defective eye, or has oozing sores or scabs on his skin, or has damaged testicles..." Leviticus 21:18ff (NLT)

So, as I tried to get something from these laws, I picture myself back in those times. And see it as fresh and novel.

Back in the day, Moses was given the command to ultimately set up a goverment where people had to follow and be obedient. At the time, they didn't know exactly why these laws were made, but they had to follow.

Now, as we look back historically, we can see that they were able to survive and that these laws prevented them from things like the Bubonic Plague, the spread of disease, and allowed them to stay as a community with a central heart.

In Exodus 40, a cloud settles over the Tabernacle and God is present in it. When the cloud moves, they had to pick up everything and follow the cloud.

This is where I am.

I believe that the cloud is moving. I don't know why I am doing the things that I am doing. I just have to be obedient and follow God and go where He is. It might not even make sense to me or my family, but I have to go.