Questions from answers

Five years ago today we were standing on a beach in Playa del Carmen Mexico exchanging vows.
Now here we are with a 1 1/2 year old and another on the way.

In many ways its gone by fast, next thing I’ll know it will be 10.

Shelby, I still love you lots.

Seems like you get to a point in your life that you think you’ve got things figured out. You know what you believe and you’ll stick to that. Of course I am generalizing, but it seems most people come to this point in their life.
Let’s look at some example. At a certain message board with a section called At your own Risk, people discuss various topics of a controversial nature, while I do enjoy the discussions after a while it come accross as people trying to prove their already decided position on one another. Many people have reached their beliefs in life and try to convice the others. Do people change their positions, I wondered, so I asked, I am curious as to what the response will be.
The second example, which is a classic one, which is, ‘when I get married I’ll slowly change my spouse of what I consider their faults’. Well as is usually found out, that is usually not done successfully. Why? because of how we’ve reached our beliefs in life. Now I should say that there is hopefully gradual change, when I first got married I hardly ever cleaned up after myself until it became really bad, now after living with my wife for 5 years I have learned to clean my mess up immediately after I made it. Of couse I don’t always do this and slip back to my old ways, which tends to annoy my wife. Also people have commented on my driving that I am not as aggresive as I used to be, I think that is probably due to my wife disagreeing on that way I drive, don’t get me wrong, I am still aggressive, just toned down a bit.
There are other examples I could look at, but you get the idea.
So what does this have to do with me? Well two things, first off when I see people discussing various controversial topics, quickly we will see the extremes of the argument, lets call them left and right. Now when I look at the argument I usually end up agreeing with some points on each side but not usually all. So where does that leave me, fairly close to the middle. I am not sure how I feel about this position, because it feels like I don’t have a position. I feel like I want to jump on one side strongly and say I have this position, but I can’t seem to find a side to jump on.
That’s my first problem.
Secondly, my spiritaul life for the most part is ok, I am not struggling with any major sin, I am so-so when it comes to prayer and devotional life, so things should be good, but it feels like I am not growing. I go to church every week, and I wonder will this sermon affect me. Now I know I should not just rely on a sermon once a week to be my cure. I also wonder how authentic my worship is to God.
I think these 2 points are related, but it all make me wonder will I ever change? I don’t want to be writing again a year from now and say I am in the same position.

I think God does want me spending more time with Him, there are so many distractions these days, and I seem to be persuing these more than God. I know that I need to be seeking Him daily. Also I think I am feeling very comfy these days, I am not challenging myself spiritually. I need to be praying to God to ‘make my calm, your storm’:-)

I know God can change me…will I let Him?

I often wonder how words become offensive. Who decides this? I am not one to use the traditionally unaccepted 4-letter words, but why don’t I use them? I think a part of me says they are a sin to say them and part of me thinks there are other words to convey the same meaning and I wouldn’t want to offend anyone. But what about words that are generally accepted substitutes like gosh or darn, should we be avoiding these terms as well?

I heard a story last week that when our assistant pastor was preaching one time, that he referred to something being a “crappy job”. (Actually I remember when he said that, at the time I think I thought you don’t usually hear that from the pulpit, but didn’t think too much else other than that.) He went on to say that a few people of British descent said “crap” was quite offensive in England. So why is saying crap not offensive to me, and other terms are?
In reference to the word crap, I was at a Christian wedding the other day, taking pictures when my film accidently rewound too early and said “crap!”. It wasn’t overly loud but, then I heard a voice in an English accent say ” I have that on tape.” This man, who I know, was the official videographer for the wedding. At first I thought, big deal I said crap, but later on it clicked, oh I said a bad word in his mind.

Anyway I find all this rather interesting, these thoughts I just wrote aren’t very original, but I still wonder about this from time to time.

Maybe I need to get over the stigmas related words and yet keep in mind the words from Proverbs 21:23 “He who guards is mouth and his tongue keeps him from calamity.”

Well this is me, Eric, entering the world of Blogs. Seems a lot of people have them and some have had them for a long while. So here I am a newbie. Pondering the usual newbie questions: Will any read this, will anyone want to read this, will I have blog friends? Well I am curious as to where this will go myself.
I guess to start off I will introduce myself.
My name is Eric and I live in Langley, British Columbia.
I have lived here most of my life, it’s a nice place to grow up, but these days it seems that too many people want to move here and it’s slowly becoming a major urban area and slowly losing some of it’s country feel.
I have travelled to many countries over the years, but I always seem to end up back here.
I have been married for 5 years to Shelby and we have almost known each other for 10. We have had many adventures over the years, but the most challenging yet rewarding journey we have gone on is having a child together. We have a 16 month old boy named Aaron. He is a lot of fun, but yet he has something built in him to want to always have his own way, which leads to the challenging part.
For work I help manage an office complex. Basically this translates to keeping the tenants happy, collecting rent, looking after simple maintenance and doing the company bookkeeping. So if everyone is happy, which is usually most of the time, I tend to peruse various message boards( and now write in my blog).

Anyway that’s a little intro about me, hopefully the more I do this the more you will get to know me. I am glad to get my first entry behind me.

If have you made it this far I’ll let you into a little secret we have yet to tell our families. We are expecting another child in the spring, Lord willing