Appreciation, Growing Up, and a Coffee Cup

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Most of my few readers come through Facebook. For you, this is a bit of a repeat of something I wrote there yesterday, but I want to expand on it. This blog may never be anything more than a hobby, but if I ever do want to do anything practical with it I need to create content, so on we go. If the formatting is wacky, this is a first attempt at emailing the post. When I tried this years ago WordPress made a mess of it. Hopefully things have improved.

My favorite coffee cup has developed a leak. Better the cup than the expensive Keurig coffee maker I first suspected. The cup has developed a hairline crack, probably from leaving it empty on the warmer for hours one too many times. There isn’t a great deal of sentimental value attached to the cup, but upon retiring it I thought back to the people and circumstances of the time when I received it. The cup was one of a pair. The other got broken years ago. It was a going-away present from a church member where I was attending back in 1991.

The church was New Life Fellowship. We met in a small converted warehouse on the outskirts of Palestine, Texas. It was not far from where I was staying with my parents and I liked it. So though my parents kept looking, I stayed. I wasn’t there long before heading off to school in Dallas, but was immediately and warmly accepted. I was still reeling from the recent divorce and they were there to be my friends. When I left, they gave me a party and then sent me a little money each month to help with expenses.

Those were difficult years. I was in a pit of doubt and depression. God would slowly pull me out, but I had to be willing to reach for Him. My story is detailed on the About Larry page, which I see needs some updating. The folks at New Life deserve honorable mention there, but they are missing. I’ll be correcting that oversight.

That’s where the appreciation and growing up come in. I returned to Palestine for a while after my training ended and the short term tutoring contract with the school ended. I ran out of money. I didn’t exactly fail to launch, but it did take a couple of tries. I’m grateful to my parents for being there to help.

I reconnected with the church, but it wasn’t the same. There were other things going on, but I think the biggest problem was me. Still floundering and shy of strong commitment to anything, I just stopped coming one week, commenting to one of the members that I had seen something there that disturbed me. It was an ungrateful and cowardly way to leave things.

I wish now I could go back and express to all of them my appreciation for what they did for me. I have written in my testimony that I first learn how a church should be at the Higher Ground ministry of Hillcrest church, which is no more. There I understood more clearly the roll of love in the church. I think now I should have seen it a few years sooner, but I was blind in more ways than one.

I don’t think the church exists anymore. Now my favorite coffee cup is consigned to the landfill. The last tangible vestige of the church may be gone, but what had been given to my heart will not be so easily shattered. I may never get the chance to thank any of you personally, but at least I can thank you publically. Wherever God has led you, may He reward you richly.

Reflection on Action

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Do without thinking and you will often fail and may incur disaster. Think without doing and you will never succeed at anything. It is good to think. It is better to do. It is best to think, and then do.

Investigating the Holy Spirit

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If you are in the DFW area, I would be delighted to have you join us at Bartimaeus Baptist Temple, 6929 Day Street, 75227. We meet at 2:30pm, so you don’t even have to miss your regular church service. We’re going to have people from the Texas office of Joni and Friends to give a presentation on what they do. I have the honor of delivering the sermon this week.

A couple of months ago on Pentecost Sunday, we looked into the significance of the coming of the Holy Spirit to all believers and touched on some of the issues raised by the account in the second chapter of Acts. This Sunday, I would like to help us to gain a greater understanding of the Holy Spirit. To do this we’re going to ask some questions similar to those any good investigator would. Who is He? What does He do? Where, when, how, and why does He do it? I hope that by the end of the day we will all have a deeper knowledge of and openness to this third person of the Trinity who is often misunderstood, misrepresented, or ignored.

7 “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. 8 And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; 10 and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; 11 and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged. 12 I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. 14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. 15 All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.” (John 16:7-15 NASB)

Choose Life: Let Character Guide You

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How does one decide what position to take on an issue? Short of getting a direct communique from God, the best way is to gather all the facts and then make an educated decision. In most cases, we cannot get all the facts, so what then? The past few weeks here in Texas have illustrated quite affectively one method for finding out what you need to know. Observe the conduct of those who support each side.

Obviously, even “good” people can make bad decisions. Sometimes they can be persuaded to employ less than honorable means to achieve a goal that is considered worth the compromise. Sometimes they can be fooled into thinking that a bad thing is really good. It is a fact of life that we are all flawed and will make poor choices from time to time. This truth does not significantly damage the general principle. We can often learn the truth by watching the actions of those who claim to have it.

If you don’t live in Texas, you may have first become aware of efforts in the Texas legislature to pass new laws related to abortion in late June. On June 24, which was to be the last day of the legislative session, Democrats tried to derail passage of the bill by means of a Filibuster. That was within their rights. What happened that they were successful is a different matter. Observers in the gallery began yelling and disrupting the proceedings so that it was nearly impossible to conduct business. The result was that the final vote did not conclude until after midnight, making it invalid under Texas law. Governor Rick Perry, unwilling to allow the mob to rule, called a special session primarily to address this bill. Thus we pick up the tab for this ill-mannered bunch bent on preserving an assumed right to murder the unborn for any reason.

Of course, it didn’t stop there. As the special session commenced, we were treated to scenes like this one, where pro-lifers sang Amazing Grace while abortion supporters screamed “hale Satan!” Need I say more? Wittingly or not, they have clearly identified the source from which their ideals come.

The final showdown occurred last night, and the good guys won! Still doubt who they were? Again, just look at the conduct of each side’s supporters. Advocates for life have gathered peacefully all week, and last night they filled the gallery, wearing blue to show their support. I’m not sure why they chose blue, but that’s beside the point. Reports of what happened are still coming in as I write this, but what I do know is that tampons, jars of urine and feces, and more were intercepted by security officers as abortion supporters entered the building. When things began to get out of hand again, protesters were removed from the gallery, though not without incident. One woman chained herself to a railing. Once the bill passed, it was considered necessary to protect the supporters of life from potential violence.

This all serves as an extreme illustration of the point. Those on the side of life conducted themselves in a peaceful and respectful manner. Those in support of death behaved exactly as anyone might expect if the issue were framed as infanticide rather than abortion. To clarify that statement, if we waited until after the child was born to kill it and the debate were being held over the means and conditions under which such killing was warranted, one would expect those in favor of killing the infant under any circumstance to behave as these people have. The only difference between this imaginary situation and what actually happened is that we are killing the children before they are born.

In general, one may apply the same test to other issues that arise. What is the character of those supporting each side? It is better to decide based on facts, but I have rarely if ever found character assessment to be misleading as a helpful aid.

Take and Give

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You took away my sight that I might learn to see You. If You took away my hearing, would I learn to hear from you? If You took away my walking, would I learn to walk with You? If You took away my treasures, would I learn to treasure You?

Please take away from me anything that does not glorify You. All that You have given me is more than this life can offer. You can have my life, that I may live through You.

The Blind Coding for the Blind

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I’ve seen some pretty rough looking software that was written by the blind for the blind, so I thought I would offer a little advice. I think all of us who program with a visual impairment know that we have to take special care when designing for the sighted world. We may not care much how it looks as long as it works, but at a minimum things need to be laid out in a logical and comfortable way for someone who is looking at the screen. A conscientious coder will also make at least an attempt to format the code such that sighted peers can make sense of it.

Do the same rules apply if you are writing specifically for users who are blind? They certainly should. Of all people a blind person should understand what I’m about to write, but apparently not all do. You may be writing with the blind in mind, but not everyone who uses your software is completely blind. There are some examples of software out there that is almost totally driven by keyboard interaction with audible only prompts, but even those programs have a few visual elements. It is confusing when what one sees doesn’t line up with what one hears.

Even if the user is totally blind, it is important to realize that all screen readers are not equally capable. Even if every effort is made to maintain accessibility, there may be instances when the user needs to explore the visual layout of the screen in order to learn what is presented. If even the most basic rules for accessibility are followed, this should be possible for any screen reader to do.

I’ll provide an example. I have some vision, but even so this situation was a little frustrating. The program I was using presented a dialog of functions with their associated shortcut keys. The box was too small for the text, so the actual key combination was outside of the viewable area and there was no provision for resizing the box. I could fiddle with my screen reader’s settings and get it to read the hidden information in an understandable way, but I wanted to simply point the mouse at the line and review by character. So doing would provide a tool tip like expansion so that the key combination could be seen, but the screen reader didn’t pick that up and I need the text so large that it was difficult to obtain the information visually.

Finally, it makes you look incompetent. You may be a very sharp person, but all people will notice is how bad the software looks on the screen. Your work may enrich the lives of blind computer users everywhere, but if your work looks like that of a youngster writing his first program, you won’t be taken seriously. With possible exception of those who produce products for the same market, few employers are going to take a look at a poorly designed user interface and say, “I want to hire this guy.”

Like it or not, sometimes we need a little help from those who can see. There’s no shame in that. If my pipes leak, I’m not ashamed to call a plumber. He knows how to do something I don’t. It make take a little more effort and a little less pride, but we need to strive to produce high quality software in both form and function.

This applies to web site design as well. I try to make mine easy for someone with a visual impairment to read, but I’ve been told it gives some people a headache. So I’m taking my own advice, although it may take some time for me to get around to it or find the right solution. Ideally it will be something that lets the user control both the color scheme and the font size.

Can You Handle the Truth?

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I think that we all carry around lies that we believe because of things that have happened or been told us in the past. It doesn’t necessarily take a traumatic event, but it often happens that way. However it happens, the forces of the evil one inject a lie into our thoughts. We believe that lie, and it begins to bind us.

We’ve all heard the famous movie phrase, “You can’t handle the truth!” Oh how Satan wants you to believe just that! And he will make sure that the truth you think you can’t handle is one big Hellish lie! We’re going to examine some of the lies you may have been told and counter them with the truth of God’s Word. Jesus said, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” (John 8:31-32) I hope you’ll join us at 2:30 tomorrow at Bartimaeus Baptist Temple and find your freedom in His truth. Check our web site early next week for the podcast.

How Good is Your Word?

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I might expect someone known for a lack of integrity to fail to follow through on what he says, but it is disappointing when someone who should hold a high standard does so. I know sometimes things happen over which we have no control. This is particularly true for anyone in a ministerial roll. Things tend to come up faster than one can deal with them. That’s why it is particularly important not to over commit. Most people want to please. We don’t like to tell people something they don’t want to hear. We may have a genuine desire to serve, but we need to be wise. A promise broken is a promise broken whatever the reason may be. If we open our mounts and say we’ll do something, we have bound ourselves to do it. We can end up really hurting the very people we mean to bless when we don’t follow through on a word given without consideration but taken seriously by the recipient. If you are in a leadership position, please be careful with your word. You have not only spoken it before man, but before God.

The Father’s Blessing

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I’ll be speaking at Bartimaeus Baptist Temple tomorrow, and I want to share with you the Father’s blessing. We’ll start with a story that isn’t pretty, but it illustrates a desperate need that we all have for the affirmation of our earthly fathers. Far too many of us didn’t get it. I am thankful that I did. There is an even deeper need that we have, whether we know it or not. We need the blessing of our Heavenly Father. Back in the days when the events of Genesis were unfolding, the father’s blessing was understood to be very important. It was not only a sign of a father’s good will, it was prophetic in nature. Perhaps this was part of the culture or maybe it was a special understanding passed down through the line of Abraham, but we can see in the story of Jacob and Esau in Genesis chapter 27 how important this blessing was considered to be. It was typically reserved for the oldest son, but over and over we see this tradition upended as God works out His purposes. We’ll start by reading verses 27-40, but I urge you to read the context on your own.

Maybe you didn’t feel like you had your father’s blessing. Maybe he wasn’t around at all. I hope that when we’re finished on Sunday, you’ll see that your Heavenly Father has more than enough in store for you. If you belong to Him, He has a special plan and a special blessing that is customized just for you! Come and join us as we rejoice together in the Father’s blessing. We meet at 2:30 in the afternoon at 6929 Day Street in Dallas, off of Jim Miller south of I30.

Join Me This Sunday to Explore the Wonder of Pentecost

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Tomorrow is Pentecost Sunday. Christians celebrate it seven weeks after Resurrection Sunday. I usually speak on the third Sunday, and when Pastor David made a point of the day, I thought maybe he wanted me to stick to the theme, but I think I misunderstood. I didn’t have any better ideas, but I thought it would probably be a dry, academic sermon more like a college lecture. However when I started to look into the significance of Pentecost I was overjoyed to see how it was that God fit everything together so that we would have no doubt that Jesus is the promised messiah and His Holy Spirit the sign of our relationship with Him. We’ll read from the second chapter of Acts and also explore what it means for us today. I’m excited to share it with you and I hope you will come and be blessed! Join us at Bartimaeus Baptist Temple at 2:30pm. You don’t even have to get up early.