Light Thoughts

     We begin our story today with what happened at Costco last week.  I had been wanting to buy a pressure washer for quite some time and had seen the one at Costco which, by the way, just happened to have a little more than the recommended PSI for cleaning driveways and sidewalks. Anyway, there is was, $80 off.  I was not going to see that price again for some time, so the pressure was on.  Pun intended.  I had the money but was having trouble deciding if I really needed it.  My brother has offered to let me borrow his but I really wanted my own.  Mostly because I could use it a little bit at a time.  Trust me, I have big plans for my new little friend, which I did buy. How could I not buy something I had wanted and was now on sale?  Plus, it had a Briggs & Stratton engine.  When I was a kid we had a mower that seemed to last forever. You guessed it. It had a Briggs & Stratton engine. These had to be signs!   ...

     Ok, here is the answer to the question you have been waiting for all week.  Which is better, iPhone or Android?  It depends on who you ask. My wife is an iPhone X user and for her, the iPhone is the best.  Now I have a Samsung 9 user and for me it is the best.  Kathy likes her's because it is easy to use. I like mine because I can customize it a little more. So you get to decide which phone gives you what you are looking for.  A really fancy phone won't do you much good if you don't know how to use it.      Just this afternoon Kathy accidentally turned on the flashlight on her phone.  Instead of trying to remember all the steps to turn it off, she hit her Siri button and said "Turn off my flashlight" and it was done.  I guess words do have power. I could argue that I can do it as fast by swiping down from the top and locating and hitting the flashlight icon but the important thing is the job gets done whichever way...

     I don't remember a whole lot about going to Church camp as a kid but a couple things still come to mind.  I remember getting a coffee can of cookies from my sister Joyce only to have them taken by our pastor's son and distributed to his friends.  I recall that they did leave me the last one which was very nice.  I have forgiven him of course and it was nice that God used him to help me share. I can't say for sure that I would have eaten them all myself but I think it was a definite possibility.      The other thing I remember is our cabin counselor telling us a story about Spartacus.  Just to refresh you, Spartacus was a slave and a gladiator in the Roman empire who led a slave rebellion against Rome.  In the end Spartacus's army of slaves was defeated and he was killed.  I might  never have remembered the incident except for what happened when my counselor finished his story.  He concluded by saying Spartacus w...

     Last time I talked about being awake at 4 in the morning and telling God that I had wasted so much time.  I wanted to write a little more about that because I realized, later, that I gave you an incomplete picture of all that happened.  So, here is the rest of the story.      I have some Bible verses in my phone that I try to read and pray through every day.  One of those verses is this one.  "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life." Psalm 139:23-24 NLT      For a long time, when I would think about what offends God, they would be things like pride, hatred, selfishness, greed and so forth.  But, before the "offending" part, the prayer asks for God to know my anxious thoughts.  So, I am not a Bible scholar but I think God is saying that he cares about what we think and wants us to be...