The Wow Factor,  I would paraphrase as an experience and/or observation that grabs  your attention and  holds it.. big time.

When I was young I was a decent athlete, and fell in love with sports. The speed, power,  finesse, strategy, and teamwork of great athletes and teams playing to win the game.

​The thrill of victory and  agony of defeat was  the  catch phrase for the old Wild World of Sports show, and this all makes me  go.. WOW!

It also goes  without saying (though I  am saying it) I love Art.  Ok, not true art.. I love cartoons, and have doodled cartoons ever since age five.

​You will never catch me wandering into  an art gallery pondering the works of Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, Rembrandt, or Leonardo de Vinci, BUT.. I save  my WOWs for Gary Larson - The FarSide, Berke Breathed - Bloom County, Bill Watterson - Calvin & Hobbes, and Jim Unger - Herman. 

​In fact  one of my favorite Christmas  presents  of  all time my wife bought me The Complete Farside collection (3 volumes) in hardcover.  For most folks this is a waste of time and $$, but  for  me.. WOW!

Others are enthralled by the world of beautiful music.  Personally I enjoy listening to music ranging from Jazz to Rock & Roll, Hymns to modern Worship.

But.. I don't sing so good,  can't clap my hands to a beat, or even play a Kazoo.  Music is that Wow for many.. but for me I am  sorry but I am checking my TV for a game while drawing Back Pew cartoons.

Now as  we travel further from the  center of my universe we find many looking up at the night sky mesmerized by the stars while our planet orbits around a blazing ball of  burning gas and  realizing we are only one planet in one galaxy in an ever expanding universe all with order and functioning with more science and math that you could  shake a stick at (real old  saying that means ALOT) .. and  the  collective scientific community responds in one voice..  WOW!  <-- note this was an 83 word runon sentence.

Did I choose your WOW tirgger? Well no matter if it is  science, music,  art, sports, or watching the Wheel of Fortune ( big fan of the wheel)  realize all WOWs come from  our creator.  Our Wow moments are real and there  is  no need to  apologize for  shouting wow (unless you  are in church, or during a funeral).. BUT step out further to realize our God is the source of all things  WOW. 

​If we don't we miss the point of this  big ol' Beautiful world. Life is  not  about me, life is  not about my passions  and hobbies.. LIFE IS ABOUT OUR GOD, and the worship and adoration he deserves.

How great is  our God! WOW!

• For as the Heavens  are Higher than the Earth so are my ways  than your ways,  and my thoughts yours. Is 55:8-9
• He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. Ps 147:4
• Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God? Ps 77:3
  and last but not least
• For  God so loved the world that he gave his  only son, that whoever believes will not perish but have eternal life. Jo 3:16  Wow,  and WOW!

Thank you  God for your  amazing creation that is your handiwork, and thank you for your love and  grace in this  life, and the promise of  eternity with you our wonderful creator.
​
Blessings

Jeff

I have just changed jobs AGAIN.  After 5 months working a job as a delivery driver of meals  to senior citizens and others  in financial, physical, and/or other needs I am now riding a  bus to downtown Saint Paul, Mn to an office job providing customer service for life insurance policies.

I was  not looking for a new  job, and was  thankful  for the opportunity to  serve others as hands  and feet of Jesus Christ for those in need.  As a driver I met many wonderful people, and  was touched by the spirit of many of my clients. Other clients were just existing as you  could see on their faces the weight of their situation.  Poverty,  sickness,  mental and/or emotional challenges  that were heavy loads.

​So here comes  the FEAR.  While I am  in good  health, I am 61, wear bi-focals  and hearing aides, and with zero experience  with life insurance. 

I  am  in a 6 week training class with mostly millenials to learn a solid  understanding of our  insurance services, and I AM MORE THAN SLIGHTLY CHALLENGED. I  am learning, but I started  this  class  about a week and  a half after the rest  of  my group, but if I was swimming I would be dog paddling my fastest to keep up with a room full of Olympic Swimmers. I think I have swallowed half the pool.

 I have a growing concern for the American Church that we find ourselves caught between THE ROCK and a HARD WORLD.

​This world claims Christians are mostly judgmental hypocrites. Weak minded, Insensitive, pious hymn singers who naivly believe in Noah's Ark and  other fairy tales. And they LOL believe  the Bible is the inherrent word of  God.

In the process of Photoshop retouching my past cartoons I came across one featuring this important scripture.

2 Corinthians 10:5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

With this  great scripture in mind, I feel sometimes like I  am serving 60 years to life in the Alcatraz of my Mind. To often I find instead of holding every thought captive obedient to Christ I have become become captive to my  thoughts.  I become a walking talking Abbott & Costello comedy skit where I end up  on the wrong side of  the county jail bars of my mind.

In these times my weary brain becomes lost  in the tasks of another anxious day living in this very broken spinning out  of  control world leaves me frazzled, weary, and  downright .. pouty.  Now pouty may be cute when it is  my 4 year old granddaughter, but when it is 61 year old ME.. just ask my wife Mary, it's not cute.

So what  do I  do?  I read aloud again 2 Corinthians 10:5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

I am one  of  those folks who likes my food  ever so slightly overcooked.  I like the cheese on my pizza to be golden.. maybe even a 'dark' golden.  I like my bagel toasted dark contrasted with a spread of cream cheese. I  want it to hear a slight CRUNCH when I  bite into it.  And I like DUSK where the sun has  just dropped peacefully below the western horizon but before the  black of night,

Of course choosing dark over light in the weighty matters of bagals and pizza is fine, but in matters of the SPIRIT.. always choose the LIGHT.

This  Present Darkness is a Christian novel by Frank Paretti published in 1986 for adults showing a contemporary view on angels, demons, prayer, and spiritual warfare as demons and angels interact and struggle for control in our lives and communities.  And though this book was  fiction, I  believe this  battle is  real.

Of course there is obvious  DARKNESS of this  world, but I am  surprised by many Churches Frog in the  Boiling Pot perspective on life where God is fit into societal norms rather than the other way around as  God intends.

"In God We Trust" may be the official motto of the United States of America, but in this  world's  shadows we move closer to a Godless reality found in Judges 17:6 In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. ​

I live in America where moderation is not the modus operandi. We like big, and more, and we supersize whenever possible.  Too much for us  often is not enough.

I  am not saying having nice home, car, etc are bad things  at all, but modesty and  moderation does not come easy to  Americans. IMO

But what  if we temper  our lives with those 3 verses in Philippians.  What if  we were known for  our  moderation, prayerful, and thankful to  our  God?  Then the peace of  God that  does pass all understanding is there  for each of us no matter if we are living check to check or encumbered with the trappings of  wealth. 

​Be poor in Spirit (humble) Mt. 5:3 , faithful to our  God and caring of others in the moments  that  make up  your day. Then this  whole moderation concept should take care of  itself.

May God lead, use, and bless  your lives in ways that  are  beyond your dreams.

Jeff

2018 has started out with many challenges/opportunities for my life.

• My employment status has become a bit 'spotty', though I am thankful to start a new job next week once my background check comes back.  LOL, what kind of dirt can this background check uncover on a 60 year old, church attending, non drinking, Scandinavian who has been married to the same wonderful woman for almost 34 years, and regularly is seen with his grandchildren?  Hmmm.. maybe this is all a front for the Minnesota Mob.. most likely NOT!
• Also, my wife and I just bought a Town home near our grown kids and their families.  This is a wonderful change but also like any move has come with plenty of work as we settle in.

I add in my penchant for looking back at mistakes in my life including a season where drink was on it's way to ruining all that I had. These regrets are mixed with thankfulness for God's protection and restoration through my bumbles and stumbles.

So sometimes.. like the children of Israel in Exodus.. I want to go back to Egypt.  Ok, in my case it would be rural Wisconsin, but the point is I want to go back to a place and time where it was simpler and a chance to redo all that I should NOT HAVE done.

The author of the book of Hebrews does not mince words when he wrote  
.. it is hard to get it across to you since you’ve picked up this bad habit of NOT LISTENING!  ... You ought to be teachers by now, yet here you are needing someone to go over the basics on God.. AGAIN! You need MILK, and  Milk is for BABIES!  Hebrews 5:11-14 (MSG).

BUT then again..  there are plenty of meaningful scriptures exhorting us to have the the faith of a child.

Over the next week as we were unloading boxes and arranging rooms, the snow was melting and again Spring seemed right around the corner. 

Well actually around that corner we found Mother Nature spewing out more winter rage starting on April/Friday the 13th where we transitioned from freezing rain to a full blown blizzard resulting in 18 inches of snow and the winds were I believe 25-30mph.  Yeah Spring?

So again, what is always winter, but never Christmas.  April in Minnesota!
​
Ok I do realize Spring will come eventually. In fact my wife Mary told me last night the forcast is for the temperature to be in the 60s all next week. That would be nice, and I trust my wife, but..  Mother Nature?  Not so much.

I know sometimes in everyones lives it feels like 'always winter but never Christmas'.  Not the go sledding, or skiing kind, but a cold, dark existence where literal and figurative storms rage threatening to destroy everything. 

The loss of a job, marriage tensions, divorce, sickness, death, depression, anxiety, and a host of other factors in our lives that are more threatening than an April blizzard.  The answer to all these storms and more is the Jesus who calms the seas.

• Then Paul enters the scene and is blinded, beaten, stoned, snake bit, shipwrecked, and logged more jail-time than Otis from the old Andy Griffith show.

Now fast forward to today .. I am sitting in my warm home in a country that has allowed me freedom to worship. While the outside temperature may go below zero in the Minnesota winter months I have my gas fireplace warming me as I type. 

But.. is Persecution on the rise? I do see a fast moving trend in the news that alarms me where traditional Christian values are under attack.

Recently Jo Behar from the TV show 'The View' called Vice President Mike Pence mentally ill because he prays to Jesus  for direction for our country. 

​Pro-life, traditional marriage stances are demonized as political hate speech by the ever growing 'progressive' profane, vulgar lifestyles of the 'rich and shameless' .  

The body of Christ should be unwavering and unapologetic of the gospel message.  If we really believe Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except by Jesus. Jo 14:6, then shame on us as believers when we are silent.