Walk the Line

I watched Walk the Line this week and want to highly suggest it to anyone who has not seen it. Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon are nails in the movie. They both delivered great performances and both deserved Oscars. Walk the Line portrays the life of Johnny Cash and it is a must see. I'm not going to say anything more. Go watch the movie. Hats off to Joaquin and Reese for doing their own singing!

Unreliable Signs of Grace

Jonathan Edwards wrote a book called Religious Affections, an insightful manual on spiritual discernment many years ago. Gerald McDermott wrote a book which used Religious Affections, as a guide called Seeing God. In Seeing God: Jonathan Edwards and Spiritual Discernment, McDermott identifies twelve unreliable signs of true spirituality and twelve reliable signs of true spirituality. I am going to blog on the unreliable signs briefly. Listed below are the unreliable sings.

The Unreliable Signs of Grace are:

1. Intense religious affections
2. Many religious affections at the same time
3. A certain sequence in the affection
4. Affections not produced by the self
5. Scriptures coming miraculously to mind
6. Physical manifestations of the affections
7. Much or eloquent talk about God and religion
8. Frequent and passionate praise for God
9. The appearance of love
10. Zealous or time-consuming devotion to religious activities
11. Being convinced that one is saved
12. Others bring convinced that one is saved

These are all helpful and McDermott adequately goes into more depth, but what I want to briefly do is list perhaps a few more unreliable signs that we can think about today. Some of these can be placed under McDermott's catagories, but that's for you to determine!

More unreliable signs:

1. Listens to KSBJ (or any local Christian-music radio station)
2. Does not eat meat on Fridays (JK-"Lent is spring training for Christmas")
3. The use of Scripture out of context to prove a point
4. Wearing a necklace with a cross on it
5. Giving money to the church or a good cause
6. Being a Cub Scout leader or staying involved in "Save the Redwoods League" (or any community service deal)
7. Being clean-cut and wearing Polos and Khakis
8. A person who refuses to drink, dance, or smoke a cigar "because those things are wrong"
9. A person who always prays first during the time a group gathers (or a person who always has something to say or add to the conversation)
10. Any guy who says he doesn't struggle with lust

Let us be people who live the truth daily and not just give a good outward appearance of it.

Engagement

On February 18, 2006 I went from having a "girlfriend" to a "fiancé" and we are planning on getting married on July 1, 2006. It's not far away, but I'm thrilled to begin the journey of marriage with my wonderful girl, Stephenie Nicole Morrison. My good friend Travis Cardwell (who regularly updates his blog for those who want a steady diet of good blogs) has been on me for not blogging in months, so hopefully this will begin a stream of consistent blogs and keep him quiet for a few days. Anyhow, for those interested here's the story how we met:

Back in April of 2003, I was sitting in my "Romans" class next to Amanda "Matchmaker" Jones, formerly known as Amanda Yates (no relation to Andrea), who had just gotten married herself a month earlier. Either she felt like playing the role of Cupid or she just saw a wonderful hunk who she thought would match up with her best friend Stephenie. However it worked out, she asked me if I would be interested in meeting her best friend Stephenie. Like a typical guy, my mind began thinking, "Oh great, this girl thinks I'm nice and she wants to set me up with her best friend who is probably "sweet", but there may be a reason why she is single." I hesitated and thought "probably not." I found out later that Stephenie was not too keen on the idea of a "blind-date" earlier. After a little persuasion from Amanda to both Stephenie and I, we all agreed on a group date, so Amanda and her husband Nick and Stephenie met me the following Saturday(4/26) at Cafe Adobe.
We agreed to meet in front of the restaraunt and as the three of them walked up my eyes were immediately focused on Stephenie. Ok, I give it to her. Amanda was right. Stephenie WAS cute. I immediately fell in love with her smile and as we ate dinner I continued to like who this girl was more and more. Dinner was all that we had planned, but appartently Stephenie was digging me, too. She suggested that we play a little minature golf. Now I didn't find this out until about a year later, but it's worth noting. Since Amanda and Nick were newlyweds, the budget was a little tight. Minature golf wasn't part of their budget, so Stephenie secretly told them SHE would pay for their golf, since they were her ride. Well, the plan worked and I paid for ours and she paid for the Jones'. Golf went great and we continued to laugh and enjoy getting to know more about one another. I also was very aware of the fact that her parent's had a lake house and I could come up and water ski sometime. (she told me that 3 times!) Anyhow, Stephenie beat me in golf and if anyone knows me, I definitely DID NOT let her win to be nice. She beat me. Plain and simple.
I drove away that night on a high of hoping I could see her again shortly. I got her number from Amanda the following Tuesday in class and did my best to not call her too early. OK, class ended at 9:00 and Stephenie's phone was ringing by 9:02. The rest is history. Life is good, but I'm thrilled to journey with her for the rest of it and don't ever laugh at blind dates. The only one I was ever on landed me one I couldn't let go of.