Treasure and Worship

Shifting from one to the other, that's where it all started going downhill. You'll need to refer to the previous post to get some of the references I make here, but it's short and quick to read.

Last year, I wound up in a relationship that was better than any one I had been in before and better than I could have imagined. One thing that made it very loving for us was my decision early on to ask God to help me treasure her every day. The problem was that when you forget who you are, the work you've done, and that you're perfect at being human, it becomes easy to elevate others to a place that they shouldn't occupy in your life. She had become my object of worship.

Wake-Up Call

I've been processing some things over the past few days and had quite a moment of clarity as a result.

Fours years ago, I had an unrequited love knock me on my butt, so to speak. I was at what was probably the most healthy and whole point in my life, spiritually and emotionally. The problem wasn't so much getting knocked on my butt as it was my lazy refusal to get back up and go on with living my life. Fast forward through three years of isolation and depression, and I found myself with an even more amazing love, one that I couldn't have imagined. Things could have been beyond my wildest dreams, but the depression was still hanging on to me. Or so I thought.

Relationships and Sharpening Knives

Sounds pretty grim and serial killer-ish, huh? Really, it isn't. Bear with me while I take you through some seemingly unrelated information to get to my final point.

One of my favorite Bible verses is, "Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." - Proverbs 27:17, NASB. We all get the gist of that verse, but I think a lot of people miss the most effective way to put it into practice in our daily lives. Why? Because most people have no idea how to properly sharpen and care for a knife.

Dead Batteries, Rabbits, Etc...

Well, looks like it's going to be a two-fer today folks. Went outside to crank up the car and head to the office and found my battery was dead. Not just low, but completely drained. Not that I'm surprised by this; the battery is five years old, and it's been giving me trouble for four days now. I added some water to it, like I did in a cold blast of winter '09-'10, but it didn't cure the problem like it did then. Gave me just enough juice to crank up a few times each day and get to the jobsites. Stuff like this is why I don't go to the casinos; I tend to push my luck just one step too far.

Running On Empty

Every once in a while I have a night that I can't sleep one bit. No matter what I try, I just can't get the brain to shut down enough to go into snooze mode. I've got some sleeping pills, but I can't take them in the middle of the night, unless I don't have to do anything at all the next day. This wasn't the case last night, as I have a lot of work to do today before I go to work tonight. I can already tell it's going to be a "yippee-ki-yo" kind of day, as my old friend Lee used to say. A full pot of coffee, maybe more, this morning, for sure.

Hi, I'm Eric, and I'm addicted to Coffee...

I don't know if I could make it as a functioning member of society without coffee. At least not one that has to show up somewhere and do something at a certain time in the morning. Most mornings (this one included), I just want to go back to bed after waking up, and even if I am fully awake, my brain just doesn't seem to be capable of anything more complicated than reading the comics. Just the sounds of the coffee maker and the smell of the brewing grounds seem to give me a lift and make the day better. Usually half a pot is good to get me going, but there are some days I need a full pot, and some days that I want a full pot. More is better, right?

Notice that I measure my coffee intake in terms of pots, not cups. My coffee maker brews 12 cups. That 12 cup pot fills my mug exactly four times. So, when I tell you I drink half a pot of coffee most mornings, you know that I only have to fill my cup twice. But, when my doctor asks, I tell her I usually have only two cups of coffee per day. A politician's truth, if you will.