Of snow, sermons, and Super Bowls...

It has been quite awhile since I posted here. I've been tied up with other things, laziness being one of them.

We have been getting quite a bit of snow lately, 18 inches in the last week. Some folks will have you believe that this is an extraordinary amount, or that the weather has been unusually severe. True, only if you have been under a rock for the lat 40 years. The weather we are having now is typical for what we had when I was a kid. We had so much snow once in the middle 70's that we were stranded in the house for three days. That hasn't happened recently. It's February. It's Wisconsin. It's gonna snow. Get over it. Oh, and learn how to drive in it too, will ya? And just to clarify, I am starting to get sick and tired of clearing snow. I decided after the last snow fall that if I did someone's driveway, and they failed to reciprocate with any kindness at all, I wasn't going to do their driveway any more. I don't charge to clear someones driveway. I look to see if yours has been cleared, if not I'll do it, and then just drive away. I had a lady offer to give me $40 for 10 minutes worth of work to clear her drive. I took twenty, and told her the next was on me. I have done another neighbors driveway 4 or 5 times this year, and have not received a "thank you" or even a wave acknowledging my presence. They won't get theirs done again. Yesterday, a fellow drove up to our house, I recognized him as a guy whose driveway I did a week ago. He came out and thanked me then, then drove up yesterday to deliver some Rice Krispie treats. I'll do his again too.

As I have stated before, I attend a great church, and am an elder there as well. From time to time elders are called on to preach when one of a number of paid ministers is unavailable. This past Sunday was one of those days, and it was my turn to fill in. I chose to teach on Matthew 4:1-11; The Temptation of Jesus in the Wilderness. It went pretty well, as I have been blessed to have biblical teaching from some men who truly love Jesus Christ, and are passionate for His Word. I predominantly used information from the text, as well as information from a book entitled "The Words and Works of Jesus Christ" by J. Dwight Pentecost. Let me tell you, if you are a confessing Christian, I highly recommend this book whether for just reading or for a group study. We are using it as a group study, and the Pastor teaching it studied under Pentecost at Dallas Theological Seminary (so we have all kinds of insider notes and stuff!).

My beloved Green Bay Packers will play in the Super Bowl on Sunday. My kids are really excited, and they should be, as this is the first time the Packers have been in a Super Bowl they will be able to remember. I think it's a great thing for the only publicly held professional sports franchise to be in a championship game like this. I think most folks are picking the Steelers to win, But something just tells me that this is to be the Packers' year. They have overcome so much to get where they are, they deserve to be the first sixth seeded NFC team to win. Not only that, they will have won an astonishing SIX consecutive do-or-die games in the course of this improbable run.