And they said it wouldn’t last (second edition)

In three more days, this blog will be one year old. And since at times it required me to work like a dog, I feel compelled to tell you that it will be seven years old in dog years. I don’t know what I was expecting, exactly, but the experience of blogging has been great. I now have cyberspace friends in Iowa, Illinois, Arkansas, Oregon, France, and England. I have had conversations with Dr. Scot McKnight and Michael Spencer, the “internet monk,” on their blogs. Who woulda thunk? Mrs. Rhymeswithplague, reporting from another perspective, has asked me to tell you that she has become a blogger widow.

In my third post on September 30, 2007, long before I learned how to include photographs or link to other posts, I wrote this:

And they said it wouldn’t last

This blog is now in its third day and still going strong. Will it reach its third week, its third month, its third year? Nobody knows. I will say this about myself: I am by nature a procastinator. I tend to put things off, delay the inevitable, wait until the last minute. But this work style of mine always produced superior results in my particular workplace. Of course, it drove the bosses crazy. The pressure I created for myself all by myself seemed to give me just the right incentive to excel. Oh, and work fascinates me; I can sit and look at it for hours (I’m kidding, sort of). I retired from the daily grind seven years ago. My work was of the mental kind, not the physical kind, but I came home each day exhausted and the long commute didn't help. When I retired, I said to my wife, “I don’t want to see a sunrise or a rush hour for at least six months.” And pretty much, I didn’t. I tend to have high highs and low lows. I've learned to control, or at least deal with, mood swings to a certain extent, but at one time my life, internally at least, was a little like a roller coaster. Did I just describe manic-depressive, which these days people call bipolar? And some might even call me obsessive-compulsive. Like my old work buddy who used to rearrange things on my desk just to see how long it would take me to put things back in order, at just the right angle, in parallel lines. Really.

So I’m elated that the blog is in its third day. I said above that nobody knows how long it will last. That’s not true. God does. Jehovah God, Yahweh, YHWH, I am that I am, and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ (Yeshua Ha-Mashiach), and the Holy Spirit Who indwells me, the Paraclete, the One called alongside to help, the One who Jesus said is with you and shall be in you. The Triune God is from everlasting to everlasting and knows the end from the beginning; He knows exactly how long my blog will last.

So now some of you think I am a kook and some of you are quietly praising the Lord. And some of you not so quietly. I’ll try not to make the blog all about me, me, me, though. After all, He must increase, but I must decrease.

(End of September 30, 2007, post)

So here we are, almost a year later. On reflection, I can see that much of the blog has indeed been about me, me, me. I still need to realize that I must decrease and that He must increase. I have pointed you away from myself much of the time, true, but perhaps not in the right direction.

On that note, I have decided to point you to an absolutely wonderful post today by my Illinois friend, Ruth Hull Chatlien. To read it, click here. It definitely points all of us in the right direction.

And since half of my renewed goal is to make the post less about me, me, me, I am just going to let the anniversary date slip by without further mention.