"But He Gives More Grace"

In devotions we're going through the book of Daniel, and today's reading was Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednigo's reply to the king's ultimatum: bow down or be burned! We were all struck by the conviction and faith in their reply. They accepted the fact that God could save them or choose not to, and they stood by their belief. This passage prompted some self-examination: what about us? What would our response be to such a dilemma? Each of us, if left to our own strength, would surely follow our earthly desires, deny our Lord, and save our earthly lives. I personally, even with the grace God has given me currently, do not see how I could possibly choose to do right in the face of such an agonizing death. But praise be to God for His sufficient grace in the midst of trials!

But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:6)

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

These verses give me great comfort and encouragement as I look to what the future holds for me and for this country. In the face of persecution God will give us the grace we need to stand for Him when we could not humanly do so.

~Mac

Random Happenings and Accomplishments

I was thinking about doing a "remembering 2010, goals for 2011" post but after reading everyone else's excellent posts on that topic, I don't think I can compete. So I will list some of the things that I have done over New Years:

1) I attended a New Year's Eve Gala with the family. We went to our friends' church and used their fellowship hall for a dance! There were about 60 people there. We danced line and circle dances, a polka, and the broomstick waltz. Nothing like ringing in the new year with three plus hours of dancing! :-)

2) New Year's Day we had our unit celebration for our homeschool curriculum. Each student picked an ancient culture to represent, gave a presentation based on the culture, and made a food of the culture - my favorite part :-D

^ My sister's AMAZING phyllo spinach triangles from Greece!

^ Leek soup from Egypt.

^ Greek salad! :-)

^ My laden plate (clockwise from top): Greek salad, chicken couscous from Israel, noodles from China, flat bread from India, squash from North America

45 minutes later . . .

what a great curriculum huh? :-)

3) January 2nd I sang a duet for the offertory for our church as part of a wonderful New Years service :-)

4) I went to a book study Monday night. A group of about 12 guys are going through Crazy Love by Francis Chan. A challenging and thought-provoking book!

5) Random accomplishments:
* I made my bed completely by feel in the dark Saturday night
* I tied my tie while singing a hymn during choir rehearsal Sunday (good thing I can tie ties without a mirror!)
* My brother and I made two batches of "mookies" (man cookies) Monday afternoon. We taped ourselves doing it and made it into an impromptu cooking show/MythBusters episode.

Jesus' Birthday!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas; I sure did!

We all have traditions that we do every year; one of my favorites is Jesus' birthday cake. This is a special cake because the way it is made is very symbolic.

^ The big red candle represents Jesus, the light of the world. The candle sits in the middle of a Star of David, showing Jesus's lineage, and the cake is round, symbolizing the earth. The hearts represent believers around the world, and the white frosting represents Jesus' righteousness covering us.

^ The bottom, dark layer represents the sin of the world. The red layer represents Jesus' atoning sacrifice for our sins, and the green layer represents new growth in Him.

We read the Christmas story, sing Silent Night and light our candles off of the big candle, showing that we are to take Jesus' Light into the world! We also sing the Happy Birthday Song, with different lyrics:

On the first Christmas day

From the Father above

Came the little Lord Jesus

To show us God's love!

Happy birthday to You!

Happy birthday to You!

We love you dear Jesus!

Happy birthday to You!

A wonderful reminder of the reason we celebrate Christmas, and a delicious one too! :-)

~Mac

My Most Favoritest Job Ever!

I love recording, producing, and engineering music, ESPECIALLY when I get paid to do it! A few weeks ago I got a project from a young singer-songwriter. Her dad decided to give her the Christmas present of recording one of her songs at higher quality and with other instruments. My name came up and I got the job! I recorded her acoustic guitar and vocal tracks last week and have finished the tracking of the other instruments. Now I'm in the mixing stage, and I'll hopefully be done by next week! Hopefully this will give me some more contacts and good reviews ;-)

~Mac

Rockin' Christmas Evening

Last week, we got to see the most rockin' Christmas concert ever - The Trans-Siberian Orchestra! Three hours of music, lights, lasers, fire, etc. 'Twas quite epic! :-)

^ Just a sample of the amazing light and video show

^ Lights, video, orchestra and vocal choir

^ One of my favorite parts - LASERS!

^ Yes, they did light the stage on fire - and we could feel the heat from our "nosebleed" (high up and far away) seats! They also beat-synced the fire on several occasions.

~Mac

Vita - Via Media

The rough translation of that is "life - the middle way".

It's one of the things I've been thinking about a lot lately. It seems as though everything in life, all our decisions, our beliefs, our opinions, is about finding some kind of Biblical, ethical, moral, or responsible middle ground between two extremes, neglecting neither.

Faith and works. Works and faith. Which is more important? Neither! One must have faith to be saved, but faith without works is dead.

One other thing that has become important in my life is future career choices. I have to find some kind of balance between doing what I love (music, audio and video production) and what I can use to best support my family. At times, these two interests seem to be in direct conflict - musicians and audio engineers have a hard time finding work and making money, but it seems like God has gifted me in those areas.

Balancing relationships and service with school and other personal pursuits is something that we must all deal with and decide about. It can be very hard to decide between building a relationship with friends or siblings and being "productive" and moving towards earning a degree.

How about you? How are you finding the Via Media?

~Mac

Plundering the Web

Muahahaha!

:sets down bag of cyberplunder:

Every once in a while, I skim various audio software websites looking for "plunder" - free stuff that I can use in my projects. Today I picked up some more goodies, including a few reverbs, a tuner, a synthesizer, and some amp simulators. I also downloaded a video editor which I'm going to have to try out sometime in here.

Many thanks to all the people out there who take the time to create free software for all of us on shoestring budgets! :-)