Dealing with our "pet sins"

This week, I had the unfortunate problem of my internet connection going out. In this high-tech world, not being connected even for one hour irritates the fire out of me. It shouldn't but it does. Anyway, I called the cable company who sent someone to my house to fix it. Before they did, they tried to troubleshoot it with me and so forth. Nothing worked! He said he would have to send someone out to check it out in a few hours. That was great and as I was about to hang up, he said, "Mr. Qualls, we are running a special right now on the movie packages. You get Showtime, Cinemax, and the Movie Channel for only $5 a month. That's 18 channels for $5.00 forever."

I have to be honest, having these channels in my house is not a good idea. I have dealt with this "pet sin" in my life over the years. Given - I never have paid for these channels, but have always gotten them for free or had them for a free preview weekend. Not to say that is ok, but it is how I rationalized it. Having these channels was a problem for me, because I ended watching movies I had no business watching - hearing language I did not need to hear, watching violence and other crude stuff that I did not need to be in my mind. Not only would I watch these movies, but I would scroll ahead in the week and plan what I thought might be worth watching. Now you understand my issue with this and how tempting this was for me for a half a second.

In that brief moment as the cable operator waited for my response, many things went through my head of why I should or should not do it. For many of us, those split second decisions are the difference in following God or disobeying Him. We choose to go our way with allot of rationalizing or do what God would have us do. In those moments of temptation, may we choose to quit rationalizing, follow God and kick that pet sin outside to the doghouse.

By the way, I told the cable guy very politely, "no thank you". The picture above is of our boston terrier, "Chewbacca Butch Qualls", otherwise known as "Chewy".

Where did the gum go?

The 80's were some of the greatest times as a kid. One of my favorite hobbies was collecting baseball cards. Of course, back then it was just three companies - Topps (the King), Donruss, and Fleer. Packs cost about .30 cents and all of them had a piece of gum in them. Gone are those days and packs are expensive with so many different brands of cards you can not keep up. However, I still have my Cal Ripken Jr. and Don Mattingly rookie cards that are prize possessions and have been stored up for awhile now.

Fast forward to the last two months where both of my boys have fallen in love with baseball and now want to buy baseball cards. I love baseball and it is so awesome to see my boys enjoying the sport as well. However, we went to our first baseball card shop sometime back and I realized how much things had changed in the baseball card world as far as price. We bought out first box (2009 Topps Finest). Get this - 6 packs for $55.00, but you are guaranteed an autograph. Check out the pic (it is a Will Venable game-worn jersey autograph). The thrill of opening the packs with the boys was awesome, but there was no gum to share.

No doubt in this world we live in, things are constantly changing. May we embrace the change with confidence that our God is still in control. May we live each day to it's fullest embracing those priceless moments with our full attention. May we remember the past, but live in the present and look to the future. And if you can find some of those old wax packs, save the gum for me. I bet it still tastes good after all those years!