Allen's Blog

  What is a man?   An alphabetical list of attributes to which every man should attain. B Behaves The eyes of the world are looking for real men.   In the Bible study curriculum “Experiencing God” Henry Blackaby quotes Dwight L. Moody when he says, “The world has yet to see what God can do with a man fully consecrated to him. By God’s help, I aim to be that man.”   What difference would it make if I dedicated myself to God in this manner?   What connection is there to God and my behavior?   And what does it really matter anyway?   I believe that my behavior is a reflection of all that I represent.   If I am an American visiting another country, the citizens there will watch me and say, “Oh, that’s an American.”   As I raised my children, they would look to me and say to themselves, “That’s what a husband and father does and says.”   And if I call myself a disciple of Jesus Christ, others will remark, “So that’s what a Christian is.” The ...

  What is a man?   An alphabetical list of attributes to which every man should attain. A Accountable A man does little in isolation.   Certainly, we like to be alone after talking with people all day, but isolation does not mean secrets.   We have nothing in our lives that we cannot share with our wives or another man.   (See Integrity).   We recognize the dangers of aloneness, so we gather other men around us.   We regularly confess our downfalls to a couple of men we trust.   We are accountable because others are watching us.   If we are fathers, we are the primary example for our children of what a man is.   Someone once told me that if I did not show love and affection to my daughter she would seek it out from others…I can feel my temperature rising even as I think about the prospects. The accountable man lives in freedom because he has surrendered his inner life to the safety of other men.   The secretive man never knows when ...

God, Fix Our Van! When our van broke down, our prayer for days was “God, please fix our van!”   Or “God, please make sure UPS delivers the part today!”   And then things began to happen and our prayer changed to “God, what would you have us do today?”   On a Saturday we left home to drive across the country to visit our children.   It was a grand plan: visit four days with our boys, go camping and then drive to see our daughter and do the same thing.   Things were going fine until we tried to climb a steep gravel road toward a reservoir and things began to heat up. Literally. The van overheated and BOOM! The thermostat housing exploded.   I tried to remain calm.   Hey, no one’s hurt, my boys have another car to go get help.   It’s not so bad……I wish I had been calmer. Plans look ruined.   What would we do now?   At least it was daylight and a tow truck was coming.   “Oh God, lead us to a good garage!”   And v...

What Are You Willing to Sacrifice to be Right? Sometimes a title comes to me before I have any content to back it up, but this time the content   has been my bane for as long as I can remember.   I have a very logical brain.   I see black and white (b/w).   People that see gray drive me nuts.   I know that gray areas exist in most issues but my brain will work overtime to force them into a distinct category.   I envy the gray-seeing person.   You are the ones that are more forgiving, tolerant and generally nicer to be around.   You are the type of people that can be friends with anyone.   Although, we black and white thinkers tend to grate on your nerves a bit.   But if you are patient, you are even willing to concede that eventually we’ll come around to see things a bit differently. We b/w thinkers are quick to make decisions.   We may even be first responders.   We see the problem and are quick to tackle it. ...

Who Touched Me? Skeptics abound regarding those that attend church or practice religion.   And for good reason.   Their lives appear no different than their own.   Why add such encumbrances to your life if there is no apparent added value?   It’s a wonderful thing that there are exceptions to this perception.   Using a passage from the Bible in the gospel of Mark, chapter 5, I would like to say that there are the religious people and then there are those that really know Jesus.     In Mark 5 Jesus is traveling through a village and with his reputation as a healer, exorciser of demons and provider of meals for thousands, it’s no wonder that throngs of people are trying to get a glimpse of him or even touch him.   I can imagine the disciples that he has with him tried to act as body guards.   Pushing, shoving, yelling, generally behavior attributed to crowds where each person has his own agenda.   Somewhere in thi...

  Equipped or Not On this day, March 18, 2020, the government has asked its 300 million citizens to observe stringent measures in order to abate the spread of the Corona Covid-19 virus.   Older people who are particularly susceptible should isolate themselves.   Everyone else should practice social distancing and stay away from groups of people.   Wash your hands for 20 seconds with soap and water.   In a very short period of time, our government officials have instructed us as to how to take care of ourselves.   If we cooperate, we may ‘flatten the curve’ of the virus.   In other words, reduce the number of cases.   If we choose to revolt and live normally, we may contribute to spreading the virus, which produces minor illness in most people but possibly death in the elderly. Good instructions.   Clear and unbiased.   No one is exempt and the consequences are dire if ignored.   With the onset of this virus, re...

Avodah Work and Worship We are very familiar with the word ‘work’.   We go to work.   We work out in the yard.   We have to do work in order to earn a pay check.   Work is often viewed as a necessary evil.   Thus, the extreme, concentrated effort toward preparing for retirement.   That time when we don’t have to work any more.   But we are less accustomed to the word ‘worship’.   If we were to do a word association game I wonder what you would come up with.   My guess is church, hymn singing, hands raised, angels….and if you are biblically-minded at all you might remember people in the Bible falling on their faces before angels, fire on the mountain or even the people in the New Testament who recognized Jesus as God.   Can you imagine any two words that seem so different?   And yet they have their origins in the same Hebrew word, Avodah .   We are so far removed from the Hebrew culture that this concept ...