Luke 8:5-15

"A Farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. Some fell on rock, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. Other seed feel among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown."

When he said this, he called out, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

His disciples asked him what his parable meant. He said, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that,

" 'though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand.' (Isaiah 6:9) "

"This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. Those on the rock are the ones who recieve the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for awhile, but in the time of testing they fall away. The seed that feel among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life's worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature. But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce crop."


So which are you?

New Tattoo

So I've been conjuring up an idea of a new tattoo that I would like to get. I'm not positive on the design, but I would like to put it out there to see if anyone has any sort of feedback or ideas.

Where: right upper arm; from my shoulder down my arm, possibly to my elbow
What: angel wings, clouds in the background, possibly incorporating Revelation 10:1-4; I typically like black ink, but I would be open to color
When: anytime

Anyone with ideas is more than welcome to comment.

A-rod

In an era where steroids use isn't unexpected news from Major League Baseball former and current players, the news of Alex Rodriguez's alleged use does fall on my surprised ears. I've always been a Bonds supporter, even though I'm positive he's used steroids. That's not to say that I support the use of steroids for the egotistical and self-centered reasons that most use, or any reason for that matter. It's cheating, pure and simple.

But the news of A-rod using steroids does put a bit of a smile on my face, simply because he's somewhat of a poster boy for MLB and he's supposed to be the one to break Bond's record without using steroids. The smile only lasted a day or two only until I watched Peter Gammons' interview with Rodriguez. The fact that Gammons questions were slam dunks for A-rod is disturbing. He just kept giving him lay-up after lay-up and put absolutely zero pressure on Rodriguez to give straight, specific, and defined answers. Instead A-rod's answers just led me to want more answers. When asked if the 2001-2003 time frame was a when he was using steroids he stated that it sounded accurate. That's not vague or anything. This is a question that Gammons asked, "Given the opportunity, would you like to go to Major League Baseball and say, 'OK, what can I do to help kids across the country?'" What do you really think A-rod's response would be? 'No, I only care about myself, my stats, my money, and being the best, so the kids can figure it out on their own.' That sounds like an accurate statement to me, but it's not the one we got. Another thing that gets me is the fact that Rodriguez acts as though he is almost a victim in the steroid use. He didn't know what he was taking, he didn't ask the right questions, he felt too much pressure, he was naive. Let's have a pity party for a guy who is making more money per game than most people make in a year.

The final thing that absolutely drives me insane is the over the top arrogance and lies he was spewing in the interview with Katie Couric in 2007. When asked if he had ever used performance enhancing drugs he said, "No, I've never felt overmatched on the baseball field. I've always been a very strong, dominant position. And I felt that if I did my work since I was, you know, a rookie back in Seattle, I didn't have a problem competing at any level. So, no."

So why should anyone believe him now that he's 'coming clean' about his steroid use. For all we know, or will probably ever know, he could have been using when he was in Seattle. Rodriguez stated to Gammons, "I'm finally beginning to grow up. I'm pretty tired of being stupid and selfish, you know, about myself. The truth needed to come out a long time ago. I'm glad it's coming out today." I really wonder if this hadn't come out would he be saying, or even thinking the same thing. I highly doubt it.

It's a good thing for all us non-Yankee fans that Rodriguez can't figure out how to take his clutch performances in the media and translate those into clutch performances on the field.

Upcoming V-Day

As Valentine's Day approaches I find myself thinking about being more romantic. That wasn't an easy sentence to leave in here as an alpha male and all. But anyways, I remembered that a friend of mine had written a song for Lindsay and I for when we were getting married and thought that now would be an appropriate time to post it. So the following YouTube video was created by Josh Lamb.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFJm62HQK5U&eurl=http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home

Running

I have always wanted to run and finish a Marathon. In the fall I started training for this, just building up miles slowly. I was pretty consistent, that is until Thanksgiving hit. That put a damper in my motivation. Then Christmas came around and my running was non-existent by then. So then in January I started back up. Running a couple miles everyday. Now needless to say, I'm a bit behind schedule as most Marathon schedules are around 18 weeks. I've got roughly 14 weeks. So yesterday I went for a run, determined that I would just run until I pretty much couldn't anymore. I actually think that I could have kept running, but walking the next day may have been difficult. So I stopped at somewhere around 6-6.5 miles. Today, my knees are sore, which is an indication (I think) that my leg strength isn't up to par with running that distance. It's also probably an indication that I haven't run that long in I can't remember when. So I'm letting the blogging community know that I'm setting out to run in the Flying Pig on May 3. I'm doing this simply to keep myself accountable with something. Because I know how my mind works, and I don't like disappointing or not doing something that I say that I will do. Encouragement, advice, or any other comments are welcome.