The Bible-Believing, Bacon-Eating, Blog-Writing, Bald-Preacher

     Anybody that knows my father knows that he is, well, uh, different. He has a great sense of humor and you never know what will come out of his mouth or when it will come out. One of his favorite ongoing jokes is that one day he is going to write the final book of the Bible entitled "The Gospel According to Dr. Bubba'. It will have verses like, "It is not a lie if everybody knows you are lying" and "Where two or three are gathered together, take up an offering" and "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story." Obviously by those verses you can tell it is all a joke and none of his "truths" are really true except for a few like  "Women's logic has nothing to do with logic." After almost 22 years of marriage I can see some truth in that. For instance, why do we have towels hanging in the bathroom but are not allowed to dry our hands on them?      One of Dr. Bubba's so called truths that has a little truth to ...

     Last Friday afternoon I felt it starting. My nose felt like it was under 10,000 pounds of pressure. Blowing and sniffing brought no relief. I started my routine of added fluid, meds, vapor rub and wet towel over the eyes at night. Saturday morning my self diagnosis was proven to be tru e. It was my old nemesis allergies. The pressure in the nose and sinus area grew and grew. Blowing and sniffing was as useful as a fork in a bowel of tomato soup. By mid morning my right eye was pouring water like Niagara Falls while the left became as dry as the Sahara Desert. I fought back as hard as I could with meds, fluids, rub, and whining. By the time evening arrived the final member of the band arrived, the pounding head. I was so happy.      Sunday morning arrived. It was Baptist Women's Day at church so I did not have to deliver a message so the thoughts of staying home and continuing my war on allergies crossed my mind. I have a speaker co...

     Last weekend in our area we experienced the "blizzard" of 2016. It dumped several inches of the white stuff all over the place. Sadly, that included the roads which kept us stuck in the house for a few days and canceled church services all across the area. The kids got a very long weekend too. But now that everything has gotten back to normal and the grocery stores have gotten the milk and bread restocked I have gotten a chance to reflect on snow.      First of all I will admit I am not a huge snow fan. My favorite snow activity is making snow cream. Other than that I can take or leave it. Now that some ice cream companies have started carrying snow cream flavored ice cream I don't even need snow for that. (I recommend Mayfield brand.) I don't mind snow except when it forces us to cancel church. That is what spurred my thoughts about snow today. I was looking over my notes for my sermon Sunday that was supposed to be my sermon last w...

     The last Wednesday night in December we finished up our January Bible Study on the book of Deuteronomy at my church. Yes, I know January Bible Studies are supposed to only last for the month of January but the congregation wanted to slow down and study the book in more detail. So we did. Now we are digging into Joshua because we felt we needed to get the Israelites to the Promise Land because after 40 years of wondering and 52 weeks of studying they need to get where they are going. The last several chapters of Deuteronomy were my favorite because God gives Moses the key to living happily ever after in the Promise Land.      God made it pretty simple so that everyone could understand it. He said if the Children of Israel would keep ALL of His commandments and statues then He would bless them. Not just bless them but bless everything, them, their families, their crops, their land, their animals, their jobs and their armies. He would curse all...

     Have you ever tried to fill a bucket full of holes with water? How did that work for you? It doesn't matter how little or how much water you pour in the bucket it is still going to leak. What would you call a person who kept pouring water into it? What if they did so almost every day of their life? How would react when they complained to you their bucket never gets full? Would you be compassionate and show them how their bucket will never be filled because of the holes? Would you be helpful and help them patch the holes or help them get a new bucket? Would you be mean and tell them they are not putting enough water in the bucket? Would you be insensitive and tell them they are a fool for trying?      The truth is we all know people who are trying to fill their hole filled bucket with water. The even greater truth is that we all at times have done it and some of us continue to do it  every day. I don't mean we are physically holding...

     While listening to the thunder and watching the rain I have been trying to remember a Christmas that was this warm or that had a thunderstorm. I can't remember a Christmas with weather like this but hey, it is Jesus' Party and it can rain if He wants it to. This has been some unusual weather but if it was cold we would be fussing it was to cold to enjoy Christmas. If it was snow instead of rain falling we would be fussing because we couldn't get all the places we wanted to go. Well, some of you would. I think being snowed in on Christmas sounds great.     Besides the weather it is a normal Christmas Eve at the Crouse House. We slept in and made a big breakfast. Abby is in her room watching Christmas movies and has tried to find and figure out what is under the tree with her name on it. Lisa is busy cleaning (as always), baking and worrying if we got everything. I am in the living room watching Sports Center witch is hard to do because Lisa keeps ...

     So I was sitting at my desk this morning wondering why everybody was stressing about the coming of Christmas. I said to myself, "This is just the first of December. Why is everybody so stressed out?" A few minutes later as I was planning some events for the first of the year I realized Christmas is a week away. I have to admit I started stressing a little. After all I haven't even asked my wife if we are done with our Christmas shopping yet. Then I remembered how she always lets me know when we are done shopping.  She lets out a big sigh of relief and starts to tell me what we bought for who so I am not totally surprised when they open it. This usually comes right before she tells me we cannot go grocery shopping until January. So since there has been no grocery store ban I guess we are not done yet. So I assume that means another dreadful trip to Hickory to spend two hours at each store hunting an empty parking place. Then another four ho...