Eskimo's Icy Wisdoms

Chapter three listed all the people who worked on the rebuild. It amazed me to read about how many people were already living there and who had not done anything to try and repair the walls (at least its not listed) and suddenly rallied behind Nehemiah.

Of course, with the way the guys were talking in chapter 2, its no wonder people were afraid. Fear is the strong tool any dictator has over people…

Sorry guys, I don’t have much more to add to this chapter.

Well… I do have a few things.

If you read the chapter, think of exactly how many people were working. Could you oversee such a project? Without God’s help I know I would fail. Yet Nehemiah got all these people into it, even the daughters were helping out as much as they could. (Verse 12)

One thing I would like to point out is the state of the walls…

You have four walls for Jerusalem, on the Eastern and southeastern side of the city, the wall had to be totally rebuilt from the ground up.On the Northwest and Southwest side, all you ahd to do was repair the wall. *they built things to last then, according to the little research I have done, archaeologists found parts of that wall and it was eight feet thick!)

Still, I think the hand of God being on Nehemiah was awesome to get all these people working together so quickly.

What are your thoughts?

until next week,

Eskimo

Chapter 2 brought on just how much the news unsettled Nehemiah and how much integrity he must have had with the King… All of the sudden he is given a blank check to fix his ancestral home… I don’t know of many people I could trust with a blank check.

Not only that, it goes to show that even when you don’t think your boss is paying attention, they do notice stuff… In fact, the King wanted to know when Nehemiah would return! Talk about making an impression.

Then he goes back to see how things are, not telling anyone why he was there. And he surveyed all the damage that had been wrought upon the city. I like how Nehemiah keeps talking about the Lord’s hand being on him.

One thing I did find it interesting what he said to Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official and Geshem the Arab…
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nehemiah 2:19-20 said:

19. But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official and Geshem the Arab heard about it, they mocked and ridiculed us. “What is this you are doing?” they asked. “Are you rebelling against the king?”

20. I answered them by saying, “The God of heaven will give us success. We his servants will start rebuilding, but as for you, you have no share in Jerusalem or any claim or historic right to it.”
He doesn’t answer their question, instead he moves forward with the claim that God will give them success based on divine right. Not only that, he feels it is beneath him to answer their query, if they had an issue they could have contacted the king via messenger… Interesting in how he dealt with them.

What are your thoughts on Chapter 2?

Until next week,

Eskimo

This was written to be for guys, however it applies to all people of God. I hope you enjoy. I plan to update this every week on Monday or Tuesday.

Nehemiah chapter 1

Let’s get some background first. The book of Nehemiah is about the main character depicted in the story. Many people credit Ezra for the writing of Nehemiah as many people put the two books together previously. (Me, I like to think it was his faithful steward named Bob. Simply because he was so awesome at his job and blessed by God a longer name would have been ostentatious! See, Bible studies can have humor too. )

The time period of the book is after Daniel, 465 – 424 B.C. According to the historical notes I have here. (For those of you curious, Daniel was around 650 B.C. from my research.)
Nehemiah’s name means “Yahweh Comforts”.

Chapter one starts out with Nehemiah asking his buddy Hanani about the people who were allowed to return to Jerusalem. Hanani gives Nehemiah such bad news that it causes the man to break down in tears. (Wept being the term used in the Bible) The walls and gates of the once great city were destroyed and burned. The distress Nehemiah felt wouldn’t leave him. He mourned for many days. Think about it, you just found out the crown jewel of your ancestral past, the city that housed David, Solomon, the Golden city with its many gates, gone. I would think it’s much the same we felt after the events of 9/11. Something grabbed us by the guts and squeezed.
So after mourning several days, Nehemiah starts to fast and pray. His prayer is one that is born of compassion. I have posted it for you here so if you don’t have your Bible handy, you can read the words.

[quote=Nehemiah 1:5-11]
And I said: “I pray, LORD God of heaven, O great and awesome God, You who keep Your covenant and mercy with those who love You[b] and observe Your[c] commandments, 6 please let Your ear be attentive and Your eyes open, that You may hear the prayer of Your servant which I pray before You now, day and night, for the children of Israel Your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel which we have sinned against You. Both my father’s house and I have sinned. 7 We have acted very corruptly against You, and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, nor the ordinances which You commanded Your servant Moses. 8 Remember, I pray, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations;[d] 9 but if you return to Me, and keep My commandments and do them, though some of you were cast out to the farthest part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there, and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling for My name.’[e] 10 Now these are Your servants and Your people, whom You have redeemed by Your great power, and by Your strong hand. 11 O Lord, I pray, please let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant, and to the prayer of Your servants who desire to fear Your name; and let Your servant prosper this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” [/quote]

He begs God to listen to him, knowing he is unworthy because of the broken covenants. His compassion for his people drives him to intercede in prayer for them. He owns the fact that he has sinned. Not just the nation, but right there in verse six, “Both my father’s house and I have sinned”. (Emphasis added)
Now I’m as guilty as anyone of trying to push the blame off on someone else, it’s an easy habit to fall into. Yet one that I seem to welcome more than most, redirect the blame, it wasn’t my fault… The oldest thing in the book; clear back to Genesis. Yet here we have an example of Nehemiah owning up not only to his sins, but claiming them and begging forgiveness for them.
I have to ask, when was the last time we did that with God?

Nehemiah’s compassion led him to pray as an intercession for his people as a whole. Not just his family, but the entire nation. He didn’t think small, nor did he ask for something small.
Compassion seems to be in short supply anymore, just turn on the TV, special interest stories abound with that one person or a couple friends who have compassion and do something extraordinary. Why isn’t that the mainstay? Why can’t it be? Even if it’s not with fan fare, making sure you keep your eyes open to help that mom with three kids get her groceries to the car, even if it means having to sit an extra ten minutes in traffic, wouldn’t your compassion be worth it? Or holding the door open for the group of senior citizens as they leave the coffee shop? Compassion can flow in whatever we do, so long as our hearts are with our masters.
These questions are not ones I expect you to have an instant answer to. I just want you to think on them. If they pricked my spirit, they must be important enough to share.

I close with this.
Nehemiah was worried about his homeland, and hearing how bad of shape it was in, he prayed and fasted for it, begging God to intercede. He had a comfortable job as the King’s cup bearer, yet these things still mattered to him. His heart was open to God and to people. That gives me hope that the world can still be changed if we men have the same heart attitude.

God bless until next week.

Eskimo

Yep, I’m heading back to school to finish up my degrees. So my playtime has shrunk down hugely. However it won’t be totally gone.

For this term I am taking Macroeconomics and U.S. History until 1877. Both are going to be challenging classes and I hope to glean some good knowledge from them.

Aside from that, I have the Stanwood tournament this weekend and another tournament the following weekend before the fall season of bowling starts on September 8th.

Catch ya later

Well, Spring classic is over and we finished in 10th place. We are going to Stanwood for our final match next month.

We get three weeks off before fall leagues are scheduled to start.

Not much else to report.

Well… I was trying to update week by week but other stuff got in the way.

So here is where it stands, my team has the lowest handicap in the league, we have the top team scratch scores and we are in 12th place…

We won all our points last week, so that moved us up a bit, however we only have two more weeks to try and get into the top 8, which means winning every single point until then. (Makes a difference on monies payout)

I’ll update Wednesday with how we do tomorrow.

Sorry its just a list and not an update on bowling scores… I have to post those soon too. However I wanted to share some of my favorite songs. At least songs of the moment.

Philips Craig and Dean – Mercy Came a running

Philips Craig and Dean – Greatest Song of All

Carman – Heart of a Champion

Carman – Satan, Bite the dust

Carman – The Champion Carman – Lazarus Come Forth

Carman – Prayer Anthem

Carman – Sunday\’s on the Way

Jeff Moore and the Distance

Another week of bowling…

We were on Lanes 13 and 14 this time.

The lanes were different than last week, more oil, the ball didn’t just over hook last last week. Was rather strange.

DJ was sick, so we got his blind score, which in this league is his average minus 10. His current average is a 186, so we got an automatic 176 every game.

First game:

DJ (BLIND) = 176

Scherry = 187

Anthony = 204

Mike = 200

Total 767

handicap total = 782

We won our point here. Which was awesome of course.

Game 2

DJ (BLIND) = 176

Scherry = 163

Anthony = 194

Mike = 174

Total 707

With handicap 722

We lost this one.

Game 3

DJ (BLIND) = 176

Scherry = 159

Anthony = 194

Mike = 258

Total 787

With handicap 802

And we still lost by a lot. The other team all shot way over average.

It’s not looking good for us. We shoot well and lose to handicap or we don’t shoot well and lose anyway.

Next week our new averages get posted, I figure mine is going to be 213 Not bad at all. I’m hoping to pull it closer to 220 before the end of the season.

That’s all till next time.

Well, Week 2 has come upon us and we ended up bowling down on lanes 1 & 2

Same line up as before. (We rarely change it)

I used my secondary rapid fire (I call it Mike’s Rapid fire) It has a different layout than my Rapid Fire pearl, a much stronger back end, normally I could use it really well, but tonight it was too strong for the lanes.

The lanes were a little drier than last week. Everything was hooking more, although I think it had more to do with ambient temperature and a lower humidity level.   Factors like this do make a difference in how you play the lanes.

The center also got new screen installed, big flat panel monitors… They were huge! In fact, if I was looking at them before walking up on the approach, they hurt my eyes. Still, its an improvement. I think the next big step will be for the center to upgrade the whole scoring system. The one they have in place is like 30 years old. Its automatic, but out dated.

Anyway,back to the bowling.

Here is our games

Game 1

DJ – 166

Scherry – 152

Anthony – 247

Mike – 196

Total Scratch = 761

Total with Handicap = 776

We lost our point by 64 pins. The other team bowled really well.

Game 2

DJ – 160

Scherry – 188

Anthony – 191

Mike – 279

My game would have been higher except I left a 7-10 split. That’s a big game killer.

Scratch total = 818

Total with Handicap = 833

We won this point by 30 pins. The other team still bowled really well.

Game 3

DJ -206

Scherry – 150

Anthony 205

Mike – 167

Scratch total = 728

Handicap total = 743

We lost this game too. By a lot.

So this week was a bit disappointing, we only won 1 point, I expect we will be around 12-14 place next week.

We are just going to have to work harder! It’s not over yet, we still have a lot of season left.

Well, You didn’t think my leagues were over did you. Of course I’m bowling just one this summer to keep my edge and to just have some fun.

I’m bowling in the 13 week Spring classic league at Glacier Lanes.

For the first three weeks (9 games) we get to use our fall/winter ending average. Which for me is 216.

I’m bowling with Mike, Scherry and DJ.

Our line up is DJ, Scherry, me, then Mike.

The point system is 4 points per 3 game series. One point for a total point with handicap win per game and then one point for total pins with handicap.

Our games looked like this:

Game 1

DJ – 162

Scherry – 222

Anthony – 231

Mike – 300

Total scratch pins = 915

+ 15 pins handicap = 930

Yes, Mike shot a perfect game to start out the season. It was awesome.

We also won our point.

Game 2

DJ – 181

Scherry – 190

Anthony – 242

Mike – 172

Total = 785

+ 15 pins handicap = 800

Well, we tied this game. Which means we get 1/2 a point.

Game 3

DJ – 214

Scherry – 166

Anthony – 213

Mike – 220

Scratch Total = 813

+15 pins = 828

We lost this one. The other team bowled really well.

However we took total pins! So 2 and 1/2 points!

Our goal is to finish in the top 7 spots in the league (which is harder to do than it sounds.) That way we get to bowl in the tournament of champions at the end of the season. If we finish in the bottom half, we get to bowl in the contenders tournament…

I was rolling my Rapid Fire Pearl tonight and I must say I was really pleased with how it did. I just need to keep my timing and release consistant, that’s my goal over the summer, shoot well and fix some issues in my timing and release.

More later!