My Mom, the incredibly thoughtful and selfless woman who she is, paid a fella at our church to make up a birthday video for me. I broke it up into two parts to share with you. They're big though :0)

(these videos require a free quicktime player)

Part 1 (first 16 years) :
http://www.zackweb.net/profilevid/zbr-childhood.mp4

Part 2 (high school, college, and beyond):
http://www.zackweb.net/profilevid/zbr-college.mp4

Let me know what you think :0)

Away, Despair! My gracious Lord doth hear:
Though winds and waves assault my keel,
He doth preserve it: He doth steer,
Ev'n when the boat seems most to reel:
Storms are the triumph of His art:
Well may He close His eyes, but not His heart.

-George Herbert, ~1630

We should see that the case of a praying man cannot be desperate -- that if a man be out of the pit of hell, he is on the ground of mercy. We should recollect that God sees a way of escape when we see none, that nothing is too hard for Him -- that He warrants our dependence, and invites us to call on Him in the day of trouble, and gives a promise of deliverance.

-Richard Cecil, summarizing his biography of John Newton

Have you ever wondered about this? It seems like a pretty valid question to me. If the Bible says that Satan kills, steals, and destroys, then why does God allow him to continue to roam the earth and cause so much trouble?

Well, first of all, simple answers to really significant questions always bug me. So my disclaimer here is that this isn't "The Answer" to such a profound and important question... just some food for thought from "Life As A Vapor", by John Piper.

He starts by stating the question and proving, with scripture, that it is a valid one.

Then he says,

"Why then does God tolerate Satan? The key is that God aims to defeat Satan in a way that glorifies not only His power, but also the superior beauty and worth and desirability of His Son over Satan."

wow... imagine John Piper saying something like that :0)

He goes on to say:

"(For God to simply snuff out Satan) would not display so clearly the superior worth of Jesus over Satan. That will be displayed as Christ defeats Satan by His death and then by winning allegiance from the saints because of His superior truth and beauty above the ugliness and lies of Satan.
...Satan is a defeated foe... Christ has triumphed over him, not yet by casting him into hell and nullifying his influence on earth, but by letting him live and watch while millions of saints find forgiveness for their sins and turn their back on Satan because of the greater glory of Christ."

"If Christ obliterated all demons now (which He could do), His sheer power would be seen as glorious, but His superior beauty and worth would not shine so brightly as when God's people renounce the promises of Satan, trust in Christ's blood and righteousness, and take pleasure in the greater glory of Jesus over Satan."

"Therefore, take up arms and defeat the devil by being bold and glad in the superior glory of the Son of God!"

"Christ's superior beauty over Satan and sin is seen best when we are willing to suffer because we have tasted it and want to share it. One of the greatest blows against the power of darkness comes from the blood of the martyrs."

Some food for thought for ya...

I saw this link for an Australian website and I really, really like it.

Have a look

So... there's a new song that they've been playing at 722.

I really want to know who it's by and how to get it... and I also just want to share it with you.

If you're familiar with it, please let me know. Here's how it starts:

Your love O God
Displayed for us
As crimson covered over sinless hands

Your majesty
For all to see
In raging storms and quiet cloudless days

Beautiful Jesus
Beautiful Savior
Nothing is greater
Brilliant Creator
Friend of mine...

You're powerful
Above this world
The universe is under Your command
Your glory shines
A holy light
That leads our hearts to praise Your holy Name
...It's on our lips

Labels: god, music, worship

There's a chapter in the John Piper devotional that I've been reading called "God Is Not Boring." I read it and was so struck by it that I read it again the next day... and again the next day. I started underlining things, but soon found that I wanted underline everything.

What I love about the chapter is that he very simply puts into words what I have been trying to wrap my head around... my life around for a while. I fear that writing out my favorite parts will be some kind of copyright problem, since I pretty much want to share the whole chapter. So, think of this more as a commercial for the book. Go buy it and see for yourself why I believe that the 22nd century, if it comes, will remember John Piper as one of the greatest heros of the 21st century.


Here are a few lines from the chapter that stand out to me:

One of the great duties of the Christian mind is imagination.
...I say that imagination is a Christian duty for two reasons. One is that you can't apply Jesus' golden rule without it... Compassionate, sympathetic, helpful love hangs much on the imagination of the lover...

The other reason I say that imagination is a Christian duty is that when a person speaks or writes or sings or paints about breathtaking truth in a boring way, it is probably a sin. The supremacy of God in the life of the mind is not honored when God and His amazing world are observed truly, analyzed duly, and communicated boringly...

Imagination is the faculty of the mind that God has given us to make the communication of His beauty beautiful.

Don't mistake what I'm saying. Poets and painters and preachers don't make God's beauty more beautiful. They make it more visible... They cut through the dull fog of our finite, fallible, sin-distorted perception, and help us see God's beauty for what it really is. Imagination is like a telescope to the stars: It doesn't make them big. They are big without the telescope. It makes them look like what they are.

...Imagination is also contagious. When you are around someone (alive or dead) who uses it a lot, you tend to catch it. So I suggest that you hang out with some people ( mainly dead poets) who are full of imagination, and that you exert yourself to think of a new way to say an old truth. God is worthy...

What do you think?

Labels: god, musings, piper, worship

OK. So last night I was planning to take Stephanie to go see the Monet exibit at the NC Museum of Art. I love art, although probably not enough to go spend money to look at it, but I thought it would be a fun date night. So I go online to look up the cost and hours and everything, and wouldn't you know it: the only day that the museum is closed is Monday...

And sure enough, the art museum in Chapel Hill, as well as the one at Duke are both closed on Monday... only Monday! Who sent out the memo that art lovers get Monday off???

But that's not what I'm writing about...

Our alternative plan was to get some dinner and then start looking at stores where we might register for four wedding (oh yeah kids... break out those checkbooks :0)

So we're in Bed, Bath, and Beyond -- walking around... looking at this and that and gauking about the prices of somethings... imagining what it'll be like when all this wedding madness is over and we can finally just be husband and wife, and then we saw it... A trash can with a price tag of ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS!

Let that sink in. One hundred dollars... as in, you can go to the dollar tree and buy ONE HUNDRED trash cans for the price of this one. And that doesn't take into account that you gotta buy SEPERATE BATTERIES for this thing!
You wanna know why it was a hundred bucks? It has an infrared motion sensor, so the lid automatically opens when you get close to it. A trash can for people who are too lazy to open the lid.

So, I now know how I'm going to get rich so we can move overseas: The "TDL" appliance line. "TDL" stands for "Too Dern Lazy". Our products will be for people who are too dern lazy to do the unreasonable, difficult tasks, such as:

• turn on the faucet
• plug in the vaccuum cleaner
• flush the toilet

...you get the idea!

So what do you think. The TDL trashcan is already out in the stores, so what should be our first product to market and make our millions on. You never know... YOU could be our first business partner :0)

A few days ago, Stephanie and I escaped to Barnes and Noble to get some quiet time and dig into the Word a little bit. I discovered a new devotional from John Piper called "Life as a Vapor". It has lots of short, food for thought tidbits to chew on. Here are a few excerpts from my reading over the past couple of days:

From "A Word to the Reader":
You exist forever. There is no use protesting that you did not ask to exist and would like not to. That is not an option. You and God are both in the universe to stay -- either as friends on His terms, or else enemies... Which it will be is proven in this life, and this life is a vapor...

Closing prayer from "Does it Matter What Others Think?" :
Father, at times the way of Christ is complex to our sin-stained and finite minds. Forgive us for the times we have justified our vanity in the name of a good reputation. O, Lord, grant us, in this brief life, the wisdom and courage to please others, or not to please others, for the sake of Christ alone, and not our own praise...

From "Suffering, Mercy, and Heavenly Regret" :
But all this leaves me trembling that I not throw away the one short life that I will look back on for all eternity. Just think of it. You have one life. One very short life. Then an eternity to remember. Does not the suffering in this world seem inexplicable to you? Is not this great, global (and intensely personal) suffering a call to magnify the mercy of Christ by how we respond? Is not suffering a seamless fabric, stretching into eternity for unbelievers? And therefore, are not Christians the only people who can respond with helpful relief to the totality of misery?

Closing prayer from "Suffering, Mercy, and Heavenly Regret" :
Father in heaven, have mercy on the misery of this world. Forgive us for our part in causing the pain of others. Waken us as never before to the preciousness of Your mercy bought by the blood of Christ. Fix our hopes so full on the job of heaven that we become the freest of all people on earth. May our everlasting memories of Your grace make us glad of all You changed and all You forgave...

So, I finally got around to putting up some new photos at http://photos.zackweb.net

I bought Steph a new camera for her birthday, so we went crazy taking pictures at her birthday party, mom's birthday party, etc...

Leave some comments on the pics so we'll have fun going back and looking at them later!

Here's a link from my friend Tricia to a video of Campus Crusade on the news back in March.

It's nice when the press is favorable to a Christian group!

One of the most helpful things for me every day is a book I have called, "The Universe: 365 Days". It comes from the website, "Astronomy Picture of the Day".

Pictured here is Hidden Galaxy IC 342. All you gotta do is travel at the speed of light for about 7 million years and you can experience this little wonder of creation.
The book of Isaiah says that God puts every one of those stars out every night, and calls them all by name :0)

Labels: creation, god, worship

Here's a story about some journalists who were arrested just for writing negative things about their government. What do you think would happen if all the Bush haters suddenly disappeared?

Hmmmm... Interesting thought...

While I'm on the topic -- while I have some strong political beliefs, I generally steer clear of waving them around too much. But seriously, everyone with a John Kerry sticker on your car -- people are already campaigning for the NEXT election. I think it's time to wrap it up already :0)

This is a real, un-altered picture taken in Iceland in 1991. Are you anxious about something? I think of this as God laughing at my anxiety over petty little things in my life. He's saying, "Ha... yeah. I'm worried about that. Let Me just turn the Aurora on and light up this volvano real quick and we can work together and come up with a solution."

:0)

Labels: creation, god, photography, worship

People sometimes ask me... they say, "Zack, what practices did you implement to cultivate that phat phrase phonetics that flow from your grill?"

To all those haters, I offer you: Zack, the early MC days: