Good King/Bad King

Josiah was one of the last kings of Judah (2 Kings 22-23) and one of the only to have “good” written about the character of his reign. It says he “followed in the steps of his ancestor King David, obeying the Lord completely.” In the 18th year of his reign, the High Priest found a scroll with God's laws on it and took it to Josiah. At that time God was going to destroy the city, as the people of Judah had thrown him aside and had worshiped other gods. But, since Josiah was repentant, God postponed the destruction of the nation until after he died. The amazing thing about the story in chapter 23 is the list of everything he destroyed in an effort to keep the solemn promise he and the priests made to the Lord to obey him at all times and do everything the book commanded. It talks of destroying statues and shrines built for other gods by former kings that still existed, digging up graves and burning the bones on altars, and crushing all these things into dust. At the end of the story, it says of Josiah, “there was no other king who so completely turned to the Lord and followed all the laws of Moses; and no king since the time of Josiah has approached his record of obedience.” If only we could take God's commands and principles as seriously as Josiah did, what would be said of us? Would God delay judgment on a nation because of a person or group of people with a repentant heart and a desire to obey him in every aspect of life and rid our lives of sin? Yea for Friday! (This picture of Geronimo, my former dog who ran away, has nothing to do with the words above....I like pictures when I read!)

Life at the Best Western Grandvillage Inn

These are some pictures of where I work. I just put a fresh mow down on the outside, but the lawn and the pool keep me pretty well entertained while at work. I borrowed Tim's digital camera today, so I figured I should take a few pics while I could! Other than that, I'm out for today with golf on the horizon at 3:20 with Pete, the VP of the management group (he hooked me up with the Macker entry).

Roofer for a day

Yesterday I was home from work doing a few things on the house and I had the urge to finally put down a roof on the new entrace way just built. Not only was it almost 7 pm at the time, but I had to go to the local Home Depot and buy matching shingles (which they thankfully had), edging, felt....all that good stuff. Anyway, roofing is fun even when you are going till 10:15 at night. Fortunately, my neighbors stay up late and they gave me the go ahead to work as long as my little heart desired. And it stays light till around 10 pm, so I had just enough time to finish all but one row (though, this row will be tough cause I have to retrofit into the existing roof). Earlier in the day I had taken off an overhang that existed over our entire front section of windows. After being stung twice by two different bees, I decided it was time to take some action and spray the life out of about 15 small beehives. The bees didn't like that too much. Unfortunately, this morning I awoke to a few spotted windows with these little fly/maggot looking things all over. I'm guessing I disrupted the environmental balance these little guys enjoyed when I took off the overhang. But, since they were intruders in my house (I'm still figuring out how they got in there), I once again began spraying the life out of them as well. It was pretty disgusting. Hopefully they don't get mad and have lots of babies all over my porch area. Maybe they'll just be dead when I get home--at least I have something to look forward to!

Champs of the hard court

The Greenville Gus Macker was an all-day event yesterday that 3 of my friends (Tim, Joel, and Joe (in that order in the pic with coach Ty in the middle) and I got to participate in for free! One of the hotels I work for, the Comfort Suites of Comstock Park, sponsored part of the tournament, so the macker let them have a team. They even made shirts for us to play in! We played in the next to top men's division and came out with a 5-0 record to win the gold All-World 2006 Gus Macker trophies! It was some decent competition and we had some close games, but the four of us made it happen. We had a great coach as well, Ty, who came all the way from Big Rapids, on his birthday, to give us a few pep talks and strategies. After the last victory, we could think of no better way to celebrate a championship than to head to the local Dairy Queen and get the biggest ice cream cone they make! Thanks Pete and Comfort Suites for making it happen--we represented!