It’s really easy to forget what Christmas is all about, so the title is an extra reminder. We had a great Christmas, and while I got some really nice gifts, my dad had one of those moments again. He said, “we need to be thankful for friends and family, that’s what’s really important, not all the material stuff.” Don’t know if I can really expand on that too much, but I just want to take a moment to mention some of the ‘important’ things I’m thankful for before I post some pictures of all the presents and such. I’m thankful for my wife, and my parents, and my sister, and my cousins (all of them, even Afton…). I’m thankful for the little girl that’s on the way, and I’m thankful for my friends, at work, at church, and anywhere else. And I’m thankful for Scooter, Roo, and Oliver.

Now that I’ve gone all serious on you, there’s some completely unserious pictures and one of Amanda at seventeen weeks along (she’s in week twenty now) in the gallery.

A couple of my cousins posted their Christmas letters on their blogs, so I figured I’d follow suit, sort of. I actually put together a little photo collage that we sent out this year, but in case you didn’t get one (sorry), here it is:

For more details, you can of course read back through my blog posts for the year. The side project I started, God Impact, is going quite well also. I’ve only missed one day (except for yesterday, when I forgot to hit the publish button).

We’ve also had a lot of exciting things happening at our church, and there’s a little info over at www.glendiveag.org.

Sometimes my devotional life just plain stinks. Sometimes it isn’t too bad, and every once in a while, it reaches fantastic. More often than not, though, I skim through a chapter of the Bible each morning, eat my breakfast, and go to work without ever giving what I’ve read a second thought. Today, that changes, and I’m giving the world the opportunity to keep me accountable to this. I’m starting a spin off of my website called God Impact.

Here’s the plan: Every day, starting at the beginning (Genesis 1:1), I’ll read a small portion of the Bible. I find that if I try to read too much, I forget what I read at the beginning, or I rush through it, and don’t get anything out of what I’ve read.

Here’s the interesting part (hopefully). I’ll post what I’ve read, and then follow that up with some sort of commentary/insight into the passage. I’m not promising anything profound, but I’ll leave that up to God. If you like what I’ve written, or if it encourages you in any way, feel free to subscribe via the RSS feed. You can even leave comments on what you took away from the passage if you like.

For those of you on Facebook, Multiply, LiveJournal, or Blogger, I don’t intend to cross-post any of this to those sites, sorry. If you want to read it, you’ll have to visit http://godimpact.shanebishop.net. Of course, that all may change, but that’s the plan for now.

Some time ago I went on a quest to find an RSS feed for the NASB translation of the Bible that went straight through in a year, and contained the text within the actual RSS (no external links necessary). I was unable to find anything, so I began work on a script that would create such a feed every day. The Lockman Foundation has graciously given me permission to publish this project for all to use.

I finished a while back, but I’ve been testing it for a while to make sure all the kinks were worked out before I published it. You can find the feed here.

I eventually hope to do similar feeds for the NLT, NIV, and NKJV translations and have submitted requests for permission to do so. If you think I should investigate doing another translation, feel free to let me know via the comments, and I’ll see what I can accomplish.

Last night, my dad said something inspiring. He was helping me pick rocks out of our flower garden, and as he went to leave, I thanked him again. And he said, “You’re welcome. I just want to try and be helpful like my dad (my grandpa).” As most people in our church know, my grandpa never passes up an opportunity to help. He’s had a quadruple bypass surgery, and has every right to take it easy, and relax. He’s just not wired that way. God has given him a servant’s heart, and to sit idly by and watch others do the work just doesn’t do it for him. Our pastor is moving in a few days, and I mentioned to his brother that I would probably come and help load up. He said, “Don’t feel like you have to. If you don’t, your grandpa will.”

My dad is always helping me around the house, and it seems he enjoys helping me more than going home and doing his own yardwork sometimes. Even when it’s just picking rocks out of the garden. I want to be like my dad (and my grandpa): helpful.

As many of you might have noticed, I’ve been sick lately. Normally, that’s not blog-worthy, even if it is a rare occassion. However, this morning was the first time I had been to church in three weeks. I was up front playing guitar with the worship team and started to sing along with one of the songs (sometimes I’m concentrating on the guitar too much to sing), and that’s when it struck me. I missed this. Yes, I missed church, and yes, I missed playing guitar for worship, but the thing I missed the most was just singing to God. My throat had been so raw for the last two weeks, that I hadn’t been able to sing (I tried once, and it was a pathetic sound).

Then something else struck me. I wasn’t the only one. God missed it too. The ruler of the universe; the creator of everything; the omnipotent God who controls everything. He missed my worship. God wants, desires, even longs for the worship and adoration of his treasured creation, mankind. And yes, I know, worship is more than just singing and music, but for me, that’s the way I worship God best. When I lose that, I feel like a part of me has died. This morning, though, it was revived, and wow, did that feel amazing. Yes, it even drove me to tears as all these thoughts came rushing at once. I just had to share that with all of you.

It’s amazing to me that God can still show me new things in a story I’ve heard and read a hundred times or more. This morning, Pastor mentioned the host of angels that appeared to shepherds just outside of Bethlehem. I’m sure that I’m not the only one who has had this misconception, but I’ve always had this mental picture of fifty or so angels appearing in the night sky. Of course, any shepherd (because shepherds were ‘nobodies’) would be amazed at seeing a group of angels.
Wait a second. The Bible said ‘host’. What is a host? A host is certainly more than fifty. Perhaps a host is several hundred? ‘Host’ is most often used to describe armies in the Bible. It always meant thousands of soldiers. Sometimes it was a hundred thousand or more. Wow! That would amaze more than humble shepherds. That would amaze even the mightiest king with the strongest army in history.
And God sent them to shepherds. Base, lowly, humble, filthy, rugged, worthless shepherds. Who, in their right mind, would send a host of angles to shepherds? Only God. Because he knew they would tell everybody. Because, outcasts that they were, shepherds were dependable. Because shepherds took care of their sheep.

Tomorrow, I embark on a new journey. I’ve been working at an office supply shop doing computer and network service for the last few months. It’s been fun, but there’s just been something missing. My coworkers are great (they’ll probably never read this). I’ll miss Tom, Jeremy, and even April too. Denny…not so much. Actually, I go to church with him, so it would be tough to miss him when I still see him.

My new job will be as Technology Coordinator at DCC, our local community college. I’d give you a link to their website, but I don’t want anyone to see it yet; at least not until after I’ve had a chance to clean it up a bit. I’m pretty excited, as there will be a lot more of what I like to do there, but most importantly, its where I believe God wants me to be right now. I can’t ask for anything more than that (and I won’t).

So, farewell, old job. Hello, new job!

That’s about how my brain feels right now. We’ve been looking for a job for some time now (since May of 2007). After Thanksgiving, we were starting to think perhaps I should finish my Computer Science degree somewhere. The likely suspects were Evangel University and NDSU. Now, there’s another piece of the puzzle thrown out there (I think that God is is just toying with me at this point). At any rate, there’s a job opening in my home town that seems quite promising. I’m applying for it, but it’s almost too good to be true. And you know what they say about things that seem too good to be true. Well, I don’t think ‘they’ (whoever ‘they’ are) are always right, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed.
I’ve also been delving back into the area of Bible study software. My favorite has always been Bibleworks, but just recently, I gave gnomesword another try. I’m not sure it’s a replacement for BW, but it sure is pretty good. You can even download some freely available content from biblegateway.com and crosswalk.com into it if you’re clever enough (or find scripts written by someone else who is even more clever). At any rate, it’s a nice interface for browsing, but the greek and hebrew lexicon integration of Bibleworks makes it the ‘king of the hill’. Maybe someday I’ll join the gnome sword team, and help them integrate cool things like that…

This is by no means ‘news’. However, I just saw a special on TV about Dog the Bounty Hunter, and how Mexico is trying to hose him for bringing a serious criminal to justice. There’s a petition to help expedite the proceedings, and ‘Save the Dog‘. I’m number 16029.