Don't Give Up Your Search

I am now 48 years old and have given up many of my idealistic beliefs, but I will not give up on the Lord because of the verses above in the photo and in the blog header. God doesn't want us to give up. Faith requires that we keep going, knowing that the fight isn't over and God will have final say. Also, His goodness is a sure thing we can count on. He wants to take care of us and even our tough times are only there to make us stronger.

Who Moved The Music?

I moved the YouTube videos to my music page since not everyone who visits this blog likes rock videos. Please visit my music page. It has a couple of extra things on it that are not on this blog, including the YouTube rock videos.

Sieder Music Page

Uncle Ernest

Isaac (and Aaron - not in photo) were very happy to have their uncle visit for Christmas. He likes to play video games with them and they love that.

Gresham Band Concert

Aaron performed with the 6th grade band at the Gresham Middle School Christmas Concert last night.

Thought For The Week

After spending a week in Atlanta it is good to be home. After my last post on worry it seems like that was the temptation of the week. Everything is so uncertain in this world, but worry does not produce anything good. The real question isn't even if anything bad will come or not, but whether God will see you through it. Knowing that he is there makes all the difference. It is better to take a difficult path with God with you than to take any easy path without him.

Worry

Worry is what we do when we take our eyes off of God and look at ourselves and our circumstances. I mentioned in an earlier post that I was studying the Sermon On The Mount and Jesus tells us not to worry. That is so wonderful that he does not want us to worry. He knows our needs and we don't do him justice by taking our eyes off of his power and glory and dwelling on our own insecurities.

This is easier said than done, but he would not ask us to do it if he did not empower us to get it done. I have had a big problem with worry for many years and I have found that the Bible, when applied correctly, is very freeing in it's power.

Have a wonderful holiday season and please remember why it is so special: because he came to live a perfect life and die for us.

Quotes On Bulletin Board At UA Mathematics Building

Beware the realm of dragons for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

Two thirds of the people do not understand fractions and the other half don't really care.

There are 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who do not.

Father and Daughter

We just got these pictures from Phoenix. Chris and Hallie and a dog named Bo.

Up The Tree

Scott made it up the big tree in the front yard on Sunday afternoon.

Rough Neighborhood

I encountered these rough characters on Holloween. The guys dressed up for the Fall Festival at McElwain Baptist Church here in Birmingham.

Happy Birthday

Happy birthday to Hallie James Carroll, born today to proud parents, Chris and Kitty, and proud grandparents and uncles and great-grandparents.

7 lbs. 3 oz.
20" tall (long)

She has already brought a lot of joy to many people.

Brotherly Love

Only brothers can have this much disrespect and it still comes off as love.

Seasonal Spook - Scott's Pumpkin Carving

Scott used his artistic talent to create this pumpkin spook. It starts to feel like autumn when the temperature drops and you see these things in the yard along with some fallen leaves.

Postcard from 1918

This is a postcard from my grandmother to her sister she sent in 1918. My grandfather probably developed this photo onto a postcard. He did his own developing in those days. My great-grandfather, Charles Nahrung, is the man on the right and the man on the left is my grandfather, Ernst Sieder. The woman standing in the center is my grandmother, Esther Nahrung Sieder. I believe my aunt is in the photo somewhere, but my father was not born until 1921.

Thanks to Lila Engelhardt for this image. Her husband, Kenneth,is the grandson of my grandmother's sister Minna "Minnie" Nahrung Engelhardt.

Note the address on the post card is name, city and state. There is no address and no zip code and it got there in those days.

If You Are On Your Back - Look Up

Some things get missed in our normal routine, but sometimes God allows us to get put on our back so we can look up and see something we would have otherwise missed. In this case the boys were tired and stopped to rest on a hill. They spotted a spider web high up in the trees that they would not have noticed if they were just walking through.

You Too Can Be Unshackled

Listen To Unshackled

This is the longest running radio show in the world.

Even more importantly it is documentation of the true stories of how people have been released from the very real chains that bind them.

The combination of the scriptures and a person's personal testimony of what the Lord has done in their life is very powerful in convincing others of the spiritual realities involved here.

You can listen to the archive programs here. This is powerful stuff.

Time Flies

The hands on the watch go round and round and I know I am trying again to be the master of the obvious, but we cannot stop time and it only goes forward, not backward. When our time is up we return to dust, but Solomon says the spirit within us returns to God who gave it.

Prepare to meet your maker. I have to - you have to.

One time I was becoming serious and philosophical on another site and got a comment from a reader who said I had a "Yoda thing going on." I know it is possible to take yourself too seriously, but I am not taking myself seriously, I am taking life and death seriously. One of my favorite Bob Dylan quotes is when he says, "I live in another world, where life and death are memorized." That's how I feel. I have looked at all of this and it is serious business.

I know there is a time to laugh and have fun and I try to do that, but we have one entire lifetime to realize we need God and we must come to him during that one life we have.

Don't come to the end of your life without searching for God.

I Thought I Was Still Alive

I found my tombstone while surfing the web. It's not every day you can find a tombstone with your name on it. As far as I know, I am not related to this Carl Sieder.

Sheboygan Falls, WI Cemetery

Fear Not - You Are Worth More Than Many Sparrows - Five Were Sold For Two Cents Back Then

Not one of them falls to the earth without our Father knowing. All the hairs of your head are numbered. Read Luke chapter 12 where Jesus says to make his kingdom our top priority and all of our other needs will be supplied as well.

Luke Chapter 12 NIV;

Sermon Notes - The Stuff Of Legend

Our pastor, Thad Blount, "went to meddlin'" in his sermon Sunday. My only thought after his sermon was over was "bulls-eye."

I have thought that we are living in the Laodicean Age. (The Laodicean church was rich and increased with goods and did not need anything, it thought, but Christ's assessment was that it was really pitiful, poor, blind and naked. It was also called lukewarm.) Francis Schaeffer called our times the Age of Personal Peace and Affluence. Whatever you want to call it, it is real and it is hurting the cause of Christ. I am not pointing my finger at anyone else. I see this in my own life.

My ideal for our generation is to take the gospel to the Islamic world, which means being ready to die for the gospel. If their suicide bombers are ready to kill others and themselves for their cause, shouldn't we be willing to die for our cause (which is to offer the Islamic world salvation through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ). Our cause is different from theirs, but more importantly, our God is stronger. A stonger God demands a stronger faith in Him.

We would carry the love of Christ to them instead of bombs. We will win that war.

THERE AIN'T NO LOVE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT

Warehouse Blues

Something I don't completely understand is why people want to stay on in a warehouse job even though they know the job will be ending and they must find something else.

I would submit to you that one reason is that we have tried very hard to build a family feel into our work and we have really tried to care about each other.

We felt like we had grown the business to the size where it would continue on for years and we wanted people who would come and stay for a while to be part of the team.

I think that we will all feel like we were part of a successful team even though they're going to shut us down this fall. We know we did the best we could and we didn't fail at what we did. We grew the business and made money.

My true feeling is that they are taking a perfectly good horse out back of the barn and shooting it.

I won't let my emotions run away with this. I know God has a reason for this that I don't fully understand now. I will trust Him that all will work out for the best in the end.

Sunset Today

This was taken today, August 19, in Irondale, Alabama. It is appropriate as I found out this week that the branch I opened in town eleven years ago is going to be closed down. It is the sunset on eleven years of hard work.

I have no illusions about work and that the results are in God's hands. We can't do anything that will last on our own. Only God and eternity will show the true value of things. Everything will be burned up eventually.

Store up treasure in heaven where moth and rust do not corrupt and thieves do not break in and steal.

Manipulation One

I fully realize that if I claimed to have done this piece of strange art in a fit of drunken rage it would be an all time classic and I would have an instant reputation in the art world as a genius and a tortured soul.

I did, however, shoot this photo on the way home from church with my youngest son helping me. I then manipulated the image on the computer to come up with this. I originally called it Manna or "what is it?"

Ernest and Jake

My brother, Ernest, had a very close relationship with our dog, Jake. Jake would obey him no matter what. He even sat perfectly still while my brother dumped snow on him. They picked on each other. One time Jake got my brother's cocount cream pie before my brother could lick the wrapper.

Mike and Jeff on Trowbridge Street - Allegan, MI

We lived on bikes when we were teenagers. We rode everywhere. This is Mike and Jeff on Trowbridge Street in Allegan, Michigan. It was a five block ride from my house to downtown. It was several miles from our neighborhood to where Jeff lived, but even that didn't take too long to ride.

Speaking Of Laughter

This is another Mike from my neighborhood. His back yard was near our back yard. He would laugh and it would make everyone else want to laugh, too.

My brother used to play with our dog, Jake, by putting on work gloves and telling him "attack!" One day Mike's dad was raking leaves in his back yard and our dog went over and kept trying to attack his work gloves while he was raking and he didn't understand why. He asked Mike, "What's wrong with Sieder's dog?"

Photo Booth Incident

This famous incident took place at the Allegan County Fair in 1975. My good friend Mike went in the photo booth at the arcade tent and was reading the directions when the first flash went off. He then posed with his equally famous camouflaged hat. I was fortunate enough to be nearby when Mike came out of the booth with the pictures. My other friend, also named Mike, and I laughed until it hurt. All of the guys in our neighborhood loved to laugh and make each other laugh. I somehow ended up with this sequence of pictures and am happy to have them, but thought it might be time I shared them again.

Thanks for the fun guys.

New Bob Dylan Album: Modern Times

Could it be the third installment in a trilogy beginning with Time Out Of Mind and Love and Theft? An August release date is scheduled.

Modern Times: the new Bob Dylan Album (Info)

Fishing in a Stream

This fisherman was fishing in the Clinch River and had to abandon his efforts soon after this picture was taken due to the river rising rapidly from the dam upriver releasing quite a bit of water.

Flower near Clinch River

This is another flower that appears to have just grown up on its own with no gardener except God. It was along the Clinch River in Tennessee.

Always In His Sight

God keeps track of his children. Nothing can befall us that he does not allow for some reason and he knows how it will fit into his plan. I have had thoughts about floating out in the middle of the ocean and perishing all alone, but that could never happen.

What does it mean to be named Sieder?

Ecclesiastes says that everything is meaningless and I always wondered how far you could take that thought. The photo above is of a Jewish boy killed in WWII named Josef Sieder. The link below tells about an Islamist terrorist with the name Mohammed Sieder who was killed in Hevron. I guess the Sieder name is on both sides of the Jewish / Islamic fighting. As far as I know, my ancestors were Christians from Germany and were not Jewish or Islamic.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=48063

My father was a U.S. Marine in WWII. There was a German U-Boat captain in WWII named Heinz Sieder (U-984) who was virtually the same age as my father who died in his U-Boat near the end of the war. I guess there were Sieders on both sides of the war.
http://uboat.net/men/sieder.htm

I was taught to be proud of my name and family heritage, but you can see that my last name is a mixed bag in history. "What counts is a new creation." Everything "under the sun" ends up being meaningless. It is only by letting God make a new creation in us that true meaning ever comes our way.

Psalm 37

Words to live by and promises to give you encouragement - who could ask for more?

Some say that Biblical illiteracy is one of the most serious problems of our day. They are probably correct. Technology demands our attention, but we can still read or listen to Scriptures. There is nothing in the world like God's word to heal and give life.

Psalm 37 was written by a famous guy who killed a giant with a sling. I know I would like to know his take on life. Talk about "No Fear" - his confidence wasn't in himself, but the superiority of his God.

Sieder (Boiler)

Like many things in life, they no longer have their original meaning. The name Sieder does have a meaning, even though I was told by a man from Switzerland who knew German that it had no meaning in German.

It turns out to be a trade from the middle ages. Sieders boiled things in pans to get salt out of them. Salt was very valuable to cure meats since there was no refrigeration. They were known as salzsieders. The only current trade that uses the term "sieder" in it is seifensieder, or soap maker. At one time there were zuckersiedermeisters who boiled milk to get sugar out of it as well.

50th Anniversary Photo

Fifty years of marriage in an era where the average marriage lasts a little more than four years is something that has to be celebrated. This was taken in 2002 and this year they celebrated their 54th wedding anniversary. The fact that the Lord is so important to each of them has helped them. As I quoted in the article If God Created Love, Did He Make It For Everyone? God is the source of all love and all we can do is reflect Him.

They have indeed reflected God's love to me and it is much easier to envision God when you can see his reflection every day growing up.

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church- for we are members of his body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a profound mystery-but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Eph 5:22-33 NIV

My Dad

This is my father at a pro football game in the eighties. He had no idea I was going to take this picture and I caught him off guard with a great smile. He is one of the most pleasant people I have ever known and along with my mom, made up a parenting team that my brother has said was such that we would never have wished to be brought up anywhere else.

Father's Day

This is probably a common Father's Day scene around the world. Most dads would like to rest a little bit at least some time on Father's Day.

This photo is actually of me, but it reminds me of my father as it was taken at the time of my parent's 50th wedding anniversary a few years ago. My parents have now been married 54 years and my dad, at 85 years old, has trouble making it to church. He still goes most Sundays with my mom helping him.

Decision Making By Bottle Caps

I could make important decisions in my life based on Sobe bottle cap messages. I don't want to make decisions that way and so I posted the outline from the book Decision Making By The Book on this blog and it gives much better reasons for making good decisions.

Good Advice

This scene is from the Birmingham Zoo. The lifeguards look a little scary.


This is an old photo I scanned into the computer. It was taken near St. Petersburg Beach.

Biblical Decision Making Process

1. Know the Scriptures and have a spiritual relationship with God
a. Make decisions in submission to God’s sovereign will.
b. Make decisions in submission to God’s moral will.
2. Make love and concern for the good of others the motive.
3. Focus on strengths and gifts.
a. Work on your weaknesses, but make decisions based on your strengths
b. Consider other people’s strengths and weaknesses as well
4. Consider the circumstances, but don’t be mastered by them.
5. Seek counsel in three areas:
a. Biblical counsel
b. Experienced counsel
c. Best available counsel
6. General principles
a. Avoid moods
b. Separate facts from problems
c. Commit to “go for it” if you make a directional decision
d. Set a time limit
7. Danger zones
a. Not knowing where you are going
b. Answering the wrong question
c. Be sure of what you don’t know
d. Avoiding disagreement
e. Using yesterday’s battle plans
f. Avoid group-think
g. Adjust your decision if more becomes known
h. List pros and cons – being systematic is a better method than pure intuition

from the book Decision Making By The Book by Haddon W. Robinson

Available from Discovery House Publishers

Good Stuff

Check this stuff out if you ever get a chance:

1) The Alarm, especially the songs The Day the Ravens Left the Tower and How the Mighty Fall.
2) The Clash, Combat Rock - they have the feel of a modern day prophet in their social criticism and a razor-like sharpness in their look at what might happen to the human race. Their unfortunate conclusion after looking at all the problems is that we need drugs just to cope. I did like their line, "I'm not the only one of the caped crusader fan club, watching the sky for mankind's friend." We need a Savior and yes, the world really is that bad.
3) The Seventy Sevens (77's) - a Christian band with a great deal of talent who have been around a long time and should have made it big on secular radio on talent alone. The only problem is they are too diverse and can play too many styles of music well and were too difficult to categorize. They can really make you think.
4) Anything by Bob Dylan and T-Bone Burnett, but understand that they target the world at large with their message and cover adult subjects. Both have huge reputations in the music industry and their contribution to modern music cannot be overstated. They both want to make you think more than anything else. Both will point you toward God. Now if you only heard early Bob Dylan music you might not get that impression, but he has certainly pointed to God since the late seventies, fairly consistently.
5) Kansas combines classical music with rock to create what I like to call "enchanted forest music." Both Leftoverture and Point of Know Return are rock music classics, but they have many other well thought out, concept albums.
6) U2 is arguably the greatest rock band in the world. Many people complain that they don't understand U2, but they obviously connect with people on a very deep level. The Joshua Tree album has been called a proper response of a Christian to the world as it is, full of injustice and yet there is hope, just like a tree that flourishes in the desert.

I hope it becomes clear that God has enlisted some very significant artists to point people in his direction. There are also other artists who are just being honest with themselves who also point people in a different direction than they have been traveling in, even though they don't have the answer. I have found these artists to be worthwhile. There are many artists who are a waste of time.

Canadian Sunset

This was one of the most peaceful settings I have ever been in. This is the Niagara River between Lake Erie and Niagara Falls. It was so calm and the entire world seemed to slow down and just enjoy the moment.

Proof Through The Night

T-Bone Burnett won songwriter of the year in the critics poll in Rolling Stone Magazine in the eighties for his album, Proof Through The Night. Two of the most notable lyrics follow here:

PRESSURE

I was once obsessed with being cool being no one's fool
Breaking every rule winning every duel
I tried to hide behind my pride and so I lied
Even when I told the truth
And it's a lot of pressure
From behind

There are those who loom somewhere in doom and they presume
To tell you what to do - they would run your life for you
And at times they've made me so afraid that I was plagued
By doubt and grew confused
And it's a lot of pressure
From all sides

But I will hold on to this hope
That life is not some gruesome joke
That love is not some wretched lie
Oh! How I cry! Ay Ay Ay

I can't ask you to measure whether you can weather
This storm that beats the shore by some means of keeping score
Cause filled with dread I've heard it said "Only the dead
Have seen the end of war"
And it's a lot of pressure
From below

SHUT IT TIGHT

I find it hard sometimes to say the way that I feel
I do the very things I hate to do
I act like a child and I'm afraid of what is real
And so I try to cover up the truth

I stumble like a drunk along this crazy path I walk
I have a hundred thousand questions too
I'll go to any length to prove that nothing is my fault
Then later on I will deny the proof

I don't like to win but then again I hate to lose
And in between is something I can't stand
I don't care what you think and I hope that you approve
I am just an ordinary man

Sometimes I want to stop and crawl back into the womb
And sometimes I cannot tell wrong from right
But I ain't gonna quit until I'm laid in my tomb
And even then they better shut it tight

http://www.tboneburnett.com/

Buster the Cat

Here is a photo of Buster the Cat on a better day for him.

Here by popular demand: Buster the Cat

There is no point to this photo, spiritual or otherwise. It is just our neighborhood cat, Buster, who is normally a tough guy of a cat, kind of like a biker cat, but here he is humbled by a loving little boy who coaxed him into a rather silly position.

He used to be very jumpy like he was used to running for his life in the neighborhood and it took a while for him to trust us.

If God Created Love, Did He Make It For Everyone?

If God created love, did he make it for everyone?

So many people feel unloved. The question above gets asked continually as it was by the rock group Cold on their recent album A Different Kind Of Pain. (http://www.coldonline.com/)

The answer that God gives to this is both reassuring and shocking:

God did not create love. G o d i s l o v e !

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. "

1 John 4:7-21 NIV

Nobody has love in himself except God and all those who are capable of love get that capability from God alone.

We have to be the recipient of God's love given through his Son in order to be able to love. You can't give something you haven't received, but perfect love drives out fear and once you know that love, you know that nothing can touch you or harm you. Read Romans chapter 8 to confirm this.

Did He make it for everyone? He didn't make it - He is it. Know Him, know love.

Springs of Living Water

The perpetual motion machine is a myth.

The Fountain of Youth proved to be beyond the reach of DeSoto.

A spring that will never run dry? Maybe.

On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice,

"If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

On hearing his words, some of the people said, "Surely
this man is the Prophet." John 7:37-40 NIV

When they said he was "the Prophet," they meant the prophet who was to come one day that would be like Moses. As Moses hit the rock in the desert and streams of water came out, so this Prophet has abundant water to give to the people.

Alabama Wildflowers

If this is how God clothes the plants in the field that are here today and gone tomorrow, how much more will he clothe you and take care of you?

Do not worry.