The Gospel Marriage: Conflict, Reconciliation and God's Glory

This is a continuation of a series on how God created marriage to be living picture of the gospel to make us more like Christ and as a witness to the world for the glory of God. We looked at this in terms of how God designed marriage to be a COVENANT similar to Christ’s covenant to us. And we looked at this in terms of HEADSHIP and how God designed the husband to be the servant leader of the home as Christ is servant leader of the Church. In this post we will look at marriage in terms of RECONCILIATION and how God designed both the conflict and reconciliation found in marriage to be a profound picture of Christ’s reconciliation of the Church.  So let’s start with a video. WARNING: some foul language.

If you find any humor in the video above, it’s probably because you’ve “been there”.   The English writer, G.K. Chesterton once said “Marriage is an adventure….like going to war.”  While actor Gary Busey observed, “Marriage is the only war where you sleep with the enemy.”  Sad, but often true. 

marriage counseling anyone?

Power Tools (A Man's Best Friend)

What is it about men and power tools? Why do we love them so? My theory is that power tools make men feel like pee-pee.  Ummm...not that kind of pee-pee! But "P" as in Practical and "P" as in Powerful. Practical: Because you can accomplish tasks at a fraction of the time and energy of manual tools. Powerful: Because they make you feel drunk with power as you rip through large pieces of wood like a hot knife through butter. Plus - they make loud noises too! Yeah!

I was going to get into the flooring and framing but I think this is a good point to talk about tools. Having the right tools make all the difference in the world. That said, tools are not cheap and power tools are definitely not cheap but if you are buying tools that you know you’ll be using again you do sleep better knowing it was money well spent. I have been blessed enough to live by neighbors that are both generous and have lots of cool tools (great combination!). As with most things you buy, you have to find that happy medium between cost and value and with power tools it’s no different. There are a wide range of opinions on which brand you should buy and while I'm sure some would disagree but based on my amateur opinion, if I had to put brands in a general order of quality I’d probably order it something like this: Dewalt, Bosch, Makita, Hitachi, Craftsman, Black & Decker, Skil, Tool Shop (whatever Chinese brand Harbor Tool Shop is carrying). I'm sure I've left off a few quality brands and the list may vary depending on the tool in question but this is just off the cuff so don’t hold me to it. So let’s start with one of the most basic power tools: