A view about manhood

This evening my wife and I went into a local bar and grill to eat dinner. We pulled into the parking lot and there were a half dozen or so cars in the parking lot. We hadn't been into this location before so I wasn't sure what to expect. I opened the door for her and we went in. The first thing I noticed was that most of the patrons were seated at the bar engaged in conversation. We were greeted with a sign that said seat yourself. I've always felt uneasy about the level of service at an establishment with a sign like this. My thought is that are they "too busy" to help you to find a place to sit sown. We had frequented a different location of this bar and grill in Lawrence and had always had a pleasant experience along with good food. We started to walk to the left but none of the tables looked like they had been cleaned off so we went around the other way passing the bar area. We passed a man and I greeted him and he just looked at me like I had two heads. Oh we...

    My family has been through some changes over the last 3 years. Three years ago this past week I found out the lumberyard which I had been managing for the past 15 years was going to be at the end of the business day, which was about 90 minutes later. A few hours earlier the owner of the chain of yards had stopped by to tell me that he was no longer in control of the yards and didn't know what the future held in that regard. Our lifestyle would require an involuntary reduction in spending. Three years later we are living comfortably on about 60% less than what we were before. We live in a smaller home, which still has "more than average" room, and are far from starving for food.     The past week I spent in West Virginia I was reminded of how much I have in terms of material assets. I was surrounded by those with less (material wise) than I have, but still consider themselves fortunate. My thought today is, could I make some changes to live on less today? This wo...

If you had the chance to say something lasting to one person, what would it be? Suppose you had the same opportunity with 100 people. What kind of influence would you have? Next think what would happen if that person shared the same thing with 1 other person each year. Now suppose this chain reaction kept happening over the course of 30 years? This person you told (if each told someone different) would reach over 500 million people. (1 becomes 2, then 4, then 8 ,etc.)What kind of influence could you have? If each believer over the course of history told someone about what Christ has done for them, what influence would we have on the world? We are called to do this, and if we were just 10% successful we could reach the entire world in 240 years. At this 10% rate, if that's cut by 1%, 900,000,000 people don't hear about Jesus Christ.

 My name is Kevin Sowards and have lived in northeast Kansas my entire life. I grew up with a tight knit family and still am close with my parents, brothers and sisters. We enjoy spending time together- I am blessed to have this relationship with them all. I was raised with a strong knowledge of right and wrong which is another advantage of my upbringing. I still suffered from a prideful attitude wanting everything my way, and when things didn't go my way I tried to shut myself off from the world outside. I turned to alcohol to numb myself from the already depressed state I was living in. I struggled to get by through my early adulthood years not knowing how to leave this pattern of life. In the years from 1994 through 1999 a transformation took place in my life. I started to live my life not dependent on alcohol, not putting myself in compromising situations, understanding what life could be like- a life without the binding chains of this life. I read the Bible with a differen...