Day 19– July 18, 2005, Monday: Matt Rawlins and water balloons

Jonny and Dave passing marbles on spoons. Then Jonny trusting daddy not to fill the glass too full. (you know where this is going :)

Today we had an awesome new speaker for our classroom session. His name is Matt Rawlins. He is speaking on the character and nature of God. Wow, I did not want him to stop. The time just flew by for the 3 hour lecture. He talked about how God is both Big enough and Good enough. It sounds simple, but God’s bigness is his nature. He spoke the universe into existence; he spans the heavens (universe) with the palm of his hand. But he is also intimate. In the entire universe he cares enough to know and love each of us. He forgives us by giving his son for us. He longs to know us. Christianity is the only religion that has a God that is both of these things. Almost every cult is lacking either one or both of these attributes of God, which makes Him unattainable. If he is big, but not intimate, he doesn’t care. If he is good, but not big, than why should we care. It’s interesting culturally too. Most western cultures think of God of loving, but don’t have any reverence. Eastern cultures are reverent towards God, but can’t get that he also cares for them. Anyway, he was quite the speaker. Luckily we have him all week long.

In the afternoon we had family play day with the kids. We played lots of camp like games together. It was fun. The best part was just watching the kids have so much fun. We had a water balloon toss. We played water balloon volleyball where we had a group hold onto a bed sheet and then drop the balloon in it and try to fling it over the net to the other side. Good family time.