andrew dodson

Yesterday, I read an entry from John Piper’s A Godward Life dealing with the trials we face day to day.  One Scripture that he used was:

1 Corinthians 10:13 Listen

13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

This week has been a trying week at work.  This is our busiest time of the year.  Aside from the usual stress of my job, many other things have come up this week that have tested my faith.  Not the kind of testing that makes me wonder if God is going to show up and save the day.  But, the type of testing that affects my attitude.  I start to think, “What’s my limit?  How much more can I handle?”

It was refreshing to once again be reminded of this passage.  After all, my trials on a daily basis are extremely minimal to what other people may be dealing with.  Small potatoes.  And the answer to these questions are made easier – I can handle as much as God puts on my plate.  If he wants to pile on a little more, so be it.  If he wants to take a little away, that’s fine too.

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I’ve been doing a little “blog cleaning” tonight (“house cleaning” in the real world).  As you can see, I’m using a new theme.  It’s a combination of a theme authored by someone else and a little of my own creation mixed in.  The picture is of downtown Minneapolis, taken by yours truly.  This is pretty simplistic, so I may tweak it a bit more.  Then again, simple is good.  We’ll see.

The focus of this site is going to shift slightly.  From now on, it will be an entirely personal site.  Over the next few weeks, I’ll be transitioning any and all BADmedia info over to a new site dedicated to BADmedia.  I’ll be launching the BADmedia site soon.

If any of you out there are referencing my site from “www.brianandrewdodson.com/blog,” please update your bookmarks to reference “www.brianandrewdodson.com” instead.  The “/blog” part is getting deleted soon.  This will also affect any RSS feeds that reference “/blog.”

Thanks to Wordpress, I’ve imported all of my posts from the “/blog” setup to this one in the root directory.  It took all of about five minutes.  Yet another glorious part of using Wordpress.

Back to your regularly scheduled blog reading.

Psalm 33:10

10 The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;
he frustrates the plans of the peoples.

In this verse, God is dealing with “Godless nations who seek their own will and not God’s,” according to my Reformation Study Bible.  The second part of this verse – “he frustrates the plans of the peoples” – tends to hit close to home with me a lot.  Mostly because it’s difficult for me to rest in God’s will from time to time.

As I’ve told many people before, I am nowhere close to where I thought I’d be at this point in my life.  Five years ago, I would’ve told you that I hoped to be married, possibly with a kid, a nice job making $60,000-80,000 per year, putting my very expensive college education to use.  I’d be playing in a popular band that played regularly to adoring crowds, toured on occasion, and had record label attention.  I’d have a nice house with a personal recording studio, and I’d drive a nice SUV with no cares of the poor gas mileage.

Instead, I’ve become a Christian and attend a great church.  I’ve fallen in love with God’s Word, even if I fail to live up to it.  I’ve yet to find “the one” (much to the chagrin of my mother), and that’s perhaps a topic for a different blog post.  I have a decent job that I enjoy, but I don’t make a killing, and I’m not necessarily putting my degree to use.  I play in a band that I enjoy dearly, and we play a couple times per month at the most, occasionally travel away from central Kentucky, and people seem to like us.  I don’t own a home, but I’m looking.  I drive a Honda CRV that is in good shape, but isn’t anything fancy.

As you can see, God has obviously had different plans for my life than I expected.  So much of my time can tend to be spent seeking my own will and not God’s.  I thank Him for leading me to this verse.  Maybe I can learn to rest in His will more often and live a life of peace instead of frustration.

If you play music, record music or just listen to music, you’re indebted to Les Paul.  I bet you didn’t know that.  Les Paul is one of the most innovative musicians and recording engineers of all time.  Innovations in electric guitars and tone?  Thank Les Paul.  Sound-on-sound and multi-track recording?  Thank Les Paul.

Apple Pro has a really interesting article on this still-living, still-working-at-ninety-two genius.  Feel free to also read his Wikipedia entry.  Thanks Les!

As Thanksgiving rolls around this year, I’m reminded of how I am extremely blessed.

• I have a Lord and Savior that offered grace and eternal life in heaven to me when I deserved extreme punishment.
• I have a great set of Christian parents that raised me right.
• I have a wonderful church, pastor and church family.  They encourage me, help me grow, and they’re a joy to worship with each week.
• I have a job I enjoy and a boss I actually enjoy working for.
• I’ve been blessed with the talent to play a musical instrument.  From this, I’ve had the experience of playing with and learning from some of the best musicians around.  My musical “career” so far has been pretty awesome.
• I’m blessed with material things that – far too often – I take for granted – a nice place a live,  a vehicle that gets me where I need to go, clothes, food, and much more.

Psalm 30:4

4 Sing praises to the Lord, O you his saints,
and give thanks to his holy name.

Psalm 118:1

118:1 Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures forever!

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Listen

16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

> Photo Album

I know a lot of you out there are waiting with high anticipation to hear about my Extreme Makeover experience a couple of nights ago.  I haven’t had time to get my pictures onto the computer just yet, nor have I had time to blog about it.  In the mean time, here’s some random blogging….

• I set a goal earlier this week to not spend any money this week.  So far, so good.  Two days to go.
• I went to the gym last night for the first time in forever.  I did the treadmill for thirty minutes.  Ran two miles and walked another half mile.  I’m going back today.  Thankfully, I’m not that sore today.
• Kelly and Ericcia are having a baby!
• Stay tuned tonight or tomorrow for the Extreme Makeover experience recap.

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Here’s the spot WLEX ran tonight on CLS. I will be uploading pictures tomorrow, after our trip to Louisville!

This post has been hard to keep under wraps for the past week or so. But, it’s now official – CLS has been contacted by ABC’s Extreme Makeover Home Edition to do some work for them on a current project in Louisville. I haven’t wanted to say anything until I knew it was going to happen.

They contacted us a little over a week ago to do screen printing on curtains and pillow cases. Normally, this is outside of our realm, but considering the customer, we were glad to help! I coordinated art work with them today, and I believe Dwayne and Jana took care of the printing this evening.

As part of the deal, we have been told we are welcome on the site as much as we would like. As of right now, we are planning to make a group trip up to Louisville tomorrow evening. As I’ve pondered before, I may get some of my questions answered. Stay tuned for updates and pictures!

[11/12 4:00 p.m. UPDATE:  The State Journal sent over a photographer this morning to get shots of the fabric being printed.  Someone from the show's crew has stopped by to pick up the printed fabric.  We are currently waiting on a crew from WLEX, who is also coming by to do a story.  A group from CLS is planning to head to Louisville tomorrow evening to tour the site and possibly help out.]

Through further study and conversations with others, I’ve come to another question regarding divorce and remarriage.

If the divorce for each of these people was biblically acceptable, does that mean it becomes completely null and void in God’s eyes? As if they were never married? If this is the case, I can see where remarriage would be biblically acceptable. If this is not the case, it seems that both people would be committing adultery by remarrying.

Any thoughts?

[UPDATE:  Rick passed along this article from Resurgence that seems to be the best support for remarriage that I've read so far.  Maybe I've softened my stance a bit after reading this.]