Author: Matthew Stidham

My name is Matthew Stidham. I'm a husband, a father, a minister, and a guy who's just trying to get to heaven and take others with me. I spend a lot of time in God's Word and do my best to understand why the text was written, and what we can learn from it today. I write about some of these thoughts here as a way to process what I've learned, and in hopes that you might find them useful. In my free time you'll find me playing my guitar, working on restoring my grandfather's 1969 GMC pickup, or just playing with my children! Thanks for checking out my blog! I hope you enjoy your visit, and please consider subscribing by email! You can also join our Facebook group @LivingInTheWordBibleStudy.

Keep Your Focus

by Matthew Stidham, posted in Christianity

In 1978 during the a fireman’s strike in England, the British army took over emergency fire-fighting.  On January 14 they were called out by an elderly lady in South London to rescue her cat from a tree.  They arrived with impressive speed, and very cleverly and carefully rescued the cat, and started to drive away.

But the lady was so grateful she invited the squad of heroes in for tea.  They spent a great deal of time there talking, and enjoying a nice break from the hard work of the day.  After a good long visit, and with fond farewells and warm waving arms, they drove off, and in doing so ran over the cat and killed it.

The firemen lost the focus of why they were there.  If they had remembered and been focused on saving the cat, surely they would have looked for it before driving away!

2 Corinthians 8:20-21 – 20 We want to avoid any criticism of the way we administer this liberal gift. 21For we are taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of men.

Sometimes we forget what we’re supposed to do in life. Even though we think we’re doing our jobs, and feel like we’re making progress, the reality is we’re so caught up in other activities that we’re not taking an honest look at what is truly going on around us. Sometimes we run over the cat we’re trying to save and don’t even realize it.

It’s times like these that we really have to stop and consider our path in life.  Am I really following the path God has planned for me, or am I being led astray by all the stuff the world throws at us?  Is God in control of our lives, or are our lives controlling our relationship with God?  It’s at these times that the first few verses of Hebrews 12 comes to mind.  We need to throw off all the things that entangle us and keep us in sin.  We need to fix our eyes on Jesus, and consider all of those who have gone on before us…all of those who endured so much more difficult and trying times “…so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”   When we grow weary and lose heart we’re not the only ones that suffer.  Those who rely and depend on us suffer as well, and sometimes that’s the greater tragedy.

First Post…Welcome!

by Matthew Stidham, posted in Politics, Uncategorized

Welcome to my blog!  I’m not sure quite what this will turn into over time, nor what I’ll write about from day-to-day.  As you can tell from the description, this blog has a pretty broad scope when it comes to topics.  We’ll touch on a little of everything, but today we’re starting with politics.

Our federal government is spending WAY more money than it brings in each and every year for the past several years.  This is referred to by political insiders as the “national deficit.”  That’s just a nice way of saying “the drunken national spending binge.”  The federal government this year will take in $2.17 trillion and will spend $3.81 trillion.  That means that this year alone your government officials in Washington D.C. will overspend by $1.63 trillion.  OVERSPEND BY $1.63 TRILLION!!!  The absurdity of this should shock every American and cause us to drastically rethink the choices we have made to re-elect the same old people to Washington.  But that’s not all…

Today the “Debt Super Committee” failed in its ability to reduce the federal spending by $1.2 trillion over 10 years which has automatically triggered some so-called “cuts” to our federal spending.  Let’s look at this in a way that most politicians would rather us not.  Each year the federal spending automatically increases. So if our government did absolutely nothing, spending would still increase next year by default.  And remember, we’re already $1.63 trillion upside down this year alone!   Next year that spending will increase again.  But Matt…what about all these automatic deep cuts that went into effect?  It’s another lie coming out of Washington.  GO FIGURE!

The “deep cuts” that automatically went into effect are simply decreasing the amount of spending increases that will occur over the next several years.  Let’s use the federal defense budget for example.  Originally the defense budget would have increased by 23%.  Now with the “deep cuts” that went into effect, the federal defense budget will only increase by 16%.   In other words, everyone in the government is getting more money next year, just not as much more money as they thought they were going to get, and this bends everyone out of shape!

Our government is overspending by more and more each year and our politicians, Democrat and Republican, can’t even figure out a way to not spend more than they bring in?  Yes cutting our gross overspending will hurt a little.  It would hurt if you had to cut your personal spending the same way, but if you or I didn’t stop our spending we’d go bankrupt in a couple of years and lose everything we have and hold dear.  I just wonder what will happen to our government…

Thanks for taking the time to read by first post! For the next post, sports. I guess you’ll just have to come back for that one.