Unwrapping the Truth (and Gifts) and Our Annual Office Party

In one of our Christmas cards, we received there was a small pamphlet titled, Unwrapping the Truth about Christmas. The pamphlet details some interesting facts about the bible and the life of Christ. One item which stood out for me was this...

Jesus: The Focus and Fulfillment of Prophecy

There are at least 456 Old Testament prophetic references that pertain to a future person that all were fulfilled in the life of Jesus.

The most common objection is that the fulfillment of these prophecies was by chance. Science and mathematics professor Peter Stoner estimated a reasonable probability that one man might have fulfilled just 8 of these 456 prophecies at one chance in 10 to the 17th power.

1 chance in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000

Take that amount of silver dollars and cover the state of Texas two feet deep. Mark one and stir the whole mass thoroughly. Blindfold a man and have him pick up only one silver dollar and have it be the right one. what chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance the prophets would have had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man... (Peter W. Stoner, Science Speaks, Moody Press, p. 107).

And these don't even account for the other 448 prophecies also fulfilled in the person of Jesus!

That's a lot of coins. As our senior pastor at church is fond of saying, "just let that thought rest against your mind for a moment".

This Christmas I think Rachel was secretly hoping for a car with a bow around it in the driveway but that wasn't in the budget. She knows that this spring she'll likely have something of her own once she gets her license. She actually had just a very small list of things for us to consider; nothing at all spendy. She was happy with a knockoff pair of Uggs from Maurice's for $25 rather than the real thing for at least $100 more. She had a few CD requests, one of which was Frank Sinatra. She's got a thing for his music which I don't understand but then I wouldn't expect her to understand my fondness for Supertramp.

Probably the biggest request she had was her new cellphone.

I very much respect that she isn't a needy person and is more than happy with all we do for her. If anything, it makes me want to do all that much more for her as I know she's appreciative. I never dreamed that being a stepdad could or would be so rewarding.

Tammy's main gift this year was a Cricut. It's funny—we went to buy it for her the other night and there was another guy mulling them over. He didn't think the person he was buying it for would actually use it but it's what they wanted. Rachel and I were thinking the same thing about Tammy/Mom. We bought it anyway as that's what she wanted and there will no doubt be times when she'll use it. It's not like I'm going to be flying my RC plane on a regular basis either so who am I to criticize?

Speaking of my RC plane...

Last summer I went through a phase where I sort of wanted a remote control airplane. I didn't want it bad enough to go out and buy one but I did my share of window shopping online for one. It wasn't intended to be a hint to Tammy but she took it as one and I'm now the proud owner of a Wingo. It's the perfect plane for a beginner as it's more forgiving than most others.

I'll know soon enough how forgiving it is once the weather warms a bit.

I went online looking at YouTube videos of the Wingo in action and came across an idea for my next project...attaching a video camera to the plane and getting some video of our neighborhood from a few hundred feet up. Check this out. There's a bit of a geek lurking within me and this sort of thing definitely appeals to that part of me.

We had our annual Christmas office party this past Sunday at work. We were a little disappointed with the turnout but for those of us who took the time to put the event together, we all agreed it was all worthwhile. Actually, we pride ourselves on the tackiness of the event so don't go feeling sorry for us. Roll the video.




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