Good Pastors Dying Young

In 2006, two of my favorite pastors, both friends of mine, died of two separate, equally tragic accidents. One's car slipped on some ice on the way to church and flipped (the one ice storm of the year in North Texas), the other, while riding bikes (that they'd bought that day) with his two young children, fell, hit his head and went into a coma, never to wake up.

Both of these pastors were Calvinists, meaning that they believed in predestination. Both would have said that God planned those accidents before he formed the Earth. I still believe that.

I miss my friends and I wish I had their guidance now. I'm sad for their wives and for the children that one of them left behind. But I know they're with Jesus in heaven now and I know that God loves and is caring for those they left behind, including me.

Here is one of their sermons (David), left as a ghost on an old Myspace page. The links to Dustin's last sermon are all broken, but I have the file on my computer and I have linked to it here if you'd like to listen to it. Both of their last sermons are on God's providence and sovereignty and urge us to trust God at all costs.

January 3rd, 2011

It's three days into 2011 and I'm writing again. It's not a resolution to write here every day this year, but I do want to commit to writing every day, somewhere. I started Deliberate Industries about 6 years ago and I'm not really sure why I did it. I was inspired by people like Dooce, who wrote funny stories and entertained an audience. But even back then, I was very deliberate (see what I did there) in writing to "you," not to an audience of "y'all" or "you guys." This blog is different. This is a journal that is public. It's my personal thoughts, open to the world, because I want to live my life as an open book. I'm not big on personal privacy. I respect other people wanting privacy and believe it's their right, but for me, I don't really care. I personally just don't want any secrets. When I was a child, I lied all the time and knowing that I have the proclivity, I like to just disable that ability by telling everyone everything.

That's all I have for now. Thanks for reading!