{"id":3613,"date":"2006-03-19T20:46:50","date_gmt":"2006-03-20T02:46:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/gazette\/2006\/03\/19\/got-to-lose-em-before-we-can-save-em\/"},"modified":"2022-01-28T16:12:01","modified_gmt":"2022-01-28T22:12:01","slug":"got-to-lose-em-before-we-can-save-em","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2006\/03\/19\/got-to-lose-em-before-we-can-save-em\/","title":{"rendered":"Got to lose ’em before we can save ’em…"},"content":{"rendered":"

We made a quick trip to Fort Stockton for my brother’s birthday (which is my excuse for not responding to the multitude of comments you were kind enough to leave) and I think we set a new record for packing, if you think of it in terms of pounds packed per hour away from home. Without belaboring the point, I’ll just posit that had we packed in similar fashion for our trip to Tahoe, we would have required a C-40 transport plane<\/a> to get our stuff to our destination.<\/p>\n

We returned to Midland to the pleasant sight of almost an inch of rain in the backyard gauge; we’re under a severe thunderstorm watch as I type this, so perhaps we’ll get some more. Unfortunately, Fort Stockton got only a trace of precip.<\/p>\n

As is our habit, we went to church this morning to sit with my parents and my wife’s dad. This is the church where we were married almost 33 years ago, and where I was baptized over four decades back. Lots of memories, in other words. Anyway, the preacher threw out a line that I can’t believe I’ve never heard in all these years of listening to sermons, but if I had, I somehow misplaced it. He said something along the lines of this: “the biggest obstacle to getting someone saved is getting them lost.”<\/p>\n

What he meant was that until someone recognizes and admits he needs<\/em> to be saved, he’ll never accept that free gift. And we’re so full of pride and so hard-hearted that we don’t want to admit that we’re sinners in need of a Savior.<\/p>\n

Of course, we — meaning us human beans (as Pogo would put it) — can neither “get someone lost” or “get someone saved.” Only God can work this miracle. But for some strange reason, He’s decided that people are going to be His primary delivery method for the good news. This fact bears thinking about from time-to-time, as we consider whether or not we’re effective “carriers.”<\/p>\n

Later, amigos…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A mini-sermonette, and some unrelated miscellany to help it go down easier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6387,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3613\/revisions\/6387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}