Still alive and looking forward to Christmas

I can't believe that its been almost a month since I typed anything in this little box. Guess that just shows how little has been going on in my mind. Actually thats quite wrong, its just that I haven't had any cohesive thoughts to put into a post. Luckily, I have something rumbling around in my head this morning.

I always read SCL because it makes me smile and I need to start the day off with a smile, and suggest that you do the same. Jon linked to his other blog The Prodigal Jon. I would urge you to get over there and read it. Its a great stop and think moment. I often find myself reflecting over the few times that he decides to get serious. I wonder why I never thought of whatever that way before or if I have, why have I forgotten it. Case in point, there was a post about how we often have selfish motives for reading the Bible or doing service or something of that nature. Then we beat ourselves up over having a selfish heart. The thing is that we aren't able to change ourselves. This goes back to the whole renewal thing, its God's desire to change us, not for us to try and change ourselves. We have to get back to that thought, "I can't, but you can." I guess more than anything, I am thankful for the reminders that get me back on track.

Speaking of the whole getting back on track thing, this is the season to reflect on Jesus' coming. Of course, we have been celebrating Advent at our church. We have been using the small groups to end each Sunday service with one praying and one lighting the Advent candle. This past week was our groups turn to do those things. Our word was "Peace" and I will include the prayer that we gave at the end of this post. While studying the words in Hebrew and Greek, I was sort of surprised to learn that the word they use for "peace" doesn't just mean the end of hostilities, but a making whole, made complete. Thats exactly what Jesus' coming means that we can be whole now.

It is the whole Christmas season thing and that means another time to spend with family. I am looking forward to this week. I have been more than blessed with both of my families, the one I was born into and the one the I was married into. They both love me more than I can imagine and more than I can believe. They are both great examples and I am amazed by them constantly. But, most of all I am blessed for having a wife who is wonderful and makes me feel like the greatest man on earth. I hope that your holiday is great as well.

Dear Father,

You alone are the source of Peace. You not only ended the hostilities between us, making us no longer enemies, but your children, but you also came to make us whole. We can be complete because of Jesus and His perfect sacrifice. You give us peace, in our lives, that is far beyond our ability to understand it. This doesn’t mean that everything will be easy, but that even in those times when everything else is going wrong, we are right with you Lord. All of this, everything that we can hold on to, is because of our Prince of Peace, our mediator, our loving friend and messiah, Jesus. For that peace, that assurance, that victory, we are blessed. As we celebrate your coming, both your birth and your return in triumph, we pray for your peace to rule in our lives.

Amen.

Thanksweek

I hope that you all have lots and lots of fun the next couple days. I will be family doing the whole "quality time" thing. It is the real kick off to the holiday season. So, instead of being all serious, which I have been it seems for the last few posts, I am going to try and brings a little levity to the reading with some funny and fun links.

Star Trek is one of the movies that I am very much looking forward to getting to enjoy next year. The choice of JJ Abrams seems to have been pretty smart. If you haven't seen the trailer, here that is. Even if you have seen it, its pretty awesome and worth watching a couple times. Plus, it gives you the framework from which the next couple clips are taken. The first is just funny, Star Trek 90210. The next one takes the same idea, but instead uses one of what used to be my favorite shows, Smallville.

I don't know why, but this list of wacky signs just makes me laugh. Maybe its the whole, "Not Allowed to Pregnant". I think that some of them were translated and that is what makes it funny.

Since I brought the whole chimp on a Segway thing (this time with music), I thought it was only fitting to bring another clip of the same chimp. This time, its in a track and field competition. Yes, chimps equal funny (or is it Japanese television?).

We, my wife and I, love the show How I Met Your Mother. Last weeks episode, had a great conversation with two of the characters, ala Dr. Seuss. Don't miss the beginning where the guys console Ted by asking if he wants to take revenge by a unique method. Just to spread the goodness that is HIMYM, here is the "Robin Sparkles" videos, Let's Go to the Mall and Sandcastles in the Sand.

As with most Japanese game shows, cats with technology always makes me laugh. Thus, watching a Cat on a Roomba, very funny.

Since I am putting a bunch of YouTube links, I thought it fitting to include this one. Its a little older, but still pretty funny from the Onion.

Finally, I give you something to kick off the Christmas season, if you promise not to watch it until Friday. I am a big MxPx fan. I know that the straight laced demeanor that I normally display fits right in with the idea of punk music, but I have listened to them for about 10 years now. Their Christmas song is one of my favorites. So, here is that video.

Have a great weekend and Thanksgiving!!!

Joash Sunday

I had never heard of the whole "Joash chest" thing until I came to my current church. I didn't really know what to expect with it either. The biblical story is recounted in 2 Kings 12: 1-16 and thus I give you the link if you want to check it out. I don't know if I had even read that before I started at this church. Yesterday was our Joash Sunday, and it also coincided with The Lord's Supper. Both events are very special and very powerful. But, combining them made it an amazing service.

First, I am constantly amazed by God's use of music to evoke our hearts. I am thankful that Drew is willing to listen to God's direction when leading the congregation. God's truths are flowing through the words we sing and soaking into our minds. We are invited not just to sing them, but to think on them and allow them to be our praise. Of course, I love music period. I don't listen as much as I used to, but it still stirs up great emotions and feelings inside of me. Then again, I think thats part of being human. A song can evoke a memory. The songs chosen at a wedding are almost always something personal to the bride and groom. Its because they mean something. When we sing at church, we are to think about the words we speak and let the memory of God's faithfulness wash over us.

Thats what was going on with me yesterday. I thought of my life and how I am so thankful to be able to sing words of love and adoration to God. It really kicked off my heart's desire to give anything that I could give back. And I don't mean just monetarily. God desires so much more than my money, He desires me. That is beyond humbling. But it also empowering. It gives me reason to pray not just some form prayer, but a prayer that lays out all that I think, even though He knows it, and all that I desire, even though He knows that too, in order to leave myself bare before Him so that I can give Him all of me.

Second, we did the whole Joash thing, where we gave whatever we felt led to give. For me and my wife, it wasn't much, but it was more than we were able to last year, which was nothing. However the gift isn't really what I wanted to talk about. During this part of the service, our pastor invited people to just go up and give their gift as the praise team sang and played. He also encouraged us to love on one another. I think that this might have been the most joyful giving session that I have ever experienced. I am not saying that when I tithe I don't do it joyfully. I am just saying that the added enjoyment of hugs and words of encouragement were very welcomed. It made it more about the people you were with than about tithing. I know that its probably impractical to do this every Sunday and eventually it would lose its charm, but for a kick off for a season of thanks, it was very good.

Then we did the Lord's Supper. I always enjoy doing this at this church. I was raised very Baptist where you were quiet and somber during the Lord's Supper. Even at the end when they would say, and they left joyfully singing or whatever, it didn't seem that way. Thats why I enjoy it here. We joyfully sing during. As things are being passed out, we are singing about how thankful we are to Jesus and praising God for His gift. I am sure that a lot of other churches do this, but this is really my first experience with a joyful Lord's Supper every time.

This week is a week of Thanksgiving, its celebrated on Thursday in case you didn't realize. I get to have 2 days off, which is nice. It also means that I might not be back on here to post anything. I did want to end this with a thought from a book that I am reading. Its called Waiter Rant, and thats the blog the guy writes. Its just his observations as a waiter and the stories that he encounters. However, there is one that I have been thinking of since he told it. I won't go into all the details, but it was basically about an incident where he was questioning the humanity of some people. He starts reflecting on our selfishness as a society. That we often are caught up in our own world and forget to look at others around us or at the very least have any compassion for their own trials. As a Christian, thats supposed to be our first priority. Even Jesus states that he wasn't here to do his will but the Father's will and thats about service others. Its a convicting thought. Its a challenging thought. But its one that has to be revisited from time to time. We need to be reminded that its not about what I want from God, but what God wants to do through me, if I allow Him to. And thats going to take the form of serving others.

I have no clue how to really end this because mainly I am stuck thinking about that last part myself. I have no resolution to speak of besides that He is working on it.

I can't, but You can

I have finally finished Stanley's book, Louder than Words, and it was better than I thought it would be. To be a little confessional, I started it once before but wasn't completely sold on reading it. I sort of muddled through about 70 pages of it and then sat it aside to tackle something more "flashy", I guess. It was for Desire that I kept harping on for a while here. But, I decided that I wasn't going to try and read anything else before I finished this book. It was better than I expected. It did start slower than I though but that was because Stanley was slowly building a foundation to set his idea on.

I am not going to go into the whole book, but mainly am focusing on where Stanley suggests that we start with this idea of changing our life to a life of character. To start on this journey, you have to realize that if you try and do it by yourself that you will fail. Depending on your resolve, you might last longer than others, but you are relying on yourself rather than God. One of the more poignant things that Stanley hits on is the idea that when we accept the gift of salvation, we have to realize that it is totally God's power to save us, nothing that we do. The question then is why do we think that we can then change our daily life without God? Instead, we focus on doing good things. The problem is that Paul in Romans doesn't say to be transformed by rededicating your life, nor by making promises to God, or feeling extra sorry, or praying really long prayers, or filing out a card and joining a church. These are the things that we try and do. Instead it says, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. (Romans 12:2 NKJV)"

The renewing is a process that produces character like God. This verse tells us that our transformation does not hinge on the depth of our commitment alone. Our commitment may wane back and forth. There are times in our life when we know that all that we want to do is follow whatever God has for us, but there are times that we aren't as eager to even talk to God, let alone find out what He wants us to do. Christianity is not an event but a process. Through renewal the wisdom and truth of God become the foundation of our thinking and eventually our behavior.

Stanley breaks it down to two approaches, the religious and the relational. The religious approach is very attractive because in our minds it makes sense. The bible calls the whole "earn your way" faith as walking according to the flesh. You are doing what feels right to you. What feels right to you changes from day to day, but God doesn't change. Thus, we look at the relational approach. Our life as a Christian is about our relationship. Everything that God does is in order to draw you into His love. Thus, God never intended for us to shift out of the "I can't, You can" way of thinking that was intricate for us to accept salvation. That is supposed to be the perspective that we maintain throughout our Christian experience. We don't have the power to save ourselves, nor do we have the power to save ourselves from our daily encounters with the power of sin.

Now I think its pretty obvious that most of that above isn't from me. Its me borrowing heavily from Stanley to get the idea across. But, I said all that to get to this point. Once you realize that you can't do it alone, Stanley offers a "baby step". I decided to start here myself. When I am doing my morning reading and praying, I envision what I think will go on during the day. Its not that hard, most of us have days that are very predictable. We know where we will or won't be tempted. As you see the areas that you struggle in, pray to God "I can't; You can". I like this idea. We claim the dependency that we have for God even before it starts. This whole Christian life thing is not God saving us and then setting us about to try our best. Thats why He gave us part of Himself to help direct our paths. Why wouldn't we use it?

This was just one of the areas that I am starting in. There are others about using scriptural truth to combat lies that come up in our daily lives. I will be working on that as well, but this is the first "baby step".

Control

One of the things that got brought up last week in our bible study was the idea of control. I didn't spend a lot of time with them talking about it, but thought it was an interesting topic for me to let my mind wander with over here. The exercise started when Stanley was talking about the times that God tells us "no" to something we ask. This may mean when you are suffering with an illness that you aren't healed, if you are in need of a job, you don't get it immediately, etc. It might not make sense to us, but we have to believe that God will still provide. That we have to surrender our control over the situation and allow God to work through it. The automatic response is for us to get upset and claim that we don't want to serve a God that lets young fathers die, or doesn't give us a job to work and provide money for our family. Both are valid complaints, but Stanley than offered the option for us to work it out. He asked that you go home and write out what type of God you want. The next thing that he said sort of made me stop. Stanley said, that what we "want" is for us to be God or at the very least to have God think like we do. Just think about that for a moment, we have our ideas of what is right and wrong and we want to have God agree with us.

But thankfully we don't have a God who thinks like we do. We instead have a God who can empathize with our hurts and fears and loves us so much that He freely gives us His grace (the power to endure) to get through those times that don't make sense to us. We have a Lord who loves us so much that He desires us to call him father and have that intimate of a relationship with Him. The thing that it all made me start thinking about is that in order to do that we have to give up a lot of control, or at least or illusion of control. We have this strong desire to work everything out ourselves. We think that if we can just do this or just do that, everything will work out. This isn't to say that we sit around and just wait for God to do everything, but we allow Him to do what He needs to do and understand that if we don't understand, thats ok as well.

As I have been reading Proverbs, I have noticed lately that Solomon has included at least one verse over the past couple chapters that deals with God's path or plan for our lives. My favorite of these is this one, Proverbs 20:24, "The Lord directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way?" We have this desire to try and understand why God would do something. I personally have asked God "Why" when I knew that even understanding why wouldn't have made it any better. Instead of asking why, I should have been looking for His comfort, His grace.

Stephen Johnson on a couple Wednesday nights ago was talking about a personal experience that he had where God was healing him. Each time that Johnson tried to figure out what was going on, God stopped and told him to just experience it. Of course, being a human, this was done many times during the course of the night. However, the thing that I take for this is that sometimes we have to just sit back and let God work. We have to understand that we might not understand. This goes against everything that we see in this world. Often, we get caught up in trying to control our situations and our realities, when we know that there is very little that we can actually control. So instead of worrying, instead of beating our fists and getting angry, my thoughts are that we should focus on the one who can control everything. We might not understand, but if we try to understand, we might miss the healing.

Character

I started and then stopped a book by Andy Stanley called "Louder than Words". Its about real character and God's definition, not our own. That can be sort of hard to take, since we all claim to know what character is or at least what we want it to be. However, the whole giving up of control and listening to what God says we should do is a bit different.

I just started rereading this book and it really is a "stop and analyze yourself" type experience. We, or at least I, have the tendency to try and rationalize my actions. If I spoke out of anger, well it was because I was upset. I was upset because of what some one else did. What that other person did was unnecessary or in some way belittled me and thus I am justified. Thats how my mind works through those things. It doesn't stop and say, what did I do? That isn't the question to me, its more about what some one else did. Thats the first step, in my exercise, about trying to be a person of character. See, we are called to live a life that is different. God wants people to look at us and see there is a difference than the way that everyone else reacts. If that means that we have to humble ourselves and take responsibility when we don't feel like we are, thats ok. Its not the end of the world.

Here is the personal example. Monday I was doing the mail at work, which is a job that I am asked to do from time to time. I used to get upset when I had to do it, but that was petty and a couple things have happened and I am enjoying it more than I used to. So, I am getting past the anger over being asked to do a job that technically isn't mine. Well, on Monday, I get completely done with the mail when some one calls and says that I didn't pick up their mail and that I would have to get it and take it across to another location. It wasn't unreasonable, and I should have done it. Instead, I decided to get mad and tell them that I had never picked up their mail when I had done the mail in the past and that they should ask some one else to take it to the other location. I look bad in this situation and rightfully so. The past couple days it has been in my mind both because I knew that I had done wrong and that I allowed myself to get upset over nothing. I could only do one thing today, apologize. So, first thing this morning, I went up to the office that I missed and apologized for missing their mail and the way that I handled the situation. She said that it wasn't anything and didn't think anything of it. However, to me this was a question of how I wanted to live my life. Do I want to be the person who gets upset or do I want to be the person who admits their mistakes?

I don't tell that story for praise, because I could have easily avoided that by taking 10 minutes and walking the mail across the building. Instead, I am learning. And as often is the case when we are learning, we make the wrong decisions and have to do things the hard way. Thankfully, nothing really all that bad happened due to my decision. And I am hopeful that the next time that I am confronted with the same situation or a similar one, I will act like I should, like a person following God's character.

Lying

I promise that this post isn't going to just be a bunch of untruths that I string together. It mainly is going to be about things that I am seeing during my reading. I had mentioned the whole idea of watching our words brought up by Jacobs in his book, but didn't dive too much into that. But, it did spark a part of me to take notice of those verses while reading Proverbs.

In a recent passage, verse 12, I counted that lying or watching our words is mentioned about 7 times in the 28 verses. So, about 25% of the time in this one chapter, God makes mention of how important our words are. I don't think that I am overstating it when I say that our words matter. If we take just the verses that deal with lying, of the 7 verses, about half, 3 maybe 4 (verse 6), are out right condemning verses. This just speaks to me about what I say and what I should say.

I was telling my email study partner that I often have an urge to tell a lie. And most of the time its for no reason whatsoever. I just get these thoughts that it would be more fun, I guess, to withhold the truth rather than just tell what actually happened. Is it from a desire to make me seem more interesting? Is it just an impulse that my worldly self wants me to act on? Its a real struggle that goes on in my head. I would like to say that all the time I recognize this and choose the right path, but thats not true. See, even in typing out this about lies, I am tempted to lie. Its a never-ending cycle.

This really makes me focus on what I say. The idea that my mind is in constant battle with my words and with the truthfulness of them in question, I have to be diligent to choose carefully. I wish that I did that more. The problem, of course, is that I am lazy. I don't mean that as a condemnation on my lifestyle, I mean that as a fact that I am not as disciplined as I would want. To take the time and watch carefully everything that you say, that takes effort. Most of the time, I think that we don't want to put forth that much energy. I might be alone on this and thats ok, because mainly I am being confessional here.

Thankfully, our salvation does not hinge on being diligent to watch our words or even to keep up our desire to be mindful of things we say. During our bible study on Faith, there was a part that talks about how faith isn't a formula. Well, I think that can be expanded to our whole Christian experience. Its not a formula where we have to act or do a certain thing. Its an experience. Its a changing, growing relationship. We may not do everything perfectly, but because of God's love for us and our love for God, we try. I also think to a O.C. Supertones song that I used to love. The lyric is, "God I failed, but at least you know I tried." That was from their first album, which was released back in 1996. Over the years, that has stuck with me. The reason being, I get the reassurance from God that while I might not always get things right, that I should keep trying because He is so worth the effort.

Buddy Studying

I might have hit on this topic at least once before, but I am going to really delve into what my mind has been processing in the past couple days. This was all started by the book that I recently finished The Year Living Biblically. Yeah, I messed up the title the last time that I wrote about it. I hope that if you were looking for it, that this didn't hinder you. But the idea was about religion and the importance of actually experiencing it with others. I believe that he, AJ Jacobs, said that its "not something that you do alone". I am sort of modifying that in a way that I have found true and saying that its something that you don't do SOLELY alone.

I approach this with a couple examples. The first is my primary study that I am doing right now. I am doing an email study with a friend, where we email our thoughts, what we feel God is telling us, and just basically anything that we feel we should share. If you don't have some one who you can meet regularly, I highly recommend this. And even if you can see some one on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, I still might do this for the in between time. The reason is because it makes you accountable to some one. If you don't read or you aren't sharing, you feel like you are letting the other down. While its not something to guilt you into studying, it helps keep you motivated. I believe that I have made that exact point before. We are lazy. If left up to our own desires, we probably wouldn't read all that much. Its part discipline and part desire when you are studying a passage or book. If you have no feedback or no real interaction, you are quicker to become discouraged and wonder why you are doing it. I guess I think of it as a road trip. Short little road trips alone can be quite fun. But, when you are on a long, cross-country type thing, you get lonely if you don't have any interaction. You get sleepy, you lose focus and have less of a desire to enjoy the journey. When you have some one else or other people, you can talk about the things that you notice along the way. You can interact with others about what they see, but you might have missed. It becomes less a task and more of an adventure. As a guy, the whole idea of a adventure appeals to me more.

The reason that I say that its not something that you do solely on you own is because there are times when you do need to take a break from others and reflect on what you have read or what you are being told. There are things that you learn that are completely for you and not for anyone else. You might share them with others, but you also might just let them strengthen you in times or need. Also, we are all called to experience a close personal relationship with God. Something that is very intimate and has to be explored by ourselves at times. The good thing is that most of the time we get so enthused or amazed by what we experience, we share those things and others are encouraged or challenged (in a good way).

Alright, I realize that this is all a bit easy to understand. However, when I read that idea in the book, I just sort of felt the need to get my thoughts out about it. It might never really change how others experience or do a study. I might even just be repeating myself from previous posts.

While I have enjoyed the book, I was taken back by the author's assertion at the end. I guess I didn't fully expect him to surrender to God and all that, but I sort of hoped he would. There were a couple times that it seemed that he was willing, but he never could rationalize it. I think that was the problem. He came to the "experiment" with an idea that he was going to do these rules and see what happened. But he never fully allowed himself to think that what he is reading or thinking could be true. He was always a skeptic. While I definitely don't agree with his conclusion or with a lot of his assumptions, I definitely recommend reading it. As I have mentioned before, it challenged me in areas that I hadn't thought of before. It left an impression.

Proverbs

I am currently reading Proverbs for my personal study. I am reading it along with a friend and emailing thoughts back and forth for our study. I know that I was going to try and tackle one book for a few months, but that really didn't go anywhere. I either didn't read or just wasn't motivated to keep it up. Either way, I am much happier having some one to keep me accountable and to encourage and share my thoughts with. I think those are important things in a study, but I might revisit that before the end of this post.

Right now, I wanted to talk about what we have been reading. We are on chapter 9 of Proverbs today and read chapter 8 yesterday. I include them both here because they fit pretty well together. They discuss the idea of wisdom being readily available for the asking. The imagery of a woman calling us to come and partake of the teachings is very beautiful. I love toward the end of 8, where wisdom says that it was created before the world. That it was the first helper to God. I guess what I take from this is that it is an important attribute. That it is something that we need to help us make it through the trials of this world. If it was so important, that God created wisdom before He started creating the world, why should we assume that we can make it through life without pursuing it?

In chapter 9, there is a very challenging passage. Its in verses 7-9. I usually read in my Every Man's Bible, which is NLT and the reason why most of the links that I give to verses are in that translation. Well, they also give a bit of commentary on certain verses. These verses were chosen. It said that we should accept rebuke with the knowledge that it might be for our betterment. That we shouldn't be so dismissive when some one offers advice that might be helpful. How hard is it to accept that? We live in a society and often a mindset that we know whats best for ourselves. However, isn't that a key component to Christianity? We have recognized that we don't know whats best for ourselves. Instead, we know that God has a better way and let Him guide us in our lives. So, why is it so hard to accept that He might use some one else's words to guide us? I am probably just as bad as anyone else about this. I guess its that idea of control. We are so eager to give up control over our sins and let God give us the freedom from those, but we aren't so eager to give Him our daily lives. Over at Stuff Christians Like, they have a post dealing with that as well.

I have been noticing that not only will I think one thing when I read my bible or when I hear a message, that I see it echoed in other messages that I might hear or blogs that I might read. I think that God is making sure that I get the point, which I know that I need.

I don't think that I will get into the idea of buddy studying today. Maybe tomorrow. I think that I will just let that sit where it is right now. I will leave you with this, a monkey on a Segway. Its as entertaining as it sounds.

Reading

I love to read. I was at the men's bible study last night and was talking to a few people about what we are currently reading. One guy mentioned that one year he tried to tackle 52 books during that year. I am pretty sure that 52 is a pretty normal year for me. I just lose myself in stories sometimes. For the most part, I will read fiction, if I find something or some one that I like. But lately I have been reading more non-fiction stuff. And not just the "spiritual" books that I might mention on here. Like, I read almost all of a book talking about finding the real Ark of the Covenant (almost because while it was good, it was a lot to digest). Or, I will read about baseball, because even God loves baseball. Right now, I am taking on A Year Living Biblically by AJ Jacobs. Its interesting that an agnostic would try and follow all the rules of the bible. I think that when he wrote them all down he had like 72 pages. I haven't gotten very far, but there was a few points that I have already read that make me pause and think about my own personal experiences and even one thing that really challenges me.

Jacobs talks about praying and how it is rather difficult for him to do that. First, he doesn't believe in God and thus praying to God makes little sense. However, he feels that prayer is a major part of the whole bible thing and its commanded quite a few times in the OT. So, he starts by praying passages from the bible. I don't know about you, but I seldom do that. It makes me see how simple prayer can be, but also how relevant the bible still is to our lives. Jacobs prays a passage from Psalms 63:1 that says:

O God, thou art my God, I seek thee,
my soul thirsts for thee;
my flesh faints for thee,
as in a dry and weary land where no water is.

And he sees the beauty of the metaphors and the powerful images that they invoke. Praying the Psalms is something that I have heard before, and when confronted with passages like this, we can definitely see how it can gives us just the right way to express ourselves.

Another thing that Jacobs talks about struggling with is lying. He talks about how he never realized how often he lies. He keeps a list with him of all the times that he lies during a day. How hard would that be to look at? And this goes along with the next thing that just really amazed me that Jacobs was doing it. He was very careful about the words that he uses. He said that he purposefully had started to slow down his speech to make sure that he wasn't breaking any of the rules (sinning). We often forget exactly how powerful our words can be. We speak and let what comes out come out. How beneficial would it be for us to purposefully choose what we say? Before we even say a word, we think about what is coming out of our mouth. Thats what we are supposed to do, right?

Thats where I am being challenged. Am I taking stock of the words that I use on a normal basis? I probably won't be speaking any slower and I don't think its possible to speak any softer, but its something to dwell in my mind as I live in this world.

I am sure that I will have other things that hit me before this book is over and I am sure that you will be tired of it as well. But thats all I have for now.

Desperate

I usually check out Northpoint's messages when they put them online. I say usually because unfortunately, I used to be sort of selective about which ones I would watch. Mainly, I only cared for the Andy Stanley ones. But, I took a look at some of the others and there is some really good stuff. Which brings me to thinking about this entry.

The current message series Illusion taught by Jeff Henderson is really good. And I don't just say that cause they give some really cool magic trick at the beginning of each video. I say that cause it has been making me think. As a Christian, when some one tells you that some sermon made them think, they have been contemplating their "walk". I am going to focus in on the second sermon by Jeff here, Self Delusion. He gives a look at how we look at ourselves. He uses Luke 7:39-47, and there it is if you want to look it up. But, I am not going to get into a lot of what he said. I just want to hit basically two sentences that made me pause and think.

They are: "The longer some one follows Jesus (potentially) the less desperate they become for Him", and "Are you as desperate for Jesus now as when you first accepted him?"

There is a sort of getting comfortable that comes with being a Christian. Its hard to remain as desperate as you once were. I think that as we get used to being in something or around something, our human nature it to get comfortable. We don't sing as loud as we used to, don't get moved the way that we used to, nor even devote the time to study that we used to.

A friend preached on Sunday at a local church and I went. He said that accepting Jesus is easy. It can change your life and its the easiest thing in the world. Following God is a discipline, requiring work and dedication. Fueling that desperate desire for Jesus, is the same thing. You have to remind yourself of what Jesus has brought you through. You have to take the time to recognize how God provides for everything that you need. It takes effort, but just like my friend was talking about, its worth it. To stand in awe of God and worship knowing that you are desperate for His love, His touch, His guidance. It sounds so confining, but nothing is freer.

So, thats where my mind is today. Hope that it gives you time to "think" about yourself or at least praise God a little more emphatically.

Back From the Weekend

Its another Monday and its time for me to get on here and maybe bring something to you. I haven't really done anything all that light-hearted on here here since I started it. Yeah, there are some lame attempts at jokes, but nothing that really brings the funny. Thus, I am going to tap into my amazing power and try and entertain you for a while.

Borrowing from something that I have found to be a useful method of entertainment, I am going to just basically give you links to extremely funny stuff online. It makes it so much easier for me to give enjoyment. Mainly because that takes all the pressure off of me and puts it solely in some one else's hands. And I am all about passing along the blame and taking all the credit. I am sorry if some of the ads on the other sites or words that they have on the side aren't exactly G, but I can't control that. Just warning ya.

The first thing that I want to share is something that touches me deeply. I still have a lot of love for 80s music and the videos were by far some of the best ever. Of course, everyone makes mention how music videos aren't as important anymore, but when they did them in the 80s, they did them right! So, I offer to you first Take On Me , literal version. Yes, that means that they just sing what is going on. It is worth the time to watch, though I might have to say that Head over Heels is better.

I don't know how much you guys used to watch Johnny Carson on the tonight show, but you might still be aware that Ed McMahon is up on some hard times. And now seems to be peddling for FreeCreditReport.com. Seeing Ed rap is not something that I ever thought I would see.

Ok, I shouldn't really laugh at this, but something about kids portraying some one as angry as Bill O'Reily makes me laugh. So, here is part one of lil O'Reily. And here is part two where he interviews Barney Frank. I think that fact that its wrong makes it funny. Oh and on a side note, I watched the actual interview that O'Reily did with Frank and it wasn't all that different. I might agree with O'Reily on a lot of his points, just don't like his method of handling people who disagree.

Finally, I want to share with you the awesomeness that was Palin on SNL this weekend. If you didn't get a chance to watch it, I give it to you here. The first one is pretty good with her and Lorne Micheals talking, but the Weekend Update segement was amazing. It makes me smile and thats what I want to share with you.

That should give you a smile or two for the day and thats always good on a Monday.

Desire

I warned you that I had this in mind and now you get to read all the things that are swirling around in this brain of mine as I have been reading this book by John Eldridge. I have mentioned some of them and I might go into more detail later about them as well, but there are a couple really that are making me want to talk.

One of the more interesting things that I read was the idea of grief. How often do we set aside our feelings of hurt or aching in order to "get on with life". Instead of allowing God to step in and heal us where we are aching, we hold it in and it affects our lives from that moment forward. Eldridge talks about a time in his life when a very close friend died. He was out with his family on a vacation a couple months later and was walking alone in the woods. He just started crying about his friends death, but that wasn't all. It was the catalyst for his tears, but it also brought out all these other past pains that had been hidden by life.

My wife was telling me that this rings true for her as well. Early in our dating life, I knew that I had to be open and honest about my past. That no matter how she reacted, at least she would know everything and could decide then for herself if it was too much to get past, which was her right. Well, after I told her we prayed and talked a bit longer, but then she went home. I didn't know this until later, but she cried about what both of us had lost. She fought against the urge to just say to herself "that its ok", but instead allowed herself to grieve. She told me later that because she took the time to allow herself to feel that sorrow, she could let it go and not let it hinder our relationship. I am thankful that she took that time so that we could enjoy the freedom the we have now.

The other main point that I wanted to discuss is the idea of beauty. In the book, Eldridge talks about counseling a rape victim and how he was struggling to find some way in order to connect or something to tell her. During the session, he kept getting drawn toward the flowers on her shirt collar, something that normally would mean nothing to him. So, he said a few things and then sort of off-handily, mentioned the flowers. She seemed to change and talked about how since the incident, spending time in her garden around her flowers has been the one of the only places she found comfort. It was then that it hit him, that being surrounded by beauty was healing.

I started thinking of how this has been true in my life. When I was living with my parents, I used to step out on our back deck and just stare at the stars. On a clear night, they filled the night sky from as far as you could see. It was breathtaking. I would stand there thinking about how something so beautiful spoke volumes about how much God loves us. All of creation is an example of God's beauty. The best part is that we are only seeing the beauty of a fallen world, and that one day it will burst open and show us exactly what God had created it to be, just like we will be made in the way that God created us to be. But, back to the idea of beauty being healing, think of a wedding. I am heading to a wedding this weekend. Inevitably, one of the most common things that you will hear is about how beautiful the bride looked or something to that nature. The whole wedding is centered around her beauty. It is so important that we all stop doing anything else and pause to watch her beauty enter the room. Think of that for a moment. I can't remember a time when I went to a wedding and when the bride entered, there wasn't a smile on every one's face.

The bearers of beauty in this world are women, who were made as a reflection of the beauty that God has. That is part of their being made in God's image. Thus, the enemy attacks them in that area to make them ashamed or feel unworthy of the adoration and the word "beautiful". If the enemy takes away that aspect of her nature, he hurts the whole race. I am thankful for the ability to remind my wife of how utterly beautiful she is. In fact, I am mesmerized by it at times. I find comfort in her beauty, I find rest in her arms, that is what I am talking about in healing. Its why for the most part, children will run to their mother when seeking comfort. There is something healing about being near a woman.

I have no idea if any of that rings true with you or not, but I know that God has been talking to me about this stuff.

Faith and other thoughts

Last night was our little bible study. It was good. The discussion was actually pretty good. Its not easy to get a group of people to talk about God and what that message meant to them. Last night, though, a couple people spoke up and let it fly. Also, though, I think that the subject was something that was sort of enlightening. It was the second sermon by Andy Stanley in the "Faith, Hope, and Luck" series. In it, he questions what we think faith is and offers this definition:

"Faith is confidence that God is who He says He is and that He will do everything that He has promised to do."

Thats it. The main question that I posed and still rattle around in my brain is how does that change your preconceived ideas? Faith becomes something very simple when you think of it in this light. Its not a force or power that you can wield. Its hope taken one step further, with God's promise guaranteeing it. But this also means, that unless God has promised it, then we can't expect it. We can hope for it, we can pray for it, but its up to God to determine if it will happen. That almost sounds defeatist, but not when you realize that no matter what happens in our situations or in our life, He is still God. He can do anything, He might want to do what we ask, but He also might have another plan that we don't know about. But, our faith rests not on our understanding, but on God's ability to do what He says He will do.

I don't want to muddle that too much, but of course I have other things going on in my head. No, its not about Desire, but there might be a post where I devote some time to talking about that later this week. Instead, I am thinking about music. I love music. I enjoy singing it (in my car, away from others) and I enjoy just listening to it, which I am doing right now. It is such a wonderful thing to enjoy. I thought about this when on Sunday my wife was going to sing a special at my parents church. Well, we had just placed her CD in a case for Weezer. That isn't exactly the most "christian" case to have in church. But, they have some great music. I thought it was sort of funny, but then I thought about how many times we receive something from God in such unintended places. Maybe the artist or the writer or director or whatever didn't mean to reference God, but we see His work or His message displayed. I am thankful for those times and I am sure that pastors are as well, so they have something "cultural relavant" to share at church. I think that more than anything, that it just goes to show that all of creation speaks of God's work. I think that I will have that Desire post later this week and go into this more.

But, for today, thats all I got in me. Take luck!

Wednesday night goodness and a little off topic

We had our second meeting on Wednesday night dealing with freedom and what that can mean to us as Christians. It was another good session. Steven Johnson was talking about some very interesting things. Stuff that I hadn't really thought about but definitely hit home. One of the things that he said was that its the meaning that we give to events in our past that affect our beliefs. If you perceived that you were hurt by a situation, you were hurt. I know that I have struggled with this. I might look back at a hurt in the past and think that it shouldn't be that painful, but still have aches from it. Those are the areas that I need to ask for God to remove that pain. And thats the key, that we have to ask. It is a choice that we have to make about what we want God to do. God wants to help us, but he also loves us so much that he won't force Himself on us. The example of this that Johnson gives is John 5:1-14. It is the story of the man at the Pool of Bethesda. The first thing that Jesus says to the man is "Do you want to get well?" That is the choice that we are given. We get so comfortable with our pain, that changing things, which would be required can be quite scary. Its not that we enjoy being hurt, but that we don't know anything else. I am continuing to look at those areas in my life that I know that I have pains. They aren't fun to visit, but I also know that God's freedom is better than coping with these pains.

One of the other things that Johnson was talking about is that there are 3 areas that are sources of burdens that we carry around. They are anger, disappointment, and grief. I know that there is some anger and grief in my past that I have to deal with, but I know that the disappointment that I keep in my life is far greater. I have many things that I have done in the past that I think that shouldn't have or that I feel like I have let some one down. These are the areas that I don't want to really get into, but I need to. Its not going to be fun, but it will be fruitful to be the man that I need to be.

I want to mention Desire again. One of the things that Eldridge talks about is that we are made for something . He even goes to the extent to say that whatever you get excited about (writing, singing, etc) is what you were made for. I don't know if I completely believe this, but I do know that your desire is where you heart is. My problem is that I don't have an occupation or a talent that gets me excited. Was I made for nothing? I know thats not true, but I wonder about this idea.

Ok, now to step off topic. If you don't want to read this, thats fine, but I am going to talk about politics. I love watching and following politics. I think thats important for people to do that so that they know what their government is doing. I was led to this article about looking at voting as a Christian and how we can base our votes. I think its worth a look as well.

That being said, I will now launch into my personal beliefs. You can ignore them if you want, but these are the things that I think. In that article, one of the things that you are asked to look at is the character of the candidates and thats what I think people should be looking at in regards to our presidential candidates. I might not agree fully with everything that McCain stands for. However, I don't think that anyone can claim that he is not a man of character. While this might end up with people doing searches and trying to put up their ideas in comments, I will say that I can't be sure of Obama's character. There are so many questions about his past. And it would seem that for the most part people don't care. Is it because no one cares about judgement and character anymore? I won't say that if you vote for Obama that you aren't a Christian, because I don't know your reasons. You know one of my reasons for choosing to vote for McCain, but I have others that won't really fit in this blog. I write about this because I think that part of our life as Christians is that we have to be people above reproach. In other words, people of great character. I just offer that, as a Christian, that your idea of who has greater character should be a consideration.

Alright, enough of that talk. I appreciate you letting me stray away for a few. I might not be back this week due to a short day for me tomorrow. I am heading to my parents and enjoying a couple days with the family and will be back on Monday.

PS If you came here due to a search and are about to blast me about Obama vs McCain, please don't. Its not necessary. You can think the way you want and I will think the way I want. At the end of the day, we are still Americans and politics are just politics.

New Week

Last week I mentioned something about how I often feel like there is no one to talk to between services. I wanted to say that it was something completely different this week. It was like God was listening to my typing and decided to speak right in that area. I ended up having a good conversation with new friends and the pastor about our Alma mater, Campbellsville University. I love talking about things that I did back then or just talking about how much I loved the experiences that I had there. It is a great place and if any prospective college students are looking for a good Christian college, you can't do better than ole CU. Yeah, thats shameless homerism, but I am thankful for all that I got out of my time at CU and am thankful that I can point anyone in their direction. Thats beside the point though. My point is that I sat in thought about how I could have easily had another Sunday where I felt sort of out of place, but that wasn't what God wanted me to experience. I also think that it was me being faithful and going up to others to talk. There were two times Sunday morning that I felt an urging to talk to others, this was the second time. The first was just to invite a couple to our bible study on Mondays. I don't know if they will come or not, but I wanted to make sure they felt welcomed. I think that is what I am learning, that making people welcomed to our church isn't some body else's job, its mine. Its actually everybody who claims to be a member of our church's job, but I feel it more so than others who have been there from the beginning, probably. Its not that they have a heart that is welcoming, but that they sometimes forget what it was like when you were new and I still have that fresh in my memory and still fall back on that sometimes. So, I am going to try something different. Instead of trying to find some one to talk to me, I am going to be the one to talk to them. A little bit out of my comfort zone, but thats alright.

Ok, I keep talking about the book, Desire, but thats because it has some good GOOD stuff in it. This weekend one of the things that I read was about how we often are more excited about a future event here on earth than we are about eternity. What do we really think Heaven will be like? Eldridge gives the example that many think that Heaven will be a really long church service. I am sorry, this may sound bad, but for the most part, I don't think that a church service is something that people get excited about. His point is that what we look forward to, is a picture of what we are desiring. We definitely should be thankful for the events that we get to have here, but our hearts should long for that connection with God that eternity offers. I know that I am mentioning this because its an area that I had to stop and think about and examine myself about. I do doubt that I am the only one when pressed would admit the same thoughts. This book is good about opening our eyes to what we really are desiring even when we say all the right things.

The message yesterday at our service was about letting the Holy Spirit rule in your life. Not rule, like reign, but rule as in an official. There are many times in our life when we have a decision to make and God calls for us to allow the Holy Spirit to discern which way we should go. And even if we choose wrong, that we take care of it right then, not to let anything linger. If we allow it just to stay there, then we allow our lives to get out of balance. That was my prayer last night and is my prayer today. The last thing that I wanted to mention from yesterday's service was a new song. It was written by our music minister's friend and wow. It was called "Whisper His Name", I guess and I was just blown away by the truth in the song. It repeats that line with an echo of "Jesus" for 3 times, then says, and He will answer you. Then "Call out His Name" with an echo of "Jesus" for 3 times followed by "and he will come to you". Then "Shout out His Name" with an echo of "Jesus" for 3 times followed by "and he will RUN to you" (emphasis mine). Let that sit on you, the fact that Jesus longs to run to you to help you. It just floored me. The other lines are good and maybe someday I will put it up here or you will hear it and God will bless you with it as well. Either way, just had to share that.

Its another week. Who knows what the week has in store, well God does. Makes sense that we would ask Him to lead us, huh? I think that is what I am going to do. Till next time!!!

Weekend's Coming

Its funny that I was thinking about just putting some fun and enjoyable things on here today. Thankfully, Stuff Christians Like gave me fuel to the fire that was going on in my head. I will say that the video at the end of that post made my day a few weeks ago. I hope that you have seen it many times. Actually, it doesn't matter how many times you have seen it, please go and watch it again. Its needed to kick off a good weekend. Have you watched it (again)? Good, now go and check this out. I have to say, when I saw the second video (and I won't spoil it if you are like me and read the rest of a post before checking out links), I was silenced by the awesomeness of God. Yeah, its time like these that I am reminded about how great God's sense of humor is. Thus, I get to talking about pretty much the same thing that SCL mentioned. We, our music minister and myself, shared that video at the end of SCL's post with our pastor and he met it with the laughter it requires. Our music minister then commented that he thinks that the Holy Spirit might inspire stuff like that so that we can laugh about it later. Of course, we aren't laughing at the message, but the cheesiness of the message. I don't know of any Christian who wouldn't think that "Jesus is my friend", but I don't know of many who would say that he is like a "mountie, He always gets his man". But, we could agree that his grace is irresistible.

Alright, I know that a bit of humor and fun is always good and thats what I am about today. I didn't really mention anything since Monday about our little group. We met and it was good. I was very thankful both for who all showed up and for their desire for the subject. It was a good discussion and just a fun time for all, I think. Then again, Andy Stanley is a pretty good speaker and pretty much can tackle any subject and make it interesting. The fun thing is that we are planning on having just a get-together time tomorrow. I am hopeful that pretty much everyone comes out and we get to build bonds with each other. Thats always an important part in getting comfortable to share and talk in a small study group. I think that it will be a good time.

On a more personal note. It was strange last Sunday. My wife and I started going to our church's small groups for women and men respectfully. Well, this past week, I met a guy who is new to our church and to the men's group. Being able to relate to being new, I introduced myself and told him a little about me and all that. I also invited him to our bible study and just generally tried to make sure he felt welcomed. Little to my knowledge, but my wife was doing pretty much the same thing to his wife. It was a very cool moment to talk about it later and realize that we were talking to the same couple, just separated. I don't know if we will become friends or not, but more than anything, I hope that they feel welcomed and part of church. I know how hard that is when you are new. It seems like everyone else is already part of some group of people that are friends and you are on the outside. Even though I have gone to my church for a couple years, many times I feel like that. I will be inside the sanctuary, after a service, and while looking around think that there isn't really anyone I know enough to talk to. But, I also think that is my fault as well, keeping myself from getting close to others and staying on the outside. The easiest place to hide, as a Christian, is in a bigger church. Unfortunately, I took advantage of that for a long time. Now, I am happy to be part of stuff and hopefully help others get involved. I am still working on that whole desire to be close with others thing, but thats good, thats a fruitful endeavor. We will see how that goes.

Sorry to get a little serious on such a whimsical post. Thats ok, its the weekend and time for us to enjoy a couple days off. Maybe God has something for you this weekend, whether it be in a message, or in a song, or just hanging out with some friends. I pray that you will keep yourself open to that and share it with some one who you trust. I will be back on Monday.

Freedom

Last night started a series on Wednesday nights for our church. Its the first time that they have offered an adult study on Wednesday nights, I think since the church started about 10 years ago. As a former member of a "normal" church, that sounds kinda strange, but I am not really getting into that sort of stuff right now. But, the overall topic of this study is about "Freedom". How, we as Christians, are called to walk in freedom and that the past mistakes and the areas of our life that we feel shame or some other "bad" emotion can be areas of peace because of the power of Jesus Christ. Sounds like a good idea, huh? I am eager for this series. I think that its something I personally need to hear and exam in myself. In fact, it caused me to stop last night and think. As I was walking our child starter kit, I prayed over what was said and what it means. I prayed that God would lead me to areas that I might have become numb in but never addressed the pain or shame that I felt in those moments. I wonder if this should be something to tackle alone, but I also know that I am not. My whole prayer was not that I would seek those past memories, but that God would seek out those situations and help me find the freedom that he offers in those thoughts.

Ok, thats how I have personally been dealing with this thought and this series, at least last night. The other thing that is in my mind is about what our speaker shared. He was speaking on Psalms 23. I don't know how many times, if you grow up in church, you hear these verses. How many of us, without really thinking about it, can pretty much recite Psalms 23 in KJV? I know that when he mentioned it, my mind started saying the verses. Our speaker spoke about the allegory of Jesus being the shepherd to us. The verses walk us through the way that a shepherd takes care of his sheep and he related that to how Jesus takes care of us. Its a beautiful illustration. I wish that I could recount it to you, but I am not that gifted. I will give a link to the page at Sermon Cloud that has our church's messages. You can listen to his teaching there and I would hope that you do.

Shifting gears a lot, I got a comment the other day due to the fact that I talked about tithing. I don't know why this person choose to leave it and I am hopeful that they actually read what I was talking about and not just doing searches on tithing and then spouting their message. I want to take the opportunity to hammer home this one point about giving and the such, its not about money. God wants our hearts, the parts of us that are most guarded. Unfortunately, we often rely on our own abilities to provide for ourselves. When we start thinking that we can provide for our needs, we might start thinking that we don't need God. That is not the case. God gives and takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord. Also, as an act of faith in acknowledging that God can and will meet my every need, I give to my church with a portion that I have pledged belongs to God. He has proven that He will and will always take care of me. He has done it in times of abundance and tight times. But more than anything, I don't approach money as the thing that can solve my problems. God is the solution to all my problems.

I don't know if that last paragraph makes any sense, but hopefully I will look back on it in a couple days or months and see what I was trying to say as well. See, I write this mainly for myself because I know that there are things that I am thinking right now that later I will come back and understand more. Thats one of the wonderful things about God, you are constantly understanding more, if you are open to it. Till next time.

Monday

I have nothing in regards to witty title lines, so you get the day of the week. Yeah, original, I know. I guess the reason is that my mind is on something else. One of the most unfun things to hear about on Sunday morning is about money and tithe. It will illicit groans and uncomfortable shifting in the audience. Some suggestions were made on Stuff Christians Like that I give you the chance to read now. They are good and I have suggested to my pastor that they might be useful.

Now, to get a bit more serious. I was actually talking to the pastor yesterday before the service. After my use of this blog topic to make a humorous suggestion, he turned it toward a more serious tilt. He said how people of my generation and the one after mine don't give tithing the place that it deserves. Then he told of a member at our church that had shared how their parents every week would sit in front of their children at the breakfast table and write out their tithe check. This instilled an importance to the act of giving and the place that giving back to God was supposed to be. I agreed how that would be a powerful witness to a child. I hope to have that sort of impact on my children as they see us be faithful to God.

I do admit that before a couple years ago, I was no where near a faithful tither. It wasn't something that I thought was necessary. It WAS an afterthought. However, as I have grown over the past couple years and have deepened my understanding of what tithing really means, I love giving. My wife and I have decided that it is more important to give that and trust God for the rest. It has led to us having more than enough for all our bills and all our desires,but also able to give more than we have before.

Back to what tithing is really about. Its about your heart, where you are placing your trust. This is why Jesus talked about money so much because he understood that. Trusting God with your money is tough, at least at first. I love what Andy Stanley said about it. He said how he knows its scary and you are worried, but just decide that a percentage will automatically be given in tithe, even if its not 10%. Just give God the option to prove how faithful He is. I love that idea of challenging God and this is the area that He offers us to challenge Him, Malachi 3:10.

The other thing that is in my heart right now is about the book that I am reading, John Eldridge's Desire. It was technically written before Wild at Heart, but was released after the success of that book due to it being overshadowed. I am finding it great. There is one section that I am thinking about right now, since I haven't finished it yet. He speaks of our desire to have a deep relationship with others, something beyond the normal casualities. I hunger for that. I have recently started going to the men's bible study at my church. My problem has been the trouble with ever having that real connection beyond saying "hello". I guess as men, we feel like we must protect ourselves in some manner. However, it makes it hard for new people to get in and feel like they are part of the group. I realize that by allowing myself to remain an outsider, I am not helping, but rather I have to allow myself to be the vulnerable one and offer the connection that I seek to others. Wow, that sounded almost smart. Oh well, just was connected to what the author was talking about.

I think that I went on for a little longer than I had planned, but hopefully it was good. Laters!

No need to Panic, I am right here

I realize that a day without posting might have signaled that I have reverted to my old ways and that no one would hear from me again until next year sometime. However, I have returned much quicker. In fact, some might not have noticed that I went anywhere. And when I say "some", I mean the only person reading this. And by "only person reading this", I mean no one. Yeah, I am writing this for me. But that really is ok since I sort of wanted to do this and that means that if no one else reads it, I am still expressing my thoughts. Alright, thats enough talking.

I come today with a sort of rant. I know that this is going to sound a lot like complaining and thats because it is. I work for a state agency and for the most part our job isn't very difficult. There is one time of the year when it can get a little crazy, but the rest of the year is pretty lax. I am thankful for this as it allowed me to accomplish a lot for my wedding that my wife was unable to do and has allowed me the time to research and read things online that I might not have been able to without. The problem with having a laid back agency and office is the fact that sometimes people abuse that ease, which is what I am ranting about. I may not have a whole lot to do on a daily basis, but I feel obligated to be there. I might not accomplish a whole lot, but if I am needed, I am there. Unfortunately, my fellow co-workers seem to take advantage of that. There isn't really ever a thought that I won't be at work and thus its not uncommon for the 2 other people in my office to both call in. They know that I will be there to a) take their call and b) cover the office. While its good to be depended upon, its annoying to be used.

I guess this gets me to thinking about how many times we abuse the love of God. We don't call upon him all the time, but know that he is there every time. We see it (His love) every day in our lives and may not think all that much about it. Then when we need it, we call upon Him to answer our needs. We don't think about His desire, only our own. Stanley talks about this, sort of, during the "Faith, Hope, and Luck" series that I have been studying. He says something to the effect of how insulting to God the way we treat Him. While I know that God loves us and wants us to have that close relationship with Him and holds no condemnation for those who are His children, i still have to stop and think about how horribly we abuse the one who gives us life.

Its not a perfect illustration and with a little work I probably could make it better, but thats where my mind is right now. So, as I sit at the office alone again, I praise God for His love that surrounds me every day.

Study and the such

2 days of me being on here, some one must be riding an emotional high of others possibly checking out my thoughts. Yeah, I am willing to talk about myself in that manner. I am also on here because I actually have something that I am thinking about. One of the things that I mentioned that I wanted to talk about on here is the study that I am doing and what I am learning from it.

I got a Driscoll book recently entitled "New Testament: A Book that you will actually Read". It is really short and doesn't really give a whole lot of in depth analysis but there was one part that I found very interesting. At the end of the book, Driscoll talks about building your own Theological Library. He gives his suggestions for books and the such that he has found helpful and informative. I like the insight that this gives me and I might try and check out a couple of these books at some point as well. But the real sort of mind-blowing portion is that Driscoll says that he urges people to spend an average of 6 months when studying a book of the bible. If you work it out, that would mean if you averaged 6 months (some longer some shorter) to study a book, it would take you 33 years to get throught the whole bible. That is dedication. So, I am going to start with a short book and devote a couple months or until I think that I have wringed all I can out of it at this point in my life. That is how I feel God is leading me to study right now. That might change later, but I think its a decent idea.

On to other things, I am currently getting ready to say good-bye to another baseball season. Yes, the post-season will start in October, but for my team, we only have 6 games. It has been a year of greater than expectations, even by us fans, but still a little tough to take it that the Cubs won the division for 2 straight years. I know that as one who is supposed to live in the love of Christ that I shouldn't hate anything really, but I really think that God hates the Cubs as well. I say that with all the humor and sarcasm that I can muster with written words. Oh well, here's to hoping that the Cubs continue to do their normal post-season flop and I get to watch it. Is it so wrong to enjoy the defeat of your rival team? I think not.

The new television season has kicked off. I have a lot of shows that are normal watches for me. One of them started back up last week, Smallville. I loved the show for about 5 years. I have to say that the last couple years have seemed so much weaker than before. I still watch, but more out of loyalty than desire. I am sure that I could make some illusion to our Christian walk and someday I will break that off without even thinking, but today its not coming to me. Mainly I am just wanting it to end, Smallville not my walk.

I think that rambling about Smallville and baseball pretty much signal the end to another blog. Let's see what comes out next time.

Restarting, Sort of

I have to admit that I forgot that I had started this blog. Over the last couple months I have been thinking of starting another blog and when I logged into Blogger, I realized that I had this one. Why start something when you have a perfectly good place already? I can't think of a good reason and thus will just start trying to get motivated to post on here.

I come here on a very important occasion. Its my 1 year anniversary for my marriage. I know that a year isn't a long time, but its noteworthy in the life of a new marriage. Its hard to believe that a year has passed since I stood on stage at church and got married. It has been a wonderful year. Of course, this gives cause for me to look back and make generalizations that later in life I will think are completely crazy or that I have no clue about life. Either way, here goes some thoughts on this past year.

First, I am thankful for my wife who is amazing. She puts up with my silly and often random rants. There are many times that I will get stuck on a topic and just keep going no matter if no one else is laughing because I think its funny. She just sits there and smiles and waits until I am done. Its actually gotten worse because we have the child starter kit, a dog. This gives me another source that I can talk in a different voice and claim its him saying these things to her. Yeah, I do that. But, I acknowledge that her love for me is truly immense to put up with this almost constant annoyance. Its either that she loves me so much or that she loves God so much and has decided that there is some reason He put her with me. Either way I am happy.

The next major thing that I have noticed is my complete amazement at our family and friends. They are great. I know that my personal relationship with my wife is awesome and that has a lot to do with God. But I also know that its because we don't have strife dealing with family or friends. They have done nothing but be supportive to our marriage. Last year before we got married, I got calls and emails from her family members wishing me a Happy Birthday. Its not a big thing, but they made sure to make me feel welcomed.

I am sure that God has many things to teach me about marriage and that I have many more years to look back and see where He has led me to. But today is definitely a great day and I am thankful for every nuance of awesomness that God has given to my marriage.

Before I go and leave for months (not really), I wanted to tell some of the things that God has been doing personally with me. I am a big fan of Andy Stanley's teaching. I usually check out his stuff online when they put the new messages up. The current series about "5 Things God Uses to Grow Your Faith" is really good. Its not a "how-to" list, but rather things that happen to us that when we look back we see how God used them. The last message, Personal Ministry, just floored me. I recommend it. But, the other thing is that my wife and I are leading a bible study based on one of Stanley's message series this fall at our church entitled "Faith, Hope, and Luck". Its about faith, in case you didn't realize that. We had our first meeting but really didn't get into the study. I am so excited about this topic because it means to much to me that I long for others to hear these words. I just don't want to become discouraged due to small numbers. But I guess all small group leaders deal with that to some extent.

I guess that gets me back to posting something. Hopefully that won't be an unlikely event anymore. I also hope to share more about what I am studying. We will see.