the unexamined life is not worth living...

The Call

2011-10-01T12:05:00.000-07:00

---Part three of a three part series on the state of the Church in America---

Change starts with you. It doesn’t matter how large or howsmall your sphere of influence is, what matters is that you, in your heart andactions, become the person who will let go of the security of loving yourselfand embrace the greater blessings God has in store for you.

We don’t need another fad diet. We don’t need another12-step program. We simply need Christians and churches to understand the needand answer the call. The window is closing rapidly on the time that the Americanchurch still has the people, resources and the voice that is has now to speakinto our culture. God does not need these things to shine His love, but my hopeand prayer is that we will be good stewards of them while we have them insteadof looking back years from now wondering ‘what if?’ Let’s not hit rock bottombefore we learn from our mistakes and start rebuilding the church. Let’s startrebuilding the church now. For many this is going to require a paradigm shiftof how they ‘view’ and ‘do’ church. But let’s not let the fear of change or theunknown keep us from becoming who Christ asked us to be. Looking at theAmerican church the task may seem large, but you are only responsible for you.Let’s not focus on fixing the whole system; let’s focus on fixing you, yourchurch, your family. If you would like some help on what steps to take next,please feel free to contact me. I am a part of a ministry that is built for the purpose ofconnecting with pastors, church leaders and longing Christians and equippingthem to fulfill Christ’s mandate for their lives: making disciples by lovingGod, and loving others. If you are a person or an organization that wouldbenefit from the church’s love please contact me and I would love to try andconnect you with someone or some church that takes serious God’s call to loveour neighbors as ourselves.

The Answer

2011-07-10T14:18:00.005-07:00

---Part two of a three part series on the state of the Church in America---

We are an ugly people reflecting our pride, greed and selfishness to the world. Our greatest goal should be to find the truth, beauty and goodness of God and shine that as bright as we can so people no longer see us but see through us to a loving God.

It may sound elementary, but what is the answer anytime you discover you’re doing something wrong? You stop, go back, fix the mistake and start doing things right. The mandate of the church is clear. In Matthew 28 as Jesus is leaving the earth He gives the church her marching orders “Go, therefore and make disciples of all nations…” But don’t check out because He tells us how to accomplish this task, by “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” So we ask, “what has God commanded?” In Matthew 23 Jesus says all His commandments are summed up by two laws: Love God, Love Others. This is the purpose of the church… To create disciples by loving God and loving others. But here is the problem; the church stopped a long time ago allowing God and others to tell us what loving them looks like. We’ve told God “I will love you by building big buildings, by making sure we keep the sinners at bay, by making sure the next generation sings the same songs I do...” We’ve told the world “I will love you by treating you well only as long as you are interested in converting, by makings sure you look exactly like me, by giving you the leftovers after we have spent, ate and indulged to our fill…” and the lists cold go on. If it is true that the whole purpose of the church is to love God and love others, it’s time we stopped and listened again to God, to the hurting, to the needy, to the world and figure out what loving them really looks like.

The Problem

2011-07-05T18:22:00.004-07:00

---Part one of a three part series on the state of the Church in America---

For some it will take a moment of honesty, for others it will be merely calling out the elephant in the room, but the time has come to admit that the Church in America doesn’t look, act or live they way it should.

It’s time the church stopped and asked itself, ‘why do we exist?’ For the last several decades Christians have been so infatuated with keeping themselves clean from the ‘tainted’ world, arguing the finer points of high theology, and building programs that keep the masses coming that they’ve slowly drifted away from being the people that Christ called them to be. The result: when we look at the church instead of seeing and being drawn to a loving God we see a corrupt, political, broken social club. In Luke 6:43-45 Jesus tells us that all people will be known by their fruit. In John 15 he tells us that when Christians abide in Him they will bear His fruit, and in Ephesians 5:22 we are told what that fruit is: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self control. So we must ask ourselves, ‘when the world looks at the church is this what they see?’ The answer is a resounding NO. The studies, statistics and books abound in support of the fact that Christians are missing the mark. If you are a Christian I would urge you to go, read and study (I recommend David Kinnaman’s book UnChristian if you are looking for a place to start) and you will see the glaring problem: The church in America is doing something wrong.

Character Matters

2011-06-08T19:50:00.002-07:00

We live in a society that tells us “the end justifies the means.” American culture cries out “who you are on the inside doesn’t matter… you are merely what you produce.” We see the effects of this worldview veining itself throughout our land. From the white halls of capital hill to the green pitch of our sports arenas we find people vacating the hard work of character for the quick fix of easy results. This, however, is not a sustainable ethos and everywhere you look you can see its cracks making their way through our foundation and threatening to bring down the house. I would claim that many of the major crisis we are currently facing as a nation: the looming double dip recession, threats of government shutdowns, the housing market crash, our unbalanced budget can all be traced back to issues dealing with character. What we have failed to realize is that in the same way the personality of an artist is reflected in their work so our character is reflected in even our smallest actions. Character demands that you cannot separate the end and the means, for they are merely two sides of one coin.

Right action involves living with a split focus, half of your sight toward the future making sure you are headed toward the right goal and the other half of your sight watching every step making sure that you are acting in good character. I would claim that is it dangerous to lose focus on either and put 100% in one place. Focus only on character and you lose sight on where you are going falling into self-involvement and a loss of vision. If you are a theist this is a travesty because we have most assuredly been given a vision and that vision is not merely moralsim. Conversely, focus only on the end and when you arrive you will find that you are no longer the same person, for it is the journey that makes the man not the destination. With the end only in sight you might well lose your soul along the way, and this is right where we find our world today. Putting our materialistic and hedonistic ends aside (a different discussion for a different day) we need to get character back into our means. Character matters!

Is God Good?

2011-02-23T21:29:00.004-07:00

So it's been a little while since my last blog.... sorry.

I've been re-reading the book "The Shack" by William P. Young. I'm not really sure why I picked it up again... but it is a good read and I'll post a review once I'm done (a new section I'm going to start called 'Cliff Notes'). However one of the main questions of the book is "Is God good?" It's a question I've struggled with before (probably one we all have at one time or another). A little while back I sat down to work out my thoughts on God's goodness. What follows is my thoughts on this subject. It gets a little bit 'heady' and again I'm not the best with grammar and all that jazz... but I'd love to know what you think on the subject.

“God is good all the time, all the time God is good!” I was introduced to this phrase when I volunteered to be a greeter for my church. As I welcomed people to church I found many of them saying “God is good all the time” to me and waiting expectantly for my response of “all the time God is good.” These lyrics from the song written by Don Moen have echoed throughout the Christian community for years. Many churches start each Sunday with this cadenced greeting. But what does it mean? When we say God is good, what are we really saying? Psalm 34:8 says, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.” However there is an ever-growing opinion in the world that God might not be all that good. If God is so good why does He let things like the earthquake in Haiti happen? If God is good then why is there pain and suffering? These and many questions like them have given rise to the question of God’s goodness. So, is God good? I attest that He is. But to fully understand what this means we need to understand what goodness really means and then how this goodness applies to God. When we see goodness for what it is and when we see God for who He is (or at least as clearly as we can see Him) we will in fact see that God is good.

In talking about the goodness of God it might be helpful to begin with what “God is good” does not mean. The problem for many lies in their definition of good. When most people say something is good they are in fact saying little about the object and are saying more about themselves. When I say, “this pizza is good” or “that was a good movie” I am often saying nothing about the nature of the movie or the pizza but only talking about my feelings toward them. Thus, by saying something is good I am merely saying I like it, or I have pleasant feelings toward it. The problem with using ‘good’ this way is that it becomes a total subjective word that is based on the individual. To understand “God is good” in this light would mean that all people must at all times ‘like’ or have ‘pleasant feelings’ toward Him. However it is clear that this is not true. We can find in the Bible many examples where people do not ‘like’ God. Revelation talks about years where people will continually curse God (Rev 16:9; 16:11; 16:21). But just because people do not like God does not mean he stops being good. If God is going to be good all the time the definition of good must be an objective and not a subjective one. I believe that one of the goals of Satan has been to subjectify all the attributes of God so man no longer knows what God is like but instead worships himself and his own emotions. We have certainly seen this happen with God’s goodness. Thus when there is an earthquake in Haiti people’s emotions are not happy and instead of glorifying God through the tragedy they glorify their own feelings and question God’s goodness.

The answer? We need to stop using the word ‘good’ in a subjective way. We already have the word “like” in our language and so it adds nothing to use ‘good’ in the same way. Instead we need to understand the definition of good and use it in its proper context. And what is the definition of good? Luke 18:19 says, “No one is good but God alone” (Luke 18:19). If this is true, the only way we can answer this question is to turn to the Bible and look at God. In doing this we quickly find out that goodness is not based on what people feel about God but who He is. Psalms 119:68 says of God, “You are good and do good.” The definition of good is based on God and God alone. He is the standard of good. Thus, to say that something is good means it lines up with who God is and what He has done. This makes it nonsensical to say that God is not good, for He is the definition of good. So to better understand what goodness is we need to understand who God is and what He has done.

So first to understand goodness we need to understand who God is. This, however, is no easy task. God is larger and greater than our minds can comprehend, but this doesn’t mean He is totally unknowable. Jesus said it this way “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” ^[1] We can only see things about God that He chooses to reveal to us. However, what God does reveal is defined as good. In this way goodness seems to be the value God has placed on the rest of His attributes. God’s attributes, like goodness, are not things that define God but are things that God defines. His attributes include His immutability (Ps 102:27), His eternity (Ps 90:2), His omnipresence (Ps 139:7-10), omnipotence, holiness, justice, mercy, love and the list could go on. Through this we understand that these things define goodness. Something is good in so much as it reflects the attributes of God. Thus we can say that a government is good or bad based on how well it reflects God’s attributes of justice, mercy, love, etc. No longer is good based on how I feel about an object but it is based on something real, something concrete (namely God’s attributes).

Secondly, goodness is defined as what God has done. James 1:17 says “every good and perfect gifts is from above coming down from the Father of lights.” When God acts His attributes, including His goodness, are displayed in the results. Creation is called good (Gen 1:31) because it was God’s action. Romans 1:20 says. “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.” Not only in creation but “the goodness of God is seen in the variety of natural pleasures which He has provided for His creatures.”[2] In Psalm 84:11 it says, “No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.” The second sense of goodness is reflected in what God has done and what He continues to do. Something is good in so much as it reflects that actions of God.

Putting these two definitions together we start to see a better picture of what it means to be good. God is good and all that He does is good. Some have tried to work these two into a definition and I think it helpful to look at what they have said. Wayne Grudem in his book Systematic Theology defines it this way: “The goodness of God means that God is the final standard of good, and that all that God is and does is worthy of approval”[3] A.W. Towzer talks about it this way:

The goodness of God is that which disposes Him to be kind, cordial, benevolent, and full of good will toward men. He is tenderhearted and of quick sympathy, and His unfailing attitude toward all moral beings is open, frank, and friendly. By His nature He is inclined to bestow blessedness and He takes holy pleasure in the happiness of His people.[4]

However, I want to remind us that all these words in these definitions are defined by God. Kind, cordial, sympathy, blessing all should come back to the standard of who God is and how He acts. We need to get away from judging God on our standard and remember that we are judged on His. I hope we now have a better understanding of what goodness is and have a better grasp of what it means to say, “God is good.”

But we don’t want to stop there. Once we see God for who He is we then can rightly see ourselves for who we are. If God is good, then we see ourselves as not good or as bad. The only goodness that we have in our lives is the goodness that God put there. And the only goodness that God has put there is what reflects His attributes and actions to the world. Thus for us to be good we need to better reflect the goodness of God in us to the world. We need to let God’s attributes and actions shine through our lives. This is why God has commanded us to love like He loved, to walk like He walked, and to live like He lived. We are reflecting His goodness to the world. On the reverse side we need to realize that when things are bad in the world this does not reflect back on God but it instead reflects on man and his sin. Man was the one who brought sin into the world when we desired to become our own gods. We wanted charge of our own life and in this we brought badness into the world. The result is that creation is under a curse and man is now a slave to his sin nature. Just like God’s attributes reflect goodness man’s sin nature reflects badness. So when we see bad things happen in the world it is only things that are not reflecting who God is and what He has done. It is the part of the world that man has brought in, it is our own nature reflecting back at us.

This brings us to what I think is the ultimate show of God’s goodness: there is still goodness in the world; He did not take it all away when we sinned. The fact that we can see bad means that there is good to compare it to. If the whole world were dark we wouldn’t know what light is. The only way we can discern dark is when contrasting it to light. In the same way the only way we know what badness is, is when we compare it to goodness. In the ultimate act of grace God didn’t take His goodness out of the world when man walked away. By all rights we should have no idea what good is. If we got exactly what we deserved when we pulled ourselves away from God He would have let us completely leave, which would have meant death. However God allowed us to leave and take His goodness with us. We told God that we wanted to be God and yet to do that we had to borrow all the good things He gave us (creation, intellect, life, etc...). And in His love, God allowed us to do this. He allowed us to use His goodness to curse His goodness. Why did He do this? It is a dangerous question to ask why of God, but if for nothing else it was because He loved us. But leaving all of God’s reasons to Himself the fact remains that He allowed us to do it.

So this is where we find ourselves today, using God’s goodness to question and curse God’s goodness. And I think that this has great practical implications for our lives. We need to understand God’s goodness in us and use it to reflect back glory to Him instead of using it to steal glory for ourselves. Our ability to reason, the pleasures of life, our health, life itself are all a part of the goodness of God. But we are living in the “me” society. We have convinced ourselves that I belong to no one but me. I worked hard for my money and it’s mine. Personal property. MySpace. We are perpetuating the sin of Adam and Eve and claiming God’s goodness as our own. The attribute of the goodness of God demands that we see ourselves for who we really are. I am a sinner and all that is good within me is God’s. Not only that but God has told us what to do with the good that He has put in us, we are supposed to let it shine, not for our glory but for God’s. God wants to see Himself reflected in His creation; it is how He brings glory to Himself.

We live in a time where many question the goodness of God. People are looking around the world and see pain and suffering. The conclusions that people come to are: there is no God, or if there is a God He is not all powerful, or if He is all powerful then He must not be good. However as we have seen none of these are true. There is a God, He is all powerful and He is most assuredly good. The problem arises when we have a misunderstanding of the term good. In fact what most people are saying is: there is a God, He is all powerful, but He is not likable. And that might be true for their life. But to them God is not likable not because He is not good, but because He is good and He wants that goodness to shine through them. In their sin they don’t want to give up themselves. They want the world and life to be about them and their desires. What they fail to realize is that even their desire to be praised is a gift from God, it is God allowing them to steal a little bit of His goodness to glorify themselves. If the world were to rightly understand that fact that “God is good” it would bow down in submission to Him and praise Him for the goodness He gives. And someday this is exactly what will happen: “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.^[5]

^[1]The Holy Bible : English Standard Version., Lk 10:22 (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001).

[2] Arthur W. Pink, The Attributes of God (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1975), 58.

[3] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 197.

[4] A.W. Towzer, Knowledge of the Holy (New York: Harper Collins, 1961).

^[5]The Holy Bible : English Standard Version., Php 2:9-11 (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001).

Best Week Ever- 1/15

2011-01-15T20:45:00.009-07:00

Just for fun I thought I'd post my highlights (and maybe a few lowlights) each week.

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My New Schedule...

What my life looked like a couple months ago:

What my life looks like this month:

Yay for first retirement!!!

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Video of the Week

Thanks McNeeleys for the recommendation!!!

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Jon Stewart

I'm a big believer that if you can't laugh at yourself and your faults then you are sitting too high on your horse... Jon's great at taking those who are too high and knocking them off... a beautiful gift.

One of the funniest segments I've seen in a while... California outlaws the Happy Meal

(the segment starts 9:30 into the show...) Check it out, I promise you'll laugh.
Jan 3rd. Show - Happy Meal Outlawed

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Quote of the Week

"Like mom always said: If you can't say anything nice about someone say the bad stuff really fast"

- Mary, In Plain Sight

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Trupidity

Want to waste some time?
Check out this website...

Link:

Trupitidy

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Worst Thing of the Week:

Getting Hacked :(

Sorry if you got junk mail from me this week... I think I've fixed it now

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Hope you had a wonderful week...
"They might say "Wow! That sucks" but at least they are gonna say 'wow'" - Duff

Blessings

I Guess I'm A Runner...

2011-01-13T12:55:00.002-07:00

They call it Stockholm Syndrome. It’s named after a bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden. The bank employees, that had been held hostage for six days, became emotionally attached to their captures even to the point of defending them after the ordeal was over. They say that similar events happen in abusive relationships and cults. Our mind, in an effort to cope with something horrible, actually aligns itself with what is apposing it and in result we end up emotionally attached to that which is hurting us.

I’ve always viewed people who say they enjoy running as going through some sort of Stockholm Syndrome. At some point in all our lives we have been forced to run. Whether it was a part of a sports team or in gym class we’ve all had to run. For 99% of us we have the natural response to those horrible experiences… we think they sucked. But for that other 1% their mind doesn’t know how to cope with the horror and in an effort to deal with the pain they convince themselves that what they just experienced was fun.

Maybe I’m going though a psychotic break, but I have a confession to make: I’m starting to like running. Two years ago I made this crazy plan to participate the 2-mile fun run in the Whisky Row Marathon. At the end I thought it would be good to challenge myself for the next couple years and make the annual step from 2-mile to the 10K to the half marathon to the full marathon. Well last year was my 10k year and not being one to bow out of challenges I did the 10k. But honestly I didn’t really do the 10k. I started training about two weeks before the event and walked 90% of the race, only running on the downhill parts. However, this year with the half marathon looming 5 months away I knew I couldn’t put in the same half-hearted effort and hope to finish.

With this in mind about a month and a half ago I started training for the half marathon. Walking only at first and then slowly adding some jogging I was determined to put in my time. However a couple of weeks ago something strange happened. At the end of my run I felt good. At first I denied it to myself… “I’m normal” I told myself “I can’tenjoy this.” But now here I stand declaring to the world… I guess I’m a runner, because I enjoy running. Maybe I’ll be recanting all this in a week, or maybe down the road a counselor will help me recover from this horrible bout of Stockholm Syndrome. But for now I’m putting in about 20 miles a week and finding myself looking forward to my run days and tempted each time out to go further.

Crazy huh?!?!

Stepping On The Scale Sunday Morning… (a reposting of my old blogs I wrote as a pastor)

2011-01-13T12:50:00.001-07:00

I lost two pounds this week. I stepped on the scale this morning and it flashed back those wonderful numbers that reflected a lower weight. However I’d be foolish to think that I lost the weight when I stepped on the scale. The scale only reflects my choices and actions throughout the week. I’m training for the Whisky Row 10K which means I’m running a couple of miles a day and eating a lot healthier than I was a couple of months ago. It’s in these actions that the weight comes off; the scale is only a mirror of my lifestyle.

In very much the same way I think that Sunday morning worship is the scale that reflects back at you the choices you’ve already made about worshiping God. The New Testament seems to be clear in declaring that worship is not about an action but an attitude or life style. Worship wars are not something new to our generation and even Jesus Himself couldn’t avoid the debate. In John 4 Jesus is talking with the Samaritan woman at the well about styles of worship. I think it’s interesting that instead of facing the conviction of sin in her life, she changes the conversation to worship style (but that’s a discussion for another blog). However, the crux of Jesus’ response is that worship for a Christian is going to be done in the spirit and in truth. This was an idea that rocked the current worldview. Jesus was throwing out centuries of tradition and said the new definition of worship was going to be about a life lived in truth. Paul picks this truth up and summarizes it this way: “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

So is this how we look at worship today? Sadly, the answer most of the time is ‘no.’ For the most part when we talk about worship we are thinking about the music portion of our church services. Why is this? Is it because we have a “worship pastor” whose job is to take care of Sunday morning singing? Is it because we have “worship CDs” that includes the songs we sing during our “worship services?” I don’t think these hold the answer. I think the answer lies closer to the example I used of the scale. When talking about weight we look to the scale. Why? Because the scale is the device that reflects back to us the actions of our lives. Just like a love poem reflects the reality of our heart, our “worship time” in church reflects the reality of worship in our life.

So take a minute with me and take a look at your scale Sunday morning. What is your “worship time” telling you about the rest of your life? I’d like to propose to you that if you find yourself apathetic and disengaged on Sunday morning the scale is reflecting back at you a truth that is deeper than ‘not connecting to the music style.’ Could it be this apathy and disconnect is reflecting back an overall life of apathy and disconnect with God? What if your Sunday morning worship is a time of discomfort because your desires or styles aren’t being met? It might be reflecting a life that is about me and my needs, instead of being a “living sacrifice.” What if it’s a time of judgment and cynicism? What if it’s a time of passion and love? What does the scale of Sunday morning reflect about your life?

A Secondary Thought:

I had a friend growing up who always blamed the equipment. Anytime he started losing in any competition he started blaming the equipment and quit. He needed better golf clubs, his soccer shoes were worn out, the basketball was too flat, his game controller was sticky, and on and on. But the truth was, he didn’t want to look inside or push past the complication. He always saw the problem outside himself and in the end he never improved or grew. Is my “Sunday Scale” a fail proof test? No!!! But before you start placing blame on the band, the style, the music pastor or the song selection, look inside first. I can step on the three different scales in my house and get three different responses (which I sometimes do to get the number I want) this tells me that at least two of my scales are ‘off.’ But even though my scales are not 100% perfect they still reflect back the truth, and in the long run they will all tell me whether I’m improving or getting worse. Is our Sunday scale 100% accurate? Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t reflect truth back into your life

My Prayer:

Lord, when I step on the scale on Sunday morning I want it to reflect a life of worship for you. Let it not be about me, my needs or desires. Let my worship reflecting sacrifice, love, hope and faith. And when I notice unhealthy or sinful attitudes in my worship let me repent and align myself with you once more.

The Christian Life is Lived in Responses… (a reposting of my old blogs I wrote as a pastor)

2011-01-13T12:48:00.001-07:00

Have you ever been to a professional baseball game? I went to my first baseball game when I was in college in Chicago. It was the Cubs, at Wrigley Field, and I was instantly hooked. But it’s not the sport or the players that drew me in; it was two other things. First I loved the crowd. I’m a people watcher and other than the airport there is nowhere in life where you get such a diversity of people in one place all interacting with each other. I could sit and watch the crowd at a game all day long. But secondly, and more importantly, I love the food. When we get to heaven and we sit down to the great feast, I’m convinced that there will be ballpark food served at the banquet. At my wedding Julie had charge of everything but put me in charge of the food. And so at our wedding reception we had ballpark food, corndogs, soft pretzels, cotton candy, nachos, and everything else wonderful in the world.

I was reading Proverbs 4 this morning and it brought to my mind an experience I once had at a baseball game. I had spent the first two innings wading through all the wonderful food options and was now returning to my seat with the bounty that would last me at least until the seventh inning stretch. As I was working my way down the row the Cubs made a good play and the crowd leapt to their feet. With this about a quarter of my Dr. Pepper splashed out of my cup onto the people around me. But this is nothing new to baseball fans; they were just excited for their Cubbies. I made the rest of the way to my seat, giving high-fives, and fist bumps along the way. When I finally sat down I found that I had lost almost half my drink. As I looked back down the row I saw people drying their shirts and pants from all the Dr. Pepper I had spilled along the way.

In Proverbs 4:23 is says, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.”[1] What is in our heart overflows into our life, and what is in our life overflows on to the people around us. The Christian life is not lived in stated beliefs. It is easy to talk about beliefs, it is easy to plan and carry out certain actions. If we want to really see what our life is about, bump into something and see what spills out. I would say that the true measure of our Christian life is not in our actions as much as it is in our reactions. We live our Christian life in our responses. We say we trust God, but then we bump into a hard economy. We say we love others, but then we bump into a conflict. We are defined by our attitudes (the beliefs of our heart) and at no time are our true attitudes displayed more clearly than when we are reacting to something unexpected. In speaking about attitudes Paul says, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” [2] When I am walking through life bumping up against others, both in good and bad situations, what spills out of my life often comes from the first half of Paul’s list and not the second. How about you? When you get a promotion what spills out? Pride or gratefulness? When someone disagrees with you, what spills out? Defensiveness or compassion? When you bump into life, what spills out?

My Prayer: Lord, fill me up with you. I want to be so full of you that anytime I bump into another person it is you that spills out of my life.

[1]The Holy Bible : English Standard Version., Pr 4:23 (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001).

[2]The Holy Bible : English Standard Version., Eph 4:31-32 (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001).

By Wisdom the House is Built… (a reposting of my old blogs I wrote as a pastor)

2011-01-13T12:47:00.000-07:00

I’ve heard it said “youth is wasted on the young, when they have no wisdom how to use it and wisdom is wasted on the old when they don’t have the energy to act on what they know.” I never really liked the saying because it just comes across as fatalistic and pessimistic, but in truth it is how many people play out their lives. When they are young and full of energy they blindly follow their heart and the wisdom of life seems to elude them, and when wisdom finally catches up to them they feel too old to ‘go at it again’ and settle into a “I’ve done my time” mentality, simply wishing they had done their time better. I’m trying to fight this pattern in my life in two ways. One is I want to never see myself as too old to change or to pick myself up and try again. Life is short and I hope that as long as I am alive I will have the heart to keep on keeping on. I don’t think we should retire from life, ministry, or service. I hope that I will continue to be effective for the kingdom of God until the day I die. If you go into marriage knowing that divorce is not an option when you hit walls you don’t run away but instead you work things through. I’m trying to face my life of ministry the same way. I want to be able to look back on my life and like Paul say “I’ve fought the good fight.” This doesn’t mean that I am expecting to be a youth pastor in the same church for the rest of my life but it does mean that if I ever move I want it to be God who moves me. I want to always be in the ministry where God has placed me. I guess a different way of saying it is I want to view my whole life as ministry, no matter where I am or what I am doing I want to be making a difference for God. The second way I am fighting the pattern is I am trying my best to spend a lot of these early years in my life learning from the wisdom of others so I don’t look back and say “what a wasted youth.” One of my goals in life is to be the type of person who doesn’t have to go through a trial or hardship to learn a lesson for myself. If I can learn from the mistakes of others or if I can learn a truth and apply it before it becomes a mistake in my life I think I will make great strides toward getting wisdom in my life now. I want my life to reflect what the Proverbs say, “By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches. A wise man is full of strength, and a man of knowledge enhances his might, for by wise guidance you can wage your war, and in abundance of counselors there is victory.”[1]

My prayer: Lord when I am young give me the wisdom of the old and when I am old give me the energy of the young.

[1]The Holy Bible : English Standard Version., Pr 24:3-6 (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001).

Best Week Ever: 1/8

2011-01-08T09:44:00.010-07:00

Just for fun I thought I'd post my highlights (and maybe a few lowlights) each week.

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The NFL Playoffs!!!

GO BEARS!!!

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Living So Close to a Chipotle

It was one of our criteria when searching for an apartment in the Valley...

So glad it was!!!

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The Slogan:

More Guns. More Girls. More Machete

What can I say? Pure marketing genius.

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Video of the Week

I don't get caught off guard often... but this was not at all what I expected when I clicked the link.

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The Scale

Down 31 Lbs. in six weeks!!!
Woo Hoo

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Worst Thing of the Week:

Car commercials still stuck on Christmas!

The stores have already moved on to Valentines Day if not Easter, but for some reason the car companies are playing the same Christmas commercials that they were two months ago...
Auugghhh!
Enough Already

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Hope you had a wonderful week...
Remember to support your local Boy Scout of America and litter.

Blessings

To be or not to be...

2011-01-02T13:09:00.001-07:00

What’s more important in life, your gifts or your passions? If you had to choose between living a life doing something you were passionate about or a life doing something you were good at what would you do? And I think the deeper question is, what are the standards you should use in making a choice like this?

Happiness: I know for a lot of people, the ultimate standard in life is happiness. “Do what makes you happy” “Just follow your heart” and all the other clichés that follow. However I have a couple problems with happiness. First, happiness is a moving target. Our standards change from day to day. What we thought would make us happy; once we have it often leaves us just as empty as we were before. It seems like a pretty big gamble to base your life on what makes you happy without having to spend all your energy chasing the next high or pleasure. The second problem I have with happiness is it seems like a pretty cheap standard to have as the base of your life. Why is being happy the most important thing? Look throughout history and most of the great people wouldn’t have been great if they were seeking happiness. In fact most of them had to give up happiness for the sake of something greater.

Purpose: “The purpose of life is a life of purpose” – Robert Byrne. I’m inclined to believe that purpose lies much closer to the center of our standards than does happiness. However my question is how do you use this as a standard in making decisions? What is a life of purpose? Does a stay at home mom live any less of a purpose filled life than does the president? And who is to say whether your life will have more purpose if you follow your passions or serve in your giftedness? It seems to me that living a purposed filled life lies more in who you ‘are” rather than what you ‘do.’ Live selflessly, love others and give yourself to what you believe and you are living a life of purpose; no matter what you ‘do.’

God’s will: Then as a good Christian I can always spiritualize things and say, “just follow God’s will.” But I think other then “love” no idea is more misunderstood or misused than “God’s will.” Talk to five different theologians and you’ll get five different answers to what the will of God is and how far it extends. Most agree that God has a general will but what about His specific will? Should I just love Him and then do what I want? Or should I have prayed this morning because God had a will of what I would wear? Many say God’s will is just a good feeling, an understanding in your heart that ‘this is what God wants.’ But I’ve seen this fail soooooo many times can it really be a good standard to follow? “I know it’s God’s will for us to get married, never mind now God changed his mind.” I’ve even seen people convinced that it was God’s will for them to do something that was a sin. Apart from an audible voice from God I’m going to be very weary of doing a specific thing because I believe it is the will of God. Does that show a lack of faith? I don’t know but look at the millions if not billions of people in the world doing contradictory things all believing they are following the will of God. For me it needs to be more than a feeling, it needs to be founded in something concrete. (Maybe I’ll follow up someday on my view of faith but for now I’ll say it falls a lot closer to C.S. Lewis’ intellectual accent than a blind leap.)

So how do you make life’s big decisions? Or even life’s small decisions? What is the standard you use as the foundation of your life? Do you just take the path of least resistance or least pain? Maybe you just procrastinate until all your options are taken away and you’re left with just one (one of my temptations in life). Or maybe our old roommate Sarah had it right when she just puts all her options in a hat, pulled one and dedicated herself to that path.

Here we go...

2011-01-01T13:48:00.001-07:00

I’m not a writer… It just doesn’t come easy to me. I often get so caught up in trying not to sound dumb that I forget what I’m trying to say, not to mention the fact that I suck at grammar and spelling. However I’m a believer in the old adage “if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it” and in my current station in life I don’t have any other use for my mind. So if you’ll agree to give my writing some grace I’m going to try and give this whole blogging thing a try. I don’t read blogs so I have no idea what makes a blog good or interesting but for now I’ll just do some on-job-training and hope I don’t suck too much. Wish me luck!