i think the best students of life are not those that have the best answers, but rather those that ask the best questions. i really struggle with giving too many "answers."
Jesus asked, "But who do you say that I am?"
i know what i say a lot with my lips about Jesus, but even more deeply do i know that what my heart and life say betray my lips. "And I said: "Woe is me!For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King." (Isaiah 6)
Why does God continue to long and wait and even yearn for us?
Why does He so passionately rain Grace upon Grace?
Why is there genocide and peace at the same time?
For what purpose has God blessed me so?
To what end am i looking?
What is God's timing and how can i live within it?
Why did Jesus die for decedents like me?
How am i now a son of the One True God?
Why do i have feelings if i know not what to make of them?
What is at the center of my life?
What is at the center of your life?
Good questions make us search for and discover things about ourselves that we'd often rather forget. They help us to rip the veil that covers our heart. To tear down the walls that stand between us and the world around us. To raze the cities that we build to ourselves. When God says, "Who are you and why should I let you into My kingdom?" what will you respond with? Surely nothing you've done. He's already said our righteousness is as filthy rags. No, i think the only answer will be "Because my savior Jesus is here beside me, Your one and only Son, and He has asked to escort me inside. He has invited and i have accepted. i was choked with sin and He was sinless. i was dead, and now i am alive." That is the only way a sinner could ever answer that question.
8/28/09
"Loved by God, not merely pitied..."
For things to go smoothly, they must first be chaotic. At least, that's what makes sense to me. This seems to be the universal norm. The thing is, it didn't start out that way. I mean, make no mistake, creation from it's beginning was perfect. It was flawless and unmatched. But then Adam and Eve did what we all would have done. That was when everything got turned upside down. It went from perfect to imperfect in less than an instant. A complete shift in everything the world stood on. The very foundation of life itself was disrupted, and ever since then there has been a struggle by humanity to deal with it.
Thank. God.
Thank. God.
8/24/09
"Through the fire and rain..."
"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."
8/17/09
arms open wide...
To guard against a narrow-minded view of humanity, of the way things are--indeed, of reality itself--is to open up a world which you never knew existed. Perhaps one which you didn't wish to exist. Certainly one which is much too deep to be explained away by political rhetoric, blogs, or opinions. No, that will not do. There is Truth that lies beneath the hurt and pain, the joys and triumphs. There are hardly ever easy answers, but there are answers. Sometimes the answers seem to be more difficult than the questions themselves. To take at face value the unending information that inundates our eyes and then our minds each day is to make a mistake that is not easily mended. For information--data--is useless on its own. Even when we convert the 1's and 0's of information into knowledge, it still does not create a state of mind that is worth living in. No, we must drink the world in, its sights and sounds and smells and information. We must take all of it and strive to go beyond knowledge, beyond the high-school romance view that we have of God and His universe. It must be deeper. It requires intimacy. It demands brokenness. Why? Because we answer to no one here. Not even ourselves. It is only to the Almighty Creator, to the God who would die for you, and for me, to the Giver of life and the very breath of all things that we must answer to. He as paid a price no one else is able to pay. He has called all. There are those who have yet to accept, to simply believe, in the promise He made good on the cross. There is nothing stopping you. There are those who have believed and yet made a mockery of His name, of His sacrifice. Jesus offers forgiveness.
If we all could see the world the way Jesus sees it, revolution would occur.
8/16/09
pardon me, i had to laugh at that.
Grilling out is probably one of my favorite things. People say it's an "American" thing. i'm glad to live here if that's the truth. Truthfully though, i think the reason that we like it in the first place is because of it's simplicity. Cooking something in the open air with fire. You take something that is really inedible or at the very least distasteful and then you kind of unpack all of its savory-ness and then pull it all together into the finished product. i mean, we've been doing that since the dawn of time as far as i can tell. It's human tradition. It's an art-form, really. It's creative process. It's grilling.
8/13/09
8/7/09
to the wire...
sometimes i just like to write for writing's sake. i don't think it's necessarily that my thoughts are so important that they must be made public, but it does help to create a more peaceful thought atmosphere than if i was to keep it all to myself.
i'm on this "people" kick right now. i mean, we all are in one way or another at all times, but i suppose i've been contemplating what exactly it should look like when i interact with people of all cultures and backgrounds. It's interesting, and daunting. But it's really hard you know? Like how in the world do you act when your family cuts you deep? Or when a friend closer than a brother just becomes like a stranger? What do you do then? There are moments to verbalize what your mind is shouting but there are other times when silence is the best option. Sure i'm being uber generic right now. Jesus said if a man asks you to go a mile with him, go two miles. ? Yeah, what? So basically, back in the day when the Romans ruled most of the known world there was a practice in Jerusalem where a Roman soldier could legally make a Jew carry all his stuff (armor, etc.) for a mile. So obviously Jews didn't like this. i would not either. And then Jesus came along and He said, "oh guys, please just have a good attitude about that mile."
Except.
Wait.
He didn't say that. He said go two miles.
That's a huge paradigm shift from the way i live most of the time. My philosophy tends to be more of a "go .95 miles, complaining the whole way". Like Jesus said though, it's really easy to be nice to the people that are nice to you. Everyone does that. But to be nice to the people around you who just irk you? That's extremely difficult. And yet, that's where your true mettle is tested. It's where you get a chance to see what it's all about.
Maybe it's like running. The first mile is the worst, but it's like you break through a wall after that. Just maybe in our lives if we would grit our teeth every now and then and just do the hard stuff, just maybe we would find that it makes all the difference.
i'm on this "people" kick right now. i mean, we all are in one way or another at all times, but i suppose i've been contemplating what exactly it should look like when i interact with people of all cultures and backgrounds. It's interesting, and daunting. But it's really hard you know? Like how in the world do you act when your family cuts you deep? Or when a friend closer than a brother just becomes like a stranger? What do you do then? There are moments to verbalize what your mind is shouting but there are other times when silence is the best option. Sure i'm being uber generic right now. Jesus said if a man asks you to go a mile with him, go two miles. ? Yeah, what? So basically, back in the day when the Romans ruled most of the known world there was a practice in Jerusalem where a Roman soldier could legally make a Jew carry all his stuff (armor, etc.) for a mile. So obviously Jews didn't like this. i would not either. And then Jesus came along and He said, "oh guys, please just have a good attitude about that mile."
Except.
Wait.
He didn't say that. He said go two miles.
That's a huge paradigm shift from the way i live most of the time. My philosophy tends to be more of a "go .95 miles, complaining the whole way". Like Jesus said though, it's really easy to be nice to the people that are nice to you. Everyone does that. But to be nice to the people around you who just irk you? That's extremely difficult. And yet, that's where your true mettle is tested. It's where you get a chance to see what it's all about.
Maybe it's like running. The first mile is the worst, but it's like you break through a wall after that. Just maybe in our lives if we would grit our teeth every now and then and just do the hard stuff, just maybe we would find that it makes all the difference.
8/5/09
that was when i ruled the world...
i haven't shaved in quite some time. and i don't care.
here is something to ponder. we often talk about "ordering our priorities." as if they aren't already ordered. what we should instead refer to this activity as is "writing out what we know should be our priorities, in the proper order, and then comparing them to the current order. and then realize that we are doing it all wrong." and not only this, but the manner in which we organize our list is generally all wrong as well. we tend, as is normal for Americans, to list them vertically, with the most important (or so we deem) priority finding its place at the top and so on. in fact, we would be much more correct to describe our priorities in a more circular fashion with a main cog in the middle and with things sprouting out from that center.
The reason for this orbital pattern becomes immediately evident when we really step back and look at our lives. the simple listing of priorities often carries with it a sort of time-value connotation by which we say that "Number One Priority" should be that to which we give the most time. Well, i find that most people would list "family" somewhere above career, and yet i am aware of no one still working about whom could be said that more time was spent with his/her family than at their respective career. Additionally, it is more fitting--in my opinion--that priorities should be organized much like our solar system, because everyone, at their core, has that one thing which really drives them. everyone. It follows then that that "drive" whatever it is, cannot stand alone simply at the top of some list. It must impact the rest of the priorities that make up a person. I think that this type of organization gets rid of the somewhat circular difficulty of trying to use time as the main unit to measure our priorities.
For the Christian, God cannot be measured with time. The importance of God in our lives cannot effectively be measured by how much time we spend reading His words, nor by how much time is spent in church with others who profess the same beliefs as ourselves. The importance of God in our lives is quickly seen by whether we have placed Him as the cog of our lives upon which we deal with family and friends and careers and everything else accordingly. It is a very freeing yet also very scary thing, i think. For it means that your life is no check list, but it also means that your whole life is affected. Everything you do depends on that center cog. If a spoke becomes lose, the whole wheel is affected.
But the beautiful thing with this organization is that time is not compartmentalized. It is just focused. And if it is not focused on God as the central axis of your whole being, then it is focused on something else. We all have one thing there, and it may change from time to time, but a man cannot serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other or he will love the one and hate the other.
here is something to ponder. we often talk about "ordering our priorities." as if they aren't already ordered. what we should instead refer to this activity as is "writing out what we know should be our priorities, in the proper order, and then comparing them to the current order. and then realize that we are doing it all wrong." and not only this, but the manner in which we organize our list is generally all wrong as well. we tend, as is normal for Americans, to list them vertically, with the most important (or so we deem) priority finding its place at the top and so on. in fact, we would be much more correct to describe our priorities in a more circular fashion with a main cog in the middle and with things sprouting out from that center.
The reason for this orbital pattern becomes immediately evident when we really step back and look at our lives. the simple listing of priorities often carries with it a sort of time-value connotation by which we say that "Number One Priority" should be that to which we give the most time. Well, i find that most people would list "family" somewhere above career, and yet i am aware of no one still working about whom could be said that more time was spent with his/her family than at their respective career. Additionally, it is more fitting--in my opinion--that priorities should be organized much like our solar system, because everyone, at their core, has that one thing which really drives them. everyone. It follows then that that "drive" whatever it is, cannot stand alone simply at the top of some list. It must impact the rest of the priorities that make up a person. I think that this type of organization gets rid of the somewhat circular difficulty of trying to use time as the main unit to measure our priorities.
For the Christian, God cannot be measured with time. The importance of God in our lives cannot effectively be measured by how much time we spend reading His words, nor by how much time is spent in church with others who profess the same beliefs as ourselves. The importance of God in our lives is quickly seen by whether we have placed Him as the cog of our lives upon which we deal with family and friends and careers and everything else accordingly. It is a very freeing yet also very scary thing, i think. For it means that your life is no check list, but it also means that your whole life is affected. Everything you do depends on that center cog. If a spoke becomes lose, the whole wheel is affected.
But the beautiful thing with this organization is that time is not compartmentalized. It is just focused. And if it is not focused on God as the central axis of your whole being, then it is focused on something else. We all have one thing there, and it may change from time to time, but a man cannot serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other or he will love the one and hate the other.
8/1/09
"I will not take my love away..."
Beethoven's 9th. such genius.
it's time to unpack. by this i mean firstly that i feel that i have been living out of a suitcase since early May, and this is mostly true. more specifically, though, there is a certain amount of emotional and spiritual unpacking to be done.
OK, so i was in Oklahoma for roughly seven weeks (if you're clever there's a nugget in that sentence).
1. Quiktrip. For those of you who have not had the pleasure of spending time in a location which houses these "gas stations," then i must explain. First, the term "gas station" should never be used to describe QT. Perhaps "store which has everything you could possibly want in the form of refreshment and eatery within hand's reach as you simply pay for your gas". Or, "Four Seasons of convenient stores." Picture this, 49 cent 32 oz. fountain drinks. Anything you could possibly want. Fresh fruit. Wraps and sandwiches. Arizona. at least 4 attendants working. etc. etc. etc. etc.
2. Rodeos. i like them.
3. Tulsa has bad roads, but we shall not speak of them here.
4. i made a trip to the promised land. AKA Norman, OK, home of the Sooners. This was quite the emotional experience. i felt as if a piece of my heart and soul belonged there.
5. dangerous driveways. such an oddity.
6. The Oklahoma City bombing memorial is breathtaking. for some reason this seems to be an event in our nation's history that is often forgotten. After seeing the memorial, i shall not soon forget. If ever given the chance, please go see it and be awed.
7. i helped audit a pageant. this means i got to meet and talk with Miss Oklahoma. Whatever the stereotypes may be in regards to "pageant girls", she certainly did not seem to fit them, and it was a very pleasant opportunity to talk with her, to say the least.
8. i was reminded yet again how much family means to me, and was just blown away as always to realize the heritage that has preceded my time here on Earth.
9. these were in no particular order.
after this time in Oklahoma, i was fortunate enough to be a leadership consultant for the Martha Guy Summer Institute, something talked about in my previous post. i returned from that experience today, and although i am quite tired, i am sad to leave those kids. They really were an immense joy in my life for three weeks, and i hope to have made friendships that will last a long time. Never did i imagine what kind of opportunities the program would bring to me. Never. i am still in a way incredulous over all that i got to do in such a short amount of time, and although i won't mention anymore specifics of the trip, i will say this: during the last three weeks, the overriding theme that has presented itself to me is that people are by far the most important of all the created things this world contains. Sure, it's so simple, but how often do i live as though it were true? In the business realm, where i have lived for the last three weeks, this idea of the importance of people is the foundation of success. Having knowledge is absolutely nothing if you cannot work with others. Knowledge never becomes wisdom without people. Opportunities do not materialize without interactions with people. But this is only a microcosm of what is true not only in our Americanized society, but indeed, throughout the earth. If people are not your priority, you will fail. This is never untrue. Never. People are the reason Jesus came to this dirty world in the first place. They are the object of His love. They are the purpose for which His crucifixion was allowed to take place. They are the beneficiaries of His resurrection.
So what about people? They come and go "as the winter wind as it breathes". They enter our lives and make an impact, instantly. How we choose to interact with people will ultimately shape our lives here. Some are hardly lovable. or so we say. Others seem to be worth the highest price we could pay. However, the price has been set at a reserve that no earthly being could ever pay. That is why people should be the concern of our lives, because God has created us to run to Him. Because many are running away. Who will lead them back? Certainly not a people who care not for their own.
it's time to unpack. by this i mean firstly that i feel that i have been living out of a suitcase since early May, and this is mostly true. more specifically, though, there is a certain amount of emotional and spiritual unpacking to be done.
OK, so i was in Oklahoma for roughly seven weeks (if you're clever there's a nugget in that sentence).
1. Quiktrip. For those of you who have not had the pleasure of spending time in a location which houses these "gas stations," then i must explain. First, the term "gas station" should never be used to describe QT. Perhaps "store which has everything you could possibly want in the form of refreshment and eatery within hand's reach as you simply pay for your gas". Or, "Four Seasons of convenient stores." Picture this, 49 cent 32 oz. fountain drinks. Anything you could possibly want. Fresh fruit. Wraps and sandwiches. Arizona. at least 4 attendants working. etc. etc. etc. etc.
2. Rodeos. i like them.
3. Tulsa has bad roads, but we shall not speak of them here.
4. i made a trip to the promised land. AKA Norman, OK, home of the Sooners. This was quite the emotional experience. i felt as if a piece of my heart and soul belonged there.
5. dangerous driveways. such an oddity.
6. The Oklahoma City bombing memorial is breathtaking. for some reason this seems to be an event in our nation's history that is often forgotten. After seeing the memorial, i shall not soon forget. If ever given the chance, please go see it and be awed.
7. i helped audit a pageant. this means i got to meet and talk with Miss Oklahoma. Whatever the stereotypes may be in regards to "pageant girls", she certainly did not seem to fit them, and it was a very pleasant opportunity to talk with her, to say the least.
8. i was reminded yet again how much family means to me, and was just blown away as always to realize the heritage that has preceded my time here on Earth.
9. these were in no particular order.
after this time in Oklahoma, i was fortunate enough to be a leadership consultant for the Martha Guy Summer Institute, something talked about in my previous post. i returned from that experience today, and although i am quite tired, i am sad to leave those kids. They really were an immense joy in my life for three weeks, and i hope to have made friendships that will last a long time. Never did i imagine what kind of opportunities the program would bring to me. Never. i am still in a way incredulous over all that i got to do in such a short amount of time, and although i won't mention anymore specifics of the trip, i will say this: during the last three weeks, the overriding theme that has presented itself to me is that people are by far the most important of all the created things this world contains. Sure, it's so simple, but how often do i live as though it were true? In the business realm, where i have lived for the last three weeks, this idea of the importance of people is the foundation of success. Having knowledge is absolutely nothing if you cannot work with others. Knowledge never becomes wisdom without people. Opportunities do not materialize without interactions with people. But this is only a microcosm of what is true not only in our Americanized society, but indeed, throughout the earth. If people are not your priority, you will fail. This is never untrue. Never. People are the reason Jesus came to this dirty world in the first place. They are the object of His love. They are the purpose for which His crucifixion was allowed to take place. They are the beneficiaries of His resurrection.
So what about people? They come and go "as the winter wind as it breathes". They enter our lives and make an impact, instantly. How we choose to interact with people will ultimately shape our lives here. Some are hardly lovable. or so we say. Others seem to be worth the highest price we could pay. However, the price has been set at a reserve that no earthly being could ever pay. That is why people should be the concern of our lives, because God has created us to run to Him. Because many are running away. Who will lead them back? Certainly not a people who care not for their own.
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