Color-coded

One way I've changed in the past few months is my level of organization.  For a long time, it was convenient to say, "I'm not organized," and then outsource all my comings, goings and doings to someone else more "Type A".

But then, people asked of me things I hadn't been asked before.  In other words, people were outsourcing to me.

"Manage this."

"Research this."

"Call these people."

"Get Job A done with Persons 1 & 2"

"Show up at Point A at this Time X, and be ready"

So, I established systems of organization to supplement the limited amount of Random-Access Memory in my brain.  I wrote things down.  I referred to lists.  I color-coded and organized my life.

And I feel a lot better!  I get more done, and I have more context for where I am, at every step of the way.  I wouldn't call myself "organized" now, but I definitely am developing systems to keep myself in the game.

1. Write your goals down

2. Write action items to accomplish those goals

3. Highlight when you're done

Write organization blog.  Check.

A bitter end to a promising beginning

With a sad heart, I closed my Bible. Over the past month, I had read the stories written in 1 & 2 Kings. I read the stories of Israel's greatest kings, David and Solomon. I saw Yahweh raise a nation of slaves with broken backs into a nation of wealthy and wise cultural elites. Jerusalem was a boom town of boom towns.

I saw unspeakable riches flow through the Holy City. I saw sailing ships sailing and traders trading. I saw a religiopolitical system that seemed to work, even though the monarchy was never Yahweh's ideal.

I saw a beautiful beginning. The covenant was honored. God smiled down on his people.

It was a rocky road, yes, but David was always a survivor. He sinned, but he repented. The author of 1 & 2 Kings never glosses over David's sins, but in history, but we also know that few have pleased the heart of Yahweh like David. No matter what new and astonishingly evil king took the throne, Yahweh remembered David. Eventually, the sins of Judah became so great that Yahweh's anger could not be stopped. Josiah was a great reformer, but he died from wounds sustained fighting Pharaoh Neco of Egypt.

Josiah will stand and say, someday, that from the House of Judah, one greater than the rest emerged. He is Jesus Christ. He is why I'm here, a Gentile in a foreign land, trying to wrap my mind around the story of God's chosen people.

Today, I feel God's call to remember the stories that have been told, to brush off the dust of antiquity and let them deal with me in a profound way. In the Books of 1 & 2 Kings, I see stories of love, family, redemption, anger, evil and hate.

The author spares us no details. We see mighty kings reduced to vassals, or worse-- palace dogs whom the Babylonian ruler took pity on and showed kindness to. Could David or Solomon ever have imagined such an end?

My pastor says, "Do not doubt in the light what God did in the darkness." In a culture of perpetual obsolescence, do we value the stories of old? Have we made the wisdom of the ancients, their lengthy genealogies and centuries of oral tradition, into a reference book?

In my tradition, I see this tendency. We are very good at living in the moment, and dreaming about the future, but we forget that nothing is new under the sun. That's the message of wisdom, and that's what 1 & 2 Kings speaks to me.

We must remember the ancient wisdom. We must not allow our heart to grow cold to the teachings of the fathers. No matter how scary it is, we must let these historical books work us over, through and through.

The message of 1 & 2 Kings is harsh, but still it holds hope for tomorrow. One thing that God showed me at my youth camp is that we can have a better future. Through our economy may fail, our strength must not.

As people of prayer, we must move God's heart so deeply and so purely that, if ever our church is reduced to evil and rubble, something in God's heart will remember our faithfulness. The system of temple worship may be corrupt and so far from its original intent, but God will raise up among us people of great faith, like Elijah and Elisha. He will uphold his promises, no matter what Joe Stupid or Tom Dumb is doing in positions of leadership.

God is no respecter of persons, but he does remember those who move his heart. If a thousand years is like a day to the Lord, we can imagine how the stories of the great men of our past still move the heart of the Lord.

I'm compelled to be that kind of person! I don't want anything this world has to offer me; I just want to please the Lord. It's time to live in that mode, that my life would be a sweet sacrifice to the Lord. Only then, can I rest.

Here of all places

I don't know what to say. I'm in the middle of the most amazing season of seeking and prayer. I was in a youth camp last weekend that blew my mind and filled me with Holy Spirit fire, and last night when I met for prayer with my friends who recently returned from some intense Mardi Gras ministry, I thought the place was going to explode.

Two years of seeking, and finally we're beginning to see fruit.

I've never been here before, so close to the Christianity I only read about and finally wise enough to withstand the attacks that daily threaten to douse our passion. Fast, pray and meditate on the Scripture.

So, that's about it. I'm ruined for this world. People don't get it unless they're living it. Maybe, you would. Maybe, not.

Me: I just want Jesus.

It's true: I still believe

As I was telling a fellow believer about everything God did in my life and the lives of my friends and students at our winter retreat last weekend, he surprised me by saying, "I had you pegged wrong."

"How did you peg me?" I asked.

"Well, sometimes people who study journalism are a bit cynical."

It's true (I once was), but I'm not (anymore).

Been there, done that. Ya' gotta believe!

Favor

We have favor [fey-ver] the state of being approved or held in regard: to be in favor at court.

MOVE BEYOND:

Euphoria is the temporary response of pleasure chemicals in the brain.  They are seratonin (happy) and dopamine (pleasure).  Overreliance on chemicals as a means to gauge or further any relationship is a bad thing.   

Thanks to my friend, Mark for reminding me about euphoria. 

In a relationship with God, this plays out in a practical way.  If we're in prayer or worship, often we wait for the "feeling" to hit before we know God accepts us unconditionally, and then we can begin to pour our hearts out.  We don't pour out a "sacrifice of praise" until the spiritual matches the physical. So, we're sitting around, waiting for something to happen. 

key point:  there's a difference between waiting on God and waiting for something to happen.

REMEMBER:

We serve a God who is "turned on" by sacrifices.  The one did not change, the one who enveloped the Israelites with a dark cloud. But, now, when we approach him, we feel empty-handed.  We feel nothing.  This is quite wrong.

In fact, when we take our family to the Church, when we go to the prayer meeting, when we enter our secret place, God sees a sacrifice (not in the metaphorical sense-- in the sense that he is looking for blood) greater than one he has ever seen.  He sees Jesus.

TWO-BUTTON SUITS, PEWS AND POWER POINTS DO NOT NEGATE THE FACT THAT OUR GOD HAS A WAY HE LIKES TO DO THINGS THAT IS AT ONCE REAL AND RIGHT WHERE WE LIVE.  THE OLD WAYS OF WORSHIPPING GOD ARE NOT LOST TO ANTIQUITY.  ALTHOUGH CHRIST WAS THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE, YAHWEH STILL LOVES A HEART THAT OFFERS TO HIM A SACRIFICE!

DON'T WAIT:

Pentecostal prayers have very good "feelers", but sometimes we must take our sacrifice and believe that it is good.  We must "live" the sacrifice.  Here is a verse that sums it up.   

Hebrews 13:15 (New International Version)

 ¹⁵Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name.

The author of Hebrews, perhaps Paul, Apollos or someone else, had grown up so Jewish that he or she got this right way.  To catch up, it's taken me some time and probably some revelation, but I don't claim that level of inspiration.

Not when the book is open and free . . .

Blood

This country was written in blood.  A disenchanted and idealistic cadre of patriots banded together to rebel against the Motherland. They signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well capture by the King would result in death by hanging.  Not bloody, but certainly final.

The Kingdom of God was also written in blood.

Beginning with the precedent of animal sacrifice as a means for remission of sins, and continuing with bloody and painful male circumcision as a rite of "otherness" that separated the "real" Jews from the "pretenders," blood was the currency for substitution and identity.

It's no surprise that the purest and most powerful substance in the universe is the precious blood of the Son of God.  He who knew no sin became sin for us.  

THERE IS ONE GATEWAY TO GOD.

He took the form of a man, with atria, ventricles and arteries, a perfectly-functioning body that would one day be riddled with fatal damage imposed by the brutal Roman custom of crucifixion.

As the sons and daughters of the original American patriots continued to shed blood far past the days of the Revolution, so the Kingdom of God advanced beyond the Resurrection.

For either kingdom, victory doesn't come cheap, does it? 

What allegiance does the believer owe to this nation-state, the land of the free and the home of the brave?  I wish I knew for sure.    

But I do know what allegiance the believer owes the cross.

EVERYTHING. 

How to Ride a Bike

Author's Note: I'm printing an excerpt from my Internship Journal.  I intern for Venture Expeditions in Burnsville, MN, where I do copywriting, editing and PR for the national cross-country cyclotour The Ride Well Tour.  

Sometimes strength isn’t what you do, but how you do it.  

Take professional bike riders, like the guys who do the Tour de France.  They are, spandex leggings and all, amazingly tough.  They climb relentlessly, descend daringly and, sometimes, leave their skin all over the pavement, as a pricey payment for one little wrong move.  The Tour is the greatest test of endurance on the planet.  

But some Tour professionals complain their way through most of the tour, even bordering on neurosis on details as small as the weight of their custom-designed road bicycle.  “My bike is too heavy” “I’m not getting enough help from my teammates” “My bike is too heavy” “I’m tired” “My bike is too heavy” “I hurt all over” “I’m quitting after I’m done” "Who made this bike so #$%^ heavy!"  

The people I really admire in the Tour are unheralded workhorses like “Big George” Hincapie (pictured above with Lance Armstrong) who, for many years, sheltered “stars” like Lance Armstrong from the wind and attacks on the Yellow jersey by other teams. 

This blog is less an ode to the B-team and more a reminder that living isn’t a series of “whats” as much as a choice of “hows”.  

Acting bravely and cheerfully in the face of insurmountable odds isn’t the best way to go about life.  For a Christian, living for the glory and service of the Risen Lord Jesus, it’s the only way.