Losing Sight

From time to time I go to an old staple of mine for inspiration.  Maybe it's more often than from time to time.  I was looking through some lyrics to day of a band i really like.  The song is Losing Sight on the Shadows Are Security album by the band As I Lay Dying.  Now if you are not into heavier rock, please don't write this off.  You may never be into the music, but read these lyrics.

How could we lose sight of what matters most?
Trying to love what cannot love us back.
All we have is not worth living for
If we do not know when to let go.

What is this life, that we cling to it so tight
Afraid that it will take from us these fading sentiments?

Can we die to live another day?

How true is this... We do often lose sight of the most important things in life due to things that seem important.  We end up wrapped up in work but neglect our friends and family.  Our jobs will never love us back.  We some times get so into things and stuff when that is all they are.  Inanimate objects that cannot love us or benefit from us loving them, no matter how hard we try.  Worse yet, we sometimes spend all of our energy on these things that will never love us only to be short tempered and mean to people that love us and want us to love them more than anything in this world.  I often find my self apologizing to my wife and kids for bringing the stress of work home with me.

If this is how we treat the most important people here on earth how do you think God feels when he takes a back seat?  Sometimes he barely even makes it on the bus with us...

So to quote the song one last time... "How could we lose sight of what matters most?"

Three Hundred and Sixty Four More...

If I had three hundred and sixty four more Valentine's Days a year,
that would not be enough.
If I had three hundred and sixty four more Valentine's Days,
I still could never let you know how much you mean to me.
If I had three hundred and sixty four more Valentine's Days,
I would spend every one with you.

If I had three hundred and sixty four more Valentine's Days a year,
I would spend every one trying to let you know how much I love you.
I would tell you all of the wonderful things that you do
that let me know that you care.
I would tell you all of the things that you do that let me know that I'm loved.
And in turn I would try as I might to put into words
all of this love in my heart.

If I had three hundred and sixty four more Valentine's Days a year,
I still would not have enough.
If I had three hundred and sixty four more Valentine's Days,
I would not yet have enough time in a year.
If I had three hundred and sixty four more Valentine's Days,
I would still need year upon year to let you know how much you mean to me.


I love you Jodi!

Sad Sad World

I just read an article about a 30 year old women, who was mentally handicapped, that was tortured and killed by people that she called her friends.  The consequences of living in a broken world are having to learn of things like this and then trying to make sense of senseless acts like this.  How can people fall so far into darkness from where we are intended to live.  My heart breaks for the countless friends and family of Jennifer and it also breaks for the souls of the people that decided to do these terrible things.  Forgiveness does not come easy to souls like these, at least not from man.
Please pray with me for all that are associated with these horrific events.

She

Some times we get it right and other times we don't.  I have seen too much not getting it right recently.  I have seen too many people that should be spreading the aroma of Christ that are clearly spreading something that stinks!  I love how Rob Bell talks about this in his book Velvet Elvis.

SHE

One of the central metaphors for God and his people throughout the Bible is that of a groom and his bride. God is the groom; his people are the bride.  I like this because it makes the church a "she".  We need to reclaim this image.

The church is a she.

She’s a mystery, isn’t she?  Still going after all this time.  After the Crusades and the Inquisition and Christian cable television.  Still going.  And there continue to be people like me who believe she is one of the best ideas ever.  In spite of all the ways she has veered off track.  In spite of all the people who have actually turned away from God because of what they experienced in church.  I am starting to realize why: The church is like a double-edged sword.  When it’s good, when it’s on, when it’s right, it’s like nothing on earth.  A group of people committed to selflessly serving and loving the world around them?  Great.  But when it’s bad, all that potential gets turned the other way.  From the highest of highs to the lowest of lows.  Sometimes in the same week.  Sometimes in the same day.

But she will live on.  She’s indestructible.  When she dies in one part of the world, she explodes in another.  She’s global.  She’s universal.  She’s everywhere.  And while she’s fragile, she’s going to endure.  In every generations there will be those who see her beauty and give their lives to see her shine.  Jesus said the gates of hell will not prevail against her.  That’s strong language.  And it’s true.  She will continue to roll across the ages, serving and giving and connecting people with God and each other.  And people will abuse her and manipulate her and try to control her, but they’ll pass on.  And she will keep going.

How true is that...  If you are one of the people not getting this right.  If you are tearing down the church, if you are causing non-believers to stumble, if you are not spreading the aroma of Christ, if you are spreading things that stink, if you are not spreading the love of Jesus Christ, if you need soul deodorant, please talk to someone.  If you know someone that is one of these people, please lovingly take them under you wing and talk to them and help them move past this point.  Help them see how we are meant to live and how the church still today is and can work.

Life is War

Late last year I told my wife that I had realized everything in life comes down to war - spiritual war.  Life is really a constant series of battles over who holds reign in our heart, who's name is forever in our soul.

The sooner we realize that everything in life, every day, every trial, every temptation, every hardship, everything is spiritual warfare the sooner we can begin fighting on the winning side.  This all became clear to me one day when I was running.  Over the past few years I have taken up running and I really enjoy it.  I was on a run and like a lot of people that are out of shape I was having trouble finishing my run.  The struggle between wanting to achieve my goal and do something that I knew was good for me, and stopping because it hurt and was hard work had really set it.  Now it is important for you to know that part of why I like to run is I get to think and talk to God a lot on a run.  So my conversation, be it very on sided that day was something like this...

This really hurts.  Maybe I should stop.
No, I can do this.
I want to do this.
God help me do this.
There's no reason You wouldn't want me to do this.
It's good for my body...your body.
Why is it so hard then...
(here is when the light bulb lit over my head)
The devil doesn't want me to do this!
This is WAR.
Get out of my head!
I can do this.

So after I had that epiphany my run ended very smoothly and I have had less trouble with motivation.  I have really tried to approach each minute part of every day and every decision as if it were the spiritual war that it is.  There is good and evil in this world.  We need to acknowledge that fact.  Both parts of it.  It is great to talk about the good, but if we leave out the evil we tend to overlook the battle that we are in the midst of right now.

I know how the war ends, and I know which side I will be on... do you?  Do you actively take part in this battle or are you just trying to ride it out?  That can be a dangerous game.  So today, and every day, put on your armor and be prepared to fight!

13.1

So this year I have once again decided to run.  And I plan to run more than I have any other year.  Over the past few years I have been getting more and more into running.  I never used to be any good at running more than some short distances, but it seems like something has changed and now I'm able to run a lot longer and better than I ever could in the past.

So last year while I was probably in the best shape I have been since high school.  I started having crazy thoughts about running longer and longer distances.  I started thinking that someday it would feel great to be able to say that I had run a marathon (not that I was going to rush into that).  Then for some reason, I said to myself... "A half marathon wouldn't be that bad?!?!".

So now I'm trying to decide if this is the year I am going to sign up to run a half marathon.  13.1 miles...
I think this might be the motivation that I need to keep running and keep myself in shape.  Like most people I have a very easy time getting out of shape and a hard time getting motivated to get into shape.  But if I sign up to run a half marathon... I will have a goal that I can't really back out of...