I've been getting a lot of positive feedback on our current message series, 'Friends on Facebook.' If you don't attend True North, we've been talking about how our online interactions and behaviors are changing how we think and act in real life.
The NY Times has been publishing some great stuff on this topic lately. Here's another article REALLY worth reading if you suspect your internet activity might be compulsive.
How are you doing with this? Are you justifying the amount of time you spend online? Are you telling yourself (and others) things like "I can quit any time." ?
Read on. And ...
A Better Job than Jobs
I've been doing a little ruminating on the life and death of Steve Jobs and it's only just now occurring to me how much this guy's work has impacted my life. Driving to work today, I listened to a podcast - a word added to our lexicon to describe spoken word content placed on iTunes to be downloaded to and played back on iPods. My iPhone is like an appendage to me. It keeps my contacts, my calendar and innumerable other apps and digital helpers. And when I write a sermon or an email, or a blog post like this ...
Hurricanes and Power Loss
I recall an instance from several years ago while Jen and I were still living in our first home. I was in my kitchen and I heard a loud 'bang' followed by what appeared to be flashes of light seen through the front window. It was daytime so I knew it had to be a significant light source.
I walked out of my house and saw a full size tractor-trailor about 4 doors down from me. The roof of the container had snagged an electrical wire which had snapped and now lay beneath the truck, sparking on the ...
Sunrise
I was woken up this morning at around 4:15 by the sound of my daughter gently crying as she entering my bedroom. She’s basically been in the pool non-stop since school got out and her dedication has yielded a painful case of swimmer’s ear.
A couple of children’s Tylenol and a quick prayer got her settled back down, but I had an unusually hard time falling back asleep. It could have been that I was thirsty, or that my back was sore, or that I was hot and feeling angry at myself for not pushing my wife harder on ...
I got some great feedback from the message series we just wrapped up, entitled ‘Blood Work.’
In message 2, we discussed three things that can make our blood unhealthy and discussed their correlation to things that make us unhealthy spiritually.
Those three things were: Anemia (spiritual weakness, not feeding ourselves), Leukemia (allowing the cancer of sin to take hold), and Hemophelia (the inability to forgive).
There were two more items that didn’t make the cut, and I thought I’d discuss them briefly here. Enjoy.
This was not an auspicious event. She’s in the 3rd grade. And if you’ve ever been to a 3rd grade violin recital then you have joined me in wishing that the violin was a fixed pitch instrument.
The recital involved 10 songs, which were each about 20 seconds in length. Stuff like “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and “Three Blind Mice.”
But it got me thinking – there isn’t a professional musician in the world who didn’t get their start just like this. Every single virtuoso began somewhere. Itzhak Perlman himself probably learned to play “Mary Had…” when he was a beginner.
What has God started in you? When was the last time you tried something totally new?
Despise not the day of small beginnings, loved ones. Every expert begins at the beginning. Marry your hard work and passion to a desire to see Him glorified. And watch expectantly for an amazing display of fireworks.
But besides tacos, I love it when God uses ordinary chumps like the people at True North. And yeah, I know that makes me the chief chump. But I’m cool with it.
I love how when God puts together some really insane, audacious, impossible plan, he never chooses the uber-talented, best-looking, wealthiest and most popular. He uses chumps.
Just look at the Bible. It’s full of stories of God using ordinary people to do extraordinary things. What do Moses, Noah, Jacob, Isaac, Abraham, Jeremiah, Peter, James and John all have in common? I mean, besides that they’re Biblical stud muffins? You guessed it. They’re all chumps. These guys have ISSUES. Like, murdering, lusting, direct rebellion and disobedience issues.
