Archive for the 'From Out of Nowhere' Category

Simplicity

Published
by
Justin
on October 7, 2008
in From Out of Nowhere, Missional Church and Movements
. 5 Comments

I’ve been reading through 1 John the last few days. Today this part stuck out to me:

1 John 3:23

This is [God's] commandment: to believe in his Son, the one named Jesus Christ, and to love each other as he commanded us. Those who obey Christ’s commandments live in God, and God lives in them. We know that he lives in us because he has given us the Spirit.

The simplicity of this verse stands in stark contrast to the amount of all that I’ve read, heard, and lived in regards to being a follower of Jesus. My reasoning for this error is that we live a culture that values the pursuit of knowledge above most else. In the story of the Garden in Genesis…what does the serpent tempt Adam and Eve with? Knowledge. Abandoning the simple trust in their God, they chose it.

I wonder: In our pursuit of knowledge about God, scripture, and what we believe is Christian living; in what ways have we abandoned the commandment of God: to obey Jesus, and love each other.

I wonder: How would the world be different if we traded our talk, thoughts, and plans for loving others - for actually loving others?

I wonder: Will we ever be content with the simplicity of love? Or will we continually be tempted to add more to it? …maybe as a justification for our lack of obeying Jesus’ commandment to love?

I’m serious about this choosing love thing. We’ve done the knowledge thing for a long time and it’s gotten us only so far. I say we allow our knowledge to evolve into love and let God have a shot using that for a few generations.

**updated** The Renewed Mind Is the Key vs. Jesus is My Friend

Published
by
Justin
on September 24, 2008
in From Out of Nowhere
. 5 Comments

This is seriously amazing…I half way respect their effort, but the rest of me just can’t this ‘are you serious?’ grin off my face…you know the one: where you’re kind of smiling because it’s awkward…and you don’t know what to do with your face.

Anyway…watch this and you’ll see what I mean.

The Renewed Mind Is the Key.

ht: mike g

After a couple of comments by Erin and Kozmo this had to be put in the mix. I don’t really know which one I like more. Both have such positive messages and nice matching outfits that I’m sure honor Jesus more than unmatching ones…but this is a toughy.

Michael Phelps’ Diet

Published
by
Justin
on August 17, 2008
in From Out of Nowhere and Leadership
. 2 Comments

Thanks to Jen for finding this article on the BBC…

As US swimming sensation Michael Phelps sets his sights on more gold medal wins at the Beijing Olympics this weekend, the BBC’s Michael Hirst examines the part an extraordinary diet has played in the sportsman’s remarkable success.

If it is true that you are what you eat, then here is the suggested intake if you want to become history’s most successful Olympian:

For breakfast: three fried egg sandwiches, with cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, fried onions and mayonnaise, followed by three chocolate-chip pancakes; a five-egg omelette; three sugar-coated slices of French toast and a bowl of grits (a maize-based porridge), washed down with two cups of coffee.

For lunch: half a kilogram (one pound) of enriched pasta; two large ham and cheese sandwiches on white bread smothered with mayonnaise, washed down by energy drinks.

For dinner: Another half-kilogram of pasta, perhaps with a carbonara sauce, followed by a large pizza and more energy drinks.

That combination may not sound very healthy, and at a staggering 10,000 calories, would feed five average men for a day.

But the menu is reportedly all in a training day’s eating for champion swimmer Michael Phelps, who won six gold medals in the 2004 Athens Olympics and is aiming for eight this time round.

“Eat, sleep and swim, that’s all I can do,” said the US swimmer, after winning his 11th Olympic gold.

In addition to being amazed that Phelps doesn’t sink after eating all of this, I was thinking about my own diet of spiritual food.

I got a picture of myself being a spiritual race…what kind of food and how much food would I want to eat in order to finish and even win the race? I think I’ve often convinced myself that it’s ok to live like I’m in the off-season…so I get lazy in my training, my diet shrinks, and then I have no energy to sustain me even trying to run (or swim) the race even if I wanted to.

Spiritually speaking, I need to packing in the grits, the eggs, the energy drinks, the pizza, the pasta…to sustain me in the race (battle is a more appropriate word most of the time!) that I’m in. I want to be training in a way that makes the race enjoyable…not like an out-of-shape, ex-athlete trying to set out to do a marathon without even being able to jog around the block! (not that, that was any commentary on me of course!)

Two things on the more positive side:

1. I did go jogging yesterday and had a great time! I woke up less sore than I did yesterdaay and feel great. I think I’ll be running more now.

2. I do down two cups of coffee at breakfast like Michael Phelps…Somebody’s got to beat him at something, so I’m going to go for three cups today.

Jesus the Pet Hater

Published
by
Justin
on August 17, 2008
in From Out of Nowhere
. 0 Comments

I’m utterly grateful to Mike Goldsworthy for this and this is a complete rip off of his post…but this was too good not to pass on…

This is an excerpt from this real Craigslist posting:

Surely without you there, they would be stuck inside your empty house, starving to death with no one to feed them, let them out to potty, or clean their litter box. This is probably not what you envision for your pets after you are gone. This is where I come in…

I am here to offer you pet care service for after the rapture. As an atheist, I will surely still be here on this earth post rapture and would love to look after your pets for a small fee…

They will get adequate amounts of food, water, and shelter as well as plenty of exercise and socialization as I would imagine there will be a lot of pets that will be abandoned by Jesus the pet hater that will need to be cared for.

Amazing…and the rest of the ad is good too…Thanks again Mike…Get used to your work being copied now that you’re the man…whom I greatly admire.

What *does* it cost?

Published
by
Justin
on August 14, 2008
in From Out of Nowhere and Posts That Even Make Me Mad
. 9 Comments

Have you ever stopped to think, really think, about the impact that our choices make on the world? By ‘world’ I don’t me the world that exists immediately around you and me, I mean the world as a people group…a very…large…people group. I know this sounds trite, but the stuff that we use on a daily basis, the shirt I’m wearing, the shoes I wear, the contacts in my eyes, the case that holds my sun glasses…all of this stuff comes from somewhere. It doesn’t magically show up on the shelves of our favorite stores…it comes from somewhere.

It is this ’somewhere’ that I’m thinking about as I write at the moment. Here’s what is on my mind: If I am a person that wants to see the beauty of the Kingdom exposed and evil destroyed, do I only care about that happening in close proximity to me? Or do I care about that globally? If we want to take seriously kicking the darkness away, we have to act small and think big…We have to realize that our small choices matter because they end up influencing someone, ’somewhere’.

Check out this video:

My friend Deb showed this at the start of her talk at our conference the other week and it has haunted me since. I can’t get the picture of my Maisie gluing those freakin’ shoes together for 8 hours a day out of my head. I can’t imagine my Maisie waking up in a pile of other kids in a room the size of a closet. I can’t imagine my Maisie eating a small bowl of rice for lunch everyday. So why do I live like it’s ok for someone else’s child to do this? They have a name too…

I don’t know what to do about this.

I guess the reason that I am posting this is because I hate my own apathy towards this problem so clearly. I also think that any of us followers of Jesus who desire to see the Kingdom of God reign in this life need to look at how we have turned a blind eye to the ways our lives contribute to inhumanity…which is one of the ultimate forms of evil we can see. The Scriptures talk so much about God siding with the oppressed, protecting the innocent, and caring for the poor…it is His heart and we are to join Him where He is. I once heard a modern day prophet say, “God, my friends, is with the poor. And God is with us when we are with them!”

I am going to start by praying: God, give me eyes to see what needs to be seen…and courage to not turn back towards comfort when I see something I wish had stayed hidden.

I’ll end this post with this…In the book Amos, who was a fig farmer turned mouthpeice for God (7:14), Amos is quoting what the oppressors of the needy say, they say, “We can buy the poor with money and the needy for a pair of sandals” (8:6) Watch the video again if you need to make this connection.

I only wish I had this desire…

Published
by
Justin
on June 7, 2008
in Babies & Spirituality and From Out of Nowhere
. 2 Comments

Today I did my best to be a good dad/husband. Jen and her mom hadn’t had much time to spend together…So they asked me (should’ve offered to score even more points!) to hang out with Maisie and Kylie so they could get some mom and daughter time. So off we went in the car, hoping that Maisie would fall asleep so that I could get some work done. But she didn’t. So we went to Chick-fil-A…that was a good decision. Then we went to a park after Maisie would not, once again, fall asleep in the car. This was also a good decision. 

But here’s the event that spawned this post…Jen asked me around 4pm if I had changed Maisie’s diaper. Guilty…didn’t even think about it! Then Maisie added another something else to the mix in her diaper and it was just time…no further delay…I knew, Jen knew, and Maisie even knew it. When I got out the changing pad Maisie came running up and laid down on it…with a look on her face like, “Oh goodie…time to finally get this poop out of here!” At 18 months, my little one knows when something should not be around. 

Why is that we as adults lose the ability to be able to identify and leave behind the crap that is lingering in our lives? I’m inspired by my daughter to be overjoyed about getting rid of stuff in my life that just doesn’t belong. 

Ear Infection

Published
by
Justin
on May 30, 2008
in Babies & Spirituality and From Out of Nowhere
. 1 Comment

For the past few nights Maisie has not slept well at all…I mean, it’s been brutal. Jen has been having a rough time. And it was getting frustrating. She would suddenly get pretty high fevers and she was teething like crazy….like four teeth coming in at a the same time. Not cool for her. Certainly not cool for us. 

So Jen ended up taking Maisie into a clinic yesterday and we found out that she has an ear infection. I, being the compassionate dad, was trying to tell Jen, “It’s no big deal. She’s just teething and it’ll be fine.” There’s a reason God gives women more intuition than men…we would waste and our insensitivity would overrun it anyway! Now, Maisie is doing better and has some anti-biotics. She was back to her feisty little self today…took a long nap (yes!) and even spent a few hours sans mom without losing it.

But here is what I’m learning through this…We all have issues. We all have our emotional ‘ear infections’…we could call this emotional infections. There are two ways to deal with them: My way: ignore it and pretend it’s something else. I think most of like to do this. In my case, I didn’t want Maisie to go to a clinic because I didn’t want to pay for it. I didn’t want to have to learn it could be worse…We do this with our own stuff too. We don’t want to deal with what’s real because it might be even worse than we think. Or we don’t want to deal with it because it may cost us too much to deal with what is going on. The sad thing is that our pain, if not dealt with, can become normal and we forget that we ever existed in a world without our wounds. We get so good at deceiving others of what is going on, that we start to even believe it ourselves.

The second way is to deal with our things in the light: Something doesn’t feel right and therefore we need to discover what is causing the un-rightness. It is worth confronting the fear of the unknown in order to have hope that what is going on can be redeemed. I know from recent experience that dealing with issues straight on is painful. It is not easy  and does not help us ‘look good’, for those of us who feel like we have to wear the mask of everything being ‘fine.’ I had many days where I wished that I could be the together person…the person with all the right answers and all the right things to say. But engaging in the issues that we were facing was exhausting and confusing at times. But by grace, God gave us what we needed when we needed it in order to bring our stuff into the light. And to deal with them there…in the place where we acknowledge with God and others what is going on.

It’s freaky to really pursue what’s going on inside of us when something is telling us that what’s there isn’t all good. But regardless of whether we seek it out or not, it’s still there. It’s the way in which we deal with them that makes the difference. In the book of 1 John, John urges us to walk in the light as God is in light. If we were to apply this passage to this topic, then it becomes an issue of obedience and spiritual vitality to deal with what what is going on in our lives. 

So, this is the stuff that I get reminded of when I am in the process of being a negligent parent! 

 

Off to Spain

Published
by
Justin
on April 28, 2008
in From Out of Nowhere, Head to Fingers and Life
. 2 Comments

Yes, you read it right. I am going to Spain. Five days ago, if you had asked me where I would be next week, the last thing I would have said would have been Spain…well maybe not the last thing. 

Regardless, for the next 6 days, I’ll be in Barcelona and Valencia Spain. There is much that I could say about the trip…but here is what is on the top of my head for now: God, I desperately want to hear your voice. I want to know your heart. I want to break for your people. I am recklessly pursuing any glimpse I see of You. I will do anything, go anywhere, talk to anyone, and love anybody to reveal your goodness, love, and grace. 

So…I’m off to Spain.