Discontent

She is a wanderer in life, unsettled and unsatisfied everywhere she rests.

She never really rests. She pauses before throwing herself into the next moment.


She wants what she cannot have, but she still reaches.

She did not see that she was being loved.

Notes for the integrity of your word

Matthew 5:33-37
Don't break your oaths to the lord and Jesus discouraging swearing an oath, just let your yes be yes and no no

2 Cor 1:17-31
Paul explaining that though he has yet to fulfill his word to come to Corinth, he did not commit his word in a worldly way but really meant to fulfill it. circumstances have simply prevented him

Ezekiel 18:21-32
God changes his action based on the response of people to Him. When people repent, he relents from punishing and blesses instead. When people turn from righ the relents from blessing and punishes instead.

Jeremiah 18:1-12
God changes his action based on the response of people to Him even in spite of His word. When people repent, he relents from punishing and blesses instead. When people turn from right the relents from blessing and punishes instead.

Frustrating Singles

Men who are afraid to pursue
Women who don't know what they want
Men who lack ambition and focus
Women who are afraid to say what they want

Note to self

remember to Love and Appreciate more than you Evaluate

Keep your friends

Keep your friends.
Love them,
how they need it.
Ask God for help.
Say you are sorry.
Say it a lot.
Keep an open heart.
It will be pierced.
Ask God to heal it.
It will grow stronger.
You need to love.

lesson learned leading women's ministry

For a large number of people the following hold true:

(1) Being cared for is more important than being challenged

(2) Being loved is more important than being admired

Easily Deceived

About this time every year, I make a concentrated effort to practice gratitude. I minimize the disappointment, regrets, and loses of the past 12 months, and I magnify all of the good things. Here is how I do it:

I remember God's comfort in pain and the lessons learned through trouble. I remember His promises and His character. I rejoice that I am His choice to be adopted into His family and that Jesus is not ashamed to call me brother.

I remember how much I enjoy friends and how precious the relationships in my life are. I decide to believe the best about people's motives. I remember how blessed I am to have so many friends.

I choose to believe the best about myself. I choose to forgive myself. I remember that my future is limited by my faith not by my failures. Then I choose to trust God.

Eventually, I begin to wonder how I could have spent any time being frustrated with myself, bitter at others, or suspicious of God. Then I remember how, I am simple minded and easily deceived.

Silly me

Made up mind

You could have asked!

You could have listened!

You could have cared!

I should have.
I thought I did.
I was trying to,
but I'd made up my mind before you spoke.

How to Pray-"Our Father"

Chase Bank had this slogan, "CHASE, where the right relationship is everything."

That slogan resonates because it reveals something we know is true throughout life. There are things that I have gotten because of a relationship that would not have otherwise been accessible to me. A number of years ago, I got a new car from my parents because I needed it to commute to work. Around that time though, my cousin also needed a car. My parents didn't get her one, not even an old beat up one. She wasn't less needy. She wasn't less deserving. She just wasn't their child.

When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray (Luke 11:1-2), the first thing that He teaches them is that God is our Father. This means at least two things. The first and most obvious is that we can approach God with the love and respect that a child has for his father. The second is that God thinks of us with the special love and concern that a father has for his children. Because of that relationship, we should expect to get things that we don't deserve and be grateful for them.

We pray, not in the manner that an employee asks his boss for a raise or the way one appeals to a judge for a favorable ruling. It is more like a child asking his dad for some money to get a new toy or for school supplies. In prayer, the right relationship is everything.

Access: pre-pimped vs. Post-Pimped

Based on the Pimp My Life theme

Community: pre-pimped vs. Post-Pimped

Based on the Pimp My Life theme.

The Israelites, Balaam, and me- Pt3

(You have little hope of comprehending the following if you don't read Pt2)

Considering both of these stories together, a new line of thinking occurs to me. Both the Israelites and Balaam were discontent with God's provision.

The Israelites were troubled by the memory of better conditions in slavery. So much so that they began to focus on how great they ate while being exploited and oppressed by Egyptian rulers instead of how great it was to be free with hope for a future being led by Father God.

Balaam already had an answer from God. The only thing that changed between the initial direction God gave him and his seeking further direction was the increased offer of compensation.

Balaam eventually proved that his motives were suspect. Though God would not alow him to curse Israel. Balaam counselled Balak on how to cause Israel to bring a curse on themselves by intermarrying with the Midianite women. He showed himself creative in technically following the command of God while still pursuing the true desire of his heart which was not to please God, loving what He loves and hating what He hates, but rather to secure the wealth and honor promised to him:

"While Israel remained at Shittim, the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab. For they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel joine themselves to Baal of Peor, an the Lord was angry against Israel" (Numbers 25:1-3)

"Behold, [the Moabite women] caused the sons of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, so the plague was among the congregation of the Lord. " (Numbers 31:16)

"And those who died by the plague were 24,000" (Numbers 25:9)

"forsaking the right way they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness, but he received an rebuke for his own transgression: for a dumb onkey, spealking with a voice of a man, restrained the madness of the prophet." (2Peter 2:15-16)

"Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah." (Jude 11)

"But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teahing of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit acts of immorality." (Revelations 2:14)

Intercession Interruption

It usually comes on me like a deep sadness and an oncoming hunger. I think first that I should eat or try to relax. Eating is unsatisfying and I can't relax. I am slightly agitated. Neither television, radio, nor the internet can divert my attention from the empty gnawing feeling in my gut, can lighten the heaviness in my heart, or cleanse the stickiness in my throat and mouth which will not easily agree to utter any words unless they are words of prayer.


When I do yield and pray, I feel sorrows and happiness and I see things that were, never were, will be, may never be, and things that are just underneath the apparent. I become content. I feel the indentation in my soul. I know I am being marked for something. I believe that it meant something. I wait actively, trusting, hoping, quietly. I am dependent.

Investigator

Thanks Penny! This resembles me reasonbly well.

THE INVESTIGATOR:
Intense, Cerebral: Perceptive, Innovative, Secretive, and Isolated
In Search of: Mastery, to be capable, competent,

GIFTS: Exquisite sensitivity, and compassionate visionary.
One step beyond the cutting edge.

Sees Purpose in Life as: to know and understand the universe.

Gifts in Practice:
Deep burning laser-like concentration.
Pioneering visionary.
Perspective observer & curious.
Focused innovator - attracted to the exception to the rule.
Generous and discriminating to those who are interested.
Perceptive

Often Seen as:
Intense, cerebral type: focused, original, withdrawn, seen as shy,
eccentric, 'nerds,' 'weirdoes,' intensely pre-occupied.
Experts in specific ('unique' and specialized) areas into which they go deep.
Quirky off-beat sense of humour; very sensitive.
Unperturbed by 'fashion,' collecting.
Studious -in search of mastery.
Intense conceptualizer. Plays the 'what if' game.
Often walk - without the whole foot touching.

Wake-Up Call: moving inside mental world, away from reality

Wrong Turn: to be observant & bring capacity & agency using the mind.

Compulsive Style: Pre-occupied: pre-occupied often with the dark aspects; scornful, cynical, impatient with others. Isolated, secretive.

Emotional Habit Pattern that maintains the Compulsive Style:
Avarice, stinginess; holding out and holding onto.

Fear: being useless, helpless, incapable;
can't make it in the world, being overwhelmed.

Avoids: emptiness

Defense Mechanism:
Compartmentalization: separates thoughts from emotions.
Isolation: separates one moment /event /... from another.

CHALLENGE: to show up in an embodied way: can't know the world from mind alone / through thinking (leads to spaciousness & trust).

E.g.s.: Albert Einstein, F. Nietzche, Stephen Hawking, John Lennon, Vincent Van Gogh, Sigmund Freud, Jodie Foster, Wilhelm Reich, Stephen King, Bill Gates, Emily Dickenson, Georgia O'Keefe, Jean-Paul Sarte, James Joyce, lsaac Newton, Doris Lessing, Bobby Fischer, Glenn Gould, Isaac Asimov, Clive Barker, P.E. Trudeau, Lois Riel, "Ricky" in American Beauty, John Nash (in A Beautiful Mind), August Strindberg.

A pair of defining beliefs

Pastor Brent made this statement at church today and it struck a nerve.

"Whether or not you agree with the following two statements will determine a lot about how you live as a believer.

God loves me and:

(1) there is nothing I can ever do to make him love me more.

(2) there is nothing I can ever do to make him love me less."

A couple of years ago I don't think that I believed that at all. I thought God loves one category of persons a certain amount and other categories at different amounts. By my obedience, devotion, and faith I can move into higher love categories. Failure to obey, doubt, unbelief, and lapses in devotion would result in my falling into lower love categories. Though everyone does get a guaranteed minimum love allotment.

Relational breakdown

“It is not enough to insure that people understand you, but to insure that they cannot misunderstand you.”

Halford Luccock, Professor in yale Divinity School from 1928 to 1953

I am convinced that churches split, friends fall out of favor, marriages wither, and relationships in general fail because this bit of advice is rarely consistently observed.

I'll see if I can't make this quote a rule for my communication this coming semester.

On unliking people

There are a few people who I once liked very much. As I got to know them better, I liked them less but loved them more. They used to be people I wanted to be around because of commonalities. Upon closer inspection, their uniqueness became apparent and distasteful. By then, it was too late. I'd already decided to love them. Now, they're stuck with me.

multigenerational family and friends

I'm in NY with my parents, my brother and his fam, and a bunch of cousins and old family friends for the holiday weekend. I know I've posted about this before, but it is great to spend time with people that have known you and a couple of generations of your family all of your life, care about you, and feel like they have some stake in your life.

I don't know exactly how to quantify the benefits of this, but they are huge. It's like an underground kindness/community economy. People trade time spent looking after each others kids in lieu of daycare, laughing with family and friends instead of therapy, and family favors for financial support. You yield a certain measure of control over your time, money, and privacy, but you as long as you don't feel that you're giving more than you get, it works.

I'm sitting in the house I grew up in and I'm sleeping in the same bedroom I had when I was 5. A number of the neighbors have lived here for the past 40 years. Parents have passed away and their kids have taken over the homes. That is amazing to me. I wonder if I'd love it so much if I actually lived here. The tough thing about being together with people for decades is that you may end up having a few decades-long disagreements and contentions. It requires greater relational skill and dexterity to avoid being entangled in other people's offenses than is the case where the neighborhood turns over every 5-10 years.

The funny thing is that I didn't even want to come to NY this holiday. Sometimes, I have the most fun doing things that I didn't want to do.

submission11-17-06

I don't really know Him well at all. I thought that He exercised power differently. His Way is unlike my own. His manner and methods are not those that I would have chosen. Submission is the model, the method, and the goal. If I had it, I think that I would use power to satisfy immediate desire and remove any impedence. That isn't His Way. Odd, yet refreshing.

-Rev 1:1, John 8:38, 10:25, 10:37, 14:10,

on preparing messages and prayer

I was told that last week when I spoke at "Pimp My Life", the campus student meeting, I delivered a great message. As a follow up to the complement, she asked "What did you do different to prepare?"

Now my pride was a little injured at that last question. I happen to believe that I gave great messages at our previous meetings as well. Apparently however, this opinion is not as widely held as I had believed.

As I began to prepare next week's message, I thought more about this and came to some conclusion. Maybe this will be useful to someone, or at least the principles behind it will be. When attempting to speak the Truth from the Scripture to others with the intent that it be applied, the preparation of the man is vastly more significant than the preparation of the message. The role of prayer should not be underestimated. The manner of prayer should not be taken for granted. Prayers to seek God's blessings to achieve my goals generate less peace than prayers to seek God's goals and His favor that I might perform them.

When I ask God's blessing, I assume that I know what He is willing to bless. This is unwarranted overconfidence at best. I've misunderstood and misapplied Scripture often enough to provide no basis for such assumptions.

On the other hand, seeking God's goals assumes that I may not be continually aware of what is on God's mind. This is more in accord with the reality of my relationship with my Father. Following that search with asking for His favor to perform, assumes that I may not be in a position where His favor may be received. This could be do to doubt, unbelief, or some other of the many sins to which I am prone. Again, this assumption is safer being more likely to accord with my actual experience.

As true as I've noticed this to be in general with prayer, it is just as true when praying about a message. This stands to reason since the idea behind delivering a message in practical terms is that the message originates with someone other than the messenger. Understanding the intentions, desires, and emotions of the sender will help the messenger to deliver the message as the sender intended. My Father makes these known more often when I ask Him what He wants me to say, what impression He wants to make, and how He feels about the people that I am to speak to.

Hope this will be as useful to you and your hearers as it was to me and mine.