Warning

Its funny how when I teach a lesson for the Junior High service the topic seems to apply as much to my own life as it does for their lives. This morning I taught about the warnings we waste in life and used the passage from Genesis 4 on Cain & Abel. Cain received a warning from God (But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it) that he ignored and paid the ultimate price. I wonder how often I ignore that very same warning from God. I choose to make poor decisions and that leads sin into my life. The crappy thing is that I know better. I read the warning God gave Cain and it is blatantly obvious what Cain needed to watch out for. Yet in my own life I repeatedly ignore warning signs that if I would pay attention would keep my life out of trouble. How many poor choices and bad decisions could I avoid by simply applying one of the first warnings God gives mankind? It sometimes seems like sin is not that big of a deal and that at any moment it can easily be controlled. The idea of sin lurking around, crouching, ready to pounce on my life and dominate my life seems unrealistic. Yeah right sin could have that much power and control...right? Unfortunately I don't think I realize the destructive nature of sin until its too late most of the time. I miss the warning and pay the price. Perhaps the time has come to realize how critical this warning from God is and heed its advice. How much trouble listening to it would have prevented for Cain's life, my life, and the lives of the Junior High students I taught this morning is astounding. Its the simple warnings in life that seem to have the biggest impact.

Memorization

So my friend Jeremy wrote a couple of blogs on the topic of memorizing Scripture. Basically he talked about he hadn't memorized Scripture since he was a kid and wanted to work on it. I thought about it and decided it would be a good idea for myself as well. However, I could not get the motivation to begin (as terrible as that might sound, it is true). So my wife and I were talking a few weeks back and she suggested a contest. She wanted to lose weight but didn't necessarily have the motivation to do so. So if we made it a competition against each other, perhaps the competitive edge will kick in and we'd be able to accomplish our goals. Nothing like a competition between husband and wife to accomplish goals...All that to say, is I have to memorize the book of James. I laid out a plan which would have me memorizing the book by the first part of December. That seems like a long time, but then it forces me to learn small chunks at a time and continously review the stuff I should have memorized already. So far I am up through the first chapter of James.

My observations thus far...

• Memorizing Scripture is not as hard as I thought it would be. It takes time and great discipline, but it is not impossible.
• While memorizing Scripture, God has a funny way of challenging me with what I am memorizing. For instance, Danielle came home from vacation in Colorado a couple of weeks ago but left her keys up there. My normal reaction was to freak out and have a meltdown in anger - yet "My dear brothers take note of this: everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires" popped into my head. Wow - it has served a purpose to memorize!
• The book of James is extremely useful for daily living.

So I encourage you in the pursuit of memorizing Scripture. Its totally worth the effort!

Living in the Gray Twilight

So one of the things that has struck me while watching the Olympics is how many of the athletes competing fail. This is not to say that they are not great athletes, but they fail. They make the games and then do not even get past the preliminary rounds of competition. So many men and women go home empty-handed. The reason these athletes stick out to me is because I have a HUGE fear of failure [atychiphobia]. Most of the time I mask this fear by saying I don't want to lose or don't like doing something, but in reality I hold back because I am scared to fail. Scared to fall on my face. I could not participate in the Olympics because I would be afraid of being that guy who got dead last in the preliminary heat [well and let's be honest I cannot run, swim, or do any other athletic competition even close to Olympic competition]. Being a fan of Teddy Roosevelt quotes, I always come back to the famous - "Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." How many things (not just athletics) do I miss out on because I am afraid of failing? How many enjoyments and sufferings have I missed out on because I have not taken a step forward to see what might happen? I am constantly living in the gray twilight. Afraid of stepping forth on any real adventure because I have made a conscious decision to stay with safe & boring to prevent failure from happening. Sure I do not suffer much but I also think I prevent myself from enjoying much. I must ask myself is the life, job, decisions I am making today really what I want to do and think God wants me to do, or have I allowed myself to fall safely into a security blanket that does protect but at the cost of truly living. As proud as I am of Michael Phelps and his quest for 8 gold medals, I am just as proud of all the athletes who gave it their all to get to the Olympics and then fell into dead last place. They avoided the gray twilight...now I wish I could do the same.

Proud to be an American

Theodore Roosevelt once stated, "We can have no '50-50' allegiance in this country. Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all." I love that the Olympics bring out the pride in a person for their country. Whether that is the actual athlete competing or the fan just watching. One of the things I have enjoyed most is watching our President, George W. Bush, sitting in the stands cheering on the American athletes. It might be easy to knock him for being there instead of "taking care of business" at the White House, but I am glad he is there. These amazing athletes are working their butts off and they deserve to see the leader of their country on the sidelines cheering them on. Good call on being at the Olympics Mr. President, even if just for a short time. My brother and I were talking about pride and country a few weeks back. He pointed out how it was so easy and respectful for any person in the world to be proud of their homeland. Yet, somehow in America we look down upon pride in the nation and it has become so blatantly popular to be "anti-American" even amongst those who would only choose to live here. I, regretfully so, even admit to choosing to rag on the USA a bit lately. Now I know that our allegiance is to God not nation, but at the same time I am proud to be from America. I love this country and am so honored to cheer for the many, many things that make this place great. These athletes at the Olympics are just another example of what makes this place great. Now keep pushing forward athletes, because like every other American, I sure as hell hate losing. :)

Jason Lezak!

"The Americans? We're going to smash them. That's what we came here for," Alain Bernard. That was the prediction by the best French swimmer on the French men's 4x100 freestyle relay team. Gotta love "bulletin board" material. Now I know every athlete in the world tends to make statements like that and the USA is not exactly known for our humility, but oh how it made me happy to beat the French in this Olympic event. Congratulations Cullen Jones, Jason Lezak, Michael Phelps, and Garrett Weber-Gale. You guys did America proud! "A fingertip did the victory," said Amaury Leveaux, one of the French swimmers. "It is nothing." Well buddy, that 'nothing of a fingertip' is giving us a gold. The French swam well, the USA just swam better.

Goodbye Bernie Mac

Well the world lost a real funny guy this morning in Bernie Mac. Some of my favorite roles he played were Frank Catton (Oceans 11 series), Bobby Bolivia (Transformers), and himself in the Original Kings of Comedy. However, I think my favorite role with him was in Guess Who as Percy Jones. He was so funny and I love that movie. Its always sadder to me when someone who was really funny dies, because comedy has such a strong way of not only making a person smile but genuinely feel better. So here's to you Bernard Jeffery McCullough, your jokes and humor will be missed on the bigscreen.

Teach For America

So today was the first day of the Leadership Summit. Every year, the Willow Creek Association in conjunction with Willow Creek Community Church hosts the Summit which is essentially a leadership conference. It is primarily aimed at Christian leadership, in particular ministry leaderhip. However, its broad principles could easily apply to many different fields. Today one of the speakers was a lady named Wendy Kopp. Unfortunately, it was right after lunch in the middle of my sleepy phase. Despite this, I was highly fascinated by her vision and dream for the organization Teach For America which she created. It seems like such an incredible organization with an impact that is readily seen and felt. One of the things I have often dreamt about is being a teacher in a low-income area. Not that I have that much to offer, but I could at least offer to care for students and attempt my very best to teach them (history of course!). How cool is it that this lady is actually placing high capacity leaders into schools to do this very thing. Needless to say I was really interested in looking up details about the program and learning more about it. Not necessarily saying it is for me, but it is highly intriguing and a real cool thing. Its things like this that give me hope for America. As for the Summit Day One, not bad. I really enjoyed Efrem Smith's message at the end. It was not only funny but extremely relevant. How awesome would it be to see a mix of all races in all churches across the whole world?!! We'll see what day two brings at the Summit.