You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Life’ category.
This weekend, i have the opportunity to speak for the College Group at Bel Air Presbyterian Church…however, not in the church building but for their retreat in Big Bear, California.
I have been in quite a bit of prayer leading up to this and i am excited to see what God does.
The three sessions will revolve around:
Belonging to God
Belonging to God’s Community
Belonging to God’s Mission
When i get back, i’ll give you some more details…i’m back to the books now.
have you ever listened to a song and it felt like the song somehow transfered something over to you? you know, when all of a sudden for no apparent reason you get tingley all over from the song? unless i have some sort of psychosomatic problem, i think that music can sometimes remind me of the One who wants to bring me back to Him. Sometimes I exprience God’s still small voice through the melodies and lyrics of songs…it’s as if God is speaking into the depths of my soul.
The reason I bring this up, is that I was just listening to the song, “Heaven” by a band called The Fire Theft. I first heard it last month on a mission trip to Costa Rica…as we were winding through a mountain road, surrounded by foliage that had leaves bigger than a jr. higher, sounds of monkeys and birds mixed with the sound of an occasional waterfall…one of the high school students passed me his headphones…i was still immersed in the moment of my surroundings as i put on the headphones and a soundtrack began for what i was seeing…over the melodic interplay of piano, guitar, and drums…these words pierced into my heart…
Heaven
Are you really waiting outside the door?
Never thought I’d hear the words before the road
It’s the simple things that are so hard to grasp
Can’t find myself in all these days that pass
But I can feel it when it shines
Nevermind the way they shy
Turning round along the trail
My whole world is falling in love with you
And in that moment…i understood the words, “Be still and know that I am God.” I felt God’s love pour over me like a warm shower and the rest of my trip became referenced in relation to that moment…simply amazing.
What are some ways that remind you of the One who has loved you since the beginning of time?
you know what i’m talking about. There is some kind of mathematical equation that says that the longer you put off doing something there is a correlatory increase in the amount of excuses one makes in putting said thing off just a little bit longer.
My “to do” in question that I have put off for way to long is this…writing my thoughts down.
I won’t bore you with the excuses…but believe me I have come up with so many of them over the past two months as I have found myself getting busier and busier leading up to my wedding, preparing for youth ministry this summer, fixing up and selling my home, and buying a new place closer to work…all i know is that i am thankful my hour and a half commute will soon turn into a minute and a half commute and i will have more time to be with my new bride, with God, and with who knows what with an extra 12 hours a week sans commuting from Glendale.
But then i think about it and i realize that at one point i had those 12 hours back as i wasn’t commuting to a different county everyday…and i still seemed overwhelmed and too busy back then.
Why is it always like that? Why is it that if i have 12 hours in a day to get 2 hours of work done…it still takes me 12 hours because i get distracted or procrastinate…but if i have 2 hours to get 2 hours of work done…i’m in prime time work load? Why is it that my house gets the cleanest when i am in the middle of finals? Is it because i would rather clean my bathroom floors than study?
I complain about how little free time i have and all the things i would love to do if i had time for it. But then when i do have the free time I am at a loss for the things that i wanted to do and i find myself wasting the time away.
Am I the only one who feels like this? I need help here…and would love to hear your advice.
Is it that i am unorganized, is it that i work better under time pressure, or is it because I still turn a deaf ear to God’s words to me in Psalm 46 – “Be still and know that I am God.”
Until then, I am back at it…trying to do my mental exercises after a lomg hiatus.
By the way, thanks Rhett for prodding me to get back into blogging shape…
For those of you wondering why I have not been posting much for the last three weeks save for the occasional posts related to my seminary classes…I apologize.
My laptop crashed at the beginning of February and I have realized how hopelessly dependent upon it I am. It is currently in the hands of HP technicians and I have no idea how long it is going to be. Until then, I am borrowing a “backup laptop” (i know this by the huge sticker it has on the back of it) from my IT dept. at church. I have not ftp programs on it, no iTunes, no photoshop, no illustrator…and worst of all (gasp) no wireless…what a geek i am lamenting over this!
Oh the days that were as simple as riding my BMX bike in the streets and eating popsicles by the pool…now, I am seriously pulling my hair out becuase I cannot do work or classwork away from office desk…plugged into a cable (i had forgotten what that was) modem.
So please forgive me for the lack of posts as I normally do them late at night at home on my own time (or on a friend’s computer as I am doing now) and I am still refusing to take time out of my pastoral responsibilities at the church to do them…though i just realized i can write posts in Word and paste them into WordPress when i get into work! Hallelujah!
It’s official, i’m pathetic.
…is off to a rough start. I’m tired, frustrated, and see no end in sight.
I wonder if it is from:
(a) the power outage at church from the high winds that prevented me from getting some time-senstive work done and kept me busy until 11:30pm tonight…
(b) the hour commute is starting to wear on me.
(c) I haven’t taken the time to be connected to and filled up by the only One who can offer me the peace and strength I long for.
hmmmm…if i want to get at the root of the matter, I think I know what to do now instead of blog…
alright kiddies…this is why you never make bets…
Yeah, that’s right…that’s me wearing a burnt orange Longhorns logo just moments after speaking to 250 high schoolers because my alma mater USC lost to Vince Young and the University of Texas Longhorns at the Rose Bowl…and I bet my father-in-law I would wear his Christmas present to me only if my Trojans lost…thanks for the Christmas gift Mark… 
wow…24 hours later and i am still in shock from probably the most nerve-racking and exciting college football games I have ever been too…looks like i am wearing my longhorn gear this weekend when i preach at church (thanks to a lost bet to my father-in-law in Texas…thanks Mark)
if it weren’t for the ending, I would have said it was the best football game I have ever witnessed…that still has to go to the SC vs. UCLA game in ’99 when SC broke their 8 year win streak with a 17-7 win and we all rushed the field at the Colisseum.
i am still exhausted physically and emotionally from last night’s game. What a rollercoaster…up and down up and down…finally ending in a screaching halt as Young waltzed into the endzone for the third time of the evening. Hats of to Young and the rest of the Texas team…amazing performances.
Young, who finished second to Bush in Heisman balloting, rushed for 200 yards and three touchdowns, and passed for 267 yards to give the Longhorns their first national title in 35 years and extend their winning streak to 20 games. He clinched the victory by scoring on a fourth-and-five run from the eight-yard line with 19 seconds to play.
I loved Terry Bowden’s quote this morning on the Trojan radio station AM 1540, “there was too much hype before the game, but the game exceeded the hype…and Vince Young exceeded the game.” He was unreal…just like Bush was unreal against Fresno State and UCLA…
So many people who haven’t watched both teams all season kept saying Bush was overrated and Young should have won the Heisman…but the Heisman voting isn’t based on one game…it’s the whole season. It goes to show that every player has his off nights. For Bush it came tonight…for Vince Young it came against Texas A&M earlier in the season…but last night when it mattered the most…Young stepped it up to the plate in a performance that many analysts are saying was the best single performance they have ever seen in the history of college football…wow.
Hats off to USC as well for going 45-3 since the middle of ’02…oh yeah, and each of those losses were by 3 points or less…talk about an amazing run.
Pete Carroll is a class-act and it was amazing to see him patiently waiting for Mack Brown, Texas coach, to finish celebrating so he could walk up and congratulate him…typical class from Carroll.
Looking forward to next year with a new look to the team…Leinart, Bush, and probably White will be gone…who will win the quarterback slot, Booty or Sanchez? Either way it is going to be a fun year and i can’t wait for the game against Notre Dame…
Woohoo! You can imagine how excited I was when I got the phone call that my dad was able to score 2 tix for me and my brother to see SC play Texas for the National Championship at the Rose Bowl!
My roomate was telling me that the word on the street is this SC team is the second best in college football history. They are awesome…I have watched every SC game since i started going there in ’98 and I am a huge fan but i don’t know if they are the second best in the history of college football…maybe second best offense though… Here’s a great article that pits this year’s team against the rest of history. Check it out.
While you’re at it, for anything and everything related to this year’s SC team…check out TributeToTroy.com
I am super pumped for this game, not only because I am an SC alum, but because my future father-in-law lives in Texas and is a huge Texas fan…so much that he gave me a Longhorns t-shirt and hat for Christmas…if SC loses i promised him i would wear it when i preach next week at church! Not gonna happen…
