Can You?
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Proverbs 21
I mentioned at the end of July that I was going to start a daily study of Proverbs in August. August has 31 days and there are 31 chapters of Proverbs, seemed like a plan. God has revealed some incredible things to and about me. I've taking on one chapter a day, head on, to see what God wants to speak to me about.
I read chapter 21 last Thursday and found some truths about leadership in me. I was going to post it that day but I didn't know if I could be that vulnerable. But what I journaled kept going through my head. I began to wonder if I was the only one who had these revelations. So, rather than keep it between me and God I decided to share it with hopes that you too, may be encouraged to take on scripture and let God speak to you in amazing ways.
Proverbs 21
What about the leadership abilities You have bestowed upon me, why don’t I always see them. I see the potential but I think I often shrug it off because I don’t want to face the rejection. So what does that say about my faith. Verse 31 tells me to do my best, plan for the worst and trust You to bring victory. Do I always do my best? It’s probably my perception that I am, but isn’t there always room to step it up a little? I think so. Planning for the worst is probably one of my greatest strengths. I have this mentality of trying to 'head everything off at the pass'. Avoidance! Plan so tightly that there can’t be a leak. Problem is my omniscience
(ha ha) doesn’t work that great and things happen. Problem is that I usually end up devastated over that and feel like I’ve failed. I seem to miss the step of letting You bring victory. It’s like I just drop the ball. So that probably takes me back to verse 11. I must be a simpleton ‘cause I certainly learn the hard way more than I like.
My decision to make this post was confrimed when I heard Reliant K's "For the times I feel faint" on my IPOD this morning...
I think I can't, I think I can't
But I think you can, I think you can
I think I can't, I think I can't
But I think you can, I think you can
Gather my insufficiencies and
place them in your hands, place them in your hands, place them in your hands
I have to be diligent about putting my perceived inefficiencies in Gods hands and
let him to bring the victory.
I read chapter 21 last Thursday and found some truths about leadership in me. I was going to post it that day but I didn't know if I could be that vulnerable. But what I journaled kept going through my head. I began to wonder if I was the only one who had these revelations. So, rather than keep it between me and God I decided to share it with hopes that you too, may be encouraged to take on scripture and let God speak to you in amazing ways.
Proverbs 21
What about the leadership abilities You have bestowed upon me, why don’t I always see them. I see the potential but I think I often shrug it off because I don’t want to face the rejection. So what does that say about my faith. Verse 31 tells me to do my best, plan for the worst and trust You to bring victory. Do I always do my best? It’s probably my perception that I am, but isn’t there always room to step it up a little? I think so. Planning for the worst is probably one of my greatest strengths. I have this mentality of trying to 'head everything off at the pass'. Avoidance! Plan so tightly that there can’t be a leak. Problem is my omniscience
(ha ha) doesn’t work that great and things happen. Problem is that I usually end up devastated over that and feel like I’ve failed. I seem to miss the step of letting You bring victory. It’s like I just drop the ball. So that probably takes me back to verse 11. I must be a simpleton ‘cause I certainly learn the hard way more than I like.
My decision to make this post was confrimed when I heard Reliant K's "For the times I feel faint" on my IPOD this morning...
I think I can't, I think I can't
But I think you can, I think you can
I think I can't, I think I can't
But I think you can, I think you can
Gather my insufficiencies and
place them in your hands, place them in your hands, place them in your hands
I have to be diligent about putting my perceived inefficiencies in Gods hands and
let him to bring the victory.
Friday, August 22, 2008
I dont' think I like aging!
Its funny how age, or the aging process creeps up on you when you're not expecting. it.
I recently got new glasses. I was wearing contacts but had been having some real issues with blurring on anything that was up close. As it turned out my vision had taken a turn for the worse and I required some up close assistance, hence the bi-focals!
I left for my work out at 5am. I don't like to wear my glasses while I'm working out and my distance vision is fairly good so I just laid my them on the seat next to me and backed out of the garage. I like to listen to the news as I drive to the gym but the radio had been turned down. The volume controls are on my steering wheel as are the channel controls. I thought I had my thumb on the volum control but it was the channel control and I ended up changing the channel multiple times....arrrgggg!
I moved my thumb over and found the volume but now I had blaring static as the channel the radio had gone to didnt come in.....more arrrggggg!! Course it didnt dawn on me til I was well down the road that I could just turn the tuner dial to get my station back.
Memory is becoming something that I have to be conscious of and not rely on the fact that it will just happen. While I was working out a guy at the gym asked me if I'd relay a message to someone that I worked with here at GCC. I said sure. I see this guy almost every day and we introduced ourselves sometime ago, but today I had no idea what his name was and embarassed as I was I had to ask.
I was about mid-way through my work out and didn't want to stop and go write his name down so I didnt forget it. So instead, I just begin repeating his name to myself over and over and over and over and over. Then I start to think about a project at work that I'm diving into and got some really great ideas and wanted to remember those. So now, in my head am I not only consistently repeating this guys name but also the things I want remember when I get to work.
I'm tooling along on the elliptical and I really like the song that comes on my IPOD. I want to start singing along with it in my head. But then I think I can't because if I don't keep repeating his name and the things I want to remember for work I'll forget them. My IPOD then becomes like this satan endorsed temptation, "oh come on,sing along, you know you really like this song, you won't forget the other stuff, sing, sing, have some fun during this grueling workout." Ok so maybe grueling was a little carried away! Sing, repeat? Sing, repeat? What do I do?
I finally finished my 40 minutes and went racing over to the front desk and grabbed a flyer, turned it over and was ready to write down everything I wanted to remember. Where's a pen! I can't find a pen! I have to write this down, where is a pen? I'm searching all over the desk and finally I found one. Writing as fast as I could, I jotted down in barely legible handwriting all the things I'd been repeating in my head.
What a relief! But would I know what this said when I get to work was the question?
I don't know if I was more wore out for my workout or trying to remember all this stuff! Too much stress at 5am.
I recently got new glasses. I was wearing contacts but had been having some real issues with blurring on anything that was up close. As it turned out my vision had taken a turn for the worse and I required some up close assistance, hence the bi-focals!
I left for my work out at 5am. I don't like to wear my glasses while I'm working out and my distance vision is fairly good so I just laid my them on the seat next to me and backed out of the garage. I like to listen to the news as I drive to the gym but the radio had been turned down. The volume controls are on my steering wheel as are the channel controls. I thought I had my thumb on the volum control but it was the channel control and I ended up changing the channel multiple times....arrrgggg!
I moved my thumb over and found the volume but now I had blaring static as the channel the radio had gone to didnt come in.....more arrrggggg!! Course it didnt dawn on me til I was well down the road that I could just turn the tuner dial to get my station back.
Memory is becoming something that I have to be conscious of and not rely on the fact that it will just happen. While I was working out a guy at the gym asked me if I'd relay a message to someone that I worked with here at GCC. I said sure. I see this guy almost every day and we introduced ourselves sometime ago, but today I had no idea what his name was and embarassed as I was I had to ask.
I was about mid-way through my work out and didn't want to stop and go write his name down so I didnt forget it. So instead, I just begin repeating his name to myself over and over and over and over and over. Then I start to think about a project at work that I'm diving into and got some really great ideas and wanted to remember those. So now, in my head am I not only consistently repeating this guys name but also the things I want remember when I get to work.
I'm tooling along on the elliptical and I really like the song that comes on my IPOD. I want to start singing along with it in my head. But then I think I can't because if I don't keep repeating his name and the things I want to remember for work I'll forget them. My IPOD then becomes like this satan endorsed temptation, "oh come on,sing along, you know you really like this song, you won't forget the other stuff, sing, sing, have some fun during this grueling workout." Ok so maybe grueling was a little carried away! Sing, repeat? Sing, repeat? What do I do?
I finally finished my 40 minutes and went racing over to the front desk and grabbed a flyer, turned it over and was ready to write down everything I wanted to remember. Where's a pen! I can't find a pen! I have to write this down, where is a pen? I'm searching all over the desk and finally I found one. Writing as fast as I could, I jotted down in barely legible handwriting all the things I'd been repeating in my head.
What a relief! But would I know what this said when I get to work was the question?
I don't know if I was more wore out for my workout or trying to remember all this stuff! Too much stress at 5am.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Pizza and a Bon Fire
Often after church on Saturday night (okay, almost every Saturday night) we go out to dinner with our friends the Millers. The outstanding weather we've been experiencing was extended into this weekend. Rather than sit inside at a restaurant we decided to get pizza's and go back to our house. All four of us are big dessert fans. We'd picked up a carrot cake and Richard had left a voice mail earlier in the day that they had been to the new Farmers market and picked up a variety of cakes.
Not only do we enjoy our desserts but we're pretty much ice cream fanatics. We have ice cream with Richard and Reta at least once a week in the summer. On our way out of the chuch parking log my cell rang. It was Richard wanting to know if we'd gotten ice cream too? 
I said no and he replied "ok, we'll be a couple minutes late!" and they showed up with 4 ice cream servings from McDonalds.
No wonder I have to work out 7 days a week!
After stuffing our faces with pizza and a dessert extravaganza, we made our way out to the patio to make a roaring bon fire.
Yah...roaring
It was really quite and peacful out on the patio. The coolness of the air blended well with the warmth of the fire.
We sat around the fire until well after dark. Our full bellies and the mezmorizing fire we causing us all to get very sleepy.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Morning surprises
Working with my wife is so much fun. She is the Director of Facility Care at Granger Community Church. Normally she works during the day as I do, but she recently hired some evening staff supervisors that she needed to train so not only has she been working part of the day but well into the evening as well. She does a GREAT job of ensuring that her top notch staff has the building spotless at any given moment.
Anyway, as I mentioned she's put in a few nights this week. This morning I got to my office door and their was a little sticky note on it that said "Stop Talking". I chuckled as it's a little ongoing joke we have with each other that when we say somehthing silly we tell each other to "Stop Talking." I thought it was cute.
I turned on the light and walked over to my desk and found this on my desk
.
My eyes shifted over to my phone and found this
Just to the right of my phone I keep vitamins that I take every morning. Stuck to the top of the vitamin C bottle was this
I thought about calling her but know she got in late so I didn't want to wake her
What a fun way to start my day...isn't she wonderful. I think so! I've found a couple more sticky's since settling in for the day....who knows where they'll continue to pop up!
Anyway, as I mentioned she's put in a few nights this week. This morning I got to my office door and their was a little sticky note on it that said "Stop Talking". I chuckled as it's a little ongoing joke we have with each other that when we say somehthing silly we tell each other to "Stop Talking." I thought it was cute.
I turned on the light and walked over to my desk and found this on my desk
.My eyes shifted over to my phone and found this
Just to the right of my phone I keep vitamins that I take every morning. Stuck to the top of the vitamin C bottle was this
I thought about calling her but know she got in late so I didn't want to wake her
What a fun way to start my day...isn't she wonderful. I think so! I've found a couple more sticky's since settling in for the day....who knows where they'll continue to pop up!
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
SWAT
You have no idea what a privilege it is to have the opportunity and privilege to be an employee of Granger Community Church and be under the direction of Mark Beeson. We are cared for and loved in unbelievable ways. It is incredible to work somewhere where you really matter.
Each week we flatten out the org chart and join togehter as staff for an hour or so and celebrate how we have seen God work in our church, community and lives. The meeting is called SWAT (Staff Working As Team). Team out performs a single every time. Often in this block of time we have the opportunity to be taught by Mark. Yeah, go ahead be jealous....we get our own private teaching! Seriously though, it's an awesome experience to be taught by a man who honors God like Mark does, who hears God speak to him like Mark does and who is driven by seeing people take their next step towards Christ.
Today Mark explored discipleship. He expounded on John Wesleys 4 quadrants of discipleship and Mark showed us that in reality its so much more than a quadrant perspective where scripture, traditions, experiences and reason operate independantly. Scripture really sets at the top and Tradition, Experience and Reason below. As we aspire to learn and direct people into discipleship and we have to reference back to scripture.
Experience.
Take for instance the husband who says another woman is more fun than their own spouse so they want to be with her. As a disciple we have to ask, what does scripture say about that situation? We must reference the experience back to scripture, the truth from God, and validate the experience
Tradition.
We should also roll tradition should back up to scripture for confirmation. Just because a church has been around for 97 years and has done something out of tradition doesn't necessarily mean that it falls within in scripture. We need to ensure that traditions line up with what God has said and not what someone thought was a good idea 97 years ago.
Reason
"It makes me happy so it must be ok" Not so much. We are a society with instant gratification shoved into our faces on a daily basis. There are many things that could make us happy that cannot be found in scripture. Yes God, gave us freedom of choice but whe have to choose with the wisdom and insight that God will give us.
I started this post yesterday and didn't get it completed. Now I know why. God had more to show me. I'm reading "The Richest Man Who Ever Lived" by Steven Scott. (another great piece of wisdom I obtained from a SWAT meeting). In a nut-shell, the book is about the wisdom Solomon gave in the book of Proverbs. As part of reading this book I'm reading one chapter of Proverbs each day and journaling on what I'v read and gleaned. I chose to do this in August as there are 31 days and 31 chapters of Proverbs - one for each day.
Today I was reading chapter 14 and this verse (among others) popped out at me 34 God-devotion makes a country strong; God-avoidance leaves people weak. Wow, what a time for me to come across this passage of scripture. Something referencing the election is bombarding us from every direction every day. The power struggle between the candidates is overwhelming. The promises,or the accusations, from the candidates are consistently pelting the airwaves.."I can do more, I know more, you need me, they did this wrong, what they want to do won’t help you but what I want to do will….it just goes on and on."
I thought about the information Mark gave us on John Wesley’s 4 quadrants of discipleship. He showed how everything needs to be referenced back to scripture for validation. Whether it’s our experience, a tradtion or we just reason that it’s the right thing, it needs to be validated through the Word of God. As a disciple are we making country strong because we are validating what is being proposed to us through scripture or as a people are we becoming weaker and weaker because we are letting the influence of those around us to make our decision.
As we aspire to learn and direct ourselves in discipleship and we have to reference back to scripture. Scripture will give us the truth in relationship to tradition, experience and reason.
Ok, so I'll get off my soapbox now....We are so fortunate to be equipped and trained at SWAT. I researched Wesley's discipleship quadrant online last night and maybe I was just tired, but Mark certainly made it easier to understand. I have to reiterate that I am so fortunate to be a part of this place.
Each week we flatten out the org chart and join togehter as staff for an hour or so and celebrate how we have seen God work in our church, community and lives. The meeting is called SWAT (Staff Working As Team). Team out performs a single every time. Often in this block of time we have the opportunity to be taught by Mark. Yeah, go ahead be jealous....we get our own private teaching! Seriously though, it's an awesome experience to be taught by a man who honors God like Mark does, who hears God speak to him like Mark does and who is driven by seeing people take their next step towards Christ.
Today Mark explored discipleship. He expounded on John Wesleys 4 quadrants of discipleship and Mark showed us that in reality its so much more than a quadrant perspective where scripture, traditions, experiences and reason operate independantly. Scripture really sets at the top and Tradition, Experience and Reason below. As we aspire to learn and direct people into discipleship and we have to reference back to scripture.
Experience.
Take for instance the husband who says another woman is more fun than their own spouse so they want to be with her. As a disciple we have to ask, what does scripture say about that situation? We must reference the experience back to scripture, the truth from God, and validate the experience
Tradition.
We should also roll tradition should back up to scripture for confirmation. Just because a church has been around for 97 years and has done something out of tradition doesn't necessarily mean that it falls within in scripture. We need to ensure that traditions line up with what God has said and not what someone thought was a good idea 97 years ago.
Reason
"It makes me happy so it must be ok" Not so much. We are a society with instant gratification shoved into our faces on a daily basis. There are many things that could make us happy that cannot be found in scripture. Yes God, gave us freedom of choice but whe have to choose with the wisdom and insight that God will give us.
I started this post yesterday and didn't get it completed. Now I know why. God had more to show me. I'm reading "The Richest Man Who Ever Lived" by Steven Scott. (another great piece of wisdom I obtained from a SWAT meeting). In a nut-shell, the book is about the wisdom Solomon gave in the book of Proverbs. As part of reading this book I'm reading one chapter of Proverbs each day and journaling on what I'v read and gleaned. I chose to do this in August as there are 31 days and 31 chapters of Proverbs - one for each day.
Today I was reading chapter 14 and this verse (among others) popped out at me 34 God-devotion makes a country strong; God-avoidance leaves people weak. Wow, what a time for me to come across this passage of scripture. Something referencing the election is bombarding us from every direction every day. The power struggle between the candidates is overwhelming. The promises,or the accusations, from the candidates are consistently pelting the airwaves.."I can do more, I know more, you need me, they did this wrong, what they want to do won’t help you but what I want to do will….it just goes on and on."
I thought about the information Mark gave us on John Wesley’s 4 quadrants of discipleship. He showed how everything needs to be referenced back to scripture for validation. Whether it’s our experience, a tradtion or we just reason that it’s the right thing, it needs to be validated through the Word of God. As a disciple are we making country strong because we are validating what is being proposed to us through scripture or as a people are we becoming weaker and weaker because we are letting the influence of those around us to make our decision.
As we aspire to learn and direct ourselves in discipleship and we have to reference back to scripture. Scripture will give us the truth in relationship to tradition, experience and reason.
Ok, so I'll get off my soapbox now....We are so fortunate to be equipped and trained at SWAT. I researched Wesley's discipleship quadrant online last night and maybe I was just tired, but Mark certainly made it easier to understand. I have to reiterate that I am so fortunate to be a part of this place.
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Sweat Heart
This just goes to prove that a cardio workout is heart-smart! Gross I know, but when I completed my workout this morning I looked down and saw the my sweat had formed a heart on my t-shirt.
So it was it was either put this on EBAY for sale or just post it on my blog!
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