Living without fear

Doing new things all the time sounds easier than it really is.  I thought I would easily find new things to try, but it mainly revolves around food for me.  I had some really good pasta I had never had last night.  It was great.  I thought about going with something that I had eaten before, but I am glad I didn’t.

I guess that is really the point of me doing new and different things: being open to new possibilities.  So many times, I find that I limit myself because I am afraid of the unknown.  It is so easy to hide behind what I have always done.  It is safe.  Trying new things is a risk.  What if I do something/eat something/wear something and I don’t like it?  It seems silly to think that those things would really be a risk, but we blow them out of proportion in our minds.  We make it seem like that if we pick the wrong food dish at a restaurant that our evening is ruined.  If we don’t pick the right outfit to wear, then we won’t feel good about ourselves.  Where did we get the absurd idea that those things mattered that much?

We do this with church too.  We think that if we don’t sing the songs that we like, church was ruined that day.  Maybe the sermon wasn’t all we hoped it would be.  Satan has sold us these lies and we have bought them.  He has put the fear of failure and the fear of the unknown front and center in our lives because he knows that if he can get us to concentrate on those things, then we can’t see past them to the wonderful, open world that God has blessed us with.

I’ve got to do better at not being afraid of trying new things.  The fear that is there shouldn’t control my life.  God has given us freedom in Christ.  That freedom is way too important to let small failures and unknowns control our decisions.

Praise be to God that we can take hold of this life and live it to the fullest!

First attempts at new things

In my last post I talked about branching out a little in the 30 days leading up to my 30th birthday. This hasn’t been as exciting as you would think so far, but successful nonetheless.

On Friday, Ashlee and I went to the NEW Whole Foods on Greenville and Park.  It is an amazing new store.  We got a couple of new foods to try and had a great time.  I know that sounds weird to say that you can have a great time in a grocery store, but this place is amazing.  And they are so much nicer in this Whole Foods compared to the one in Lakewood.  It’s probably just because it is new and it will wear off eventually, but for now, it is a great, friendly grocery store.

On Saturday, we went back to Whole Foods to explore a little more and I found out that my favorite tea company, Sweet Leaf, makes a half tea, half lemonade.  I haven’t tried an “Arnold Palmer” before and gave it a whirl.  It was great!  I think I like it even more than their regular tea, which is saying a lot.

Nothing new from Sunday except a bruise on my leg where I got kneed while our youth group played basketball.

It’s the simple things in life that can be the greatest.  Here’s to more new things!

30 Days Until…

…I turn 30. This sneaks up on you. Just the other day I was fresh out of college and now I am staring the big 3-0 in the face. I can’t believe it is really happening.

I feel like I have accomplished a lot in my first 30 years. I have done things that I never thought I would do. I climbed a 14,000+ ft. mountain in Colorado. I went whitewater rafting on the same trip. I went overseas to the Ukraine and Germany. (Germany was just for one night but it still counts) I got married. Yet there are still great adventures to have in the next several years.

For the next 30 days, I’m going to try and do some things that I still haven’t done. They are not all going to be big things, but just something new and different. If you have any ideas, let me know. I will try and post about it everyday (if possible). I feel like I am at a place in life where I can grow and be open to new things. And that’s a good feeling.

Plus, who would think that getting older would inspire openness?

This Too Shall Pass

If you haven’t seen OK Go’s newest music video yet, you are missing out.  It features one of the longest, most complicated Rube Goldberg machines I have ever seen.  It is amazing.  Check it out:

Hoarders

Have you seen the show “Hoarders“?  It is like the show on the Style Network called “Clean House” but crazier.  People have an extremely messy home and people come help them clean it up.  Except these people have a disorder.  At the beginning of the show they tell you that 3 million people have this same disorder.  3 MILLION.

A typical room of a hoarder

They go through their house, showing the disgusting and unsafe things they have in their residence.  Rat and mouse droppings, bug infestations, and even loaded guns that they have lost make the list of things that I have seen on this show.  The thing about this show that is really crazy is that they know they can’t keep living like this, but they do.  They know it’s unhealthy and that it could hurt them, yet they can’t seem to part ways with broken things or infested furniture.

Do we do the same things?  Do we get bogged down in sin, even though we know it’s unhealthy and it is hurting us?  You see, our sins keep us from being who Christ wants us to be.  It holds us back in so many ways.  Yet, we can’t seem to make a break from it most of the time.

One of the keys for the people on the show is that they have a professional organizer/therapist that is there helping them through the process.  They have to do the work, but they have help.

The writer of Hebrews says:

Do you see what this means – all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on?  It means we’d better get on with it.  Strip down, start running – and never quit!  No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins.  Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in.  Study how he did it.  Because he never lost sight of where he was headed – that exhilarating finish in and with God – he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever.  And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God.  When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through.  That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!  (The Message)

We’ve got to get rid of everything we can, focus on Jesus and remember that he is with us.  That’s how we get rid of it.  We have him by our side.

If you have a lot of garbage in your life, it’s time to clean house.

If you have a little bit of garbage in your life, it’s time to clean house.

If you don’t think you have any garbage piled up in your life, you might be fooling yourself.

You see, if you have some, it is much easier to get rid of it now than when it will grow and fester into something bigger.  Weekly (or bi-weekly) cleaning is so much easier than the annual “spring cleaning”.  We can’t let sin come into our lives and become something huge.  We’ve got to work at continually getting rid of the sin that we try to hoard.

It’s time for a good cleaning.

Throw off everything that is keeping you from God.

Put your focus on Jesus.

Don’t grow weary and loose heart, for he is with you.

Do we hear the music?

My mother-in-law shared this story with me this week and I thought it was outstanding.

Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007.  The man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes.  During that time approximately 2000 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.  After 3 minutes, a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing.  He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule.

4 minutes later: the violinist received his first dollar: a woman threw the money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.

6 minutes later: a young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

10 minutes later: a 3-year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly.  The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time.  This action was repeated by several other children.  Every parent, without exception, forced their children to move on quickly.

45 minutes later: the musician played continuously.  Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while.  About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal place.  The man collected a total of $32.

1 hour later: he finished playing and silence took over.  No one noticed.  No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world.  He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars.  Two days before, Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.

Joshua Bell

This story is true.  Joshua Bell was hired by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people’s priorities.  It raised some very valid questions: in a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty?  Do we stop to appreciate beauty?  Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

Here’s the key to the story: people didn’t stop.  The music was all around them, but they were too busy and focused on what they thought was important at the moment to hear one of the best musicians in the world.  Maybe if there had been a sign telling them who he was, they would have stopped.  Maybe if he had been wearing a tuxedo, they would have stopped.  Maybe if he would have played a very recognizable piece of music, they would have stopped.

Do we stop to “hear the music”?  Let’s face it.  We are all over-scheduled.  We are all too busy.  We don’t have time to recognize the beauty of what God has done or who he is because it would interfere with our schedule.  If we would realize that the most incredible Creator and Savior was right in front of us all the time, maybe it would change the way we act.

It’s time for us to pay attention to our Savior.

Love makes a difference

When I was first dating Ashlee, she was in school at ACU and I was a youth minister in Uvalde, TX. Those two places are four hours away so, on a Saturday, I would wake up and be on the road by 8 a.m., get to Abilene by 12, eat lunch with her, hang out that afternoon, go on a date that night and leave to go home by 10 or 11 p.m. That put me back to Uvalde by 2 or 3 a.m., only a few hours before I was supposed to teach a Bible class. Not only that, but highway 83 always had animals on the road late at night…especially around Leakey.

One night as I was coming home, I came around a corner just outside Leakey and saw a deer in my lane and a deer on the shoulder, leaving only the left lane for me to pass. It scared me, but I slowed way down and drove between them. I must have been out of my mind for making that trip so many times.

Or maybe I was in love.

The love I had (and still have) for Ashlee made me do things that I normally wouldn’t have done, like drive crazy late at night with a wild animal preserve on the roads.

Paul says in Philippians 2 (The Message):

If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care – then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends.

It got me thinking about whether or not Christ’s love has made a difference in my life.  The love from my wife sure has.  How about the love of my Savior?  Because if it has, shouldn’t that make a difference in how I am living?

That only makes sense, right?  If we realize what Christ has done for us out of love, we are motivated by it.  Think about it.  If someone gave you a Ferrari, you would be overly grateful, wouldn’t you?  Maybe cars aren’t your thing.  What if someone gave you a million dollars?  There would be no end to the “thank you”s that person would receive.  We’ve been given a love that goes beyond any love we have ever or will ever see.  Shouldn’t that encourage us to love God and treat each other well?

Paul later says in the passage:

Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society.  Provide people with a glimpse of good living and of the living God.

The gift of the love of Christ not only gives us reason to love God and our church, but also those who don’t know Christ the way we do.  We are to be insight into who God is to the world.  We are to be the models of a joy-filled life.

It’s all because his love has made a difference.

Accuracy Matters

I saw this clip from Sports Science the other day.

It got me thinking about accuracy.  I don’t think I could hit the bullseye once from 20 yards with a football, arrow or anything else.  I tried for accuracy with darts.  I hit the middle ring once in 30 throws.  Once.  Of course, I am not a professional dart thrower, but when I tried my best I could only hit the target once in 30 throws.

So how accurate am I in other things?  In sports I am so-so.  Probably better in basketball than other sports.  Video games and I have a love-hate relationship.  Sometimes I am spot on.  Other times not so much.

So what about faith?  How accurate am I in following Christ?  This is a tough question.  I know that I am better in some things than others.  Sometimes I feel like I am in step with Jesus and others I feel like we are on different roads.  So how does that all work?

I think that some people, when they think about being accurate with Christ, they think, “What’s the point? I know I can’t get there, so why even try?”  Well, if you never try, you will never know what you can do.  If you never throw the dart, how could you ever hit the target?  It is tough to be like Christ, but if we never try, we will never know how well we can do.

Some people think that it should be an immediate change.  Try being a Christian one day and then the next you will be perfect.  Nope.  Doesn’t work like that.  You can’t bowl a 300 game if you bowl once.  It takes practice.  We have to work on our skills of following Christ.  We have to study and pray and encourage.  And we have to do it over and over.  This is a journey.

Once we see that it is an ongoing process, we have got to work at refining our relationship.  There are things we are good at and things we aren’t.  Some of us are great encouragers, but bad at using bad language.  Some have a heart for prayer, but aren’t great at being kind.  There are things that we all need to work at, so as we refine our relationship with God we need to figure out what needs work.

I hope this week you can work on your spiritual accuracy.  Keep going and keep refining.

No Sugar

Ashlee and I have made today a “no sugar” day.  This is a big challenge for us because we both have a serious sweet tooth.  We have given ourselves one exception: cereal for breakfast.  My choice today was Honey Nut Chex.  We keep this around because it is gluten-free for Ashlee and it tastes good.

The infamous candy basket

Sugar is so easy for me to eat without even realizing.  Our receptionist here at church keeps a candy basket on her desk.  Before I know it, I have devoured 3 or 4 pieces.  Sodas at restaurants with their free refills or desserts that people bring in to the office are particularly hard for me to keep from indulging.

I don’t like coffee or alcohol because of their bitter tastes.  I would much rather have something sweet than bitter.  I think I would rather have something sweet than anything else most of the time.  How is that healthy???

Do you have a problem with sweets?  Have you tried to go without sugar?  How did it go for you?

Meet the Jeep

My Jeep

This is my Jeep.  I bought it in 2003 from a family at the church I worked at in Uvalde.  It was the first vehicle I ever bought on my own.  It has made many long trips over the years, especially when I was in Uvalde, going 12 hours back to Tulsa or 4 hours to see a pretty girl in Abilene who would later become my wife.  I have many great memories in the Jeep, but as of late, it is giving me nightmares.

Over the last few years (once it was all paid for) there have been several minor problems with it.  The first was a radiator leak, which meant we had to replace the radiator.  Then battery cables went bad.  Tires have been replaced, belts have slipped, and relatively minor yet important parts have been replaced.

Today tested my patience.

It was rainy and cold here in Dallas yesterday.  As a result, the locks on my Jeep froze.  So I did what I normally do when this happens: turn the key until it loosens and breaks the ice.  I did that and it opened.  I got in the vehicle and tried to close the door.  Unfortunately, the door did not want to close.  I tried repeatedly, to no avail.  For some reason, the door latch was locked shut.  After a couple of phone calls to my dad and father-in-law and several attempts, I finally got the door to latch shut.  I tested it a couple of times and assessed that it was ok and got in and started it.  That’s when I noticed that the overhead light was still on.  I went all around the car trying to open and shut doors to get it to turn off, but it wouldn’t.  I decide to go ahead and drive to work and fiddle with it there.

When I got to the church parking lot, I finally decided that I would take the light bulbs out of the dome lights.  I was in the back seat of the Jeep when Ashlee drove up.  I had left the front door open and asked her to close it.

When she did, the lights went off and stayed off.

The morals of the story: this Jeep sucks and my wife has a magic touch.