Inconvenient
As I was doing the dishes this morning before coming to work, there was some activity outside of our apartment door in the common hallway. We share this common hallway with 7 other units in our apartment complex. And as usual, our dog, chance began his ritual barking.
Chance, who comes up to my knees at best, is normally not a loud dog. In fact we had him probably a year or so before he ever barked. And even now, he rarely does so. But when he hears people in the hallway, especially if it sounds like they are near our door, he will bark. And for such a little bitty dog, he has quite the “big-dog” bark!
So, as I began to yell at him to be quiet, a thought occurred to me. Many people get dogs for security–a guard dog. Funny thing is, almost every person that I’ve ever known to have a “guard dog” gets really upset when the dog is barking too much. But wasn’t that the whole purpose of a “guard dog?: to bark at strangers? Aren’t they supposed to grown and generally be protective of their owners? But when they bark too much, people get upset.
I wonder if we ever treat God the same way? The Bible describes the Holy Spirit as a sort of guard dog for our spiritual lives. He is there, among other reasons, to keep us from falling into temptation. Yet when He begins to “bark,” sometimes we get annoyed or just ignore it completely. Or worse, we begin to get angry or defiant.
Maybe we should take a little extra time in prayer to make sure we are paying attention to the barking of the Holy Spirit. He is there to keep us out of trouble. I know personally, I intend to make sure I am listening when He begins to speak to me and let me know when the enemy is coming a little too close.
What about you?
Failure to Update
I have seriously been ignoring my blog recently. And that’s a shame, especially since I am such a believer in blogging. And I subscribe to multiple blogs and such. So Imma try and do a better job and be more consistent.
So most of my recent blogs have just been telling the world how I feel about certain subjects. Not tonight. Tonight I just want to tell the world that I learned some stuff this week.
I am a terrible event planner. I mean, straight-up awful. Mostly I just sit and stare at my notes and think, “man, how am I gonna get from here to there?” Thankfully, God knew that and hitched me up with my amazing wife who excels at that stuff.
The thing is, for some reason, I basically planned the fundraiser dinner thing that we did today all by myself. I don’t really know why. For some reason I didn’t bring Amanda in on any of it. And because of that, it was a mess. Now don’t get me wrong, it went just fine, and we raised a little money. But that’s only because the few decisions I did make weren’t that bad–by the grace of God. But it could’ve been absolutely terrible.
So, I did learn a ton of things this week about planning a fundraiser dinner. The biggest of all: allow my wife to use the gifts God gave her!
I love my wife so much!
Ignite Recap for 1/10/09
The Jesus Journey
Most people who take great journeys do so for their own benefit: They want to be the first to scale a mountain or cross an ocean. They want to be famous and receive the benefits of their fame. But, the greatest journey of all time was taken by Someone who had a more eternal purpose. Jesus took the ultimate journey for one reason and one reason alone: you.
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:5-11
Journey Leg #1: From Heaven to Earth (vs. 5-7)
Picture Heaven in your mind. It’s perfect in every way. And Jesus is there, of course, being perfect, being worshiped constantly, free from all worries and care of being human. And now, He’s given that up. He made a conscious choice to serve instead of being served by coming in the form of a lowly human peasant.
Journey Leg #2: From the Earth to the Cross (vs. 
Jesus could have taken on the form of a king or emperor. Or, like I would’ve done (good thing I’m not God…), as some sort of superhero (of course, the image in my mind is some random Japanimation hero with all kinds of crazy superpowers). But He didn’t. Instead, in the greatest of all paradoxes, Jesus won by losing. He stepped away from Heaven, “became obedient to death”, and allowed Himself to be at the mercy of something He had complete power over. Jesus endured one of the most painful and agonizing execution processes, so that we wouldn’t have to.
Journey Leg #3: From the Grave to the Sky (vs. 9-11)
Jesus’ humiliation and death wasn’t the end of the journey. Our Scripture text tells us that God exalted Jesus to the highest place, giving Him the Name above all Names.
God is in the midst of writing an incredible story of our lives. And of course, we won’t pay $10 to watch a movie where the lead character never has to face any difficulties or tough moments, or even a hard fight. Great stories happen through great drama. And so it is with our story. God isn’t writing an owner’s manual of our life–He’s writing a sweeping epic novel! And that story finds its ultimate turning point when we decide to make Jesus the Savior of our Life. Have you made that decision?
Pastor Doug Brown
I can’t say I didn’t see it coming, but when it did it was still quite a blow.
Pastor Doug Brown announced this past Sunday to the congregation of The Rock Church that, effective Sun., Jan. 31, 2010, he will be resigning our church.
Pastor was good enough to give me a few days warning, which of course came with the plea that I keep it to myself so that he could announce it to the people personally. So it wasn’t quite as big a shock to me when he announced it. That doesn’t mean my heart wasn’t pounding when he did.
I want to go on record to say this: I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for Pastor Doug Brown. I’ve had the pleasure of being his Youth Pastor for these past six months. And, though I’ve only known him for a total of 7 months, it didn’t take long for me to figure out that, when he is speaking, I need to shut up and listen. The words that come out of his mouth are wisdom like that of Solomon. He has years of experience not only Pastoring, but on the missions field, and he has taken those experiences and become a wealth of knowledge and compassion. I’ll never forget the staff meetings he and I had where he sat behind his desk and related to me his vision and passion for The Rock Church.
For those that don’t know, Pastor Doug has been battling cancer: melanoma. The typical life-expectancy is a maximum of five years. He’s had it going on six. And most people that see him in public would probably never know he has cancer, because he looks and acts healthy. And he will probably never tell us of the private health battles he fights at home. But I know he is very tired, and he deserves this rest–retirement, if you will.
It has been my honor to have served with him these few months. My regret is that I didn’t get to know him sooner, and learn from his vast wisdom.
He will probably be embarrassed if he ever reads this because he doesn’t want the attention. It’s his desire–and I can personally attest to his sincerity in this matter–that his efforts disappear and that God gets the complete and total glory. So, Pastor Doug Brown, may God be glorified and exalted because of your life. And may you find rest, comfort, and peace in the hands of the Healer. We will miss you greatly, Pastor, but our prayers for you and your family will continue, and we will rejoice together when you are healed. Go with the honor and blessing of The Rock Church.
Rules of the South
I received this via email from the Good Clean Funnies List this morning, and thought it was pretty funny. So I copied and pasted. Enjoy!
1. Pull your droopy pants up. You look like an idiot.
2. Turn your cap right; your head isn’t crooked.
3. Let’s get this straight: it’s called a “gravel road.” I drive a pickup truck because I want to. No matter how slow you drive, you’re going to get dust on your Lexus. Drive it or get out of the way.
4. They are cattle. That’s why they smell to you. They smell like money to us. Get over it. Don’t like it? I-40 goes east and west, I-65 goes north and south. Pick one.
5. So you have a $60,000 car. We’re impressed. We have $250,000 cotton strippers that are driven only three weeks a year.
6. So every person in the south waves. It’s called being friendly. Try to understand the concept.
7. If that cell phone rings while a bunch of doves are coming in, we WILL shoot it out of your hand. You better hope you don’t have it up to your ear at the time.
8. Yeah, we eat catfish and crawfish. You really want sushi and caviar? It’s available at the corner bait shop.
9. The “Opener” refers to the first day of deer season. It’s a religious holiday held the closest Saturday to the first of November.
10. We open doors for women. That is applied to all women, regardless of age.
11. No, there’s no “vegetarian special” on the menu. Order steak. Or you can order the chef’s salad and pick off the two pounds of ham and turkey.
12. When we fill out a table, there are three main dishes: meats, vegetables, and breads. We use three spices: salt, pepper, and ketchup. Oh, yeah … we don’t care what you folks in Cincinnati call that stuff you eat … IT AIN’T REAL CHILI!!
13. You bring “coke” into my house, it better be brown, wet, and served over ice. You bring “Mary Jane” into my house, she better be cute, know how to shoot, drive a truck, and have long hair.
14. College and high school football is as important here as the Lakers and the Knicks, and a dang sight more fun to watch.
15. Yeah, we have golf courses. But don’t hit the water hazards — it spooks the fish.
16. Colleges? We have them all over. We have state universities, universities, and vo-techs. They come outta there with an education plus a love for God and country, and they still wave at everybody when they come for the holidays.
17. We have more folks in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. So don’t mess with us. If you do, you will get whipped by the best.
18. Turn down that blasted car stereo! That thumpity-thump mess ain’t music, anyway. We don’t want to hear it any more than we want to see your boxers. Refer back to #1.