Left Over Turkey Holds the Meaning of Life?

I had a great Thanksgiving! We traveled down I-80 with about a gazillion other drivers to Iowa to see my parents. We had a good time, but it was better to be back. My family is all about food. Everywhere you go, you have to have food. I think we have like 5 meals a day. My mom always has tons of food, cookies, desserts, pizza, etc... My grandma who is 82 spends days making cream puffs, pies, turkey, and tons more stuff. My aunts make salads, desserts, pork loin, barbecue beef, etc... It goes on and on. Man, when the food comes out it feels like home, everything looks perfect and we eat and we eat. It is good, but the thing is and maybe you experienced it this weekend. After the first meal is done and you clean up you kind of get the oh my goodness I ate so much I am going to explode feeling and the left overs don't look so good. For me, by the time I leave my parents house, food of any kind does not look good, I splurge so much during the time that I am there that I get so stinking full that I think I shock my body into convulsions.

Life is sometimes like that for me. The turkey, the fresh opportunity looks so good so I tear into it without thinking, because after all turkey is made to be eaten right, and if it wasn't good for me, someone would stop me right. I have torn into some great meals and devoured way too much and felt rotten afterwards in life. I have also torn into some major opportunities and felt rotten after that too. The left overs, the consequences, the results of my actions aren't near as attractive as the initial opportunity and sometimes I sit and wander why did I do that -- that was dumb! God calls us out of stupidity, out of jumping into every opportunity we have to take hold of the opportunities that we NEED to take. Just because the turkey is in front of you, doesn't mean it should be eaten.

What Are You Following?

Last night was a great Bible Study with the 180 group. We spent a lot of time talking about who are you following, what is your motivation in life and where are you going? We asked a really great question -- how are you following Jesus? It was amazing at how many of us have a tough time answering that question about our lives -- we know what the right answer should be, but specifics are difficult to come up with. Most of the people in the room could not come up with how they are following Jesus. I think most of us are like that -- we know the right answer -- Yes, I am following Jesus, but are we really? Are we really following Jesus? Do we care about the same things that He cares about? Do we love the same things He loves? Do we make all of our decisions based on becoming like Him or do we reserve those decisions for those when we are in a mountain of trouble.

I think many of us have inadvertently programmed our lives in the wrong way. I don't think that many of us spend our lives following Jesus. We spend a Sunday morning, maybe a couple of hours in a Bible Study, but that is where it ends. Does 3 to 4 hours a week constitute following? I don't think so. The real question is if you are not actively PURSUING (Reading the Bible, praying, in a Christian accountability group) Jesus who are you following?

Incredible! Life Altering, Amazing!
Words that I can use to describe my last 4 days. There is a movement that has been starting for a handful of years, that God allowed me to see a little more clearly this past week. It is life altering, it is an incredible look into what life should be, what church should be, what we should be living our lives for.

I went to the YS convention because it was free and a chance to take a breath and what I got out of the time a way had little to do about the conference, but a lot to do with what God is doing in this world. The Spirit is moving thru this world like CRAZY and He is stirring up some leaders to begin a revolution not to mess things up, but to refocus who Jesus is and what we as a church should be doing to live out our calling.

Major stuff -- more on it later.

Stay tuned.

Connections...

Do you ever wander why people come in and out of your life? Sometimes you only know someone for a day or two or even a moneth or two and they influence your life dramatically and then out fo the blue you reconnect, you bump into them. I have had some random stuff like that happen in my life in the past 2 months. I have had 2 guys from my youth group 8 years ago reconnect with me in the past couple of months. I am on my way tomorrow to reconnect with an old friend in Cincinnati. These conversations bring back memories of who I am and where I have been and help me stay focused on where I am going. These reconnection moments are powerful times in my life and I look forward to them. I wander if that is what God feels like when we avoid Him, get caught up in our way of doing things and then months, years later we reconnect wiht HIm. I wander what He thinks, I got to believe He is happy, joyful, excited to see us reconnect again. On the other side when I reconnect with God, all of those great memories of when I first came to know Jesus comes back to me and I get excted and all the sarcasm and crap of the world are forgotten.

I love reconnecting with old friends and my loving God.

Going to be a great weekend.

LOST and LONELY recap
Wow, what a great night! Heather O. Simply nailed the Barlow Girl song NEVER ALONE. Seriously, tears were in most people's eyes. Loneliness is such a powerful emotion. It is real, it is irrational, it can lead us to do things that negotiate our standards, it can lead us to doing things we wouldn't normally do, it can lead us to depression and maybe most impactfully it can lead us to miss our potential.

We had 80 students at 180 last night and we had many new people that were connecting with us and God. Heather R. Pulled off a great drama. Mindy excellent job with lights. Gary solid with the video stuff. Erin made us sound good.

It is amazing what we can do together!

Hit the button and save the world.
have you ever seen the TV show LOST where someone has to hit the execute button every 108 minutes to make sure that the world doesn't come to an end. No one knows what will happen if the button doesn't get hit, but no one wants to be the person who is responsible for not hitting the button. The plane crash survivors find the guy who has been living by himself for years, pushing the button. He is alone, he hasn't communicated with anyone for years, but he faithfully hits the button. In my life there are buttons that pushes me towards loneliness. I am scared to stop hitting the button, because I am fearful to what it may mean and it pushes me to loneliness. I keep doing the routine, because it is comfortable even if it means I might be alienating myself or not engaging in meaningful relationships. Buttons in our lives our the pursuit for grades, promotions, significant others, popularity, success, making the team, etc... Sometime we get so caught up in hitting the button we are scared to do something different, something God might be calling us towards. If you re in 180 come tomorrow night to talk about LOST and Lonely -- break out of the old into where you should be.

TAKING OUT THE DEAD

Last night and this morning before it got COLD, I raked and mowed our yard and bagged the dead leaves -- man our yard has never looked this good since we moved in. It was amazing that we bagged over 20 bags of dead leaves. I know some of you have 200 bags of leaves, but it made me question whether or not it was worth it. Why bother taking out the dead leaves when 12 months from now a whole new crop of dead stuff would be there. The reasons I could think of to remove the dead leaves was
1) It makes things look good and that I am not a lazy slacker to my neighbors
2) Our kids like to play in leaves for about a month and then they probably would hate it -- so practically speaking if we want to use our yard we need them off
3) If they didn't go the grass would die
4) Eventually the leaves would compost and begin to stink on a nice warm summer day
5) I am doing my best to keep the economy going by buying stupid recycling bags :)

Why do we need as people to look at our lives and take out the dead stuff, the stuff that makes us not look good, or take away our potential, or cause us to smell? We need take the stuff out of our lives that is dead, that is holding us back because we need to imagine again what it means to live fully and for God. We need to get the dead stuff out of our lives so that we can move forward and become more fully into what God has planned for us. Yes taking out the dead parts of our lives is NO fun, it is hard work, it even stinks every once in awhile, but we need to do it. I need to take a look at what I watch on TV, how I spend my free time, and how I spend time with my family and take out the dead stuff that is getting in my way. Lets all take a look and clean out some dead stuff this week.

Do Not Become Tired of Doing Good -- powerful statement! We had a great Bible Study at my house last night -- 27 students getting into the book of Galatians. I think my neighbors think we are crazy -- drive by the house at 8:50 - 9:10 on Monday night and you will know why.

Last night we were looking through Galatians 6 and we got into the verse that simply said "do not become tired of doing good" It is tough sometimes to not get tired of doing what is right, what is the good thing to do, because we get beat up for doing what is right, we get made fun of, we lose friends, people think we are weird. I know in my life I have learned that sometimes it is not fun doing what is right, that it would be easier to cut corners, to ignore people, to tell them off, to get upset, to do what I want to do and forget the rest of the world, and then God puts verses in my life, like don't become tired for doing good and I am reminded that hey what I am I living for anyway. I want to constantly commit to living a life for God, others and then and only then myself. I have a good life and I can have a great life if I chase God. Man, if I get off my lazy rear end and pursue Him with my life, AWESOME things happen! But if I settle for looking at life as wow, that person really messed with me or I can't do something because I don't have the resources or whine, whine, whine, I am going to end up being discouraged. Today I choose to live for God and not getting tired in doing what is good.

18 of 23 Spring Break Spots are filled. Tues -- 3:00 PM

LOST and Angry -- Sunday Evaluation

We had a great group last night as we continued our series LOST -- we had a great experience and discussion about being LOST and Angry. Taylor and Paige took a little anger out on the plastic tub -- nice swings with the bat. We had 12ish new students there at 180 and there was a lost of really great conversations going on. We also had a great meeting for people interested in the spring break trip -- WOW -- over 30 students showed interest in going with us to Toronto this spring break. AWESOME!

Hey in case you didn't make it last night, I want to tell you about how anger can control you and take you out. Saturday I had the opportunity to cut down some trees for a neighbor and one of the trees had to come down because the tree was rotting from the inside out. I took the stump and brought it last night and showed everyone that even though from the outside the tree looked good, the tree was rotting away and was becoming weak. Anger can do that to us. We can look good on the outside but the anger we have can eat us away on the inside and can make us bitter, frustrated, lonely, to the point that our personalities change. I know I constantly have to be looking at my inside, my heart, to make sure I am good on the inside because if I don't watch it, my inside can get really dirty, messy. I need to keep focused on the new heart, the new creation that I am becoming. Remember that you can not truly deal with anger by yourself, you need to get help from somebody and most importantly Jesus. Without Jesus you will never truly deal with your anger. Ephesians 4:22-24!

LOST and Angry -- Sunday Night -- What ticks you off? What makes you frustrated? I remember back in the day when I was a kid and I learned very quickly how to tick my older brother off. All I would have to do is tease him about something or beat him at something and I could get him going. Of course he was still bigger than me and usually I paid for it :)

One time I COMPLETELY ticked him off. I'm not talking upset, angry, furious, I am talking about full out RAGE! He was going to kill me and I do mean kill. There are very few times that I thought I was going to die and that was one of them. He came at me with this huge, sharp, wooden rod. He chased me around with it and I dived into the bathroom and locked the door. Then of course I laughed at him through the door. He then spent the next 15 minutes beating the door. Fortunately for me it was SOLID wood, unfortunately the rod he was using was stronger than the door. When my parents came home and saved me, there were over 100 divots in the door from where he had hit it. The anger was gone but the evidence of the anger was still there and from my understanding is still there today.

That is kind of how anger can be -- we can lose it and we usually lose it on the people closest to us and in those moments of rage we can leave damage. Sometimes it is the damage we can see and other times it is the damage that we can's like those emotional grenades we yell at each other -- I hate you! I never loved you! You are worthless! Why can't you do anything right! The scars of anger unchecked can last a life time. I am learning to control my anger and realize that I can do some major damage if I let me anger rage.

Come Sunday night to hear what causes anger and to look at fear from the "dark side" for you Star Wars Fans