Thanks, Andy

I've never met Andy Stanley and have no idea what I would say to him if I did, but I might simply thank him for being used by God in my life. He's my favorite author (I love that he helps me figure out the questions I should be asking rather than trying to tell me what I should be doing) and is a very gifted communicator. His books on leadership and ministry have been extremely instructive for me, and I've learned a bunch about communicating by listening to him as well as reading another one of his books.

Even though I don't know him at all, he seems like a pretty down to earth guy. Through Twitter I came across this video and wanted to share. Hopefully now that spring break is over, I can attempt to get back to some regularly scheduled blogging.

Say What?

Going along with my last post about getting frustrated, I've realized how often I make negative comments (most often to myself) or mutter things that are neither encouraging nor edifying. Usually in those moments the best thing for me to do is just keep my mouth shut! The word of God is nodding its head vigorously in agreement with me. It might be wise to simply let it do the talking:

"When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise."
- Proverbs 10:19

"Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue."
- Proverbs 17:28

"A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control."
- Proverbs 29:11

"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen."
- Ephesians 4:29

"My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires."
- James 1:19-20

For The Moments I Feel Faint

Ok, time for a very transparent blog moment. For whatever reason (probably a lot of very good ones), I don't tend to do a lot of these. I've been really frustrated this morning, nothing really major has happened... just a series of small (okay, maybe medium) inconveniences. The thing is, it has really really really (keep those rolling for a while) been driving me crazy! And the most frustrating thing of all is that it only goes to illustrate how incredibly selfish I am. Sigh.

I went to play some music this morning, and my MP3 player was still on a song that I had briefly loaded up for Austin last night. It couldn't be more timely. It's For The Moments I Feel Faint by Relient K:

Am I at the point of no improvement?
What of the death I still dwell in?
I try to excel, but I feel no movement.
Can I be free of this unreleasable sin?

I throw up my hands
"Oh, the impossibilities"
Frustrated and tired
Where do I go from here?
Now I'm searching for the confidence I've lost so willingly
Overcoming these obstacles is overcoming my fear

Gather my insufficiencies and
place them in your hands,
place them in your hands,
place them in your hands

Praise the Lord that He did for me what I could never do for myself, and that I can still - every day - rely solely on His grace. It's a constant struggle for me not to fall into a performance based relationship with God. I'm once again reminded of the words Paul wrote in Galatians 3:3, "Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?"

I've been praying and asking Jesus for help, and as I've been writing this I feel that He has truly encouraged and comforted me. It would be tempting to just delete it and move on, but I don't think that's what He wants me to do, so here it is!

(Listen to the song here.)

Prime Shout Out

Once again, I'm very thankful for the services of Amazon Prime. Yes, it costs $75 a year, but after that you get free two-day shipping on nearly all the items they have on their site.

Besides picking up tons of books (and easily being able to get "one more" copy if I accidentally bought too few), I've been able to get everything from soccer goals to flag belts to a new projector bulb today. I suppose if you live in a big city with lots of big retailers you might not need such a service. For someone like me who makes a lot of random online purchases, it more than pays for itself in a very short time. And I nearly always find the best prices on Amazon.com anyway!

Three cheers to you Amazon Prime, your reliable service gives me something I don't have to worry about. And as Forrest Gump says, "That's good! One less thing."

Blast From the Past

Pretty soon I'm going to break out my first official post about the World of Warcraft miniature game. Before I do, I thought I would tag a video I made about Attacktix, since most folks out there never got the chance to play this amazing game. You can still find great strategies at MasterAttacktix.com!

Temptation Personified

Once again I've returned to Proverbs for my early morning Bible reading. It's just so perfect for daily devotions - 31 chapters for 31 days of the month! I really enjoy the short, simple statements that contain all kinds of nuggets of truth. A few days ago I ran into one of my favorite passages in the entire Bible, one I'm going to attempt to commit to memory.

It can be found in Proverbs 7, specifically in verses 6 through 23. The early chapters of Proverbs contain many warnings against adultery, this one being one of the most vivid. And while it certainly deals with adultery specifically, I think it is symptomatic of how most (all?) temptations work in our lives as well.

In verse 7, we see a simple young man who lacks judgment. The word simple in Proverbs isn't used as a virtue, but rather as someone who is without wisdom. Perhaps a plainer word to use would be a fool. And we are just as foolish when we follow a course of action like his.

He makes his big mistake right here at the beginning, which is really where the battle with temptation is won or lost. We see him headed toward the wrong part of town, and at night to boot. What good can possibly come from this? Too often we allow ourselves to take one step towards sin and then find ourselves unable (or unwilling) to stop along the way.

Of course he finds the adulteress woman right where she's supposed to be. Verse 10 says she was "dressed like a prostitute" which makes me think she was dressed to kill. She looked good! And that's how temptation works - it always comes in its finest, drawing us in with how enticing it looks. Temptation would be so much easier to resist if it was simply a guy in an orange julius costume.

Deciding not to put ourselves in temptation's path is one of the best things we can do. Verses 11 and 12 show that she's all around, on every street corner. It will come looking for you, you certainly don't need to go looking for it!

So the woman grabs him and kisses him, further stirring his desire. The chances of him saying no and heading out of harm's way are already close to zero. The longer we allow temptation to hold our interest, the more we'll be drawn into its web.

In verse 14 she declares that she has fellowship offerings and has fulfilled her vows. Here I see her presenting herself as harmless and innocent. She is right with God! Certainly temptation comes at us this way, looking delightful and seemingly innocent. What harm could possibly come from one such as this?

She goes on to declare that she has been looking for him specifically. Of course she has! This is another way that we're drawn in to temptation - it offers us a feeling of significance, of security, of being wanted. The problem is that it's not really true but only a mirage.

She declares the great lengths she has gone to to prepare a place just for him, again leading him to feel special and wanted. Temptations come in a wide variety of forms, but they usually lead us to believe they'll fulfill our deepest desires and make everything better.

Now she makes her plea, inviting him to "drink deep of love till morning." Although the outcome is obvious, he still has a choice to make. She cannot make him fall into sin, but can only do her best to entice him. Unfortunately for him, he lost this battle when he started walking toward her part of town.

She now lays down her most powerful promise of all: there won't be any consequences! Her husband is out of town and won't be back for many days! Oh temptation, how you draw us in, promising that no one will know, that no harm will come of it, that there really are no consequences to sin. But once that choice is made, the voice changes to one of condemnation, haunting us with the words, "Everyone will find out what you've done!"

It is no shock what he chose, but it's quite startling how the writer portrays it:

"All at once he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer stepping into a noose till an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life."

And that's how temptation works: looking attractive, grabbing our interest, offering pleasure and fulfillment, promising innocent actions with no consequences. But in the end it leads to death, and we would be wise to stay far from its path.

As we all struggle with different things, we must recognize areas where we are weak and take steps to avoid them. And when temptation comes, the road to victory begins at the very first step when we choose to dismiss those tempting thoughts rather than entertain them, learning to apply the words of 2 Corinthians 10:5 "We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."

Lost Interest

Watching Lost has been a very interesting experience. You've got great actors and a compelling story flanked by questions that never get answered and a history of multiple scheduling problems. Along the way many fans have been lost and it's really too bad because it feels like this season has been a payoff of sorts.

Up until this past episode, I had nothing but praise for season five. By the way, for those not keeping score at home, season six will be the last for Lost. It's inevitably time that they start tying up some loose ends.

This season has seen the full-fledged introduction of time travel. While time travel can be a story-breaker, it's worked amazingly well in season five. The writers have used it to reveal some key events on the island. Through this process we've learned:

• Where you go when you exit the island
  
• How to get to the island from the regular world
  
• That Charles Widmore was originally part of the Dharma initiative
  
• What happened to Danielle (the French woman) and her crew
  
• That Ms. Hawking is Daniel's mom and was part of the original Dharma group
  
• That Daniel was later part of the Dharma group

This has also led to some speculation of things that will most certainly be revealed before the series ends. Kearsten suggested that Miles will end up being Marvin Candle's son, which I think is all but guaranteed at this point. Ms. Hawking told Desmond that the island wasn't finished with him yet, even though he refused to return to the island with the rest of the group. I suspect Ben killed Penelope before boarding the plane, which will lead to Desmond's return. It also seems likely that Richard Alpert is from an ancient Egyptian civilization that has had a major influence on the island.

As I said earlier, up until the last episode I had no problems with the time travel. The group has just reunited in 1977, with Sawyer, Jin, Miles, Juliet and (presumably) Daniel working for Dharma for the past three years. Weird. But it will allow for a "live" view of Dharma which is pretty cool. It also allows Jin a lot of time to work on his English.

But of course, it's Lost, so we have to introduce some drama. And what loop do they throw at us? Oh, just that Sawyer and Juliet have fallen in love during the three years that Jack, Kate and the rest were off of the island. Do any other fans of the show have a problem with this? Maybe it feels so phony because it all happened in one episode... but I'm just not on board with this development at all.

Sawyer and Juliet together feels about as natural as having Nikki and Paulo on the show. Seeing those two come to an end was quite rewarding, I don't expect the same for these new love birds.

Congratulations, AD

As a sports fan, there have always been players that weren't really stars but nevertheless caught my attention and became favorites for a wide variety of reasons. Tom Goodwin, Tamarick Vanover, Lake Dawson, Tony Richardson, Keith Cash... I could go on.

Anyway, another one of those guys was Anthony Davis, who played linebacker for the Chiefs from '94 to '98. (Ah, those days of Super Bowl dreams!) What I remember about him right now was just how he seemed to overachieve and always played his hardest. Today I found an article about him on the Kansas City Star that's worth reading:

Ex-Chief Davis is moving on to the next play.