Just wanted to say “THANK YOU” to everyone who donated to get Pastor Gona a netbook. When Shawn started the fundraiser last week, he set a goal for March 4th….well, due to your generosity, the goal was met just a few short days after the fundraiser started. It was so incredible to watch everyone respond and give! Shawn and I both were very overwhelmed by the response.
You guys rock and we can’t think you enough! Thanks!
Readers, this post is a call to action! I need your help! My buddy Shawn, over at shawnw.org has presented us all with a very unique opportunity to help a fellow brother in India. Pastor Joshua Gona is being used in very BIG ways by God to spread the Gospel to his people. Pastor Gona is in need of a computer…well, a netbook specifically. Shawn has found a very inexpensive netbook we can purchase and ship to Pastor Gona. The total cost will be $260 to purchase the netbook and then ship it to India.
Now, before you get a little stressed about giving money, I know we’re in a recession and that things are tight for all of us. Trust me, I even stopped myself and thought twice before I gave my donation today, but then it hit me that my life & my finances are in the hands of an Almighty, sovereign God who loves me. I’m asking you all to make a move in faith and donate just $1.00 to the netbook fund. You can find the link to donate via PayPal here, http://shawnw.org/lets-buy-pastor-gona-from-india-a-netbook/ or I’ve posted it below!!
Pastor Joshua Gona appreciate your help!!!!
I’ve never been a guy to watch an awards show. I just don’t like ‘em. I don’t watch the Emmy’s, the Grammy’s, or the Oscars. I don’t mind consuming media but I don’t really care for the awards show, which puts me in a very small minority of Americans. LOL! This past weekend, the Grammy’s were taking place and the people of the music industry had gathered to honor one another. I didn’t watch the show so I had to read Yahoo! news to find out who won what. I was stunned that Green Day won best rock album of the year. I know, there are probably a ton of you out there that would think it’s silly of me to be stunned by that. I mean, they tour the world every year and sell out HUGE venues and people love their music. I’m a big fan, I can’t lie. But to be honest, I stopped buying their albums after Nimrod. To this day, Insomniac and Nimrod are my 2 favorite records they’ve recorded, but this is all just preference. Anywho, I was stunned to hear they won best rock album of the year.
My 1st thought was, what other Rock albums did they consider? Have these people ever heard a Green Day album before? I mean, if the epitome of Rock-N-Roll in America is Green Day, I might just have to go out and kill myself. But even that, that’s not the point I wanted to make. What really caught me about Green Day winning a grammy for Best Rock Album of the Year is that it seems contradictory to me for a “punk” band to win a Grammy. I’m not saying they can’t sell a lot of records or play a lot of shows, but to me, Punk Rock was always anti-establishment and here you have what most people “know” of Punk Rock accepting an award from the “establishment”. I found it to be somewhat ironic.
Does this mean that Punk wins? Has Punk now arrived? Or has punk transformed? I mean, let’s face it, there are some seriously shitty bands out there passing themselves off as Punk Rock. What happened? Did this all end when Face to Face broke up? I wonder.
Oh well, Green Day, I like you, so this is not me bashing you, it just struck me as ironic. But, I guess you’re not those wild, angry young punk rockers anymore. You’re serious and politically minded adults now. Oh well. The Exploited had a song called, “Punk’s Not Dead!”…. Dear Exploited, I regret to inform you that your song will now be put on the shelf since PUNK IS DEAD. RIP.
I have been spending a lot of time the past 10 days of so reading 2 Timothy. God has really been speaking to me in all sorts of ways through his word in the morning and throughout the day. I’ve been getting challenged by the Holy Spirit that when I’m frustrated at work to just relax and pick up the word. My response to that was,
“Yeah, cause I need to stop my work to read. That’ll go over real well!”
Reluctantly, I’ve submitted to the nudging and have been reading the Bible when I’m frustrated or at a dead end and I can tell you, as cliche as it may sound or be, it has made a great difference in my life. I’m getting more and more convinced that the role of scripture in my life needs to be increase more and more everyday.
I used to always just “do it” in the morning. You know, get it done, mark it off the checklist and move on with the day, hoping that since I read it, it would provide some large band-aid for the problems I would face that day. I never let it marinate. I never let it sink into the deeper places of my heart and mind and soul. I never let it overtake me in a way that would sometime produce change. I just “did it”. You know, read, nodded, and turned the pages as they came and then finished it up after some arbitrary number of pages, chapters, verses, etc. were read.
In terms of 2 Timothy, this is what really got to my heart…something I clearly need to work on. I wanted to share it here because it’s causing change in my life and I want accountability:
2 Timothy 2:14-19 (ESV)
14 Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers.15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.16 But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness,17 and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus,18 who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some.19 But God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: The Lord knows those who are his, and, Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.
I have a problem with quarreling. I like to pick arguments with people. Politics, sports, anything & everything basically. I can honestly say I’ve never walked away from that feeling good about the relationship I have with that person. I have to admit, I argue to feel good. I take pleasure in “defeating” someone…how stupid. I should take please in the good things of God, loving that person, and lifting them up and building them up with kind words. Instead, I go for the throat, look to humiliate, and then try to finish the person off, hoping to leave them in a heap of garbage….this is the sin inside me. This is what shows me that nothing inside of me is good. Only God is good.
Anywho, if you’ve read this and you remotely know me (in life, twitter, facebook), hold me accountable if you see or hear me cutting people with words like razor blades. I want to change. I want to “present myself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”
Peace.
Well, it’s been a long time since I last updated and to be honest, there’s just been a little bit of a dryspell in the ole creativity department. LOL! I’ve been spending time with a lot of key people in my life the past 2 weeks and we’ve all been discussing the same things together and that’s been encouraging. I think there are a lot of people around me my age that are not satisfied with life and they’re looking to move forward. Our parent’s generation was responsible for the cubicle and I think our generation is rebelling from that and moving away from this entire paradigm of coming to an office, sitting at our assigned workstations and pumping out work for someone else.
For me, I’ve always been a very entrepreneurial person. Even as a kid, I ran Kool-Aid & Lemonade stands, did neighborhood puppet shows, shoveled snow & mowed lawns, etc.. Once I hit high school that all changed as I focused more on athletics and academics. After high school I decided to go to work instead of the traditional route of college. It paid huge dividends in my life. In just a few years I found myself running an entire company with a good friend of mine. We were 22 & 23 at the time! It was fun. We worked tons of hours, made tons of money, and actually enjoyed the work and the people we worked with. The mistake I made was going to college. After a successful run of 6 years working full time and being blessed with success I traded it all in for 4 years of college. Why am I writing this with such a negative connotation? Well, after college, I took a job at a big corporation working in a cubicle and making drastically less than what I made before I went to college. Even now, 8 years removed from my college experience and I still haven’t made as much as I did prior to my college education. If you throw in the student loan debt that I accrued in those 4 years and factor that in, then I make a few drops of piss compared to my pre-college years.
This post isn’t about bashing College. It’s about where I’m going. I’m not gonna lie, I’m excited! There are some things in the works I can’t talk about right now, but have no fear! When the time is right, I will spill the beans!!
Today I have been thinking a lot about quarreling. Not just some simple disagreement, but quarreling. You know, when 2 people go at it verbally. There seems to be this tendency to harm when you quarrel with someone. I am known in every area of my life as a quarreler. I love to debate, discuss, and flat out argue. I will generally keep it somewhat civil for the first few moments, then I turn into this outrageous bastard who starts slinging razor blades with my words. It’s rather disgusting. In fact, it has gotten to a point where I’ve felt like it’s driven a nice big plank between one of my dearest friends and me. We never used to let quarreling get in our way, but as we’ve both grown older, we’ve both grown into opposite ends of the spectrum politically and it just seems to me that it’s tearing us apart from each other. Ever since out last email exchange, it just seems weird.
I’ve noticed that in other arenas in my life that I like to talk politics and it goes too far and people get ticked at me and I just alienate people with my dogma. I hate that. In fact, for the past few weeks, almost 2 months, I’ve been as silent as I can be politically. I have come to a realization that there are just bigger things for me to worry about and I need to be in constant practice of loving others.
Tonite while catching up on twitter several people were commenting on how they hate politics as it just seems to divide people and cause such issues. I agree. I just want to put that crap aside and be real with others. I just want to cut out the things that keep getting in the way of me and all of you experiencing real community. No more adversaries.
7 But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ–the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
To me, it’s all about the response. What is our response to calamity? For myself, it’s praying and hoping for the chance to go there. I can’t be concerned with what Pat Robertson said, or who said this, or whatever. I just don’t care. I don’t give credence to people like that. It’s not about them—it’s about the pain and tragedy of Haiti, and the people who are SUFFERING. The more people give attention to Pat Robertson, the less attention they give to Haiti.
In all of this for me, regardless of how it’s been done, whether via natural disaster or the curse of God, even the LORD had compassion on his people after punishing them. Even GOD himself lamented having to discipline his children. WE ALL ARE CURSED WITHOUT CHRIST AND WOULD BE DESTROYED BY GOD IF WE DIDN’T HAVE JESUS!
Do I believe that God can still manipulate the weather to make a statement? Yes. I believe God can do anything he wants and his thoughts are not our thoughts and HE is the only one who knows the end from the beginning. I don’t think it’s out of God’s reach to send a natural disaster to get the attention of the world, but honestly, is the figuring out the reason more important than our RESPONSE?? Definitely not.
It seems that 2010 is bringing forth a lot of changes in my life, most of which are good if not great. Most of the changes in my life have a common denominator which is MONEY. Isn’t that somethin? The one thing we all hate talking about, dealing with, and trying to work around. For me, the biggest change centered around finances is that my roommate is moving out and I’ve decided not to take on another roommate. That means rent is now doubling. I can handle it, and still be able to save exactly what I’ve been saving while having a roommate so threre’s no major issue there except the amount of money that’s just sitting “freely” in the account will be drastically lower. LOL! But that’s OK. It’s worth it to me. I’m also trying to get back on track with getting debt paid off. I’ve recently fallen behind on student loans and I’m trying to get them caught up and back in order once again. That will be the biggest burden off my back.
After that, the other major expense I have is maintaining my truck. Although I drive a 2001, it’s been absolutely good to me and hasn’t had a lot of issues. Pretty much every bit of work that’s been done to it has just been regular maintenance type things. Oil changes, ball joints, brakes, belts, alternator & battery, etc. Nothing too crazy.I’m very thankful to have such a dependable vehicle. It has been an absolute blessing and even the story of how I got that truck is a testimony of God’s hand!
Although things are going to be a little tighter than normal, I’m excited about what’s coming for me. I don’t want to let money dominate my thoughts & worries. I want to be consumed by something bigger, ya know? This is going to be a good season that will require a lot of trust and my faith will be tested. I’m pumped.
Other changes is that my diet will most likely be changing as free-range organic chickens ($15 each) are a little too pricey for my new budget, so I may need to restrict my organic & free-range purchases for a bit. Looking forward to the summer to buy some more local foods, which are always a better price than any of the stores. But, I will do everything I can to keep the food I eat clean and natural. I know first hand the benefits of eating in such a way, so I will do what I can. Also, I’m reintroducing some grains back into my diet, primarily rice. I always have and always will love rice. It’s inexpensive, filling, DELICIOUS, & goes with everything. To be honest, looking forward to it. I love variety. I love the Primal way of eating and believe it is one of the best ways you can eat, but consumption ideologies are for another post, so in order to make money & budgets work, it will be a wiser move just to bring rice back.
This Saturday is my roommate’s last day here, so Sunday January 17th will be my 1st day of this new life. I’m excited about what’s to come.
I have a somewhat irregular work schedule. Instead of working a normal, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, I work 10 hours a day, 4 days a week and have Mondays off. Last night as I was sitting up watching TV, I had made a decision that I was going to get up early Monday morning and just enjoy some time at home.
So, this morning, the alarm went off first at 6am then at 6:30am CST. I got out of bed, grabbed the iPhone and went downstairs. While getting the coffee pot ready, I threw together a smoothie made with Coconut milk, Blueberries & Strawberries. Took my smoothie and grabbed a seat on the couch in my living room that sits along the east side of my house. From there, I can see the sun come up. So, I sat there drinking my smoothie watching the sun come up. It was a very hard thing for me to do since it requires some patience…something I generally lack. It was well worth it. There’s something calming about it and my impatience seem to disappear after a few minutes of waiting. The sun comes over the horizon at a very slow, steady rate. Causing me to be still…be patient.
I have to believe there’s just something about life that was meant to be lived slower than I normally do. I think of how you put crops in the ground in March and you don’t harvest till October….all the while you’re tending to and waiting. I think of how long it takes to have a baby…9 months. Then, after 9 months, it takes several more before a child can sit up. 18 months later they start to use the potty, a few years after that they start school, and then 13 years later they go to college, etc. There’s just seems to be this common theme going on in the world around me that is part of creation.
I wonder why we live life so fast. I seem to find more peace in life when it’s slower. It’s as if it’s MEANT to be lived SLOWLY.
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