This is one of those days where I have one pressing thought on my mind. Its short and sweet:
Argh!!! Teenagers!!
It’s absolutely amazing how frustrating and hurtful it is to watch your teenagers continually dismiss your advice and ignore your suggestions. It’s really a stress creator – it makes you want to put your fist into the wall or tear something up.
Oh but isn’t it interesting that we continually do the same thing to our heavenly Father. We disregard his advice for living, we ignore the suggestions, we create our own paths, and I am sure he wants to scream ( hm, that might have something to do with the whole Noah deal).
But what is really amazing is he doesn’t. Check out John 8. With the woman caught in sin he says
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
And then in Hebrews 10 he adds:
17…”Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.”
So no matter how the day goes today, no matter what befalls, remember these verses, you are forgiven, and that provides quite a lot of strength to deal with the day – even to deal with the teenagers – ARGH!
This weekend, Amy, Alex and I went out to test drive some VW vans! No, although it apparently it is Alex’s dream vehicle, it was not the classic hippie vans. It was the newer Chryslerish model – the Routan. Let’s say a new vehicle seems to be in the cards soon, but at this time we were just looking. Anyway, the van was great and all, but there was something that I found particular peculiar and interesting. It may be this way with all European cars, and since all of my vehicles have come out of Detroit or Spring Hill, I was drawn to this one aspect – the fuel gauge.
It did not have an E for Empty and an F for Full, but instead had a 0(zero) for empty and a 1(one) for full. Like I said, other cars may have been doing it this way for years, but for me it was a first, or at least the first time it hit me. It reminded me of two things. First the good old geek joke that there are only 10 kinds of people in the world, those you understand binary and those who don’t. ( for those of you in the second category, 10 is 2 in binary. Like this 00 = 0, 01= 1, 10 = 2, 11 = 3, yeah ok whatever).
Secondly it reminded me once again of this idea of being lukewarm, as there was a ½ in the middle. But really, I want to be a 0 or a 1. Off or on?. And really I want to be obsessed, I want to be on, I want to be 1. And maybe that’s why I noticed it so much, as the zero and one concept made it so black and white, so binary. It was not empty and full, it was on or off. It was just another stark reminder of how we should be living our lives.
Take a look at this video, and think about Romans 12:1-2
1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. (Romans 12:1-2, The Message)
God wants you to place your life ALL before him, and let him fill you up. If you are on for him, he will make you full. Lets live a binary life in the on position!
Today I will board a bus with 60 fourth graders and ride up to Nashville to tour the Capital and the home of Andrew Jackson. I have decided to spend one of my 700 days off ( I figure that’s about all I get in my working career) not because I am such a political history buff that I have a great desire to see these historical landmarks again. I go to impact the children that I have been given. To me this is part of that whole leave it day to impact people thing.
So today, I leave too much work undone, and head off into the land of elementary education. Sharing my day with a bunch of over zealous fourth grade boys, hopefully impacting them in a way that helps turn them into men, and in a way that leaves some moments that they will talk about about the high school reunions which will come all too soon.
Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. Proverbs 22:6 (NIV)
Wednesday night I was afforded the privilege of being able to see Huey Lewis and the News in concert. It was a pretty good show. It was good to hear songs that I had not listened to for a long time, and to remember those great days in the eighties!
Anyway, its just an obvious leap that I have to take it – The Power of Love! And that takes me to Romans 8, one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. Check it:
31-39So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:
They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.
None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. (Romans 8:38-39, The Message)
So on this Friday, ‘when all you want is a couple days off’, but you have to keep on ‘working for a living’, remember the ‘Power of Love’ in your life and the impact you can have on those around you!
I have been considering all that is Las Vegas, and as I was doing some browsing around this morning I stumble on this thought in two different locations. It seems fitting giving my location at the time.
Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Proverbs 31:30, New International Version
Just like my time in this city, most of the things here are fleeting shallow and temporary. Today invest in things that have value, that impact people for good and that make others better. (Maybe like the Pressure Sensitive Tape Council which is also meeting in the same hotel as my conference. ) Well that’s not what I am talking about, put I think you know. Go Do It Up!
