Psalm 118:24
This is the day the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Today is a very special day.
A gift.
But then again, each one is.
I thank the Lord for all He has done and continues to do in my life.
Blessed with health, a beautiful family, and friends that help pick me up, make me laugh and make the journey worthwhile.
Blessed with the chance to work with amazing, inspiring people, like this guy.
Blessed to play the game I love with a group of guys who are like brothers.
Blessed for you, dear blog reader, in forgiving all my numerous grammatical errors and half-baked blog posts.
Seriously.
I am so thankful for you. And for this day.
Let us rejoice!!!
Friday, February 12, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Inskip
Thoughts and prayers to the two principals shot today at Inskip Elementary. My agency is literally right next door to Inskip. So we've spent most of the afternoon on "lock-down." No one allowed to come in or out. Cops everywhere around our building. Helicopters in the sky. A very surreal, scary moment.
Today has made me think of a couple things. One, it has renewed my hatred of guns. I personally see nothing but pain and heartbreak when a gun is involved. I get that it is a person's "right" to have one. I just don't understand it. But given my history with them, I guess that makes sense.
Second, today was a good reminder that sometimes God may have more going on than we realize. Today Knox County schools closed early for the snow. Now, I hear DC has 28 inches on the ground. We have a light dusting of snow that was already off the roads as I went to pick my daughter up early from school. Throughout the day I, and others, cracked jokes about the fact that Knox County was letting out because of the "blizzard" we are experiencing.
But, if I understand the timeline correctly, all students were out of the building at Inskip when the gunman came to the school. Because of the snow.
A tragic day, but a good reminder of how God works miracles in the midst of this world's chaos.
Today has made me think of a couple things. One, it has renewed my hatred of guns. I personally see nothing but pain and heartbreak when a gun is involved. I get that it is a person's "right" to have one. I just don't understand it. But given my history with them, I guess that makes sense.
Second, today was a good reminder that sometimes God may have more going on than we realize. Today Knox County schools closed early for the snow. Now, I hear DC has 28 inches on the ground. We have a light dusting of snow that was already off the roads as I went to pick my daughter up early from school. Throughout the day I, and others, cracked jokes about the fact that Knox County was letting out because of the "blizzard" we are experiencing.
But, if I understand the timeline correctly, all students were out of the building at Inskip when the gunman came to the school. Because of the snow.
A tragic day, but a good reminder of how God works miracles in the midst of this world's chaos.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Be Blown Away
Loved this post by Jud Wilhite over at People of The Second Chance. Tremendous thoughts on how to imagine God, and how to live a life blown away by His power.
BE BLOWN AWAY
Posted by Jud Wilhite:
On any given night, it is estimated you can see about 30 stars from downtown New York City, about 3,000 from most rural areas, and up to 30 billion with a large telescope. We do not know how many stars exist, but we know there are over 200 billion stars in our galaxy alone. One of the largest known stars has a diameter of almost a billion miles!
An explosion of energy on the surface of the sun, known as a solar flare, recently sent a magnetic cloud toward the earth at a million miles per hour. The cloud was over 30 million miles in diameter. Think of the size and speed of this cloud and remember that God is bigger and faster.
Richard Swenson writes: “If we witness a magnetic cloud thirty million miles in diameter moving a million miles per hour—is God bigger than that? Can He move faster than that? If the center of the sun has temperature of fifteen million degrees centigrade and pressures of seven trillion pounds per square inch—could God walk into the core of the sun, take a nap, and walk back out? Every impressive structure or event in the universe should remind us of a God who is greater than all his works.”
Maybe if I regularly spent more time beholding the vast expanse of the starry heavens—and meditated on the sovereign God who established them and upholds them—I would spend less time questioning his ability to control things in my life.
Maybe we all need to look up tonight at the stars and be blown away again?
BE BLOWN AWAY
Posted by Jud Wilhite:
On any given night, it is estimated you can see about 30 stars from downtown New York City, about 3,000 from most rural areas, and up to 30 billion with a large telescope. We do not know how many stars exist, but we know there are over 200 billion stars in our galaxy alone. One of the largest known stars has a diameter of almost a billion miles!
An explosion of energy on the surface of the sun, known as a solar flare, recently sent a magnetic cloud toward the earth at a million miles per hour. The cloud was over 30 million miles in diameter. Think of the size and speed of this cloud and remember that God is bigger and faster.
Richard Swenson writes: “If we witness a magnetic cloud thirty million miles in diameter moving a million miles per hour—is God bigger than that? Can He move faster than that? If the center of the sun has temperature of fifteen million degrees centigrade and pressures of seven trillion pounds per square inch—could God walk into the core of the sun, take a nap, and walk back out? Every impressive structure or event in the universe should remind us of a God who is greater than all his works.”
Maybe if I regularly spent more time beholding the vast expanse of the starry heavens—and meditated on the sovereign God who established them and upholds them—I would spend less time questioning his ability to control things in my life.
Maybe we all need to look up tonight at the stars and be blown away again?
Friday, February 5, 2010
Father/Daughter Dance
This weekend looks to be legendary. Possible snow. Peyton gets Super Bowl Ring #2. And one of my absolute favorite nights of the year: The Annual Father/Daughter Dance in Fountain City.
To prepare for this year's dance inferno, Grace and I have been watching all the classics for inspiration. Travolta's intro on Stayin'Alive.
Elaine's dance on Seinfeld.
The ever-smooth Lionel Richie "Dancin' On The Ceiling."
But our main inspiration shall come from the epic masterpiece Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo. Grace has proven to be a natural with the art of the Pop N' Lock. Take a look at the YouTube clip below to see some of the moves that we will be unleashing. We will also be dressed like Turbo and his lady friend. Oh yes we will.
To prepare for this year's dance inferno, Grace and I have been watching all the classics for inspiration. Travolta's intro on Stayin'Alive.
Elaine's dance on Seinfeld.
The ever-smooth Lionel Richie "Dancin' On The Ceiling."
But our main inspiration shall come from the epic masterpiece Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo. Grace has proven to be a natural with the art of the Pop N' Lock. Take a look at the YouTube clip below to see some of the moves that we will be unleashing. We will also be dressed like Turbo and his lady friend. Oh yes we will.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Counterfeit Gods
Timothy Keller has already written two of my all-time favorite books on faith. The Prodigal God and Reason for God were both game changers for me. Full of insight and provocative answers for those who are both skeptics and believers. Some days, I'm a bit of both. Well, I just finished his epic third book in the trilogy, Counterfeit Gods. And this one in many ways is my favorite of the bunch.
The book deals with our idols and the empty promises of money, sex and power - and how none of these ever truly quench our thirsts.
I must admit, I never really thought much about the Commandment to "have no other God, or idol, before me." But God put that Commandment first, so he must find it important.
Even so, I have always held a very uninformed view on idols. That they were lifeless creations worshiped by a more primitive people. And while that's true, it is also true that idols are still very much worshiped in our modern, "sophisticated" generation.
In some ways more than ever.
The idol of success. The idol of "having it all". The idol of sex without any commitment. The idol of all pleasure with no pain. The idol of staying forever young. The idol of total convenience. The idol of getting now but paying later.
Just this week I began to worship of the new idol from Mac - and the iPad isn't even in production yet!
The list is endless. But Keller's book helps open your eyes to modern day idol worship. Better yet, he gives you information and inspiration on how to replace these idols with the worship of a God who surpasses them all.
Read an excerpt of the book here. Or better yet, read the whole thing as soon as you can get to it.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
An Atheists Take On The Haiti Situation
My boy Phil ran across a blog from uber-Atheist, Richard Dawkins, who shared his thoughts on God's role in the Haiti Situation. Phil picks apart Dawkins' points like Manning did the Jets' secondary. Well done my man!
(Dawkins points in bold. Phil's smack downs, not bolded)
An Atheists Take on the Haiti Situation
I was browsing around on one of the blogs I frequent to kind of wind down from the state of the union address when I came across a ranking of the top religious blogs on the net at http://teampyro.blogspot.com/
So it turns out, rather unsurprisingly, that one of the top "belief" blogs is one led by an atheist. So I thought I'd check it out, and this is what I ran across:
http://friendlyatheist.com/2010/01/26/haiti-god-evil-and-richard-dawkins
The blog begins on the next line. I'll "bold" the blog.
Blog begins:
Richard Dawkins is responding to Christians who are looking in all the wrong places for some sort of supernatural “reason” that the earthquake in Haiti caused so much devastation. Obviously, Pat Robertson isn’t helping any Christian PR campaign, but neither are pastors who say “God did this for a reason”:
You nice, middle-of-the-road theologians and clergymen, be-frocked and bleating in your pulpits, you disclaim Pat Robertson’s suggestion that the Haitians are paying for a pact with the devil. But you worship a god-man who — as you tell your congregations even if you don’t believe it yourself — ‘cast out devils’. You even believe (or you don’t disabuse your flock when they believe) that Jesus cured a madman by causing the ‘devils’ in him to fly into a herd of pigs and stampede them over a cliff. Charming story, well calculated to uplift and inspire the Sunday School and the Infant Bible Class. Pat Robertson may spout evil nonsense, but he is a mere amateur at that game. Just read your own Bible. Pat Robertson is true to it. But you?
First comment: This won't come as a surprise to Christians reading this, but yes, scripture does tell us that Jesus did these things. I have a hard time, however, understanding how Pat Robertson's claims that the Haitians "had made a pact with the devil centuries ago" has any relation to Jesus Christ exercising control over demons and healing those afflicted by them. Also, there's an implication here from Dawkins that pastors are preaching things they don't themselves believe. I'll acknowledge that there most likely are pastors out there who say things from the pulpit that they don't believe, but this just means they're normal fallen sinners in need of the same grace as the rest of us. Preaching what you don't believe should definitely disqualify someone from the pulpit, but there's no sense in denying that it happens. Accountants shouldn't cheat on their taxes, but some do. Lawyers and judges shouldn't break the law, but some do. Doctors and nurses should never seek to harm their patients, but some do.
This is what Christian pastors do best. They instill this (false) belief in people that awful occurrences like natural disasters don’t just happen randomly or in certain, pre-determined parts of the world; instead, they occur in placed where God wants to make a point. And if you live in a Christ-filled, God-fearing area, you’ll be spared.
People who want any sort of hope will cling to that like rope on a cliff.
I'd love to see a link or some sort of reference that shows where a pastor has said that living in a "Christ-filled God-fearing area" is some sort of holy shield against disaster. Matthew 5:45 in the bible clearly says -- and this is quoted often by secular and religious folks alike -- that God "causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." We read in Job that God allowed the devil to bring great ruin on one of the most righteous men who ever lived. Cancer strikes within the church just as often as it strikes those who don't believe.
The bible clearly tells us that this is God's world, and He can do with it whatever He chooses to do for whatever His purposes are. We also know that God does things on a much greater time scale than our feeble minds can comprehend, and what may seem like a short-term disaster can eventually become an event of great healing and power. Jesus showed us this EXTREMELY clearly with His death on the cross, taking a symbol of capital punishment, despair, loss, and extreme pain and converting it to a symbol of hope, resurrection, and life.
It’s a shame. There are reasons Haiti (or New Orleans or Southeast Asia) was susceptible to such disasters. We can understand this better with scientific knowledge.
Bad things happen. Sometimes, there are no reasons for it. Other times, there are understandable reasons. The Haitian earthquake falls into that latter category. There’s no need to bring a god into the mix.
So which way is it? Does "scientific knowledge" give us all the answers, or doesn't it? Which makes more sense...that science can occasionally give us the answers to life's questions, or that a God who made everything have the right to use His creation in ways that we don't understand? Dawkins et al often attempt to elevate science and rational thinking to the level of god-hood, but suggest that there might actually BE a God who controls every single solitary thing that goes on in the world, and suddenly it's people of faith who are ignorant?
Daniel Dennett is especially frustrated by God getting a pass when disasters occur:
The idea that God is a worthy recipient of our gratitude for the blessings of life but should not be held accountable for the disasters is a transparently disingenuous innovation of the theologians. And of course it doesn’t work all that well… All the holy texts and interpretations that contrive ways of getting around the problem read like the fine print in a fraudulent contract — and for the same reason: they are desperate attempts to conceal the implications of the double standard they have invented.
Maybe some pastors don’t believe this characterization. If that’s true, then they need to be the voice of reason when members of their congregation say that God had any type of role in this tragedy, good or bad.
Otherwise, they’re just part of the problem.
By my way of thinking, Mr. Dennett's frustration is completely misplaced. If he's acknowledging that God did indeed create everything we know, see, feel and touch...everything we can even possibly conceive...then why is it not that very same God's right to do whatever He wishes to do with what He has created? Why (again) is it not conceivable that God is telling the truth when He tells us via scripture that He knows who we are and what we will be before we are born, that He knows the length of our days, and He knows how they will end.
God indeed has a role in the tragedy of Haiti. He created Haiti. He created the people who live there. He created the people who are rushing there to offer hope, healing, rescue, and restoration to those injured or rendered homeless by the disaster.
I acknowledge this: that it is impossibly hard for me to understand why bad things like Haiti and 9/11 and cancer and war and death and divorce and hurt and all the bad things in the world happen. I also acknowledge, however, that if we believe that God created all this, we must recognize His right to do whatever He wishes to do with it, and that in the long run, that He has reasons for doing things that I am not able to understand. I also know that this same God knew in creating us that we as human beings would someday come to understand that we are imperfect, that we need a Savior, and it was God's plan that once we acknowledge that aspect of our humanity, He would provide an alternative to the punishment we deserve for the evil that we've committed. It's this alternative, in the form of His perfect Son, that allows us into the presence of His holiness.
It's normal and natural to question why bad things happen. I'd hope that it would also be comforting (and convicting) to know that there are answers to these "why" questions that only the Creator of the universe could provide.
(Dawkins points in bold. Phil's smack downs, not bolded)
An Atheists Take on the Haiti Situation
I was browsing around on one of the blogs I frequent to kind of wind down from the state of the union address when I came across a ranking of the top religious blogs on the net at http://teampyro.blogspot.com/
So it turns out, rather unsurprisingly, that one of the top "belief" blogs is one led by an atheist. So I thought I'd check it out, and this is what I ran across:
http://friendlyatheist.com/2010/01/26/haiti-god-evil-and-richard-dawkins
The blog begins on the next line. I'll "bold" the blog.
Blog begins:
Richard Dawkins is responding to Christians who are looking in all the wrong places for some sort of supernatural “reason” that the earthquake in Haiti caused so much devastation. Obviously, Pat Robertson isn’t helping any Christian PR campaign, but neither are pastors who say “God did this for a reason”:
You nice, middle-of-the-road theologians and clergymen, be-frocked and bleating in your pulpits, you disclaim Pat Robertson’s suggestion that the Haitians are paying for a pact with the devil. But you worship a god-man who — as you tell your congregations even if you don’t believe it yourself — ‘cast out devils’. You even believe (or you don’t disabuse your flock when they believe) that Jesus cured a madman by causing the ‘devils’ in him to fly into a herd of pigs and stampede them over a cliff. Charming story, well calculated to uplift and inspire the Sunday School and the Infant Bible Class. Pat Robertson may spout evil nonsense, but he is a mere amateur at that game. Just read your own Bible. Pat Robertson is true to it. But you?
First comment: This won't come as a surprise to Christians reading this, but yes, scripture does tell us that Jesus did these things. I have a hard time, however, understanding how Pat Robertson's claims that the Haitians "had made a pact with the devil centuries ago" has any relation to Jesus Christ exercising control over demons and healing those afflicted by them. Also, there's an implication here from Dawkins that pastors are preaching things they don't themselves believe. I'll acknowledge that there most likely are pastors out there who say things from the pulpit that they don't believe, but this just means they're normal fallen sinners in need of the same grace as the rest of us. Preaching what you don't believe should definitely disqualify someone from the pulpit, but there's no sense in denying that it happens. Accountants shouldn't cheat on their taxes, but some do. Lawyers and judges shouldn't break the law, but some do. Doctors and nurses should never seek to harm their patients, but some do.
This is what Christian pastors do best. They instill this (false) belief in people that awful occurrences like natural disasters don’t just happen randomly or in certain, pre-determined parts of the world; instead, they occur in placed where God wants to make a point. And if you live in a Christ-filled, God-fearing area, you’ll be spared.
People who want any sort of hope will cling to that like rope on a cliff.
I'd love to see a link or some sort of reference that shows where a pastor has said that living in a "Christ-filled God-fearing area" is some sort of holy shield against disaster. Matthew 5:45 in the bible clearly says -- and this is quoted often by secular and religious folks alike -- that God "causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." We read in Job that God allowed the devil to bring great ruin on one of the most righteous men who ever lived. Cancer strikes within the church just as often as it strikes those who don't believe.
The bible clearly tells us that this is God's world, and He can do with it whatever He chooses to do for whatever His purposes are. We also know that God does things on a much greater time scale than our feeble minds can comprehend, and what may seem like a short-term disaster can eventually become an event of great healing and power. Jesus showed us this EXTREMELY clearly with His death on the cross, taking a symbol of capital punishment, despair, loss, and extreme pain and converting it to a symbol of hope, resurrection, and life.
It’s a shame. There are reasons Haiti (or New Orleans or Southeast Asia) was susceptible to such disasters. We can understand this better with scientific knowledge.
Bad things happen. Sometimes, there are no reasons for it. Other times, there are understandable reasons. The Haitian earthquake falls into that latter category. There’s no need to bring a god into the mix.
So which way is it? Does "scientific knowledge" give us all the answers, or doesn't it? Which makes more sense...that science can occasionally give us the answers to life's questions, or that a God who made everything have the right to use His creation in ways that we don't understand? Dawkins et al often attempt to elevate science and rational thinking to the level of god-hood, but suggest that there might actually BE a God who controls every single solitary thing that goes on in the world, and suddenly it's people of faith who are ignorant?
Daniel Dennett is especially frustrated by God getting a pass when disasters occur:
The idea that God is a worthy recipient of our gratitude for the blessings of life but should not be held accountable for the disasters is a transparently disingenuous innovation of the theologians. And of course it doesn’t work all that well… All the holy texts and interpretations that contrive ways of getting around the problem read like the fine print in a fraudulent contract — and for the same reason: they are desperate attempts to conceal the implications of the double standard they have invented.
Maybe some pastors don’t believe this characterization. If that’s true, then they need to be the voice of reason when members of their congregation say that God had any type of role in this tragedy, good or bad.
Otherwise, they’re just part of the problem.
By my way of thinking, Mr. Dennett's frustration is completely misplaced. If he's acknowledging that God did indeed create everything we know, see, feel and touch...everything we can even possibly conceive...then why is it not that very same God's right to do whatever He wishes to do with what He has created? Why (again) is it not conceivable that God is telling the truth when He tells us via scripture that He knows who we are and what we will be before we are born, that He knows the length of our days, and He knows how they will end.
God indeed has a role in the tragedy of Haiti. He created Haiti. He created the people who live there. He created the people who are rushing there to offer hope, healing, rescue, and restoration to those injured or rendered homeless by the disaster.
I acknowledge this: that it is impossibly hard for me to understand why bad things like Haiti and 9/11 and cancer and war and death and divorce and hurt and all the bad things in the world happen. I also acknowledge, however, that if we believe that God created all this, we must recognize His right to do whatever He wishes to do with it, and that in the long run, that He has reasons for doing things that I am not able to understand. I also know that this same God knew in creating us that we as human beings would someday come to understand that we are imperfect, that we need a Savior, and it was God's plan that once we acknowledge that aspect of our humanity, He would provide an alternative to the punishment we deserve for the evil that we've committed. It's this alternative, in the form of His perfect Son, that allows us into the presence of His holiness.
It's normal and natural to question why bad things happen. I'd hope that it would also be comforting (and convicting) to know that there are answers to these "why" questions that only the Creator of the universe could provide.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Nash!
Steve Nash is such a hero to me. Here's a very inspiring story in new Fast Company about how he is shining in both business and bball.
Or just watch this. Nash is the only NBAer who could pull this off and keep it funny...
Or just watch this. Nash is the only NBAer who could pull this off and keep it funny...
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