December 30, 2005
:: good intentions ::
Every year, millions of people gather around television sets to watch a giant ball slowly fall to the world’s most famous countdown. For one night, the entire nation watches the our favorite television stars as they ring in the biggest party of the year. The annual ritual is a constant reminder of new beginnings and serves as the perfect chance to drop old habits and adopt a fresh mindset for the next 12 months.
By midnight on Dec. 31, we’ve decided to lose that extra weight, spend less money, spend more time with God and let go of those nagging little tendencies that have plagued us until this momentous occasion. Despite our collective enthusiasm, January comes and goes and our pledges for new lifestyles slowly fade, and by the time spring roles around, we’re back to our old routine. The next year comes and our habits remained unchanged.
By now we should have come to realize that our goals cannot be kept without some form of accountability. So this year's New Years resolution is to succeed. To succeed at anything I decide to do this coming year and to be accountable to it.
:: those who say it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it ::
By midnight on Dec. 31, we’ve decided to lose that extra weight, spend less money, spend more time with God and let go of those nagging little tendencies that have plagued us until this momentous occasion. Despite our collective enthusiasm, January comes and goes and our pledges for new lifestyles slowly fade, and by the time spring roles around, we’re back to our old routine. The next year comes and our habits remained unchanged.
By now we should have come to realize that our goals cannot be kept without some form of accountability. So this year's New Years resolution is to succeed. To succeed at anything I decide to do this coming year and to be accountable to it.
:: those who say it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it ::
December 28, 2005
:: how rude ::
What I can't understand is why the day has to start before the sun has come up? Honestly, if you can't get it done while the sun is awake, what's the point? Seriously, does going to work before sunrise and arriving home after sunset really make sense? I don't think so. I say if the sun is sleeping, so should we. Embrase the pillow people! Switch to sunlight savings time.
December 19, 2005
:: purple'd ::
We'll I've been blessed with a black eye right before Christmas! Ya... and it's real pretty this morning. I think I might be able to tone it down a bit with some makeup, but I don't think there's much I can do about the swelling. Oh well. I've learned my lesson. Tickling your roommate is fun. Getting her elbow in the face is not.
:: Note to shelf: Roping arms down first may be beneficial ::
:: Note to shelf: Roping arms down first may be beneficial ::
December 13, 2005
:: run over by a reindeer ::
*meh* I hate to say it but I feel like a bit of a Scrooge. The holiday season is starting to really wear me down. All these early morning/late night shifts... short tempered people... not enough time for my own Christmas shopping... Aaahh! I'm starting to wish I had gone on vacation with my parents (and now that I've thought about it... I take it back!). I thought this was supposed to be 'the most wonderful time of the year'? I think they're lying to us. Damn crazy people with their holiday schemes. "I won't buy your lies! And I won't buy you're sneaky holiday specials either!!"
Can somebody help get this reindeer off me?!
Can somebody help get this reindeer off me?!
December 03, 2005
:: called to live ::
"Your call is to be a worship leader but not necessarily with a guitar in your hand. Your call is to befriend that funny little lady at the end of your street. Your call is to feed the hungry and to spend yourself on behalf of the poor, and to offer hospitality to strangers who just turn up in town needing a place to crash. And it's to fast. And it's to pray so long and hard that you run out of words and tears. Your call is to preach the good news of Jesus to every person who will listen and a few who won't. Your call is to go somewhere, anywhere, wherever, whenever, for Jesus, and never stop. Your call is to love people no one else loves and to forgive them when they treat you like dirt - or worse. Do your job to the very best of your ability without grumbling about your boss or whining about your colleagues. Your call is to pray for the sick, and when they are healed, to dance all night. And when they aren't, to weep with them and love them even more.
Your call is to honor your parents, pray for your leaders, study the Scriptures, and attend plenty of parties. Be a peacemaker in every situation: when the fight breaks out on the bus ride home late at night and when the gossip starts to circulate at church. Your call is to pick up litter in the street when no one else is looking, to wipe the toilet seat, to pull the gum off from under the desk. It's to get to meetings early to put out the chairs.
Your call is to make disciples and to teach them to obey everything Jesus commanded. And don't forget to minister grace to them when they sin. Which they will. Your mission is to baptize and to cast out evil spirits. Your call is to bind up broken hearts wherever you find them, and you will find them wherever you look. It's to visit prisons. And hospitals.
Your call is to listen more than you talk and to listen with your eyes as well as your ears. It's to do the chores again and again without grumbling. It's to buy ethical coffee and to recycle your bottles. And while you're at it, don't forget to leave anonymous gifts on people's doorsteps.
And when you've done all that... come back and see me, and we can spend a little time praying about Phase Two!"
Your call is to honor your parents, pray for your leaders, study the Scriptures, and attend plenty of parties. Be a peacemaker in every situation: when the fight breaks out on the bus ride home late at night and when the gossip starts to circulate at church. Your call is to pick up litter in the street when no one else is looking, to wipe the toilet seat, to pull the gum off from under the desk. It's to get to meetings early to put out the chairs.
Your call is to make disciples and to teach them to obey everything Jesus commanded. And don't forget to minister grace to them when they sin. Which they will. Your mission is to baptize and to cast out evil spirits. Your call is to bind up broken hearts wherever you find them, and you will find them wherever you look. It's to visit prisons. And hospitals.
Your call is to listen more than you talk and to listen with your eyes as well as your ears. It's to do the chores again and again without grumbling. It's to buy ethical coffee and to recycle your bottles. And while you're at it, don't forget to leave anonymous gifts on people's doorsteps.
And when you've done all that... come back and see me, and we can spend a little time praying about Phase Two!"
December 02, 2005
:: Ezekiel 12:23 ::
So this guy comes up to me and says "What's the vision? What's the big idea?" I open my mouth and the words come out like this...
The vision? The vision is Jesus: obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.
And they are free from materialism - they laugh at 9-5 little prisons. They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday they wouldn't even notice. They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the West was won.
They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations, they need no passport. People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence. They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.
What is the vision? The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars. It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.
Light blockers from every secret motive, every private conversation. It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.
This is an army that would lay down its life for the cause. A million times a day its soldiers choose to lose that they might one day win the great "Well done" of faithful sons and daughters.
Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night.
They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again, "COME ON!" And this is the sound of the underground, the whisper of history in the making, foundations shaking, revolutionaries dreaming once again. Mystery is scheming in whispers, conspiracy is breathing... This is the sound of the underground.
And the army is disciple(in)ed - young people who beat their bodies into submission. Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms. The tattoo on their back boasts "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain."
Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them? Can hormones hold them back? Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them?
And the generation prays like a dying man with groans beyond talking with warrior cries, sulfuric tears and great barrow loads of laughter!
Waiting. Watching. 24-7 365.
Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules, shaking mediocrity from its cozy little hide, laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fating essentials. The advertisers cannot mold them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late-night parties before the cockerel cries.
They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive (on the inside). On the outside? They hardly care! They wear clothes like costumes: to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.
Would they surrender their image or their popularity? They would lay down their very lives, swap seats with the man on death now, guilty as hell: a throne for an electric chair.
With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days, they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.
Their DNA chooses Jesus (He breathes out, they breathe in), Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.
Their words make demons scream in shopping malls. Don't you hear them coming?
Herald the weirdoes! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes! They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension.
Their prayers summon the Hound of Heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.
And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon.
How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God.
My tomorrow is His today. My distant hope is His 3-D. And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking, great "Amen!" from countless angels, from heroes of the faith, from Christ himself.
And He is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner. Guaranteed.
The vision? The vision is Jesus: obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.
And they are free from materialism - they laugh at 9-5 little prisons. They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday they wouldn't even notice. They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the West was won.
They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations, they need no passport. People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence. They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.
What is the vision? The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars. It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.
Light blockers from every secret motive, every private conversation. It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.
This is an army that would lay down its life for the cause. A million times a day its soldiers choose to lose that they might one day win the great "Well done" of faithful sons and daughters.
Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night.
They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again, "COME ON!" And this is the sound of the underground, the whisper of history in the making, foundations shaking, revolutionaries dreaming once again. Mystery is scheming in whispers, conspiracy is breathing... This is the sound of the underground.
And the army is disciple(in)ed - young people who beat their bodies into submission. Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms. The tattoo on their back boasts "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain."
Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them? Can hormones hold them back? Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them?
And the generation prays like a dying man with groans beyond talking with warrior cries, sulfuric tears and great barrow loads of laughter!
Waiting. Watching. 24-7 365.
Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules, shaking mediocrity from its cozy little hide, laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fating essentials. The advertisers cannot mold them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late-night parties before the cockerel cries.
They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive (on the inside). On the outside? They hardly care! They wear clothes like costumes: to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.
Would they surrender their image or their popularity? They would lay down their very lives, swap seats with the man on death now, guilty as hell: a throne for an electric chair.
With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days, they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.
Their DNA chooses Jesus (He breathes out, they breathe in), Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.
Their words make demons scream in shopping malls. Don't you hear them coming?
Herald the weirdoes! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes! They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension.
Their prayers summon the Hound of Heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.
And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon.
How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God.
My tomorrow is His today. My distant hope is His 3-D. And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking, great "Amen!" from countless angels, from heroes of the faith, from Christ himself.
And He is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner. Guaranteed.
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