Category: reflections

Times Up

clock

Oh snikies! Its press time and I haven’t finished my column yet.

What happened?

I remember at least trying to write a column this week, I think.

What could have happened? I’m not even sure why I write this column anyways. I feel like an old preacher who has three sermons he gives year round. Over and over again, hoping someone catches on.

But what happened this week? Why did I procrastinate so much?

According to Wikipedi, procrastination is the deferment or putting-off of an action or task, usually by focusing on some other distraction.

I’m not easily distracted am I?

Maybe I could find an old blog entry and run it here. Or better yet, find someone who’s a better writer, run their blog entry and then once you think I’m a super writer, I can tag the end with one of those silly MLA style citations.

No. Stay focused. Try and remember why you don’t have your column written.

I know I sat down with my laptop Sunday afternoon. I vaguely remember typing something about how big my God is. Because the bigger your God is, the smaller your problems are. And the bigger your problems are, the smaller your God is.

Wait, I remember what happened now.

I kept deleting it because all I was doing was re-hashing that morning’s sermon.

Ok, so that column idea was a wash.

Sunday night I remember – I planned on trying again, but I ended up playing 10-9-8 at my neighbor’s house.

And for the record – I did maintain the highest score throughout the majority of the evening. Yet for some reason, they said I came in dead last. I guess I’ll have to look into that.

After 10-9-8 I remember coming home and sitting in my living room and “getting my praise on” with Chris Tomlin.

Yet before I knew it, morning had arrived and I headed back to the office.

Now I’m pretty sure I tried typing something that morning.

I do remember staring at a blank screen for a long time.

Oh yes. I almost finished two columns Monday morning. But both times I hit a writers block and decided no one would be interested in my weekend trip, tubing on the Guadalupe River.

Somewhere along the way I remember being caught up in the blogosphere.

Everyone was blogging about Apple Computer’s announcement to start fitting their computers with Intel processors, replacing the IBM chips that have run the machines forever.

I think I may have enjoyed a #2 from Crow’s about that time as well.

That should have inspired a column in-and-of-itself, because it doesn’t get much better than that. But I guess food on the brain and a full tummy just made me put writing off even more.

Monday evening I spent my time trying out a new Thai Shrimp recipe from H-E-B and then enjoyed a quiet evening on my porch with my two dogs.

Maybe if I had more time during the day, I would have written a column by now.

Isn’t that ultimately the problem? Its not a matter of time management is it?

Around 10:30 p.m., my “sister” Kathryn Shindoll called and we talked about her trip to St. Petersburg, Russia.

I was so fired up about her going and the opportunity she’ll have, as she leads 11 interns to work in orphanages there, that I completely forgot about writing my column for whatever little time I had left before I fell asleep.

All I could think about was how badly I wanted to take a trip on my own and how I needed to start talking to Rebecca O’Banion about a trip to Haiti.

I was fired up. It felt like the end of a CWF show. One of those shows when we know God inhabits the praises of his people and works in ways we’ll never know or understand. Awesome.

Well, that brings me to Tuesday — one day before press time.

Surely I wrote something — somewhere.

I woke up at 5:30 a.m.

Odd.

Showered, changed and read Isaiah 40-44. I think reading those chapters may have changed my life – I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

In fact, I was so inspired that I did write something that morning. I had to re-write one of the verses in my Bible.

I marked through “Jacob” and “Israel” in Isaiah 40:27-28 and replaced it with my name and America.

Why do you say, O Jacob (Jonathan), and complain, O Israel (America), “My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my God”? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.

I was fired up after reading these chapters. I mean seriously. Do you realize how big God is?

Isaiah says, “Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.

Isaiah also writes, “God measures the heavens with the span of His hand.”

Any idea how big the heavens are?

Our sun is roughly 150 million kilometers from the earth. If we traveled at the speed of light, 300,000 kilometers per second, it would take us eight minutes and 20 seconds to get to the surface of the sun.

On average, Pluto, is 6 billion kilometers from the sun, depending on where it is in its orbit. That puts Pluto 5.85 billion kilometers away from Earth. At the speed of light, it would take us roughly 325 minutes, or 5.4 hours to reach the furthest planet in our solar system.

Yet our solar system is only one in our galaxy, which scientists say is 130,000 light years in diameter. It would take us 130,000 years, traveling at the speed of light to travel from one side of our galaxy to the other.

Is anyone else getting this? Oh wait. I’ve started re-hashing Sunday morning’s message haven’t I.

Sorry about that.

On to the business at hand.

Oh no! Times up. Looks like I put off writing my column for too long.

We have to send the paper to press.

So, I guess this is it for me. No time to type anything else.

Maybe next week I’ll plan ahead better. But then where’s the fun in that.

See you next week.

Flowers make all the difference

Originally published as Church Flowers in The Belton Journal

A pastor in St. Paul, Minn. blogged this week about a flower garden planted in front of his church.

First of all, I love pastors that blog regularly. It gives a lot of insight into the ministry and what they go through and see throughout the week.

Some even give insight into how their weekly sermon progresses.

Fellowship Church in Dallas has a blog set up for their entire church staff to post notes and journals on. (UPDATE: While Pastor Ed Young still blogs, I can’t find the blogs for the entire staff anymore.)

It gives you a connection with the staff that you might not otherwise have.

But I digress…

Pastor Pat Kahnke of St. Paul Fellowship Church writes that he noticed a bunch of kids bustling around in the church parking lot earlier this week.

As he walked closer he realized that a number of his church members had taken the initiative to plow up a weedy section of their church lot and plant a flower bed in its place.

While planting the flower bed, one of the church members knocked on a neighboring house door to ask to borrow a water hose.

The church neighbor said they could borrow the hose that day and year-round to keep the flower bed looking healthy.

And as a result, another member volunteered to plow the man’s backyard for him.

What a great sign of ministry on so many levels.

They took the care of the church upon themselves

No one sat around and waited for a church beautification committee to tell them what needed to be done. No building committee hired out work that church members could easily do.

People took responsibility for their church and went the extra mile to be sure their place of worship was taken care of.

What if each of us looked for areas in our own churches or work places where we could go the extra mile without being asked?

What if we quit shrugging responsibility for things in our offices or church and stepped up and said, “This needs to be done — and I’m going to do it. Even if it’s not in my job description and even if I may not be an expert on the subject.–

They involved outsiders

One of the things I love about this story is that it involved people in the neighborhood.

Now granted, with a little planning they could have brought their own water hose, but think of the ministry opportunity they would have missed. In the process, they made sure that a neighbor of the church knew what was going on at the church and then found a way to meet him at his need.

Wasn’t that Jesus’ entire ministry was about? He met people at their need.

If we are passionate about what we do, or wherever we do it, it can be contagious – people will want to be a part of it.

A business cannot grow without new customers and a church cannot grow without new members. We must rid ourselves of being exclusive or selective in who we reach out to. We must bring outsiders in.

A few months ago I wrote about George Masters who was so passionate about Apple’s iPod, that he spent several hours designing a complete television commercial based on his favorite toy.

“Why would a school teacher spend a good chunk of his free time, for five months, crafting a really slick ad for no money? For no real recognition other than a, ‘Hey, that’s cool,’ from a few friends? Because he really, really likes his iPod,– wrote blogger Andy Havens. “Masters frankly admits that he partly worked on the project as a way of teaching himself some computer animation basics, and to be part of a portfolio. That being said, why pick the iPod mini as his subject? Because he’s a huge fan. And let’s remember that ‘fan’ is short for ‘fanatic.’–

If we can get people passionate about our product or message, people will become a part of the message and share it with them where ever they go.

Little efforts can go a long way

Third, as Pastor Kahnke wrote in his blog that he was blessed and ministered to by seeing their effort and the beautiful flowers left by their effort.

A pastor who was worn down was encouraged and blessed by a small effort by members of his congregation.

I can’t imagine that this group of church goers would have realized the impact their thoughtfulness had on their pastor, or the impact it would have on a newspaper editor some 1,113 miles away.

You never know what impact your willingness to serve will have on others.

Sand is overrated. It’s just tiny, little rocks.

I’m really tired from this weekend. But for some reason I’m just not ready to go to bed. I’m afraid I’ll lay there staring at the ceiling or the back of my eyelids forever. Maybe I’ll go home and watch a movie or two. I’m thinking about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It’s a really clever movie that sometimes I wish and wonder if it could be true.
Could you possibly erase someone or an event from your mind?
And if you could, would you really want to?
I can think of several events or people I might like to erase, but what purpose would that serve?
What if I erased my sister’s death? Where would that leave me? Would I just hurt even worse because in my mind she would have just simply disappeared? I would never want to erase her from my memory or any part of her. She means too much, even as bad as her death hurts sometimes.
I can think of ex-girlfriends that I would probably love to erase, but there’s always so much I can look back on foundly and wish to return to those happier moments.
What would you erase if you could? And why?
Either way, I think I may head home, open a cheap bottle of wine and enjoy the rest of the evening before I finally run out of things to think and worry about.

“Sand is overrated. It’s just tiny, little rocks. “

Weekend Update

Well, the weekends over and I need a vacation to recover.

It seems like the last few weekends have been whirlwind experiences that keep coming.

I spent last weekend I had plans to visit friends and family in Dallas as well as announcing for the first CWF Comeback show in Rockwall.

I ended up doing all that, as well as attending the visitation and funeral of a friend on Saturday.
This weekend, I began a fun Friday evening with a good friend, as we planned to eat and visit the Planetarium in Killeen.

And naturally, we ran into someone I knew at dinner.

A couple from our church saw us on their way out of the restaurant and I’m sure immediately began to hear wedding bells as they saw my friend and I sitting on the bench, waiting for our table.

I guess that’s what everyone assumes when you’re single and you’re hanging out with someone of the opposite sex.

What really stinks is when you or that other person starts hearing wedding bells, while the other is hearing, “Run Forrest, run!”

But none the less, we enjoyed our evening and I was waiting anxiously to see Laser U2 at the Planetarium.

We arrived a few minutes early and were pleased to see a very small crowd would be joining us. But as the show started, we soon realized, without any sound or music, the lasers lost their attraction.

So, the show was cancelled and we were given rain checks for another show.

I emailed the Planetarium Monday morning to ask if there would be another run of the show — and maybe its my wonderful persuasive writing skills, or their over abundance of generosity, but the center agreed to run a special show for me and friends.

So, I’ll get to wait anxiously for another show at another time.

Saturday I saw Star Wars – Revenge of the Sith with my good friends Aaron and Keri Lehmann.

I don’t know if Revenge of the Sith will replace The Empire Strikes Back as my favorite installment or not, but it is my favorite of the three pre-quils.

We finished the day off with dinner at Kobe’s Steakhouse in Addison with friends and family, celebrating Kathryn’s Crappy Birthday and her brother-in-law’s Happy Birthday.

The weekend wrapped up with a whirlwind trip to Mountain Home, Arkansas for a CWF show.

We were a bit bumed before the show began. The crowd was thin, with only 20 people in attendance up until the last 10 or 15 minutes before showtime. Luckily the crowd grew to 72 by showtime — but preparing for a show with an extra small crowd is never a good feeling – especially if you’ve just driven eight hours to do so.
As the show began, we had technical difficulties with the mics and music intros (which to me is ALWAYS frustrating) but surprise, surprise, God still chose to use a bunch of guys who love ministry and wrestling, to bring 10 people into His kingdom.

It still amazes me how God can use a wrestling show to bring people into His loving, outstretched arms, but He does.

And an eight hour ride, in a van, full of goofy guys, suddenly becomes worth it all.

Even if we don’t make it back to Dallas till 6:30 a.m. on Monday, and I have to be at work (2 hours away) at 10 a.m. — it’s all worth it if just one comes to know Him.

The thrill of doing Kingdom work is amazing.

I don’t quite feel at home anywhere else. The CWF proves that God works outside of our boxes all the time.

And the angels rejoice in the salvation of 10 people, who put their trust in the Lord. And we rejoice with them.

Amy’s Song

By Switchfoot

Amy’s gone
And time rolls on
How far? how fast? how long?

The last time we saw Amy
She was headed for the shore
Fighting off the volatile gray skies

She said now begins forever
And that no one knows their time
We bid farewell not knowing
That might be our last good-bye

Amy was a fighter
She cut like Casius Clay
She burned like a fire
Despite these rains

Where time was a question
She only knew one song:
She’s singing, “how far, how fast, how
long?”

Salvation is a fire
In the midnight of the soul
It lights up like a can of gasoline

Yeah, she’s a freedom fighter
She’s a stand up kind of girl
She’s out to start a fire
In a bar code plastic world

Amy was a fighter
She cut like Casius Clay
She burned like a fire
Despite these rains

Where time was a question
She only knew one song:
She’s singing, “how far, how fast, how
long?”

When everything stops moving
And I stop to catch my breath
And ride my train of thought
All the way round

My thoughts return to Amy
And the fire she’s begun
She came when we were freezing
And left us burning up

Amy was a fighter
She cut like Casius Clay
She burned like a fire
Despite these rains

Where time was a question
She only knew one song:
She’s singing, “how far, how fast, how
long?”

For Amy