I don’t make a big deal out of numbers, but it’s interesting to see them nonetheless. It’s all in fun.
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 8,000 times in 2014. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 7 trips to carry that many people.
“Patience is a hard discipline. It is not just waiting until something happens over which we have no control: the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a conflict. Patience is not a waiting passivity until someone else does something. Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later and somewhere else. Let’s be patient and trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand” (Henri Nouwen).
Patience is easy in theory and much harder in practice. As the old saying goes, you never pray for patience unless you want what little patience you possess to be severely tested. Or in my case, you find out how completely impatient you are.
I do think that patience is not passively waiting. It means you prepare yourself for the future God has in store for you.
That means you confess any sin that might hinder the work of God in your life and you stay daily surrendered to whatever God calls you to and to whoever He calls you to be.
I still suck both at patience and at waiting. Blame it on my ADD. Blame it on my passive nature. I wish I could say that at this point in my life that I’ve mastered these two disciplines. I haven’t.
But I also believe that even when I pray “Lord, I want to believe. Help my unbelief,” even that mustard-size faith– so small it barely registers as faith at all– can move mountains and change the world. It can change my world.
It has never been about big faith in God, or I’d be totally screwed. It’s about faith in a big God who can take the tiniest beginnings of faith and trust and work wonders with those.
Lord, as always, I believe. I want to believe. I try to believe. Help my unbelief.
So, today would have been Elvis Presley’s 80th birthday. August 16 will mark 38 years since he passed away very suddenly in 1977 and left the music world in mourning. People still show up at Graceland on the anniversary of his death almost 40 years later to mourn and grieve his passing.
I was a huge Elvis fan when I was a kid. Maybe it’s because my dad loved Elvis’ music. Maybe it was because even at a young age, I connected with the singer who grew up in Memphis and never forgot where he came from even after he became mega-successful.
Elvis is a reminder to all of us that fame can be the best and worst thing to happen to a person. It’s the best because all their dreams come true and it can be the worst because all the scrutiny and pressure on that person increases a thousandfold and any character flaws that person has are magnified and exposed in a myriad of ways.
So maybe that’s why I haven’t been hugely successful and popular with my blog. Yeah, I’ll go with that.
I’ve heard stories about how Elvis never lost his love for Gospel music and always sung spiritual and sacred songs at his concerts. I can’t speak into the man’s beliefs, but to me that says something. It reminds me of my grandmother who passed away from Alzheimer’s a few years back. She couldn’t tell you her address or probably remember your name, but she could still remember the old hymns that she grew up loving.
There’s power in those songs, both old and new. When Andre Crouch sang about the blood that never loses its power, he was singing powerful truth.
So I watched a couple of Elvis movies and remembered that as an actor, Elvis was a really good singer. His movies aren’t the best ever made and can be painfully bad at times, but they’re still fun to watch.
I personally would much rather listen to his Gospel recordings.
It was weird not having my usual TNT discipleship class tonight at Brentwood Baptist Church. I’d gotten so used to these Wednesday nights as part of my routine and now, once again, my routine has been changed.
I’d willingly go through all of it again if I could. Even the public speaking part, which is definitely NOT my forte.
It’s also funny how something I was a part of for only a year became so ingrained into my life that it almost feels like withdrawal not going anymore. Relationships are the same way. When people move off, it seems strange not to see them around anymore, even if they weren’t in your life for very long.
I used to say how much I liked change and how exciting it all was. Now I’ve experienced quite a few changes and it doesn’t seem so exciting anymore. Scary? Yes. Thrilling? Not so much. Unpredictable? Absolutely.
What I love now more than anything is the God who stays the same amidst all the constant changes. It’s true that the only constant is change. Well, it’s mostly true. The only constants are that God remains God and that everything else changes. Except His Word and His promises.
Sometimes I think it’d be nice to have a heads-up on some of the upcoming changes so I could prepare physically, emotionally, spiritually. You know, bring an extra pair of underwear along for the special occasions where it gets really exciting.
But only God knows. I may not trust what tomorrow will bring but I can trust that God will orchestrate it for my good. There’s nothing so bad that God can’t use for good and eventually turn it to the best possible outcome.
God knows the future because He’s already there. God knows my past because He’s there now, healing those wounds of mine so that they no longer bleed into my present (stolen from my pastor). He’s also right with me right now. That’s the best part.
I guess it pays to clean out your closets periodically. Or bi-yearly in my case.
I made some interesting finds:
1) three sets of minor league baseball cards. One was from the 80’s featuring the now-defunct Memphis Chicks, formerly the AA farm team for the Kansas City Royals. Another featured the Memphis Redbirds circa somewhere around 2001. The last had the ’86 Huntsville Stars baseball team.
2) Some shoes I hadn’t worn in years and had forgotten I had. I’m wearing them now and they’re actually quite comfortable. Plus, they look like new.
3) A flyer for upcoming events for the college & career ministry of Germantown Baptist Church, where I attended before I moved to Nashville. And by upcoming, I mean upcoming for the year 2004.
It pays to clean house every now and then.
“Be sure that the ins and outs of your individuality are no mystery to Him; and one day they will no longer be a mystery to you” (C. S. Lewis)
One of the reasons I write this little daily blog is to tell you that it’s okay to be you. You don’t have to conform to anybody else’s expectations of who you should be because no one else has to live your life or walk in your shoes but you.
I sincerely hope that you will do what you like, not what society or fashion trends say. Especially not what the current hipster movement says. If you want to grow a beard, then grow one (unless you’re female, which might make it a bit awkward). If you don’t, then be clean-shaven. Or scruffy. It’s really up to you.
Never be ashamed of who God made you to be. You are the one God dreamed up in His infinite mind long before anyone existed. You are the one God fashioned out of the dirt with His very own hands and with the very breath from His mouth giving you life and spirit. You are the one Jesus, the very incarnation of God in human form, died for. And He would have gone through all the torture and death if it had been only you that needed saving.
So go ahead. Wear black socks with those sandals if that’s what makes you happy. Wear those Christmas-y t-shirts in July. You can even wear plaids with stripes if you fancy, but I will disavow any knowledge of you if you do.
Just you be you, because what the world needs more than anything is to see you loving who you are and who you’re becoming. Nothing delights God more than a man comfortable in his masculinity and a woman who is in love with her femininity.
That’s all. You can go back to your pink fuzzy bunny slippers now.
I went to a birthday party of a friend of mine tonight. She turned the big 3-0. Been there, done that, found out it’s not so bad.
She had helium balloons floating in one of the rooms with pictures tied to them. Each one was a picture of her at some point in her life, with some showing her as a kid, some as a teen, and the more recent ones showing her all grown up.
I was captivated by that idea. I think each of us are defined in many ways by defining moments in our lives– snapshots, if you will. Those are the events in our lives that we remember as if we’re looking at a Polaroid taken at that very moment.
For me, it was the moment I found out about my granddad’s passing. Or when my boss called me into his office after the first plane had struck the World Trade Center building on September 11, 2001.
I can also remember walking across the stage to accept my diploma in my graduation ceremony from Union University.
That’s just it. You don’t get to pick your memories. You don’t get to pick how many good or bad ones you’ll have. You do get to choose what you do with those memories and how you look at them. How you look at life through them.
The old cliche is true. You can take the bad memories from your life and either let them make you bitter or better. You can choose cynicism and unbelief or you can choose forgiveness and faith.
Some of my best memories are of the friends I’ve made, including the friend who just turned 30. Others involve my family. More often than not– nearly all of the time– the best memories will involve people and not possessions or accomplishments.
I choose to believe the best about others and bring it out of them because that’s what Jesus did for me. I choose to trust that God can take the worst moments of my life and make them the first part of my testimony to how good God is and how He can turn a wreck into something beautiful.
I think I’ll have one more good set of memories after tonight.
Note: these are still a work in progress, so they are subject to change. Most likely, I will think of something I left out and add it at a later date, hopefully before 2016.
Here are my resolutions for the new year (already in progress):
1) Lose 30 pounds. I figure that’s roughly 2.5 pounds per month. That’s doable, I think.
2) Read through the Bible again this year.
3) Wear my 30 X 30 jeans again (this won’t happen unless I accomplish goal #1)
4) Be working in a full-time permanent job by the end of the year.
5) Be better at giving other people the benefit of the doubt and giving grace both to others and to myself.
6) Do something spontaneous every day of 2015.
7) Do 5 things I’ve never done before (I’ll have to figure out what those are first).
8) Continue to be awesome.
9) Get back into jogging/running/fast walking/treadmilling/some other form of regular exercise.
I think that covers it for now. If I think of anything else, I’ll add it and note that I added it so I will remember that I added it. Comprende?
This prayer comes courtesy of Frederick Buechner. It just so happens to be my prayer for the night as well:
“Lord Jesus Christ, thou Son of the Most High, Prince of Peace, be born again into our world. Wherever there is war in this world, wherever there is pain, wherever there is loneliness, wherever there is no hope, come, thou long-expected one, with healing in thy wings.
Holy Child, whom the shepherds and the kings and the dumb beasts adored, be born again. Wherever there is boredom, wherever there is fear of failure, wherever there is temptation too strong to resist, wherever there is bitterness of heart, come, thou Blessed One, with healing in thy wings.
Savior, be born in each of us as we raise our faces to thy face, not knowing fully who we are or who thou art, knowing only that thy love is beyond our knowing and that no other has the power to make us whole. Come, Lord Jesus, to each who longs for thee even though we have forgotten thy name. Come quickly. Amen.”
Sometimes, it’s easy to believe. Everything is going your way and you seemingly are getting all the breaks.
Sometimes, it’s not so easy. Your prayers bounce back from the ceiling and you can’t hear God as well as before, but you keep praying and trusting, though with little seeds of doubt creeping in.
Sometimes, you don’t have it in you anymore to pray or believe for yourself.
That’s where community comes in. That’s what I believe we’re called to do in 2015.
Community means that I believe for you when you can’t believe for yourself when it comes to the promises of God. It means that I pray on your behalf claiming your promises for you when you can’t get the words to come out.
On occasion, I find it easier to visualize the person I’m praying for. I picture him (or her) in a small chapel, walking down the center aisle. I picture Jesus at the end of that aisle. I see myself as guiding that person toward Jesus and watching as He wraps His arms around the person for whom I’m praying.
Community means that we encourage each other. It also means we don’t accept easy answers, but push beyond the “I’m fine”s to get to the truth. It means that every now and then we speak the hard truth, but speak it in love, when we see the other headed down a harmful path.
Community means that we are honest, vulnerable, and transparent as close to 100% of the time as our imperfections will allow. It means that we choose to love the unlovable in our midst, remembering that we too were at one point unlovable before Christ made us loveable.
That’s what the 1st century world saw in the early Christians that won them over. That’s what God used to turn the world upside down (or more accurately, right-side up again) and transform a small band of believers into His Church.
That’s what the world around us needs to see more than ever right now and in 2015.
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