Encouraging day

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Today I got to have lunch with a brother who has spent decades serving, mentoring, encouraging, teaching, leading, and befriending young people. There are few people I respect more. He wanted to talk about ministry to college students and young singles – they are starting a community for that at their church. I left that lunch wanting to explode with the encouragement and excitement. I love it when churches invest in college students and young singles, and remain confused and disheartened that so many don’t.

Tonight I got to be with these wonderful people (pictured below) at the Core, a Christian gathering that was started by a friend at our local community college

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, Lone Star. He has become very busy (he works for Ted Cruz’s campaign) and so I have gotten to lead it this semester.

Tonight we talked about Romans 6:3-6, and the newness of life brought back from the dead by Jesus. Several of them shared their stories, and others shared the newness of what God is doing in their lives now. Several people shared with me before the session started that their day had been really difficult, and during the session we had several moments of hilarity – snafus in the worship time, one of our girls getting her foot tangled in her purse and performing one of those hilarious slow motion tumbles from her chair (she was never in danger of getting hurt). We laughed and laughed and I thought about how kind of the Lord to de-stress those of us who have had stressful weeks.

It was a great night. I can’t believe I get to do this.

20160209Core

What a game!

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No, not that game.

Blake had a soccer game tonight – and what a game! Three assists and one goal in a 4-0 victory over Emery. He had three or four other chances and could have scored more. He is poetry in motion.

I’m going to miss

, so much, watching that young man play soccer. Here’s hoping his dream of playing next year in college comes true.

Superbowl 50

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Well, being a defensive struggle it wasn’t the most exciting Superbowl, but for the first time in several years the team I was rooting for won.

I’m especially happy for Peyton. Not his best game ever but good enough, and he goes out a winner (if he’s smart enough to retire).

And also very happy for Gary Kubiak and Wade Phillips, who coached here in Houston and were fired a few years ago after a 2-14 season. Nice to see them come back so strong – Gary as head coach and Wade as the defensive coordinator of one of the most dominant defenses we’ve ever seen. Good on ya guys!

Congratulations Broncos!

Hard run

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My expected ten mile run this morning turned into just over five miles, partly walked. One of the strange things about running is how much better a run might be if started at 7:00am versus at 10:30am. I haven’t been able to explain it but both Andrew and I were pretty wiped out after just a couple miles (me more so than him, I expect).

I don’t think it’s wise to over-spiritualize everything, but I think this is the way life in Christ and the race we run in Christ sometimes goes. Some days our run is joyful, free, easy. Other days all we can feel is the pain in our legs, the wind in our face (it was windy today), and the numbness in our feet (I definitely need some new shoes). I was really feeling my weight (I need to lose weight, desperately). After a while the run slows to a walk.

I have been running hard this past year and a half, inflamed with the calling I feel toward college ministry and joyful at the progress God has made happen there. I’ve been running hard at work as well, loving my job (not something I could have said back in 2012), even when it’s stressful or I haven’t performed as well as I feel I can – I’ve been pushing hard. Today was just one of those days, though. We had so much fun last night with the grands and that continued into this morning.

Then I went running.

We cut the run short after we’d only covered half the planned distance. It was a nasty, hard run. I then came home and did some catch-up work (a status report, some code repository work, etc). Then I basically spent the rest of the day in my pajamas watching Alias reruns with Jill. I feel like I have been taking more breaks recently; I missed out on a Lord of the Rings viewing tonight with our College/Young Singles pastor and a number of our people. I didn’t do my Bible reading. In short, I’ve been a bum today. I wrote recently that I know those days are needed, but I also know that we can’t spend our whole lives sitting on a couch.

Tomorrow is a new day. Church will happen and prayers for our Lone Star college will happen with two brothers that I pray with every Sunday. I’ll come home and rest some more, and then attend a College/Young Singles Super bowl party. Then comes Monday and I’m back at it.

I pray this week I will run better, not just physically but spiritually as well. I pray the shoes of the gospel of peace that I put on will fit well and put wings on my heels. I pray the spiritual food I feed myself with will promote muscle, not fat. I pray I will laugh at the wind in my face and rejoice when it’s at my back. That I won’t be numb, but will feel deeply the love and passion of our Lord.

Please pray for me as well, whoever is reading this, as I prepare a subject and discussion for Bible study Tuesday night at Lone Star college. What a privilege that is.

Lord, please prepare me to do your work.

 

These three

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We gave our two oldest a break tonight; we took the three grandchildren off their hands so they could celebrate an early valentine’s with their spouses (and sleep in tomorrow morning) .

We had a valentine themed night with the babies – cupcakes,  light up balloons

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,  pizza,  a craft,  and veggie tales. Jill always brings the party!

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A ten mile run awaits me tomorrow morning.

Abundance!

True hope

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We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain. . .

– Hebrews 6:19 ESV

True hope,  hope that moves one forward,  has to go to the now unveiled seat of mercy beneath the golden gaze of the Cherubim.

True hope goes leaping into the very arms of God.

Rest

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It’s a little after 8pm and I’m already in bed. I’m wiped out,  in a good way; Blake’s final soccer season,  our church’s college ministry,  our ministry on campus at the local community college (I got to speak last night),  and of course a full time job that I am extremely thankful for –  this is a busy time.

I’ve always had a healthy sense of guilt.  Unhealthy,  actually. But I’m learning the spiritual value of setting aside time to do absolutely nothing,  on those rare evenings or weekends when I have nothing planned. And to not feel guilty for it, but rather to allow myself to be blessed by it. God is so good.

Selah.

Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

– Psalm 116:7 ESV

More

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The Lord is good. He is so good.

Think about it: we believe that Jesus came to earth to live a perfect life and die for our sins. This is, of course, true. But he did more than just die for our sins and forgive us and give us eternal life, all of which are, of course, both true and huge. But sometimes we forget that there’s more. We’re content with the idea of just barely being admitted into the Kingdom as anonymous citizens, to sleep on the streets of gold.

Listen, he did more.

He could have made us his servants. That sounds better – to serve him in the Kingdom and sleep in the servant’s quarters. Yes, much better.

No, there’s much, much more.

We’re not just servants. OK, perhaps we’re like foster children. Now we’re eating at the table.

Wait, there’s more.

We’re not foster children. We are fully adopted children of the King. This isn’t a temporary arrangement or a semi-commitment. The implications: we are heirs. Heirs of the Kingdom, princes and princesses, adopted with full rights of sonship and daughtership, brothers and sisters of our big Brother Jesus who went before us and gave his all for us.

Listen, he gave us all. Literally “more than we can ask or even think”.

From what country, from what universe does this love come from?

Thank you Lord Jesus!

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

– Galatians 4:4-7 ESV

Donald Trump and his view of personal property

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From Neo-Neocon’s excellent blog: Donald Trump loves the regular folks—unless their homes happen to stand in Trump’s way

As a large-scale real estate developer, Trump has sometimes sued in his efforts to use government to condemn houses belonging to people of modest means whose homes—which Trump considers insufficiently attractive—have stood near his big developments and have chosen to exercise their liberty by refusing to sell to him. That’s one of the reasons Trump agrees 100% with the SCOTUS decision in Kelo (decided in 2005): he sees it making it easier for him to use government to compel the sale of a person’s house even against that person’s will.

It’s Trump’s prerogative to approve of Kelo, and it’s certainly understandable that someone in his line of work might have that point of view. He has every right to build his projects, and to try to buy the land of those with adjacent property. But if more people knew about the tactics he has used in trying to get government to force people out of their homes against their will, and his own condescending and often insulting comments about those same people and their modest homes, he might not be seen in such a positive light. With Trump, the legal often seems to segue into the personal.

There are several examples. One occurred in the 1990s, when Trump was trying to buy the home of a 70-ish Atlantic City widow named Vera Coking. He wanted her property not for building his casino, but in order to use the land as a waiting area for limos. She had lived in the same place for three decades, and said no to Trump’s offer to buy. After that, Trump tried to get the city to condemn her property and buy it for a reduced sum, and the court battle took five years.

. . .

Ms. Coking had said earlier that “This is my home. This is my castle.” Trump had disagreed; he had built a different kind of castle with a different kind of aesthetic, and he made it clear that her home didn’t fit into his picture:

Everybody coming into Atlantic City sees that [Coking] property,” Trump continued…”They’re staring at this terrible house instead of staring at beautiful fountains and beautiful other things that would be good.”

Here’s a picture of the Ms. Coking’s “terrible” house, in front of Trump’s casino:
cokinghouse
As Neo says, “I’m not sure everyone would agree as to which of the two buildings is more aesthetically pleasing.”