It's snowing in Portland again

As people in Portland aren’t used to the snow, they tend to not like it (note: using this logic, they wouldn’t like deodorant, either). Being from the Northeast, with childhood memories steeped in snowball fights, sledding and cold, I love it. It’s pretty much the most beautiful thing in the world.

So as I sat on I-405 this AM, traffic snarled, I didn’t really mind. In the distance…well, I couldn’t really see in the distance. There was just whiteness around me – the whiteness of snow, the whiteness of snow-fog (pretty sure that’s the technical term for it). Stuck on 405, nothing to do but look out the windows, I was reminded how God wants us to live our lives slower, trusting in Him, resting in Him, not trying to control everything, not trying to mentally coerce the other cars to get out of the way. That’s a reminder I need pretty much every day.

“In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength.” – Isaiah 30:15

Stunning realization

If I looked to God for wisdom half as often as I looked in the fridge for food, I'd be a very wise man

Belated

Apparently, someone declared the 11th to be National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. This would have been a good time for me to point in the direction of the Not For Sale Campaign, a national and international project against human trafficking. There are numerous ways to get involved with Not For Sale besides simply giving money, and even if you aren't ready to do that, it's worth reading up on human trafficking, which now composes the second largest industry in the world behind illegal drugs (it was third a couple weeks ago, but I guess it just passed up the weapons trade). There are more people enslaved today than ever before! Here are some links to get started:
Not For Sale
Polaris Project
Change.org
a blog about Human Trafficking & Sexual Exploitation

What if...

...Instead of answering Facebook's "what are you doing right now?" status update, you instead thought of it in different terms:

What is God doing in your life right now?

I venture to say we should always have an answer ready for this question

Naming

Ever noticed how some people are always referred to by their full name?* Maybe they have a funky last name, or an unremarkable first, or just a really good combination. There could be a number of reasons, really, but for whatever cause, sometimes the first name attaches to the last, and sometimes it doesn't. Take my friend Gabe. He's just Gabe; I bet a lot of his acquaintances don't even know his last name. Then I know a guy named Josh Chang. It's never Josh, always JoshChang. I'll pause here while you think of examples from your own life.

The point (yes I have a point) here, or at least the related thought that I had, is that God knows, sees, and calls people by their full names. And this full includes middle name, nickname, suffix, and general entirety of being. He doesn't know us in monosyllables, or treat us in one dimension. This has heavy implications for not only how we relate to God but also how we as Christians relate to others as we aspire to follow Christ's example. Think about it...


*I exaggerate. Sue me.