"Why Guys Aren't Asking You Out"

In light of discussions around dating and relationships at home community and in last week's sermon, I just wanted to post a link to my friend (well, friend of a friend-i've never met the guy) Andy's blog. He's a single late twenties or early thirties guy and he wrote a series on his blog titled "Why Guys Aren't Asking You Out", now there's a catchy title... It was supposed to be one or two posts long but it ended up stretching into nine posts as the discussion got going (the link to each part is in the upper right corner of his blog page), but I would recommend reading one or two or all of them. My eyes were opened to other perspectives and reasons for why we are the way we are and why dating gets so dang complicated sometimes. He talks about verses that many look to to support singleness or marriage as well as social and cultural reasons for lack of dating in many church communities. And, he's hysterical and fun to read.

Since the whole topic of dating and relationships can't possibly be covered in two home community meetings, I thought I'd stretch out the conversation into the blogosphere...I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on Andy's blog. Check it out!

Oceans from the Rain

Ok, this video is, well, it's, um, special. However, I love this oldie-but-goody song, and so does my iPod lately, so I thought I'd share it with you. It's a great rainy morning listen, if you're into that whole "literal" thing. :)



love.

Your gift to Golda

Proof that I delivered your gift to her without stealing any of the candy, although I was sorely tempted. She gave me a pack of Skittles, because she's cool like that.

Olly-olly-oxen-free

Note: Again, these are not words of my own, but dang are they good and worth sharing. At Refuge last night, Ben shared his testimony and some words from this book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. I just ate it up and had goosebumps by the end of the story.

In our culture, I think we've learned to hide ourselves and some of us are all too good at it..it's time to get found.

In the early dry dark of an October’s Saturday evening, the neighborhood children are playing hide-and-seek. How long since I played hide-and-seek? Thirty years; maybe more. I remember how. I could become part of the game in a moment, if invited. Adults don’t play hide-and-seek. Not for fun, anyway. Too bad.

Did you ever have a kid in your neighborhood who always hid so good, nobody could find him? We did. After a while we would give up on him and go off, leaving him to rot wherever he was. Sooner or later he would show up, all mad because we didn’t keep looking for him. And we would get mad back because he wasn’t playing the game the way it was supposed to be played. There’s hidingfinding , we’d say. And he’d say it was hide-and-seek, not hide-and-give-UP, and we’d yell about who made the rules and who cared about who, anyway, and how we wouldn’t play with him anymore if he didn’t get it straight and who needed him anyhow, and things like that. Hide-and-seek-and-yell. No matter what, though, the next time he would hide too good again. He’s probably still hidden somewhere, for all I know. and there’s

As I write this, the neighborhood game goes on, and there is a kid under a pile of leaves in the yard just under my window. He has been there a long time now, and everybody else is found and they are about to give up on him over at the base. I considered going out to the base and telling them where he was hiding. And I thought about setting the leaves on fire to drive him out. Finally, I yelled, “GET FOUND, KID!” out the window. And scared him so bad he probably wet his pants and started crying and ran home to tell his mother. It’s real hard to know how to be helpful sometimes.

A man I know found out last year he had terminal cancer. He was a doctor. And knew about dying, and he didn’t want to make his family and friends suffer through that with him. So he kept his secret. And died. Everybody said how brave he was to bear his suffering in silence and not tell anybody, and so on and so forth. But privately his family and friends said how angry they were that he didn’t need them, didn’t trust their strength. And it hurt that he didn’t say goodbye.

He hid too well. Getting found would have kept him in the game. Hide-and-seek, grown-up style. Wanting to hide. Needing to be sought. Confused about being found. “I don’t want anyone to know.” “What will people think?” “I don’t want to bother anyone.”

Better than hide-and-seek, I like the game called Sardines. In Sardines the person who is IT goes and hides, and everybody goes looking for him. When you find him, you get in with him and hide there with him. Pretty soon everybody is hiding together, all stacked in a small space like puppies in a pile. And pretty soon somebody giggles and somebody laughs and everybody gets found.

Medieval theologians even described God is hide-an-seek terms, calling him Deus Absconditus. But me, I think old God is a Sardine player. And will be found the same way everybody gets found in Sardines – by the sound of laughter of those heaped together at the end.

“Olly-olly-oxen-free.” The kids out in the street are hollering the cry that says “Come on in, wherever you are. It’s a new game.” And so say I. To all those who have hid too good. Get found, kid! Olly-olly-oxen-free.

Robert Fulghum – All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Only You Can Love Me This Way

So I think last time I posted, or maybe the time before, I was "pulling a Shannon." This time, I'm totally "pulling a Mike."

We talked a couple weeks ago about how or where we experience God in our daily lives. I didn't quite get around to mentioning another big God place for me: my car. As much as I hate driving, I tend to have major God moments in my car. More specifically, I tend to think that God is speaking to me through my radio.

I realize that God using the radio to communicate with Karyn is crazy people talk, but haven't you ever been stalked by a song? You get in the car and the song is playing. You change the station, and there it is again. You leave your car and enter a store - there's the song. You leave the store and get back in the car only to catch the DJ announcing the next song... surprise surprise... same dang song. This happens to me more often then I care to admit. Today, I'm being stalked by Jesus and Keith Urban.

I'm pretty sure that Keith Urban doesn't know he has a worship song out. But this song of his, the latest one, it breaks my heart. The lyrics are simple, and lovely, and the melody is perfect and pretty and sing-a-longy. It has become my mantra and my prayer today, and I thought I'd share the chorus and second verse with you:

You're always in my heart
You're always on my mind
And when it all becomes too much
You're never far behind
And there's no one that comes close to you
Could ever take your place
'Cause only you can love me this way

I could've turned a different corner
I could've gone another place
But I'd a-never had this feeling
That I feel today

Cause you're always in my heart
You're always on my mind
And when it all becomes too much
You're never far behind
And there's no one that comes close to you
Could ever take your place
'Cause only you can love me this way

Right? Dude. It's my new favorite thing. Go get it stuck in your head too.

How awesome is it that no matter how alone or unlovable we feel, we are loved completely by a God who knows all of our darkest parts? To be loved this way... wholly, selflessly, magnificently loved... we are lucky, lucky kids. I'm grateful today for God FM, Keith Urban, and agape love.

Oh, wait, here's my last "pulling a Mike" bit:

Cool? Cool.

:)

Prayer = direction = more prayer = revival

I recently signed up for "daily workplace insirpational" emails. They are called "Today God Is First" and it's a good reminder to me that I should make God my priority, even at work.

Today's inspirational nugget was about this man in 1857 who prayed a simple prayer, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" He basically had a mid-life crisis and didn't want to keep pursuing money like everyone around him. So he prayed. And God answered his prayer.

He began a noon prayer meeting in the middle of New York City. The first day, no one showed up for the first 30 minutes. But 35 minutes past the hour, three people came. This noon-day prayer event lead to 10,000 people meeting for prayer 6 months later and one of the greatest spiritual revivals in US history.

Some days I don't know what to pray. And I think I'm going to start with "God, what do you want me to do?"

What if we all prayed that prayer? To quote Leisha, "I'm just sayin..."

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Below is the whole article. To sign up for daily workplace inspirational emails visit marketplaceleaders.org
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Staying the Course By Os Hillman
September 23

"Then the angel of the LORD ordered Gad to tell David to go up and build an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. So David went up in obedience to the word that Gad had spoken in the name of the LORD" (1 Chron 21:18-19).

In 1857, an American businessman named Jeremiah Lanphier was sent out by his local church to begin a noon-day prayer meeting on Fulton Street, right around the corner from Wall Street in New York City. A simple prayer, a willing heart, and an act of obedience resulted in city transformation throughout the United States.

However, at that very first meeting, no one showed up in the first 35 minutes. But Jeremiah waited. Gradually, six people wandered into the room at 35 minutes past the hour. Six months later, 10,000 people were meeting for prayer throughout New York City. This led to one of the greatest spiritual renewals in the United State's history.

What would have happened if Lanphier had decided to abandon the idea after 30 minutes?
In a small, darkened room, in the back of one of New York City's lesser churches, a man prayed alone. His request of God was simple, but earth-shattering: "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" He was a man approaching midlife, without a wife or family, but he had financial means. He had made a decision to reject the "success syndrome" that drove the city's businessmen and bankers. God used this businessman to turn New York City's commercial empire on its head. He began a businessmen's prayer meeting on September 23, 1857.

The meetings began slowly, but within a few months 20 noonday meetings were convening daily throughout the city. Thousands met to pray because one man stepped out. This was an extraordinary move of God through one man.*

It only takes one man or woman who is willing to be obedient to be used by God to impact a workplace, city, or even an entire nation. Simple obedience can lead to things you cannot imagine. Are you willing to be used by God?

*John Woodbridge,., More than Conquerors: Portraits of Believers from All Walks of Life
(Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1992), p. 337.

Contact Os Hillman at http://www.crosswalkmail.com/ueqjddwmdc_hgbywwkbdwj.html.

Some thoughts from Clive Staples

This is one of my favorite pieces from C.S. Lewis; it's in The Weight of Glory. Evidently, he was not a hard-line Calvinist. Anyway, I like the way he imparts significance on every person, and all of our daily interactions, with an eternal perspective.

"It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour's glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or another of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously--no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner--no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat--the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden."