Just finished The Secrets of the Vine … the book I started a couple weeks ago and blogged about it briefly.

Just wanted to say it was pretty neat. A quick read for sure, but still cool.

The whole book is based on the 15th chapter of John, where Jesus was talking about his relationship with us by talking about the way a grape vine works. It’s really really cool how Jesus takes such tangible examples from life and reveals the deep truth of God’s somewhat intangible Kingdom.

So much truth in one cool little image. The way that the “vinedresser” takes care of the vines, and how his main purpose is to help the branches be fruitful. And how pruning, as crazy as it looks is actually to help bring about more fruit. And how the bigger the connection to the vine, the more (and better) the fruit as the vine matures. This is the “abiding” or “remaining” in the Vine (Jesus).

I noticed though, that he was talking about these “stages” as though they were progressive. That as you move along in life you pass from stage to stage, and hopefully get to the “abiding” stage as he called it. And as I read each stage, I think that perhaps rather than progressive, they are cyclical.

There are times when God is disciplining me (the first stage) for a chronic sin – or just one I am unwilling to admit – that he needs to get me away from so that I can flourish again. Then there are times when God is using the circumstances around me to “prune” me… to help me to be even more fruitful. Like going through the serious financial crunch we are going through now? Perhaps God is helping me to trust Him even more deeply than I already do?

Then there is the abiding stage… where God is my friend. Where all of my life is lived with him, and I see the “fruit” of an everyday, everyway relationship with him. Have been there a bunch too. It’s awesome.

So I don’t think right now I am at one stage and need to move to the next… I think I might be at a pruning stage, as life is particularly hard right now in several ways. This book also helped remind me to spend much more time in the Vine. Just running lots more stuff by him, not trying to “produce fruit” on my own.

It’s not up to me. On my own I can do nothing. Apart from the Vine I can do nothing. But, through him I can do all things!

Whoopee!!! 🙂

In the midst of minutes of coverage of the amazing effects of Hurricane Frances pummeling Florida, there was a 2 second shot of two young teenagers jumping and splashing in the flooded street.

What a cool picture of joy in the middle of pain. So much destruction, you’d think that everyone would be depressed and gloomy… but with hearts perhaps in the right place, joy is not only possible, but perhaps preferred in the end.

Cool.

The topic of the communion meditation today was the hostage situation in Russia this past week. The tale itself is horrific… over a hundred kids dead, shot in the back as they tried to run away. Just really heart-wrenchingly sad…

He briefly described the situation leading up to it. The tiny region of Chechnia (who knows how it’s spelled) wants freedom from Russia, but they know they can’t line up their army against Russia and take them on. So they take hostages as a leverage point… as a way to try and get what they want.

The line of the day was:

“Our battle is not against flesh and blood. Satan knows that he can not line up and take on God’s army, so he takes innocents hostage, and tries to get what he wants that way.”

I thought it was a cool glimpse of the Kingdom. It’s not about the stuff we see on the outside. Satan takes lots of us hostage everyday. Alchohol, drugs, sex, just beating up on our self-esteem, fear, wanting to fit in, our need for acceptance, homosexuality, pornography, materialism, etc, etc… THOSE THINGS are not our enemy. Satan is.

But thanks be to God, who give us the victory. We don’t need to be afraid, but we do need to have our eyes open to our fellow human beings being taken hostage every day by these evildoers (I think that was Bush’s word for it)

Pray for eyes to see these things, and for God’s intervention, and for a chance to be the tool He uses to intervene.

And things might get better.

Did you ever think about who is coming after you? How your life will affect not just those in your path today, but those 3 or even 4 generations from now? The small things we choose and do today could have far more impact tomorrow than they do today. 🙂

I was reading Matthew today, just for fun. If you recall, the very beginning of the book is the “boring” genealogy part. I’m with you… it’s kinda boring. But look at what I read, and take a different look at it with me for a second…

Matthew 1:5-6

Salmon had Boaz (his mother was Rahab),

Boaz had Obed (Ruth was the mother),

Obed had Jesse,

Jesse had David,

and David became king.

If you remember the stories of these folks, they are quite varied, and may seem insignificant even to us… and we already know the rest of the story. So, they may have also felt somewhat regular, or average, or even insignificant.

But think about them. Boaz was the son of Rahab. Rahab was a prostitute. Do you know any “upstanding” prostitutes? Any prostitutes who have a major impact on history? Not usually. But Rahab did. Because she had a respect for God that transcended her fear of men. She risked her life to do the right thing. She helped God’s people, when she could have turned them over to their enemy.

And God rewarded her.

Not only in her lifetime, but He gave her a child. She named him Boaz. We meet Boaz in the book of Ruth. Ruth (also mentioned in these verses) was the woman who lost her husband, and even her brother-in-law and her father-in-law… and could have been completely disparaged in life. But she was not. She instead chose to put other people above herself and stayed with her mother-in-law to make sure that she was taken care of and loved. Very cool. Probably seemed like a small thing for the most part to Ruth, but the right thing nonetheless.

So, when Naomi decides to return to her home town, Ruth decides to leave her life to follow her mother-in-law, and ends up meeting Boaz there. Boaz, an older gentleman, takes kindly to young Ruth (I believe he was even a relative of Naomi) … and ends up marrying Ruth.

And Obed was born.

Not much more is said about Obed. But… this is my point.

A few cool small stories – a prostitute who honored God, and a widow who honored God by honoring her husband’s mom – produced a baby. A baby, who grew up to become a father. The father of Jesse. Again, not much said about his life.

But Jesse had a son. He had several sons. One of them was named David.

And David became King.

What a statement! From two lives that made at least one great choice for God (and at least for Rahab, several bad choices) to KING. And not just any King. David was a man after God’s own heart. He led Israel (by God’s hand) to be a powerful and peaceful nation. (Peace from enemies at least – not necessarily peace FOR their enemies…)

And I would bet that David’s great-grandparents had something to do with that. They likely told stories of how they had to choose to honor themselves, or to honor God. And how when they chose to honor Him, God honored them. And that was passed on to the generation after them. And to the next. And to the next.

What are we doing today that will affect our great-grandchildren? Who will our decendants touch with their choices. What may seem small and insignificant today may have worldwide effects tomorrow.

We can’t know. We don’t really need to. We just need to live each day loving God with all that we are and loving the people he puts in our path.

Could be that by me loving Ian, Alex or Kirsten, that they will pass that on to their kids, who will pass it on to their kids, who will pass it on to their kids…

And they may become king.

Amazing.

So live today to the fullest. Do what is right, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. And you never know how God will use your good choices for him to change the future.

I am on the hunt. Hoping for the kill. My prey is a selfish, annoying, too-much-time-on-his-hands fellow who likes to pester other people with technological loopholes.

I mentioned the spam issue the other day… well, it’s not officially spam. It’s “spoofing”. Spoofing is where someone sends out email that appears to be from a different address than it is actually coming from. So, people are getting meaningless spam messages “from” one of our email addresses, though in reality, it is originating elsewhere.

So, there are ways to see in the header where these emails are coming from. I am going to do some investigating and find out.

*** NOTE … if YOU (Mr. Spoofer) are reading this… get ready, cause here I come… ***

It’s so annoying when people take a great thing and make it a bad thing. Or just an annoying thing.

Can you tell I am annoyed? 🙂

So, that is my quest. I shall be victorious.

DEATH TO SPAM!!!!

Just for fun… was thinking about this tonight…

• I have the craziest sense of smell! I can smell things most dogs can not. Just did it tonight. Someone in a restaurant we were patronizing had grape gum or something and I could smell it over all the other stuff! Crazy!
• I also have an acute sense of hearing, and for some reason it really bothers me when I hear people chew! 🙂 (Just ask Jen…)
• I really, really like circus peanuts.
• Some people can’t function before having their coffee in the morning… for me, it’s a shower. I don’t work before I have a shower.
• I prefer the ambient temperature to be roughly 70ºF… two degrees cooler than room temperature

BONUS Weird Thing…

I actually KNOW what room temperature is.

🙂

We sang at a coffee house tonight, here in Clarence Center – our old stomping grounds – and some friends we have not seen in a long time were there. (Marie, I’m going to put you in here by name since you said I didn’t blog about the last time we saw you guys….) 🙂 It was great to see them and really cool that they came out to hear us.

The place was pretty busy for a Thursday night, and mostly teeming with teens. It appears to be a teen hang-out spot. That’s cool. Except a bunch of these young teens were smoking and otherwise entwined in the world – and in the gaming mentioned in my previous post. Like, wearing the right clothes, having the right haircut, doing the right things, hanging with the right people… they were doing it all.

Actually, when I got there, I was really close to going up to this boy who could not have been more than 14 or 15, and telling him that it’s illegal for him to smoke at his age. But I just felt very judgmental. Very finger-pointy. And I really think that’s not how Jesus treated people.

I asked him right there to help me that night to see people as he does. He’s not mad at that boy for breaking the law… he’s sad I bet. Just hurting for him that he is choosing something he probably knows is bad. Most of us don’t make bad choices because we’re stupid… often we make bad choices as a way to fit in. Jesus knows that, and loves us inspite of our weakness.

A little later, a young girl, again 14 or 15, joined the group. She was dressed to attract attention to herself. She wore tight jeans that don’t come up very far, and a tight, low-cut spaghetti-strap shirt that didn’t go all the way down to her pants. And to top it all off, she wore a Playboy baseball cap and a Playboy belt. Both Jen & I saw this girl and were first amazed, and then I began to remember what I had asked Jesus to help me see.

She doesn’t really like a magazine that flaunts womens bodies in ways they should not be flaunted… she wants attention. She has found one way to get it. On several occasions, my eyes were inadvertantly directed to the body parts she intended to receive the attention… and each time I was saddened for her.

Well, during one song, a group of the teens came up past us and into the coffee house (we were outside on the patio tonight) and she was one of them. They passed only a few inches from us, and I smiled at each one as we sang, and when Playboy Girl passed, our eyes met.

For a moment, brief as it was, something connected. I don’t remember what I was singing, but I remember thinking right afterward, “I hope she knows God’s love even through that one eye-meeting.” I never got to speak with her, but perhaps Jesus (who lives in ME!) did… through the songs, or through a look of Jesus-love.

There are so many hurting, lonely, lost people in the world. Lots of them sit in churches on the weekends. Jesus makes that a lot better. His love is so much deeper than we can ever know. His attention is so much more satisfying than any teen-age boy looking at parts of your body that are not his to look at.

I pray that she knows the peace of his love tonight.

I pray you do too.

I really can’t believe how much game playing there is in life.

Really. From early in our life, we are prone to making life a game. Sometimes that’s ok. Games are fun. But not when you make life a contest with everyone else to see if you can gain the upperhand.

For example, watching the Republican National Convention, all the commentators on the various news channels are trying to say why each speaker is saying what they are saying, and even why they specifically were chosen and why they are speaking on that particular night in that particular order. It’s maddening! They are just living life. They are not making every move as part of some overall scheme for some grander purpose!

And it obviously does not stop there. Everywhere in life you see it. People play games with their employment… doing and saying the right things to either fit in or to achieve your career goals. Every move is measured by what its effect on your life will be.

People play games in relationships. Big time. From early on in life actually. So and so likes you. You should do this… You should say that… Don’t say that, cause he’ll think this… or, what will she think if I do this…

BLEGH!!!!

It makes me so sad to see people assuming that everyone else is scheming. I am not scheming. Not at all. I am just trying to go through life learning from Jesus and treating everyone else like he treats me. I will not try and best you. I will not try and hide anything from you. I want to be open and real and NOT PLAY GAMES.

I hope that’s you too. It’s so much better that way. Less hurt for you and the other pieces in your game. And that’s just it. People are not objects to be played. People are made in the image of God and therefore due the respect we would show God himself. (That may be too strong, but perhaps not?)

Live free. Don’t play games. Pray for those who do.

Save the gaming for the next board game night. 🙂

I hate spam. It is so frustrating when selfish people use a great thing for harmful or just annoying purposes. With our email addresses being published so widely because of what we do, we receive probably a hundred spam a day. Most are caught by our mail program filters, but probably 20-30 get through still.

Spammers are clever…

I really LIKE on the other hand new stuff … 🙂

Apple just came out with this… a super computer all in 2 inches. The screen is the computer is the screen. CRAZY… And actually not all that expensive.

Apple may just achieve their goal of world domination one day…

Here’s a photo for you, but much more available at the Apple site.

Wow.

I don’t really have much energy to share this right now, but I really really want to!

A while back, a missionary friend of mine IMed me and asked if I knew of anyone selling or getting rid of a snake (a bunch of cables used to run a sound system from a distance, usually 100 feet). His was no longer functioning, and they had no money to get another one.

So, I told him I would keep my eyes open. And I have, but nothing had really appeared before them. 🙂 So really, I forgot about it.

Then, when I was scrambling for a sound system and someone to run it for our August Concert Series last month… I remembered another friend, Ted, whom I had not spoken with in quite some time, and who is also an amazing sound guy. I talked to him the NIGHT OF the gig. He couldn’t help me that night, but the next two weeks, he was able to come out and help me! That was so great!

SO… I was helping him return his sound stuff to his garage, and he happened to mention that he had TWO snakes… LIGHTBULB goes off! I remembered Chris and his request, and mentioned it to Ted… and it seemed like a light went off in his head as well. And he said, essentially… he needed to do some leg work, but he would make it happen. (To get a snake to Chris in Ecuador!!!)

WOW!!! If it ended there, this was a really cool story of God bringing lots of his people together to help each other.

BUT THERE WAS AN EVEN COOLER TWIST!!!

So, Ted ends up not giving or selling one of his snakes… but BUYING ONE on eBay and donating it to Chris! Wow!

BUT IT DOESN’T END THERE!!!!

The guy whom Ted bought the snake from is a Christian in a praise band, and found out what Ted was doing and REFUNDED HIM HIS MONEY!!!! Just because he wanted to have his snake continue to be “used for the Lord” I believe he said. Wow.

OH MY!!!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂

So… When Chris asked me, I by a strange set of circumstances, asked a friend I don’t get to see very much, who got crazy and bought something on eBay from a guy who ended up giving something God had given him to help advance the Kingdom in Ecuador.

How’s that for cool?!!?

So so so cool.

I still smile a lot just thinking of it! Thanks God for doing more than we can ask or imagine!

I pray you get to see Him work in and around you today in an even cooler way!