Today the Senate voted 61-37 in favor of President Obama's $838 billion stimulus package. Now, I'm no economist and I'm pretty sure no one in Washington has called me asking for advice on how to fix the recession America has been experiencing since the early fall. However, I don't think many credentials at all are required to know that this spending package is a terrible idea. This baby is so laden with pork it would make a vegetarian cry for his collard greens.
A good analogy is that it's like the college student who doesn't have any money, so he borrows the maximum he can get on student loans...WAY more than he needs, and spends every penny of it buying a new car, an XBOX and fixing that leaky faucet in the apartment...the only problem is now he's in debt up to his eyeballs and has really screwed up his future. He just doesn't know it yet.
It's during times like these when seemingly everyone in the media, Washington and down at city hall want me to freak out that I am reminded where my foundation is. What a blessing it is to personally know the God who hand-picked the stars in the sky and intimately crafted everything my eyes have ever seen. During these uncertain times, my faith in Christ is more than enough to get me through. His faithfulness has never let me down. Praise Him.
Christians, let's not forget to pray for our leaders, both state, local and federal. Pray for wisdom and discernment as they try to navigate these waters and lead our nation back to financial stability. This is a wonderful time to be a strong witness to a lost and dying world.
Blessings...
11 February 2009
08 February 2009
A blog for a comment
My friends, we are only as complicated as we make ourselves out to be. Pride and pretense have taken the place of genuine friendship and transparency. We all desperately want to find true love and acceptance in this world, but we are so rapt with fear and doubt brought on by our upbringing and our parent's fear and doubt and their parent's...well, you get the idea.
Society lies to us and we just take it. Society gives men the foolish and lazy idea to not be men, to not stand up and fill our role. Somewhere along the line we learned that taking the easy way out came with little consequence...or so it seems. It absolutely floors me to see how completely passive my gender can be. Don't get me wrong, I'm just as guilty more times than not...but this is my blog, so I get to think out loud for right now.
A personal example:
I spent some of this afternoon thinking about a set of events that has occurred in my life since this semester began in the middle of January. The past few weeks, I've been spending some quality with a pretty awesome lady friend of mine...known the gal for about 15 years. I don't really know what was different now, but something just clicked and I took a step that hopefully every single man will take at some point, I initiated contact. I asked her out for some coffee, and thankfully she accepted. Conversation flowed effortlessly and coffee went down as a success in my book. Another week went by and more time was spent with her, just little stuff...some studying here, an anti-superbowl party there, just some relaxed, fun stuff. I am starting to feel like I have a good feel for who she is, we are beginning to form the bonds of a true friendship. There is chemistry and some flirting back and forth, but it's all good. Another "coffee date" for lack of a better term, a movie night, and some bowling. All is well, right? Wrong.
That's right about the time when my gender, my environment and my society caught up to me and popped some stupid pills down my throat. I committed the same cardinal sin that almost every man commits sooner or later and it makes women want to pull their hair out. I over-complicated the whole ball of wax. Men have been doing it for years. (I can't speak for women, for obvious reasons, so I hope you'll forgive me.) I started thinking too much and got frustrated with myself, I started to playback all the stuff I'd said and done in the last 3 weeks and started picking out everything that I thought went "wrong"...Men do this all the time. Especially with women. Especially when a gem crosses our path and we recognize how important our actions, words and attitudes are. We clam up and stop listening to our source of truth and strength. I know I did.
Big mistake. I wasn't being a man. I certainly wasn't operating in the same God-given confidence that I spend most of my days residing inside. Normally, I am a very strong person...it's not because I myself possess any strength of any kind. Quite to the contrary. I am strong because I realize that I am supremely weak, and I defer all things possible to the One who possesses infinite amounts of all good things.
The complete lack of confidence, the fear and doubt that I experienced Friday was a result of attempting to operate under my own strength for a brief moment. I wasn't even myself anymore. Thankfully, the poor lass on the other end of the phone had the good sense to tell me to stop talking. I made things too complicated. You have very likely done the very same thing.
So guys, how do we stop this from happening? How do we avoid embarrassing, emasculating actions that make us feel weak and inadequate? How do we kick that sick feeling in our stomach that tells us we aren't good enough? How do we accurately represent ourselves to the Godly women in this world who are just looking for God's men to stand up? Cling to the only real strength in this world. Find your confidence and your identity in the One who gave you that Y chromosome. You are nothing, I am nothing. When I look in the mirror, if all I see is me...all I see is failure and inadequacy. You don't want that anymore than I do.
God's man is ready for anything. He's got his armor (Eph. 6) on and he is good to go. You want to kick that feeling that you can't make it, that you can't win the maiden and you can't slay the dragon...? Pick up your Sword (The Word of God) and let's go un-complicate some things.
Blessings...
---
P.S. - Let me just say that pursuing personal development for any sake other than the quest for holiness and the glory of Almighty God is a mistake. Trying to be more like Jesus to win the girl is a dangerous card to play. Check yourself. Get in the Word every day. Be a man.
P.P.S. - To the ladies: Please demand that we act like men. So many of you refer to us as "boys"...but I don't want to be called a boy any more than the next guy. If you're tired of dealing with boys, then raise your standards. Wait for the men. The man worth having is most definitely worth waiting for. However, when you've got a keeper, don't be afraid to make a move! When a keeper sticks his neck out there to come after you, don't let him draw back a nub.
Just saying...
Society lies to us and we just take it. Society gives men the foolish and lazy idea to not be men, to not stand up and fill our role. Somewhere along the line we learned that taking the easy way out came with little consequence...or so it seems. It absolutely floors me to see how completely passive my gender can be. Don't get me wrong, I'm just as guilty more times than not...but this is my blog, so I get to think out loud for right now.
A personal example:
I spent some of this afternoon thinking about a set of events that has occurred in my life since this semester began in the middle of January. The past few weeks, I've been spending some quality with a pretty awesome lady friend of mine...known the gal for about 15 years. I don't really know what was different now, but something just clicked and I took a step that hopefully every single man will take at some point, I initiated contact. I asked her out for some coffee, and thankfully she accepted. Conversation flowed effortlessly and coffee went down as a success in my book. Another week went by and more time was spent with her, just little stuff...some studying here, an anti-superbowl party there, just some relaxed, fun stuff. I am starting to feel like I have a good feel for who she is, we are beginning to form the bonds of a true friendship. There is chemistry and some flirting back and forth, but it's all good. Another "coffee date" for lack of a better term, a movie night, and some bowling. All is well, right? Wrong.
That's right about the time when my gender, my environment and my society caught up to me and popped some stupid pills down my throat. I committed the same cardinal sin that almost every man commits sooner or later and it makes women want to pull their hair out. I over-complicated the whole ball of wax. Men have been doing it for years. (I can't speak for women, for obvious reasons, so I hope you'll forgive me.) I started thinking too much and got frustrated with myself, I started to playback all the stuff I'd said and done in the last 3 weeks and started picking out everything that I thought went "wrong"...Men do this all the time. Especially with women. Especially when a gem crosses our path and we recognize how important our actions, words and attitudes are. We clam up and stop listening to our source of truth and strength. I know I did.
Big mistake. I wasn't being a man. I certainly wasn't operating in the same God-given confidence that I spend most of my days residing inside. Normally, I am a very strong person...it's not because I myself possess any strength of any kind. Quite to the contrary. I am strong because I realize that I am supremely weak, and I defer all things possible to the One who possesses infinite amounts of all good things.
The complete lack of confidence, the fear and doubt that I experienced Friday was a result of attempting to operate under my own strength for a brief moment. I wasn't even myself anymore. Thankfully, the poor lass on the other end of the phone had the good sense to tell me to stop talking. I made things too complicated. You have very likely done the very same thing.
So guys, how do we stop this from happening? How do we avoid embarrassing, emasculating actions that make us feel weak and inadequate? How do we kick that sick feeling in our stomach that tells us we aren't good enough? How do we accurately represent ourselves to the Godly women in this world who are just looking for God's men to stand up? Cling to the only real strength in this world. Find your confidence and your identity in the One who gave you that Y chromosome. You are nothing, I am nothing. When I look in the mirror, if all I see is me...all I see is failure and inadequacy. You don't want that anymore than I do.
God's man is ready for anything. He's got his armor (Eph. 6) on and he is good to go. You want to kick that feeling that you can't make it, that you can't win the maiden and you can't slay the dragon...? Pick up your Sword (The Word of God) and let's go un-complicate some things.
Blessings...
---
P.S. - Let me just say that pursuing personal development for any sake other than the quest for holiness and the glory of Almighty God is a mistake. Trying to be more like Jesus to win the girl is a dangerous card to play. Check yourself. Get in the Word every day. Be a man.
P.P.S. - To the ladies: Please demand that we act like men. So many of you refer to us as "boys"...but I don't want to be called a boy any more than the next guy. If you're tired of dealing with boys, then raise your standards. Wait for the men. The man worth having is most definitely worth waiting for. However, when you've got a keeper, don't be afraid to make a move! When a keeper sticks his neck out there to come after you, don't let him draw back a nub.
Just saying...
I'm trying to not roll my eyes...
Ok, sometimes I am really confused and frustrated by things that are outside of my control. This is one of those times. I just got finished reading an article on www.boundless.org on some stuff about relationships and marriage. It's mostly talking about how in our generation, people are hitting puberty faster than ever, but getting married later in life than ever before...and the kind of effect that this is having on the amount of pre-marital sex that is happening in the church now.
There's a big gap in the middle called adolescence...I'm pretty sure it's a 20th-century American creation. You've got a bunch of pseudo-adults running around wanting the privileges of adulthood while still living in Mom's house or on Mom's dollar. Guys aren't preparing themselves for marriage, fatherhood and adult life and no one in society is forcing them. I want to throw up my hands and slap some faces...
I really don't understand why my gender insists on living in the middle for so long. Maybe it's cause I hit the magic 25 mark and now I'm really starting to see the brevity of life, or maybe it's because it really is a problem.
I'm living life on purpose now, have been for a while. I'm not going out and looking for a wife, but I'm preparing myself to be the kind of man my future wife wants to marry. I love kids! I am looking forward with great anticipation for fatherhood someday. Obviously, there are many steps and phases of life between now and then, but when that day comes I will welcome it with open arms. So many guys I know are just not interested in even talking about that, and I don't understand why.
I have a lady friend who is convinced that men are more complicated than women. I've been trying to argue with her and explain my case, but the more I think about it, the more I agree with her. At least women carry their complications around in their purse and on their face. Men are pretty sneaky with our complications. You'll never see them until it counts, then they spring out like the Jack-in-the-box.
So what does all this mean? Is there something we as a Christian sub-culture can do to equip our young men to be intentional, to be consciously developing characteristics of biblical manhood, and to be preparing themselves to lead a wife and family someday soon? I think the answer is that those of us who are a bit older need to lead by example, and also take the effort to disciple those a bit behind us on life's journey. Certainly none of us are perfect, but living every day life for God's glory and purpose is easier if you're not alone. Just a thought...
Most of this post is just me thinking through my fingers and onto my computer screen, so I'm not sure if I can tie this up and put a bow on it. Let's just say that I am definitely looking forward to the post-college phases of life and every single step along the way.
The real challenge is finding the satisfaction and joy in the seconds, hours, days and months between now and then. I love a good challenge... ;-)
Blessings...
There's a big gap in the middle called adolescence...I'm pretty sure it's a 20th-century American creation. You've got a bunch of pseudo-adults running around wanting the privileges of adulthood while still living in Mom's house or on Mom's dollar. Guys aren't preparing themselves for marriage, fatherhood and adult life and no one in society is forcing them. I want to throw up my hands and slap some faces...
I really don't understand why my gender insists on living in the middle for so long. Maybe it's cause I hit the magic 25 mark and now I'm really starting to see the brevity of life, or maybe it's because it really is a problem.
I'm living life on purpose now, have been for a while. I'm not going out and looking for a wife, but I'm preparing myself to be the kind of man my future wife wants to marry. I love kids! I am looking forward with great anticipation for fatherhood someday. Obviously, there are many steps and phases of life between now and then, but when that day comes I will welcome it with open arms. So many guys I know are just not interested in even talking about that, and I don't understand why.
I have a lady friend who is convinced that men are more complicated than women. I've been trying to argue with her and explain my case, but the more I think about it, the more I agree with her. At least women carry their complications around in their purse and on their face. Men are pretty sneaky with our complications. You'll never see them until it counts, then they spring out like the Jack-in-the-box.
So what does all this mean? Is there something we as a Christian sub-culture can do to equip our young men to be intentional, to be consciously developing characteristics of biblical manhood, and to be preparing themselves to lead a wife and family someday soon? I think the answer is that those of us who are a bit older need to lead by example, and also take the effort to disciple those a bit behind us on life's journey. Certainly none of us are perfect, but living every day life for God's glory and purpose is easier if you're not alone. Just a thought...
Most of this post is just me thinking through my fingers and onto my computer screen, so I'm not sure if I can tie this up and put a bow on it. Let's just say that I am definitely looking forward to the post-college phases of life and every single step along the way.
The real challenge is finding the satisfaction and joy in the seconds, hours, days and months between now and then. I love a good challenge... ;-)
Blessings...
04 February 2009
101 Days and Counting Down...
This is a strange place in life. It's like trying to drink from a fire hydrant. You try to focus and take in and fully grasp all that you can, but so much is happening that you feel like you're a spectator in your own life. Spring of senior year feels completely different...and for sentimental old farts like me it's particularly poignant. Everything is the last something.
I will (hopefully) graduate from Stephen F. on May 16th, 101 days from today. I'm still in the process of narrowing down exactly what and where God wants me after that. I've spent the last 18 years of my life being a full-time student, and now that is all about to change. There's a very good chance I'll be going back for post-grad work, but we all know that's a whole different ballgame.
Later on this semester, I will sit down and write out my "autobiography of the college years" or whatever you want to call it. I'll save most of the thoughts for then. Suffice it to say that college has turned out like most other things in life usually do: just as you finally start to get it all figured out and get to fully enjoy it, it's over.
I'm going to Carpe Diem like a madman the next 101 days. For those of you whose college shelf life is longer than mine, consider yourself blessed. Make the most of it, because once you get to spring of your senior year you don't get to play the ostrich with your head in the dirt any longer.
Work hard.
Play hard.
Love hard.
Pray hard.
LIVE HARD.
I will (hopefully) graduate from Stephen F. on May 16th, 101 days from today. I'm still in the process of narrowing down exactly what and where God wants me after that. I've spent the last 18 years of my life being a full-time student, and now that is all about to change. There's a very good chance I'll be going back for post-grad work, but we all know that's a whole different ballgame.
Later on this semester, I will sit down and write out my "autobiography of the college years" or whatever you want to call it. I'll save most of the thoughts for then. Suffice it to say that college has turned out like most other things in life usually do: just as you finally start to get it all figured out and get to fully enjoy it, it's over.
I'm going to Carpe Diem like a madman the next 101 days. For those of you whose college shelf life is longer than mine, consider yourself blessed. Make the most of it, because once you get to spring of your senior year you don't get to play the ostrich with your head in the dirt any longer.
Work hard.
Play hard.
Love hard.
Pray hard.
LIVE HARD.
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