place of nathan.

Yeah, I know I’m an eternal optimist, but have you ever noticed that those who seem to be always negative are a lot of times negative about things they actually don’t know anything about? And they’re willing to fight about it? Check this out:
1 Timothy 6:3-5:

If anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, he is conceited and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.

YIKES!
Lord, May I never have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels resulting in envy, strife, malicious talk and constant friction. May I continually be one with truth.

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Today I share a story from my walk to work this morning.

For it to make sense, you have to understand my route. I walk 1 1/2 blocks on my road, then turn onto a road without any sidewalks for about 1/4 mile or so. This road is wide, with about a 3′ paved shoulder.

Note–people don’t normally walk on roads without sidewalks, right?

Well, today when I turned, there was a guy ahead of me by about 100 meters, and he was walking slower than I, so I knew I might catch him. I thought ‘What is he going to think when I pass him?’

I decided it was best to not pass, so I tried to stay back at least 20 meters. But as we approached my turn into work, this guy really slowed down–I think perhaps he was fiddling with an ipod or something. But I came up on him really quickly, and wasn’t really paying attention. As I prepared to turn and he was about two meters ahead of me, my shadow was in front of him. I wondered if he’d notice.
Sure enough, he did notice, and he turned around really, really quickly and had a look of horror on his face. I turned my corner, and smiled really big, and it made me laugh.

I think you had to be there to see this guy’s face when he realized someone was right behind him. It was so unexpected for him to encounter anyone on the road, he was so startled.

In our lives, it is in the times when we’re not paying attention to what’s going on around us that we seem to ‘forget’ about Jesus. Through my walk today, God was speaking to me–am I watching for God all the time? He’s right behind me, even when I’m not thinking about it…
And he’s right behind you, too.

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In the past six weeks, I’ve injured both my finger and my knee.

I thought both would heal quickly. But as I recover, I’m finding it isn’t so quick.

My finger, although better, is tender to the touch at a specific angle. The problem here, is I forget about it until I hurt it. I don’t hurt it as long as I’m thinking about it–but it doesn’t hurt enough to think about it…

My knee is also much better than it was last week. But the past few days, my knee just feels swollen. It aches. It’s a constant reminder of my injury.

This nagging injuries got me thinking about how much this is like those nagging sin issues in our lives. The thing we think we’re over, we forget about, and then when we forget about it, it pops up. As long as we’re thinking about protecting ourselves from it, we’re good, but then after a while, we slowly forget about it and stop thinking about protecting ourselves anymore…
The knee reminded me of sometimes our problems in life stay with us for a while–sometimes a choice we make when we’re young stays with us for the rest of our lives.

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Several days ago, I was looking through my blog reader, catching up on posts people had made.
I subscribe to around 25 blogs, some are friends, two are marketing gurus, and several are pastors of churches.

When browsing the different pastors, I thought I clicked on one certain pastor (who will remain nameless), and started reading, and the guy was completely not his normal self–he talked about Jesus. After I checked, it wasn’t wasn’t who I thought it was–it was instead Perry Noble (who talks about Jesus all the time).

I understand different bloggers have different personalities, but what happened was the pastor I thought I was reading has NEVER talked about Jesus, so when I thought he did, it was a shocker.

I never processed this before…some people just never talk about Jesus–they never talk about their faith, even. What a travesty to have a reputation as a pastor who doesn’t talk about Jesus on their so-called ministry blog.

FYI–the pastor in question is NOT in my links in my sidebar, and it’s no one I’ve ever met, so If you’re a friend of mine, I am NOT talking about you! You are good… And don’t bother to ask who it was, because I refuse to talk bad about fellow Christians.

May I never become complacent in my walk with Jesus. May people always know I am a Jesus-follower first, and a man in ministry second. And may I never forget that.

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I have made plans with my great friend Todd Helmkamp to attend the Reason for Hope seminar on February 1 & 2 at Trinity Evangelical Church (directions) in Fort Wayne.
This seminar will feature Dr. Craig Blomberg, Distinguished Professor of New Testament at Denver Seminary. Blomberg was one of the people interviewed in The Case for Christ.

Todd and I are looking forward to this conference, and would like to invite you to join us, too! The more the merrier! We have invited Todd F. and Jeremiah O., but haven’t heard final confirmations from them yet. [EDIT]Todd and Jeremiah are BOTH going to join us![/EDIT] Perhaps you would be in for a good intense lecture on apologetics from one of the world’s greatest, we’d love to have you join us as well. There are also some group sessions, too!

The cost is $20. You will need to register yourself, via snail mail. For your convenience, I have included a PDF version of the brochure here: Reason for Hope Brochure.

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Every morning, Emily and I leave for work at the same time. I have a one-minute commute, or a seven-minute walk (I am not walking through the winter though), and Emily has a 35-40 minute commute.

Needless to say, Emily uses much more gasoline in her car than I do in mine. I try to do most of her gasoline fill-ups, but sometimes she gets gas in Fort Wayne without letting me know she needs gas.

This morning on the way to work, Emily needed gas, so we stopped at our local S & S Express, and I pumped gas for her. I went in to pay as Emily drove off. The young lady behind the counter said, ‘You always pump gas for her, don’t you?’
I said, ‘Not always, but I do try to.’
‘I think that’s so cute,’ she said.
‘Sometimes she gets it without asking me, but when it’s cold outside, I especially like getting it for her.’
‘I think it’s so cute you two get along so well.’
…

As I left, those words stuck with me…’you two get along so well.’

I think that is key to making any marriage work. You have to do what the other person wants, even when you don’t want to. I don’t particularly enjoy standing out in 20-degree weather pumping gasoline, but when I do it instead of my wife, I am making a sacrifice for her, and she knows it. I gladly make that sacrifice for my wife.
She doesn’t like pumping gas ever, and when she can get a replacement to do it for her, she is indebted to her replacement, and she serves me well.

The thing is, this is just like what Jesus did for us–he was the replacement sacrifice for all we deserve for our screw ups and mess ups. Jesus made a sacrifice for us, do we serve him well?

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This morning I was thinking about my issues last night in getting my WiFi Router to work properly.

You see, I knew what I needed to do the whole time, but I thought I could figure it out by changing a setting on the notebook.
I knew what needed to be done, but I thought I could do it better myself. Turns out, I was wrong.

I think often in our own walk with Jesus, deep down we know what our next step should be, but we don’t like it, so we try to find a different route. The thing is–there often isn’t a second route. When we face a bridge, there’s only one way to cross it, and we need to do what needs to be done–no gallivanting around will get you across the bridge you face.

Next time you find yourself in a place in your walk with Jesus where you know the next step you need to take, just do it. Don’t waste your time trying to find a way around it–just do it.

I’m talking to myself here.

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This morning, we awoke to about 2″ of snow on the ground.

We have a two-car garage, which makes it very nice in the winter to be able to park in the garage and not have to scrap the snow and ice off the windows in the morning.
Of course, I’ve been lazy, and there isn’t room for me to park my car in the garage at the moment. Emily can park in the garage, but I cannot. My side has a stack of shingles, empty cardboard boxes, three different types of powered saws, a pair of saw horses and some other miscellaneous odds and ends. The thing I, I have known for months I needed to clean up the garage. It’s been on my mind especially over the past two or three weeks but yet I haven’t done anything about it.

I think this is like our walk with Jesus, sometimes. We know what we should do, but we keep putting it off, putting it off, putting it off until we finally come to the realization, ‘Huh, I really should have done this a long time ago. It would have saved me a lot of time, I could have done it more comfortably earlier and it’s not as easy any more.’

Wouldn’t it have just been much easier for me to clean up the garage when it was 60 degrees out instead of doing it tonight when it’s 30? Will I ever learn my lesson?
Or, will I not do it tonight and put it off again?

Have you ever been there?

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When I was in college, I was a scholarship athlete. I would go on daily runs with my teammates. On easy days, we often talked most of the run.
On guy in particular was the biggest pessimist I’ve ever met. Everything was a negative–everything. I hated running with this guy because he would always make negative comments and never talk about anything positive.

On more than one occasion, I stopped to ‘tie my shoe’ so I could get away from him. I just couldn’t stand being around such pessimism any more.

Well, today I am annoying myself, and If I had a fake shoe string to tie, I would do it to get away from myself.

Today, I find myself annoying, as I am such a pessimist today! I don’t like it one bit!

What is God attempting to teach me? Patience? Whatever it is, I pray thee Lord, help me to find it quickly!

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About a year ago, I got a Cingular 8125 phone/pda. I have enjoyed it a lot over the course of the past year, and it’s kept me from missing appointment after appointment. That scheduler has saved me more than once–although I occasionally still drop a ball here or there when I don’t pay enough attention to the pda.

When I was in college at Taylor in the fall of 1996, my next door neighbor Steve West bought a new kicking computer–Windows 95 and everything. One of our favorite things to do on the computer was play speed solitaire. We would see how quickly we could play the game. It was all about speed and high score.

Combine those two stories–my pda has solitaire on it, and over the course of the past year, I have played speed solitaire on it over and over. When I first got the phone, my goal was to score 5000 points. I did this rarely at first. Once I was able to score 6000 points, the 5000 mark wasn’t such a great goal any more. It just didn’t satisfy me any more. Now my goal was 6000, which I was rarely able to hit at first, too. Well, a couple weeks ago I scored 7000, and now 6000 isn’t very satisfying any more.

The problem is, it’s really hard to score 7000 in solitaire. You have to be good and get a lucky deal. The problem is this–it is a somewhat rare combination. I’ve only scored 7000 that one time. Since then, 6000 is a disappointment. 5000 doesn’t even feel like an accomplishment any more–it feels more like a failure.

What once felt like a great accomplishment now feels like failure.

I think very often in our walk with God, we run up against the same thing. Getting a taste of something better makes the things we used to do seem not so great any more–we want to experience more of God. We want to know God better, we want to serve God better.
Once we get ‘better’, the ‘old ways’ which were once satisfying are no longer satisfying. It’s not enough to simply keep on doing what we’ve always done–we need to do more.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t do the ‘old ways’, but they should be stepping stones to getting to deeper, better things.

So the question of the day–what are you doing this week to advance your relationship with God?

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This past weekend I was privileged to spend some quality time with a missionary. He talked about his life and showed me photographs of his daughters–teenagers, and he was away from them for most of the year. And then it hit me: This guy is away from his wife and kids more than he is in the same country!

Talk about dedication. Seven months of the year, he is in a different continent. The five months he’s in the same country, he travels the country. Talk about dedication and commitment.

So I wondered about myself: Would I be willing to make such a commitment, leaving my wife for months at a time, in order to follow God’s call?

Man…that one hurts!

How would you answer that?

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