He made me do it!

We can no more force someone to do something than we can bend a spoon with our minds, so why do we try?

This morning on the way to work I was in the slow lane of the freeway and noticed the distance between myself and car in front of me closing rather rapidly. Granted, I developed some bad habits navigating the 405 in Orange County daily, but I am not a reckless or dangerous driver. Almost as soon as I noticed the gap closing, I saw the red glow of brake lights in front of me. THERE WERE NO CARS IN FRONT OF THIS CAR! In other words, no plausible reason for the sudden slowdown. I became even more frustrated when I looked down at my speedometer to see "35mph". WHAT?!?! I looked up again at the driver (this all occurred in mere seconds) to see the man take both of his hands off the wheel and show me in a pantomime that he wanted more space.

I gave him more space all right. I changed lanes as soon as I could and left Mr.35mph in a cloud of dust on Highway 77.

The thought crossed my mind as I drove away, he was artificially trying to make me give him more space by slowing to an unsafe 35mph on the freeway, not to mention taking both hands off the wheel.

Why do we think we can manipulate people into doing what we want and at what cost and lengths will we stoop to?

I think we all have a little manipulation in us and it rears its ugly head every now and again whether we are conscious of it or not.

God never manipulates us. He knows we do so many things we shouldn't and need drastic intervention and yet, He stands by poised to catch us when we fall because he can't MAKE us do anything. I love the line from Bruce Almighty when Bruce is chatting with God about the "rules".

Bruce: How do you make so many people love you without affecting Free Will?
God: [snorts] Heh, welcome to my world, son. If you come up with an answer to that one, let me know.


In Psalm 139 it talks about the God who knows us better than we know ourselves. Even though He knows, God waits patiently, lovingly, and ready to catch us when we fall. I must admit, sometimes I wish he'd just slam on my brakes!


p.s. Just in case you were wondering, Yes, the man was an "older" gentleman. ugh! I hate when stereotypes are true!

What are you made of?

Phrases like "when the rubber meets the road" or "when the sh** hits the fan" never used to pack any kind of punch for me. I always thought they were kitchy little bumper sticker quotes to sprinkle into conversations. But lately, I've been thinking about who I am when the rubber really does meet the road. Who am I when sh** hits the fan? Because it does. No one can escape the realities of life from infringing upon your "plan".

I always used to fumble around in the dark searching for the fast-forward button bumping my knees on the sharp-edged end tables all the while wishing that I were somewhere else...someone else. Pain to me was a four-letter word. How could I fix it, get away from it, prevent it? I'm far from embracing pain, but this past year I've been learning what stuff I'm made of...and just who made my "stuff".

The opening lines of Brooke Fraser's song, Shadowfeet, capture the essence of what I feel:
Walking, stumbling on these shadowfeet
toward home, a land that I've never seen
I am changing, less and less asleep,
Made of different stuff than when I began
and I have sensed it all along, fast approaching is the day

When the world has fallen out from under me
I'll be found in you, still standing
When the sky rolls up and mountains fall on their knees
When time and space are through
I'll be found in you



If life is a journey and can be likened to a marathon, then this past year I hit the wall on the 21st mile. Muscles seized and rendered me paralyzed. The road disappeared before me. All other runners seemed to glide effortlessly passed me and there I was...hopelessly stuck. My heels dug deep into the asphalt and my legs too heavy to lift. I started the race strong and confident. It was a goal of mine for as long as I can remember. I prayed and prepared. I trained and ate healthy. I did my absolute best to be ready and more importantly put God before each twist and turn in the race, but still I ran at full speed into a wall.

God promises that He'll never leave us. God doesn't create the walls that we careen into, but instead He is there in the midst of the pain, the waiting, and the mending.

I've been asked to speak in a few weeks at my church and I am anxiously awaiting the day. It happens to fall on an anniversary of sorts and so I am going to celebrate that I am made of different stuff than when I began. No one chooses to hit a wall. No one asks for sh** to hit the fan, but God always and forever redeems us. He doesn't create the walls we run into, but makes us into different people than when we began.

363 Days

Many people think of feeding the homeless on Thanksgiving and Christmas. 363 Days is an organization dedicated to feeding the homeless on the other 363 Days of the year. One of the many services I'm involved in, Soulstice, partnered with 363 last Sunday and made 1,100 sandwiches in less than thirty minutes. It's amazing what we can do...one person at a time.





I tried to upload this to You Tube, but apparently Jonny Lang has a crack-legal team scouring the multitudes of uploaded videos daily to ensure his songs are copyright protected. Kudos to you Lang legal team! Try and find my blog! :)

Negotiation

I navigate through a myriad of negotiations throughout the course of my day. No, I am not a high-powered, albeit currently deflated Wall Street tycoon. Nor am I a smooth-talking, sweet-selling commercial real estate investor. My negotiations are much more run of the mill, day-to-day, and in a practical vein. My negotiations begin with a ringing alarm clock, "Okay, I'll stop pressing snooze and get up, but I am NOT going to shower". Nice. I got ya on that one. Take that, alarm clock! I negotiate with traffic on the way to work, "I'll stay here until the next exit and then I am ditching this mess and taking a different route". Haha. Thought you had me stuck here huh, Buster? I negotiate with my calorie intake. "Absolutely, I'll come with the lunch crew to Carbone's because later Lifetime Fitness awaits." In your face guilt! And even in my working out, "Sure I'll sweat it out on cardio machine X, but I am going to relax in the steam room and get a smoothie on my way out". Oh, geez. I am so good.

I am master of my own world. Everything is laid out as to best serve me, or at least I make it seem that way with my incessant negotiating.

How often do I negotiate with God? "Sure, I'll trust you on this one, but I am just going to rush it along a bit." He doesn't mind. That was going a little too slow. God helps those who help themselves, right? Negotiating my way through a relationship with God inevitably turns out to be unfruitful, frustrating, and just plain silly. The negotiations prevent me from actually seeing what God has for me. I'm so stinkin' blind sometimes and I am too focused on what I want to happen AND I think that because God loves me, He does too.

So, maybe I'll leave my negotiations to the alarm clock and try to stay in the places God has me. The lessons are learned in the mending. The hope happens when you're feeling stuck. Growth is in the tension of having the vision of what you want to be and feeling dissatisfied with where you're at.

Wise Philosophy from Christopher Robin

Last night as I was reading to my nephews a phrase literally leaped off the page. I re-read it over and over and wrote it on a post-it note before I left.

Christopher Robin says to his good friend, Pooh:
"You must remember this: You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."

Lies are plentiful and powerful and so often drown out the truth of who we are in Christ. Sometimes we need to become like little children and believe with a childlike heart.

GYA video

A couple of posts ago, I wrote about our Give Yourself Away event. This is a video I created trying to cast the vision for our community. The event was awesome. The Robbie Seay Band were a group of amazing guys. They drove all the way from Oklahoma City to MN because of Hurricane Ike. It was a blessing to us and I pray that this effort continues to be a movement of giving ourselves away instead of just a one-time event. If we are truly people of Love, then we should be giving ourselves away.

Note: the super cute little boy is my nephew, Tatum :)

Singing out of tune

I went on a road trip about a month ago to Spearfish, SD. What is in Spearfish, SD you ask? Good friends. And Sturgis motorcycle rally goers. Apparently I should have checked Harley.com before planning my trip.

I went to Sioux Falls first to pick up a friend to join me on the journey. She is a good friend I met my freshman year of college. She was a junior and couldn't stand me. She thought I was too sassy the first day I walked into choir with my ball cap on backwards and cracking jokes with anyone in my vicinity. However, I quickly won her over and she's been one of my closet friends for over 10 years. But, we are still very different. I'm still quite sassy and she is learning how to not be embarrassed by me little by little.

Like most people on road trips I crank the stereo as loud as it will go and sing along at the top of my lungs, but the difference is I sing the harmony and not the melody. My roadtrippin' friend asked me, "How do you know all the notes for harmony?" The truth is I don't know all the notes. I make them up as I go. I try to listen for the right harmony. Sometimes I'm wrong. Very wrong. I can be singing a great harmony to Brooke Fraser, Shane and Shane or Dave Barnes and then out of nowhere I hit a note that would send dogs running home with a whimper. I responded to her inquiry with an air that I knew would challenge her. "You are a better singer than me. Why don't you sing the harmony?" She replied, "Because I get notes wrong." She obviously hadn't been listening closely to my little "concert" on the driver's seat stage.

Someone once said, "If you are going to fail, fail BIG". I wish I could say that in all areas of my life I take risks and fail with the kind of gusto that makes people question whether I really failed at all. But the truth is, it's easy to fail with confidence from the confines of your car. I lack the stamina and character to fail in front of a crowd, out of the safety zone of comfort. When I make decisions I often find myself evaluating every possible outcome to the point where I don't make a decision at all. I'm so afraid to fail that I don't take action at all. I stack the cards in my favor. I'll do things I know I'll succeed at. Where is the growth in that?

So, there is this recurring theme of courage coming to the surface again and again. It's time to be brave and sing the harmony, even out of tune, beyond the steel cage of my Hyundia Elantra. Singing out of tune outside of my comfort zone is so much better than singing in tune in my small little world and hopefully I'll eventually learn the right notes...