This day

will come:

And the ransomed of the LORD shall
return
and come to Zion with signing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain gladness and joy,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee
away.

Isaiah 51:11

Why business travelers drive me nuts

• We take business calls from rental car shuttle buses. 
• We take business calls from restroom stalls. 
• We take business calls going through security lines. 
• We take business calls when we're boarding planes. 
• We think our schedule is 10x more important than the other 1000 business travelers in the same airport. 
• We will use the priority security line even if it's longer than the normal security line. 
• We can't handle when the little grey TSA bins run out at the beginning of the security line. We expect the TSA to run like a well-oiled machine. Wha?
• We walk through the airport staring at our phones and wonder why people can't watch where they are going. 
• We carry one phone for work, one for personal use, an iPad, and a computer. And we wonder why our luggage is so heavy. 
• Speaking of luggage, we couldn't possibly check our bags. Out of the question. We much prefer to cram them into the puzzles we create every. time. we. board. a. plane. 
• We cannot believe someone would bring a baby or a kid onto the plane. Don't they know we have important work to do? 
• We complain and gripe about the internet speed on the plane and we expect to have our VPN and Netflicks and Pandora streaming. Seriously.
• We've heard the "safety features" speech so many times we could say it from memory. But we would have absolutely no idea how to use any of the safety features if we really had to. 
• Our phones have an off button?

Arms we cannot see

The saving God is the good Creator, who made creation in certain ways but is never bound by those ways. The only thing he is bound by is his own consistent nature. Consistent, yes. Predictable, never. To us fearful humans, frantic to control our little worlds, such a picture is frightening. It means letting go of the familiar and casting ourselves into arms we cannot see, yet believing on the basis of the Word of God and the testimony of those who have gone before that the arms are there, stronger and more loving than anything we could ever imagine on our own.

by John Oswalt, from his Isaiah (the NIV Application Commentary)

Belief and obedience

"The Word of God is meant to do more than penetrate. It's meant to activate. It can bore holes through obstacles. It can tumble defenses. It can plant wandering feet of clay in places of divine purpose. It can sanctify the sin sick and steady the aimless and confused. It can light a blazing torch in a black hole. Simply put, the Word was meant to work."

"It's not until the hearing turns into doing that believing leads to blessing. Our 'doing' may not always show up in physical activity. The initial act of obedience might be waiting upon the Lord or setting our minds zealously upon His faithfulness."

I'll add that obedience looks like this: believing His promises are true; living daily life in the conviction that they are true.

excerpts from Beth Moore's Bible study on James

This face

80 / 20 or 20 / 80

I've been taking a financial course all day. I now have a head full of numbers.

This is resulting in putting the previous post into numbers:

Items 1 and 2 comprise of the "20%".
Items 3 to 13 comprise of the "80%".
This is the 80 / 20 path.

But we seem to more often flip this:

Items 1 and 2 comprise of the "80%".
Items 3 to 13 comprise of the "20%".
This is the 20 / 80 path.

And let me say from my very limited perspective and experience the 80 / 20 path seems like a wiser investment with more gains.

you can't cook a steak with a spark

Disclaimer: this is another "guys and gals" post. I just can't help it.

I've been reading a book called Sacred Sex, by Tim Alan Gardner. It's an amazing book. While the title of the book is about - well, read the title - this blog post isn't about that. Well, it is. But it's not. Stay with me here.


The book talks about "Oneness", "my mate only", "what women and men want out of sex". As I've been processing this book (which I'm reading as part of my small group), I've been thinking of my own journey toward marriage (hopefully one day) and how my current thought process influences this journey.

1. is there a basic attraction? (i hate to use the word spark here, but I can't think of a better one.)
2. common interests?
3. common ministry / goals? *
4. do you see this person helping you get to your life goals? And you helping them get to theirs?
5. #4 requires that you know your life goals. do you?
6. the person you marry today may not (will not) look like a 20-something beach babe
7. the person you marry for sure won't look like a 20-something beach babe in 30 years. or 40. or 50.
8. you probably don't look like a 20-something beach babe either. and you won't at 50, 60, 70 years old.
9. spark? what spark? It's there and now it's gone. Yes -- it's a spark. That's what sparks do.
10. what are you doing to fan the flames that will burn bluer, longer, and hotter? They don't "just happen" -- they take cultivation, nurturing, effort, and long term commitment.
11. marriage is like a steak. and you can't cook a steak with a spark. it takes a looked-after, poked-at hot-burning-coals-kind-of-fire.
12. in today's culture I really do think we're addicted to sparks. We go from person to person sparking each other and then move on as soon as the spark runs its course. This is child's play. I wonder what would happen if we put more emphasis on items 3 through 12 instead of so much focus on items 1 and 2?
13. life is short - very very short, so let's get moving.

* this assumes the non-negotiable of sharing a common Faith.

Parallel

Have you studied the 18th century slave trade in detail at all? Even a little venture into the history will make your blood run cold and your stomach hurl. And it should. It was evil incarnate, orchestrated by the devil himself.

Do you know that during the 18th century, while the slave trade was a huge contributor to the British economy, slavery itself was basically overlooked in 18th century British culture? There weren't many slaves in Britain during this time and the ones who were were treated decently (generalization of course).

So while the every day common person in Britain went about his day, enjoying the conveniences of tea and sugar from other parts of the world, he had zero insight into the human casualty behind those conveniences. He would not know that slave ships' human "cargo" perished in numbers as high as 50% on the deadly voyages across the ocean from their homeland to their fate. If they were "lucky" enough to survive, the torturous conditions they endured were - well do a little history reading and find out for yourself. And see if you can keep your lunch down.

Did you know that all of this was done in the name that "they aren't really human" or they are "sub-human", "less than us". These human beings were put into a category of non-human, so their bodies and breath could be fed to the fires of convenience and demand and dollar.

I ask you this: how is this different than the abortion industry today?

• industry - just as the slave trade profited millions and was there largely protected by law, the abortion industry is a huge money making business that profits entities such as Planned Parenthood with millions.
• built on the literal material of human beings - instead of ripping people from their native homelands, we're tearing babies apart in the womb. 
• oblivious - just like the average British native who was (mostly) unaware of the perils and torment these fellow humans were put through, we also go about our daily lives insulated from today's "sterile" killing machines.
• convenience - the 18th century British liked their tea and sugar. We like our sex whenever and however and we don't want the consequences. 
• not really human - just like these 18th century souls, today's unborn babies are not deemed human until they fully pass the birth canal.*

Have we any idea the human casualty behind our quest for "no-consequence sexual freedom"?

* separate conversation: the abortion industry targets African-Americans far and above any other race. Perhaps another parallel? 

My three boys

Mom came to visit a couple months back and she got some cute photos of the boys. And for once I wasn't behind the camera.

Caspian

Wilbur

Mr. Darcy

facts and consequences

fact:
60,000,000 people aborted since 1973 in the US alone.
assume 50% were girls and 50% were boys.
30,000,000 missing girls.
30,000,000 missing boys.
divide the 60,000,000 into thirds = 1/3 for every decade since 1973 = 20,000,000 people missing for each decade.
following this (crude) logic, there are 20,000,000 people missing from my generation alone: 10,000,000 women and 10,000,000 men from the ages of 25-35 years old.
20,000,000 people = the July 2012 population for New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, and Phoenix combined. *
Imagine if these six cities just disappeared one day? Imagine the economic devastation alone.
And remember - that's just 1/3 of the total missing population.
  
consequences
shortage in today's US workforce
an aging population
lack of a robust economic platform to care for the aging population
what technology innovation have we lost?
what medical breakthroughs have we missed out on?
what energy innovation breakthroughs have we missed?
as a single, i look around and there just seems to be a shortage of good men - is this yet another consequence?

and this, folks, is just the economic side of things. just the tip of the iceberg. how about the physical, emotional and spiritual consequences?

* http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0763098.html