Kind of a Tough Day

My spiritual journey today took me to Romans - specifically the 12th chapter. Verse 1 & 2 states: 1 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life - and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. 2 Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. (The Message) I know one of my character traits is to be "frank" when speaking to people. And, I have spent the better part of the last 25 years trying to tame or at least soften the blow when I am conversing. I am relatively positive this is why God has not called me to a teaching pastor role within churches. But (there could be some "frankness" here) at what point do we just let people misunderstand or misinterpret situations, environments or actions? Of course this is assuming that I always correctly analyse situations, environments and actions!! Well - this is hoping and praying that your spiritual discernment today is a bit more fruitful than mine has been to this point.

Living in the Moment

This has been an interesting weekend for me. Friday night (and Saturday) the quartet I sing with had the privilege to be a part of a "revival" service at a prison unit here in Brownwood. Dallas Huston was the preacher for both services and as always Dallas is so capable of being very authentic and laying out some very clear thoughts from scripture. On Saturday he gave some great background on David then proceeded to encourage the men of the prison on how God uses people even when they really mess up. During the evening one of the inmates sang accompanied on guitar by an amazing musician (also an inmate.) I see my week ahead wanting to look at scripture where God uses some of the most unlikely - to do some of the most amazing. I would welcome your help here, post a comment or email me - this could be interesting to get some varied opinions out there.
Also - today was a bit rainy with cool 50 degree weather, overcast. Combine that with my mom preparing Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, corn-on-the-cob with gravy, fruit salad and strawberry cake - and one would have thought it was Thanksgiving. At church the crowd was numerically lower than normal (I'm sure the weather played a role in this dynamic) but the time of musical worship to me was an "introspective" style focusing on the attributes of God and how He so desires a relationship with us. I attached a video of one of the numbers we did Sunday "My Creator King." Has to be one of my favorite - hope you enjoy.

Some "Quotes" I Like

I am a fan of "quotes" and how they make me think and potentially inspire others - enjoy!

"Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier." Albert Schweitzer.

"It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable." Moliere

"The habit of giving only enhances the desire to give." Walt Whitman

"The smallest good deed is greater than the grandest intention." Unknown

I mentioned this yesterday but I have found over the past 24 hours this specific topic of "faith" continues to find its way into my non-church life. On a recent episode of Desperate Housewives Lynette, Felicity Huffman (who has just been through a battle with cancer and tornado - remember it is a "soap-opera") begins to recognize her (and her family's) need for something spiritual. She notices all of her neighbors headed to church on Sunday and proceeds to ask Bree, Marcia Cross if they could join them. What takes place over the course of the episode from there I think is really funny. Lynette wants and needs answers even to the point that after the minister has completed his sermon she raises her hand to ask a question - prior to the closing hymn. (It might help to know that the church she had chosen to attend was Presbyterian) Well, I say all that to say this - at the end of the show Bree after Lynette had been chided for asking so many questions related to "faith" and "spiritual stuff" Bree recognizes Lynette's need and exclaims "questions help strengthen our faith!"

Now, what does that mean to you? I am going to ponder this thought for the day and maybe post something later on - or even tomorrow. But it is an interesting question to me.

I'll leave you with this quote from Winston Churchill "Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."

Christians and the "Main Streem"

I love it when people, organizations and media outlets propagate Christian values, causes and such even when they may not be necessarily propagating "The Gospel." The difficulty for those of us from the Evangelical Christian Faith tends to surface when we are not either promoting the particular value or lending the cause credence. We just look (and sometimes are) Hippocrates from either ignoring the Biblical premise or "devaluing" the premise by our silence. A couple of good examples of this I have found are: 1) From Minnesota Public Radio - They have a news series on Religion in Public Life and I just read a "faith story" from Emily Nerland that was encouraging and very applicable to anyone's (especially a Christians) daily life. http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/199804/06_newsroom_religion/docs/commentary_nerland.shtml

2) I just watched a clip from the Ellen DeGenerous Show as she was interviewing Dr. Wayne Dyer and through out the interview he spoke of how focusing on compassion just one hour a week is proven to help our physical bodies with the additional release of serotonin. To me this is fascinating simply because Jesus is all over this "love issue" and "compassion" to our fellow man.

Now I realize that following directives that may be very positive but not based in who Christ is and wants to be in the life of an individual can be counter-productive in the scope of eternity. But, this should only encourage us to live our lives in such a fashion that people KNOW we are a Christian and WHY we do WHAT we do as a direct result of that relation with Jesus. When someone chooses to be a Christ-follower because of the positives just seems to be they way Jesus propagated His Father's love. Jesus seemed very successful in this process.

Earth Day - Something Spiritual

Genesis 1:27-30 (The Message)
God created human beings; he created them godlike, Reflecting God's nature. He created them male and female. God blessed them: "Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge! Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth." Then God said, "I've given you every sort of seed-bearing plant on Earth And every kind of fruit-bearing tree, given them to you for food. To all animals and all birds, everything that moves and breathes, I give whatever grows out of the ground for food." And there it was.

If we abdicate our responsibility to the Earth and its care - we need to take out the first chapter of the Bible. This is not "worshipping the Earth" just taking care of it!

It Is Gonna Get Hot!

Well I got home tonight excited about Jill's wonderful smellin' Italian Nachos and saw that Dylon was preparing himself for the Texas Summer. The dryer vent goes from the floor vent up over the end table and subsequently pointed to him blowing cool air. There has to be a bit of redneck to this, I am sure!!

Well - here goes number 2 post and I have several thoughts. Today has been productive with computer "filing." My email that I keep had grown to well over 200 and I just had to do some housekeeping. This has also helped with my "feeling a little more productive" as well. Take this as a line of encouragement-going ahead and getting something accomplished that you stare at every day can really help you when you are or have been "motivationally" challenged.

We have been in a sermon series at church related to "faith" and this quote from Oswald Chambers that I read to day seemed most appropriate.

Faith for my deliverance is not faith in God. Faith means, whether I am visibly delivered or not, I will stick to my belief that God is love. -Oswald Chambers

Yesterday my brother, Barri lead the musical portion of our worship service. He is very high energy, a little animated and always a blessing to me and our church family. It can be humbling when people come up to me and say; "Eric, can we get him on a regular basis?" which happen multiple times yesterday.

Last night our church family went and had a great big "block party" in a low-income apartment complex in our fair city. This has to be one of the most rewarding events I have every participated in. Close to 350 people (maybe just a few more than 350) attended. As the evening progressed both the residents of the complex as well as Southside folk grew more and more comfortable with each other and relationships began to be developed. One of my prayers is that we can continue to forge these relationships as a church family. This is such a good thing!!

a first for everything

I have wanted to try blogging for a while now but I have always been a little timid about the "letting everyone in my coolaid" approach to my thinking. But I do know this, that I really never know enough but still want to say, do and propagate the right stuff.

So here is my first thoughts. I determined last night after watching another "weight loss" show while eating some banana puddin' that it was time to get serious about my health and taking care of my body. I don't know quite what I am going to do in this journey but I am just putting it out there and getting the process started.

This morning at church we had our "Adopt A Spot" day where we pick up trash along our street, neighborhood and just try to help our environment a little - this is important.

I am hoping and praying that I will get better at this and that I can learn some things not only about life but spiritual issues, others and myself.

We'll see - if you are of the "praying" type, please put me on your list! Oh, by-the-way the pic above is me and the family. Probably the last you will see of me (until I have worked on that figure a bit!) As for my family, wow - I love them and they just look great to me!