I know we’ve all heard the phrase, ‘the glass is half full’ or ‘the glass is half empty’, well I saw on a t-shirt that the engineer says that the glass is twice as big as it needs to be, and that mmlph. (no that’s not a typo, my friend Jonathan came up with that one and it is superior to the old boring ‘laugh out loud’). I took it a step further and thought about design optimization, and if all the glasses were optimized for what they are to hold, then the glass will always be full, right?

Well, what if there are really ‘optimized’ glasses? Each one representing a different time in your life. Your glass is supposed to be full, and it is, as long as your holding the right glass. Could it be that sometimes I think I’m ready for a 16oz glass when really I’m at a 10oz point in life? God had blessed me with much, but sometimes I feel like I’m ready for more. So I reach for a taller glass only to feel let down when it is not filled. I need to wait until I’m ready for the taller glass before I try to reach for it. Better yet, rather than reaching, I’ll ask God for whatever sized glass I can handle, and I will take comfort knowing that the glass He gives is the right one, and that it is full.

I’ve come to realize that I have a choice…when I am attacked, I can either run to God’s truth or I can blindly accept the lies of the enemy. How did Jesus counter the devil when He was tempted? with Scripture. And it is so important to keep the truth planted in our hearts so that we can counter the attacks of the devil. In the book of Ephesians, Paul says to put on the full armor of God. Not just any part of it, but the FULL armor. So, for example, the shield of faith is just as important as the helmet of salvation. This brings me to the belt of truth.

What is the purpose of a belt? It’s functional purpose (rather than its fashionable purpose) is to keep your pants up. If you don’t wear a belt, you risk the chance of your pants falling to your ankles leaving you rather vulnerable. The same could be said about the ‘belt of truth’ that Paul describes. If we don’t have the truth planted in our hearts, we will ultimately be caught with our pants down, and that’s never a good thing. So keep your pants on, wear your belt. Remember to wear the FULL armor!

So I was reading today’s Purpose Driven email devotional and it really struck me this morning. I have a tendency to talk negatively about myself very often.  This devotional reminded me that when I do that, I’m actually questioning the way God made me. Many times I try to shrug it off like it’s no big deal and it’s only about me and my ‘faults’, but when I start dwelling on these ‘faults’ that I think I have, I’m accusing God of making a mistake. Wow.

I just got back from a mission trip to Peru a couple of days ago and one of the many ways that I felt God was growing me through the trip was in my confidence. I was feeling so incapable, especially with the whole job search, and to be able to go to Peru and help build a wall (with no prior construction experience) was a huge boost. And then when my Spanish started coming back and I was able to communicate, I just got this overwhelming sense of “see, you can do it. You’re not worthless.” And now with this new way of looking at my self-degrading thoughts, I believe more positive changes are on the way.

Below is a link to the online version of the devotional in case you’re interested.

Eliminate Negative Self-Talk – Tools @ PurposeDriven.com

I almost feel like I need to apologize for my last post. I was definitely caught up in a “Martha Moment”. I can almost hear the words in my head as I think back, “Lord, don’t you care that J, C, and I are doing all the work?” Wow. I don’t want to be this way. I’m so distracted by what needs to be done, or what’s going wrong. For instance, last week I could hear some distortion from my acoustic guitar (which is just wrong) and so I was focused more on getting rid of that than actually worshiping. That can never happen. There is only one thing needed, and my prayer is that I would start making the wiser choice.

If there’s one statement that makes me gringe, it’s “There’s a wedding this Saturday.”

‘But why?’ I hear you asking (or maybe you didn’t and I’m just putting words in your mouth…). Well, because that one statement means that for at least two of us on the Worship Team (there’s generally one or two more but it’s always at least us) get to take down the stages and unplug all the wiring on Thursday night, and then (here’s the kicker) rebuild everything Saturday afternoon (goodbye summer saturdays…)

Now trust me, I know there are plenty of hard working people out there, so I’m not trying to complain, and besides Jesus never complained about any work.  I’m more than willing to do this work (not like I have anything else to do on a Saturday afternoon anyway besides sit at home), but I’m just wondering ‘where is everyone else?’.

From my perspective anyway, it appears as though everyone else just comes in Sunday morning and presto, all our mics and DI boxes are back. Yes, there is an extended sound check on Sundays after weddings to iron out issues, but other than that it’s like nothing happened.

So my dilema then is this, I want to see more people help rebuild after weddings, but at the same time I know that I should just do the work and ‘suck it up’.

That tricky little four letter word has sneaked its way into my daily vocabulary. I use it at least once daily. Usually I mean it in a light-hearted manner such as, “oh I didn’t get the crumpled ice cream sandwich wrapper in the trash..FAIL!” or “I spilled some of my coffee…EPIC FAIL!”. But could it be that by allowing this word to penetrate my vocabulary, it can have a larger impact? Now I look back on some days that were filled with lots of little ‘failures’, and suddenly I can see my whole day as a failure? Then several of those days in a month and suddenly my month is a failure? I think you can catch my drift.

Now am I making a mountain out of an ant hill? Maybe at this point, but things happen slowly.  Consider Psalm 1:1,

“Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.”

Notice the progression? Walk in the counsel of the wicked, Stand in the way of sinners, and Sit in the seat of mockers. First you’re simply walking, but before you know it, you’re sitting, planted. This is why I wish to remove this four letter word from my daily vocabulary, especially the light-hearted use of it. Because by calling these trivial misses failures, I am walking with a lie, and I surely don’t want to be caught sitting with a lie.

“You don’t take this seriously enough.”

“You’re too serious.”

Welcome to my life of contradictions.  Where exactly do I belong? Laughter is such a great gift from God, and so I’m always trying to make people laugh, because when people laugh it not only makes them feel better, but I feel better knowing they are experiencing a bit of joy. But are there times when maybe I take it a little too far? You know I’m reaching for a response and miss.

Wait a tic…”reaching for response”…what’s the real motive here? Could it be that it’s more about my ability to solicit a response from someone than it is actually making them laugh?  And what about the two quotes above? Am I really that concerned about what over people think of me?

Oh Lord, forgive me for seeking approval and acceptance from anyone other than you.

So recently I was introduced to a new way to single someone out. Putting your thumbs up. Now I’ve done the whole index finger on the nose thing (you know, the last one to put their finger on their nose has to -insert action here-), but I’ve never seen anyone use the idea that the last person to put their thumbs up has to -insert action here-.  But you know, since I’m almost always the last one to catch on when these events occur, I’m always like, ok,  whatever, sure. But you know, the events that night struck me differently. Not because I was the last one to put my thumbs up, but because we were going through this to figure out who was going to say grace.

Since when has the act of thanking our Heavenly Father for His provisions become such a menial task that we no longer do it willingly? It’s almost as if it is simply a requirement. If we stop and think about what we are really praying about, we should all be jumping up and down eager to thank our God for what he has provided.

I say this, yet when was the last time I stopped and thanked my Heavenly Father when I’m eating lunch alone, or with people who aren’t as devout? See, we are creatures of habit. My family would say grace at Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas dinners, and that was it. So it wasn’t in my upbringing to pray before every meal, only those really special ones where Mom and Nana would spend most of the morning in the kitchen cooking a ham, or a turkey, and some wide assortment of sides to go along.

To go along with this, there are a lot of us that struggle with praying out loud. We fear that we won’t say the right things. We worry about what the people around us may think. These fears are real, but they are also unwarranted. They are lies used to attempt to trip us up. However, it is still a real struggle to overcome these fears, and I can’t help but think that this is part of the reason why we don’t openly say grace. It is uncomfortable to confront these fears head-on.  So instead we just single out someone else to say grace for all of us? Make someone else leave their comfort zone? Hmmm….What would Jesus do?

Consider the first several verses of John 13 when Jesus washes the disciples’ feet. Notice verse 16,

I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.

Was Jesus in his comfort zone when he got down and washed their feet? What about when he went to Calvary? Was that comfortable? If a servant is not greater than his master, then why shall we live comfortably?

Oh boy, I think I just opened a can of worms and could continue on with the idea of the “american dream”, but I’ll save that for later.

So Momentum 2009 was a few days ago, and it was pretty amazing. It was awesome just to be at the Whittemore center, and then to actually sit on the UNH bench at one point..wicked awesome! (Yeah I’m a hockey fan, can’t you tell?) But then it just kept getting better.

So earlier in the day I was practicing some songs when I realized I had no extra strings whatsoever. So I left a little early to head up to Earcraft Music up in Dover. On my way I went by the church and noticed our co-leader’s car backed up to the front door with its trunk open. So I pulled in the lower lot, came up around and asked if he needed help. Turns out he did. I never did make it to Earcraft, but you know, God had other plans. My lack of strings and intent to drive to Earcraft were why I drove past the church that day.

So then came set-up.  I always get right in the middle of it and help out where I can not really paying attention to everything around me. All I know is that there is a task to be done and I’m going to do what I can to help. Well a gentleman commented on one of our pastor’s blogs and it got me thinking back. There was a lot of inter-team cooperation (and unity) in order to get set-up/sound check complete. It didn’t matter what your “main task” was, we were all working together.

So then with all that set up, our sound check/rehersal went long (as expected) and thus we didn’t get to reherse the last song. Now we’ve gone over it a lot in previous rehersals, but for me, my role had changed. Instead of just being in the choir, I was going to play guitar on that one  (Which I found out on Saturday). So I had listened to the song at home, trying to pick up an appropriate strum pattern, but when it came around to the song, I goofed. Honestly I didn’t care that much (not that I wanted to band to sound bad), but I don’t think anyone noticed either. (This was validated by my Small Group on Wednesday Night)  It was just such a time of worship that I dug in and went for it, a total time of just proclaiming that my redeemer does in fact live!

During the service, most of the team went to go find seats out front. I (and a few others) decided to go back stage and sit back there. Well this worked except for the fact that all the speakers were facing front and with the echo, sometimes I couldn’t catch what the speaker was saying. But some things did hit me about how the speaker broke up the word momentum, especially ‘Moment.’ Yep, how many times have I not seized a moment and an oppurtunity to do something good for someone or to share the love of Christ? Too many times. There are many opportunities and many of them I miss.

Well it took me a few days, but I’m finally going to manage to post this. I’m sure I’ll probably have more add later.  (Note I started this draft on Tuesday…eek)

In the past I’ve considered if a pastoral type position would be right for me.  Let me tell you something, a Pastor is not a position for the light-hearted.  It can be serious business.

You know, what you see on Sundays is usually just the very tip of the iceberg in terms of what your pastoral staff does. Theres all sorts of behind the scenes administrative tasks, in addition to reaching out and ministering (be it direct or through the oversight of ministry teams). These men and women are servants through and through, and you know what, their servant hearts and passion for God frighten Satan. As a result, he’ll try to being them down, making them feel overwhelmed, unworthy, uncapable.

So I urge you to set apart time, perhaps right now, or maybe once a week, or even everyday, to pray for your pastors. These men and women are on a high calling, but are still very much fragile humans. They are tempted every way each of us lay folk are. So thank God for their leadership, for their servant hearts, and pray for God’s strength for them. Pray that God would keep the enemy at bay.

“Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith,” -1Peter 5:8-9