NOW

Are you like me and put things off? Do you ever think, "I'm going to write that person a note!" and then never do it? Way too often I am telling people, "I wrote a note to you in my head!" This might be a funny thing to say. Sadly, though, those words in my head never encouraged or helped anyone. They just sat there. Idle. Dead. Lost forever. Words that could have been used to speak life into someone else's life.

I can be the world's worst procrastinator. Oh, I hate this about myself! I let the present moment tasks keep me from doing little things for other people. The momentary obligations seem so large before me that those thoughts I have of 'making that phone call' or 'writing that note' all too often get swallowed up and forgotten about.

Lately, my time of bible study has been on this very point. Several times in the passed couple of weeks I have read a devotional or heard a sermon about not putting off tomorrow what you can do today. This morning was no exception. It was once again about this very point. I am pretty sure the Lord is trying to tell me something. I am reminded of the Nike slogan: Just Do It. That is what I hear the Lord saying to me: "Just do it. Do it NOW." The words I read this morning in 'Streams in the Desert' spoke so powerfully to me that I thought I'd share them with you:

What shall I do? I expect to pass through this world but once. Therefore any good work, kindness, or service I can render to any person or animal, let me do it now. Let me not neglcet or delay to do it, for I will not pass this way again. an Old Quaker saying

It isn't the thing you do, dear,
It's the thing you leave undone,
That gives you the bitter heartache
At the setting of the sun;
The tender word unspoken,
The letter you did not write,
The flower you might have sent, dear,
Are your haunting ghosts at night.

The stone you might have lifted
Out of your brother's way,
The bit of heartfelt counsel
You were hurried too much to say;
The loving touch of the hand, dear,
The gentle and winsome tone,
That you had no time or thought for,
With troubles enough of your own.

These little acts of kindness,
So easily out of mind,
These chances to be angels,
Which even mortals find--

They came in nights of silence,
To take away the grief,
When hope is faint and feeble,
And a drought has stopped belief.

For life is all too short, dear,
And sorrow is all too great,
To allow our slow compassion
That tarries until too late.
And it's not the thing you do, dear,
It's the thing you leave undone,
That gives you the bitter heartache,
At the setting of the sun.

Adelaide Proctor

Give what you have for you never know--to someone else it may be better than you can even dare to think. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I'm back!

Well, our computer crashed. Our hard drive was corrupted (whatever that means) and it took two weeks to fix. But now we are back in business. Hurray! It's been difficult being cut off from the computer world. I can't believe how much of my life relies on it. I especially missed Google. I couldn't anwer life's toughest questions such as, 'why is my dog throwing up?' or 'is itchy skin a sign of menopause?' Once, a close friend of mine had computer problems and frustratingly exclaimed, "My friends are in there!" Well, I have now felt her pain. I've missed you people!

New Title????

I am wrestling around with a new title and pic for this blog. I don't know if I'll stick with this one...just messing around with it...trying to come up with the best fit in my limited time of doing so! I just feel like I need a change. If you have any ideas, let me know. I have realized that out of my running is birthed so much of my writing. So I want to connect the two on here....

Don't Waste Your Life

Wow. Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper is a challenging, inspiring, incredible read. It is so packed full of insights; reading it a second time through would be time well spent.

One thing that got my attention was the way we waste our life watching television. Here is an excerpt:

Television is one of the greatest life-wasters of the modern age. And, of course, the Internet is running to catch up, and may have caught up. You can be more selective on the Internet, but you can also select worse things with only the Judge of the universe watching. TV still reigns as the great life-waster. The main problem with TV is not how much smut is available, though that is a problem. Just the ads are enough to sow fertile seeds of greed and lust, no matter what program you're watching. The greater problem is banality. A mind fed daily on TV diminishes. Your mind was made to know and love God. Its facility for this great calling is ruined by excessive TV. The content is so trivial and so shallow that the capacity of the mind to think worthy thoughts withers, and the capacity of the heart to feel deep emotions shrivels. Neil Postman shows why:

What is happening in America is that television is transforming all serious public business into junk...Television disdains exposition, which is serious, sequential, rational, and complex. It offers instead a mode of discourse in chich everything is accessible simplistic, concrete, and above all, entertaining. As a result, America is the world's first culture in jeopardy of amusing itself to death. (taken from 'Amusing Ourselves to Death' by Neil Postman)

In regard to the saying that when someone is dying, they never say they wished they had spent more time at the office, John Piper said we should also had this:

'No one will ever want to say to the Lord of the universe five minutes after death, I spent every night playing games and watching clean TV with my family because I loved them so much. I think the Lord will say, "That did not make me look like a treasure in your town. You should have done something besides provide for yourself and your family. And TV, as you should have known, was not a good way to nurture your family or your own soul."

He also said, instead of asking the questions: what's wrong with it? What's wrong with this movie? Or this music? Or this game? Or these companions? Or this way of relaxing? Or this investment? Or this restaurant? Or shopping at this store? what's wrong with going to the cabin every weekend? Or having a cabin? What's wrong with decorating? What's wrong with buying clothes?......This kind of question will rarely yield a lifestyle that commends Christ as all-satisfying and makes people glad in God. It simply results in a list of don'ts. The better questions to ask about possible behaviors is: How will this help me treasure Christ more? How will it help me know that I do treasure Christ? How will it help me know Christ or desplay Christ? The Bible says, "Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31) So the question is mainly positive, not negative. How can I portray God as glorious in this action? How can I enjoy making much of him in this behavior?

....is that convicting or what?

Celebrating 20 Years!

Tomorrow I will, God willing :), be at the beach with my favorite, oldest girl friend of all time! I can't wait! Guess what we hope to do? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! You know your friendship is real when you can do absolutely nothing with someone and still have a blast!

This is our 20th year Anniversary trip, celebrating 20 years of being friends! Wow--we're kind of old!

Some Great Quotes

This quote was on LPM (Living Proof Ministries) blog and I wanted to share it:

"Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Grab life by the mane. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Consider the lilies. Enjoy the journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Don't let what's wrong with you keep you from worshipping what's right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze a new trail. Criticize by creating. Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don't try to be who you're not. Be yourself. Laugh at yourself. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Quit running away. Chase the lion."
- Mark Batterson

This was also one:
Feelings are attached to your beliefs. If you want to change the way you feel about something, first change what you believe about it. --Pastor Tony Evans

Our Worldview

There is something that has been really concerning me lately. A few posts back, in 'Sanctification', I touched upon it at the end of the post. I mentioned that where we spend our time and what we choose to put into our minds will shape who we are.


What is concerning to me is where we Christians are spending the majority of our time. Are we spending it on the books that we are reading? If so, what are we reading? Are we spending it watching television? If so, what are we watching? Are we spending it on the computer--facebook, reading blogs, email? So, in doing all of these things, do we spend nearly as much time immersed in scripture? If we don't, than what is shaping our worldview? What we fill our minds with is what will shape what we believe. Period.

Some of the books being read by the average Christian (and being 'loved', I might add) is worrisome. One of those would be 'The Shack'. I'll admit that when I first read this book, I got caught up in the hype. Like many, my rationale going on inside my head was: 'it's just fiction--what's the big deal?' and 'it is 'out of the box' and makes you see God's love in a new light'. I even put it on my book list on the side of this blog. However, the more I thought upon this book, the more something didn't sit right with me. I believe now it was one of those Spirit checks--you know the feeling you get deep inside when you know something is not lining up with God's truth. The more I thought upon how God the Father is depicted in The Shack and how VERY contrary it is to God the Father in the Bible, I started to feel sick. Honestly, if you get down to it, it is absolute heresy. In The Shack, God the Father is depicted as a woman. What in the world? Seriously? Filling our heads with 'theology' contrary to biblical theology, is extremely dangerous. How can we say we believe God's Word 100% and yet read something that is in complete opposition to God's Word and not be put off by it?

Then there are the fictional books by Dan Brown--Angels and Demons and the Da Vinci Code. Again, someone might want to argue that these are just fiction. However, Dan Brown will tell you that he believes the things in these books to be 'truth' (even though they are based on half truths, out right lies and very flimsy conspiracy theories). Again, if we are filling our minds with all of this, but not immersing ourselves in The Truth, our worldview is going to be affected.

Filling our heads with knowledge that is partially true, yet partially 'off' is like standing on a slippery slope. When you stand on a slippery slope your feet slowly slide down until you are standing on different ground. And it happens so gradually you don't know how you got there. That is what is going to happen to our minds. Gradually we will come to a place where we are believing something that is in complete opposition to what the Bible says to be true. And we will wonder how we got there. The bottom line is: are we going to be 'grounded' in scripture or 'man-made' views?

And what about Twilight? Harry Potter? Even though they are fiction are they opening us up to the dark side of evil...little by little making it seem 'okay' and 'no big deal'? Can we run these things by the verse: 'whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admireable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things?' Phil. 4:7 If these things don't pass the standards of this verse, should we be filling our minds with it? 'Come on!', you might say, 'it's Harry Potter! He is harmless!' I just don't see how opening up our minds and the minds of our children to witchcraft and sorcery could be a good thing. And the recent Harry Potter movie seems to be even darker than the previous ones. Again, it's the 'slippery slope concept'--slowly, little by little, the movies are getting a little more risky, a little darker. Little by little, so that the audience doesn't even realize it.

And then there are the television programs....adultery, casual sex, violent killings on detective/police dramas, reality after reality show...all portrayed as the norm. I heard recently, that the average person will waste twelve years of their life watching television. Twelve years. Can you believe that? And we want to argue that this stuff doesn't affect us?

Jerry Rankin in the book Spiritual Warfare, points out that every single thing we do in life either glorifies Christ or glorifies Satan. There is no neutral ground. He quotes C.S. Lewis in his introduction of 'The Screwtape Letters': there is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch and every split second are claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan. Rankin also points out that so often we live in the neutral zone. We don't pointedly choose the things of Satan. We don't want to follow the ways of the world. But neither do we consciously choose and submit to God and following Him. When our minds are in neutral we are vulnerable. We have to fill them with God's thoughts, God's truth, and a conscious commitment to Him.

In close, I leave you with an excerpt from Jerry Rankin's book:

Scripture makes clear that renewing the mind is something we do. "You took off our former way of life, the old man that is corrupted by deceitful desires; you are being renewed in the spirit of your minds; you put on the new man, the one created according to God's likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth" (Eph. 4:-22-24). We are constantly putting aside that old nature, the flesh, rejecting it and denying it. We refuse to acknowledge it and give place to it. But how do we put on the new self that is in the likeness of God, that is, a Christlike life? We do that by renewing our minds, making the conscious decision to reject the old, sin nature and choosing to view our life as in Christ. We don't readily do this unless every day we are feeding on His Word and building up our faith in an awareness of God's truth. Only then can we discern and recognize when something is contrary to God's truth and Christlikeness.