a family christmas

Christmas, here we come. my family is always one of the first to kick off the season in america, this year with a whopping 8 day head start. while this is true, I've had the luxury of making an observation or two about the season to let you think about as you go about your merry way with your kinfolk.


i think Christmas could be a potentially stressful time for some people. as a young single, i in no way can empathize with that thinking, but as i carried in gifts with my brother-in-law tonight, i saw what it was like for a fairly average young married couple. i heard about the gift totals and travel times necessary to pull off a holiday season and i think my heads and my eggnog drinking mouth is still open. 5 Christmas' in less that 72 hours! more like a Christ-marathon-mas. my point being this, between traveling, shopping and my Achilles heel, gift wrapping, it could feel like your knee deep in reindeer droppings. but here's what i observed tonight: 

time with family is one of the most rewarding things you could ever experience. sure, you may not get the gift you wanted in dirty Santa (earlier mentioned brother-in-law, massive OU fan almost ended up with an Oklahoma state big 12 champion shirt and hat!) or maybe you're not that fond of your in-laws, but i saw tonight a very specific parallel that i would love to share.

if you're a Christian, the sustainable, accepting relationships that i hope you have in your family could very well model the way our heavenly Father feels about you. he loves us so much and he desires for us to feel that. family is a blessed gift that he gives to some of us and it's a way that God can help fix a problem that we all experience. 

"The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.”        genesis 2:18

see without family, i would just be a single guy in a college town with no students. but as i sat between the cutest grandmother anyone's ever had and an even cuter niece, i reflected on how blessed i was. that these people over time don't withdraw their affection from me, but just enjoy me and remain in relationship with me. i can't learn that on my own. that i'm loved for no reason other than simply what family i was born into. it's just amazing. i do nothing but eat turkey and make jokes and i'm loved year after year. and in the same manner, i believe that God loves and desires a relationship with me, simply on the basis of joining his family. 

so if there were 2 things i'd want you to think about this year, it's this: 

do you see how much God loves you by giving you these people and where would you be if your family wasn't here? 

merry Christmas dear friends, i hope you drink lots of eggnog and watch Christmas vacation and that you enjoy the contentment that only people in your life can bring. 

 

thankful novembers

every year the month of november offers a few special things: football, great food, fleece jackets, flannel shirts and most uniquely, an awareness of my generally ungrateful heart. after an incredible discussion on the topic with my mentor, i've really been chewing on how this plays out in life and here's what i've got.

how funny would things in our society look like, if everywhere people argued, they just gave thanks for the positives in the situation? really just let your mind go there. in a courtroom, in stead of the case being decided by the disproving of the opposing argument, it  was won by who could affirm their own points more?    

or what about in politics. in the 2012 election, obama and rick perry/cain for 2 hours strictly lauded their own fortunes and what they've been grateful to be taught along the way by others? just 2 hours of why they feel they're the most qualified candidate based off of the incredible blessings they've been provided with?  

what about sports? if announcers in the booth and on tv shows spent time just championing each others ideas. 

as a young man, i find it incredibly easy to drift towards being a critical spectator rather than to be a responsibility assuming leader that believes what's best of those in charge. (even with great friends like these guys) as a football fan, it seems so much easier to be the heckler throwing peanuts at the referee rather than putting on the striped shirt and making the calls myself. i don't envy the guy having to make the hard decisions regardless of how much he's getting paid. 

so how does thankfulness play into this mess? i'm finding that if i'm too busy being thankful for what i have and for the good in the situation, it's awful hard to get stuck on what i don't agree with. am i saying be negligent and allow harmful things to happen? absolutely not. but be ok with getting pickles that you didn't want on your burger. somewhere, somebody's not eating. get over that your football teams losing, football records are the least of some people's worries. enjoy your older car, most people don't have one. NOTE: please don't feel like you're in trouble, this is mostly for the benefit of my cynical heart.

colossians 4:2 devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. 

this gets even better. not only do we get to be thankful, we get to be watchful and thankful. so all that time and effort we can spend sometimes looking for what's wrong, that can be spent finding what's good and beneficial. i can't imagine how different my life would look if i were better at this. 

in closing, this month i want to spend time being thankful for all the good things that i've been given and for Him who gives them. including the great friends that i've shown in this post!

james 1:17 every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father. 

happy november friends!

moneyball convictions

watched the new brad pitt movie "moneyball" sunday night.. great stuff. this could stem from the fact that i like just about anything pitt does, but it correlated with some stuff i've been thinking on lately.

first: i'm not a movie critic and don't pretend to have great taste in movies.(my favorite movie is sweet home alabama) but i'm developing an ability to look past surface level themes and to see how Jesus has interwoven qualities of himself into creation. colossians 1:16 talks about this in creation as both "visible and invisible" elements that are a "shadow of the things that were to come" (col 2:17), referring back to the person of Christ. 

but here's the deal: 

pitt plays a character modeled after a real guy named billy beane, who is the current general manager of the oakland a's baseball team. a reality of the oakland a's is that on a regular basis, the money they spend on players is 25-50% of what bigger market teams like the yankees or red sox spend on players (see chart for details). as you would expect, this     

handicaps them from signing big name players and leaves them with young unproven players. the reality of the situation is that teams with money were the most successful and for years, it was few and far between that the "have not's" could catch the "haves." 

 that being said, beane (pitt) decides it's time to try something new. he decides to try a new system based off a book previously written with mathematics being the determining factor, not the eyes of scouts and what naturally seems right.

and this is what i like. as he goes about achieving his dream, he meets opposition. things don't go as planned and people don't like what he's doing. his own manager (head coach) refuses to buy in and he has to go to drastic measures to set his plan fully into motion. a couple lines between beane and his assistant gm in the stadium offices really put this in play for me: 

assistant describes how this system isn't going to make them any friends and how it's about time to hang it up

beane (loosely) "see that's the thing: we can't spend all our time worrying about what other people think, we just gotta have faith in our system and live with whatever happens." 

while that may have not been what he said verbatim, you get the idea. even if it cost beane his job and livelihood, his dream of making a difference and ultimately changing the game was held higher than the short term consequences of unhappy people. 

this past summer, i heard a sermon by a guy named rene shclaepfer at twin lakes church when i was in santa cruz. he talked through the book of daniel, and as he talked through chapter 3, a story about 3 men came up. the king of babylon was hacked and in daniel 3:14, he confronts these men for not worshipping him: "is it true, shadrach, meshach and abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the image of gold i have set up?...... if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace."

stakes are a little higher here. it's not about being the risky g.m. that makes some crazy moves, it's 3 guys going against thousands and the government authority to keep their faith in their God. ultimately, a miracle occurs and they're thrown into a blazing furnace (v.21) and walk back out (v.26). it's crazy but their faith in God wasn't in vain. 

 a few things the pastor said in his talk is that people are driven by different things, that these are there dominant life principles:

1.circumstances (how things are)   2.convenience (what's easiest)  3.criticism (what others think)   

and 4.convictions (what matters most).

as i'm determining who i want to be and what guides who i am and decisions i'll make, i find that the first 3 guide my life alot. but what i admired most about billy beane and the 3 men in daniel is that they were driven by their convictions. going against what others thought and being satisfied with knowing you're doing what is right, regardless, is one of the most admirable things i think anyone could do. i wanted to share that with you and ask you what it is that drives you. 

have a good one friends

redwoods and big waves

something i'm fascinated by is how big things can be. this summer, i've been so incredibly blessed to be working in northern california in a smaller city called santa cruz. the two things that santa cruz is known for is it's big waves and big trees. various surfer magazines call this the number one surfing spot in the country (i wouldn't know yet, the water is 55 degrees at best!) and is also 15 minutes away from some of the most famous redwood trees (pictured above). we've been pretty busy planning and getting to know the students that just arrived but i was stuck on the trees this morning. let me digress

around 6:30am, i was on my way back from the airport (dropped off my sweetheart for a wedding she was going to). i was cruising down the windy roads in the middle of the trees and podcasting one of my favorite pastors as he talked about consistency in our walk with the Lord. as i was surrounded by such beautiful scenery, one of my favorite passages came to mind. in jeremiah 17:7-8, it discusses the idea of a man of God being someone that can weather different seasons. never fearing because of it's firmly planted root system that sustains it regardless of temperature or weather.

i pushed back and thought of the men i most respected. i can appreciate people who can do things physically that i can't. lift heavy weight, jump really high, speak very eloquently, dance with coordination. but the people i admire most are the ones with perseverance. i watched a movie recently called "the way back". it was about 7 men who escaped a camp from siberia in 1941, only to enter a desert followed by the himalayans to round off a 4,500 mile trek for freedom in india. they didn't do anything fascinating other than move and survive and that blew me away. that's not my point, but what a crazy story right?

anyways, the people i respect and admire the most are the ones who do something good and admirable on a continuous basis. the qualities of steadfastness and perseverance blow my mind. i watch my friend brandon lead his family well over and to consistently give himself up for them, it just witnesses to me. i watch countless other men work jobs and consistently die to themselves and i'm amazed.

so i guess my point is this: as a 23 year old, i'd rather start to be a tree than to be a bottle

rocket. i know every "carpe diem" person threw up when they heard that, but i love that idea. for a generation of men to consistently die to themselves would be so impactful. so i guess that could be a challenge for us, be trees.

catchy leadership

this last weekend i went to fayetteville,arkansas (which for some reason i absolutely love doing, it's just so wonderful there) to be trained for a philanthropy i want to be a part of. between eating chocolate sprinkled donuts and listening to and pretending to know the words of music sang by men that wear eyeliner, it was an absolute blast.

but i think the most interesting and intriguing thing that i saw was the leadership of the man involved with the organization. the group i'm involved with is called 99 baloons, an organization centered around serving families with special needs children. it's got an amazing story behind it that if you haven't seen, you're guranteed to cry your eyes out. click on "amazing story" if you want to watch it.

but here's what i was most intrigued by, how a guy named matt leads this organization. he's elliot's father from the video if you watched it. but here's what i most enjoyed about how matt does things: (it's really almost a how to for a volunteer organization)

1. he's someone you want to be around.

-as i observed interaction after interaction, i saw how everyone involved from male students at the u of a to moms in their 40's and 50's interacted with the authority in the group, and it with both respect and smiles. it's so hard to be caring, loving and humorous while still firm, focused and driven but i feel like that's what was going on. any person who walked in to our training meeting was greeted with some sort of yell or humorous comment while still solving what they needed solved.

if this comment had a part b, it would be the trait of being comfortable in your own skin. matt's not necessarily a specimen of a man, being 6' tall with a thin frame and lacking an authoritative tone, but he was confident in his purpose and cause and that led to purpose and direction in minor decisions, and i would expect the same thinking in major decisions.

2. clear, contagious and concise understanding of the purpose and potential of the organization

-if you sit down with him for 5 minutes, he could tell you what, why and how he's doing what he's doing. the effects are that you're filled in enough to understand what the group does and if you love children, a strong desire to be a part of that. i think you could err in two directions here: people want to talk your ear off for days and go off on tangents that really don't tie back to what the purpose is. on the opposite side, someone could not really know or care enough to give you a knowledge of what's going on. matt displays a fine medium here and has enough emotional, logical and ethical reasoning behind what he's doing to call you to be a part of it.

3. a model of a leader

i think the qualities that matt brings to the table are the necessary ones. granted, i've been around him for a total of 6 hours in my life (and 1 of those comes from repeated viewings of the video) he doesn't lead from positional authority but rather from a respect that is derived from three things: a. his intellectual capacity. a law school grad that went through the situation and would be able to completely empathize with the families involved with the group. 2. he's comfortable. as previously mentioned, the guy's comfortable in his skin and confident with the direction. i think that the leader establishes the tone for the organization and it trickles down from the top. 3. unselfishness. servant leadership is the most attractive style of leading that i'll ever see. if the leader will do anything for everyone involved, it sets a tone of humility that affects all involved.

it's so fun for me to see how these things are ran, it just made me want to have a vision of my own so that i could effectively administer this pattern that was modeled for me. it's just legit to see someone loving and serving and doing it well, serving out of their respective gifts. have a good one friends

a desirable perception

i love to be perceived as a genuine, relational, laid back and caring person. if honest, i think we all desire to be looked upon in whatever manner we see as the best way to be. i would also contend that we look at situations and people with a grid of knowledge consisting of what we situationally feel is best. i tend to view things with a short checklist:

1. does it pertain to me? 2. can i fix this problem? and 3. what can i learn from this?

as a young man, i have a high tendency to perceive myself as having an unsually large ability to believe that i am what stands between a problem existing and it being solved. some could accredit this to the truth that young men have high testosterone levels, which could be valid. i don't think it's necessarily an awful desire, legitimately it could be how things happen.

but i'm finding a problem with it. if i have the ability to achieve and for some reason, don't achieve.. then what does that do for my self view? failure presents an interesting situation for self esteem. and an even greater question for christians, how does this effect God's perception of me?

one of my favorite authors, a guy named brennan manning has some great thoughts on this question: "we can not assume that he feels about us the way we feel about ourselves unless we love ourselves compassionately, intensely and freely. in human form, Jesus revealed to us what God is like." i would hardly say i have an intense, compassionate love for myself, and i don't know that i see that in a ton of people.

i heard a famous pastor once say that "he's never seen a lazy, undisciplined man who's life wasn't in inner turmoil." agreed. so what about the disciplined, achiever? and what's their life like when they're not disciplined and achieving? i don't know. but i think we have two choices and that's to view ourselves the way God does, with a ferocious, unfailing love based on his immutable character. or we could walk by God's biblical definition of himself and make it conditional.

ps: in honor the title "desirable perception", i thought it would be fun to put up pictures of celebrity actors that i think it would be so sweet to look like when aged.

paul and the patriots

have you ever played that fun game in the car where you try and connect two actors? example: brad pitt to john cusack. john cusack was in high fidelity with tim robbins, who was in shawshank redemption with morgan freeman, who was in that very gory movie i never should have watched called se7en with brad pitt. it's such a fun game, i used to play it in class when i was sleepy too. i was stirred towards this game when i was able to connect the apostle paul and the 2010-11 new england patriots. haha we'll see if it's valid while they weren't in any movies together.

as i watched espn this week, i saw something unusual. the new england patriots are playing the new york jets in 2nd round of the nfl playoffs on sunday and the coaches and players are being interviewed about the game. the jets players and coaches are consistently slandering the patriots and they aren't getting any kind of a response. across the board, the patriots are responding in a very cordial manner with a quiet confidence about the upcoming contest.

the character quality i see here is that this football team is so confidently established in their identity, that regardless of the accusations or opinions of others, they have a strong assurance about their self image.

flash back 2000ish years ago, and hear about a guy named paul. something i've been studying about him is how he had a "thorn in his flesh" in one of his letters, 2 corinthians. we don't necessarily know what this thorn is but it appears to be some sort of physical ailment. while paul pleads that it could be taken from him 3x, he comes to terms with it in verse 9 when he's told by God that His "grace is made perfect in your weakness."

does that sound weird to you? it's not natural that weakness and imperfection would be good for anything. except maybe humility. but the beauty of being a Christian is that my identity isn't in me, it's placed in the cleansing work of Jesus and my weaknesses as a sinful person point me to the need of a Savior and it draws my heart to him.

"When you were dead in your sins... God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross."

colossians 2: 13-15

the patriots are secure in their identity as a prepared, tested champion of professional football, while i'm more leaning towards paul's side where i stand confident in my identity as a sinful yet completely loved and forgiven christian.

ps here it is: the new england patriots play the new york jets this sunday, who appear to be a thorn in their flesh in a very similiar manner to paul's ailment.

haha i hope your new year is starting off very well friends!

-mandy candy