Filter Through Life

 Oh my goodness!  I almost fell out of my chair laughing.  Someone found my blog by searching for….drum roll please….

“FART KNOCKER”

I don’t know how someone found me like that but that is fantastic. 

Will you please pray for my friend?  His wife is having some serious heath issues (she was taken to the ER this morning) and we are agreeing in prayer that God will give the doctors wisdom to correctly diagnose the problem, He will give comfort to her and the family and above all that He will heal her condition.

Thanks for your prayers.

It is now day 3 of my recovery from ‘Guy Night’, the all guys lock-in I had for the youth this weekend.  I stayed up until four o’clock playing Rock Band.  They stayed up even longer.  We woke up at nine-ish and went for breakfast tacos…ummm barbacoa.  After that we played lazer tag.

We had a lot of fun but I am plumb worn out.  When I got home Cheri and I worked in the yard.  We worked in the yard until nine o’clock…the next day!  That’s cool though, the next person to own my house is totally going to win yard of the month one day.

I read recently about the sale of pottery in ancient times.  Apparently, some of the jicky pottery dealers would sell the broken stuff.  They would piece it together and seal it with wax then later paint the pottery so that the repaired cracks couldn’t be seen.  The pottery looked great but the problem with wax is that it has a tendency to melt.  So, what happened when folks set the pots at the end of their driveway and summer rolled around?  That’s right, the pots fell apart leaving a shattered mess for Dad to drive over in his brand new 732 AD Olds Wagon.  (For the few of you that may think I don’t realize that Oldsmobile wasn’t around in 732 AD, I do.  I think Studebaker was big back then though.)

Anyway, I was thinking about this a lot this morning on the way to work.  We are like jars of clay.  Most of us have been broken at one time or anther and possibly still are.  When we try to “fix” ourselves we are putting the pieces together with wax.  We paint over the damage so no one will know.  The problem is, just like the potteries sold in ancient times, when the heat gets turn up we have a tendency to fall apart again.

Jesus came to fix us (Mark 2:17).  He is the master potter and the only one that can fix us.  When we are going through hard times, when we, a friend or family member are sick, when all hope seems lost, Jesus can fix us.

A special shout out to my pastor, Tony.  He has been blessed with a copious amount of grace and encouragement and has put it to good use with me several times over the last couple of years.  Thank you.

I learned a valuable lesson yesterday, which is to say I screwed up.  We had our monthly Wednesday night meeting with the youth that we affectionately refer to as Youth on the Loose.  Seven kids showed up.  Seven.  I am not complaining too much as we only had five last month.  As a matter of fact, mathematically we had a 40% increase from last month.  That looks fantastic mathematically.

It’s not the kids fault really.  It’s my fault.  I need a promotions director but since we are in no place to hire one I am stuck with, well, me.  I need to get the kids pumped up and excited about coming to our monthly meetings.  We actually have fun.  I even think the kids have fun.

So, why aren’t they inviting kids?  Is it the building?  Is it the games?  Is it the food?  No.  It’s all me.  I am the reason they haven’t invited kids.  I haven’t promoted enough.  I need to talk to them individually, en masse, via email, via myspace (I hate myspace…but I have two, mine and the youth one), via postcards, text-messages (they love that junk), phone calls and I need to give them cool invitations to give to their friends. 

Am I missing anything?  Help me out people.

I went to my friend’s house the other day only to find him working.  It was about eleven o’clock at night.  My friend is a bit of a workaholic to say the least.  I would recon that he stayed in his temple worshipping office working for another hour or so.  I even said as much but even less Jesus-like and a lot snider. 

I thought about this for a while and realized that I have a major character flaw here.  I prayed this morning for my friend and while I was praying I told God that I knew for certain that I was jacked up too and I hope some jacked up person out there was praying for me too. 

As I prayed and prayed I resolved to stop being such a jerk.  People think sarcasm is funny; the people using it.  The people at the butt of sarcastic jokes don’t think they are that funny.  I’m relatively vertically challenged and have been the butt of several jokes about it.  For years I hated the jokes but learned to not care grew thick skin. 

I am supposed to be a Godly man.  I don’t want people to learn to put up their guard when they see me coming.  I want them to know that I am not going to bring up their character flaws and/or sin and throw it in their faces.  I want them to know that I will certainly pray for their problems.  I want them to know that I don’t consider myself any better than them. 

How on earth am I going to do this?

I had breakfast with an old friend the other day and we were talking about cars.  He has this theory about cars and it is why he drives his until the wheels fall off. 

I’ll paraphrase here because I can’t remember exactly but here goes:

If I am so concerned about what kind of car I am driving and how I look while I am driving it then I am not really focusing on what other people are driving, am I?  I have a good feeling almost everyone on the road is like me and thinking about themselves and how they look too.  If that is the case, then nobody really notices me and my car so why should I care so much about it?”

Good theory.  If we all thought about this a little would we really care about the car we drive or the clothes we wear or what we have in general?  I don’t know, I just think we should take the focus off of ourselves from time to time and bless others with what we are spending on ourselves. 

I am talking to myself here big time.

We have been teaching this youth how to read the Bible over the last several weeks.  We are reading through Proverbs right now and I think it is going well.  However, yesterday I decided to mix things up and make the class uncomfortable.  I told them they had to split into two groups, read the chapter together and discuss 2 to 4 verses that they liked.  I had them elect one person to present to the class the verses they chose and explain why they chose them, what they meant and how they can apply it to their lives.

Cheri helped the senior high and I helped the junior high.  After reading Proverbs 6, I asked the kids what they liked about it and one of the young men, we’ll call him Cooper, answered “I liked verses 6-8.”

“Wow”, I thought to myself.  That was the same three verses I liked from the passage.  They are:

 6 Go to the ant, you sluggard;
       consider its ways and be wise! 

 7 It has no commander,
       no overseer or ruler,

8 yet it stores its provisions in summer
       and gathers its food at harvest. (NIV)

“So, why did you pick these verses, Coop?”

“Well, it’s telling you that you can look at the way ants behave and gain wisdom.  See, they don’t have anyone telling them what to do or anything but they are working hard anyway.  They know what needs to be done and they are doing it.”

Whole E-Cow.  My jaw was agape.  I was expecting something a little more his age, more Sunday School.  Of course, I wasn’t expecting him to pick out this verse either so I shouldn’t have been surprised. 

I exclaimed to young Cooper, “That is incredible insight and shows a lot of wisdom.  I am very impressed.  You know that you have now elected yourself the speaker too, right?”

Shrugging, “Okay.”

I don’t know if everyone was as impressed as I am but I just had to share that story.  I have read Proverbs a dozen times.  I read Proverbs 6 about five times before class.  It wasn’t until one of the last times I read it and after I had read a commentary that verses 6-8 stuck out to me.  I think I have a future scholar in my class.  Or maybe I am just dumb.

Saturday, my wife and I attended a youth leader’s conference called The Core 2008 – Generation: Change.  We really enjoyed it and took a lot away from it, including about a half-dozen books we bought.  We really needed it.  It was informative, relative and fun.  The speaker, Les Christie, was fantastic and I hope to hear him speak again.  Incidentally, he also has a son named David who recently married a young lady named…Cheri.

So I have been thinking about youth stuff, church stuff and me stuff a lot over the last couple of days and what I can do to improve these things.  There is some room for improvement in the youth and church stuff and a lot of room for a complete overhaul with the me stuff.  I need to start there.  I know if I try to fix the other stuff first then I still have a problem (or two…or seventy-six) with my own junk. 

I have to start by recognizing and admitting my weaknesses.  I don’t like admitting that I have a weakness, or several for that matter, but it is in this area that I could use the help God has given me in Cheri and the Holy Spirit.  I have to stop trying to do things on my own or I will surely screw up and burn out.

This conference was just what I needed and I highly recommend attending if you have the opportunity.  I can’t wait to begin applying what I learned and seeing a generation change.