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I have this ongoing problem. Maybe you can relate. I love books. My problem is that I’ll read major parts of a book and then never come back to it. In other words, I never finish a book. This problem of reading books this way comes to my mind because I realized today that the two same books have been sitting on my nightstand for well over a year. I’ve barely read them. I just re-read the preface and introduction over and over again. So in my quest to rethink how I read to grow spiritually, I found this statement by D. Whitney:

Reading for sheer enjoyment was long ago forsaken.  Reading for Christian growth rarely happens. Most days, a few minutes in the Bible is all that’s left of their reading.  Those who love to learn and those who want to grow grieve the loss of reading like the loss of a close friend.

daddy part 2

so i’ve been waiting to write this post because i’m still trying to get my mind around this single truth: i’ll be parenting 2 kids in 2010. cj’s pregnant and that’s pretty exciting for us.

am i freaked out? are you kidding me? yes.
am i ready? no.

truth of the matter is i’m just praying that i can hold on to dear life as i try to raise our kids. that by god’s grace our kids turn out sane even when they have parents who have no clue what they’re doing. i’m also thanking god for the next stages of our lives. i mean lillian is so much fun. she’s brought meaning to our lives in a way that we simply can’t explain. it’s this intuitive sense of gratitude in me that also tells me having 2 kids is something we’re suppose to be doing right now so we should enjoy it because it’ll be gone before we know it. while i may not know much about parenting what i do know is that i won’t waste any time trying to figure out how to be a good dad to my kids because they won’t be kids for very long.

we get one shot at it…
better give everything i can to doing it right.

a leader

I’ve concluded as of late that it is a serious thing to call yourself a leader of people and to assume any kind of position of this nature should never be taken lightly. This sort of comes to my mind today as I’ve been reading about the life of Moses and Aaron lately. The constant pressure on these two souls is hard to fully imagine. Yet that is exactly what God was calling them to do; to endure so that others might live: to bear their burden. As they do so I’m seeing more and more this important truth; that being, God’s doing more in the individual(s) than He is in the mission; that getting things done or accomplishing the mission is almost secondary to how he shapes the heart and soul of the one He calls to serve. So as I’m admiring these guys I come to this statement:

¹² But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.”

thought today

Seems like a lot of good people are displaced these days and feeling a bit jaded with their current church situations. Just today someone asked me if they should leave their church and quite honestly I’m never comfortable answering that question because there simply isn’t a perfect church out there. So as I was praying for friends who find themselves in transition this simple thought came to my mind: You don’t find perfect community, you uncover what has always been there or you find time to create it. Nothing happens without personal invitation and consistent participation.