Dailymirror.us

I don’t like to immediately chalk up hardships or trials to spiritual warfare; however, I strongly believe that there is spiritual warfare going on around us everyday. Funny enough, if I have gone through a period of relative peace and spiritual tranquility, chances are that I am in too comfortable position. My peace is steady on Him, but when life around me is in totally chaos and I feel the spiritual clashing above and below, I have to remind myself that there is a reason. Spiritual warfare only exists when there is something worth fighting over! The object or reason may vary but the motivation is always the same: Satan is trying to keep us from Christ and His will for our lives. And I take encouragement that he ultimately will fail.

I heard a statistic in one of our staff meetings from a speaker: 77% of Americans believe that Christianity is more about organized religion than about loving people. Sadly, I wasn’t as disturbed or shocked as i should have initially been. And yet at the same time, over 66% of people are interested in finding out more about spirituality and are open to the Bible; but none of them would go to a church. The speakers point was taht we need to get out and cultivate those one on one relationships.
After thinking about it for a while, I realized how sad it was that I had not been more appalled by the first statistic. I have always felt like my face was based on a relationship and not a religion. But when an unsaved person hears that I am a Christian, he will associate that with going to church and not a personal relationship with Christ; that is UNLESS he sees it lived out daily. This impressed even more upon me that nothing is more important than my personal witness. Working at church means squat if I don’t live out the difference that Christ has made and continues to make in my life every day.

I caught Dave Ramsey on the news this morning and he gave an astonishingly revealing statistic… Over 60% of Americans currently fear losing their job, when in actuality only 3% (Unemployment rate was 5% and now it is 8%) of Americans have!
Jeremy, a good friend of mine who is very experienced with the stock market, tells me at least once a week about how the market is “fear” driven and he is So right!

It is also scary to think about the other areas of our lives that are motivated not by service or love but fear!

What a great thing it is to have an Everlasting Hope!

I have been grappling with whether not it is right to blog about work whether it is on a moral, ethical, or even spiritual level. I tried to do some searching online to find some articles about but haven’t found anything extremely helpful. So I am going to do some more digging but if you know of any resources, please let me know.

This has been a “loaded” week as one of the volunteers observed. Kelly’s first week to start with the creative team so the week was filled with bringing her up to speed (and she is absorbing it really well) My grandfather was very very sick on tuesday evening which was immediately followed by Robyn’s father passing away and being with the family on late tuesday night. Wednesday was filled with trying to help with Robyn with anything she needed for the memorial service on top of the regular work. Then Friday morning (which is my day off) I was called in to work for a late morning emergency meeting to find out that one of the minster was arrested for terrible, grievous actions which were heart-breaking for the entire church family.

But…

God is so good! Here are just a few of the blessing…

Kelly’s grasp of all we are throwing at here is incredible…my grandfather was doing better within 48 hours and on his feet by this last weekend…..I was able to finish the shoot early and get down their to see them and help them with some errands….Robyn’s fathers funeral was a truly awesome occasion and a testament to the difference between the hope of a Christian going to heaven versus the hopelessness of a non-believer dying….we were able to share some scenes in WD which starred Robyn’s father where he was playing a man who was terminally ill and getting ready to die; it was an amazing tool for those who saw it but were not believers…..on friday morning, Becky had taken my car because her car had a nail in the tire and yet God held it together so that I was able to make it all the way to Plano to be at the church and then take it to get the tire fixed which included spending time with Becky on her lunch break and that is always a blessing…and the way we as a church are responding has been encouraging as well. It also opened the door to some amazing conversations about God constant grace and the importance of staying in the Word and vigilant.

I am so thankful for these weeks…

I wrote this whole entry out the first time and then in the upload everything but the title got lost…kinda ironic when you read the first part of the re-written entry.

I can’t stand the entry titles I come up with…sound so full of themselves! As if “Something Kinda Cool Happened” is suppose to make you want to actual read the post; as if I had something intelligible to contribute to the blogosphere; as if all I needed was the title and the rest is just gravy for anyone who might be passing by on my blog. Anyway…

Self-criticism is something that I desire in an almost masochistic manner. A couple of days ago, I was sitting in a writers meeting with some volunteers and a co-worker. As usual with our creative meetings, we have spurts of getting a bunch done, sandwiched between tangents of nothingness. in one of these boughs of meaningless conversation, I turned to my co-worker (whose biggest strength/weakness is directness) and said, “What is your biggest criticism of me?”. (I will preface this by saying that I felt comfortable asking this person this question because I know that she genuinely loves me as a brother and would never say anything out of malice to hurt me.) Her reply was, “You don’t let people finish what they are saying or their thought-” to which I (no kidding) interrupted and said “i don’t think that is true…” Then I immediately realized that I just proved her right.

The more I thought about it, I realized that I cut people off allot…and I think it is directly tied to my pride. I either don’t think what the other person is saying is worth listening to or I think that I know what they are going to say and my response is more important than letting them finish. Then after even more thinking, (needless to say my head was hurting at this point) I came to the shocking (but true) conclusion that not only had I uncovered an area of huge self-pride, but I also was a horrible listener. At least I was a horrible listener anytime I felt like I had something to contribute (pretty much all the time).

I guess the only solace is that I am able to recognize it and ask for strength in that area of my life. The Father keeps bring this verse to mind: “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore i will boas all the more gladly of my weakness, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 2 Corinthians 12:9

I am so frustrated today…actually, I have been really frustrated for a while but alot of it is coming to a head today. I have been debating whether or not to write about it…in fact that is why I haven’t written for a while because these frustraton have been all that is on my mind. The reason I am not sure about writing about them is because they are with work and different projects at work.
On one hand I feel like there is nothing that I shouldn’t be able to write about on my own blog. However, the reality is that I am sure there could be people from work that might see the posts and I have a tendency to be a bit more direct on my blog then I might be in person. Ah…what to do…

Everytime I run a casting session, I am reminded how much I admire the actors who pound the pavement daily going to audition after audition looking for that one director or client who will give them their big break. Now in general this takes kahones but even more so for kids…there was one particular kid who came up to audition last wednesday for a part we have in WD. His name is John and at first you might not think of him as the acting type: John has a cleft pallette and resulting lisp. (I have been fortunate enough to have John in a bible study that I co-lead and as a regular attender on Sunday)

John first impressed me when he came up to me and asked if he could auditon for the Saturday evening praise team…and after some basic coaching, he is becoming an awesome addition to the worship service. And not only that but he by far one of the most dependable members we have! Then last week he came to audition for Wright’s Direction and again I was reminded how much I admire him, not because of his overcoming a cleft palette, but because his heart for the Lord is so clearly seen and his effort to please the Father.

The Book of Genesis shows that marriage was meant for companionship—“It’s not good for man to be alone,” It was meant for raising kids—“Be fruitful and multiply.” And Genesis gives us a third glimpse into marriage: It is meant for shared, fulfilling service. God places Adam and Eve in the Garden and says in essences, “Take care of this, you two. It’s a big operation, and you’ll need each other. Till, plant, replenish, create.”

We hunger for this. Cooperating together. Meshing. Working as a team on something bigger than both of us. God ha planted this hunger deep within every married couple. It’s more than a hunger for companionship. It’s more than a hunger to pour our lives into our kids. It’s a third hunger, a hunger to do something significant together. We were joined to make a difference. We were married for a mission. But too many couples, after developing companionship and having kids, may be missing one-third of what God created marriage for—serving him together. In marriage, as in other areas of life, Jesus’ words hold true: in saving out lives we lose them, and in losing our lives in love to others, we drink of life more deeply.

~This is from our Couples Devotional Bible and was written by Kevin and Karen Miller.

As Becky and I were reading this devotional thursday, it really hit home that God has brought us together, not just as soul-mates, and not just because we are better together than apart, but that we are better together for a reason! God has a plan for us as a couple and a path for us to walk down that will glorify Him. While I was at Focus, we read a book called Sacred Marriage and the premise of the book was ‘marriage is to make you holy, not happy’. Not that marriage doesn’t make you happy at times but rather marriage is not just for our pleasure but more importantly for HIS pleasure; for us to bring HIM glory.

Here is the really funny thing…I haven’t written in a while on here because..well actually it is because I had been busy for so long that I kept thinking of things I wanted to write about and then would put them to the back of my mind…but because I was so busy, now I have this huge list of things I want to write about but I keep putting it off because I usually only have a few minutes to write and couldn’t do justice to the list that keeps growing. AAGGGHHH!!!

A friend sent this to me…It is an interesting perspective…read it and let me know what you think…

Huckabee Will Cross Picket Line to Appear on Leno

This is so stupid to begin with that it is hardley worth responding to some of the commenters (“Larry” & “Jerry” for example) …Huckabee has publicly said that he is in favor of the strike and the conditions that the writers are pushing for (and not that it matters but so am I). And he is going for a guest interview which is not included in the writers contract as covered by the SWG (Screen Writers Guild). As other people said, he is not a scab nor is his guest appearance on Leno having anything to do with a job that would usually require an SWG writer.