What do YOU want?

I watched the Notebook this week. And you know what…I don’t care what anyone thinks, I’m down with chic flicks…and I don’t feel any need to explain myself.

Do you know what it’s like when you watch a movie and one particular scene just hits you and for hours and even days after you can hear that dialogue echoing in you? There is a scene in this movie when Allie comes back from a morning out with her mother to speak with Noah. Noah and Allie stand by her car yelling at each other until Noah disarms her by telling her who they are. He tells her that it will be hard and that they will have to work at it and he tells her that she needs to decide what she wants regardless of what everyone else around her wants. Not what he wants or what her parents want or anyone else. “What do you want? What do YOU want?”

God asks us this question so often. Recently I have realized that God does give wisdom to anyone who asks without finding fault. (James 1:5) You see, I ask Him for it, He gives it to me but I don’t use the wisdom to make the decision. I tend to make up an excuse that I am waiting to hear His will when I know His will is for me to use the wisdom He has given me. Follow?
Ahhh…crazy huh. Sometimes I think He wants us to JUST make a decision instead of lingering in the valley of decision forever. When our motives and intentions are good and perhaps we make a slightly not so good decision, I think God has an amazing, awesome way of righting our wrongs for His purposes. This kind of thing sounds more like faith walking to me than waiting to know 100%. Who honestly has ever known anything 100%?
So….what do YOU want?

soundtrack for the day

Today is totally a Coldplay day in Chicago. The dude I work with came into the office singing Kenny Rogers…really!?! It is clearly not a Kenny Rogers day. Seriously, it may be overcast and a Monday morning but can you feel it? Yes...there is a fresh breeze of hope in the air. This is obviously a Coldplay day. Go ahead, choose any of their albums but I highly recommend “Coldplay Live 2003”. Enjoy

(p.s like really, when is it ever a Kenny Rogers day?)

Hitch

So my B/Day has come and gone…a good one. Valentines Day has come and gone… also a good one. And I managed not to write any cynical or nugatory words about either of these landmark days.

I must say, I did go see the movie Hitch on Tuesday night, which was more than a good laugh. Big Willie was his usual smooth self but gave away far too many “guy dating secrets” than I was comfortable with. But since I have become a committed advocate for the “don’t play games” dating method, I think that perhaps there shouldn’t be any dating secrets on either side of the fence. So let me share one that I hope will help both parties, come that day of war; also know as the first date.

Guy Secret #1
(this next part sounds better when read with the imaginery voice of Bernie Mac.)
After, in the car on the way back, a comment was made that guys should really listen when on a first date, which I totally agree with, but I found myself defending the fact that this is a huge undertaking for a guy on a first date. You see most girls don’t realize the unfortunate context a guy is in on his first date. Though he may be calmly sitting there across the table, know that he is in the middle of a transparent hurricane of self. The thing is girls, guys are fighting an invisible battle while the pursuit is on. And I’m not talking about just being nervous, I’m talking about the high stakes. See it’s not the impression he leaves with you that he is mostly concerned about.
Nhhooo, that be the myth. The truth is, he has put himself, his identity, his ego, and his value on trial and as much as he hates it; you become his judge. I’m not saying its right, and yes John Eldridge I know a guy shouldn’t ask a woman to name him but somehow that first date invokes a stamp of acceptance or rejection. Heavy huh. And I know there are “yeah, buts” and “what if’s” but generally speaking first dates are just painful for guys. But guys if you fall off the horse, get back on there. Remember you’re a 100% cowboy no matter what she may name you. Way too many brothers out there dating their T.V’s and cuddling with their remote controls, hiding away when they are supposed to be at war. Get over yourselves and get out there!

Sojourners & Acts Ch2

Everyday for the last 40 days I have been reading, rereading and meditating on Acts Ch2. I myself am convinced that Act Ch2 is our blue print for authentic Christian life for such a time as this.

On Wednesday night after some Knight Rider maneuvers on the freeway, yet still 40 minutes late, we managed to squeeze into the back of the little stone chapel. Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners Magazine was introducing his new book, “God's Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get it”. He was speaking on a panel with two other women who were really smart, very progressive, very democrat and were self-proclaimed evangelicals. It was a hot box of passions and opinions. I agreed and disagreed…it was sweeeet. Yep, there is nothing like being righteously worked up. It stirred me deeply and to be stirred is to know that your heart still works. My heart so comes alive in this environment when Christians are unapologetically and thoughtfully using their minds and faith to sincerely bring the redemption of the Gospel to every facet of society.

I won’t even attempt to dive into it with one paragraph to go. But I do want to throw out a simple question that has been rattling around in me from my Acts 2 meditations that Wallis neatly articulates in his book; “How do we get back to a historic, biblical, and genuinely evangelical faith rescued from its contemporary distortions?”
Thoughts?

I do want to give a shout out to the brilliant minds that dragged me out there. Kat and Mary (Sojourners advocate at large). Thank you gals for the deeply thoughtful convo after. (I still can’t believe you guys got free drinks and I had to pay. Please Kid Remember is going down!)

bumper stickers

This week I have driven into work and noticed several interesting bumper stickers. My wicked side grins when I read the “Horn broken watch for finger” kinda stickers.

But it’s the fish-truth stickers that grab my attention. You know the whole Darwin-evolving-fish-with-feet sticker that gets me thinking. Thinking about the person driving the car, I inevitably drive up to look at them and spend the next few minutes thinking about the sad series of events that led them from being an unknowing kid to an anti-God adult.

This week, listening to Jim Cymbala and Ravi Zacharias at Moody Church, I have been really impressed by their tough-truth-of-God-shared-in-humility-and-love style of preaching. I guess I’m just not a bold Fish-I’m-a-Christian-in-your-face-bumper-sticker fan. I think we should pursue the harder way of conveying the gospel of love rather than turning our relationship with God or our witness into some sort of sports fan like loyalty or political party allegiance or even into some sort of “look I’m not ashamed of the gospel” kind of test. So what’s the answer? Maybe there should be a bunch of bumper stickers that say stuff like “Jesus loved Darwin” or something more lovingly truthful. Or could that still be a little snide?… I don’t know in fact I don’t really care either. I guess I just love how the early church conquered North Africa for Jesus by rescuing abandoned babies on the rubbish dumps outside the cities. It wasn’t because of the fish stickers on their chariots but because of their love in action- that's powerful witness. Perhaps the time has come for us believers to shut our stupid mouths and love more extravagantly…I just feel that way... coz lets face it few people are really listening to our exhausting religious banter we call the gospel.

(Maybe I’m saying all this coz I don’t drive christian enough to deserve a fish sticker on my car. But I do have a very cool bumper sticker on my fridge that says “Abstinence pays, who wants genital warts.”)

Erytins gonbe airight

I love Bob Marley. This year will be the celebration of what would be his 60th birthday. The main celebration will be in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In honor of his Rastafarian beliefs and his high regard for the late Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie. (his spiritual leader.)

I know a lot of you reading this don’t really care about any of this but I just thought I'd take this opportunity to dispel the stereotypical thought that Bob was just a pot smoking reggae musician. No way friends, He was a revolutionary for his people, for the cause of freedom and the struggle against oppression. His guitar was his gun and his lyrics his protest. He received a United Nations Peace Award, in recognition of his attempts to calm the warring factions of Jamaican politics and played at Zimbabwe's independence celebrations in 1980.

Aged 36, he died of cancer in 1981 and was buried with his Gibson guitar and Bible beside him.

Bob be da man! Reeespect Aih.