I write like I read.

Per the title, I write like I read.  I have a tendency to forget words in a sentence, sometimes multiple words. The Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business is responsible for my reading technique.  The assigned reading could become oppressive as the quarter progressed.  To adapt, I started skipping words.  I eventually began skipping paragraphs.  I read more in less time and improved comprehension.  A win, win, win.  

The reason I mention my bad habit... I always find multiple errors or misspellings or missing words or a wrong verb tense.  I get annoyed with the errors in earlier posts.  I imagine readers might get a little irritated.  Allow me to apologize for the frequent mistakes or errors.  

I find I constantly revise or rewrite posts.  Today, I not only revised the three posts listed, but I changed two titles (#1 and #3 below):

1. Satan's cohort Resistance
2. The Big Swindle
3. A funny thing happened... 

Have a good and godly day. 

Mark chapter 2

14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at his tax collector’s booth.  “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him.  So Levi got up and followed him. 

15 Later, Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners.  (There were many people of this kind among Jesus’ followers.)

16 But when the teachers of religious law who were Pharisees saw him eating with tax collectors and other sinners, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with such scum?”

17 When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do.  I have come to call not those who think they’re righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”

This passage stopped me today.  I have read it many times and know the scripture well.  Until today, I never gave it much thought especially compared to the time I give to Psalm 1, Psalm 27, or Psalm 91.  Add Proverbs 2, 3, and 4, Genesis, and James 1 to the list as well as Matthew 5-7 and many more. 

This morning, I’m curious why Christ Followers don’t do this well… “This” being defined as reaching out to sinners.  I know Christians who are more concerned with remodeling their bathroom and kitchen than reaching out to sinners.   

Things that make me go hmmm?  

1. How well does the Church/do Christians actually go and make disciples as the Bible commands?  
2. Have Christians developed a model today based on 'if you build it they will come'?  
3. Does the Christian community focus on developing disciples as much as they focus on getting people in the pews?  
4. Is the Church effective at developing disciples?  
5. What about developing young people and students as disciples?  

Have a good and godly day.

Bible Study

Postscript to Lessons from poor friends:

Piper, my daughter, has now decided God wants her to start a Bible study. She asked five girls. All agreed to participate in the girls only, no adults Bible study. They will meet in a coffee shop or a local café or a doughnut shop… anywhere but church. If I were to ask her why not church, she would likely explain she doesn’t trust church youth leaders and tell me church is not much different than high school. There are clicks and fitting in. The meanness. The exclusion. The falseness of it all. Her perception is that church is as difficult, if not more difficult, than high school because she has no expectations of high school to be kind to her or allow for her faults. 

In less than twelve months, God has changed her life, her passions, her friends, her priorities, her self worth, and even her relationship with her twelve year old brother.  They now spend a time together and have a relationship on their terms, not mine or their mother’s.    

All because she held fast and didn’t compromise. She understood not to settle again. Settling is yielding to pressure and following the herd. Following the herd does not produce joy. It does not produce excellence. It does not produce strength. She understood she wanted to live instead of just endure; to be strengthened by peers instead of be weakened by them. 

Her life changed because she didn’t give up on God. I am proud. Honored God gave me a daughter like her to care for.  

Have a good and godly day. 

Satan's cohort Resistance.

From Steven Pressfield's The War of Art:

Have you heard this story:  A woman learns she has cancer, six months to live. Within days she quits her job, resumes the dream of writing Tex-Mex songs she gave up to raise a family (or starts studying classical Greek, or moves to the inner city and devotes herself to tending babies with AIDS).  Woman’s friends think she’s crazy; she herself has never been happier.  There’s a postscript.  Woman’s cancer goes into remission. 

Is that what it takes?  Do we need to stare death in the face to make us stand up and confront Resistance?  Does Resistance have to cripple and disfigure our lives before we wake up to its existence?  How many of us have become drunks or drug addicts, developed tumors or neuroses, succumbed to painkillers, gossip, and compulsive cell phone use simply because we don’t do that thing that our hearts, our inner genius, is calling us to [do]?  Resistance defeats us.

If tomorrow morning by some stroke of magic every dazed and benighted soul woke up with the power to take the first step toward pursuing his or her dreams, every shrink… would be out of business.  Prisons would stand empty.  The alcohol and tobacco industries would collapse, along with junk food, cosmetic surgery, infotainment… and pharmaceutical companies.  Domestic abuse would become extinct, as would addiction, obesity, migraine headaches, road rage, and dandruff.

Look into your own heart.  Unless I’m crazy, right now a still small voice is piping up, telling you as it has ten thousand times, the calling that is yours and yours alone.  You know it.  No one has to tell you.  And unless I’m crazy, you’re no closer to taking action than you were yesterday or will be tomorrow.  You think Resistance isn’t real?  Resistance will bury you. 

Hitler wanted to be an artist.  At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study.  He applied to the Academy of Fine Arts and later to the School of Architecture.  Ever see one of his paintings?  Neither have I.  Resistance beat him.  Call it an overstatement but I’ll say it anyway:  it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas. 

 Have a good and godly day.

The Big Swindle

I enjoy good writing. Good writing should linger with the reader. Today, James Altucher wrote something that has lingered. I admire his transparency. He is a regular read for me.  

He explains he is tired of trying to please others. He explains how he's finished donning his daily disguise to beg for his piece of the pie. He sees people, as well as himself, struggling to find significance and success to hopefully gain some sort of fulfillment from this world. He's done with lies and feeling ashamed 'the real [him]' might not be enough and someone might sneer.

I wonder if this is Satan? Is this the consequence of history's biggest swindle?  Remember way back when, when Satan stood toe to toe with God and convinced one third of the angels in Heaven to choose him. I'm curious what he said to get those angels to believe he [Lucifer] was the future? What strategy did he use? How many lies did he have to tell? In spite of my ignorance what actually occurred, I'm confident that those present witnessed a great show, possibly Satan's best performance ever, in Heaven that day. Should we expect anything less when Lucifer spins his web down here? 

With only their idols of fame, folly, pride, ambition, authority, riches, pleasure seeking, and whatnot… can mere men resist Lucifer? Can they be expected to turn and flee him when so many angels failed to do the same? His time tested Greatest Show in Heaven has been refined and upgraded. He has had time to refine his message and polish the presentation. It is now The Greatest Show on Earth and he stands, center ring, promoting his miracle elixirs. He knows men are fertile soil. He spreads his seeds and waits.  

Most men wouldn't recognize Satan if they shook hands with him. Men know not of his plans, his purpose, his power, or the depth of his deception. They know not the depth of his devotion. Satan smiles when mere men adopt his thoughts as their own. When his beliefs become their beliefs and his fight becomes their fight. That smile widens when they choose his way and believe it's their way. They ignorantly carry Satan's torch because those men get the glory and the honor, or so they believe.  

The Bible warns us to be sober and vigilant because the devil prowls for prey to devour. Satan disguises himself as an angel of light and presents a path that seems right but will lead to death. He will steal your joy if you let him. He will ruin your life if you let him. He will separate you from Jesus Christ. Convince you to reject God. And if that doesn't work, he will lie and get you to believe you are unworthy of God's love. Just look at the bad stuff in your life and in this world. The pain. Sickness. Death. How does a loving God let that happen to his children? Satan will tell you He doesn't. Good things happen to those people God loves. God is good to his children. So, you must be unworthy. You must not be His child. 

Lies are his expertise; his medium. He's dedicated to his craft. He prowls all day, every day. No lunch or holidays. No sick days. Works overtime. You won't find him camped in his hammock one lazy cloudless afternoon reading a novel sipping his favorite black berry iced tea. Make no mistake, Satan is a seven-day-guy. He can't wait for Monday to roll around. He's too excited at the harvest. He is always working and his hands are always dirty.

Below highlights only one strategy how Satan easily enlists people to do his bidding.  Can evil look like this?  

I don’t want to wear disguises anymore. If I don’t have anything to say, I won’t say it. I’m not going to sell anything anymore but the truth. I’m not going to spend money on things that were disguised as things they aren’t (is coca cola “the real thing” for instance?) I’m not going to be friends with people wearing disguises. I’m not going to live in a place that’s just a disguise to hide some insecurity. I’m not going to be angry at people struggling with their own disguises. And what are my disguises today:

1. Angry thoughts from events that took place years ago?
2. Thoughts of “I could’ve done X, Y, or Z ?” in the distant past.
3. Worries of the future?
4. Reactions to what people say about me?
5. Feelings like “I have to respond to just this one comment!”

I think back to all the disguises I’ve worn. I’ve been a master of disguise. Hiding big lies, small lies, white lies, black lies. All of our misery comes from wanting at all costs to remain Tom, Dick, and Jane. Normal.  The real ME must never be seen or I will be laughed at, sneered at, abandoned, and Poverty will wipe itself with the last microbes that are left of me. I get scared.

Most of Peter Parker’s stress was that he had to hide his Spiderman identity. This body of ours, this disguise, is in constant revolt against the abominable scam of having to endure. We don’t need to do that anymore. When you take the disguises off, the superficial feelings of failure, of anger, of sadness that society has programmed into us… when you just peel the past off and refuse to worry about the future, you become the superhero you were meant to be. The first person you save is yourself.

Have a good and godly day.

Hemingway

Lessons From Poor Friends

What makes a good friend? What characteristics do you value? I ask only because my daughter experienced a great deal of pain learning what good friends don’t do, or shouldn’t do. It started with her sophomore schedule that differed greatly with her current friends, specifically lunch. She would not have the same lunch as her friends. Trying to find a niche in that environment, where one gets tossed around by the sea, only served to frustrate her and steal her joy. 

The discussion meandered toward God and her prayers that He help her find better friends. She acknowledged for God to place new friends in her life, her current friends needed to be removed. Eight months later, her high school experience changed. She found friends who accept her, as is. Friends who genuinely want her to be successful and are happy for her when she succeeds. They support her. They root for her.  Friends who help her become better. Best of all, she is more comfortable with who she is and more importantly, who she isn't.

Tears are no longer part of the afternoon conversations how her best friend stopped talking to her without an explanation. Or a five page text from a friend criticizing her opinion about what's godly and what's not godly. Or being falsely accused of saying something. She no longer has to compete with friends ready to elevate themselves at her expense.  The friends who made her feel bad, even horrible, are no longer part of her life. That pain taught her what good friends don’t do. 

She knows she is good. She knows she is valuable. She's attempting to find her niche in this life; her purpose. All of it came because she left the life she built and knew and trusted God for a better life. Much of her new identity comes from Jesus Christ. She is learning to ignore what others say about her. She learned people and society frequently change their opinion without reason. 

Today, she knows what she wants from her friends. She is happier because her identity was found, and continues to be found in the unchangeable God. The price paid, the pain and hurt she endured, was a bargain considering I know women, married with three children, who haven't figured it out yet.