A Curious Way

I am doing Beth Moore’s study on the Patriarchs of the Old Testament right now. Good stuff, and especially dear to me, since the Lord used the call of Abram in Gen 12 to place a call on my own life… one to follow Him wherever He might lead.

In Genesis 17, Abram and Sarai have already made the mistake of taking the fulfillment of the promise of God into their own hands by giving Abram the servant girl Hagar. <here’s an interesting side note… Islam claims Ishmael as their forefather and the child of the promise. Have you ever noticed what was prophesied about Ishmael? Gen 16:12 says “He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.” I thought that was interesting roots…>  Anywho… God gives Abram the promise when he is 75. When Abram is 86 is when Ishmael is born… and then God comes to Abram in Gen 17 when he is 99 years old. God is absolutely committed to this covenant, but can you imagine all the things that ran through Abram’s mind all these years? Maybe I forfeited the promise when I messed up with Hagar? Maybe Ishmael really is the promised heir? Maybe God has forgotten or changed his mind? Maybe this vision wasnt really from God?

So he is now 99, and God comes to Abram to change his name and call Abram to walk blamelessly before Him… to give his whole self to this God. And in verse 5, God says “…for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.”

Notice the present tense.

God had made Abram the father long before Abram ever had offspring and could see this physical reality.

I wonder what God has already made you?

It’s been a long time, vox! I miss you!

I have started seminary and have been exceedingly busy (though I’m sure not any more busy than any of you out there who are faithful in posting…) but, seminary is my attempt at an excuse. A real post I hope should come soon, but as for now… I need some help.
Okay, so this may be a dumb question, and is probably not the appropriate place to ask it.. but it seems as if there may be a lot of techies out there… so here’s my question.

I use a Powerbook (Mac) laptop and I have a wireless network set up in our house. However, I don’t have a password on it, and all my neighbors have passwords on theirs. I think I need a password But the problem is, I have honestly looked for how to do this (add a WEP password) but can’t figure it out!! Any help out there??

Okay, so last week we had a staff retreat at the Lake of the Ozarks. We were put up in this beautiful condo right on the water with a dock and a nice pool and stuff. Most of our time was spent in meetings and processing, but literally every chance I got, I was either sitting outside on the screened in porch or down on the dock fishing or swimming.

So on one of these aforementioned breaks, I was down on the dock with Tiffany and Adam (check out their vox blogs!) and I didn’t have pockets, so I had my cell phone hooked over the waistband of my shorts. I asked Tiffany what she would do if I just jumped in right there (fully clothed, mind you!) So I take off my cell phone to hand to her as if I am going to jump in and… my cell phone, jealous that I was going swimming without it, just jumped in the lake!

NNOOOOOOOOO! I yelled as I watched my cell phone sink slowly to the bottom of the lake.

“Should I go after it? Should I go after it??” I frantically asked my friends. They didn’t respond and just looked at me blankly. I was wearing all my clothes, I’m sure they were thinking.
So, of course I went after it, and of course it was totally out of sight and on the bottom by the time I jumped in, and of course I couldnt find it because I couldn’t open my eyes under the water. My helpful roommate Tiffany said she would call my phone to see if I could hear it.
So, eventually I got out of the lake, dripping wet and fully clothed, and made my way upstairs to continue in staff meetings, but very sad that I’d just lost my phone.

So about 3 hours later we are at the pool, and I see this kid with goggles, and I’m like, I’m totally going to borrow his goggles and go look for that phone! And so I ask him, he gives me a weird look, and reluctantly gives them to me, while saying “It’s not going to work you know.”

So, I jump in the lake, dive down 10 feet and what do I see sitting there on the bottom on the first try? My cell phone!

So we take it out and disconnect the battery. Some men at the pool tell me to blow dry it. There is water like sloshing around in both of the screens. By the next day there is only condensation, and I plug it in.. and TA DA! It works! Everything including the vibrate, ring, and everything works just fine! Except the camera… that looked as if you were looking through dark lake water (which, in essence, I guess you were)

But, after a few days baking out in the sun with me at the pool it was free and clear of all condensation and the camera even cleared up!

My phone is a stud! After 4 hours on the bottom of a lake, it’s as good as new.

Are you ever afraid to be honest? To be totally upfront with others, with yourself, with God…

I typically see myself as a very transparent person, pretty willing to tell anybody everything… but I guess I see the Eve coming out in me… when I see others walking through the garden who seem to be ‘right’.. to have it all together, and it is much easier to hide in the fig leaves than to come before them with my nakedness.

It’s amazing where spontaneity will lead you.

A couple weeks ago I was planning on taking a week of vacation because virtually all my co-workers were gone (some of them were at Origins at Mosaic!) but I didnt want to just sit around for my week off.

So, some of my friends, Charity and Thomas decided that they wanted to go somewhere too. So, on Thursday night we were going to NYC, but by Friday morning, we were going on a cruise! I got up Friday morning to book our cruise, but the one we wanted was full. We found another one that would work and was only a bit more expensive (we found awesome deals at vacationstogo.com) So Friday by 11am I had booked our cruise. By Friday at 1pm I had packed all my stuff I would need for the next 10 or 11 days and headed for St. Louis.

Once in STL mom and I shopped for a cocktail dress for me (for formal night on the boat) and then drove to Louisville. Saturday and Sunday morning were spent house shopping and then I drove back to Illinois to meet my friends, hop in their car and head for Tampa (which is like a good 18 hour drive from Missouri :-O )

So, we get there, barely make it on the boat (we sort of had our boarding time wrong) and headed off for our Caribbean adventure! We went to Grand Cayman and Cozumel, and overall had a fabulous time! We ate way too much, laid around in the sun by the pool a lot, and had a great vacation.

My favorite part was a shore excursion that we took on Grand Cayman where they took us out to “Stingray City”… this sandbar where like hundreds of stingrays lived. We got in, swam around with them, fed them, held them and kissed them! It was so great! They were used to the people and boats, and so they were very friendly!

I’ll show you some pics…

This is Charity with one of our towel animals that our room steward made for us each day!

Another animal.. but this one’s made out of cheese! They had this incredible buffet with like ice sculptures and all these super fancy incredible desserts and stuff..

This was the three of us all dressed up for “formal night”

Getting ready to hang out with the stingrays

Kissy kissy!

The girls at a pretty spot in Mexico… pre getting my hair braided and pre eating Mexican food in mexico!

And last, but definitely not least… this is a moment I captured when God really spoke to me and showed me His beauty. I found an empty spot on the deck, finished up Blue Like Jazz and just cried as I saw and felt His beauty…

Hope you enjoyed a brief view of my travels! I’ll try to not be such a stranger to the city of voices anymore!

So, especially since I’ve been out of school, the amount of time that I write using paper and pen is increasingly lowering percentage-wise in comparison with how much I write electronically. The one exception I really have to this is when I journal (although now with blogs, perhaps I am writing even less in my journal.)

The other day at work I was writing a post-it note to somebody that I was going to stick in their mailbox on a stack of papers I was giving them. I finished the note, and realized I had to write the exact same note to somebody else, and I actually thought “COPY, PASTE!” (or apple C, apple v) It was as if my brain was in shock that I would actually have to write something twice, and it’s immediate first reaction was to try to copy and paste!! I was in disbelief about this about my brain.

So then I started thinking… it seems as if handwriting is becoming more and more extinct… and I just wondered… do you think in like 50 years or 100 years, that they probably won’t even teach kids to write in school??? Crazy thought huh!

A dialogue between Lewis Carroll’s Alice and the cat, which starts with her question, “Would you please tell me which way I ought to go from here?”

The Cat: That depends a great deal on where you want to get to.
Alice: I don’t much care where–
The Cat: Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.
Alice: –so long as I get somewhere.
The Cat: Oh, you’re sure to do that… if you only walk long enough

Contrast that with a quote from Thomas Merton

“If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for, in detail, and ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully the thing I want to live for. Between these two answers you can determine the identity of any person. The better answer he has, the more of a person he is.”

And lastly, some questions to ponder in getting us to having the right perspective on our journey

Where am I headed, and what are the great questions that will challenge me along the way?

What kind of person am I becoming as a result of this journey?

What does God expect of me as I run the race?

What have I been equipped to accomplish?

What can I give?

*Borrowed from Gordon MacDonald’s book A Resilient Life

So some of my friends and I are having a LOTR marathon, watching the extended versions 3 nights in a row. (It’s finals week here, and you have to do things like this during finals week…

So we watched the Fellowship last night. I know there have to be a lot of LOTR lovers out there… so I want to hear what your favorite scene or quote or whatever is from any of the movies!

“The devil went down to Georgia. He was lookin’ for a soul to steal. He was in a bind ’cause he was way behind, and he was willin’ to make a deal, when he came across this young man sawin’ on a fiddle and playin’ it hot. And the devil jumped up on a hickory stump and said, “Boy, let me tell you what.”

“I guess you didn’t know it but I’m a fiddle player, too. And if you’d care to take a dare, I’ll make a bet with you. Now, you play pretty good fiddle, boy, but give the devil his due. I’ll beta fiddle of gold against your soul, ’cause I think I’m better than you.” The boy said, “My name’s Johnny, and it might be a sin. But I’ll take your bet, you’re gonna regret, ’cause I’m the best that’s ever been.”

“Johnny, rosin up your bow and play your fiddle hard, ’cause hell’s broke loose in Georgia andthe devil deals the cards. And if you win you get this shiny fiddle made of gold. But if you lose,the devil gets your soul.”

It seems to me that the devil doesn’t use the the things we know we’re weak at, but the things we think we’ve mastered. Tonight I feel like the things I’ve espoused in teaching others are the very things that the devil is using against me, and tonight I feel like I can’t play the fiddle very well.

encountered a quote this weekend from Leo Tolstoy that jarred me. It said “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

I think I, for one, am guilty of often thinking and talking about the big picture and the grand ideas, and being cynical about the way things are. This quote reminded me and encouraged me to start to become the kind of person that is so loving, self-controlled and Christ-like that the world will in fact be changed, rather than just talked about being changed.

Also, in browsing back through a book I am reading “A Resilient Life” I found some things that speak to this. He writes (beginning with a quote from a Scott Turrow novel):

” ‘Many years ago I learned their dirtiest, most crabbed secret. That their passion to change the world derived from the fact that they could not change themselves.’ Was Turrow reading my mail when he wrote those words? Did he know that, as a younger man, I was regularly talking about something I’d not mastered myself? How did he identify this human tendency of ours to preach hard and to lay a guilt trip on others as a kind of cover for our own sense of shallowness?”

“A second thing I learned about the pursuit of resilience was rather obvious but, nevertheless, important to acknowledge: ‘Developing resilience is demanding, mostly done in secret, often humbling, not always fun.’ ”

And one more thing to chew on “one must anticipate that the greatest contributions God has for us to make will happen in the second half of life.”

The race of life is a race of distance, not a sprint. Caleb in the OT is a great example of being a champion in the second half of life. Read Joshua 14. Caleb says “Give me the hill country… i am eighty-five, and I’m as strong as I was at forty-five.”

What is the Lord saying to you about your race?