American Idols

American Idol started back up last week, and I have to say, I love that show. It's ridiculous and over hyped, but there is something about it that is incredibly entertaining. It's a mix of the awe of watching a train wreck and the awe of being mesmerized by heart touching, enchanting music, which is a whole other topic I may write about later. One way or another though, for millions of people every week, American Idol is the show to be watching, but it gets me to thinking...

The show is called American IDOL, and in some cases, just IDOL. The contestants are trying to become an idol, to be idolized, and for many Americans, and contestants, the judges are very much idols. You can watch the show and see plenty of people who are more than satisfied to simply meet, touch, hug, or kiss the judges, and they don't even care whether or not they make it through. They were able to have an encounter with their idol, and that is all that mattered to them.

Now, as Christians, we are not to have any idols. We are not to have any other gods before God, and we should not be worshipping and fawning over anything or anyone aside from God. This is easy to preach, and we all "get it" on a spiritual level, I guess. I mean, we don't have big golden calves in our living rooms that we pray to every day, but we still have idols, and for a lot of people, they come in the form of celebrities. So many people love American Idol because we get to be entertained by and "have an encounter" with current celebrities and those who hopefully soon will be. They are, quite literally, our idols.

I am currently reading Crazy Love, and there is a quote in there by John Piper that I find very interesting.

“The critical question for our generation—and for every generation—is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ were not there?”

This is a very pointed question. Is God your idol? He commands us not to have any other gods before Him and to not have any idols ... and it is because He should be our only idol. He should be the one that we fawn over. Just like many contestants on American Idol are completely satisfied to meet their idols in the judging room, even if they don't put them through to Hollywood, and even if they tell the contestant that they cannot sing at all. How many of us are this way with God? Are we thrilled to simply be in His presence? Is it the highlight of our lives to spend 2 minutes before our Lord, regardless of what He says or doesn't say? Is Christ our idol, and could we be satisfied with Him and Him alone or are there so many other idols in our life that we could be satisfied in Heaven without Christ?

(Random photo that I found online.)

   

S.W.A.T.

Coming up here in a month, my church, X Factor, will be hosting our 2nd annual SWAT Seminar. SWAT stands for Spiritual Warfare & Apologetics Training, and that is exactly what this seminar is. It is a 2 day event to learn about apologetics from all angles and be prepared to give a reason for the hope that we profess as Christians (1 Peter 3:15). In case you don't know what apologetics is: Apologetics is simply "a branch of theology devoted to the defense of the divine origin and authority of Christianity"

Last year the sole presenter was Luke McKinnon, the pastor of X Factor, and we looked a lot at intelligent design and woodpeckers. This year, however, we are raising the bar and bringing in some world renowned apologists: J.P. Moreland and Craig Hazen will be presenting along with Luke McKinnon.

The topics for this year's seminar include: Christianity Among the World Religions, Case of the Existence of the Soul, Evidence for the Resurrection, and The Apologetics of C.S. Lewis. So if any of this peaks your interest/curiosity you should come join us.

The seminar will be Feb. 24-25 at the Albuquerque International Balloon Museum, and the cost is only $25!

To register, click here.

Sacrifice

We have been going through the book Radical at church, and we are now in the last chapter, which is a challenge. The challenge is a one year challenge and includes:

1. Pray specifically for the entire world. There is a great website: http://www.operationworld.org/, where you can get daily prayer guides for specific countries around the world. It includes specific information and prayer needs for that country, and is a great way to pray for the entire world.
• Today's country is Poland http://www.operationworld.org/pola
2. Read through the entire Bible, cover to cover, every verse. http://www.youversion.com/ has a lot of great reading plans to help with this. You can choose to read straight through, Genesis to Revelation, a historical reading, topical, Chronological, or any of several other plans.
3. Sacrifice your money for a specific purpose. The whole idea here is to SACRIFICE, not just give the leftovers, but make a real sacrifice to help others. Figure out what you need to live on and donate the rest to a very specific purpose.
4. Spend your time in another context. In other words, the challenge is to spend at least 2% of your time serving, going somewhere you are not used to or comfortable in to serve others. This may mean volunteering at the local homeless shelter or it may mean traveling across the globe, or both.
5. Be invloved with an active church, with people dedicated to living life as Christ has told us to live it.

This is the challenge that Manda and I are committing to for the next year, and I must say that my initial reaction to it is that it will be fairly easy. Praying, reading the Bible, being involved with a church, those won't be that hard, and it won't be that bad to donate time and money, right?

Well, turns out it's gonna be harder than I thought because, as I was thinking about what I could sacrifice to donate money to a specific purpose I realized that what I would need to sacrifice is not something I want to get rid of. My phone.

I spend money every month for a data plan on my phone that I use constantly, but in no way, shape, or form need to have. I also realized that I have wanted to sponsor a child through World Vision for quite some time now, but have always said we don't have enough money. The money I spend every month on my data plan will cover most of the cost to sponsor a child every month. So, even though I absolutely do not want to get rid of my smartphone, when I compare having the luxury of immediate internet, social media, and app access to helping provide a child, their family, and their community with basic needs, food, shelter, health, etc... I cannot say that I would rather spend my money on my phone than another human being. So I am giving up my smartphone for a simple, basic phone and will be sponsoring a child.

We have also talked about other ways to sacrifice, including cutting back our Netflix service, cutting back our cable/DVR service, cutting back our eating out, among other things, and we have other things that we would like to do with that money, but we haven't really decided on anything else.

It's pretty crazy though how difficult it is to cut back my service. I went in to T-Mobile yesterday to change out my phone, but I was met with very odd looks when I said I wanted to downgrade my phone, and then I was told I couldn't get a simple basic phone without using my upgrade and paying $50 at the cheapest. It seems strange that I would need to spend almost 3 months of my data plan just to get a simple phone, but I am looking into other options to get a phone right now. I'm pretty sure we are going to sponsor a child soon even if I don't get my phone figured out.

Anyways, this is really long so I'm gonna wrap things up. I'm nervous and excited for how these changes will affect our lives over the next year, but primarily just excited to see how God will work in our lives and the lives of those around us when we choose to live as He has instructed us to live!

8 Mile

Yesterday I ran 8.03 miles with M&M. It's the farthest I've ever run by about 1.5 miles. We went up to Tramway and ran from Candelaria to Paseo del Norte and back again. By the end of the run it was very dark, we didn't leave early enough, but the dark, and the cloud cover, and the little bit of rain that we encountered during the run were much more welcome than the blaring sun that has been around during most of the day the last couple weeks.

Anyways, I learned a couple of things while (well actually after) doing that run.

1. I always swore that I hated and would always hate running, but I'm actually starting to enjoy it, thanks to Manda getting me to go run with her.
2. I have huge respect for Manda, who has run a Half Marathon. I cannot imagine running another 5 miles on top of what we did last night.
3. I did not eat anywhere near enough food yesterday.

When we got home from that run I was tired, but I was feeling ok. However, soon after getting home I started feeling nauseous and dizzy. I put the run into my phone and realized that I had burned about 200 more calories during that run than I had consumed all day. That's not a good thing. I proceeded to drink a glass of milk, accompanied by 2 Papa Murphy's chocolate chip cookies, 1 whole peach, and a slice of toast. I think this did the trick because I remember waking up with a bite of toast in my mouth, still holding the rest of the toast near my lips. It was an awkward thing to wake up to.

Anyways, I am quite happy that I completed that run yesterday, but next time I will make sure to eat a whole lot more (have more energy) in preparation for it, and I am not planning on doing anything crazy (like a Half Marathon) until January in DisneyWorld.

*On a side note, Manda is running a Half Marathon this weekend, and she's gonna rock it!  

Discipline, Comfort & Love

Last night was not a good night as far as sleep and Mallory go. She decided that she didn't want to sleep, and Manda and I decided that we were not going to give in to her screaming. It was not fun. We first tried to gently rock/sing her to sleep in her crib, but she would have none of that. She did not want to sleep in her room and let us know with loud banshee shrieks, so we told her she needed to be quite and go to sleep. When she refused, we asked if she wanted us to just leave her in her crib and us go back into our room. She said, "Yes," so we did. I don't think she really knew what she was asking because she continued screaming for about 1.5 hours after that, but eventually, finally, she laid down and went to sleep. It was not fun at all, and I am quite tired today, but it got me thinking about something.

Mallory was, obviously upset, and she was upset at us. However, the initial source of her frustration and anger last night was her failure to obey us. We had every intention and desire to have a pleasant bedtime, putting her to sleep while lovingly rocking her and singing to her. However, she chose, instead to fight and claw and scream, in order to get her way. Ironically, she got what she said she wanted, for us to leave her room. The entire time we were seconds away, watching her in the monitor, making sure she didn't hurt herself, but we allowed her to cry. Even though every fiber of us wanted to just go in, pick her up, love her, comfort her ... we let her cry. We let her cry because we love her, and in the long run it is going to be better for her. When she comes into our room she doesn't sleep well, we don't sleep well, and the next day everyone is a bit crankier, and she tends to get in more trouble. She needs to sleep in her room, and so, even though it was hard. We let her cry.

How often do we do this with God? God has a specific plan for us, and it's great. If we were to follow it and allow Him to do what He has planned we would be blown away by how great it is, but instead of peacefully drifting off to sleep in His arms, to the sound of His voice, we kick and scream and claw and demand our way. We fight tooth and nail to disobey and do what we "know" will be better. Then, when God says, "I want to rock you to sleep peacefully in my arms. Do you want this, or do you want to deny this?" we deny it. We ask/tell Him to leave, and then we are furious that we don't feel Him there. It makes no sense.

However, just like Manda and I never truly left and abandoned Mallory, God never leaves us. He will allow us to go our own way sometime and do what we want, but He is always there, watching us, and His heart is breaking to see the pain we are going through. He is standing there, knowing that if we would just allow Him to take over everything would be so much better, and yet, because He loves us, He is witholding, allowing us to make our own choices, and suffer the consequences, in order that we may learn.

So often we feel like God abandons us and leaves us alone when we are the most upset, but we do not see the big picture, and we forget that we asked Him to leave in the first place. However, even in the midst of our screaming, flailing of legs, and attempts to climb out of our crib, He is always there, loving us, caring about us, and waiting for us to choose to surrender and let Him take over so He can hold us in His arms.

"...I will never leave you nor forsake you." -- Joshua 1:5b

"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." -- Jeremiah 29:11