In a relationship, you need moments that just make you laugh uncontrollably. Some times in a relationship, you get the chance to laugh at each other. I know I do things to make Andrea laugh and sometimes she returns the favor. A lot of the time it is accidental that you make your spouse laugh with what you say, what you do, or whatever. This was one of those times.
So we were getting ready for bed last night, talking about life, our relationship (always good to keep that talk going), and just stuff parents want to talk about when their kids are in bed….grown up stuff. We have a routine of getting in bed and watching the Jay Leno Show (tivo’d, of course…who has time for commercials) before we go to sleep. Anyway, Sandra Bullock was on last night and she was talking about her two dogs, one of which has just 3 legs and one that has 2 legs. So Jay Leno asked her how the dog goes to the bathroom. I believe the question was “so what leg does the dog raise? I mean is it like a flamingo thing?” Sandra Bullock was like “Jay she is a girl…the squat.” This is where it got really funny to me!
Andrea turns to me and says (now understand she had spent much of the day beginning the process of potty training with my son, Brayden), “Isn’t it amazing that no one has to teach a boy dog to lift their leg, or a girl dog to squat? I mean, God just put that in their DNA to know to do that. You don’t have to train a dog to do that, they just know. YOu have to teach humans how to use the bathroom, but dogs just know that boy dogs raise their leg and girl dogs squat. I find that fascinating!”
I may have cried myself to sleep, I don’t remember. All I know is I laughed at the pure honesty of the moment…And knew it would wind up on my blog!
So I come home from the church today early to spend time with my daughter. We play in the basement for a little while and then we start watching Ice Age. We were laying on the couch, cuddling and I noticed she had a hole in the leg of her khaki pants. Upon further investigation, I discovered that it wasn’t a tear or a hole that got caught on something. And there were two holes in her pants. So I asked what happened?!
Apparently earlier in the day, Addison needed to cut something (yeah, it’s what you’re thinking!) so Andrea gave her the scissors. I guess she thought she could cut her pants and not get in trouble.
So here is the kicker. I asked Addison what she was thinking?! She looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Daddy I wanted pants like the teenagers!”
Nothing happened?! That statement has challenged me over the last few weeks.
During our youth morning bible study class, the study was focused around the story of the Fiery Furnace. You know, the story of the three Jewish boys who chose to stand up for their beliefs when the King told them to bow. And they said we will not bow, we will not worship you, for we worship God! And the results was they were thrown into the fiery furnace. You can read it here in Daniel Chapter 3
And about midway through it hit me. When we look at that story we focus on the three who stand all the time. But what about the thousands that bowed. Some people live their faith because they are scared about what God will do to them if they don’t. But in this story- nothing happened. There was no punishment handed down from God at that moment for those who bowed to the statue. Nothing Happened. But yet something did.
Think about it- there was no big cosmic meteor shower that came to earth and killed all those people who worshipped the statue. In fact, there daily life was not altered one bit after that. They continued to live out their existence in Babylon just like they did the weeks and months before this incident. Nothing Happened. And you can think it’s just not fair that God doesn’t punish those who do not follow his guidelines. It’s not fair that the only people who were in trouble were the people who stood up for what is right. Nothing Happened to the other people.
But something happened…and it still happens today. Think about the story. When we look at that story, we know the names of those who took a stand. We see that because of their stand they were tossed into the furnace. And because of their faith, God rescued them from the furnace and the King realized how powerful God was. And for the rest of the people…Nothing happened!
Exactly. Nothing. There was no consequences for their actions, no immediate punishment. But yet there was also something that happened. They lost the chance to impact their world. When presented with the opportunity to stand, they bowed. And nothing happened. No impact. No great encounter with God. No change in people’s lives. Nothing Happened.
I know it has been a terrible summer for my blog. I have so much on my mind that I want to put here, but I just haven’t had the time. Ever feel like that? Well hopefully when school gets cranked back up I will be able to devote more time to it. But for now, I will post when I can.
We had our yearly Extreme Week lasst week and it was awesome. With over 100 students from the Pickerington Area attending throughout the week, many of whom are students that go to our church but are not involved in youth ministry, I deem it a huge success (plus nobody had to go to the hospital this year, so yay!!!)
Anyway, I thought I would post the extreme week video here for you to see. Since we did Extreme Week at night this year, we didn’t get as many awesome pics, but playing games at night was awesome!!!! Enjoy the videos! The first is pics from extreme week…and the second is a video of me swallowing a live goldfish from a bet Imade with our students. Enjoy!!!
Just got back Saturday from our trip to East St. Louis, Illinois. The trip was great/terrible/annoying/awesome/cool all rolled into one. But that is a story for another day. Anyway, here is the video I put together from our trip. Enjoy!!!
I don’t know, I just thought this bat video was pretty cool! This guy obviously has a skill set that most of us don’t. If course if he was really good he would be playing in the majors…but it’s still entertaining to watch the bat!!!
I absolutely love the summer! As a parent, we can take the kids to the pool, spend nights outside, ride our bikes, go fishing, all kinds of good stuff. We can even get sunburned together…what a great family time!
And as a youth guy, I love it too! There are so many opportunities and so much time for building relationships with my students. You cna go to lunch, play golf, hang out at the skate park, play some frisbee golf, see your teens at the local pool, man it is awesome.
But the one thing I struggle with is what to do with my Sunday Night Cross Current program. I mean, we meet every sunday night at 6pm but is that the most effective way to use the summer? With vacations, family events and the church schedule, there may be some weeks where I wind up with a handful of students.
And I’ve heard the argument that you shouldn’t shut down for the summer, it’s a time to ramp up activity. Apparently some people thinking stopping a “program” for the summer means stopping ministry as well. I never want to stop ministry. In fact, if I decide to shut down Cross Current sunday night for the summer, it would be partly because it would free up time for me to do more one-on-one relationship stuff with my students.
So I ask that anyone who reads this would pray that I can discern what God wants for this summer for the students at Sycamore Creek Church.
It has been absolutely beautiful here the last few days. And that is good because we (and when I say we, i mean my wife Andrea is doing most of the work) are working with Addison, who is 4, teaching her how to ride a bike with no training wheels. I think she is doing ok!
It seems that in student ministry, you can always count on two types of teens to be at youth group:
1. The teens who have latched on to their faith and truly want to take the next step in their journey
2. The teens whose parents force them to come, whether they like it or not
You can always count on those two groups to be there. But here’s the issue- that’s about 5% of the total youth in my church. How do we get the other 95% to consider youth group as an option? Well let’s think about it.
What is the number one reason teens in 7th -12th grade do anything? To be entertained. Like it or not we live in a society that has become so focused on self-entertainment that if it is not entertaining, students don’t want to do it. So obviously we have to find a way to make youth group entertaining enough to draw students in.
But I struggle. I would hate to think that the only reason a student comes to youth group is to be entertained. I want to help them grow in their faith, grow in their relationship with Christ. But maybe just getting them to come to youth group over the movies or the skate park, is one step in that direction….
So I struggle with the balance of Entertainment versus Teaching….
So I come home from the church today early to spend time with my daughter. We play in the basement for a little while and then we start watching Ice Age. We were laying on the couch, cuddling and I noticed she had a hole in the leg of her khaki pants. Upon further investigation, I discovered that it wasn’t a tear or a hole that got caught on something. And there were two holes in her pants. So I asked what happened?!
And Nothing Happened…
September 23, 2009 at 12:20 pm · Filed under Devo Thought ·Tagged Abednego, commentary on the book of Daniel, Daniel 3, impact, Making your life count, Meshach, Shadrach, The Fiery Furnace
During our youth morning bible study class, the study was focused around the story of the Fiery Furnace. You know, the story of the three Jewish boys who chose to stand up for their beliefs when the King told them to bow. And they said we will not bow, we will not worship you, for we worship God! And the results was they were thrown into the fiery furnace. You can read it here in Daniel Chapter 3
And about midway through it hit me. When we look at that story we focus on the three who stand all the time. But what about the thousands that bowed. Some people live their faith because they are scared about what God will do to them if they don’t. But in this story- nothing happened. There was no punishment handed down from God at that moment for those who bowed to the statue. Nothing Happened. But yet something did.
Think about it- there was no big cosmic meteor shower that came to earth and killed all those people who worshipped the statue. In fact, there daily life was not altered one bit after that. They continued to live out their existence in Babylon just like they did the weeks and months before this incident. Nothing Happened. And you can think it’s just not fair that God doesn’t punish those who do not follow his guidelines. It’s not fair that the only people who were in trouble were the people who stood up for what is right. Nothing Happened to the other people.
But something happened…and it still happens today. Think about the story. When we look at that story, we know the names of those who took a stand. We see that because of their stand they were tossed into the furnace. And because of their faith, God rescued them from the furnace and the King realized how powerful God was. And for the rest of the people…Nothing happened!
Exactly. Nothing. There was no consequences for their actions, no immediate punishment. But yet there was also something that happened. They lost the chance to impact their world. When presented with the opportunity to stand, they bowed. And nothing happened. No impact. No great encounter with God. No change in people’s lives. Nothing Happened.
Don’t let nothing happen in your life…
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