John Lehnen
June 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Thought I’d pass along a link to the article about John Lehnen winning the Military Father of the Year. If you missed the article and you want to read it, click here. I’ve also embedded the White House video that features an interview with him. Jennifer was telling me about it this morning. Apparently he got to ride in a motorcade. She also has an awesome story about an unattended cell phone in the White House.
Thanks to all you military fathers. Thanks to all you fathers. I know it can be hard to do what you do and then come home and be there for your families, but keep it up. It’s the right thing to do.
VBS and a Funky Fresh Clip
June 19, 2009 | 1 Comment
I don’t have much insight for you this morning.
Can’t wait to see everyone at VBS. Preparations are going full blast. Don’t forget to register your kid if you haven’t already. See you Sunday and then Monday morning.
I saw this video a while back, but it’s making the rounds again. Any volunteers to do our own rendition at church sometime? It would probably require us designating a Deacon of Dope Dance.
All Things New
June 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment
You’ve probably gotten this as a forwarded email, but it’s still pretty amazing. And I don’t know who should get credit for this. But give it a read:
“The human mind is a wonderfully complex organ. Our brains can actually process a group of words, even if they are spelled totally incorrectly. For example, see if you can read the following:
The hmuan mnid is a wndoreullfy cpoemlx oargn. You see? It deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod aearpr, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is that the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the human mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig isn’t it?”
Ha. That last paragraph just made the spell check on my computer go crazy. Red everywhere. And yet I think most of us can read it without too much trouble. I could feel my eyes slow down a little bit. It didn’t come as quickly as usual, but it was relatively smooth. Then the writer concludes by making this point:
“Oftentimes our lives, and the world around us, don’t seem to make sense. There are even times when everything seems to be a total mess. But when we take a step back and remember that God is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last, we can rest assured that one day it will all become perfectly clear.”
Neat application, huh? As long as we keep the First and the Last (God) in mind, we can make sense of our lives even if they seem chaotic. Everything doesn’t have to perfect.
This is the message of the book of Revelation. That’s right. I’m breaking my general rule and I’m preaching from Revelation this morning. But I’m still ducking the crazy imagery and getting right down to the part that is relatively easy to understand. It’s this: God will fix everything.
This morning as we conclude our look at passages that give us hope in troubled times, I can’t fail to include this all important one—the one that gives all of the others their meaning. In the end, our greatest security comes from the fact that God is preparing us for a place in which everything will be as it should be. No tears, no death and the relationship with God that he always wanted us to have.
The beginning and the end are set; it’s just the middle that’s a little jumbled up. I hope that today will provide you with a preview of this wonderfully happy ending.
Get To It
June 14, 2009 | Leave a Comment
A recent article in Time magazine recounts what is probably the most important discovery in the history of NASCAR. In 1960, Junior Johnson, already a famous moonshine runner and racer, entered his first Daytona 500. That year Johnson’s car, a Chevy, was unable to keep up with the Pontiacs of his opponents, so he began looking for a way to overcome the disadvantage.
That’s when Johnson became what physics professor Diandra Leslie-Pelecky calls an “intuitive physicist.” In practice, Johnson discovered that his slower Chevy was capable of keeping up with the Pontiacs if he kept it close to their rear bumpers. In his words, “the air was creating a situation, a slipstream type of thing.” (I love it when brilliant people speak plainly.)
Johnson’s theory was so correct it led him to victory lane. Toward the end of the race the lead car lost its rear windshield due to the low air pressure caused by Johnson. This new discovery, called drafting, changed the racing world.
What I love about this is the fact that Johnson’s discovery didn’t happen in a lab. This wasn’t some guy in a white coat or a mathematician hunched over a calculator. It was simply necessity giving birth to invention. Johnson didn’t care about the physics. He just wanted to go faster. He was simply driven (lame pun).
We can learn a lesson from NASCAR. This morning we’ll be looking at a couple passages that call on us to seek out more speed. Like the writer of Hebrews puts it, “let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Hebrews 12:1).
The Good News for us in bad times is this: we don’t have to just sit still. We are not helpless. There are things for us to be doing. And we are called on to seek out more and more ways to do the work that God is calling us to do.
Kris, Adam, and American Idol
June 11, 2009 | 3 Comments
A month or so ago, when Kris Allen, “shocked” (I use quotes here, b/c a number of people, including my wife, predicted that he would win), the world by winning American Idol, someone suggested that I do a blog entry about the cultural implications of the Kris Allen/Adam Lambert showdown.
For those of you who don’t know, Kris is as “aw, shucks” wholesome as they come. Raised in Conway, Arkansas, Allen is not afraid to be vocal about his faith. Adam, on the other hand is “fab-yoo-lous.” And you know what I mean when I say that.
I thought about it, but then got distracted. Then yesterday Mike Cope linked to a wonderful (but looong) essay on Allen and Lambert’s rivalry and, more, their relationship. When you have time, give it a read. I was telling someone last night that good writing always makes me a little jealous, because I find myself thinking, “Why didn’t I write that?” I was really jealous of this piece.
If you want to skip some of it, you might pick up with the paragraph that begins, “Countless commentators wanted the Idol competition to be about more than just singing.”
Let me know what you think.
Categories
Articles
Robert's Blog
Recent Comments
- Tom Hubert on GETTING DOWN AND DIRTY
- Lisa on Silent Monks Sing the Hallelujah Chorus
- Kara on Silent Monks Sing the Hallelujah Chorus