it’s been quite a long time since my last “wednesday worship” post. but i just got the new israel houghton album, and i couldn’t resist sharing a little something with y’all.

so try to follow me here…

1) there are a couple of christ tomlin albums that i really like from a few years ago. aside from those two, i haven’t ever been the hugest fan. i pretty much find one or maybe two songs on a tomlin album that i feel like a) we can really use in our church AND b) i like enough not to get sick of playing it after one time through… (yeah, deWeb, then why don’t you just play all songs off your nine platinum worship albums! i know.)

anyway, the one that stood out off tomlin’s latest offering is a song called our God. the bridge is awesome. the rest is pretty good.

2) lately, i’ve been really loving hip-hop and r&b a LOT. idk why, but give me an 808 beat and a fat bass line and some digital-sounding guitars/synths…and i can really get down.

so…israel covered that tomlin tune, and made it even better in my opinion. check it out, and then go buy the album. the whole album is beautiful and diverse and fantastic. it’s worth it.

you’re welcome.

read 1 samuel 24:6

i think this is a fantastic passage (not that my opinion really matters, haha) for lots of reasons. among them is that it is the resolution to a conflict that the story has been following for quite some time. heat that basically started brewing back when david (the little kid) felled goliath (the giant) and the nation rejoiced and the seed of jealousy and insecurity planted itself in saul (the king of israel).

as we see in many other biblical stories, the resolution comes from an act of humble obedience to God, but appears more like stubborn foolishness/idealism in the eyes of earthly lookers-on. (the 3 fellows who should’ve just bowed down to the statue to avoid the fiery furnace, the guy who should’ve just stopped praying–or at least not been so obvious about it–to avoid being thrown in the den of lions, the Man who should have just admitted that He wasn’t God in the flesh to avoid execution, etc.)

david’s got saul, in the cave, unaware of the impending doom standing behind him, ready to slice his throat…david’s men agree…”dude, this is totally God’s way of handing you the throne. finish him!” (then david does a mortal kombat grappling hook throw and rips out saul’s entire rib-cage, leaving his body lying there in a pool of cartoon blood…)

but david can’t bring himself to do it. he didn’t hear God telling him what his friends said God was telling him. the only thing he knows for sure is that saul is the one whom God ordained as king. saul is the chosen one. God hasn’t taken him out, yet. and david knows that when God is ready for saul to go bye-bye…then it will happen. when God does it. not david.

so david doesn’t kill him. instead he boldly steps out of the cave, after saul has finished “relieving himself” and is at a safe distance, and hollers at saul. david tells him the whole story, about how it should be obvious that david isn’t trying to kill him, since he had the chance in the cave and didn’t. saul says, “dude, you’re awesome & i’m a loser.” and they all get some peace.

but HERE is the part of the story that is the most telling for me. david is this guy who is so in tune to God’s will and so heroic and noble and all that. but if you rewind a few chapters, you can see how david lies to cover up his identity, in order to get help and shelter while he runs away from the king, and then how almost an entire city is slaughtered by saul because they helped david. so the guy who wouldn’t kill one man is responsible for the deaths of almost an entire city. he trusts God so heroically in one instance, and yet so little in another. and he’s one of the biggest heroes in the bible.

the guy isn’t perfect. and when he messes up, he messes up huge. he’s just like me (minus the eventual kingly palace and gold furniture and a whole bunch of other stuff). he knows that God has something great in store for him, if he can just stay out of the way for long enough to see God make it happen.

what are you waiting on God to do? where do you find yourself working outside of trusting God for self-preservation? where are you able to trust God and wait on Him?

favorite russian singer: mr. trololo

favorite website

unevengoogle.com

favorite throwback video: because it was so good the first time i posted it.

what are your favorite things?

read 1 samuel 23:28

the niv and kjv call it “sela-hammahlekof.” the message calls it “narrow escape.” the nlt cals it “the rock of escape.”

there is something so beautiful about this to me. it’s very poetic. like my french host-father who saw my hanson cd and thought the title “middle of nowhere” was one of the best expressions in the english language. ever have a phrase strike you like that before?

before the happening on the mountain, david was in exile, forced to run with his army of cast-aways and dissidents from execution by the king. but the thing that is remarkable to me is that after saul had gone, david was still in exile. saul still wanted his head. david had not been relieved of his eccentric-king-who-used-to-love-you-but-now-is-paranoid-that-you-are-going-to-kill-him-and-take-his-throne-so-he’s-trying-to-kill-you-instead problem. on the contrary, that problem was still very present and very real. but he just got a little reprieve.

he got a short break.

a chance to breathe deep and regroup.

who knows whether it was God who made the philistines attack saul’s holdings in israel. but david took it that way i think.

last week, the staff at my church all went on a 2-night retreat to do some planning and brainstorming…and resting. we had been fighting the enemy with all we had. we needed some time to regroup. i took the whole week off blogging, too.

and then we were back at it. fighting the enemy. fleeing from temptation. leaning on God in the face of tragedy.

the fight is still here, now that we’re back. but we got a short breather.

you might need a little respite.

i find that when i don’t have 2 or 3 days to sneak away on a retreat (which is pretty much an anomaly), i can get the same kind of refreshment by waking up about an hour earlier, making a cup of coffee, buttering some toast, and spending some time alone with God. right now, i’m reading (very slowly) the bible from the beginning (i’m only in 1 samuel, at this point). and i just ask God to show me what he wants to show me. that may not be the most i’m-a-theological-scholar-and-i’m-awesome study method, but it’s helping me stay connected with God and learn more about His character. and it gives Him a chance to get me ready to get back out there and fight again.

to face my king saul again.

it’s my rock of escape.

how do you escape?

favorite new tv show: um, it’s got spies and guns and mystery. it’s cool.

favorite website:

favorite throwback album: larry norman: rebel poet, jukebox balladeer seriously, it’s amazing. if you don’t believe me, click on the picture below and preview tracks 4, 5, and 8.

what are YOUR favorite things?

“don’t ask God for patience, cause he’ll just put you in some situations that will make you learn to be patient.” well i’m pretty sure that’s close to how it works.

i’ve read through the book of job. a group of my friends and i studied job in a seemingly neverending twelve-week guided study. it was painful, as the whole time it felt like the author (of the bible study book) was constantly trying to get us to relive our worst moments on earth so that they could be fresh in our minds when we discussed job’s conflict of pain and suffering vs. trust in God. boy, did it suck. job’s pain was enemy-inflicted and God-allowed.

what about this one: “God allows bad things to happen, but he doesn’t cause bad things to happen…” well i’m pretty sure that one’s not true…not totally true, anyway.

when you’re in the king’s chamber playing the harp to soothe him, and he boils up in a fit of rage and throws a spear at you with intent to kill…on two separate occasions, that’s bad. you’d be like, “dang, saul!” what would you say if that happened and you found out that God made him try to kill you? you’d be like, “thank you, kind Lord. God is love.” actually, my initial reaction, if i’m being honest, which i am, would be more like, “dang, Lord. what the heck?! i know you’re sovereign, and i don’t question your ways. but in this case, what are you thinking? dang!” then i’d be like, “if God wants me dead then maybe i should die!”

the fact is that sometimes that bad thing in your life, that conflict is self-inflicted. and sometimes it’s enemy-inflicted. but sometimes it’s God-inflicted.

God made some bad stuff happen. when the israelites had been slaves in egypt and God had told moses to go free them, and pharaoh had said no way, and God had done some amazing things to convince pharaoh, and finally he had said ok go ahead…the bible says that God hardened pharaoh’s heart. after going through all that. then God hardened pharaoh’s heart, and he mobilized his army to pursue his recently freed slaves.

when your former owner, who has set you free, comes at you with his army of foot soldiers and chariots, swords drawn, torches blazing, that’s bad. you’d be like, “dang, pharaoh!” what would you say if you found out that God made him do that?

it seems He does stuff like that over and over again in scripture. (God made adam endure loneliness for a long time, God made/allowed joseph to sit in prison for a long time, God let the apostle paul suffer some unknown affliction indefinitely.) but the advantage we have as the readers thousands of years later is being able to zoom out and look at what God is setting up in each of these cases. with pharaoh and moses He was getting ready to eliminate the threat of the former oppressor ever going back on his decision again. with david and saul, he was setting david up to be an even greater, wiser, more wonderful king by making saul seem crazy, irrational, and cruel. He was working all things for the good of those who love Him. (i feel like i’ve read that somewhere before…romans 8:28 rings a bell…)

so when something bad happens, i have to remind myself that conflict is what God will use to change me to make me more like He wants me to be. that doesn’t mean that i like it, but at least i can embrace it and learn from it. let it change me. make me stronger. and that awful thing (that i perceive as awful) might just be God’s first move in a series of events that will bring me into an incredible place where i can do amazing things for Him.

speak

2. favorite use of a gymnastics analogy in a sermon:

3. favorite song: this came from failblog, via my friend scott.

what are your favorite things?

read 1 samuel 17:32-37

the world is so different now than it was when the bible was written. how are we supposed to be able to apply meaning and direction from these ancient texts to our lives today. i’m reading the bible online on my laptop, i heated my coffee up in a microwave oven this morning, my daughter’s favorite toy is my cellphone, and she already knows how to navigate my ipod (she’s 3 years old). the internet is used to lure young victims into slavery, steal identities, and distribute pornographic and otherwise destructive material that they could never have imagined when Jesus was walking the earth, handing out bits of wisdom and guidance. paul didn’t write anything about dvd copyright infringement or meth-amphetamine abuse or identity theft. so what do we do about that?

what david says here is pretty great. no he’s never fought a 9-foot man before, who’s trained in warfare since he was a child, who has bronze armor and a spear with a 15-pound spear head. king saul is convinced that he won’t know what to do, because david’s not trained to handle this giant. but he had fought a lion. and he had fought a bear. without a sword. with his bare hands. like a freaking warrior.

tending and protecting those sheep forced him to be resourceful and creative. and that is how he prepared for his epic battle with the giant.

we may be facing things that our parents and grandparents never faced. we might not have a map to tell us exactly how to navigate each of the newest challenges of morality. but we have a guide that tells us about the essence of morality. we can learn what evil looks like, and what good/righteousness looks like. we can train ourselves to spot temptation and deceit. then we can use our brains and our creativity and our hearts to know the truth and the best way to deal with what we’re facing. we can mow down the oppressors of our generation. we can set our people free.

we can kill goliath. bring it on.

1. i got more sleep last night than i have in about a week. not quite 7 hours, but still felt good.

2. amelia sleeps better in her pack-n-play than she does in her crib. i don’t know why. but my inlaws are in town, so they got her room, and she moved to the pack-n-play in our room and she slept all night without a fuss. (hence 7 hours of sleep, hence feeling good today.)

3. services this morning were great. pastor riley challenged the men today to fight for each other and for our families. very moving.

4. yesterday cathy hensle, jim tulloss, and jeff ballantyne came through for us in an amazing way, donating about two hours of their saturdays to help reset the stage and sound board from the wedding this weekend. (weddings are wonderful and blessed and all that, but they wreak havoc on a church stage and soundboard.) their hard work made my four-hour-plus monster into a two-hour project, and i can’t say enough about their heart for ministry at this church and their willingness to give of themselves to see it happen.

5. the band was a little different today. just one electric guitar and my acoustic, instead of having our usual 2 electrics plus acoustic. made for a slightly lighter sound/feel i think. although i have no idea what the house sounded like because of my in-ear monitors.

6. i dropped into the sanctuary during the classic service prelude, and they were working some kinks out of the soundboard. all the sudden the music got REAL loud for a couple of seconds. just then one of our more “classic” ladies looked up at me and said, “that’s probably the way you like it, huh?” i think she was joking. but you know there’s a little truth behind every joke. i said, “not that loud,” but what i meant was, “yes. it sounds good.”

7. as i mentioned, my in-laws are in town. that’s because we celebrated amelia’s birthday yesterday. my brother is also here for the weekend. so lunch was a production, with eleven of us at panera, trying to sit together. but it’s always fun to dominate a restaurant like that.

8. gretchen got a ticket on the way to church today. when we registered our vehicle, she thought she was paying for the remainder of the year plus another year. but apparently there was a miscommunication between her and the clerk @ the bmv…so instead of having nine more months on our license plates, we were actually three months behind. aargh. so she can’t drive the van until the registration is updated, and she gets a fine. well at least the community is being kept safe from my gretchen, the terror of marion county (*sarcastic). (i know it’s their job. sorry i’m a jerk.)

yes, it was an eventful sunday.

2. favorite food:

3. favorite city to be a municipal employee:

bell, california

4. favorite blog: the dude is hilarious. actually, if i’m being honest, which i am, i stole the idea for a periodical list of favorite things directly from him. i’ll try not to steal any of the favorite things themselves from him, so you won’t read in duplicity. anyway, check him out.

what are your favorite things?