Saturday Six-Pack (9)

Final weekend of April, and another Saturday Six-Pack.

If you’re “Wandering & Wondering” for the first time, every Saturday’s post features a half-dozen online offerings that have been impacting to me recently.  Typically, these articles are faith-focused or ministry-geared, but the “disorderly pile of who-knows-what” tagline at the top of this page catches everything outside of that!

Today:

1) Prisons and Other Places the Kingdom Takes Root
Philip Yancey reflects on a few surprising places he has witnessed the work and wonder of God.

2) People God Uses
From the preface of “Accounts of Revival”, Ray Ortlund brings this list of qualities seen consistently in the men and women that God uses in revival movements.  You could be one of these!

3) The Secret Sexual Revolution
Recent research has shown that the call for abstinence, once heralded loudly among Christian youth, is falling upon deaf ears… or upon ears attached to bodies that are unable or unwilling to execute “true love waits”.  Relevant Magazine offers an insightful look behind this reality.

4) God Uses Broken Leaders… Like Me
Shane Sebastian was shocked to consider himself as a broken leader.  Even more shocking, he was certainly not alone!

5) Making Time
Need more of God?  Deeper connection?  Nourishment down to your core?  Ann Voskamp offers you a few words in that direction.

6) Why Moving the Needle a Little Makes a Huge Difference
Ever feel overwhelmed at life?  So much to do, so much to be, so much to change.  Where to begin?  In two words, start small.  Two more words: Then go.  Spence Smith wants you to know the power of small movements.

Have a great weekend, friends–renew yourself and reverence God.

Why Tim Tebow Needs Prayers

A word I heard:

“You worry about the depth of your life, and God will worry about the breadth.”

The point? Spend your efforts and energy on the substance of your life.  Focus on your faith, your character, your core.  God will do the work of creating your stage, providing your realms for influence, and increasing them as He sees fit.  Our faithfulness in the first venture will receive God’s selected best in the second.

Thoughts like that impact my little life.

The also impact spotlight-dwellers like Tim Tebow.

Like or dislike Tebow, a few facts stand:

He never asked to be born athletic or handsome or charismatic or left-handed.  He never got a vote to be placed into a missionary family or to be granted some skills that prove fruitful within America’s chosen obsession.  But he DOES set himself on being a man of substance, one in whom kindness appears genuine, humility seems sincere, and purity is said to be authentic.

To be the people we need to be, we all need prayer enveloping us, power in play to counter and guard against every force eager to sabotage our efforts toward godliness and goodness.

But high-profile believers like Tebow often live with skin-covered enemies, hopeful to see his downfall, bent on helping it arrive.  Don’t believe me?  Check out what Noel Biderman is willing to throw a truckload of money toward.  Obviously, rich folks get to do what they choose with their money, and no doubt, slick businessmen know that any publicity is good publicity.  But neither of those are the point here.

The point is: Powerful and skeptical people disbelieve that life of real substance can even exist.  With no experience of a reality where “the one in you is greater than the one in the world”, they go beyond cynical to outright attacking the impossible possibility that people like Tebow claim (and appear) to personify.

And that is why Tim Tebow needs prayers.

Today, when you seek God’s strength for yourself, for your church, for your loved ones…

Add a New York quarterback to your list, that God will continue to strengthen His servants, WHEREVER He places us, to live lives that reflect His glory.

 

 

Tuesday Trick: How to Slow Down Today

Gandhi was on to something when he declared: “There is more to life than increasing its speed.”

Heeding that wise observation, Lifehack has offered Seven Ways to Slow Down Today.

These are for you.

These are for today.

Take a breath, my friends.

You’re welcome.

Saturday Six-Pack (8)

Another week, another weekend.  Thanks for coming for a bit of “Wandering & Wondering”.

The Saturday Six-Pack brings a weekly dose of online pieces, written to inform or inspire.  Generally, these articles are faith-focused or ministry-geared, but the “disorderly pile of who-knows-what” tagline at the top of this page catching everything outside of that!

This week:

1) God is Most Glorified When We are Most Dependent on Him
Justin Buzzard takes aim at the hidden dangers of chasing independence.

2) Farewell Rob Bell
On February 26, 2011, John Piper rocked the Twitter-verse with three words: “Farewell, Rob Bell.”  The adieu was viewed as a cutting critique of the not-yet-released “Love Wins”.  This interview provides the behind-the-tweet story that you have likely not heard before.

3) Saudi Grand Mufti Calls for “Destruction of All Churches in the Area”
When I was in Syria, the group I was part of was hosted for a feast by the nation’s Grand Mufti, in Damascus.  This was more than a big deal, as the Grand Mufti is one of the country’s most influential Islamic leaders.  Knowing that, you can now appreciate the context of this article’s opening line: “Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, declared that it is “necessary to destroy all the churches of the region.”  Read this brief piece to enlarge your perspective on what fellow Christians around the globe are facing, as they live out their faith.

4) Life on God’s Time
In a culture bent on instant gratification, how do we follow a God with a completely foreign sense of time?  How do you trust a Being beyond time?

5) How Do You Keep from Getting Distracted?
How do you buckle down and focus deeply when you cannot afford distraction?  Donald Miller has a few ideas.

6) Top Five Regrets of the Dying
What do you get when a palliative care nurse spends years learning from her patients how they look back on their lives?  You get a full-blown book, shrunk down for this blog post.

Have a great weekend, friends–renew yourself and reverence God.

NHL Playoffs: Round One

Are you or a loved-but-currently-lost one consumed by this year’s NHL playoffs?

Here is my interested-but-not-immersed approach to time-efficient fan-dom:

1) First three games of all series: Maybe catch minutes here and there.  Mostly follow series score through TSN’s iPhone app.

2) Game four, a few minutes of viewing is supplemented by morning edition of SportsCentre.  (More attention is given if a sweep could happen.)

3) Game five, a period may be viewed, especially a third one.  At this point, overtime becomes nearly mandatory viewing.

4) By game six, I may commit to watching two-thirds of a game, and overtime has become must-see TV.

5) Game seven: I follow the flow loosely until the third period, when a close game will hook me in for the duration.

Now that you know how to view the playoffs.  Place your votes on the big-money question for the first round:

How about you?  Any playoff routines or rituals?  Is this “the most wonderful time of the year”, or a waste of ten weeks?