Job study 40 weeks

I will be starting the 40 week journey through the book of Job. I will not be alone doing this I have a buddy of mine joining me. This will be interesting because I have not done a study on the Bible for quite a long time. starting a Bible study was a result of one of my pastors sermons and talking with a buddy that I will be doing this study with.

I have realized that I have a hard time reading the Bible without some accountability. Reading through the Bible has really changed since I have became a parent.

Part of my journey is going to be writing down and documenting my thoughts and ideas. So here we go.

old style thinking

I am currently re-reading the Pilgrim's Progress and was fascinated by how John B had so much information pertaining to good works. Nearly everything was by what evaluated by what you did and you were judged based upon your actions. Although what you do, did not make them xian, but it was why they did those things. The why was not to earn grace or earn the rewards of the new kingdom, it was an overflow of the joy that was in the heart. that is why we should do good things, because that is our response to the grace that was bestowed upon us. If a person continually does crap, crap is in the heart. If a person does good, good is in the heart, then you look at the motivation behind the good works.

It should be easy to see how does crap and assume they are not xain or they have little understanding of what has happened. They either need to be educated if they claim Jesus, or they should be witnessed to. For those who do crap, and claim to be xain and say they don't need anymore education of Jesus should be tossed aside and your efforts put to someone who will listen process change their heart.

Sorry for the incomplete thought for this post, more to come and more to understand, for me anyways.

Yeah I know...

...It has been a very long time since my last post which said I will post in a few days. In my defense, Jesus said he was coming back soon and it has been 2000 years. Since I got my excuse out of they way, I thought I would update what I have been thinking about.

Church.
I finished out my last post with what is church actually supposed to be and I never finished it. there are some specific things that need to happen like; community of people in large and small context such as congregation and one-on-one (small groups).Biblical teaching from the leadership on the Bible, using the Bible. Moving the congregation towards a Biblical view of the world, and not letting the world change our view of Xainty. Growth of people moving into areas of responsibility and stagnant people leaving for whatever petty excuses. A leading of loving God first and showing more of what that looks like. I could go on but not right now.

New Book.
Crazy Love. For those that I go to church with, this book has been talked about many times. But I have to stress that this book has changed my look at God. What was wrong with me before, nothing, that was the issue. I was not doing anything to move towards Jesus, I was doing that Christian thing of looking good, being active in church, singing along, but where was the Love? Crazy Love is about God love and what that looks like. Not the works side of things but the aspect of giving love because it is God.
One statement that hit me was If I could have heaven and all that was promised with that, but no Jesus, would I still want to be there?

well really, would you still want to be in Heaven?

a moment at last

Ever since my last post (I know 7 months ago) I have been extremely busy. Here is a rundown of a few major events. Doug: Kidney failed and replaced. Adoption: Almost completed with home study and will be in waiting pool very shortly. Summer: Had 3 weekends at home since May 1st, fishing 5 times. Church: Starting new program to increase Biblical understanding in which is called Catalyst.

I have a challenge for myself and if anybody cares they can challenge me on it. I have heard and been thinking about how the world and Xian thinkers have influenced my answers when it comes to the Bible. I was asked about Revelations a few times and I answered rather assuredly, but then thought about it and realized that it came from a Xian author and it wasn't actually from the Bible. So here it is. When I am asked a question about the Bible, I want to be able to bring up where that answer is, not just "oh it's in there somewhere." I have a feeling that this will be more challenging than I thought. Not a new revelation to anybody, but it will increase my knowledge. We are influenced too much by what others people think, and most times not what God has already said about that subject. Let my thought be as Your thoughts. Amen

The church thing is getting me excited to get back into our church. Which bring me to a question that I have asked my self for the last 8 years or so, and has been more on my mind since our leadership decided to go with a different program. What is the purpose of meeting at a Church? Fluff answers like " To worship God" will not count. WE can worship God anywhere anytime. I want a more thoughtful approach. I will blog again in a couple of days to either respond if anybody comments, or just give my definition of the reason we have church at a specific location if nobody answers.

New Read

I am looking for new topics that can be done with a couple of genreations of guys. I have been looking at different topics, different books of the Bible and nothing has really struck me as "A-Ha, that what we should do!" I am however working on my First John Piper book (not the small 4x4 100pgs long), called "When I don't desire God: How to fight for Joy." This is a harder book for me to read because it makes me stop, process, react to his own thoughts and take a closer look at my reaction in a different way compared to "Wild at Heart".

Wild at Heart looks at the Heart from the past point of view to see how it affects your future actions and helps you overcome it, where John piper takes it from this moment and work forward into eternity. While both books are good, it will be intresting to see how this unfolds into my life.

Here is the link to the e-book
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/OnlineBooks/ByTitle/1600_When_I_Dont_Desire_God/

Guys, if you have any good Bible Study ideas please let me know.

funny things

website of "Real Men Of Genius"

If you remember the older commercial of Budweiser, you'll get a kick from this.

What you long to hear

A lot of times I don't listen to everything that I hear either coming from people around me or a voice inside me. When I hear affirming words about me, my instant tendency is to dismiss them by thinking, "I have done it better in the past," or "I actually messed up here or there," or something to the effect that what I did or say was not is not a representation of who I am. All of this comes down to the fact that I do not feel like I am worthy of being praised, even though it is something I need to hear.

This comes from a feeling inside me, a false me that says, you, as you are, are no good and should not get anything praise worthy. Obviously a lie that has had me so clinched in its grasp that I was living it, made me scared of people, made me scared of being good at anything. I still get scared at stuff that I am good at.

The enemy's aim is direct and brutal. It takes affect when we choose to listen to that voice that says we can't. That becomes a wound. God Ironically will attack exactly where that wound is and reopen it. It seems cruel, but it now will heal after He gets done with it, and after you let him reopen it and heal through it with Him.

God will say you are good, and you are worthy of that praise, job well done. It is scary for me to think about that, why? I want it to be true so desperately, and to be called a man by Him, that If I don't get it, it will hurt once more, so I embrace that hurt before I am let down, (even though God doesn't let his children down, or anyone for that fact) because it will feel like it hurts less.

Trying to trust that I will not fall into that hurt is the struggle, and relying on God to say when I do fail that you are a man because you tried.

I see that I have gone on again, more to come.

Time to rise to the fall... and thoughts

(Preface: Most of this writing is not in particular order, but it has what was in my head at the time, and most of you who know me, my mind does not work sequentially or in order according to standard rules of life. Call them ramblings, call them stray thoughts, call them whatever you want, but it does have to do with the topic, You have been warned of non-congruent thoughts.)

I have read Wild at Heart 3 times previous to doing this study with other guys, and just now am I beginning to process and work through the parts of life that the book hits. I know that there is something inside a man the cries out let me be a MAN, but all there is is the hollow echo in my head that just says only if...

Chapter 4 and 5 starts hitting this hollow echo for some, and others it is worse because they hear a louder sound saying your not able to be a man. This sound that repeats itself so loudly is usually the voice that comes from Dad, or a father figure.

Masculinity is past on from man to man and usually takes a long time or a huge event to secure that presence inside of that boy/man. 3rd world countries have initiation into manhood and after that they are treated as a man. No puberty, no insecure ideas from society that says you have to be such and such to be a real man.

Boys become responsible when they are given the responsibilities of a man, and when a man receives the responsibilities of a boy, they either reject it, or shrink back into a lesser state...boyish tendencies. Even questioning the role of manhood to a certain man can strike at the heart of the already frail pot and send him into regression. Sometimes this comes out as anger, to the person who did it, the world, even God. Sometimes this comes out fear and shyness. A man is not made to hide in the corner with a blanket, (although some would like them to be there) a man is made to standout, and to come through in crunch time, to be the hero that we all know he was made to be.

As I look into myself I see some parts of my history that have shaped me as who I am. I remember a time my Dad said that I should not be in wrestling because it would screw up my neck and other potential stuff, even though it was my only sport I wanted to be in. (Football was out of the question as well.) There is more to the story but I am keeping it short. I have since then question the activities that I have done base on whether or not it would be "safe" for me to do. I see the hesitancy in myself with challenges that come into my life and how it has created a path to where I am today, job I have, what I do and not do for fun.

Since knowing this I am seeing opportunities that I have missed and missing because of that insecurity of choosing the "right" path according to my hurt and not wanting to hurt again. This thought and action limits myself in the perspective of relation to God and what I do for Him. I feel like I have been changing my life since coming to this realization and changing my own paradigm, and I feel more a live in a way, also I feel a tug at the same time trying to pull me back to my old habit of safeness with life choices.

I am saying all of this to get you guys to start thinking about what hurt has affected you through your life. I mentioned a small incident, but it has had some larger effects throughout my life. Take a look a and reflect, don't worry about how big or how small it was, look at how it has changed your life, and run it through the course of your history. What has this done to your view of God and how has it hindered it.

Chapter 1 continued questions

When thinking about the goals that you have or had but lost, what was the biggest accomplishment that you would have like to have done, win a debate in a large setting, land a huge deal in business, what big fish would you like to catch, what would like to kill?

Every Boy and Man wants to know that they are powerful. When you watch a movie, read a book about a "powerful" man, what does that make you feel/think inside. Evaluate that and ponder why God put that drive in you. What type of story make you do this?

What makes you aggressive, angry, driven. what is your stance on being Fierce.

Do you see God having an adventure for you to live out? What is that.

Being in an adventure and emotions being stirred are connected, what type of adventure moves you, and what moves you into action.

Every warrior is tested and tried, fighting battles. What battles/testing/trying have you fought? If none lately is this a reflection of you not living out the adventure God has for you?

Man was created in the wild, woman was created in the protected garden, what could this mean instinctively for the way we handle situations, problems, adventure?

Brave Heart

The guys are getting together at Ryun's House. Movie starts at 7pm. Bring a couple of Bucks for pizza and stuff. If questions call me.

Movie

I wanted to thank those who blogged on the previous questions, feel free to continue to write down your responses on any of the blogs current or past.
I want to stress the importance of taking your time and reflecting on the challenges that come before you in the chapters. Take your time.

I will continue to ask questions about chapter 1 later, but for those of you who are continuing on to chapter 2, watch the movie Brave Heart FIRST! I will try to get something set up within the next week to 2 weeks for those of you what want to watch this movie as a group.

The next meeting is July 31th.

First Chapter

Welcome to the 1st chapter discussion. Please post any comment on the relevant chapter and question. Go ahead and blog as anonymous or if you like use your name. I want to generate questions that will create us men as MEN. Meetings are 6-26, 7-31, 8-28, 9-25

1)Did anything strike or move you from what was said?

2)What did you want to be when you grew up, what happend that made you stop?

3)Did you have a goal or dream that has been lost because it was not "nice" or what a "Good Christian" has as a dream?

4)Do you agree women want to come on the adventure?

5)How has Church played a roll in creating men... good or bad?

6)What would you do if you had a bottomless bank account?

been a while

I have a wedding shoot coming up and am very excited. Congrats to Abe and Ali will be in order this coming Sunday and it will be very fun.

On another note, Jen has come down with allergies and they have been mean to her this year. We were up North this weekend and Jen forgot her inhaler, so we went to the local drug store and got this asthma tablets that you swallow. To both of our surprise, it worked. it was weird.

that is all that I have for this limited time today, catch ya later.

old sayings for troubled times

Family issues are happening, we need prayer.

Sin will lead a person like a cow to the slaughter house.

You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.

sorry so cryptic, pray for us.

la. tee. da.

So here I am... sitting... at my desk with my duties accomplished for the day,... and tomorrow, already got my co-worker caught up and he's bored, and all that I can think about is how I have to drive 45-60 minutes home tonight and I have an hour left for the day. what joy.
My Hebrews study is going pretty well, I have read 1/2 of the book straight through and am looking forward to doing more this weekend, 3 hours of study is tough if you don't buckle down and do it.
I should go, my conscience is getting the better of me now. see ya.

personal challenge

As I was leading a discussion with 3 other guys about getting more meat out of devotional time I was challenged by the words I was saying to encourage them. I used to study the Bible with intention rather than routine daily duty. Now I read for about 10 min and then pray for 5-10. It makes a nice devotional time. A nice glass of milk in the morning and then run all day on that feeding. I need that glass of milk (15 min of easy devo time), but I need to follow that up some meat later in that day. So in the next 30 days I will be doing a deeper study into the book of Hebrews. I might not do it every day of in depth, but I will put 3 hrs towards study beyond my milk time per week. Here is my plan...
1) Read Hebrews all the way through 1 time, no notes, no assumptions, not trying to get any hidden meaning out of it.
2) Read back ground notes from Bible dictionaries and write down important notes like, where, when, why, how, culture relevance, to whom.
3) Read Hebrews a couple of times only jotting down breaks in ideas and where the topic changes. This will help create an outline.
4) Go per section of the brief outline and create a more detailed outline as sub points.
5) Dig into Hebrews with the notes that have already been taken and extra commentaries. At this time Hebrews will be divided into manageable portions of meat.

I will post my progress to keep myself accountable. Goodluck to myself.

I am excited about tonight's Men's Bible study. I was tired and exhausted before I started writing my outline, afterwards I feel 75% better, still not total par, but better. Tonight's topic is on how to study the Bible for yourself (get more meat) . I look around and see all these different styles of Bible study and some of them are loaded with post modern, everything is relative, to each their own-studies. Some of them are good and well worth the time and energy to put into them. I fear, however, if we (parents, church, leaders with education) don't teach people on the hows and whys to study the Bible we will become even more ignorant of the Bible, both in knowledge and wisdom (myself included).
When preparing for this study, I read something that struck me. (I had the head knowledge, but it was an Ah-ha moment.) I study the Bible hoping that the Holy Spirit will come and help me study, and I say a prayer to start the process. What I just realized is that the H.S. wants to teach me from what I read 10,000,000 times more than how much I want to learn. I don't coax the H.S. to teach me, I need to listen and get used to listening. My inability to listen and learn does not constitute inability of the H.S. to teach.

Reflective thoughts

When talking with my father-in-law a while ago, I managed to write some words that I reflect on. Not only does this apply to the family situation that we are going through, but for why it was hard for me back before I meet Jen (If you really want to know what that was, talk to me). It occurred to me that this was something that most people go through after Dave asked if he could share it. (Once again something profound was already written before I thought of it, but only stated differently.)

There is little hope in this world... I do know that when you start not doing things that you should do, the right thing becomes harder to do, unless you hit a breaking point that changes your direction. This can either be from within or outside circumstances. We are outside circumstances and that has a much less effect than from with in one's self. I don't expect much, if anything from meeting with him once or twice a month, maybe I am hoping/wishing that my influence would happen faster, but with knowledge knowing it will take years (and I do mean years) to undo the past... I do think that is where my problem lies, is that I think they will change now, but in human sinfulness it takes a long time to change with out a breaking point, strong enough to change the paradigm you are in.

The only change factor that can speed this process up is the power of Christ, and that comes from the inside flowing outward. I am sorry to say that I have not kept up with meeting this person on a monthly basis. I find it hard to be around people who try so hard to put on a show in front of me only to know that when I am not around them they are totally different and would look opposite. What I can ask for is prayer to overcome my inclination of meeting with this person and to do it.

meeting and food

We had a lunch meeting today, and the only thing that I can say is that if not for the food I would gnaw off my leg to keep myself from boredom. We had Fat Lorenzo's hot hoaggies and it was the best that I ever had. They are the best pizza place that I have found, great pasta, good gelato, and now awesome hoaggies (move over davannies).
http://www.fatlorenzos.com/

funnie things

Thanks to Rachel I had a good laugh, check her comment out on my previous blog on weddings.

Here are a couple of dilbert comics that I found funny today, thanks to dilbert.com
http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20080308.html

http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20080310.html