RT @BeardedReef: If they remade Tombstone with a canine cast would Val Kilmer’s character be called Dog Holliday? #idreamtthisjoke #thin …

Car troubles. #ugh #trolleysystem? #needanewbike

I think an app on my phone has a virus. #firstworldproblems

I can’t sleep. #azureray #boththesongandthesituation

RT @donmilleris: Jesus created enemies by telling the truth. And then he died for them because he loved them. Lets emulate both.

It is 72 degrees in Indiana. My body keeps telling me I need a winter coat.

This week I’m taking a vacation for a few days by myself. My goal is for this to be a retreat of some kind to think about what I want to do in my ministry this year. My ministry however is not near as important as my relationship with Jesus. Many times my prayer life is for others and yeah there is a lot about me. The things I am now praying for are because they are things that I am lacking. With that being said, the following are the things that I am praying for during this time of rest and relaxation. 

1. To grow in my love for people. - God is love. I can easily see the temptation to become frustrated, lose my temper, give up on or even ignore certain people. Lately I’ve been reminded of the magnitude of love and patience that God has for me. I often forget that I am a primary beneficiary of God’s grace and love. 

2. To be motivated by God’s love. - I have been reminded of the great depth of the love of God. As the verse goes, “the love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell. It goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest hell.” To me it seems that the love of God cannot very well be described except through the teaching of the Holy Spirit. Like a child who lives in peace and walks in joy in the presence of his father, so I want to be a child who lives and walks in the presence of his father. 

3. To die a minister. - I’ve been asking “God, is this because of pride?” Do I want to stay a minister because so many quit? I guess overall I want to be fruitful in my ministry. And if God calls me to leave the ministry, my prayer is that it is because God has called me elsewhere. 

4. To rid me of my pride. - My selfishness has begun to peak lately. Not only that I often think of myself. What’s best for me? My money seems to have a grip on me lately. I think and worry about bills, I become selfish when it is time to give. I want to give out of a gracious and worshipful heart. When it comes time to eat or spend on me, I have hole in my pocket. 

5. To be bold. - I am not very bold. A lot of times I think of that verse in Proverbs 17 “A truly wise person uses few words.” However, I feel I never say what I need to say, when I need to say it. My prayer then is not only boldness, it is wisdom as well.

6. To always love my wife. - Since I married Kate, there is no one I’d rather be with, there is no one I’d rather share my life with, I love her. Aside from the love of Jesus, Kate is the greatest thing I have ever had. I want to always lead and love my wife in a way that honors Jesus.

7. To be a facilitator of rest. - There are some people that when you are around them you just feel at rest. It’s like you get a taste of what it is like to be in the presence of Jesus. That is what I want to be. 

8. For my students to know Jesus. - I love my students. It has been my privilege to be involved in Jr. High and High School students lives. Not only that but, watching them grow in Jesus. Seeing them become followers, to live with the blindfolds off. My prayer is for them to know Jesus. To see that he is truly life in a dark and hopeless world.

9. To walk with God. - Genesis recalls Noah being a man who walked with God. As a man who is selfish with his time, and who keeps a loving God constantly waiting, I repent. I want to be a man who lives as if his Father is next to him the whole time. I want to grow in my obedience to his word, to love his word. To have a heart that hungers and thirsts after righteousness. 

To God, if in any of this I have had a motive of pride or “this will make me look better” attitude, I ask you to weed it out of me. Hear my requests, Father. Daily bring me to my knees. May my heart be pure so that I can see you. May the way that I love and treat people be a testimony to a man that knows you. May I always realize that without you I can do nothing.  

Your Son,
Tim

I took the long way home
But it led to the same apartment
Where no one’s paid the phone bill
And no one really cares
When will that road
Go somewhere beautiful
And somewhere safe?

Cause around here everybody’s trying
To find someone to be
Every guy’s trying to find respect
In the eyes of a girl
Who just wants to be loved
We’re children playing with guns
Children playing with hearts

And we go on…

We drive out of the city
Sometimes you’ve just got to leave
And scream out at the dark night
Hoping we believe what we believe
Cause it all seems too simple
And it all seems too wild…

And our question grow in number
And their answers loom with fear
But still we ask and we trust you
Because you’ve held us here
With chains of grace and longing
Longing to be loved
And longing to be known

And we go on…

(All this reaching, still no grasping
Faith is there but time is passing
Are the answers in the asking
Where the weak become the strong?)

All I want is to be someone
All I want it to be real
All I want is to feel alive
All I want is to be with you
I don’t know what I think that means
I want an awful lot, it seems…

And we go on..

— The Normals 

I was given the opportunity to go to the Continent/Country of Australia when I had graduated from high school. There were a lot of things that stuck out to me when I think about being there. One thing in particular would be the stars at night. You would think the sky is the same here is at is there, however it is completely different. There is a constellation with four bright stars that as you can probably guess form a cross. I love the fact that stars are unchanging. Trees, landscapes, rivers and other things have all changed but over the last 6,000 years for the most part, the stars have remained the same. The captains of the ships Paul were on may have used the north star that for guidance when sailing on the Mediterranean.  Even Orion and the Pleiades are mentioned a couple of times in the word. The same constellation that catches our eyes today caught the eyes of the prophets and the people of God. Job 38 is where Orion and the Pleiades are mentioned.  Job 38 is God’s response to Job’s frustrations with God. The chapter begins with God basically saying “Sit down son. You think you know more than me? ‘Where were you when I laid the earths foundation?’” (Paraphrased) “Job where were you when I made the clouds? The shoreline? The light and the dark? The snow? The hail? The rain? The deserts?” How often we lose our confidence in God when things seem to be falling apart. We might as well be guests in a hotel. We live in a place God has lived inside and out before our most distant relative was born. We are blips in the presence of an eternal God. How much more should we trust in a God that has seen over and over again the good and the bad situations played out in our lives as it have in many other lives in the past?

Withdrawal was the way of the Pharisees. Anxious to apply the law to details of everyday life, they had a false understanding of holiness, imagining that mere contact with evil and evil  people would bring contamination. And a form of Christian pharisaism or separatism has lingered in the church. It has often been due to a passionate longing for holiness and a zeal to preserve Chrsitian culture from destruction by the wicked world.
          - John Stott