Lunch For Three - Day 20

Nooma 020|Shells
"Do you often find yourself saying, "I'm so busy" or "I just have so much to do"? It's easy to get overwhelmed with appointments, gatherings, to-do lists. But what are we really doing with our time? Many of us are running from place to place and it seems like life is just passing us by. We're doing so many things, a little bit of everything, and yet it doesn't feel like much of a life. But most of us find it hard to say no. We feel obligated. There are so many good things to do. So many good causes to join. But while we're busy doing all these good things, are we missing out on something great? Maybe saying no would be easier if we knew what it meant to say yes." NOOMAtube

Life gets busy sometimes doesn't it. I commonly find myself stuck in a position where I have committed to help a friend move, catch a Twins game with my dad, and pick Abby up from somewhere, all of these things within the span of a few hours. Almost always I end up letting someone down when I realize that I can't do it all and need to cut one of these obligations out of my agenda. How do you think that God feels when his plans are the ones that we cut out of our agenda. It's been over a week now since my last post in this Lunch For Three series. Obviously with work getting busier, summer commitments coming into full affect and a monster birthday season in our family on my plate, I made the poor choice to cut blogging and more importantly cut my time with God and my devotional study out of my life. Coming back into the study with this video was a bit of a slap in the face.

Overcommitment is an epidemic in today's society. With the advancement of cars, cell phones, and computers we seem to think that we are able to do it all, and do it all at the same time. Does this sound familiar? Or maybe you're a people pleaser and you just can't say no when someone asks something of you. Either way, we all have an issue with spreading ourselves too thin. I've made a comment in one of my previous blogs about some advice that my dad gave me about being financially responsible. He has told me that it is important to stay out of debt and be financially comfortable not because you never know what opportunity may come your way or what tragedy may befall you, but because you never know what God might call you to do. And when God comes calling you want to be in a position where you will be able to fulfill His calling. This is the same sort of concept that Rob is talking about in this video. He gives an example of his son spotting a star fish floating in the water. In mid stride on his way to catch the starfish his son stops, and says I can't my hands are full with my shells. If God came calling to you today, to put down the video game, skip the shopping, get off the couch and go out and help those who are less fortunate, where would your priorities lie? Which of those actions would you cut out of your schedule?

"May you drop your shells in the pursuit of a simple, disciplined, focused life. I which you pursue the few things God has for you. And may you be like Jesus, able to say no because you've already said yes." Rob Bell

Please, if you are interested I encourage you to participate and share your thoughts. I would love to get some feedback and hear what each of you took from the day's topic. Just fill in the comment box at the end of each blog and let me know what you think! To read more posts and see my entire blog click the Touch 'Em All Productions header at the top of the page!

Lunch For Three - Day 19

Nooma 019|Open
"Many of us have experienced situations where we've prayed and it felt like God wasn't listening. And yet other times we've prayed or known someone that prayed and the situation changed. Does God answer prayer? Sometimes, but not all the time? Or does God always answer prayer and it's just that sometimes God says no? Some of us are angry with God for not answering the prayers we've prayed for years. Why did he answer their prayer but not ours? What if there's more to prayer than just God listening and answering? Maybe if we understood how Jesus prayed, our concepts and expectations of prayer would change." NOOMAtube

Have you ever wondered why some prayers get answered while others do not? Was this group praying harder or better than the other group? If God is all powerful and can basically do whatever he wants, why hasn't he healed them yet? Prayer is an incredible yet confusing thing. This lack of understanding is something that is not unique to the human race. When Jesus Christ came down to the earth and lived among us, he too was filled with this doubt. While on the cross Jesus prayed twice to God. The first time he was basically pleading to the Father, "if there is any other way." He was praying to be saved, praying to be healed. Yet Jesus realized that God had other plans and in his second prayer He closes by saying, "Not my will, but yours be done." It's tough to get a grasp on God's plan that he has for the world. Through creation, God has left the world unfinished and has invited us to take part in the creation. As all parents know, when you create something you are taking a risk that what you create will not turn out the way that you have planned. How many people do you know that grew up in a Christian home and have at one point in their life taken a turn for the worst? I know a few. This is why we pray.

Prayer is basically the action of being open to the God who is at work here and now. Being open to the plan that God has put in place, not the plan that we wish to see to fruition. Sometimes His plan does not line up with our plan and it is painful. If you have experienced death or sorrow, do not be afraid to lift up these feelings to the Lord. It is said that most of the Psalms are filled with laments towards God. People shaking their fists at God, yelling at God. He can handle it. Life up your emotions. Prayer is an incredibly powerful tool. There is an idea that prayer taps into the same energy that was used to create the universe. How cool is that idea? Open your eyes to the power of prayer. "May your whole life be a prayer and may you be honest with God as you become more and more open to your role in the ongoing creation of the world" (Rob Bell).

Lunch For Three - Day 18

Nooma 018|Name
"We all compare ourselves to others. We spend our lives wondering what others think and say about us. Some of us even wish we were someone else. We question why we are the way we are and not the way we wish we could be. Some of us have let the expectations of others dictate who we've become. We act a certain way to be accepted but know that we're being untrue. But why are we so concerned with what other people think, say, or look like? What does it say about us if we are unable to accept who we are? Maybe if we really knew our true selves, we wouldn't give so much attention to other peoples' lives and live more in tune with the life God wants for us." NOOMAtube

And Jacob said unto his father, 'I am Esau, your first born.' Genesis 27:19

Have you ever wanted something that somebody else had? Maybe it was a car, maybe it was a game, or maybe it was even a physical characteristic, their height or beauty. As for myself I just started my first real world job, and let's just say I am not breaking the bank! I roll into work and see people driving cars all the time that I would like. I wish that I could jump as high as Lebron James. If you ask anybody what they would change about themselves they would hesitate to respond. Not because they are having trouble thinking of things they don't like about themselves, but because they are trying to narrow down the list of things they have inside their heads. Jesus invites us to be our true selves. To embrace who we are, what we are, and where we are. Yet we get hung up on what we are not. We get caught up in petty jealousy and desire for what we do not have. We are so worried about other people and what they have that we don't have, that we forget to be thankful for the blessings in our own lives.

Proverbs 14 says, "A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones." How much of our life do we lose out on when we are endlessly comparing ourselves to others. In Genesis, Jacob was jealous of the inheritance that Esau was in line to get. He went to great lengths to doop his father into thinking that he was indeed Esau that he lost sight of the good things in his life. As we can read, Jacob was a very talented young man. He was wise beyond his years and was growing to be a leader in the community. But this was not good enough for him, he wanted to be the oldest and he wanted to be strong, he wanted to be Esau. Jacob was so blinded by his jealousy that he deceived his own father and stole from his brother.

Take a second and look at yourself in the figurative mirror. Do you see envy? Do you see jealousy? How can we love others and love the world when we can't come to grips with that fact that who we are is who we are. And who we are is who God created us to be. I pray that I can get to the point where I look into the mirror happy with what I see, proud of what I see, because what I see is created by God and what I see is good. "May you do the hard work of the soul to discover your true self. May you find your unique path the one God has for you. And in the process, may you find yourself comfortable in your own skin" Rob Bell.

Nooma 016|Store

Nooma 016|Store

"We all get angry about things from time to time -- some of us more often than others. For some of us, it feels like we're constantly on the brink of losing it, where it doesn't take much to get angry about anything. And this kind of anger can be seen everywhere we go -- at work, in traffic, at the store, at home. But what is really at its the root? Anger is often looked at as a bad thing, but are there things actually worth getting angry about? Maybe if we had a better understanding of our anger and where it comes from, we could learn how to channel it towards something constructive -- something that's bigger than ourselves." NOOMAtube

Wow, this one hit pretty close to home for me. I feel like sometimes the guy who gets upset in traffic or in the grocery store is me. I mean I have a little more self control over the actions that my fingers do, but that anger and that rage still boils up. Just this morning I was in the right lane getting ready to exit onto 394 from hwy 169 when a car that was coming onto 169 accelerated when I accelerated and decelerated when I decelerated, ultimately blocking me from exiting where I needed to exit. I knew that I could just get off on Cedar Lake Rd. (the next exit) and would have only lost about 30 seconds, but I still waved my arms and muttered under my breath. Why couldn't she have yielded to me? Why did she have to be so dumb? I like the way that Rob titled this type of anger as, "low grade boiling rage that people carry around with them everywhere they go." This situation did not necessarily warrant this level of anger, but I still flipped out. Over something stupid, over something that I cannot change no matter how much I yelled or how dirty of a look I gave her.

"Anger is simply an emotion. It's just your body's way of telling you that your will has been blocked. What you want to happen isn't happening. The problem isn't anger; the problem is what we do with it. It's where we take it. It's where we go with it. The question is, why am I angry? Because my anger is going to lead somewhere." A cool idea that Rob took from this anger was that we need to listen to our anger because God may be using it to get our attention. When we think about what God may or may not be calling us to do, all to often we make a list of things we love and go from there to follow our calling. But maybe we are looking at this on the opposite side of the spectrum. Maybe the things that anger us are the things that we are most passionate about, maybe this "low grade boiling rage" is God's way of directing us to what we are supposed to do to change the world. "Some people are always looking for a fight because they are not in one...We need to embrace the simple truth that we were made to give ourselves to a cause bigger than ourselves...a cause that increases the peace in the world...a cause, a purpose, a task that makes the world a better place."

Rob's final words will be a prayer that I pray for myself from this day forward..."May you become aware of your anger. May you learn to channel it, to focus it, direct it into something beautiful. And may it fuel sacred acts of healing and restoration."

Assess your anger, find the deeper meaning behind it.

Nooma 015 | You

Nooma 015|You
"Some of the central claims of the Christian faith are the source of many discussions and heated debates. But are we always debating the right things? Maybe some of our discussions would change significantly if we had more insight into the actual circumstances that surrounded the first people of the Christian movement -- if we had a better understanding of the things they did in the context of the world they lived in. Maybe some of the claims of the Christian faith that we typically perceive to be unique aren't really that special at all. And at the same time maybe we don't always put enough emphasis on the things that truly should matter in our lives." NOOMAtube

The early Christians almost had more of an uphill battle to face than we do today in spreading the gospel. Sure it's hard for us to fight mainstream society and the influence that the entertainment world has on lost souls, but at least we have an infrastructure to work from. Early Christians had nothing but faith to go off. They began the daunting task of building an infrastructure from scratch and used models of Roman rule to do so. At this time the developed world was ruled by Romans and Caesar was their leader. When the Romans would conquer a city they would force the inhabitants of the land to proclaim that "Caesar is lord." Once this was done the Romans would build a building that would become a worshipping center to Caesar. These structures were called "ekklesias," which in English is church. These first Christians took this term and used it to describe their gatherings, where they confessed that Jesus is Lord.

At these gatherings they preached the love and compassion of Christ. They preached the our world was fallen and in pieces. "These first Christians believed that Jesus' Resurrection had implication for the entire universe...They saw in Jesus' resurrection the beginning of this universe-wide movement to put it all back together" (Rob Bell). They opposed Caesar's tactics of using political and war power to force people to believe certain ideals. "For them, this gospel was about serving the world, especially those on the underside of the Empire. For them it was about serving, not ruling" (Rob Bell). These are the types of people that don't have to go about proclaiming and preaching the name of the Lord for they have that special "glow" about them that draws you to them. That "glow" is Jesus' love flowing out of them, and it's attractive to all. We want to be around these people because being around people like this gives us a glimpse as to what it would have been like to be around Jesus.

Easier said than done right? The truth is that "we all fall short and that's the beautiful part. Broken, flawed, vulnerable people like you and me, are invited to be the hands and feet of Jesus who loves us exactly as we are and yet, loves us way too much to let us stay that way" (Rob Bell). If people were to base their decision to believe off of you and the life that you live, what would they decide? Would your actions and your words give them the confidence to believe that Jesus has risen from the dead? "May you be a 'yes' to the questions, 'Has Jesus risen from the dead?' And may you come to see - may you understand that you are the good news. You are the gospel." Rob Bell

Lunch For Three - Day 13

Nooma 013|Rich
"There's a popular bumper sticker that reads "God Bless America," but hasn't America already been blessed? It's easy for us to fall into a mindset of viewing "our" world as "the" world, because it's all we generally see. We're constantly bombarded with images of the latest styles and models of everything, and it can easily leave us feeling like what we have isn't enough because we see people that have even more than us. But how does what we have compare to what most people in the world have? Maybe what we have is enough; maybe it's more than enough. Maybe God has blessed us with everything we have so we can bless and give to others."

Isn't it interesting how we view the world? We live in a country that is considered by most the center of the universe. And our lives represent this notion. Take a look at our maps of the world. The United States is always smack dab in the center of the map and on top of the world. Europe is off to our right side and Western Asia and Australia down to the left. In Australia they sell world maps that are very different. Their maps have Australia at the top and smack dab in the center of everything. Look at this map for a second. Can you even find the United States? It's all a matter of perspective. How we view the world is very different from how the rest of the world views the world. You may think that you are poor yet you live in a house and drive a car. Check out these statistics...

• The U.S. population accounts for about 6% of the world, yet we use 40% of the worlds resources.
  
• 92% of people in the world do not own a car. Between you and your family how many do you have?
• 1 billion people in the world do not have access to clean drinking water
• 800 million people, 300 million of them children, will not eat a meal today.
• 1 billion people in the world live on less than $1 a day
• To supply food and water to the entire world is would cost about $20 billion a year. This is less than we in the United States spend on ice cream in a year.

Some of those numbers are sickening. And we have the audacity to call ourselves poor or unfortunate. It's very dangerous when we start believing that our world is the world. It's not a bad thing that we enjoy what we have, but Christ has called us to do more than just enjoy our blessings. We were called to aid those who are in need. Whether it be food, water, money, or just time we should be selflessly giving what we have. Throughout my life my dad has taught me to be financially responsible. I always figured that these suggestions and lessons that he gave me were to assure my families financial stability for years to come, but that wasn't it at all. Recently we had a talk about finances and it came out that the real reason that he was teaching me to save and be responsible was because we never know what God is going to call us to do. If we ended up having a friend who was in need or being called into missions we would want to be financially stable enough to follow God's calling. We are called to be generous with all that we have.

"Let's be honest. It's easy to go to a church service, it's easy to read the Bible, it's easy to discuss who believes what and who's right and who's wrong. It's easy. But when Jesus talks about his followers, he talks about people who are generous, people who clothe the naked, take food to the hungry, take water to the thirsty, people who visit the prisoner, people who invite the stranger in, people who give their time, people who give their energy, people who give their money." Rob Bell. When face with a situation don't ask yourself, "what can I get?" Ask yourself "what can I give." For Jesus it's not about having everything, it's about being content. It's about taking hold of the life that is really life.

May you come to see that you're rich. And your possessions, they're luxuries that most people in the world don't have. And may you do what Jesus says, may you step into your divine responsibility to give, and when you do, may you take hold of the life that is truly life. - Rob Bell

Please, if you are interested I encourage you to participate and share your thoughts. I would love to get some feedback and hear what each of you took from the day's topic. Just click the comment button at the end of each blog and let me know what you think!

Lunch For Three - Day 13

Nooma 012|Matthew
"Suffering the loss of someone we love can be the most difficult thing in life to deal with. One moment we have them and the next they're gone. What are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to feel? The truth is, there's no certain way we're "supposed" to feel. Whatever we're feeling, it's okay. It's okay to feel shock, anger, denial or whatever we may feel. It's okay. And if we don't feel anything at all, that's okay too. It's okay to have no answers and no explanations. Because sometimes all the reasoning and comforting words in the world just isn't what we need. What might help us however is to understand how Jesus dealt with this kind of loss." NOOMAtube

Our God is full of love and hope and His message is of a better life someday in Heaven. But we live on a fallen Earth, and until we are called to join our Father in Heaven we will inevitably have to experience death. Have you lost someone recently? When I lost my Grandmother years ago, I was stricken with pain. She went in for a normal routine surgery and never made it out. Now you see, for the majority of my life my grandma was the only grandparent that I had. One of my grandpas died when I was really young and I never got the chance to meet my other grandparents. So she was really special to me and when she passed away it seemed surreal. One day she was there and the next she was not. This was one of the few times in my life that I have really seen my dad cry. My dad is a great man, but for the most part holds his emotions on the inside, so seeing this emotion pouring out of him made me realize how sad it was to lose my grandma.

The tears that were flowing down our faces that day were not only tears of sadness. Masked behind the grief for me was anger, grief, guilt, and fear. I wasn't sure exactly how I was supposed to feel. One comforting thing to note is that in times of sorrow and sadness Jesus felt the same way.

• "When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled." John 11:33.
• "Jesus wept." John 11:35

"It's easy, when we suffer loss, for whatever it is that we lost to become the center of our life. We had them, and now they're gone. And so there's this giant hole where they once were and it becomes all we can think about. And what happens in the process is our whole life becomes what we don't have and we lose out on what we do have" (Rob Bell). And what we do have is a hope. A hope for a life that our God has promised us. In the video Rob says, "The first Christians spoke about a day in the future when God would restore everything - you, me, everything in heaven and on earth." Find great hope in that!

Chris Tomlin has a song out right now called I Will Rise off of his Hello Love album. CLICK HERE to see a video of Chris Tomlin talking about this song. In the video Chris states that he was having a conversation while touring on the road with a band member and the band member suggested the Chris write a song for people in their hardest times of life. He suggested that Chris write something for the church in that moment. Based off of the line "the grave is overwhelmed" he wrote the song. Chris says that he wanted to reflect the image of hope that John gives us in Revelations when he has his vision of heaven. Abby and I went to the Chris Tomlin concert at Excel this weekend and when they sang this song I got chills all over my body. The bridge of the song reflects John's imagery from Revelations. At this point, with 10,000 people singing around me I lost it, I mean full blown tears. Take a couple minutes and listen to the song and see the vision of hope that we have to carry around with us everyday. This is my favorite song out there right now!

"May you realize that Jesus wept. And may you come to see that whatever you're feeling, it's okay. May you make the choice not to become bitter and closed, but open. And may you realize that God is sitting shivah with you, fully present, grieving your loss...but also restoring. And in that, may we find hope." Rob Bell

He [Jesus] must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets. - Acts 3:21

Lunch For Three - Day 11

Lunch For Three Revisions
Lunch For Three will be taking on a little bit of a new look for the next three days. Abby (my wife) and I are heading to the Family Life Marriage conference downtown this week and I will be unable to view/analyze the usually NOOMA videos. In its stead I will post a summary of the conference each night when we arrive home. Thoughts, interesting topics, and useful exercises from the days activities. Stay tuned for more!

Lunch For Three - Day 10

Nooma 010|Lump
"A lot of us have done things in our lives that we're ashamed of. Some are small things, and some of us have really big and devastating things. Some of us even have things that people close to us don't know about. Personal junk that we keep to ourselves so we don't have to deal with it. Because we don't know how to deal with it, do we? We're afraid that if we try it's just going to make everything worse. But no matter how big our junk is, no matter how much what we've done has impacted the way other people feel about us or how we feel about ourselves, it hasn't changed how God feels about us. God loves us, he always has and always will, and there's nothing we can do to change that." NOOMAtube

Have you ever had something from your past come back to bite you in the butt? We all have. We all have things that we are ashamed of and we all have junk in our past. Think about that moment when you first find out that you are busted. "You know that moment when your junk catches up to you? It's like maybe not that day, maybe not the next day, maybe not for a while, but give it enough time it always finds us" (Rob Bell). It's always easy to run and hide from your past, but that doesn't last forever. Eventually you will be forced to man up to the contents of your junk drawer. Someday you will be totally exposed and vulnerable. From the very beginning of time humans have been dealing with the junk from their past.

In Genesis chapter 3 we find Adam and Eve as they realized that they were "busted."
^"8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" ¹⁰ He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." Adam and Eve knew they were caught, and they hid because they were ashamed. In the midst of our shame we commonly forget one important thing. No matter what we've done, where we've been, or what we will do, God loves us and there is nothing that we can do that will ever change that! Attack everyday with the confidence that you are a screw up and your Heavenly Father still loves you!

"So may you stop hiding under the covers. May you let God pull the covers back. May you embrace him. May your whole life become a response to the truth that you have always been loved, you are loved, and you will always be loved. And may you know, may you know deep in the depths of your soul, that there's nothing you could ever do to make Him love you less. Nothing you could ever do to make God love you less...nothing...nothing." Rob Bell

Please, if you are interested I encourage you to participate and share your thoughts. I would love to get some feedback and hear what each of you took from the day's topic. Just click the comment button at the end of each blog and let me know what you think!

Lunch For Three - Day 9

Nooma 009|Bullhorn
"God loves everyone, so a Christian should, too. In fact, Jesus said that the most important thing in life is to love God with everything we've got and love others the same way. But it's not always easy to love everyone around us, is it? Sometimes we strongly disagree with other people's political views, religious beliefs, behaviors, or something else, and it makes it hard to love them when we feel like we're right and they're very wrong. But Jesus doesn't separate loving God and loving others. So maybe the best way for us to show our love for God is actually by loving other people no matter how hard it sometimes is. Maybe it's the only way." NOOMAtube

What are you're feelings about Bullhorn guy from the video? Do agree with his method of evangelism? Unfortunately you are "painted with the same brush" as bullhorn guy. Non-believers see bullhorn guy and they are turned off by his actions, by his tone, and by his decisions, thus turned off by Christianity. The news that he is spreading does not seem like good news. But bullhorn guy is not the only person that is giving Christianity a bad name. In our own way, you and I are doing the same amount of damage to our faith as bullhorn guy. You and I stumble and you and I sin, and when non-believers see us do these things they frown upon Christians. In this way we set Christianity back just as much as bullhorn guy did on the street corner.

God's message to the world is a message of Love. It is a message that our world is screwing up. Our world is full of hate and war, yet we are called to love our enemies, we are called to love non-believers, and we are called to love bullhorn guy. "A Christian is somebody that understands that all people are to be loved and respected because they are created by God" (Rob Bell). God loves everybody! God loves, atheists, democrats, republicans, terrorists, and child molesters. We can't even find it in ourselves to love the people who talked smack about us in Junior High? What kind of example are we setting to people who do not believe or to people who are just starting to believe? When we reach out to our enemies and love them, something powerful happens, God works through this love. Showing love is commonly perceived as a touchy feely relationship. The love that God calls us for is not always like that. Sometimes people just need someone to listen to them, to listen to their concerns and their pain. Jesus tells us that when we look out for each other, He too is there.

There are many negative stereotypes against Christians and they are not all because of bullhorn guy. Realize that we are all responsible for the way that Christianity is perceived in our world today. So with this knowledge I ask this question...What are you doing to change this perception? Are you loving your enemies? Are you helping the needy? Are you loving your neighbor as you love yourself?

"So may you see that how you love others is how you love God. That's it, that's the way of love, that's the way of Jesus." - Rob Bell

Please, if you are interested I encourage you to participate and share your thoughts. I would love to get some feedback and hear what each of you took from the day's topic. Just click the comment button at the end of each blog and let me know what you think!

Lunch For Three - Day 8

Nooma 008|Dust
"Believing in God is important, but what about God believing in us? Believing that we can actually be the kind of people we were meant to be. People of love, compassion, peace, forgiveness, and hope. People who try to do the right thing all of the time. Who act on the endless opportunities around us every day for good, beauty, and truth. It's easy for us to sometimes get down on ourselves. To feel "not good enough" or feel like we don't have what it takes. But maybe if we had more insight into the culture that Jesus grew up in and some of the radical things he did, we'd understand the faith that God has in all of us." NOOMAtube

In dissecting the scripture Rob starts this video out by deducting that Jesus' disciples were normal people. Because they were learning the trades of their fathers, they had not been the best of the best and were not chosen to follow a rabbi. They were the JV-team, average joes. They were just normal like you and I. Jesus present to us this message of faith that is for us, for the B-squad. Just like the disciples that follow the Rabbi's, Jesus calls for us to be "covered in the Dust of our Rabbi." To live our lives so closely to His, in hopes that we can one day be doing what he does.

During the mid 90's a fad swept across our nation. This fad was shared between those who fully lived their lives for Christ and those who did not. This fad outlived Pogs, Tamagochi's, and Furby's. It caused most of the nation to wear these silly multicolored bracelets. The hope was to remind us whenever we see it to think, "What Would Jesus Do." Churches encouraged children and adults alike to wear these bracelets as a statement of their faith and a subtle reminder to think twice before acting, to think to themselves, "Would Jesus do this?" These bracelets were encouraging us to live like Jesus, to be a disciple of Jesus, to be covered in the dust of our rabbi.

But how can I, a fallen being, even begin to compare with my sinless perfect saviour? Just like when Peter walked on water to meet Jesus, he lost faith and began to sink. But he didn't lose faith in Jesus, he could see that Jesus was able to walk on water. He lost faith in himself and thought there was no way that me, a fisherman, can walk on water. But we can be reassured. Not only do we have faith in Jesus, but he has faith in us! He believes that we can succeed and lead a life devoted to being like Him. Knowing that should give you some major confidence, knowing that the creator of the universe believes in you!

"May you believe in God. But may you come to see that God believes in you. May you have faith in Jesus. But may you come to see that Jesus has faith that you can be like him. A person of Love and compassion and truth. A person of forgiveness, and peace, and grace, and joy, and hope. And may you be covered in the dust of your rabbi, Jesus." Rob Bell

Please, if you are interested I encourage you to participate and share your thoughts. I would love to get some feedback and hear what each of you took from the day's topic. Just click the comment button at the end of each blog and let me know what you think!

Lunch For Three - Day 7

Nooma 007|Luggage
"Maybe a friend turned their back on you. Maybe someone you loved betrayed you. We all have wounds and we end up carrying around these things that people have done to us for weeks, months, and sometimes even years. It isn't always easy to forgive these people and after a while these hurts can get really heavy. So the only way to feel better seems to be somehow getting back at the people that hurt us, to get revenge. But does revenge ever truly satisfy? Maybe forgiving isn't something you do for someone else to let them off the hook. Maybe forgiveness is about you. God didn't create you to carry these wounds around. God created you to be free. " NOOMAtube

What kind of wounds are you carrying around with you everyday? What sorts of things from your past continue to haunt you? We all carry wounds. We've all been betrayed. We all have things that have happened in our past that just eat away at our insides. I have people in my past that have hurt me so badly that it's impossible for me to look at them the way I once did. The thought of revenge is all that I can think of. And just when I think that I have fully suppressed these feelings, something happens that reminds me of this pain. A sound, a picture, or a memory is all it takes and the pain has found its way back to the surface again. We all have this type of baggage that we are carrying around with us everyday. We all seek revenge. But what is revenge really? If we get revenge will we feel better about ourselves?

Think about revenge at the spiritual level. Rob brings up the point that, at the spiritual level, revenge is basically a slap in the face to God. It's us saying, "God, I don't trust you to handle this situation. If I get revenge, than I can control the situation. I think I can do your job better than you can" (Rob Bell). We need to leave the judgment up to God, it's not our place to judge. This simple truth is spelled out for us again and again throughout the Bible.

• Do not insist on getting even; that's not for you to do. "I'll do the judging," says God. "I'll take care of it." Romans 12:19
• Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Luke 6:37

Forgiveness is not easy. To really forgive someone you truly have to wish them well. If you are unable to wish them well, you are really just sitting back and waiting for them to be judged by God. When you forgive someone, you set them free, but you are really setting yourself free. Carrying that baggage around forever is not a pleasant way to live, but when you practice true forgiveness, the weight is lifted. "God didn't create us to carry this stuff around. He created us to be free from bitterness, free from anger and revenge, free from feeling like you're the judge of the world" (Rob Bell).

Think of someone who has hurt you. It may be some petty little disagreement, or it may be something far more serious. Pray that the Lord may give you the strength to forgive this person. Reach out to them and forgive.

May you forgive as you have been forgiven, may you give to others what has been given to you, may you set someone free and find out that it was actually you who was set free. And may you do it today, because you might not have a chance to do it tomorrow - Rob Bell

Please, if you are interested I encourage you to participate and share your thoughts. I would love to get some feedback and hear what each of you took from the day's topic. Just click the comment button at the end of each blog and let me know what you think!

Lunch For Three - Day 6

Nooma 006|Kickball
"We always think we know what's missing from our lives in order to really make us happy, don't we? If only I had that car, or that job, or if only I could lose those 15 lbs, then I'd be happy. Really? How often do we want something only to find out that it wasn't that great after all? Sometimes we ask God for things and if he doesn't deliver right away, we start questioning whether God really understands or even cares. Do we really trust God? Do we trust that God is good and sees a bigger picture than we ever could? It's easy to want what's right in front of us, but maybe God knows what's better for us, and sometimes we just can't see it." NOOMAtube

Do you ever feel like you're being ignored by God? Do you ask him for things that you have not yet received? Do you think that your life would be better if you had that new car, that new pair of shoes, or that new house? Who are we to decide what would make our lives better or what would ultimately make us happy? This video dives into the idea of our humanly perspective on life compared to God's heavenly perspective on life. I know we've all heard the analogy of life viewing life as a marathon. Somebody much wiser and smarter than you tells you to "pace yourself" or to "look at the big picture." How frustrating is that? That's what this is like, and that's what God is reminding us of. But I know that if I was blessed with this new car my life would be better. I know it would make me happy. Yet I don't know when that happiness will run out. I don't know when the we won't be able to buy groceries because I spent our money on that new car instead.

We often have our own ideas of what would be better, yet don't realize that God's idea of better...is better. Think to yourself and write down a few characteristics that you think describe God. Here are some that I came up with...

• Loving
• Awesome
• Terrifying
• Just
  
• Gracious
  

How many of the characteristics that you came up with are considered bad? I put down terrifying, but did not intend it to be a bad thing at all. How terrifying is it that in the blink of an eye, God could end our lives? Or with the snap of his fingers natural disasters form? That's terrifying. But I followed it up with the characteristics of just and gracious. God could do these things and has done these things, yet He is just and gracious in His decisions. God is good and he could give us everything that we could ever want, be he does not. That's because within our desire and greed is our view of reality, not God's view of reality. If we know how to give good gifts to our kids, to our friends, and to our family, how much better will God know how to give gifts to his children? Step out of your comfort zone and fully give your life to God. Let go of the steering wheel and let God guide you through life. Have faith that he will provide. "May you believe that God is good and he has something better..." Rob Bell.

"Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow."
James 1:17 (NLT)

"I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out - plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I'll listen. When you come looking for me, you'll find me. Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, I'll make sure you won't be disappointed."
Jeremiah 29:11-14 (MSG)

Please, if you are interested I encourage you to participate and share your thoughts. I would love to get some feedback and hear what each of you took from the day's topic. Just click the comment button at the end of each blog and let me know what you think!

Lunch For Three - Day 5

Nooma 005|Noise
"Why is silence so hard to deal with? Why is it so much easier for us to live our lives with a lot of things going on all the time than to just be in silence? We're constantly surrounded with "voices" that are influencing us on how to think, feel, and behave. Movies, music, TV, Internet, cell phones, and a never-ending barrage of advertising. There's always something going on. Always noise in our lives. But maybe there's a connection between the amount of noise in our lives and our inability to hear God. If God sometimes feels distant to us, maybe it's not because he's not talking to us, but simply because we aren't really listening." NOOMAtube

Rob starts this video off sitting on the couch, with the TV on, telling us a story about Elijah. Getting ready to be done with his travels, Elijah had grown tired and weary. He had dedicated his life to the Lord, but questioned whether or not he had truly ever heard the Lord's direction. Wanting to hear God's voice Elijah heads up to the top of the mountain where God told him that He would show up. While atop the mount a fierce wind sweeps through that shakes the mountain. Yet Elijah hears nothing. Then and earthquake came, again shaking the mountain, but nothing. Finally a fire storm engullfed the mountain and Elijah heard nothing. But in the silence after the storm, Elijah could hear the voice of the Lord. God was speaking to him in the sound of sheer silence. Is it possibel for twenty-first century humans to ever acheive sheer silence? The Environmental Protection Agency tells us that 183 million people are regularly exposed to noise levels labeled as excessive.

When you drive in the car, do you have the radio on? When you are at home is the TV running? Do you have a cell phone, a facebook page, or an iPod? Why is it so hard for us to be without these things and be in silence? While I write this blog today, the thing I want to to most is check the score of the basketball game and turn on some tunes. I am literally fighting this urge with every keystroke. Rob asks us this question, "Is there a connection between the amount of noise in our lives and our inability to hear God?" Of course there is! My life is wired and scheduled around TV shows, sporting events, and movies. Yet is seems like I can't find the time of day to put half that dedication towards my Heavenly Father? There's something wrong with that.

Silence is a key theme found in the Bible...

• Deut. 27:9 - Then Moses and the Levitical priests spoke to all Israel, saying, "Be silent and listen, O Israel! This day you have become a people for the LORD your God.
• Psalms 4:4 - Be angry, and do not sin. Meditate within your heart on your bed, and be still. Selah.
• Habakkuk 2:20 - But the LORD is in His holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before Him.

God makes it very clear to us what I need to do when I am in need of His guiding words. Yet I chose to follow my own flawed ways. I complain, I whine and I gossip. "Have you spent the same amount of time worrying and talking about your difficult, confusing situations as you have spent in silence, listening to what God might have to say?" (Rob Bell). In highschool, I was notorious for sneaking away from the group while out on church retreats at night. Knowing me, everybody probably thought that I was out creating mischeif or plotting to do so, but that's not the case. I would sneak off to enjoy the wilderness and be engulfed by God's amazing beauty. Undoubtedly, this is when God would speak me. I've never felt as small and insignificant as I would laying on the frozen ice looking into the starlit sky. I was remind that MY God created this. MY God put those their. It wasn't necessarily through words, but at this time God would remind me how awesome He was. That He was amazing, that He was in control, and that He was always with me.

Back in the big city, I would fall right into the same trap again. I finally got cell phone reception back and began texting my friends and family. I got home and turned on the ball game to see how my team was doing. And I got on instant messanger and talked poorly behind somebodies back. Why is it so different here? God is still all around me. Those same stars that I saw on the lake are still in the sky above my home, but the noise and distractions of a technically advanced world distracts me their beauty. Go out of your way to create silent moments with God. Witness His beauty and let Him take priority above the noise.

Please, if you are interested I encourage you to participate and share your thoughts. I would love to get some feedback and hear what each of you took from the day's topic. Just click the comment button at the end of each blog and let me know what you think!

Lunch For Three - Day 4

Nooma 004|Sunday
"Why do we do the things we do? Why do we go to church or give money away? Because we're supposed to or because we think God needs it? Do we honestly put on our best clothes for an hour once a week, stand and sit at all the right times, and sing all the appropriate songs for God's sake, or because it'll make us look better to the world around us? We're tired of all the empty rituals and routines. And so is God. God hates it when we call ourselves Christians but ignore all the things he really cares about. He hates it when we go through hollow religious routines out of some feeling of duty or obligation. God doesn't want the meaningless rituals. God wants our hearts. " NOOMAtube

Ten seconds left! I grab the rebound and call a timeout. Down by one, the State Championship is within our grasp! Coach huddles us up and draws up a special play. He looks at me and says, "Aj, once you curl around that screen get ready to shoot. The ball is coming to you." I nod my head in accordance and hustle back out onto the floor just as the ref's whistle blows. Eric inbounds the ball to Ryan and runs straight at me to set the screen. My shoulder slides right off of Eric's as I curl around the pick and receive the pass. One dribble to the left and I pull up at the elbow for the jumper. The world begins to slow as I can see the Nike logo on the basketball rotating in a beautiful high arching shot towards the bucket. The ball hits the front rim, and bounces straight up. As gravity would have it, the ball begins to fall back towards the hoop and... "EHHH, EHHH, EHHH, EHHH, EHHH! " It's 9:00AM Sunday morning, I struggle to regain consciousness and realize that I was dreaming and it's time to wake up for church. I roll over and shut my eyes again, trying to figure out if I should wake up or sleep in a little longer. I think to myself, "we were out of town last week and weren't able to go, so I guess we should go this week". I roll out of bed, shower, throw on my Sunday's best and we're off! After shaking the hands of the greeters at the front door we head straight in the sanctuary to "our spot" and settle in. We sing, bow our heads, and pretend to take notes just like every other week. After the benediction we try to avoid getting into long conversations with others and sneak out to the car.

Does this sound familiar to anybody? It sure does to me. Is this what God had in mind when he created the church? Did He want us to raise our hands, bow our heads, and pray when we are supposed to? "We can sing all the right songs and say all the right prayers, but if it's just going through the motions, what's the point?" (Rob Bell). Rob talks about a story in the Bible where Jesus is joining the religious leaders of the day for a meal. The leaders are going through the hand washing and oil rituals that they were one to do, yet Jesus chooses not participate. They look at Him shocked that He was not following along. Then Jesus says, "You clean the outside of the cup, but the inside is filled with greed & evil." We are not that different today from the way those religious leaders were back then. Jesus challenges us and says that we "are spiritually dead, and [we] don't even know it!"

Like the Religious leaders in the story above, I know that sometimes I do things because I want people to see me doing them. I want the public to think that I am a good man and that I do Godly things. How about this, do you ever feel embarrassed when the offering plate gets passed by and you don't put anything in? Or better yet, do you feel good about yourself when you do put something in the plate? Why do we really give? I mean, God doesn't need our money. He created the world, why couldn't he just create a little more food for the hungry or supplies for the church builders? Rather than give because we think we should, we need to "seek justice, encourage the oppressed, defend the cause of the fatherless, and plead the case of the widow" (Rob Bell). Not because we want people to see us doing so, but simply because it's what God calls us to do.

Since 1991 the number of people who no longer go to church has increased from 39 million to 75 million today (Bama Research Group). That's a 92% increase in less than 20 years? People are fed up with Christians living as frauds. They see believers act one way on Sunday or when they are with their "church friends" and in a completely different way when they are at school or work. We cuss, lie, and gossip yet are proud to call ourselves Christians whenever we are asked. "Is church a building? Like one hour a week? Church is people. People whose hearts are beating more and more like God's...Let's be honest. A lot of people confuse religion with God and walk away from them both. The point isn't Christianity. The point is being a Christian. It means being a follower of Jesus. It's being connected with everything that is true and good and right. Everything that goes on around us, that reminds us that there is so much more going on around us than we realize. Could anything be more beautiful?" (Rob Bell)

Please, if you are interested I encourage you to participate and share your thoughts. I would love to get some feedback and hear what each of you took from the day's topic. Just click the comment button at the end of each blog and let me know what you think!

Lunch For Three - Day 3

Nooma 003|Trees
"We want to know why we are here. If our lives really matter. How our religion is relevant to this life. Today. We want to understand what significance this minute, hour, week, month, and year has to our lives.To our world. We need a God who cares about this life, in this world, right now. We want to understand why everything we think, everything we say, and everything we do matters. We don't want to just sit back and wait for something to happen or someday to come. We want to know if all the choices we make now will shape our world and lives for eternity. Because we want our lives to have meaning today, and our lives today to have meaning forever. " - NOOMAtube

Late lunch today, sorry! Have you ever asked yourself the questions why am I here? Or what is my purpose in life? I know that I have. It's something that isn't obvious to us as humans. I commonly think that I have things in my life figured out and then God throws me a curve ball and I find myself once again lost, confused and back at square one. I want to do good in this world but how can I do so when the yuck of the world seems to be taking over? How can God's beauty live side by side with such pain? Despite what I commonly believe it's not up to me. Yet God does give a choice. I can live live the way that I want to live or I can live life the way that God created me to live.

The way that God created us to live...think about that for a second. How did God create us to live? In the days of Genesis, God created us to live as one in peace with the land and animals. Then there was this whole fiasco with the tree. Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and were kicked out of Eden. As Rob says, the trouble with this is not that it happened but that it happens. Each and every day we are faced with sinful temptations and we continue to choose the path of sin. We are given the choice to gossip, the choice to lie, and the choice to steal yet over and over again we take the temptation.

So where is God in all of this? As we walk through our everyday lives, why can't God be by our side at all times whispering in our ear? "I need a God who is now. I need a God who teaches me how to live now. I need a faith that's about today, that helps me understand the world that I live in today" (Rob Bell). Yet we live in a world full of beauty, full of life. God created the trees, he created art and music. All the things we enjoy, God created and God is in them. We live "in a world drenched in God. And some people seriously ask, you know, "Where is God?" Maybe the better question would be "Where isn't God?" I mean, his fingerprints are all over our world" (Rob Bell).

I personally need to take a step back and rededicate my life to the Lord. To admit that I cannot do it on my own and to understand that without Him, I will fall victim to the world's temptations. We as followers of Christ, should work towards living the way that God created us to live. To be committed to work with God to make the world the place that He intended it to be.

Please, if you are interested I encourage you to participate and share your thoughts. I would love to get some feedback and hear what each of you took from the day's topic. Just click the comment button at the end of each blog and let me know what you think!

Lunch For Three - Day 2

Nooma 002|Flame
"I love those shoes. Really? The same way I love my wife? What's up with the word "love"? It doesn't have much meaning when we use it so loosely. Maybe we don't really get it. Maybe we don't understand what real love is. What it involves to really love somebody. What it means to give yourself to someone else. We mistake things like friendship, commitment, or lust for love, but God wired us a certain way to experience all that love was really meant to be. Not to hold us back or to make us miss out on the best that life has to offer. God created love, and wants us to feel it all in the way it's meant to be felt." - NOOMAtube

Wow, this video gets a little deeper than the Rain video did. Love is a very sensitive subject for many people. Love seems to have hurt just as many people as it has blessed. I really enjoyed the way that Rob broke down the three different Hebrew translations for the word love, "Raya, Ahava, and Dod." Raya was the translation for friendship or companionship between two people. The phase of love that really sets the foundation in the relationship. Ahava is the phase where this companionship moves from being friends and develops a level of commitment to each other. This is the point in the relationship where you make a decision to join your life with another. Finally Dod is the physical, sexual element of a relationship. He goes on to say that Love will not work unless all three types of love are working hand in hand.

He gives an example of two people having an affair. In this instance they are sharing the Dod flame but not including the Raya or Ahava stages of love. This progressions leaves those involved feeling empty and alone, once the physical aspect is through there is no fulfillment in this type of love. There's no friendship, no commitment, no loyalty and no sacrifice. Another example he gives is a relationship that is stuck in the the Ahava stage. They are still committed to each other and to the relationship, but there is no friendship, no intimacy. In these two instances, we strive for the relationship to work based on this one flame and hope that it can provide the heat that the three flames combined provide. But it can't. The single flame flickers and eventually fades away. Any flame that burns by itself will never be as hot as the Raya, Ahava, and Dod flames burning together. God created us for all of our flames to burn as one. "When you separate the flames, it can never really satisfy. It's like you're living outside of how God wired you to live" (Rob Bell). I know that I am in now way a love expert, I've only been married for 8 months. I know that I am not perfect, I am human. However when love is broken down in this manner it begins to make a little more sense.

"May you honor the way that God created you. May you have a profound sense of respect for the fact that you are a deeply spiritual and mysterious being, and that love is a profoundly spiritual thing. May you realize that the three flames are meant to burn together. And may you discover the big flame." Rob Bell

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Please, if you are interested I encourage you to participate and share your thoughts. I would love to get some feedback and hear what each of you took from the day's topic. Just click the comment button at the end of each blog and let me know what you think!

Lunch For Three - Day 1

I have sporadically seen a few videos from Rob Bell's Nooma series in the past, but have never really been able to analyze them. What a good interactive and entertaining way to kick off Lunch For Three! I have embedded the video below, please view and comment!

Nooma 001|Rain

"Things dont always work out the way we want them to, or the way we think they will. Sometimes we dont even see it coming. We get hit with some form of pain out of nowhere leaving us feeling desperate and helpless. Thats the way life is. Still, it makes us wonder how God can let these things happen to us. How God can just stand by and watch us suffer. Where is God when it really hurts? Maybe God is actually closer to us than we think. Maybe its when were in these situations, where everything seems to be falling apart, that God gets an opportunity to remind us of how much he really loves us. " NOOMAtube

There are a few key elements that really stuck out to me while watching Rain. The one thought that kept coming back to me was the comment the Rob made when he said, "It's not IF the rain comes, but WHEN the rain comes." It's inevitable, we live in a fallen world and we will experience pain, we will experience disaster, and we will experience death. Despite what we may think, when we are hurting and when we cry, we are not alone. In Matthew 11:28 Jesus says, "Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest." Why does this continue to be such a tough concept for us to understand? Because we are stubborn and think that we can handle life on our own.

The father son analogy that Rob uses in this video is very powerful. The imagery of the crying baby can be understood by all who have suffered before. And it is in our times of pain that the devil will strike. Do you ever feel like everything seems to go wrong all at the same time? I know I have. You lose your job, a loved one passes away, and you get in a car accident, all in the same week! While we are at the bottom and feeling helpless, sin creeps into our lives and begins to instill the doubt into our mind. If we have such a loving God, how can he allows us to have this much pain? Just like Rob's son in the video was focused solely on the storm we tend to focus on the root of our problems rather than lift them up to the Lord. Admitting that we cannot do it on our own is the first step to submitting your life and your problems to Christ.

Life can be messy. People get sick. Accidents happen. Life's not easy. Unfortunately all of these statements are reality. Accepting that "I am Lost, I am hurting, and that this sinful nature is really screwing things up for me" is where the rebuilding begins. Once we are able to open our eyes and see the light through the pain, we will realize that all along our Lord has been right by our side whispering to us "I love you buddy, we're gonna make it!"