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Reseeding

October 4, 2008 in Bible with 4 Comments

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I’m getting my lawns ready for reseeding next week so I began scalping them and then turned off my watering system. The whole point of this is to essentially kill my current grass by getting it to go dormant in preparation for the new grass that I’ll soon be planting. It’s a weird process that usually doesn’t make sense to us logically. Death brings life. It is simple things like this that remind me of Jesus’ words in John 12:24-25:

“Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Those who love their life will lose it, while those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

Bible Reading Plan

September 29, 2008 in Bible, Community, Reading with 0 Comments

We put together a 90 day Bible Reading plan (spread out between 15 weeks) at thirdformat.com for people to read through together. I want to extend the invitation to anyone who wants to read through this with us.

You can download it here.

Also, we created a Google group for people to discuss things as we go. Click here to check it out.

Memorizing Scripture – Pt. 2

June 15, 2008 in Bible, Spirituality with 0 Comments

I’ve blogged before on my desire to memorize scripture, you can read my previous post here, and I’ve stumbled across something that will help me do this much more efficiently.

Many of you commented on my post last time about your own desire to do this. Yet the conversation always turns to the difficulty in disciplining yourself in this area. I recently read about software that helps you with spaced repetition (don’t I sound smart) and memorizing things for the long haul.

I recently downloaded a free software called Anki that basically helps you like flash cards. You make files of what you want to memorize and it quizzes you. Depending on how easy or hard it is for you to recall each card it then determines how long until you need to be quizzed on that card again. This is a much more efficient way to spend time memorizing and hopefully will help it to last in your head for years to come. They figured out an algorithm (there’s a word I never thought I’d use after again after my high school math classes) that tracks how we memorize and then apply it to whatever you are working on. Download it for yourself and let me know what your thoughts are on it.

Memorizing Scripture

February 10, 2008 in Bible, Spirituality with 7 Comments

I’m in my second month now of a year-long mentorship program called Successful Living. The point of it is to go through different areas of your life and see how God wants you to grow in each and ultimately where He wants you to be. One of the things that you do for each account is to memorize a Scripture passage.

Now let me be vulnerable and confess something to you. I haven’t truly committed myself to memorizing Scripture since I was a kid. I don’t know why I quit doing it once I grew up. So this program challenged me to try it again. And I’ve been blown away.

Already I’m noticing how amazing this is. My method of doing this is to write the verse on a 3×5 notecard and keep it in my car with me. Then, I recite it over and over as I drive. This has allowed me to retain what I’m trying to memorize and to keep me focused on God and His Word CONSTANTLY. And that is a tremendous thing. So far, I’ve memorized Hebrews 11:6 (which I slipped into my sermon last week) and 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a. Let me strongly encourage everyone to try this and allow God to transform you in a new way as He has been doing with me this last month. Here’s to memorizing it all someday…

Compassion

January 27, 2008 in Bible, Chaplaincy, Spirituality with 3 Comments

I recently read through the book of Matthew and something stood out to me that I hadn’t noticed before. There are 4 times when Jesus looks at people and feels compassion for them (9:36, 14:14, 15:32, 20:34). I was extremely challenged by this as I thought about it. Is that my natural response when I see people? Rarely. So I started praying that God would change my heart so that this would be true of me as well. And I haven’t had much luck with it being changed lately. So God gave me another opportunity on Friday night.

I was in my police chaplain role on a ride-along with an officer and it was a pretty slow night. The last call we had was catching two guys who had been caught trying to break into a car. As we debriefed them and searched through their things, I had a weird experience as I watched them sit on the curb. One guy was homeless and the other lived in a halfway house. I felt something that I didn’t expect…compassion. I felt sorry for these guys in a way that kind of shocked me. Here were two guys, who were living lives that none of us would ever want and they had just made another mistake that would make things even worse for them.

It felt great. I knew none of the officers I was with had any sense of anything for these guys and thought they were lost causes. So my feelings were kind of odd. But I savored the moment knowing that God had answered a prayer. So maybe there is hope at last that God will make me more like Him. Here’s to feeling more compassionate.

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