4AM

My wife goes to work at Starbucks at 5am so I got up to make her coffee but then it hit me that she is going to the mecca of all coffee joints to work. What was I thinking. Oh well, I guess the good husband part still applies.

House Party

Hung out with some of my favorite people tonight. I love students and love the students I get to hang out with every week. Tonight we talked about James 3 and the power of the tongue and our inability to control it. So if we can't control it then what are we to do? Here is what we came up with:

Pray- Fill our mouths with something other than gossip, profanity, slander, complaining so that our words can make Him smile.
Practice- Write out the areas we personally deal with and work towards the opposite (i.e. if I complain than work on speaking positive or if I gossip speak encouragement of others)
Patrol- Enlist others to hold you accountable for what you say. Tell them where you struggle and ask them to hold you to it and remind you to get back up when you fall.

I really love the fact that I get to share my life with these students and more importantly I get to share my passion for Christ with them. I can only hope that it rubs off and they are transformed by a God who is crazy about them!

Francis Chan...

Got this video from my friend Roy

Worth It!

In my front yard is a tree that we just planted and somehow it is already dead! So here is the conversation between me and my wife:

Her: Why are you watering that tree?

Me: The lady at the tree farm said this might happen but to keep watering it.

Her: Jaime, it's dead, let's just call them and get a new one.

Me: No, Babe, they said this might happen and that it would blossom in the spring. We need to keep watering it even if it looks dead on the outside.

My point. I wonder how many people we minister to that just look dead on the outside and no matter how much we seem to pour into them nothing seems to change. I will admit that it gets discouraging to stand in front of my tree and I'm sure as people drive by it just looks plain stupid but the lady said it would be worth it. And God says it worth it to not give up on a life even when it looks dead. For those of you who live life to minister to people, don't lose heart when you don't see life, spring is just around the corner.

It's official!

The olympics are really messing up my internal clock but I have to say that I'm loving these games and I am totally hooked into the story lines.

Diving In!

Several years back I got the idea (can't remember where from) to ask some key people in my life to evaluate me as a person, and a leader. To help in the process I gave them specific questions to answer such as: If I worked for you where in your company would I best fit, and what role would you not put me in and why? Some of the answers I got back were, for the most part, accurate of my abilities. Deep down inside I knew what they were going to say before they said it. It was their assessment of me and it was their truth but it wasn't "defining truth". I may have wanted to be the CEO in their eyes but it wasn't the case for me.

I still go back and read those words, not to remind me of what I'm not good at or what I might need to improve, but instead I read those words to remind myself of what it is that not only others see in me but what I know to be true about me. For too many years I have focused on the areas of my life that need improvement when all along I should have been focusing on what is good and natural and how I can do that better. Paul said it best when he said, "...in my weaknesses His strength is made perfect".

The things I'm not good at or don't come natural just pave a way for God to be God in my life so I don't need to focus on my weak spots. Over the past year I have been pushed and prodded by God to be a better dad and husband. So I'm taking the plunge and I'm asking them the questions. Yes, it's going to be scary but I think for me it would be even scarier to stay ignorant to what they already know. So I'm diving into their truth so that I can focus on my strengths as a husband and father and let God be God in those weak spots!

Don't take this personal but....

Those are words at some point we have all heard. We prepare ourselves for what comes next and in the rush of a moment there is a flood of thoughts. Mostly, I attempt to detach myself from the non-sequential truth and cling to my defined truth in Christ. He says to me, "Sometimes you're pretty abrupt and you can come across like you know it all which only pushes people away". What a bomb shell. I guess deep down inside I knew that but I didn't want anyone pointing it out. In that moment I had two choices, take offense or take it to heart and change. It's been five years since that conversation and I still remember it like it was yesterday. I chose not to let those words define me but instead help to change me. It wasn't defining truth but it sure was a defining moment. I'm still not there, I still have moments where I can be a supreme jerk but every time I am the Holy Spirit reminds me and quickly takes me back to where I was. I wonder how many of us need some defining moments of truth that don't necessarily define us but they do changes us? Do you have anyone in your life that can speak truth like that even though it is hard to hear?

Floating thought

So this question popped in my head the other day and I've been trying to flush it out ever since:

Are we as people more afraid of rejection or more afraid of the truth of that rejection?


I'm going to try to dive into this thought over the next few days but it really has my head spinning so I have to consider it. Here is what I have so far:

When I was a kid I filtered everything I did through the lens of "what my friends would think". What I wore, what I said and how I said it was determined by them. I remember having to sell candy for school going from door to door and just hating it. I was always afraid of the "no" response but in my mind I pictured some big man screaming at me for disturbing his Swanson frozen dinner. Was it the no I was afraid? There is more to it than that. For me I was afraid of the possible truth associated with that rejection. Here is what I mean. I was the youngest of 3 sibling so that made me the baby of the family. I was fed well as a child which gave me a little pug. I had in the back of my mind thoughts of what people might say about me. You see, I knew I was fat I just didn't want anyone else to point it out for fear of embarrassment. My association to rejection, and for I believe many people, is tied to a truth. Let's face it, I was chunky. My life revolved around what my friends thought and the so-called truth of their thoughts. What I have learned over the years is that while it may have been truth it is not "defining truth".

Those truths associated with that fear of rejection absolutely never define us. Fat, ugly, dumb, not good enough, cocky, never wanted, annoying, uncool, and the list goes on. I might be chunky and yes I may not have been grace with Michael Phelp's body but so what! There is a truth that trumps that non-sequential truth. It's God truth. Who does he say I am? Who does he say who you are? Do you know? Have you bothered to look or are you walking around wondering what others think? In the end their truth won't matter. So who are you...really? What is your "defining truth"?