From Jesus’ perspective, Levi’s colleagues and peers were guests.
From the NC&D’s* perspective, they were scum.
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*Naysayers, Critics, and Detractors

More thoughts from Starbucks this morning…

From Luke 5…

One day while Jesus was teaching, some Pharisees and teachers of religious law were sitting nearby. (It seemed that these men showed up from every village in all Galilee and Judea, as well as from Jerusalem.) And the Lord’s healing power was strongly with Jesus.

Seems like wherever Jesus was doing some great thing, the naysayers, critics, and detractors came out of the woodwork, just to sit around and naysay, criticize, and detract. Hmmm…

Spent a little time in my local Starbucks this morning, post-workout. Here are a few somewhat random thoughts that made it from The Book, to my mind and heart, then to my Moleskine, and now to you loyal readers (all both of you!)…

From Psalm 90…
God = ETERNAL! FOREVER! SOVEREIGN!
Me (Us) = dust! disappearing dream! dry, withering grass! NOT sovereign! open and accountable to God!

So…because He is eternal and has an eternal perspective on things, and because we are weak, powerless, and fleeting, because we are accountable and dependent on Him, we pray…

Teach us to make the most of our time, so that we may grow in wisdom.

More from Psalm 90…

Let us see your miracles again; let our children see your glory at work.

I don’t think the prayer is for God to start doing His work again. He still is working! He still is doing amazing things! The problem, and that for which we pray, is that our sight is limited, so we can’t see the works. We don’t pray that God would get busy again doing God-stuff. We pray that He would restore our ability to see and discern that which He is already and always been doing.

I had a kind of difficult funeral yesterday afternoon. I usually do OK at funerals (boy, that looks weird!) but this one was going to be tough for some reason. I was looking for something else entirely when I came across Billy Graham’s remarks at Richard Nixon’s funeral in 1994.

Check this powerful story about Winston Churchill’s funeral…

Years ago, Winston Churchill planned his own funeral. And he did so with the hope of the resurrection and eternal life which he firmly believed in. And he instructed after the benediction that a bugler positioned high in the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral would play Taps, the universal signal that says the day is over.

But then came a very dramatic moment as Churchill had instructed. Another bugler was placed on the other side of the massive dome, and he played the notes of Reveille, the universal signal that a new day has dawned and it is time to arise. That was Churchill’s testimony that at the end of history, the last note will not be Taps, it’ll be Reveille. There is hope beyond the grave because Jesus Christ has opened the door to heaven for us by his death and resurrection.

I used that illustration in my funeral message, and it was powerful! You can bet I’ll chew on it for a long time, and more than likely, it’ll show up somewhere else between now and say, Easter.

Your mileage may vary…

Not just any guy, mind you, but a 100% red-blooded American guy. And that means I’m the cause of all the problems in the entire world. For that, I’m truly sorry.

There.

Maybe that’ll satisfy the people this guy writes about in this article. Check the last three paragraphs…

Images of global destruction being more powerful than images of normalcy and stability, Gore and friends are bound to win the competition for people’s emotions. Hence, they are now deterring any analysis of the issue, by calling skeptics “global warming deniers,” a not very subtle comparison to neo-Nazis. If we succumb to this intimidation like a bunch of namby-pamby rice cake eaters, the debate will be lost for good.

Thus, the global warming movement seeks to repress guyhood in order to perpetuate itself. If a guy is shown a picture of a sad-looking polar bear adrift on an ice floe, his first thought will be something like, “I’ve heard that bear steaks are tough, but maybe if you marinated them in beer, they’d turn out all right.” At that point, the alarmists’ emotional ploy is foiled. In a world without guy stuff, however, his vacant mind may be invaded by irrationalities like, “Who will take care of the polar bears’ children?”

In this chicken-and-the-egg scenario, the success of the global warming movement is both the cause and effect of our society’s emasculation. It would have never gotten this far if the “Nineties Man” hadn’t paved the way. When “I feel your pain” became a successful presidential campaign slogan, we should have known that charcoal-grilled steaks would soon be on the endangered list.

I don’t why this story caught my attention today. Everybody knows rasslin’ is fake, right?

Dang! If you’re so worried about getting “strong comments” from “old guys picking stuff out of their ear,” and if you’re going to use a dead comedian as a code name for a certain church planter you’ve never met, but strongly dislike, the least you could do is include a link to drive some traffic over this way!

Where’s the love?

Let the reader raider understand…(and you know you’re going to be reading it!)

Today is one of those days I wish I had paid attention in the “How to Be in More Than One Place at the Same Time” class in seminary.

See, all the cool kids are going to be here today, while I get to be here and here, and possibly – quite probably – even here.

Oh, wait…you mean there wasn’t that kind of class? Too bad…

OK, a couple of disclaimers…

1. I know absolutely nothing about college basketball, except that I like it better than the NBA
2. I have absolutely no expertise about brackets and handicapping and such
3. The only thing I really know about this year’s March Madness is that the men’s Final Four is in the ATL, which means traffic will once again be a mess. (And BTW, whoever came up with the inane phrase “The ATL” for Atlanta? Guess we should start saying “The WOO” for our up-and-coming town…but I digress…)
4. Oh, and I know Dickie V will say “bay-bee” at least 147 times and “awesome” at least 235 times before the tournament’s final buzzer sounds.

All that being said, I filled out my bracket for the Atlanta paper’s online contest. My very unscientific, uneducated, and really uncaring picks for the Final Four are Wisconsin, Illinois (my Cinderella team for this year), Ohio State, and in a nod to Tadd – who bleeds Carolina blue – North Carolina. (Hey, Tadd…what exactly is a freakin’ Tar Heel anyway?!?!?)

I know, I know…that’s the Big Ten filling out three-quarters of the Big Dance. So sue me…

My winner? North Carolina over Wisconsin…86-78.

Since my journey toward health and fitness started and progressed over the last year or so, some people have asked me to post an “after” picture to document my progress. If you’re a glutton for punishment, if you have some pests you need to chase away, if you love the grotesque, just hold on…one may be on the way!