To think that I was 16 years of age and new that even though I live in Kansas, not even in a huge city, this affected me. I wasn’t old enough to enlist or go to war but this still affected me. It’s amazing how a single event affected every person that called themselves Americans, whether they wanted to believe it affected them or not.

I couldn’t stop watching, even when the teachers shut the televisions off so that we could study, I couldn’t focus on schoolwork. The sight of an airplane crashing into a skyscraper was burned into my minds eye. I remember going home from school and sitting glued to the television. I remember going to the prayer service at the church even though I had just given my life to the Lord not 7 months prior and not knowing how or what to pray but just being there brought some sort of peace to an otherwise chaotic situation.

Here we are 10 years later. I remember the planes crashing in to the buildings. I remember them coming crashing down. I remember the people who died and gave their lives for others. I remember how a group of radicals tried to take away our hope. But after 10 years of war and chaos and bombings, I remember that which matters most…WE ARE STILL HERE! (reference Morpheus from ‘The Matrix: Reloaded’)

10 years…sounds so long ago. But as a 26 year old young man, I will remember, and never forget.

Where were you September 11, 2001?

What do you remember most about that day?

Memorial Stadium is amazing! If you have a chance to go I would definitely recommend it! KU isn’t really known for their football however. They are more known for basketball and the famous Allen Fieldhouse. This didn’t matter however.

There was a point during the game where the kicker for the opposing team missed a field goal attempt. He kicked it wide to which the entire student section at the stadium chanted “You let the whole team down” as the kicker walked back to the bench. On his second attempt at kicking the ball through the uprights it was blocked by a KU player to which the student section promptly chanted “You let the whole team down”. Another attempt at a field goal was made and missed and, you guessed it the kicker walked back in shame as the KU student section chanted “You let the whole team down”. I thought it was hilarious! (I may be a horrible person or just a messed up sense of humor. I’ll believe the latter.) Three or four times this chant echoed through the stadium and each time I sat with a cheesy smile on my face laughing not necessarily at the kicker but at the words that were being chanted.

On the way home, Karrah and I talked and laughed about the chants that were yelled and how much fun it was to be there witnessing it all. However, as I got thinking my mind “Jesus Juked” me. How many times after starting a normal day, do we realize we mess up, don’t really succeed in what we are attempting. And how many times do we hear in our head “You just let the whole team down”. Maybe not those exact words but something similar. In the game of life do we often feel like we let the whole team down?

But there is a beauty to what I saw at the game that day. No matter how much the other team was losing by, no matter how much the student section berated the player for his failed attempts, he shook it off, took the field and tried again. He did succeed but he didn’t let that voice of “You let the whole team down” affect him in his resolve to play the game.

Do you ever hear the voice of “You let the whole team down”?

So what’s been happening? Well a lot! I’ve recently taken up (again) the task of learning a new programming language. For you non-techies out there, I want to create apps for iPhone, iPad, iPod and other mobile devices so I’m attempting to teach myself to do that. Things are going relatively well; 2 books down 1 to go and it actually makes sense! (scary I know)

Other than being really busy at The Father’s House that’s pretty much it. Been teaching alot in LAUNCH and enjoying spending time with my girlfriend, Karrah.

So this is just a ramble post, nothing of value really but it’s my attempt to get into a habit…you gotta start somewhere right?

• iPad 2 comes out a week from today and I want one!
• Wednesday night in LAUNCH  was incredible. Pastor Sean asked me to do communion and I was great until I grabbed the mic then this anointing just sat down and I got hot, my heart was racing and I was literally shaking. We could have just stayed in worship and probably should have but we dismissed to 1:1 groups…lesson learned.
• I have come to realized a small yet present need for a windows machine in my office. Those of you who know me are probably shocked but I will be installing a Windows partition on my MacBook. Let the crow eating begin.
• I really enjoy being in a relationship with this amazing girl. One Month tomorrow!

It’s been a great week. Hope you guys had an amazing week as well!

My roommate has a neti pot; I’ve seen him use it once or twice. It’s an extremely weird invention. I was in this desperation to breathe through my nose and not my mouth; my throat is extremely dry, so I decided to try it. AMAZING! I COULD BREATHE FINALLY! It was wonderful, glorious, fantastic. I had forgotten what it was like to be able to breathe through my nose. I went to bed with air flowing freely through my nostrils and sinuses when God reminded me of Ezekiel 37. This amazing passage of scripture where dry, dead bones were made alive again by the breath of God.

And that’s where it hit me. God is wanting to breathe newness of life into me…into us.
“Breathe on…Breathe on These dry bones” – ‘Fall on Me’ by Rita Springer

I follow this amazing writer and communications guy Tim Schraeder. I have never met him in person although I would like to someday and have a few moments to glean from his knowledge and pick his brain so to speak. He wrote this post on coming up with a theme for the year instead of a resolution. So I thought that I would share in his idea (if you’re reading this Tim, I hope you don’t mind)

My theme for 2011 is ‘Health’. (yes it’s the same as Tim’s but it’s still a great theme!)

I’m a very skinny individual if you didn’t know…abnormally skinny some say. So I’m going to try to start eating CORRECTLY and working out more.
I’m going to focus on my spiritual development and my personal devotional and prayer habits that I stay more connected to the Father.
There are other areas of health that I’m going to be working on but those are the main two.

What would your theme for 2011 be?

I have been the “tech guy” for five years. (seems longer) Over those five year it was always my responsibility to use the technology and if someone needed help, I just fixed it and by doing so didn’t give them tools to use. It dawned on me that over five years I had allowed, enabled me and the rest of the staff to fail. They couldn’t do something so I got interrupted which meant that I didn’t get something done or had to work late to make sure that deadlines where met. I had enabled us to fail.

Sometimes enabling the fail is a good thing as it causes us to back up and see it from a different perspective and if we are on the wrong path, jump to the right one. But that only works if you have the tools to do so. It’s ok to enable the fail as long as you also enable the success. For five years, I hadn’t enabled the success; giving the rest of the staff the tools where they didn’t need me as often. Now sometimes it will come down to the tech guy coming to the rescue and others it won’t.

What are some areas in our own lives where we have enabled the fail but not the success? How can we back up and begin to enable the success?

For me, it’s a tech training seminar.

Some of you will recognize the above passage as “Why so downcast Oh My Soul.” For the past 3 days this passage has been in my head but in the form of Kim McMechan’s song “Into Your Presence” I can’t get that song out of my head.

That whole Psalm describes a form of spiritual depression. This Psalm wasn’t written by David but most likely one of David’s people on the run from Absalom. He was probably wondering how this could happen…after everything that God had said, that He had promised how could this be happening. He found him self spiritual depressed. 

Right off the bat he says, My soul pants for you God, Where can I go. Where are you when I need you. In verse 9 he says “Why have you forgotten me.” St. John of the Cross describes this as “The Dark Night of the Soul”; this place where you feel abandoned, that prayer loses it’s experiential value. While I’m not saying this is the place that I’m at in life, I am saying that is easy to feel that way. God promises things and says things and when they don’t come as though we think they should, we doubt God’s ability to deliver and thus doubt our own ability, our own spirituality and become spiritually depressed and over a good length of time that translates into a deep mental depression.

“The cure for spiritual depression is neither to look in at our grief, nor back to the past, norround at our problems, but away and up to the living God. He is our help and our God, and if trust in him now, we shall soon have cause to praise him again.” – John Stott

But the author of this Psalm writes an intriguing source of comfort and healing in those situations of spiritual depression. “Why so downcast O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

1. The Author of this expressed his thoughts and his depression in the form of a poem. I’m expressing mine in this blog? How would you express yours?
2. Challenge the validity of those thoughts. The authors repeated sentences in verse 5 and 11 is to remind himself to wait on God rather that yield to the present despair.
3. Remember why you have trusted God thus far. Starting in verse 6 the author runs through past events where God was and continues to be faithful.
4. Affirm to God that He remains faithful in the situation. in verse 7 the author says “your waves and breakers have swept over me.” Notice he didn’t say THESE waves and THESE breakers. This is very important, because he is affirming that the situation is not out of control or evidence of God’s lack of concern—but rather that God is sovereignly (even if mysteriously) at work through these sufferings for an eventual outcome that will be good and vindicate his choice to go on trusting God.

So yes this is a long post, but for me, if not for anyone else, it is warranted.

“Put your hope in God, for I WILL YET PRAISE HIM, my God and my Savior”