Yes, Karin, I’m reading this! I’m black coffee also, but not a Starbuckshead (except when I drive by one, or when I need a pick-me-up, or when I want to be a great husband and treat my wife to a chai tea latte and of course join her with my coffee!). I agree, you are low maintenance, friendly, and adaptable. And a joy to work with!
You are a Black Coffee
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At your best, you are: low maintenance, friendly, and adaptable
At your worst, you are: cheap and angsty
You drink coffee when: you can get your hands on it
Your caffeine addiction level: high
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We sang a new song at church. Well, it was new to me. Very thought-provoking. I scribbled down some of the words. Google is such a great way to find words to a song or look up a quote used in a message. I found it on the Vineyard music site.
If You say go, we will go
If You say wait, we will wait
If You say step out on the water
And they say it can’t be done
We’ll fix our eyes on You and we will come
Diane Thiel (2002 mercy/vineyard)
I remember someone teaching on Romans 12:1-2:
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
He made the comment that the problem with a living sacrifice is that it keeps trying to crawl off the altar. I think that describes my current state as a living sacrifice — crawling off, retracting my attitude of surrender.
Not all at once. I’m too “polished” as a follower of Jesus to do it all at once. No, it happens little by little, one small decision at a time. Just a little boundary around my heart. Bypassing a little opportunity to serve. Putting myself first just a little.
Maybe I’m not crawling completely off the altar, but I’m sure wriggling around a lot. I don’t want to be a wriggly sacrifice. Father, today I renew my commitment to being a living sacrifice, acceptable and pleasing to you. Because of your mercy. Because of your sacrifice.
In July the JESUS film will be translated into its 1,000th language. It look 20 years to hit 500 and eight years to reach 1,000. The 1,000th language is Ho and is spoken in India.
10 of those languages are ones I gave leadership to producing. It’s a small drop in the 1000-language bucket, but a major source of personal satisfaction. The Jesus Film has been an amazing tool for sharing the gospel. Involvement was very rewarding.
In 1983, I carried the portable recording studio to Nigeria. Portable was an interesting adjective. It was portable if you had a pickup truck! But still, I carted those large cases of equipment to Nigeria, to Sierra Leone, to The Gambia. I’m sure you understand there is a difference in traveling around West Africa and traveling in the U.S.!!! Clearing equipment into a country through customs then back out is always interesting and frequently unique.
Of course, getting the recording equipment into a country and back out again paled in comparison with some of the trails those who showed the film took. At least I could hire a pickup truck or van. Some had to do their transportation on motorcycles or even a bicycle!
But the end result is the same: helping everyone know someone who truly follows Jesus. Giving everyone a chance to hear the goodnews of love and forgiveness through Jesus Christ. It’s worth the effort. It’s worth the dangers. It’s worth investing my life.
I enjoyed this contrast between modes of transportation in downtown Alexandria, Egypt. Horse-drawn buggy parked outside Air Arabia. Fun!
I watched Lord of the Rings #2: The Two Towers this afternoon. I had forgotten this amazing conversation.
This is an epic moment in the story. Frodo is ready to give up. His optimistic, good friend Sam steps in and encourages him.
Frodo: I can’t do this thing.
Sam: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are.
Sam: It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really matter. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you don’t want to know the end … because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was with so much bad happening?
Sam: But in the end, it’s only a passing thing. This shadow, even darkness will pass. But the day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer.
Sam: Those are the stories that stay with you. That man suffered. Even if he were too small to understand why.
Sam: I think Mr. Frodo that I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back. Only they didn’t. They kept going because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding on to, Sam?
Sam: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.
I revisited my thoughts from this morning on how the middle can be messy. It’s our confidence in God who superintends everything that empowers us to move forward through messiness.
Each day, we have a chance to be a story that stays with you. One of the ones that really matter.
I read a thought-provoking article this morning. Andrée Seu writes for World Magazine. She wrote about how it’s often messy in the middle, but the end of the story can change everything.
Some thoughts I’m still chewing on:
- “This is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory” (C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce)
- Satan wants you to believe the middle will last forever.
- Job, stuck in a brutal middle, cried, “I know that my Redeemer lives” (19:25). And that is the key to everything, to surviving brutal middles.
One of the pithiest sentences in the Bible continually provokes me:
“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” [1 Thessalonians 5:16-18]
Yes, it’s sometimes messy in the middle of difficult circumstances. But the most powerful way to cry “I know that my Redeemer lives” is to give thanks, in the messies, in the middle.
