Beneath The Dirty Hood

Makes...leads...restores...guides...comforts...prepares...fattens...

Sometimes I need a reminder of what He does that I need.

How to know if God has chosen you

The original, better, succinct version is here. 

• When you hear the news that Jesus is God’s Son, that He died to pay for your sin and save you from God’s anger, and that He came back to life, you don’t just hear and understand the words, but the words have somewhat the effect of an explosion in you—some things in your life and thinking are blown-up, destroyed, shaken.  You don’t just believe with your mind, you live like it’s true.
• When there seems to be the unexplainable sense of another person in your life.  When some things happen that can only be explained by saying, that’s God.
• When there’s a deep sense of assurance or conviction that what you believe is true.
• When you find yourself imitating the example of other believers, and you sense that in doing so you are actually following Jesus Himself.
• When you suffer and go thru bad times, it doesn’t hit you the way it used to; in fact you have a sense of joy and rejoicing that can’t be taken away by bad times.
• When just as you have been inspired by other believers, other believers are also inspired by you!
• And...when someone starts telling someone else about you, that someone else says something like: Man, I’ve heard about them!  They have really changed!  They used to (fill-in-the-blank), but now all they wanna do is do what God says and be excited about Jesus coming back!

Oh, if only everything automatically became portable when carried

 

How to get your thinking unstuck

Ever feel like you’re in a rut?  Like you’re walking in mud and can’t get out?  Adapted from the intro to chapter 14 in David Allen’s Ready for Anything:

• If you’re busy doing something and you’re getting bogged down, stop and review your plans.
• If you're planning and you get bogged down, get to a whiteboard or blank sheet of paper and do a mental core dump to get the ideas and information you may be missing.
• If you’re brainstorming or trying to think outside the box and your thinking is unclear, drop back and revisit the image of what success would look like.
• If your vision—the picture of what success would look like—is unclear, return to your purpose.  Why are you doing the thing at all?

“Clarity is never found within something unclear.  You must loosen your conceptual grip, let go, and lift your sights.”

Then, to get your life unstuck, you could take all that and turn it around and start from scratch:

• Purpose—why are you here?
• Vision—what does success at your purpose look like?  Can you picture it?
• Dream, think—imagine the specifics of what you’re doing, how you get there.  Think outside the box.  Don’t leave anything out.  Think you’re done?  Dream some more.
• Plans—do you see any in there?  Probably many plans.  Write them down. 
• Next, read this, while not departing from this and this and this.

Real relevance

What could be more relevant to each day than a solution to going down the dark lonely road, being a blind prisoner of sin, living in malice and envy, being hated and hating others?  What’s more relevant than a cure to the habit of gratifying the cravings of your sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts?  What’s more relevant than a remedy to sexual immorality, lust, and greed, and being an object of God's wrath?  From Hungry Heart #9–11:

"Calvary is the secret of it all. It is what the Lord Jesus Christ did there that counts, and what He did becomes a growing force in the life of the believer when it is seen, and rested in by faith. This is the starting point from which all godly living must take rise. We shall never know the fact of the Lord Jesus' victory in our lives until we are prepared to count upon His work on the cross as the source of our personal freedom from the dominion of sin and the old man within. There is no liberty for us that was not first His. The beginning of spiritual growth is faith in that fact."

Fed up with gas prices

The high, the hell, the peace

It was the whole process in miniature.  Sometimes it goes on for years.  This one happened over 54 hours. 

THE HIGH (6 hours).  It comes into your mind and you can’t shake it and you don’t really want to shake it.  It makes you nervous.  And excited.  You feel like you have to do it.  You don’t really know what it means and the mystery of it feels risky.  But you can’t stop thinking about it.  It’s pictured in your mind and you can describe it and how it feels, but not all the details or how it will happen.  You have some doubts about where the idea is coming from and why.  But, overall, it feels wrong to not do it.  So you say ok; you have to.  You commit in your heart and it’s confirmed by the others who need to say ok.  The high immediately ends.

THE HELL (30 hours).  Now what?  No rush, and the pressure to commit to it is over, so your mind gets back on other things of the moment.  But there’s a buzzing in the background.  You think and put a few of the obvious pieces in place.  You try to put some other pieces in place but they don’t fit.  Hmmm.  You move back to the other regular daily stuff.  Finish up.  Sleep, but the buzzzzzzz.   You know, you really need to get this figured out, you tell yourself.  That piece that you thought was important ain’t gonna happen; now what’re you gonna do?  Hey, the same Holy Spirit who would’ve worked in him can work in you; you’ll do it yourself.  In fact, it feels right to do that part yourself.  You just want to be the main guy.  You just want people to look at you.  Actually, you’d rather go hide.  Bzzzzzzzz!  What about the other parts?  They’re not ready yet.  You’re gonna drop the ball like you always do.  You’re already procrastinating!  And nobody’s gonna show up!  Make the call.  Decide about this.  Talk about that.  All you need is about 2 hours to think and pray about this last main part.  You call this trusting God?  The buzzzz is gone.  Now it’s a roar.  Nobody’s gonna show up!  That’ll prove it was just your own stupid little idea!  Wait ‘til you come up with another idea, nobody’ll listen!  This isn’t that big a deal, why are you spending so much time thinking about it?  ‘Real’ ministers can do this kinda thing all the time in their sleep!  You better get to work!  This isn’t worth it. You hate ‘ministry.’  If you had just kept your mouth shut you could rest tonight instead of praying and planning—for what?  Nobody’s gonna show up!  All you care about is if anyone shows up!  Well, you’re right about that; it’s always been the battle of being willing that no one show up.  Pray.  Prepare anyway.  Cry from the pit of your spirit.  You concentrate on your brief little part.  You pray that you're not noticed and that all attention is on Him.  The words are all His, anyway.  You pray that they would hear Him.  You let Him do anything He wants.  People, no people, it’s just you and Him, anyway…

THE PEACE (18 hours).  The roar, the buzzzzz, is gone.  Doesn’t matter.  Nothing matters except you know what to do and you’re going to do it.  Maybe it’ll end up completely different than you picture it.  That’s ok.  Just go down this road and do what you know to do.  You’re ready.  You give your instructions.  Gee, there’s some people.  Doesn’t matter.  In the end it’s not for them.  It starts.  It feels like you pictured.  You’re in it but it’s not you.  It feels like someone else is there, in charge, not you, not the people.  You have to go in a corner and cry for a minute.  You know it’s not you and it wasn’t your idea.  You pray that no one says a word to you about how it went.  No one does.  Except Him.

PocketMod

David Allen says find yourself a ubiquitous capture tool.  This one's genius.  Started using mine today:

(via EO)

What's it all about?

It was exciting when they were young.  They were strong and stretching their muscles, growing and changing daily.  It was all about them and their new life.  Every day I monitored one particular group and watched them mature as the days got warmer.  Then they were grown and it was near summer and I didn’t notice them anymore.

A few months later: wow.  A bit on the worn side, eh?  Not quite the look at me! attitude from the spring.  And…fruit!  Soon the one part will die and fall and dry up and disappear and be forgotten and be replaced by others next year.  But the thing that came from the work the dying fruit-makers did…still going. 

It’s not about the leaves.

What dog are you?

Me, Saluki.  Might do it again with different answers just to push the buttons some more (click 'game' on the left if it doesn't start).