Coloring for Joy

"So I was sitting there coloring a Disney princess... I mean playing with my lovely daughter Elleyana and..."

I'm going to be honest, I love being a dad for lots of reasons.  One is that after years of being "too old" I get to do all kinds of great stuff again.  I go down slides, I play with toys, and I get to color without being judged by others.  The only time I get embarrassed is when I look up from playing with plastic animals and realize that Elle had left the room about 15 minutes earlier and I am still sitting on the carpet watching princess fancypants and prince awesome fight the evil monster Beiberfever. 

Almost everyone, at one time or another, decides they are "too cool" or "too mature"  to do things they once loved.  I can remember the sad look in my dad's eyes the day I asked him to drop me off a little bit farther away from school, so my friends wouldn't see me give him a hug and kiss goodbye.  (If you're wondering: he kindly obliged and I kept my honor intact.)  

When I stop and look around it seems like everyone, at least in my generation, is always changing, always adapting, always trying to grow up and get to where they think they should be.  We are perpetual self-proclaimed underachievers who can't seem to get where we need to be.  There is always more and there is always better. 

There’s a great quote by John Ortberg in one of his books where he talks about this “incurable itch.”  He says: “Everybody thinks he needs one thing to make himself rich: more.”

I think there are two reasons that we aren’t finding satisfaction.

1.      We’re looking in the wrong place.

2.      We’re looking for the wrong things.

This week instead of working more hours so you can afford to buy the golf clubs you have wanted for so long, you could take out your old beat up ones and watch your son/daughter/wife accidently put a golf ball through a basement window (if you’re lucky it be will the window of your neighbor’s house who is always complaining about your lawn).  At first it may not seem so great, but it will be a fantastic story next weekend.

Or maybe you could try turning of your cell phone and computer for a day and enjoy some peace and quiet with the people that love you most - sure you might miss a hilarious joke from @dscrabeck on twitter, but let's face it, he'll have another one on Monday.

Remember, joy doesn’t come with more, it comes when you learn to be thankful for what you have.

The secret agenda of coffee creamer

Yesterday I drank my first full cup of  unsweetened coffee.   For those of you who don't drink coffee, once the sugary veil of vanilla flavored internation delight creamer is torn away, coffee tastes a lot like sanitized dirt.  The creamer just tricks you into believing it tastes good.


 I didn't start drinking coffee until I was about 23, mostly because my dad used to drink coffee this way and I thought it was disgusting.  Although the taste is not as bad as I anticipated, I am probably not ready to give up my standard watered-down caffeine boost (also known as my coffee flavored vanilla smoothie).  It was the fluff that got me to start drinking coffee, and truthfully I'd like to keep it that way.


In life we water things down when the truth (or at least admitting the truth) frightens us.  Watering things down (or in my coffee's case - sugar watering things down) is something we do when we feel guilty and want to justify ourselves. 


For example:
- "I didn't cheat, I accidently saw their answer.  What?  Should I have put down the wrong answer  because I have great eyesight?"
- "It's only a scratch, I barely hit that telephone pole."
- " I didn't forget, I refused to participate.  Valentines day is just a scam created by greeting card companies to steal the money of naive fools."


At the time it seems relatively harmless, however, watering things down can have eternal consequences.  In fact, we live in a time where we are surrounded by watered-down ideas about God and what the Bible says about Him.  In the world people water down God sometimes by saying that there is a "universal intellegence" and that there are many ways to him... or her (I just threw up a little writing that - just to be clear, not my opinion).  In the church people have watered down God and His word as well.  Things that used to be accepted as sin are now "gray areas."  To some groups, even mentioning sin makes you judgemental and proves that you don't understand how great God's grace is.


Now, I am certaintly not one to say that the Bible is always clear and easy to understand - but there are things that are not up for interpretation.  Some things are black and white.   The tricky thing is that to find out what those things are you can't read this blog - or any other blog, and please... please don't form personal opinions from reading wikipedia or watching... (I'm going to stop before I accidently offend anyone.)   The point is that whole churches and even denominations are being misled because they listen to someone's words instead reading God's word.  In Acts 17 we read:" Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true."  They weren't doing this because they didn't trust Paul, they did it because they took their faith and belief seriously.  I admire a lot of pastors and teachers, but I am responsible for my relationship with God, and so there is only one source that I trust completely that I use to form my beliefs (and no, I'm not talking about twitter).

I have one disclaimer as I end:  Even wrong opinions can still have some scripture to back them up.  It can be easy to prove  your point (in your opinion) if that's all you want to do.  But we shouldn't seek to prove our already formed opinions, we should should seek to find the truth of what God's words says.   To find the truth it requires  looking at the WHOLE word of God.  The parts that sound nice and the one's that are harder to read. 

And after you've read everything, - if you still have questions read my blog (kidding, reread fifth paragraph).