Stuck in Prayer Gear

For a few moments today, I’m tired of praying. Worn from my own prayers and listening to some of the prayers of others.  I’m on this tirade because I hear the same stuff over and over.  Okay, I’ve found my own attempts at prayer are just as shallow as the people I hear pray shallow prayers.  I want surgery on my prayers, and some I’ve heard: let’s start with a cutback on using “Father God” or restrict that title to just a few times during a prayer (Father God starts to sound like the 2 year old’s mall cry of mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy….”)  Can we also amputate “just really” as in “God, we just really thank you for being here….”?  Okay, while I’m at it, let’s separate “like” from both prayers and the English language since, as one daughter told me recently “like” does not mean “says,” as in “so, I’m like ‘I don’t know’ and she’s like ‘whatever’ and....”

Okay, enough griping.

A better way to pray or get unstuck?  Read a few prayers of other faith-folk, not to copy but to learn, people who suffered, hoped and sounded out genuine soul longings.  Here’s an English child’s prayer:  Make me, dear Lord, polite and kind to everyone I pray; and may I ask you how you find Yourself, dear Lord, today? (I NEVER ask God how HE feels!) Or how about transplanting yourself into Psalm 73 where the author wails (v. 13) “Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure…” How’s that for touchy-feely with traction?  Read the rest of it…like soon, dude.

So, whose prayers do you go to when you are stuck? I mean like just, really, y’ know?

Brave heart and teeth

I did something incredibly brave yesterday.  I sat in a dentist’s chair.  A first in over 3 years.  I dread needles and those noises.  I also need dental work.  Probably lots.  Okay, so I’m a chicken.  I also got surprised.  Dentistry has changed a lot in those 3 years and I heard a term that gave me courage: sedation dentistry.   I got teeth pictures, Xrays, gooey “impressions” made, and I’ll learn the results in a week.  No work, just a consultation for now (I REALLY am a coward!!).  Oh, did I mention my new dentist was terrific?  No plug here, but he did manage to help relax my breathing just a bit.  Am I more courageous now?  Hardly, but I am going back, and I do see some choices: methods, timeline, reducing the dents in my dentistry, and I’ll try to adjust to his kindness, consultations and choices.

SO, where are you trying to be brave today? Do you hear that “cluck, clucking” barnyard baying when you long for Braveteeth? I’d say keep smiling, but I’m told there are now gaps in my smile.  With a mini-sized courage I think I’ll eventually fill in those gaps…with help, of course.  Be brave, I say to Tom, negotiate choices and take small steps.  I do wonder is any of this God nudging?

Maybe, on my next toothy trek—now in sight—I can trust a little more and resist my visegrip clawing of the sides of that funny shaped chair.

My Weird Family

I had the great privilege of adding to my family yesterday…by visiting with my Cross Point colleagues to see the staff at the Buckhead Campus of North Point Community Church outside Atlanta.  Their incredible staff headed by Jeff Henderson consists of one new marriage comrade I will now include in my spiritual family, a guy named Mike Glogorski at Buckhead Church.  This guy and his wife are doing cutting edge marriage ministry. We swapped resources on who’s doing effective marriage building across the country.  Since he’s wired weird like me, I asked lots of questions.  Mike also gets it about the weirdness of marriage!  He truly makes me even more committed to helping marriages wherever I have a voice or influence!

And…..last night I returned to Nashville to find my own weird family going after my own weird boss, Blake Bergstrom.  Here’s a tweet of the insane “gotta-getcha-back” stuff that goes on with the Bergstrom house and my own son-in-law Brian Alexander.  Thankfully, I live across town from all these folks.

If anyone in your family is weird, welcome! If you have delightfully weird family members, truly laugh out loud.  Enjoy them, tolerate them, even visit them when they are caught/arrested (I actually told that to one daughter years ago when she went “rolling yards” with friends).

So, take a moment to thank God for the laughably weird family member(s) in your household today. I suspect someone in my family is dubbing me “the weird one” right now.

Where are the winners?

Do you love winners?  I admit I do.  Occasionally, I actually have been one (no bragging about to begin here, just gratitude).  If you love winners, here’s a season-appropriate trivial question: which NFL franchise has won Super Bowls for two different cities? Need a moment?  It’s the Raiders (think Super Bowls XI and XV as Oakland R’s and SB XVIII as the L.A. Raiders).  How do I know?  I read it in Mental Floss magazine, a favorite cultural read for me.

Today I head for Atlanta with Cross Point staff to visit another church known for winners in their leadership.  Why?  I got invited by colleagues.  Why?  Because they/I want to learn from winners.  While, at least on a Tuesday, I don’t see myself as a bona fide loser, I think God wants me to remain “teachable.”   Does anyone ever ask you, “hey, are you teachable today?”  It’s a mark of winners throughout history.

So, who are the winners who teach you right now? In your work or your relationships or your leisure time?  I know winners in each, and I’m working to spend bits of time around them.  In the meantime, I wonder who is teaching the Raiders or do they just “remember when”?

Laugh in crowds

I’m in delightful recovery today from my workplace Volunteer Gala of last night.  Amazingly, I got dubbed “opening act” and as a Clint Eastwood impersonator in costume (think “Pale Rider”) I got to welcome and celebrate around 600 volunteers.  Betty was soon hooted as well in a tribute song rewrite that two colleagues did to “The Brady Bunch” theme song that netted her a standing ovation.  Add about 5 minutes worth of my own past video bloopers on screen, and a huge celebration (a rap, 6 dancers, pastors doing the emceeing) toward our volunteers, and call it a laughing blow out.  One voice mail to me last night said, “I laughed so hard at your goofs, Tom, I threw my jaw out of joint.”  He wasn’t kidding, and he sang later in the show.  I had no idea.

Today, I’m ready to say we all need to laugh more. Try not to hurt yourself, but risk the laugh anyway.

So, no question today, other than maybe what do you laugh at? Never mind the question, just go find something funny.  A video, your own limitations, a good joke, a great story.  Go laugh.  Today.  And laugh with others.  Crowd laughter is truly contagious.  Then thank God that you can laugh.  You’ll actually feel better with the release of the endorphins in your brain when you laugh.  You might even agree with the Proverb writer who said, “a merry heart does you good.”   Even if the joke is on you.

God told me…OR?

This morning I’m still stunned by the shootings at Ft. Hood yesterday.  An army psychiatrist shouts “God is great” before he kills 13 people, wounds 30 and now survives someone shooting him.  While we await his outcome and all the grief of those families, I wince anytime someone wants to make God look like the irresponsible reason for their behavior.  Yes, a Muslim can act like that, but I wince when someone of any kind of belief says, “The Lord told me…”  I wish they’d say…okay, maybe I need to say it as well….”I think the Lord told me…”  and then check that with a few other people before acting. I realize this is the big “push back” for people who think faith and idiocy are only synonyms.

I also have an army chaplain son-in-law at nearby Ft. Campbell, so I am fairly certain that alerts, counseling and self-examinations have ramped up there as well.  Here’s my question: how do I know I have heard from God? No, today my question is how is God allowed to become foolish by some of my own lame attempts to understand spiritual guidance? This morning I could profess that God wants me to get a new HDTV, pay more attention to Betty, shave my head, care for marriages, play with model trains, judge stupid people and cheer on the Gators.  Any of those seem slightly off?  Which ones? But if I say “the Lord told me…” does that mean no double-checks on what I do?

Where do you sense God’s direction clearly?  Where foolishly?  How do you know the difference?

Fun at my expense

Today, I am going to shamelessly plug somebody else’s blog and lightly punch myself in the face as well.  Actually this plug is also for one of my own favorite nights of the year: Cross Point Church’s annual Volunteer Appreciation Gala tomorrow night.  This night honors people who make a church truly different and inviting, but we do it usually while taking some well-deserved self-inflicted humor.  Tomorrow night I’ll once again be one of the victims, but I don’t mind.  If you need a laugh, or wonder how outrageous a church can be, check Pete Wilson’s blog entry (AND THE VIDEO CLIPS) at his blog

Thanks, Pete, for the memories.  Thanks I still have a job after that “Future” video.

Trust me, blog reader.  You need the laughs.  Me too.  Whatever else you’ve faced today, this will make your day end well.  If you can’t laugh at yourself today, have a laugh on me.

Visiting the unhealthy

I’ve been challenged by my colleagues to read just two chapters from a book Emotionally Unhealthy Spirituality by one Peter Scazzero. With apologies to Letterman, Peter has his own “Top Ten Symptoms of Emotionally Unhealthy Spirituality” he says wreak havoc on our lives and churches.  Two of them (get the book at Amazon!) jumped out at me: ignoring the emotions of anger, sadness and fear AND covering over brokenness, weakness and failure.  Why?  How about “guilty of both.”

Two days ago I dinged the front of my car.  My nice shiny black 5 year old Honda.  My fault. Looked down too long at my radio.  Bumped the car in front at a stoplight.  Other car…FINE!  Mine?  Hood looks like it was handed an uppercut by the motor.  I’m mad.  At me.  I hate driving a dented car.  Hate others seeing that I “got a boo boo” on my car.  So while I dial down my anger, failure, sadness, weakness, brokenness (hey, shorten this list!!), I’ll get estimates, try to see if I can fix any of this myself or live with it a few more days.  All I want is to BE HEALTHY!  Not perfect, not even better than others (today anyway), not angry or failing to keep my car ding/dent-free.  So if you struggle to live a life with God honestly, yet can’t admit you get angry, dented or whatever, as one daughter once told me when I needed it most, “Break up with yourself.”

Been dinged lately?  Reacting in some unhealthy way or denying you’re dinged?

What would “getting better” look like with or without the dings?

Tuesday with catchup on the side

I read this morning that President Obama and family have changed the image of First Family, in part due to being tech-savvy.  While I’ve had mixed assessments about nearly every President, including the current Mr. President, I’ll give him major points for carrying a Blackberry.  More honestly, I’ve hated the BB Curve, having crashed 4 within the year and now enjoying the much-improved BB Tour, which I hope he carries.   Amdist this media mania, I’ve disconnected from PCs and gone on a Mac attack, loving my MacBook Pro.  My overload of past VHS tapes are getting replaced or converted to DVDs.  When I try to get the word out on some interest, I’m still wondering “blog? tweet? email? voicemail?” I can’t work under these conditions!!

I also cannot keep up and dread the next “upgrade” though most of mine come every 3-5 years, so I’m slow.   But I also would love TV on my BB, and it’ll happen.  I’ve found to my astonishment thanks to iMovie that I love editing video, and I’m finishing up the third DVD for a third friend who has a great model train layout.  Who knew producing, directing and editing could be such fun?!

In my off moments, I’ve even wondered if today Jesus would have a BB or an iPhone or would He just smile wryly and say, “It’s parchment or nothing.”

So what excites you about the media you use or are seeking?  What annoys you about all this electronic keeping up? I’d love to hear solutions.  In the meantime, I think I need to go find all my chargers…

Faith, Hope, and Love all Rock

I smile that I wrote “Rock,” since “rock” to me is often followed by “-ing chair,” but I also hang around folks who do rock as they show unvarnished Faith, Hope and Love. One Rock is colleague Blake Bergstrom who helped me set this video post.  He truly rocks! Another is colleague Pete Wilson, who constantly jars me in new ways to express FH&L.

Last night, I sat where this video was shot a week ago in a foreclosed Circuit City, but this time with about a hundred “interested persons”—the fourth such gathering of different folks—to help launch a kind of church I never thought possible.  I was stirred, astounded, nervous, and smiling.  Watch Pete here, and I hope you get rocked where you need it to show faith, hope and love in ways that are still in your dreams.

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