140 Words (or less) About…Nothing

It’s Twitterric Thursday, where I write 140 words or less about something.  Today, it’s about nothing, which is what some people think it’s about every Thursday.

How easy is it to write 140 words or less about nothing?  I don’t know.  It should be easy.  Jerry Seinfeld had a television show about nothing for about a decade.

Some might say that most of my blog posts are about nothing.  Most of them are about things that are very dear to my heart, so I don’t count my ramblings to be about nothing.

However, there is something that to most of us seems like something that is nothing.  What is it you ask?  Honestly, it’s life.

Life is basically nothing.  James calls it a vapor.  It’s like the fog on the mountains every morning.  It burns away.  It’s basically nothing.  So it is with us and our lives.

So, did I succeed?  Did I write 140 words or less about nothing? So it seems.

The Wrong Question

If you’ve read my blog for a while, you know that I usually end a post with a question.  The thing I wonder sometimes is this:  Am I asking the wrong question?

If you will notice, people asked Jesus a lot of questions.  What must I do to inherit eternal life?  Can I follow you?  Can I see you?  Even the Pharisees got into the act.  They asked Jesus what to do with a woman caught in the act of adultery.  Read the Gospels and you will see that Jesus was asked a lot of questions.  Rarely did He answer questions directly.  Instead, he would take the opportunity to give a different answer.  He would answer their questions with what He was doing or where He was headed or what His relationship with the Father was.

That leads me to believe that while we have a lot of questions, most of them are wrong.  Often we don’t even really know what we should ask Jesus.  Maybe that is why the Holy Spirit makes intercession for us.  Did you realize that?  Yes, the Holy Spirit makes intercession for us (Check out Romans 8:26).  We go to God with all sorts of requests and questions.  Evidently, we don’t know how to pray and the Holy Spirit goes to the Father with groanings too deep for words.  I just have this feeling that the Holy Spirit does something like this.

Me: Lord, I don’t understand what is going on.  Why is this happening?  Please do something about this!!!!

The Holy Spirit: Father, make Larry more like your Son.  He doesn’t understand why this is happening to him.  He’s asking You the wrong question.  He doesn’t really even know what to ask You.  Don’t give him what he’s asking for.  Give him something much better….even if it hurts.

I think we often go to the Lord with the wrong question.  Fortunately, we have the Holy Spirit there to intercede on our behalf to straighten it out with Him.

How about you?  Think you ever ask the wrong question?

How To Pray According To God’s Will

I thought about calling this post 12 easy steps to praying according to God’s will.  The problem with that is there aren’t easy steps to praying according to God’s will.  So, I just stuck with the original title.

Why am I writing a post like this?  Last week I wrote a post about how to get every prayer answered.  I stated that all you had to do was pray according to God’s will.  It’s that easy.  That’s all you have to do.  There’s just one problem.

We don’t usually know what God’s will is.

What I mean is that God doesn’t directly reveal to us a direction on specific events.  It’s not like I’m going to find a verse in the Bible that is going to tell me whether I should buy a specific car or move to a specific city.  The Bible just wasn’t written for that.

So, how do we pray according to His will?  I don’t think Jesus left us without any idea on how to “do” this.  There just isn’t a magic formula.

In John 15: 7, He said, “If you abide in Me and My words abide in You, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.”  There is it is.  Abide in Christ.  His words abide in you.  Ask.  It will be done.  It’s not a formula.  It’s a statement of fact.

I don’t think there is any difference between praying according to God’s will and abiding and asking.

Let me simplify it a hair for us.  Pursue Christ with all you have.  Go after Him hard.  Make Him and His word your pursuit.  Ask.  It will be done.

But we want to know how it works, don’t we?  I think He gives us a clue in the previous chapter.  He says that He will ask the Father to send another Helper.  This is this Spirit.  He says that  He is in the Father, we are in Him and He is in us.

In other words, we pursue Christ with all we have.  He is the center of our life.  We abide, or remain, in Him, which is a relationship like He has with the Father.  He has given us another Helper, the Holy Spirit.  We ask for whatever we want to.  Why?  Because our lives are so focused and so in tune with Him, that we can’t help but pray according to God’s will.

I know that isn’t easy.  It’s a fight.  We have to work at it daily to abide in Him because it’s really easy for us to focus on so many other things.  Is it easy to pray according to God’s will?  Yes.  Is it easy to get to the point where you pray according to God’s will?  No, it’s a daily struggle for all of us who still have flesh.

How about you?  Do you want to pray according to God’s will?  What are you doing about it?

Are You Going To Eat Those Fries?

Imagine for a minute that you go to a fast food restaurant.  Any one will do.  You order the combo meal that you want.  You proceed to eat your sandwich .  Your fries, which came with meal, just sit there getting cold.  You aren’t eating them.  Your friend, who is starving to death, sits there and watches your fries go to waste.  Finally, he looks at you and asks, “Are you going to eat those fries?”

That was a waste, wasn’t it?  Why did you order that combo meal?  You knew the fries came with it.  Starving kids in Africa could have eaten for a week on your fries. But no, you just let them go.

It seems to me that is very similar to what we do when we become followers of Christ.  We take the juicy, meaty burger of salvation.  We drool all over it.  We wolf it down, enjoying each last morsel.

There’s just one problem.

Many of us forget the fries.

What are the fries? What I have in mind are our spiritual gifts.  You have them.  You come to salvation and you get a side order of spiritual gifts.  I don’t know what yours are, but if you have trusted Christ as your Savior, you have at least one.  It’s a combo deal.

Many of us, though, are content to sit there and relish the burger of salvation.  We don’t, however,  relish the gifts that come with the gift of salvation.

I’m not criticizing anyone.  I’ve been there.  I’ve done that.  I’ve thrown the fries in the garbage.  I just don’t want it to happen anymore.

You have the combo meal.  That’s how it comes.  You have the main course.  I just want to ask you a question.

Are you going to eat those fries?

My Wrong Picture Of The Church

I have gone to church, basically, all of my life.  Recently while reviewing my life and thinking about my almost 43 years of church attendance, I realized that I have had a wrong view of church for almost the entire time.

When I was a  kid it was a place where I had to wear itchy clothes and stiff shoes that hurt my feet.  I had to sit there for a tortuous hour (two if you counted Sunday School) until I got to go home and have fun the rest of the day.

As a teenager, it was a place where I was made to feel guilty for, well, sometimes just for being a teenager it seemed.

As a young adult, it became a place where I tried to earn God’s favor by working for him.  After all, by then I was married and living a moral life.  I got to work for God in all sorts of ways that would “make Him happy.”

Even after I came to salvation (how’s that for a nice ”churchy” phrase?) I don’t think my view was right.

I still viewed it simply as a place to go learn about God and Christ.  I still saw it simply as a place to do things for the Lord.  I saw it as a place where I got to go worship God through His Son.

Here’s what I didn’t see church as.

The Bride of Christ, a bride that Christ died for so that the members of the Bride could live.

A creation of Christ that the gates of hell will not prevail against.

A fellowship where God’s grace is displayed through the relationships of those who gather together.

The Body of Christ where I am one member and must depend on all of the other members to operate.

A place to love and practice love and display love and even be loved.

A place where people care me and others about despite all of our faults and foibles.

There’s much more that I probably can’t think of right now.  Those are just a few.  I’m learning this a little every day.  And eventually my wrong view of church will be gone.

What about you?  Do yo or have you ever had a wrong view of church?

28 Days And Counting

This post is not about a Sandra Bullock movie.  Nor is it about a zombie movie.  No,  by now, if you read my posts, you know that I’m a huge University of Tennessee fan.  And I’ve tried to recount what’s happened over the last week on the UT scene on Saturdays.  And you know what?  That’s kind of dumb.  There are plenty of sites like Volquest, InsideTennessee, GoVolsXtra247, KnoxVegasVols and others that do that.  Really, if I’m going to write on my blog about UT sports each week then it ought to be about how I feel about it or how I was affected by it each week.  This is my brief respite from all of the normal stuff I write about.  So, I shift gears today.

I feel like I’m between Thanksgiving and Christmas right now.  Fall camp has started.  We are a mere four weeks away from kickoff.  I got my version of season tickets.  It’s a complicated story to describe, but suffice to say I have tickets to the Cincinnatti, LSU and MTSU games.  I may be at more, but if not that will be enough.  The fall is a busy time as every Thursday night soon I will be at my son’s middle school games.  Several of the Saturdays are also involved with my daughter’s cross country meets.  So I’m happy to go to three games and watch the others on TV.

What’s coming up on this blog on future football Saturday posts?  I’m already trying to think of song titles for the titles for each gameday post.  That will prove a challenge for some and I hope I’m up to it.  Until then, Go Vols!!!

Albeit, I Am What I Am

I listen to a lot of local sports talk radio on my way to work every day.  There is one caller in particular that has really been making me laugh of late.  It isn’t what he’s talking about that makes me laugh.  It isn’t that he basically parrots what he has read on  message boards during the night before.  No, it’s his use of a certain word that makes me laugh.  What word is it?

Albeit.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m a typical East Tennessee hillbilly.  I cannot think of a time that I would ever use the word albeit in a sentence when I am talking to someone, much less when I am talking to them on the radio.  I’m sure that he heard someone use on the radio or TV one time and thought that it would be a good word to add to his vocabulary.  And truthfully, it’s not a bad word.  It just doesn’t fit the character of who he is or what he’s all about.  However, I’m going to cut him a break going forward..

Why?

Because I’m guilty of the same thing.  No, not of using the word albeit, but of not being true to who I am.  So are you.  We all pretend to be someone we’re not from time to time.  I know someone whose favorite word is mischievous.  She pronounces it “mischievious”.  She looks for opportunities to slip that word into conversation.  She thinks it makes her sound like what she’s not.  Unfortunately, it highlights exactly who she is.  By the way, this same person would also ask me to go places with her husband “and I” sometimes at one point in my life.  If I used text and Twitter abbreviations, I would do an SMH right now.

I’ve been guilty of it over the past few weeks.  I did it with my blog.  I tried to come up with special days to give myself something to write about.  I wrote about dreams on Monday.  Two for Tuesday.  Twitterific Thursday.  Follow Friday.  Why?  I saw other bloggers doing similar things.  I was trying to write their posts on my blog.   I painted myself into a corner.  I wasn’t being me.  I was being someone else.  (By the way, if you checked out my blog yesterday, you saw that I kept Twitterific Thursday.  I ended up liking that one.)

The apostle Paul was someone who was comfortable with who he was.  He considered himself the least of the apostles, not worthy of being called to his place in life.  He said that “by the grace of God, I am what I am.”

My favorite sailor man, Popeye, seemed to be comfortable with himself.  Despite Olive Oyl flirting with Bluto and constantly having to battle him, Popeye could still say, “I yam what I yam!!!”

Me?  I’m a husband, a father, and a follower of Christ.  I am a runner, a dreamer and a blogger.  I am many things…… albeit, I am what I am.

How about you?  Are you comfortable with who you are?

140 Words (or less) About Twitterific Thursday

I lied.  Didn’t mean to.  I did plan to discontinue Twitterific Thursday.  Evidently it has some fans.  And I realized over the last week that I like it too.  So it will continue to be a regula series on the Deuceology blog.   Now, on with the show.

Today I want to write 140 words or less about Twitterific Thursday.  If you’ve noticed, my posts have undergone some changes this week.  I have managed to paint myself out of a corner.

I’m not blogging about dreams on Mondays.

I’m not doing a Two for Tuesday on Tuesdays.

I’m not doing a Follow Friday any more.

I’m not doing 140 words or less on Thursday.

Not!!!

No, I couldn’t let this one go.  I like this one the best of all of those days.  I have taken this one as a challenge.  Chad Jones even mentioned this one in his blog’s most recent Haterade edition.  Why keep this one? It allows me to be creative in a totally different way than I usually am.

140 Words or less isn’t going anywhere.  As Paul Harvey said, “Stay tuned for more.”

How To Get Every Prayer Answered

You might recall that I wrote a post last week where I shared that I had a prayer answered.  Quickly.  Very quickly.  Like within a couple of days.  It was surprising.  And it made a huge impression on me.

Naturally, I would love to have this happen every time I prayed.  I would like for every single prayer to be answered positively.  I would like for every single prayer to be answered quickly.

In other words, as easy as apple pie.

That hasn’t been my reality.

Wish it had been.  Wish it was.  So much for wishes.

I do not get everything I ask for.

I don’t know about you, but I wonder why.  I’ve wondered it for years.  Why don’t my prayers get answered the way I want every time?

Guess what?

I found out how to make it happen.  I found out how to have every single prayer I ever pray to be answered with a “YES!!!”

Are you ready for it?  Here it comes.  It’s been sitting there waiting on me for, well, for as long as I’ve been alive.  It’s not some secret.  It’s not a mystery.  It’s not hidden.

It’s right there, smack dab near the end of the Bible.

So here goes…..

All I have to do is ask.  Anything.  That’s it.  Well, wait.  There’s one more thing.

All I have to do is ask anything according to His will.

That’s it.

I can be confident in doing it.

If I want a “Yes”, then I pray according to His will.  Same for you.  If you want a “Yes”, then you pray according to His will.

Ask.  According to His will.  Yes is the answer.

There you have it.

It’s as easy as apple pie.

How about you?  Do you want your prayers to be answered as easy as apple pie?

(Before you say anything, I realize that I’m going to have to address how to pray according to His will pretty soon.)

Why Me Lord?

Why me Lord?

Maybe you’re like me.  You grew up hearing this Kris Kristofferson song sung on the radio and sometimes in church.  It really hasn’t been all that long since I’ve heard it both in church and at a funeral.

Why me Lord?

Maybe you’re like me.  You grew up hearing this Kris Kristofferson sung on the radio and sometimes in church.  I remember everyone thinking it was wonderful that Kristofferson wrote and sung this song.  After all, he had written Sunday Morning Comin’ Down for Johnny Cash.  He was in Semi-Tough and A Star Is Born.  And he wrote this really cool song that had Jesus in the chorus.

And yet……….

Did he really ask what he had done to deserve the blessings God had given him?

Did he really ask what he could do to repay the Lord for what he has taken from Him?

So, what do we have?  A really pretty song.  A really pretty song that people love with bad theology.

Why?

Because I don’t deserve any blessings that God has given me.  It’s all grace from Him.

Because I can’t repay Him for anything He has given me.  It’s all grace from Him.

Why me Lord?

Because of You.  That’s all.

How about you?  Do you think you could do anything to deserve any blessings from God?