So, not really, but I’m on the cover of a rock star’s album. It’s true. My face made the cover! Here it is… Check it out. I’m the guy in between the two arrows, of which I supplied. They unfortunately weren’t a part of the original artwork. James has nothing on me now…
For the last two days I have spent hours watching pixels of light reflecting on a simple white screen. I spent a good portion of the last 48 hours listening to sound waves resonate in my ears. This may sound like a lazy summer day for some of our teenagers here in our ministry, watching the TV, and listening to the Ipod.
The last two days I was apart of The Leadership Summit. This is a leadership conference that Willow Creek puts on every year. It was a very powerful conference. I was challenged by many of the speakers. We heard from several key leaders making huge strides in the Church of today. I truly believe that God has been working in my life these last few weeks. These last two days are no different.
I was challenged to think in stretching ways. I really began to think about who God has made me and what does He want me to do? Here are some of the questions that I am wrestling with:
1. What am I pursuing?
2. What price am I willing to pay?
3. How is God rocking my world?
4. How do we get “IT”
5. How do I provide Leadership that actually matters?
6. What is it that God is showing me about myself?
7. What am I afraid of?
I need to give big props and many congratulations to my friend Jason over at LCBC. They received the courageous leadership award from Willow Creek. You can jump over to his blog to read about what happened. I am certainly proud of him and his church. LCBC inspires me. You should check them out.
~Peter
Enjoy!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLUIw8aO2us]
~Peter
We are on our at right now to meet my mother in law half way to drop off Noah and grace for a couple of days. Tiffany and I will be attending the leadership summit at church of the savior on Thursday and Friday. We are looking forward to it. However I have one question…
Does anyone have a helicopter? We are absolutely jammed up in traffic! We are stuck under the bustleton pike bridge. Come swing by and pick us up!
Do you need car seats in helicopters?
~peter
This Sunday I heard a single statement that stopped me in my tracks. Now, I was already sitting, so I guess technically I wasn’t moving however, it stopped my mind and I really dwelled on this one thought for a while. (This was hard to do after our disastrous Hymn Sing- more to follow on that later. Check back tomorrow for my side of the story on that)
The statement was made, “The best use of your life is to invest in something that will outlast your life.”
This got me thinking. What is it that I am investing my life in? Today, what did I invest my life in? I will have had 1,440 minutes today. How did I invest each of those moments? I will never get this day back. Nor will I ever get any of those minutes back. AM I USING THEM WISELY? I am praying that I do.
~Peter
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0PuPTNaI84]
Today I was teaching in our college aged young adults class, Encounters. I have been teaching this summer in that class using Rob Bell’s Nooma video series. Today we are on video #6, Kickball. (Click here to watch a brief clip from the video) In this video we came across several deep theological questions. At least I felt like we did. One question we came across was, is God a good God? At God’s very core, is He good? We also touched on the idea of total depravity, meaning that you and I don’t do any good, anything that we do that is good is from God.
Well, I was particularly struck with the whole question of is God a good God? Now, let me clarify and say absolutely I believe that God, the God of Israel, the God of Abraham Issac and Jacob, the God who created the universe and the contents within is absolutely a good God. Here’s the dilemma: I don’t always think that everything He chooses to do is good. Maybe it would be better to say that I don’t always like what God chooses to do. I’ll even take it a step further and admit that sometimes it makes me angry.
Does this make God inherently good or bad??? I mean, because we don’t like what God chooses to do, does that make God a bad/angry/evil/unjust God? These and others are the types of questions that people outside of the church ask. How do we respond to those types of questions?
I absolutely hate the fact that my Dad has a form of Alzheimer’s. That drives me crazy, and disturbs me to no end. I can’t see what God is doing through this. I don’t have the answers.
However, I also can’t say that God is an evil God because He didn’t run His agenda by me before He set things into motion. Jeremiah 29:11-14 has always been a verse that I have turned to when things get crazy. Today was the first time that I have read the Message Paraphrase version of it. It goes like this:
“I know what I am doing. I have it all planned out- plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. When you call on Me, when you come and pray to Me, I’ll listen. When you come looking for Me, you’ll find Me. Yes, when you get serious about finding Me, and want it more than anything else, I’ll make sure you won’t be disappointed.”
God knows what He is doing. Yes God doesn’t always give us the things that we want. In fact I am glad that God doesn’t do that. I can remember a time when I was little asking my parents for a toy at Andy’s store at the north end of LBI. My dad told me no that I couldn’t get it. I was really upset by that. I was annoyed, and maybe even a little angry. Now what I wanted was some cheap plastic toy gun that shot suction cup darts. It is the kind of toy that any self respecting adult knows is going to break in about 5 minutes. So, the obvious answer would be to say “No, do yourself a favor and save your money.” But I couldn’t wrap my mind around it as a kid. I also didn’t believe that it was going to break.
So, here’s the deal, I am sure that it is like that sometimes with God. I can’t understand God’s mind. Just in the same way that as a little kid I couldn’t understand my dad saying no to the toy gun.
I am so glad that God doesn’t give me what I deserve. I am so glad that God gives me good gifts. (James 1:17, Luke 11:11-13)
What do you think? Continue the conversation…
~Peter
My anniversary is coming up! Can you believe that! My 4th year anniversary is next Thursday. Four great years with my wife Tiffany. So, here’s the deal. Four years later, all of the stuff that we had gotten for our wedding and some things that we have purchased early on ourselves are all breaking! It’s like all of a sudden all our things got together for a meeting late one night and decided to up and quit working. The biggest thing is that our iBook has begun it’s decline. The screen is broken, and the computer will randomly freeze up. Our ipod speaker is broken, and our panini press handle is busted off. There are various other things, but man I’ll tell you what… How frustrating is that?
Well this got me to thinking. What can I make Tiffany for our anniversary that won’t break in 4 years. As I was laying in bed thinking about this last night, I thought, maybe I should ask all of you guys. What would do you think I could/should make for Tiffany for our 4th year anniversary? Any ideas? Bring on the brainstorming….
It has to be something that tells this woman how much I love her!
~Peter
tomorrow marks the first of my adventures at Mountain creek water park. The stories have been passed down from generation to generation, and have been told to me over and over again. I hear that at one point in time an unnamed individual was left behind at the water park. That’s unbelievable. Do you think that is an urban legend or did it really happen?
So hopefully tomorrow we won’t leave anyone behind. Do you have any fond memories of water parks?
When I was little we used to go to this place called the family fun spot. It had two different slides but it was so much fun. I loved that place. I used to try and figure how I could get down the slide the fastest. My method is slide on the heels of your feet and arch your back and ride on the shoulders. Less drag! I’m totally going to try and bring that back tomorrow. Let’s see what happens!
What was your fondest memory of water parks?
-Peter
So, it’s been about 3 months since I’ve started blogging. I always wonder who is reading this stuff? I wonder how did they find this site? Why do they keep coming back… that type of stuff. I always wonder about you. So in the spirit of answering the question which is plaguing my soul, please tell me a little about yourself. Here’s some of my other questions…(to help you get started)
So, of you all who are out there reading this, I wonder, how many of you have a blog? I wonder, have I ever read it? If not, I would like to. So, here’s the instructions. If you read The Salt Lick, and you have a blog, please let me know the name of your blog.
Part two… If you don’t currently have a blog, What would you name your blog if you had one, and what would you blog about?
Fill me in!
~Peter