Proirities

It seems the older I get...the busier I get. I thought it was supposed to be opposite of that! I'm a little frustrated sometimes at the lack of time to do everything I want. Maybe if I only slept for 1 hour each night, I could get more done. We all know that if I slept for only 1 hour, whatever work I did accomplish would not be my best.

I guess I have resolved to try and prioritize things. That said, your (and my) family needs to be a priority. You won't always have your kids, so cherish every moment with them now. Make time to spend time with them...make it a priority. I date my daughters - not often enough - but I want them to know what its like to be with a man that loves and respect them...not one that will take advantage or use them. How would they know the difference unless we teach them? I try to do "guy" stuff with my boys - again, not often enough - so they know what a real man is like, how they behave, how they treat women, etc.

Kids always model the behavior they see - good or bad! Your children are one investment you make that can draw eternal dividends.

Organization in ministry

Systems in ministry are a huge problem. Structure and organization loom large too because most of the people involved in ministry have never really been a part of a larger business organization. I've now been involved in ministry for over 10 years, but in business for over 20 years. I want to challenge people in ministry to not be afraid to ask for help, insight, maybe even pay for consulting services from people who know what they are doing! It's interesting to me how many people try to go at it alone and just stumble and fumble through things rather than look for help and expertise. Remember what the Bible says about pride, the fall, and all that!

The hype

Yes, all the hype around Tropical Storm FAY failed to deliver even one drop of rain in my area. I love how influential the media is!

Time to go have a good time with the family - we're going to play cards or something. Anyone ever hear of the game "hand and foot"? What a blast!

T.S. Fay

Gotta love hurricane season in Florida. Nothing like going back to the first day of school and then have the second day of school canceled!!!!! My work just notified all of us to work from home tomorrow - no complaint there!

I know everyone is trying to be "careful" but I think this whole hurricane thing gets blown way out of proportion by the media. I'm certainly not planning to buy anything special or stockpile items. There needs to be something done about places price gouging and stuff anyway. There is nothing I can do to stop the storm from coming this way, so why get so frantic about it anyway? If it comes this way, then so be it, I'll just do everything I can to protect my family.

Pray for Florida and I'll update you tomorrow...

Da Truth...

It's been a while since I had a rant...

Why can't people just tell the truth? Why is it so hard to admit you were wrong or had a bad day and did something stupid? Instead of just being honest, we employ the latest and greatest "spin-doctor" technology and avoid responsibility at all costs. How does that benefit anyone...except yourself? We're so selfish that we would, by virtue of our actions, drag the name of Jesus (via our testimony) through the mud while trying to maintain our own personal image!

The idea that Christians are "better than" everyone else is why we get caught up in maintaining an image anyway. Hopefully you are not a condemning or judgmental "christian" that looks down on others for their mistakes, but tries to hide our own. Hopefully you haven't forgotten that you're just as prone to mistakes as the next person...christian or not. If we are really interested in being Christ-like, we'll tell the truth and take responsibility for our actions.

Be more concerned about what God thinks than what people think about who you are...

Some media for a change...

Here's some pics from the fine arts experience. The boys weren't around much, so I didn't many pics of them. Here's Megan and Makayla...

Here's a picture of the whole group we were with...

The police in Charlotte had a unique was of getting around...

It's already started

The summer is over before it's actually over! The kids don't start school until next week, but already the madness has begun. We picked up school supplies today - what a mad-house!

Makayla has started practices with the swim team already! She has 7 meets, 6 of which are on WED's. After swimming is basketball...after that is track. Since she made the regional finals last year, we are expecting her to reach the state finals this year - as a sophomore.

Justin got his tonsils out today - we tried to slide that in before school so he would have enough time to recover. He's doing pretty good, all things considered. He's looking forward to playing sports at school this year, with his eye already on basketball, soccer and track.

Megan is quiting her job to concentrate on school...that was kind of my idea, since she has 3 AP classes and needs to bump her GPA for college entrance. It's a 3.75 weighted already, but the competition is fierce to get into college these days.

Jacob is excited about his last year at junior high. His asthma has been under control for some time now - so he is doing well. He's told me he plans on getting all A's at least once this year...he missed with only 1 B three of the 4 quarters last year!

Diane and I are doing ok...perpetually tired, but ok!

Fine Arts results....

The kids did great...I'm still recovering!

Here are some of the results:
Megan Strickland - superior with honors in her short sermon, her human video team advanced to round 2 and ended up in the top 25, her sign language solo was awesome!

Makayla Strickland - vocal ensemble placed 4th overall!

Jacob and Justin Strickland - human video group missed superior with invitation by 0.17 points!

Megan Russo - drum solo placed 3rd overall!

Amy VanHeerden - won the performance art category!

Michelle Rooks - placed 3rd overall in the 2-D art category


We had a great time and the kids all picked up a lot of good experience! We're going to really put a dent in the festivities next year in Orlando!

I'm going to try to get back on a regular blogging schedule this week!

FAF

We're headed out to the National Fine Arts Festival this weekend. All four of the kids qualified for at least one event, Megan actually qualified for 3 events. I'm not sure if I will get to blog at all next week ... so we will see!

Needed prayer...

My brother has been diagnosed with a very serious disease. It's called Retinitis Pigmentosa. If you would like to know more, you can check out this website:
http://www.blindness.org/content.asp?id=45

I'm asking if anyone that reads this blog, if you would consider adding David Strickland to your prayer list. Feel free to spread the word of this need for prayer to others as well.

This is a very difficult disease to handle, physically and mentally. When you consider all his future has to offer and the potential that he may not be able to physically see it take place...it can be quite disheartening. I know that my family and others in our marriage class and at church have committed to praying for his healing.

If you'd like to know more about him or his family personally, his wife, Monique, keeps a blog as well: http://moniquestrickland.wordpress.com/

Life Cycle

I live my life on a cycle...not a bicycle...a life cycle. I call it the innovation cycle because I am and always will be a continual learner. I think I started out life pretty dumb and have been watching and learning ever since...now that I think about it, I guess everyone started out that way! I think some get to the point where they stop enjoying learning and so they do just that. I've never gotten to that place, and even though I've not been in formal schooling for about 15 years, I feel like I have never left "school".

I often label myself an observer, because that's where the innovation cycle starts; observation. The cycle looks like this:

It's a continuing cycle...once you prototype, you start observing again. It works for any aspect of life. You have to be willing to continue learning and never decide to stop. Start looking at life like a school yard, and begin observing how you can be more effective in everything you do!

VBS...

My wife and I have been running VBS all this week at church. We have had record numbers of kids, well over 400 last night. For the last 5 years, we've been overseeing the offering competitions and recreation. For the first time ever, I think, the offering is nearly neck-and-neck. We do a fear factor type thing for the looser - boys against girls. I usually end up eating every night, but this year has been different:

MON - Boys lost, I ate meal worms
TUE - Boys lost, I ate chocolate covered ants
WED - Girls lost, Diane drank snake blood
THU - Girls lost, Diane ate crickets

Tonight is the finale and the children's pastor and his wife will get slimed based on which gender wins. Kids are fun...

Love God with your energy...

There is another saying I can't recall who to attribute to:

You need to pray like everything depends on God, then work like everything depends on you!

We definitely use energy to do things for God. Serve others, evangelism, ministry, etc. That's biblical and appropriate. In your haste to "do stuff", don't forget to use your energy to develop your relationship with God and get to know Him. As with any relationship, that requires effort and energy.

Along with hard work and effort comes the need for rest. One of the most ignored of the 10 commandments is #4: the Sabbath commandment (Exodus 20:8-11). If we were to weigh the 10 commandments by the number of words used to define them, this one (93 words) would be the most important. Rest was so important that God did it, don't you think you should too?

Make sure there are allotments in your schedule for rest...but make sure you don't get too comfortable resting!

Love God with your intelligence...

People don't get stupid when they get saved, but too many choose to turn off their common sense when it comes to spiritual things.

We all need to use your brain when developing a relationship with God! After all, God is the one that gave you that brain to begin with! If you’re not a morning person…don’t try to spend time with God in the morning, cause you're just going to fall asleep. If you fall asleep easily at night, don't get in bed and then try to spend time with God, cause you know what is going to happen!

Be smart about developing the most important relationship there is...

Love God with your prayer...

Do you know what prayer is? Have you every wondered if you even understand it? I think in America, we have really mangled what prayer is supposed to be by making it about what we want it to be. Here's a quick question:

If you throw out a boat hook from a boat and catch hold of the shore, then start pulling; are you pulling the shore toward you, or are you pulling yourself to the shore?

The answer is simple, but when it comes to prayer, a lot of people think they are pulling the shore to them. They believe prayer is a way to get God involved in their life. More to the point, they think prayer is the way to get what they want from God. It's a means to convince God of what he should do on your behalf. Help me on this test (even though I didn't study)...hook me up with this girl (even though she's hot, but doesn't love God)...help me not to get audited (even though I didn't fill out my tax forms honestly).

Prayer is surrender...surrender to the will of God and cooperation with it. Prayer is not pulling God into my will, but rather aligning of my will to the will of God. When you look at loving God with that kind of prayer, you can see how beneficial and effective it would be.

Love God with your passion...

What is passion? What does that mean? There's an old idiom my pastor uses that says:

The proof of your passion is in your pursuit

Being truly passionate about something means you will pursue it. It takes a place of importance. It gets elevated as a priority above other things. People are passionate about a lot of things. Some are passionate about sports, some about family and some about their job. Some are passionate about a hobby, some about working out and others about reading. Not one of those things is wrong, in and of itself. The things we must be willing to do is compare the level of passion for any of those things to our passion for God.

Be willing to check passion level of your heart about relationship with God. Make sure you work at keeping the most important thing, the most important thing.

It all starts here...

There has to be a single verse of scripture that servers as a foundation for a relationship with God. I think I found it...

Mark 12:29-30 – “Jesus said, "The first in importance is, 'Listen, Israel: The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.'” (the message)

Jesus was making it clear that this was the most important thing you could do. These 4 things are paramount to helping us understand how to love God. This translation seems to brings the ancient text to life. The KJV tells us we should love God with all our "heart, soul, mind and strength", but what does that really mean?

For the next few days, I want to explore what these 4 ways of loving God really mean...

Some more answers

I was chewing on what I wrote yesterday myself, when I thought I should write some more. I believe God still speaks to us today. I believe that there are many ways we can receive instruction and direction from God. Having said that...combined with what I wrote yesterday...I don't want to be accused of using my "not hearing" to be an excuse for being lazy.

Paul experienced God's silence...related to his "thorn in the flesh". He did not answer him during 3 separate "seasons" of his life when Paul really put his attention toward getting God's attention. The answer was finally "no". Of course, that's never the answer we want! God didn't stop there, he did promise to give Paul the grace to accept his situation. This is where we live. We all have something, someone or some aspect of life that we want God to change!

Just the other day someone prophetically spoke into my life. Here is what they said:

God is pleased with you. He has heard your prayer and is going to answer you, but you must remain humble.

That's much like what God's response to Paul was. God wanted him to maintain his humility so that God could receive the glory. Remember to always keep God in proper perspective...but more importantly, keep yourself in proper perspective as well.

Answers

I need some answers. You ever been there? I have been praying and pursuing God about some very specific stuff for over 5 years now...and I've gotten nothing. I've blamed myself, I've questioned my salvation, I've done it all. I know better than to blame God, so it seems there is only one other option. In these times of frustration I recently discussed it with a very wise person that I have the utmost respect for. It was during that conversation that they gave me a simple sentence that I wanted to share with you. If you find yourself struggling to make a decision or you are weighing several things and there appears to be no specific inkling or direction from God...remember this simple phrase:

When God is silent, it may be because he trusts you to make the right decision

Chew on that for a while...

I'm back

Wow...vacation was great. Kind of just what the doctor ordered. Relax, skim board, do some fishing and spend time with family - especially my wife! I love the beach. I took books to read, but got no where!

As promised, I'll post one picture. Not a great shot, but there weren't many to choose from. I've got to check with my sister-in-law to see if she got any video footage... I spent most of THU morning skim boarding since the wind wasn't that strong and the waves were lining up really nice. I quit early...not because I wanted to, but because I knew I would get hurt if I didn't. Last years hamstring popping experience was not only painful, but was debilitating! I couldn't walk right for nearly 2 weeks. So, I only put my body on the line for about 2 hours. I guess I'm getting wiser with age. I ran into 4-5 teenagers that all came down by the pier to skim...they were pretty good. They were amazed by my board (which was older than most of them...custom made in 1987), and my skills! Good times had by all...