The Blog Is on Vacation until July 12

I'm on vacation for a couple weeks. In the meantime, please enjoy posts from the archive.

Monday Music - Cactus Blossoms

Just found a new video of The Cactus Blossoms performing live for the Back Porch Sessions in Austin, Texas.

CLICK HERE OR ON IMAGE

Sunday Supplication - Grace and Power We Need

O Lord, we trust you to hear and answer the prayers of your people as we call upon you. Please help us to know and understand what things we ought to do. And give us the grace and power we need to actually do them.

Your mercy and forgiveness toward us is so great. O God, make each of us merciful and forgiving to those who have sinned against us.  By your Holy Spirit, help us to turn away from sin.  Give us patience with each other, and give us honesty about our own weaknesses and needs. Renew us and strengthen us to walk in your ways.

We want your ways to be our ways, O God. We want our hearts and minds to be controlled and shaped by you and the truth. Guide us, give us wisdom, and transform us that we might delight in your will and walk in your ways to the glory of your name.

Through Christ, we pray. Amen.

Saturday Smile - This Just In

Friday Favorites - Pine Haven Assembly

I've just spent a very full and fun week preaching to 11th and 12th graders at Pine Haven Assembly near Park Rapids. Wonderful people, beautiful spirit, great weather, good experience! It was nice to be there.

Thursday Thinking - Brené Brown on Blame

CLICK HERE to view a fun animation of an excerpt from a Brené Brown talk on the subject of blame. For a link for the actual talk this was taken from, CLICK HERE. Dr. Brené Brown tackles the myth that vulnerability is a weakness. Instead, she argues, it is the clearest path to courage and meaningful connection, and has the power to transform the way we engage and educate.

Wednesday Words - The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

"The Summer Day" by Mary Oliver, from New and Selected Poems: Volume 1,
© Copyright 1992 by Mary Oliver.

Tuesday Tome - Renovation of the Heart

Once again, I'm rereading this helpful book by Dallas Willard with two different guys from church. Renovation of the Heart is a treasure of wisdom about the human condition, the hope of the gospel, grace empowered transformation, and guidance toward spiritual formation. Willard was a master teacher and faithful Jesus apprentice. I'm thankful that he invested the time and effort to write and communicate his profound and practical insights. He's been one of the most influential Christian teachers of my life.

Renovation of the Heart
by Dallas Willard

From the publisher's description...
Only by God’s grace can we be transformed internally. Renovation of the Heart lays a biblical foundation for understanding what best-selling author Dallas Willard calls the “transformation of the spirit”―a divine process that “brings every element in our being, working from inside out, into harmony with the will of God.”

This fresh approach to spiritual growth explains the biblical reasons why Christians need to undergo change in six aspects of life: thought, feeling, will, body, social context, and soul. Willard also outlines a general pattern of transformation in each area, not as a sterile formula but as a practical process that you can follow without the guilt or perfectionism so many Christians wrestle with.

Monday Music - Lowertown Line

Nice to see The Cactus Blossoms on Lowertown Line.  Watch

Sunday Supplication - Loving You and Others

O God, you have called us to love you with heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Help us to remember, as Jesus said, that everything you’ve commanded us to do is summed up in loving you and loving others. Give us the grace and hearts we need to be people who are truly able to love.

You know our weaknesses and you understand our limitations. Thank you for the forgiveness, hope, and redemption you give.  In the same way, help us to forgive, to encourage, and to bless others. You are gracious and merciful to us, and we ask you to make us gracious and merciful to others.

Thank you, O God, that we can come to you with our requests and needs. Thank you that you can be found, that your door is open, and that you are generous. Grant us sensitivity toward the needs of others around us. Help us to be available, approachable, and generous.

Through Christ, we pray. Amen.

Saturday Smile - Something You Can Remember

Friday Favorites - Horseshoe Lake

Enjoying a couple beautiful days here fishing with friends.
Thanks to Terry Madsen, Nick Madsen, and Jeff Collins for a terrific time!

Thursday Thinking - Reasons to Walk

From Health Essentials - Cleveland Clinic...

People who walk regularly swear by the health and psychological benefits of their daily jaunt. Here are five reasons why they’re right.

1. Walking reduces stress, cheers you up and increases self-esteem

Read More About It

2. You can lose weight by walking just 30 minutes a day

Read More About It 

3. Regular walking lowers blood pressure, improves sleep 

and energizes you

Read More About It

4. Walks can be easier and more fun with a pedometer and a pal

Read More About It

5. People experience a major dip in snack cravings during 

and after a 15-minute walk

Read More About It

 

Wednesday Words - Holding Out Both Hands

I like to watch an old man cutting a sandwich in half,
maybe an ordinary cold roast beef on whole wheat bread,
no pickles or onion, keeping his shaky hands steady
by placing his forearms firm on the edge of the table
and using both hands, the left to hold the sandwich in place,
and the right to cut it surely, corner to corner,
observing his progress through glasses that moments before
he wiped with his napkin, and then to see him lift half
onto the extra plate that he had asked the server to bring,
and then to wait, offering the plate to his wife
while she slowly unrolls her napkin and places her spoon,
her knife and her fork in their proper places,
then smoothes the starched white napkin over her knees
and meets his eyes and holds out both old hands to him.

"Splitting an Order" by Ted Kooser, from Splitting an Order (Copper Canyon Press) © Copyright 2014 by Ted Kooser, and from Valentines, © University of Nebraska Press, 2008.