Let no man think to kill sin with few, easy, or gentle strokes. He who has once smitten a serpent, if he does not follow on his blow until he be slain, may repent that ever he began the quarrel. And so will he who undertakes to deal with sin and pursues it not constantly to death. Sin will after a while revive, and the man must die. It is a great and fatal mistake if we suppose this work will admit of any remissness or intermission.
My good friend, Matt Russell recently told me about a park that was just up the road from my new place. I tried it out shortly after moving in and have since made it my “go to” place to run and bike.
The park cost $2 to park if you go in by car. However, if you walk or bike in, there is no charge. Since I like the running track around the park so much I thought it would be a good goal for me to run from my place to the park, around the track, and back.
I wanted to see how many miles this route would be. On Monday evening I grabbed my bike and GoPro and rode the route. Turns out it is just a whee bit under six miles. I certainly think this is an attainable goal within the next two months.
155 days from now my friend, Russ and I will be getting down and dirty with a few thousand people at the 2013 Tough Mudder Tampa. We’d love it if you were with us.
What is a Tough Mudder, you ask? In a nutshell, Tough Mudder is an obstacle course that spans anywhere from 10 to 12 miles. Participants run, walk, crawl, and jump their way through and over obstacles designed to test their mental and physical strength. Check out the official video from last year’s Tough Mudder for Tampa.
Looks like fun doesn’t it?! As you can see from the video some of the obstacles are done on your own and some you need help to successfully complete them. While it is possible to complete a Tough Mudder individually, most people run the course with a team.
I’ve decided to condense my weight loss blog and personal blog into one. Originally I thought it would be good to separate the two. The more I’ve thought about this the more I realized I shouldn’t do that. Weight loss is personal to me so I want to include it on my personal blog, Facebook, and twitter.
With condensing these accounts I hope to be more active with my writing, photography, and videography. I have many ideas for all of those I want to share.
“He doesn’t know the meaning of the word fear, but then again he doesn’t know the meaning of most words.” - Bobby Bowden
“We’ve got this weird compartmentalization thing that happens, where you don’t think God sees all that you are or that if he could or somehow knew who you were going to be he wouldn’t have gone to the cross. Listen, God knew you were going to be messy. Christ knew you were going to be messy. God knows that you’re going to screw up often. He knows that you’re going to be drawn to things that are wicked.
That’s what the cross is all about! That’s the whole point of the cross! Is that you’re gonna fail and you’re going to stumble and you’re going to feel dirty. You’re going to feel awkward. The whole point of the cross of Christ is that they’ll be this mighty picture of His love and pursuit of you despite you. The Cross is necessary because of you but it’s also the picture we have of just how far God is willing to go because he loves you.” — Matt Chandler
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Video Credit: Dennis Lazau
Even though we worry and fret so much, such needless anxiety will avail us nothing. We only plague and trouble ourselves and make matters all the worse. God wants us to look on him as our God and Father in Christ, to call upon him in every time of need and to be confident that he will provide for us.
At Grassroots Church one of the avenues we use to grow as disciples (students) of Jesus Christ is through Blocs. (Blocs are a group of people gathered together for a common purpose.) One of the first things we studied at our Bloc was the The Circle with its genesis being a kairos moment.
On paper The Circle looks like the diagram below. There are two sections with three steps within each one. The line moving left to right is your life path and X is your kairos moment. When the kairos moment occurs you can ignore it and let life continue as normal, or you can enter The Circle and explore the kairos moment in more depth.
What is a kairos moment?
A kairos moment is an event that happens in your life, good or bad, that is significant to you. This may be a new job, getting fired, getting married, a break-up, an argument, etc. In their book, Building a Discipling Culture, Mike Breen and Steve Cockram define a kairos moment as:
A kairos moment is when the eternal God breaks into your circumstances with an event that gathers some loose ends of your life and knots them together in his hands. (Breen, 64)
The futility of finding a risk-free place to stand has paralyzed many of us. I have tasted this in my own pastoral leadership. There are decisions to be made, but I can’t see which is best. There are so many unknowns. The temptation is to run away — if not physically, emotionally. Just think about something else. Put it off. Procrastinate. Hope the problem goes away. But it doesn’t. And our paralysis is serving no one. The paralyzing fear of making a decision serves no one. It is cowardly. Risk is the only way forward.
From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised! (Psalms 113:3 ESV)
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