Monday Morning List

Friday:

• Worked
• Cleaned house while Lincoln napped.
• My mom was in town, so she went grocery shopping with us.
• Mom wanted Chicken Express - I swear, I didn't suggest it - so we got that and took it home for dinner.
• Got Lincoln down for the night and went to bed.

Saturday:

• Enjoyed the rain.
• Ran errands while Lincoln and Katie napped.
• Went to the mall with my mom and cousin. She works at Macy's so she took us for a little shopping spree. Lincoln, Katie, and I all got a few new things.
• All of us went to dinner at my cousin's house who I've seen maybe 3 times in my life - none of those in the last 15 years. It was good. Interesting. A little uncomfortable. 3 cousins, their husbands and kids, and my aunt that I don't know. Great lasagna. Great cake. My mom's birthday

Sunday:

• Crazy day at church. Had to think on the fly to overcome some technical obstacles.
• Finally got home and had a great nap.
• Made taco salad for dinner.
• Got some Marble Slab - oh yeah.
• Lincoln soloed on his first in-car sing-along: "Dreaming with a Broken Heart" by John Mayer. He nailed the "gone, gone, gone, gone, gone" part.
• After Lincoln went to bed we watched "I Survived". That show is intense. May have to add it to DVR.
• One fantasy team got dominated. One finished up the day 2.8 points ahead of the competition and both of us have 2 players playing tonight.

Monday Morning List

Friday:

• Had the morning off to spend with the family.
• Took a nap while Lincoln did the same.
• Went grocery shopping and ate pizza.

Saturday:

• Family time in the AM.
• Watched some football while Lincoln and Katie napped. Nothing good on, so I took a nap myself.
• Family house cleaning. Lincoln likes to use the mini vacuum.
• Ate some homemade taco soup.
• Tried to watch the Texas Tech game. Lincoln wouldn't go to sleep well. I finally got to watch it and Katie finally got him down. Too bad that the Tech offense never finally showed up.

Sunday:

• Extra long day at church. Got to speak to the all-guys singles group.
• Katie felt horrible.
• Took Lincoln for a walk when I got home.
• Ate some dinner and watched a little TV before putting Lincoln to bed. I fell asleep in the process, so I went ahead and went to bed early.
• As of right now, I've got two teams winning. One should be able to hold on. The other is looking a little iffy.

Don’t Rock the Boat pt. 3

The Solution

How does one solve the problem of feeling "out of control"? I think that, as I mentioned before, the common solution is to treat the presenting problems and thereby avoid the deeper ones. You see it everywhere: marriage is bad, get a divorce; don't like your job, find a new one; problems with friends, stop calling them; emotional problems, anti-depressants.

[SIDEBAR: Anti-depressants are great. And there are a lot of situations where you need them to level you out so that you can deal with the deeper issues. There are some people who simply have to have them because their body doesn't produce the chemicals that they need. I'm for them, even if what I'm going to say makes it sound like I'm not.]

So, how do you get around the presenting problems and get to the root? I think that step one is Awareness. If all you do is look at issues in isolation, you'll never see anything but the surface. It's only through connecting the dots that you can figure out what is driving. Or it's like when someone gets divorced multiple times and you stop them and say, "hmm, did you ever notice that what each of these relationships had in common was you? Maybe there's something to that."

What I'm finding is that the solution is not to deal with these surface things. Or at least, not to try and resolve them immediately, because to do so would mask my need for a deeper soul change. Rather, the best thing for me to do is bear them or even lean more heavily into them (as I said two days ago, "I’m turning my sails and heading straight for the rocks because it may hurt to crash, but that’s the only way to get me to give up control.")

Instead of trying to control my way through the little things I have to realize that my deeper need is to trust God to guide me through them. That means praying for strength, praying for patience, praying for my need to control things to be taken away. In short, I've got to learn to rely on God rather than on myself and, for now, that means not trying to fix things in my own power. It means it may be more difficult in the moment, but it's the only way to grow.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith--that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3:14-19

Don’t Rock the Boat pt. 2

The Crisis

Yesterday, I wrote vaguely about the struggle that I'm facing, though I didn't get too specific until the very end. I've just had this sinking ship imagery in my head for several days.

It seems that my whole life I've had a problem of control. Not that I have to have my way all the time or that I want to tell people what to do, rather a feeling of being "out of control." There have been times in life when I've felt out of control and I've managed to deal with the "presenting problems" enough to get myself back under control. And so, I've not had to deal with the deeper issue.

I've never liked to put my concerns on other people. If I'm stressed or out of control, I typically keep it to myself so that no one else will have to feel the way I do (which is totally deluded because it comes through in everything I do and how I act). So, I've become very self-sufficient in solving my own problems.

Recently I've found myself back in that place. It's not any one or two things that have brought me here, rather a simple realization that I can't manage everything (in truth, I can't control anything). A win here is a loss there and vice versa. Or, several wins in one area are worthless because of a failure in another area.

In the past, I've relied on myself to fix it all. I'm now realizing that I can't. In the past I would cut and run from things that drove me to feel out of control. I'm now realizing that the only way to have my self-sufficiency overcome is by moving more deeply into those things and allow this illusion of control to be destroyed. Only then will I find a better way to do life. One that is free from (or at least less reliant on) self-sufficiency.

Don’t Rock the Boat

Life changes constantly. Most of these changes are just little ripples on the surface. Some are bigger. Many of them we see coming. Others are rogue waves that catch us by surprise.

Over time we've become great captains of our own ships and so, we roll with these changes. We learn to navigate the waves - if you will. While this may help in getting through the day, week, or month, perhaps it is not always the best plan.

Sometimes our entire perspective needs to change, but we've become so adept at navigating the waters that it's possible to turn around one day and realize that everything has changed... except for you.

I've found that I am pretty good at navigating through crises. The boat stays intact, though it may sustain a few dents and dings. The water of life gets choppier and choppier and sea sickness grows, but there is no abandoning ship. And eventually things settle back down until the next set of waves arise.

I'm beginning to realize, however, that maybe I don't have the best boat. Maybe my boat doesn't need to be rocked, it needs to be destroyed. So, rather than trying to navigate around the waves, I'm turning my sails and heading straight for the rocks because it may hurt to crash, but that's the only way to get me to give up control.

I'm dying in a sail-torn ship
I'm wrecking on Your rocks
I've got a promise-breaking foolish heart
That's broken into three
You took it Father, Son, and Ghost
And I have been set free

- Lover, Pt. 2 by derek webb

Monday Morning List

Friday

• Grocery shopping with Lincoln
• Lincoln and I played guitar together

Saturday

• Mowed the lawn
• Changed the oil in one of our cars... and I don't mean took it to Walmart... like, I literally changed it. Hadn't done that in like 10 years. Kinda like riding a bike.
• Cooked some dang quesadillas.
• Went swimming

Sunday

• Church. Awesomely cool service with a wedding in it.
• Watched some football
• Lincoln took a killer 4hr20min nap. So I got most of that into a nap for myself.
• Ran some errands. Cooked a less than stellar dinner.
• Mr. Long-Nap didn't want to go to bed, but I still caught a good portion of the Cowboys game.

An Update

It's raining and I like that. Only wish that I could be sleeping.

Football has returned... hooray!

I got a new desk in my office - now I just need to get all of my old stuff off the floor.

Working on music.

Excited about our new Colossians study on Wednesday mornings.

Recovering from a week of nausea.

The end.