My friend Brian preached a few weeks ago, and I was able to look up his sermon online today. (Message me if you want the URL... it was a good sermon). I could probably write an entire blog on six or eight of his points, but then I really wouldn't get any homework done. Let me mull through a few more points before I share them, but this one is among my favorite.
His main point for the message was talking about preparing the soil, pruning, and producing (harvesting) our lives. With that said, he went on talk about how life is messy. It's full of crap. Yes, he said "crap" from the pulpit. He went on to talk about how the best fertilizer is made of crap. Fertilizer is vital to preparing the soil. Fertilizer, like life, is made of crap. In order to prepare our lives for pruning and changing, we have to experience crap. Life is messy. It happens.
Imagine what God is doing through the crap in your life and how fertile He is making the soil. Just remember, the pruning stage comes next, and it isn't easy either.
In Christ,
<>< Katie
"It has given me great joy to find some of your children are walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. And now, dear lady, I am not writing to you a new command but one we have had from the beginning: I ask that we love one another." 2 John 4-5
Monday, March 30, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Musical Hallucination
God likes to speak to me through music. I've awful at learning music, but I love to learn from music. I am almost always having a musical hallucination. It's only fitting since my twin brother, Nathaniel, is a worship leader. Well, tonight, Nathaniel was leading worship and for some reason the PowerPoints did not match what he was singing (this is actually a frequent occurrence, for those who've worshiped with Nathaniel). This time the PowerPoints were wrong, not him. So he told us to just listen (actually, I heard him say, "Sing with me now" when there were no words... I later learned he'd said, "I'll sing now."
There we are, singing a popular worship song, and the audience participation is flopping because the PowerPoint is messed up. How often do we sing that song? Every week? Every two weeks? Either way, if we sing along every word on a regular basis when the PowerPoint is up, yet we can't sing it at all when the PowerPoint is missing, how much attention are we really playing? Are we so focused on our singing to God that we're missing what we're actually saying to Him? One thing I'm trying to do lately, is actually read the words you're singing. There are a lot of lines that are suddenly clarified. There are a lot of lines that are really hard to sing, lyrically. Give it a try this week.
In Christ,
<>< Katie
There we are, singing a popular worship song, and the audience participation is flopping because the PowerPoint is messed up. How often do we sing that song? Every week? Every two weeks? Either way, if we sing along every word on a regular basis when the PowerPoint is up, yet we can't sing it at all when the PowerPoint is missing, how much attention are we really playing? Are we so focused on our singing to God that we're missing what we're actually saying to Him? One thing I'm trying to do lately, is actually read the words you're singing. There are a lot of lines that are suddenly clarified. There are a lot of lines that are really hard to sing, lyrically. Give it a try this week.
In Christ,
<>< Katie
Friday, March 27, 2009
Clue Number One
On March 21, my friend Jonathan celebrated his birthday. Even though it's late, this still calls for a clever Jonathan story... that requires a lot of thought. Just kidding. :-)
While stories like the orange construction cone and "famous last words" will always have a special place in my heart, I decided on a different story. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Jonathan was one of the people who went on my mission trip to Mississippi several years ago. Our entire group (and several hundred of our closest friends) slept in the church sanctuary. Jonathan and his dad each pulled two pews together and formed beds for themselves. My mom and I slept on an air mattress next to them. One night, I was in bed, and I rolled over to see six-foot Jonathan STANDING in bed trying to get out of the "house" (that's what we called the area where the 15 of us were sleeping...). Unfortunately we were packed in like sardines in a can, so the only way out was to step on someone's head or to walk across the pews.
Since I'm the silliest at night (being with Mom didn't help, of course), I couldn't resist the urge to voice my comment regarding the situation.
"You're STANDING on God's couch!"
I wanted to pull the "teacher card" and be like "Do you stand on your own couch at home? Then don't stand on God's couch either." Actually, I found the whole situation hilarious. And "You're standing on God's couch" is one of those lines that will always make me laugh.
In writing that, I thought of another funny story...
Jonathan and I were in his living room writing a song. There's a huge window in the front of his house and the weather was overcast. His mom came in and said,
"Dad just called and thought we should know we're in a tornado watch."
"Ok. Let us know if it becomes tornado warning," Jonathan responded and we went back to song-writing.
Tornado watch? No big deal.
Tornado warning. Good to know.
<>< Katie
While stories like the orange construction cone and "famous last words" will always have a special place in my heart, I decided on a different story. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Jonathan was one of the people who went on my mission trip to Mississippi several years ago. Our entire group (and several hundred of our closest friends) slept in the church sanctuary. Jonathan and his dad each pulled two pews together and formed beds for themselves. My mom and I slept on an air mattress next to them. One night, I was in bed, and I rolled over to see six-foot Jonathan STANDING in bed trying to get out of the "house" (that's what we called the area where the 15 of us were sleeping...). Unfortunately we were packed in like sardines in a can, so the only way out was to step on someone's head or to walk across the pews.
Since I'm the silliest at night (being with Mom didn't help, of course), I couldn't resist the urge to voice my comment regarding the situation.
"You're STANDING on God's couch!"
I wanted to pull the "teacher card" and be like "Do you stand on your own couch at home? Then don't stand on God's couch either." Actually, I found the whole situation hilarious. And "You're standing on God's couch" is one of those lines that will always make me laugh.
In writing that, I thought of another funny story...
Jonathan and I were in his living room writing a song. There's a huge window in the front of his house and the weather was overcast. His mom came in and said,
"Dad just called and thought we should know we're in a tornado watch."
"Ok. Let us know if it becomes tornado warning," Jonathan responded and we went back to song-writing.
Tornado watch? No big deal.
Tornado warning. Good to know.
<>< Katie
Monday, March 16, 2009
Hola
Long time no chat!
Comments make my day, so when there are no comments this isn't much incentive to blog more. If you take the time to read it, take the time to lemme know you read it. :-)
I just got back from a mission trip, and so I'm formulating my experiences into words. Hopefully there will be some fun stories/ lessons mixed in with the amazing memories.
Learning to listen,
<>< Katie
Comments make my day, so when there are no comments this isn't much incentive to blog more. If you take the time to read it, take the time to lemme know you read it. :-)
I just got back from a mission trip, and so I'm formulating my experiences into words. Hopefully there will be some fun stories/ lessons mixed in with the amazing memories.
Learning to listen,
<>< Katie
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