On Sunday, my 6 year old son Paul, wanted to go to Game Stop to look for a new game for his Nintendo DS. When I was in first grade I got an Atari 2600 and that thing was my life. The same is true of Paul and his DS. We share this heart connection over video games.

All day long he wanted to go. He first asked about it before we went to church. No son, too early. Then he wanted to go right after church. No son, we need to eat lunch. Then he wanted to go right after lunch. No son, I want to rest. Then we went to Yogurtland as a family for a snack. While it was just a couple hundred yards from Game Stop, the timing wasn’t right. Then we got home from Yogurtland. No son, you need to do some homework. Then he did some homework and I ran out of excuses.

Can we go to Game Stop now? Yes.

Paul and Megan had each been saving their allowance and happily stuffed their pockets with every penny they had. Each week they can earn up to $5 if they maintain the family rules and perform some basic chores. The truth is that it’s a pretty easy $5 to earn as I’m a softy of a dad. (Kristen rolls her eyes at me each week as she doesn’t think they’ve really earned $5. I’m a benevolent father, what can I say?) Megan had $25 in her pocket and Paul had $23. As we drove the few blocks over to the video game store Paul was careful, yet firm, to remind me that I had been in Minneapolis last Sunday and mommy hadn’t given them their $5. And that it was also Sunday. So if they would each clean their room and finish their homework they could earn another $5.

Practically speaking, Megan had $35 she could spend and Paul had $33. When you are 6 or 8 years old, like my kids, that’s a lot of cash. It represents 7 weeks of saving every penny you have. They were aware that the money burning a hole in their pocket represented a lot of homework and a lot of room cleaning and a lot of avoiding temptation to buy candy or smaller toys. To earn and save over $30 is an accomplishment! Truth be told, $35 is a lot of money to daddy, too! I rarely, if ever, carry that much cash with me. (Do I need to mention that saving $30 is more than most Americans save in the same amount of time?)

It was a lot of money. I was proud of them.

We parked the car and the kids floated into the store. Paul, who had been to the store with me twice before, instructed his big sister on the game plan. “The DS games are on the wall by the front door… you don’t even need to ask anyone, just start looking as soon as you get in the door and they are right there. The used games are on the lower parts of the shelf. The new games are up high. Used games are cheaper so you can get one for like $10. New games cost more than $20.”

The store was full of older kids looking at XBox 360 games so we were completely ignored. The girl at the counter barely acknowledged our entrance and quickly got back to showing the older kids the latest and greatest in the world of gaming. They were boys who play video games and she was a girl. This was the closest thing any of those nerds would come to a date for a long time.

My kids didn’t notice or care about the clerk. They had serious business to do.

Megan, our animal lover, scoured the lower shelves for used games about pets. There are games to take care of dogs, cats, birds, exotic animals… on and on. Some games have a lot of different pets while others specialize in a certain pet. Megan loves cats and within minutes she was trying to decide between one game which was about cats of all ages and another that was just about kittens. 1000 titles and my girl had it narrowed to two in about 3 minutes. I noticed she was happy in the $10-20 range. She carried a certain confidence in knowing that she didn’t have to spend much money to get a fun game to play with. Plus, if she only spent $15, she’d have $20 left over.

Paul scoured the shelves looking for Pokemon games. He found 4-5 games that all looked about the same but had different price points. Confused, I showed him how to find the copyright date on the back of the game. The newer ones were more expensive, the older ones cheaper.

As Megan and I were comparing the two games she had narrowed her choice down to, I saw out of the corner of my eye that Paul had put all of his games back on the lower shelf where he had found them. He took a couple steps back and craned his neck almost to the ceiling. Not quite 4 feet tall it must have been nearly impossible to see games on shelves 8 feet in the air. He was looking at the brand new games. His eyes scanned the best sellers on the top shelf. Then they started looking at the second shelf and stopped cold. The brand new, special edition Bakugan Battle Brawlers game.

He pulled on my waist. “Daddy, look! It’s the brand new Bakugan game… it comes in a big box, too. How much is that one?” I reached up and took it off the shelf, handing it to him. His eyes were huge. His entire disposition had changed. He had gone from hunting for something cheap to discovering something almost mystical and beyond comprehension. As the game box changed hands his eyes devoured the front cover and started to read it all to me. Then he turned it over and realized something horrible. It was $35. His heart sank.

Almost immediately he gave it back to me. In an instant he went from this mystical experience right back to shopper mode. “No one has that game at school yet, daddy. It’s too much, I don’t have $35 I only have $23 and you owe us $10 more, that’s just $33. And that game is more than I have.”

I knew he wanted it bad. He didn’t cry but I could feel his disappointment. Within 15 seconds he had gone through a sea of emotions. Searching, finding, holding magic, disappointment, and then back to searching.

This little interaction tugged my heart.

He walked away and went back to the older Pokemon games. He wasn’t unhappy or upset. In earlier years he may have collapsed on the floor. He was just matter of fact. This was a sign of my little boy growing up. He wanted a new game for his DS and the fact that he didn’t have enough money didn’t mean he couldn’t get a new game. It just meant he had to get a game that wasn’t exactly what everything he wanted.

Back by the Pokeman games on the lower shelf, I went over to him and crouched down to his level. You know Paul, you have $33 and that game is $35. You are pretty close. Just $2 away. Next week you would have enough to buy it. “I know, it’s OK. I’ll just get one of these. I really want that game but I don’t have enough right now.”

“Paul,” I said, “you remember that we have a rule that if you want to borrow next weeks allowance to get something now, that it’s OK. You just have to ask daddy.”

I got up and went back over to Megan. But I kept a close eye on my son. I knew that I had put him in a tough spot. He is wired just like me. He doesn’t like to ask anyone for anything. He knew that I would loan him the extra $5 so he could buy what he wanted. But asking dad for the loan was really hard.

As he looked at the lesser games I could see him biting his lip. He really wanted the Bakugan game. The fact that it came with an action figure made those lesser games seem really inferior.

But asking daddy for $5? That was a dilemma.

He looked at the Pokeman games. They now weren’t what he wanted. I watched him wrestling through the McLane stubborn nature. It’s something I know all-too-well.

Megan chose the kitten game and was happy as a lark. She started to wander the store as Paul made his final selection.

Paul came to me empty-handed and sullen. I bent down for a serious father-to-son talk. Biting his lip he explained the whole situation to me. “The Pokemon games do look like fun, daddy. And I do have enough money for them. But I really want that new Bakugan game. It looks really cool and it has a Bokugon that I’ve always wanted.”

Uh-huh. So what do you want to do?

“Well, I really want to get that Bakugan game but I only have $33 and it costs $35.”

Yeah, son. All you have to do is ask me and I will let you borrow $5 from next weeks allowance.

“I know…”

He was breathing deeply. I could feel his heart pounding. He was biting his lower lip. He really didn’t want to ask me. As much as he wanted to borrow the money, he was really weighing his options. I could tell he wanted me to just cave and offer to loan him the money without his having to ask. But he looked into my eyes and could see that I was going to make him ask.

Finally, after about 30 long seconds of this dance he opened his mouth.

“Daddy, can I borrow $5 so I can get the Bakugan game right now?”

I stood up.

“Yes son, you bet.” I reached high up on the shelf, grabbed the game, and handed him the box. He confidently pulled it from my hand, found Megan, proudly showed his sister, showed her everything about it that was cool in his eyes, and dragged her to the counter so they could pay.

All he had to do was ask daddy. I wanted to give him the money. But I wanted to be asked. When he asked, both our hearts leapt.

What does this story have to do with our prayer life? As believers, we have a Heavenly Father who is waiting to give us both the things that we need and the things that we want. The Bible says, you just have to ask. That doesn’t mean God will give us everything we want. But it does mean that Daddy wants us to ask.

Philippians 4:6-7

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

The unsung heroes of any book, movie, magazine, or television show are the people behind the scenes who edit and frame a story into something that people will want to watch and talk about.

For instance, take a look at the trailer for the 1988 movie, “A Cry in the Dark.” (You know, the one with Meryl Streep when she says, “A dingo ate my baby!” “the dingo’s got my baby.” [Thanks commenter])

Here is the original trailer, put together by the UK-based company who made the movie, CannonFilms.

Here is the U.S. theatrical release version shown to American audiences, put together by Warner.

The video is probably 90% the same. Same shots, same scenes used. But with a few copy edits, a different voiceover actor, and different background music… the trailer comes across much different.

I bring this up for two reasons.
1. The difference between a lot of things being appropriate for one audience or the other is often times in the minor details.
2. When you watch or read a story be aware that somewhere, someone is editing it to convey a message.

Kermit is right. It’s not easy being green.

Embrace your identity.

Whatever God has called you to do, do it with reckless abandon. Fear is your enemy. Safety is never productive.

Own your fears. But don’t let them own you.

Kermit is right. Nothing worth being is easy.

At work I’m doing a data smash. That is a tech geek way [I made up the term myself] of saying I’m taking all of our pipelines of customer web data and pouring it into one bucket to see if there’s anything interesting I can learn.

It’s an experiment. There’s no guarantee it’ll tell me anything!

Lately I’ve felt like I should put my lab coat on when I go into the office. And I find myself telling data jokes that people just stare at.

It’s a very interesting experiment from 30,000 feet. But in the course of doing it, at ground level, it’s pretty flipping boring. As I trudge through spreadsheets, cleaning data, and merging terms like “church” and “organization” and “account” from various databases into one consistent term– I try not to let my mind wander. Consequently, at the end of the day I’m completely mentally exhausted. And you thought my job was just playing on YouTube, Facebook, and podcasts?

My little experiment makes me think of real scientists in  real lab coats doing real experiments. These folks test a hypothesis with their hard work, ingenuity, intuition, experience… and money. Like my little experiment at work they don’t know if their hard work will ever pay off or if they’ll have to admit that their hypothesis failed despite all of the hard work, ingenuity, intuition, education, and money.

And yet some of them work years and years, day-after-day, on the mundane unsexy experiments that change the world in big sexy ways. They invent new medical devices, develop vaccines, make sure the stuff we use is safe, on and on. Our society is dependent on nerds in lab coats.

They are often the quiet heroes of our civalization. And yet we never learn their names.

Better find my pretend lab coat and get back to work.

Last night I watched a fascinating documentary on the National Geographic Channel called, “Alone in the Wild.”

It was difficult to watch. Here was this outdoorsmen named Ed Wardle. He wanted to test himself to see… can I live completely independent of others and survive in the Yukon wilderness? He intended to make it 90 days. He made it 50. And the last few weeks weren’t pretty. As time wore on, as hunger set in, as the reality that he could contact people but was choosing not to set in, the pain set in. It was agonizing TV. He cried a lot. He dealt with a lot of emotional pain. And of course he documented his unraveling. With the pressure of shooting a film on his mind all the time and the reality that he was lonely– he was paralyzed. He was in the wild, all by himself trying to prove that he could do it on his own, and he realized he needed people. He could technically do it but he chose to give up.

Deep exhale on that. He needed people. He had the skills to do it on his own. But we just aren’t wired that way. We’re hardwired to need one another.

And so he quit. He couldn’t do it. Check out what he said:

The isolation was the most difficult element of this adventure. With no contact I immediately began to lose direction and reason. Without food I lost concentration and the ability to think straight. I worked hard from week one to keep myself motivated and keep going and by the end I was spending hours every day just convincing myself to carry on one day at a time. When I was travelling or doing something physically hard I had a military voice superimposed on my thoughts keeping me going and getting me organised, other times I had a female voice that would tell me to be sensible, breathe and take it easy on myself. They helped and I could feel them getting stronger and more necessary as time went on. link

I doubt Kristen would remember saying this to me but when we were dating in college she wrote in a letter, “I love you because you don’t need anyone but you chose to let me into your world.“ True– I was raised to be independent. One of my parents goals in raising my brother and I was that we’d be able to take care of ourselves. (I don’t think they ever meant this emotionally, but physically we knew how to take care of ourselves with food, laundry, cleaning up, and stuff like that pretty young!)  When things got rough in high school and college I took that desire to be independent to an extreme. In my dysfunction I translated “you can do it on your own” to “I will do life with no ones help, I will muscle through anything, I don’t need to depend on anyone.”

Kristen was right. Back then, I didn’t need or want anyone in my life. It was amazingly fulfilling to find my own way, take care of myself, and go from absolutely nothing to paying my way through college. But it was also dysfunctional. And it took someone I loved calling that spade a spade to motivate me to change.

This is where Kristen has completed me in a powerful way, though. She reminds me, in words and deeds,  that we need others in our lives. We need good friends. We need the wisdom of our peers. We need to be open in these relationships. She has taught me that while we don’t “need” others to survive… life is infinitely better with people than without.

Doggone it if she wasn’t right, too. Life is way better surviving in the wild with friends.

Yes, I am a Paul Simon fan. I can’t explain it, other than the fact that my mom introduced me to him as a high school kid and I listened to the album The Concert in the Park nearly every day when I lived in Germany. This particular song has always made me think.

Here I am at 33 years old. Still crazy after all these years. Some days or weeks I’m crazier than others. With adolescent fervor I am still crazy enough to want to change the world. I remember 15 years ago, in freshmen orientation at Moody Bible Institute, being told by someone that I was just young and idealistic… “Everyone wants to change the world but no one really can.” I think over the past years I’ve shown otherwise. Sure, I can’t tilt the Earth on a new axis. But there’s been some change. And I wake up each day excited about more changes.

The converse is also true, you know? Instead of being young and idealistic I could be old and pessimistic. I know plenty of curmudgeons in the world who live for bad news and think the best days on this planet are in the past. That’s an easy path. I chose to think that the best spins left on Earth are still out there.

I chose to be just crazy enough. More importantly, I want to encourage others to be crazy enough to recognize that they can change the world. I believe each one of our roles in the world is important. I believe that every effort we make invest in life change with a person or positively changing an institution matters– lots of little impacts make a big impact. While it’s true that I cannot tip this busted world on it’s access alone as my butt just isn’t quite big enough. I wonder about a co-ordinated army of world-changers– is there is an army of people just crazy enough… together could our butts be big enough to change the world?

I’m still crazy after all these years. Are you?

Looking for something new, fresh, and hot? How about doing something practical, instead? How about changing lives forever?

This is worth looking into:

METRO ATLANTA, Ga. — Last weekend an Atlanta pastor made a promise that stunned his congregation and most of the people who heard it.

In a speech that discussed abortion, the President, and the sanctity of life, the most provocative statement from Pastor Vic Pentz of Peachtree Presbyterian Church came towards sermon’s end:

“I make a promise to you now and I don’t want you to keep this a secret,” the pastor pronounced, “the Peachtree Presbyterian Church will care for any newborn baby you bring to this church.

“We will be the family to find a home for that child, and there’s no limit on this. You can tell your friends, you can tell your family, you can tell the whole world …”

Reflected Pentz a week later, “I seem to have touched a nerve by saying that to the congregation.”

Honestly, this is what the church has always done. This is what the church in many parts of the world does today. Wouldn’t it be amazing if your church issued the same challenge?

HT to Church Marketing Sucks

I love this video for two reasons. First, the guy teaches a skill that I didn’t know but would have saved me a lot of time and frustration. How many times have I laid out a 100 foot extension cord and spent 20 minutes untangling it? Second, I love how this guy almost talks down to the audience. You can imagine what’s going on in his head, “You idiots don’t know how to do this?”

Intuitive is not Intuitive to Everyone
Yesterday, I went on a bike ride with Megan. She’s a little late coming to the bike riding club, but she took of the training wheels yesterday and just got it. As she zoomed around the park I rode behind her sharing some encouragement and advice. To her it seemed counter-intuitive that by riding faster she was able to go straight easier. I tried my hardest to not talk down to her because I know she’s like me… she’d rather figure it out on her own than have me telling her.

It’s really the same for any new skill. There is a master teacher, who does it more by intuition than being aware of each step. And there is the learner who has to wrestle his mind and body through the steps. You get through it once, it’s usually slow and tough, and it gets a little easier until you master it.

Chances are that you’ve mastered a skill that you just do intuitively and that there are others who marvel at it. The trick is, getting intuitive at handing over those skills.

I took this picture in my backyard this morning. It illustrates this thought perfectly. In the middle is our healthy orange tree, to it’s left is a healthy grapefruit tree, if you could see more you’d see another orange tree, a couple peach trees, a mandarin, and lemon tree. And everything else is dirt.

Being a Midwest boy now living in an coastal arid climate I’ve been fascinated by this simple principle: What you water grows. The rest of our backyard is dirt or dead, dried up weeds. Where I grew up this same effect would be impossible. Weekly rains would ensure that the dirt would become covered in in vegetation. But in our climate, if you don’t water an area… nothing will grow.

In your life, what you water grows

Followers of Jesus know this to be true in matters of the heart as well. Jesus said  this, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.We know that God’s written word is living water to our souls.” Practically speaking, those who spend time contemplating and meditating on Scripture grow– while those who do not, don’t grow. Later Jesus taught his followers why they needed to stay connected to the vine. [fellow believers] “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” The vine is the source of water and nutrients… stay connected to the vine and you live. Disconnect and you die.

Are you watering the right things?

In an arid climate water is a precious commodity. Here in San Diego we live under water restrictions as our fresh water isn’t natural to the area. It is all pumped in from other places! (We have a rainy season [Winter] and a dry season. [Spring, Summer, Fall]) We all have to make choices with the water that we have… what will we allow to grow and what will we allow to die? The same is true in our lives. Professionally, we know we can’t do it all… so what will we give water and see thrive and what will we not water and see die? In our families, we must chose things to water and things to dry out. In our ministries, we must chose which programs and people to water and which to allow to not grow or even willow. Individual believers chose, do I want to be connected to the vine… the source of nutrients and water… or do I want my faith to die by not connecting with other Christians?

This water thing is pretty deep. After all, the Mediterranean climate is a coastal desert as well. It all ties into the parable of the talents as well, doesn’t it? We’re all given things to manage. And part of being a good manager is deciding what to water and what to let die. You can’t do it all! Chose wisely and water the right things.

Awesome video. When I saw it I laughed and went “hmm” at the same time. Isn’t it ironic that the thing that cleans and refreshes us… in massive quantities crushes and destroys?

As an introvert stuck in an extroverts world I often feel relationally crushed by human interaction. For example, one of my biggest struggles in serving in ministry was the always on nature of events, retreats, and mission trips. I would ache for alone time to reflect on what was happening, but feel crushed by the urgent needs of my students. I’m ashamed that there were moments of imbalance where I would snap at an adult volunteer or student… not because of what they did or said but because they inhabited the space my introverted mind wanted to protect.

What are the types of things that crush you with their goodness?

What are some centering activities you do when you feel crushed by things that are meant to refresh and cleanse?