Category: hmm… thoughts

  • Philippians 4 and our Anxious Mind

    Photo by Mayr via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    The mind is a funny thing.

    Years ago I memorized Philippians 4 as part of my devotional time. For me, I find Bible memory a great way to focus my sometimes unfocusable mind. And I find that I live out Scripture better when it is embedded in my head as opposed to plucked from a book.

    You can memorize a large chunk of Scripture and then it just kind of sits there, on ice, waiting to be used again. So I was a bit surprised to wake up with this stuck on repeat this morning:

    Philippians 4

    Therefore, my brothers, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, that is how you should stand firm in the Lord, dear friends!

    Exhortations

    I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to agree with each other in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you, loyal yokefellow, help these women who have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 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.

    Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

    Thanks for Their Gifts

    I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you have been concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles. Moreover, as you Philippians know, in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, when I set out from Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only; for even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me aid again and again when I was in need. Not that I am looking for a gift, but I am looking for what may be credited to your account. I have received full payment and even more; I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God. And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.

    To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

    It’s always shocked me that a man could write these words while in prison. Rejoice? You’re chained to a wall, dude! Peace of God? Are you freaking kidding me! Think about praiseworthy stuff? I’d be thinking about busting out! Your joy and crown? Are you blind! You can’t even see daylight from where you are.

    And yet, that’s what Paul wrote as he closed out his letter to the church in Philippi.

    Photo by Teresia via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    The last couple of days have been filled with anxiety for me. It’s unexplainable and irrational. Factually, I have nothing to be anxious about! I don’t know if its tied to my re-entry or what, but it’s been driving me nuts. On Thursday, as I rode my bike home I just kept having this feeling that I was about to get hit by a car. Then as I sat on the trolley a silly thought came into my mind about a woman seated near me. She was wearing a big, heavy jacket and my imagination got the best of me. I couldn’t shake the idea that maybe she was a suicide bomber and I kind of panicked. The whole way home my heart and mind were racing. I was laughing at myself the whole time. But I just had a hard time shaking it, too.

    Philippians 4 helped calm me down and brought me back to a rational state in that moment.

    That little episode of stray anxiety reminded me that we live in an anxious society. Our nation is filled with people who are 99.9% secure but still filled with fear. We have access to everything at nearly any moment and yet we only think about how we can get more. We almost never suffer. We almost never go hungry. We almost never want for anything we actually need. So we become anxious for more security, less chance of suffering, more food, and more stuff.

    Literally, we (myself included) are sick because we have too much. And we are still anxious for more.

    Perhaps I am not alone in needing the truths of Philippians 4 to bring me back to reality in moments of silly panic?

  • Rivals vs. Enemies

    I’ve noticed that we are beginning to redefine the term rivals and that is puzzling. It’s even a little bit scary as extremism continues to destroy the fabric of our nation.

    “If you are from Michigan, you are born hating the whole state of Ohio. Go Wolverines!”

    “I’m a Mac person. If you don’t rock a Mac, your are stupid. I mean it.”

    That church over there, I really can’t stand the way they do ministry. They steal sheep and stuff. Pisses me off.”

    What is a rival?

    A rival is a person, team, company, or other organization competing against another person or team, etc.

    Please notice this is a neutral term. You can be rivals and be friendly. You can be rivals and have a similar goal. You can be rivals and both strive for the same goal on the same planet without animosity.

    Example: I’m a Notre Dame fan. I grew up in a time when Notre Dame football was dominant in college football. And every Fall we played Michigan and USC… our rivals. Now, I never really cared much about USC because they were so far away. But the truth was, outside of that one game, we all wanted to see Michigan do well.  Because if they did well and we beat them, that made us look better. To this day I consider Michigan State and Michigan to be some of my favorite teams to watch on Saturday.

    What is an enemy?

    An enemy is a person who hates or dislikes another person, or is nasty or mean to the person he is an enemy to. The opposite of a friend.

    You see, an enemy and a rival are two different things completely.

    Competitive rivals make everything better.

    Enemies seek to destroy you, your reputation, your organization, and your relationships with everyone you know.

    Having a rivalry for your ministry, organization, church, and even yourself… is a very good thing! We are hard-wired for competition. To deny that is to deny something intrinsically human about yourself.

    But to label a rival an enemy? That also reveals something deeply disturbing in your heart.

    Check yourself.

  • Our Fair City



    San Diego is really pretty, originally uploaded by mclanea.

    Sometimes we get to play local tourist. Today was one of those days.

    Heck, 7.25% of the fun of hosting Lisa here this summer is having an excuse to play the role of tourist… one more time.

    There is a certain allure to San Diego. And amidst all the other stuff we often loose site of some of the most amazing places in the city.

    Like Balboa Park. This place is incredible. A complex of gorgeous museums, public spaces, fountains, and the San Diego Zoo. It is crazy big, too. It stretches from 4th Avenue to 18th Street! We’ve been there a bunch of times and I still think I’ve only seen about 25% of it.

    I remember hanging out with Mindi Godfrey shortly after I came on staff at YS. She said something that has stuck with me. And I kind of laughed it off at first. But she was completely right. She said, “Sometimes I stop and think to myself… it’s so cool that I get to live here.”

    San Diego. We suffer for Jesus here.

  • Today’s harvest



    Today’s harvest, originally uploaded by mclanea.

    This is what I pulled out of the garden today. This is a pretty typical daily harvest for us these days. We have a few pounds of green beans to pick tonight, as well.

  • Can’t Sleep

    We have a very loud bird outside of our house. Any thoughts we had of buying the kids a parakeet are now gone. Click on the link and you’ll know what I mean.

    1. Bird noise – This is why I can’t sleep     

  • Lessons from a Fail

    Photo by Cake Wrecks

    Have you ever had a colossal failure in your work? The type of failure that you just want to look around at everyone and yell, “Jenga!”

    I had one of these recently. A project failed so badly– I felt like the kid who struck out in the last inning with a man on third.

    Here are a few things I try to take away from a failure:

    • Failure is statistically interesting. I’m a highly emotional person in my decision-making, but I am also typically emotional when the data backs up my theory. So when something crashes and burns that means that my data was bad. And that’s interesting.
    • Don’t cross that idea off the list just yet. One of the things I’ve noticed in companies/individuals who are failures is that they give up on a good idea to quickly. “We tried that before and it didn’t work.”  That’s a phrase you hear from people who are so afraid of failing that they are only looking for snake oil. Maybe the timing was wrong? Maybe the execution was bad? Maybe your location/placement was bad?
    • Working harder rarely significantly impacts my results. My instinct is… when the plan is going bust to just work harder and longer. But experience has taught me that holding onto a failure instead of letting it just fail is an energy burn. A failure is a failure no matter how hard I work.
    • I need to study the fail in order to get away from the anecdotal reasons to the real reasons for the failure. That typically means I have to beat some stumps and dig through some data before I can really learn from the mistake. It might end up being something simple… and it might be something complex. But until I put on my forensic glasses I’m just not learning anything.
    • A failure doesn’t make me a failure. This is where playing sports teaches you about redemption! There is a good chance I’ll be in the exact same situation again another time… not learning, recognizing, and adapting from that previous failure… that’s what makes me a failure.
    • When a project completely failures to deliver, despite my ability to adapt the plan, sometimes this reveals a God aspect. At the end of the day I can work as hard as I can or plan my best plan but if it isn’t meant to be I need to be OK with that in recognition that I’m not the author of my life.

  • Adventure as a Discipline

    For the last few weeks I’ve been thinking about how wimpy people are.

    There is something strange to me that people allow the most remote possibility of getting hurt, lost, robbed, missing a meal, missing a flight, or even not a clean place to pee define their lives. What a boring life they live.

    I want my life to be full of adventure.

    Not just big adventures– day-to-day adventures too!

    It seems to me that people who like to plan everything, take as little risk as possible, and pre-think too many details are really missing something in life. With an entire ever-changing planet to explore it is inconceivable to me that people like to eliminate discovery and adventure.

    There is something spiritual about adventure. We are hard-wired to explore, discover… and depend on the goodness of others. As children we dream huge dreams! We devour books about adventure. Every adventure we hear about we want to go on. We wanted to go to the moon and mars. We wanted to go Africa. We wanted to live in Central Park in New York City.

    Stepping into an element of the unknown provides an incredible feeling. It acknowledges how God is in control and we are not. When we make adventure the enemy we lie to ourselves– God is in control of every detail all day, every day anyways!

    I love stepping into the unknown with nothing more than a feeling that everything is going to be OK. I even like pressing through the fear of “um, maybe this isn’t safe” and then the joy of laughing at myself when it all works out.

    I like depending on the kindness of strangers when I get lost. I like meeting new people in full recognition that there are no accidental meetings. I like discovering little things and big things. Those that look at these things as failures seem to think that life is meant to be sanitary.

    When we start removing this from our lives we take control. When I hear people tell me that they don’t like to be surprised, that they need to know when they will arrive, where they will eat, and what every detail is– it makes me wonder what is wrong with them.

    A spirit of adventure is not the lack of ability to plan. It is the lack of a need to plan every detail or measure every risk in life’s journey.

    Adventure and Recklessness

    There is a difference between the a spirit of adventure and a spirit of recklessness. It would be reckless to go on a 3 day hike up a mountain with no gear, no food, and no real plan. It would be reckless to jump off of a cliff into the ocean without knowing how deep the water is. It would be reckless to drop off 10 high school students for a homeless experience with no training.

    But embracing life’s adventures is not reckless. There’s always a risk assessment. A general idea of a safety plan. On and on.

    The goodness of others

    I really think one of the things that holds people back is a belief, deep in our soul, that all people are out to hurt us. We think everyone is a potential ax murderer or rapist.

    Hogwash. People are generally good. If you have a smile on your face and an honest question… you can go anywhere in the world and probably find someone who will help you when you get lost, give you a meal, find you a place to sleep, and give you good advice.

    Adventure is an attitude. When you embrace it the world opens to discovery.

    Questions: Do you see a spirit of adventure as a spiritual issue? Do you still dream about the same adventures you dreamt about when you were a kid? What is it in you that draws you to stories/movies/television shows about adventure?

  • The jugglers cup runneth over

    Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. Malachi 3:10

    I’ve heard and read this verse a ton of times. And the phrase that has always popped out to me is– “test me in this.” It’s one of those passages of the Bible that you read and think that it can’t literally be true.

    If I trust God with my money will he really pour out so much blessing that I won’t know what to do?

    Sounds like a load of bull spoken by a TV preacher trying to build his version of Disneyland, right?

    As I’m learning– maybe not.

    I don’t often write about things that are happening RIGHT NOW in my life. As much of myself as I share, I tend to let things percolate a little bit and mellow into principle before I try to capture my thoughts in words.

    But the last few days I’ve just come home and looked at Kristen and said– “My life is crazy right now. I can’t hardly explain it. All awesome stuff.”

    Two photos really capture visually what I’m having a hard time processing into words.

    1. The juggler.

    Photo by Andy_Tyler via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    My work life is a constant juggling act. Big projects, little projects, add leadership over one area and support over another. Go on the road to do one thing while keeping everything in order on something else. It’s a good kind of juggling. As my co-workers know, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Even when I come home I’m still juggling all sorts of personal and McLane Creative projects. From a thriving garden to the latest social media campaign– I’ve just got a lot of balls in the air.

    Juggling requires constant attention. And when people see a juggler they like to ask you one important question… can you juggle one more ball? Sometimes I shrug my shoulders yes and sometimes I shrug my shoulders no.

    2. The overflowing cup

    Photo by shioshvili via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    Is Malachi 3:10 really literally true? It sure seems that way right now. The last month was filled with unexpected showers of awesome. Several people and organizations are asking for quotes for new web designs. Several outlets are looking for me to write for them. Our community group is doing some cool things. In a few weeks Lisa is coming here for the summer. In June, Kristen and I have planned an amazing local vacation capped off by a fun celebration. My second trip to Haiti is coming together and basically full. And in the last 2-3 days a whole new shower of unexpected blessings has come my way– earth shakingly awesome stuff, too!

    If you bump into me these days I’ve kind of got this crazed mad Scientist look going. Buggy wide eyes, haven’t slept, and a scary perma grin.

    OK, not that guy.

    More like that.

  • What you know and how you motivate others

    If you think I made this up, here’s the Wikipedia page about this philosophy. Now you know about it, it’s a known known to you.

    Here’s the original clip. Like they say on NBC, now you know. And G.I. Joe says it best, knowing is half the battle.

  • Facilitating Independence

    Strong opinion warning.

    I’m not a fan of adult children living at home. It’s one thing if you’re on break from school and you’re a temporary visitor. It’s another thing when you’re able bodied. I’d even argue that the best thing for 18 year olds staying local for community college would be to kick them out of the house.

    Trust me. They won’t die of exposure.

    My opinion is that coddling teenagers leads to dependency. From a sociological perspective, I hypothesize adult coddling of teenagers and young adults has lead to an elongation of adolescence. (Some say it ends at 26? Crazy.) Likewise, raising a child from an early age with the goal that they will become happy, healthy, and independent young adults will prepare them for the swift kick that comes after high school graduation.

    Enter Lisa.

    I was Lisa’s youth pastor when she was in high school. She’s the eldest child from a great family. She worked hard in high school, was faithful to God, her parents, and a dedicated student. She’d be the first to tell you that she wasn’t perfect in high school. But something in Lisa’s character kept me investing in her. When she was a sophomore she and a few others started showing up for a 6 am Bible study. I thought they’d come for 2-3 weeks… and to my amazement we kept it going for almost 2 years! After high school she headed off to Grace College where she’ll earn a degree in just a few weeks with an emphasis on criminal justice and adolescence psychology.

    Last November, I was on a flight using the wifi late at night when we struck up a conversation on Facebook chat. Inevitably, I asked the question: “So what do you want to do when you grow up? What’s next?”

    She had some ideas but expressed some frustration. She really wanted to go back home to Michigan but feared that she’d either not find a decent job at all or be forced to give up her dream of working with teenagers. Let’s face it– Michigan is a tough place to be a recent college grad.

    I was afraid for her. My fear was that she’d move home, not find a decent job, end up in  something like minimum wage… unhappy and stuck in a cycle of paying off student loans by doing jobs that she wasn’t passionate about– and living at home.

    I offered a potential solution we both agreed to pray about it.

    What if you moved in with us, watched our kids during their summer break, and spent the summer chasing some of those social justice dreams by volunteering with San Diego-based non-profits?

    Lo and behold after a month or so of praying about it we all agreed it’d be worth a shot.

    Starting in June Lisa is coming to live with us. She has the first 6 weeks of time with us to volunteer for some non-profits. (We’re basically paying her to be a volunteer!) Than the second half of the time her concentration will shift to watching our kids when school ends July 15th.

    We pray it’s a win-win. She gains some experience and exposure to what God is doing in the social justice community in San Diego. And our kids have a sweet nanny.

    The hope, naive as it may be, that this will be a “halfway house” type of experience. We hope that through this experience that she’ll be able to find a permanent job, land a place to stay, and move on at the end of the summer to the next phase in her life. (Probably grad school being in the not-too-far distance.)

    Independence is possible. We just need to facilitate it as opposed to fostering dependency.

    This is how we’re helping a societal problem. How are you?