New Life'n

Paging Mr. Ellis

Maybe you've got started on something -- a dream, or some big goal -- and it's just not happening.  Maybe you've kinda given up on it.  Except in your heart.

This weekend at the movies you may see a fellow who was like that. 

His dream just wasn't happening.  So he quit.  Not totally -- he stayed on the fringes but quit the work of the dream.  He wasn't going after it anymore.

He started working with his hands to support his family.  Some of the cabinets and sun decks he built are still around.  But it was the people he met after giving up -- the ones who hired him to do his non-dream work -- who resurrected the dream. 

If he hadn't given up, it might not've happened.  Some things you don't find and some people you don't meet by looking for them.  They have to find you.

Here he is at the very beginning, before he quit, before he got going again, before bigger things happened than he probably ever imagined.  Before he knew that a dream and talent and hard work were not enough,  Before he knew that what he was looking for had to find him.  He's the one looking for Mr. Ellis:

Steven Curtis Chapman's daughter Maria

was killed last night by the famly SUV in the driveway of their home in Nashville.  She was 5.  The story is HERE. 

You can meet Maria and leave a comment for the Chapman's HERE.

From Steven's manager:

She was LifeFlighted to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital but for only reasons God can explain she went home to Him... not to Franklin as we all so desperately wanted...

Just hours before this close knit family was celebrating the engagement of the oldest daughter Emily Chapman, and were just hours away from a graduation party marking Caleb Chapman's completion of high school. Now, they are preparing to bury a child who blew out 5 candles on a birthday cake less than 10 days ago...

Steven's YouTube channel is HERE.  Everyday life stuff.  Then something happens and the everyday things suddenly seem so special and precious.  But really, they're always special and precious.

MEET MARIA:

Watching Ted Kennedy

When you heard about his cancer, did you immediately think, "how long does he have?"  I did.  In fact, I went online to find out more, including the prognosis. 

I've never paid much attention to him, outside of him being a Kennedy and everything that goes with that.  I grew up during the Kennedy years (Jack, Bobby, Teddy...) and so there is some nostalgia associated with a Kennedy always being a player on the scene my whole life.  But that's not why I went online. 

It was good to see the picture of him with his family in the hospital this afternoon, dressed, looking healthy and all of them smiling.  This is a family that knows how to handle bad news.  But again, that's not what I went online to find out. 

I went online to find out how long he had to live.  Why?

I'm going out on a limb here.  I'm guessing I'm not that different from most people.  And mortality gets my attention.  My mortality. 

So really it's all about me, but maybe not in a bad way -- it's good to be reminded you're going to die.  It's only going to happen once, and you don't know how you'll react or feel when it comes or when the threat of it comes.  And it makes the living that comes before that seem more important, as it really is.

When Jesus told Peter how Peter was going to die (John 21), Peter then asked Jesus how John was going to die.  Jesus basically said it was none of his business.  'What is that to you?  You follow Me!'

It's universal, no one escapes, yet it's unique for each of us.  Only yours is your business, so you wonder -- What's mine going to be like? 

Maybe I'm trying to get a clue from watching Ted Kennedy.

Smarter than a 5th grader

And a 12th grader...and a 37th grader...

You'll get the idea after a minute or two -- but she keeps on going for eight minutes!

By the way

...the New Life 91.9 mission trip to the Domican Republic was cancelled this year.  Only one family signed up.

Yeah, I didn't sign up either.

Think it's too late?

That you're so far behind everyone else you'll never catch up?

It could still turn out pretty great.

You'd think, for example, that a champion race car driver would be nurtured by mom and dad in go-carts and then gradually bigger things long before being old enough to get a public drivers license.

But, what if you didn't start driving until you were 20 -- what chance would you have?  And if by some miracle, you did make it to the racing big leagues, but after 4 years and over 120 races had still never won one, would you say things were looking good?

That was Dale Jarrett.  He ended up winning 32 races, the big championship trophy as top driver, and the Daytona 500 three times.  Not bad for a late starter, eh?  Last night he retired after the race at Lowes Motor Speedway.

So what are you waiting to get started on?

Bigger than your faults again

You would think if you were going to choose a people to make yourself known, who would be a blessing to the whole world, and who would be the ones to guard your name and reputation, you'd be pretty picky.  If you were God, you'd probably engineer things so that this people was THE best.  I mean, there's a lot at stake.

Then you read Genesis 29 thru 31.  What a train wreck of a family that this people is going to come from. 

Laban tricks Jacob into marrying the "wrong" sister.  The wrong sister is unloved (by the 'godly' Jacob) and she hopes having a kid will cause him to love her.  Nope.  OK, maybe another kid will make him love her.  Or another...  Then the loved sister doesn't have any children and is now jeolous so she gives Jacob her servant to have kids.  That way she can catch up to her unloved sister.  So then the unloved sister gives Jacob her servant.  Back and forth, wives and babies and jelousy and trickery.

And from those kids are God's chosen people.  The 12 tribes of Israel.  Guardians of God's word and reputation and blessing to the world.  And you know what, they never improve on their start -- their families continue on pretty messed up.  But they stayed God's chosen ones.

There was never a sense of godliness during that whole thing as Jacob's family started in Genesis 29-31.  But then at the end, we see that God really was in there, somehow, and had not abandoned Jacob.  He and his family prosper, even though it looked like it was all Jacob's winning battle of deception with Laban that did it.

But it wasn't.  The whole thing was all about God's faithfulness.  And Jacob knew it.

You end up thinking that Jacob was a messed up guy, but that he never forgot his God or the commitment he had made to him twenty years earlier back in chapter 28.  His way of remembering God was pretty feeble and imperfect, but he never totally went his own way.

How messed up are you?  How dysfunctional is your family, or the family you came from? 

Well, apparently, when your heart's right, if God has something he's going to do and he's decided to use you, he doesn't have to let your faults stop him. 

So be encouraged.  I am.

Eight things I learned about myself while walking my mangy mutt

1.  It's a lot safer to bark at someone from a distance (or behind their back) than it is to their face

2.  I have days when I'm right in step with Jesus and I have days when I'm constantly yanking on the leash

3.  When I prove I won't fight the limits of the leash, I get a longer, slacker leash

4.  When I'm fed, rested and have my business taken care of, I get a spring in my step

5.  But I look for excuses to be distracted from my business -- a noise, a smell, some action nearby -- oooh, what's that?

6.  Most of the time I really would -- while singing in Goofy's clueless doh-de-oh-doh voice -- wander right off the curb in front of a car

7.  If I'm thnking of eating (or doing) something I'm not suppossed to, I make sure I snarf it down quick, before I have time to think about it and before someone notices and calls me on it

8.  Being an obedient, good dog in one area doesn't keep me out of trouble when I disobey in another

The President's homework before his daughter's wedding

He did what a lot of dads do before their daughters get married -- watched Father of the Bride!  Did he pick up any tips from the movie?

Yes, which is to write the check and be happy.

He was interviewed this week, and talked about not using email (security reasons), his happiest moment in the White House (walking in the Oval Office for the first time as President with his dad), who he's rooting for on American Idol (no one -- he says he's asleep when it's on!) and when he needed faith the most as President:

I'd say daily. I mean, part of the faith walk is to understand your weaknesses and is to constantly try to embetter yourself and get closer to the Lord. And that's a daily occurrence. Obviously there's been some tough moments in here. When you know that somebody lost their loved one as a result of a decision that I made, that's a tough moment. If you're a faithful person you try to empathize with the suffering that that person is going through. On the other hand, there is a knowledge that the good Lord can comfort during these moments of grief. And that's what I ask for in my prayer.

He doesn't play golf anymore...

I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the Commander-in-Chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as -- to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.

He also talks about baseball and Iraq and how tired the current Presidential candidates have to be.  And he had this one really memorable phrase:

Popularity is fleeting...  Principles are forever.

You can read it all HERE.

Sara's only homerun

Her teammates couldn't touch her.  But the other team could...