kylegilbert

Of all the personal goals I’ve ever read, none have inspired me like the resolutions of Jonathan Edwards.  He lived in colonial America and was a missionary to the Native Americans.  He wrote a lengthy set of resolutions that he would reflect on each week.  Just to give you a snapshot, I’ve included a few here:

1. Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to the glory of God, and my own good, profit, and pleasure, in the whole of my duration; without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved, to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved, so to do, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many soever, and how great soever.

5. Resolved, Never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can.

6. Resolved, To live with all my might, while I do live.

7. Resolved, Never to do any thing, which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.

8. Resolved, To act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings, as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God. Vid. July 30.

18. Resolved, To live so, at all times, as I think is best in my most devout frames, and when I have the clearest notions of the things of the gospel, and another world.

19. Resolved, Never to do any thing, which I should be afraid to do, if I expected it would not be above an hour before I should hear the last trump.

Every time I read through these (here is the full list), I feel inspired to be even more devoted to Christ, His church, and humanity.

One thing I really appreciate about Faith Promise is the focus on resolutions and goal setting.  It’s a passion of the pastor, and it has become a part of the culture of the church.  From church-wide goals to personal growth plans, I find myself right at home.

In the midst of my goal setting, I realize that I am once again face to face with the Beast of Familiarity.  If I’m not careful, my driven personality drags me into stale religion and rule keeping.  I can read through chapters without being pulled into and overcome by the Text – without being engaged by the Personal God of the Universe.

Because of this, I’m doing a couple of things this year:

1. I’m using a different Bible translation (NLT) than the one I normally read (NIV).
2. I’m committing to spend more time journaling my prayers – either written or typed.

What about you?  What helps you to stay focused on Christ?  Is there anything new that you’re committing to for the year?

I believe in a spiritual realm that is beyond our normal capacity to see – the existence of both angels and demons, but that’s not what I want to write about today.  What I want to write about is a different kind of evil oppression: toe oppression.  You see, I can’t stand to have any extra weight on my feet when I’m trying to sleep.

It’s a weird thing, but I cannot sleep in a bed that has tightly tucked sheets or with a heavy blanket on top of my feet.  It makes me crazy.  Worse than fingernails on a chalkboard.

My sweet wife, on the other hand, doesn’t mind having an extra blanket at the bottom of the bed, a practice I now refer to as evil oppression.  Since she doesn’t relate, she thinks it’s funny to bother me in this way.

The bad thing is that I normally sleep on my stomach.  That means I have to hang my feet off the bottom off the bed to keep my toes from being mushed.

Is there anyone else out there that has this same problem?  Any helpful advice?

Over the past couple of months, my life has been consumed with preparing for the launch of the new Faith Promise Church website.  I am thrilled to report that tonight we will redirect the name servers to point to the new website.

This has been a mammoth project, and even with a couple of us working on it almost daily for weeks, we still missed our desired launch day of Jan 1st (but not by much).

I want to thank all of the people who have helped see this project through.  Evan Crass got the ball rolling even before I arrived at Faith Promise by pulling together a bunch of people who were eager to see the site go to the next level.  From then on, I’ve been amazed at the talent and skill found at Faith Promise.

Special thanks to Jeff Lowe for tracking down all the DNS info and so faithfully uploading audio files to the site each week, and Brad Farrar for your excellent worship photography that is featured on several pages.  Toe, thanks for your encouragement and expertise, and Heather,  thank you for designing the amazing sermon series graphics and logos.  Thanks also to Josh for entrusting this project to me and empowering me with the necessary resources.

There are many others who have contributed, but none so much as my new friend Brad Roberts.  His skill and expertise as a developer is outstanding, and it’s been a joy to work alongside him on this project.  Meetings (both face-to-face and internet), phone conversations, and many late nights have been poured into this site together.

If you click the link and still see the old site, take a moment to look around and tell it goodbye (the name servers take up to a couple of days to update across the internet).  Otherwise, I hope you enjoy the new site.

Jesus was pretty hard on the religious leaders of His day. He often confronted them with the way their actions were more about trying to impress God, themselves, and other people than about being in relationship with Him. He rebuked them for their hypocrisy and challenged them to a different way of living.

Tonight as I prepare to go to sleep after a great Christmas day, I’m reflecting on my own life and actions. I desperately want to avoid the error of the Pharisees. Instead, I want to live a life of genuine love for Jesus. Not just trying to look good to others or making a good impression. I want to be the real deal – in love with the Messiah. Not something ridiculous or fake. Not something motivated by self righteousness. Not a proffessional holy man. I want to be completely sold out to Christ and His church. I want to live a life of grace and mercy.

Please, God, help me to escape myself and my selfishness. Show me how to love you and live for you.

For Christmas, we bought our daughter the board game Candy Land.  If it’s been a while since you’ve played, it’s great for kids – learning colors, direction, and taking turns. For adults, however, it’s mind numbing after about three minutes.

Just about the time I was slipping into a catatonic state, I noticed this amazing bit of marketing on the top corner of the lid.

Clever, isn’t it?

Isn’t it weird that we don’t really appreciate most things until they’re gone?  Like health.  I never think much about my health until I’m sick.  Or electrical power.  As long as it’s around, I take it for granted.  When it’s absent, I wish it were around.

Well, for the past few weeks I’ve been operating my Jeep Cherokee without turn signals.  One day they started working intermittently, and then a few days later they were gone.  So, for the past couple of weeks I’ve been driving around without turn signals – to the frustration of everyone driving around me.

But yesterday, that all changed.  I took the Jeep to the shop, and now I’ve got functioning turn signals.  I love having functioning turn signals, and I’m grateful for them every time I need to turn.  That is, for now.  At least for the rest of this week.  After that, I’ll probably be thinking of other things.

But my turn signals have got me thinking – there are so many truly valuable things in life that we ignore each day.  If we’re not careful, we walk through the day without giving these things a second glance.  We’re so busy thinking about the next project or meeting, that we forget to remember the blessings God has placed in our life.

I don’t want to live that way.

Although missing the luxury of sleeping in late with my wife on a Saturday morning, my daughter and I were up early eating cereal.  She’s the one who noticed the moon, and I managed to capture a bit of our view.

I really do love Tennessee.

These last couple of days have been crazy.  Lots of bizarre stuff going on, so I thought I’d write a bit about it here.

First of all, we’ve gotten quite a bit of rain here in Tennessee, and evidently the roofing job my landlord had done recently didn’t turn out so great.  There were quite a few leaks, and the water coming through the ceiling was brown.  Keri managed to catch it all in big bowls, but it left nice brown stains on the ceiling in several places.

Second, this morning while we were all hanging out in the living room enjoying our time together, Cujo and his best friend decided to pay us a visit.  I’m not scared of dogs, but I promise you that if I had gone outside, he would have torn off a limb.  Angry fellow.  Well, the dogs decided that my front porch was their new home, so they dug into the flower bed and made a huge mess.  They stayed for a few hours, until animal control showed up (we were gone at the time).

Sorry, but I didn’t get any photos of the dogs.  I was trying to console my daughter, who was freaking out because the dog was trying to break through the living room window to eat us all.

Third, I found out last night that the administration at Texas Tech decided to shut down 88.1, KTXT.  This was my favorite radio station in High School and college, and already there’s a group of 2,500 on Facebook who are rallying for a change in this decision.  This radio station was so cool, and it’ a part of the Texas Tech heritage for many.

Fourth, this is my 100th post to this blog.  Wow!  That’s hard to believe.  Not nearly as many as other bloggers I know, but it’s still a milestone.

Tonight, as I was finishing up dinner with a small cup of ice cream, we had a little fiasco with the kids.  They were both playing happily on the floor together, when my nine-month-old son evidently mistook one my daughter’s pig tails for a chin up bar.

The more she screamed, the more frightened he became.  The more frightened he became, the harder he pulled. By the time Keri and I could separate the two, they were both crying intensely.

Through the turmoil, Keri and I made eye contact and shared a discreet laugh with each other.  From our kid’s perspective, their sibling was attacking them.  From our perspective, it was all an accident and a misunderstanding – no hurt was done intentionally.

You know, it’s almost funny how often that same sort of interaction takes place in our adult life.  Our spouse or coworker or somebody on the phone says or does something that makes us angry – something unfair, unkind, or just plain stupid.  Rather than giving people the benefit of the doubt and a little bit of grace, we’re tempted to jump to conclusions and assign blame.

Given a little bit of perspective, we’d might be more kind in how we respond to others.  Maybe their response came across too sharp because of a pounding headache or the phone support technician wasn’t incompetent but grieving the loss of their spouse.  Given this additional information, we’d almost certainly be more kind and a little less ready to pile on the blame.

Many times, when you get right down to it, there’s no one to blame.  Or more realistically, we’re all to blame.

I think Bono said it well when he penned the words, “throw a brick in the air, you’ll hit someone guilty.”