Desert Island

This Thursday, we are going to play a quick game of desert island here at the Bunkhouse.
If you were stranded on a deserted island for the rest of your life, what 3 books would you choose to have on the island with you? (We'll operate under the assumption that most of our readers would bring The Good Book so it is unneccesary to mention The Holy Bible as one of your 3.)

Alan's Answer:
US Army Field Survival Guide
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Thoughts on Government by John Adams


What are your three?

Identity Crisis

By Taft Ayers

I have a friend that many people think I look like. We are not related at all. He is taller than me. He is more athletic than I am, and I have a few more "married pounds" than he does. He played basketball for Freed-Hardeman, the school that I graduated from. One time, the president of the school approached me in the cafeteria and said, "nice shooting last night."All that I would have to do is step foot on a basketball floor and it would be obvious that we were not the same individual.

The president must have gone to one of the University's games and then mistaken me for him in the lunch line. Ever happened to you? People come up to you and ask you questions as if they know you only to realize that you have never seen them before in your life? The bottom line? You are who you are. No more or no less. We should not try so hard to be someone that we are not. We should never sell ourselves short, either, so that others will perceive a mistaken identity about us.

What is your identity? What do you look like? Physically, we can change. Emotionally, we can fix. But Spiritually, we are either God's or we are not. There is no in-between. No fence post for us to comfortably sit on. Jesus talked about our identity in Matthew 13:24-30 and 36-43.

"The kingdom of heaven is like what happened when a farmer scattered good seed in a field. But while everyone was sleeping, an enemy came and scattered weed seeds in the field and then left. When the plants came up and began to ripen, the farmer's servants could see the weeds. The servants came and asked, 'Sir, didn't you scatter good seed in your field? Where did these weeds come from?' 'An enemy did this,' he replied. His servants then asked, 'Do you want us to go out and pull up the weeds?' 'No!' he answered. 'You might also pull up the wheat. Leave the weeds alone until harvest time. Then I'll tell my workers to gather the weeds and tie them up and burn them. But I'll have them store the wheat in my barn.'" Make sense to you? Some of the men who heard it did not understand so they asked Jesus to explain:"

After Jesus left the crowd and went inside, his disciples came to him and said, 'Explain to us the story about the weeds in the wheat field.' Jesus answered, 'The one who scattered the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the bad seeds are the people who belong to the evil one, and the one who scattered them is the devil. The harvest is the end of time, and angels are the ones who bring in the harvest. Weeds are gathered and burned. That's how it will be at the end of time. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will gather from his kingdom everyone who does wrong or causes others to sin. Then he will throw them into a flaming furnace, where people will cry and grit their teeth in pain. But everyone who has done right will shine like the sun in their Father's kingdom. If you have ears, pay attention!'"

Who do you look like?

Will the Son of Man recognize you?

Will you shine like the sun in your Father's Kingdom?

Trees or Forest

By Alan Gable

Folks can be subdivided in many ways. In my estimation, there are two types of people: tree guy and forest guy. This characterization is based on the metaphor of a forest. Some people focus on individual trees and some people focus on the entire forest. (See Explanation)

Tree Guy - Natural bent toward details and minutia.

The vast majority of your Type A-ers are Tree Guys. They enjoy detail work with numbers and large amounts of data. To them, the most minor process or technique is as important as anything else. They are the valedictorians and the dean's listers. You'll find them in accounting firms, medical schools and anywhere engineers gather.

NASA has a bunch of these guys. As the metaphor goes, tree guys focus in on a single tree (among the others in the forest) and try to perfect or master the tree to the neglect of the forest in general. They do not care about the rest of the forest, and are usually totally overwhelmed by the knowledge that the forest even exists. Tree Guys fixate on certain aspects of the individual tree and hold them up as the most important part of the tree.

Famous Tree Guys:
Al Davis - Owner of the Oakland Raiders - Totally consumed by exceptional individual talent that he never considers how each players affects the entire team.

Colin Powell - I realize the danger in criticizing this man. His Tree Guy-ness made him an outstanding military leader but he never really got the big picture as Secretary of State. It was just too much for him.

Peter - You know, from the Bible. Cephas, time and time again, was hung up on individual issues that he could not get past. "Lord, I'm not going to let them kill you." He never got the big picture; "....it has to be this way..."

Mike Martz - He's been called an offensive genius. Great at drawing up complex offensive schemes with mind-numbing caveats but absolutely dreadful as a head coach. Places a premium on technical precision, even ahead of winning games.

Evangelical Christian Voters - Groups of people can carry these same characteristics. What do Evangelicals vote on? A candidate's overall conservatism or liberalism? No, they vote on abortion and completely ignore every other issue.

Forest Guy - Then we have Forest Guy. Needs to see the big picture to understand the importance of the details and often gets frustrated if he doesn't understand the reasoning behind his tasks.

These guys are C students, but they get their diplomas. They are the small business owners and entrepreneurs. They make good financial advisers and better overall managers than Tree Guys. Following the metaphor, these people like to step back and evaluate the status of the entire forest. Each individual tree is only important for what it tells him about the forest. He can do all things pretty well, but nothing perfectly.

Famous Forest Guys:
Bill Gates - Gates was able to formulate a business model (The Microsoft Model) whereas his cronies could only write binary code. He realized that his overall goal did not need a Harvard degree, so he dropped out.

Winston Churchill - A striking characteristic of Forest Guys is foresight. Churchill saw what Hitler could become long before Hitler himself saw it. He saw the broad landscape of political action and did not get caught up on "peace in our time". To the detriment of the Jewish people, the rest of the Brittains were lost in the trees.

Paul - The Apostle - "Whatever was for my gain, I now count as loss for the sake of Christ..." From the time he met Jesus on his way to Damascus, Paul never lost track of the big picture. Many of his letters are written to encourage Tree Guys to remember the big picture instead of focusing on the trees (circumcision and meat sacrificed to idols). He even confronted Peter a time or two...

Fiction Writers - Novel writers have to see the whole picture before they write the first word. This is much more difficult than it sounds.

I am obviously a forest guy. Which type are you?

Chi-Town

By Taft Ayers

Lord willing, I am taking a trip next week (the 20th-23rd) with a few fellas that I have been blessed to work with since they were in the 7th grade.

They are part of our 2008 graduating class here at the church. I am taking them on a trip. They voted, and Chicago it is.

I am traveling with three distinct personalities (Nate, the clown. Bud, the rocker. Matt, the jock). It should make for a stellar adventure.

We have tentative plans to catch the White Sox-Indians and go to a Stone Temple Pilots concert (they actually LIKE them). I write this post today asking for suggestions. If any of you have been to Chicago (my last trip was in 7th grade) and know of something that fits in the sentence, "When you are there, you JUST HAVE TO ..........." PLEASE FEEL FREE TO COMMENT.

I really want this trip to be enjoyable for them. We've had a good run.

Pics of The Fam

Because they were requested, here are a couple of the newest family photo albums via my facebook page. Enjoy!

May 2008

Abygail

The House

Taking The Time

By Cameron Clark

My oldest daughter, Ainsley, had been having a real hard time going to sleep at night since her little sister was born in early April. Ainsley would find a way to stay up (as late as 10:30), stay around her mama, daddy, and sister, and would make us pay dearly should we dare to put her to bed before she passed out on the floor. Of all the new situations coming our way as a family since our latest arrival, this was the most intolerable. How we fixed it was by a happy mistake.

Ainsley loves to read, sing, and dance. She really is one of the happiest children I have ever been around, and seeing her throw fits and run herself into the ground was hard to watch as a daddy. The conclusion: Let her do what she loves.

We tried to let her dance, but she partied right on through the night (a habit her daddy hopes changes before she goes off to college). We tried to let her sing, but she sang until midnight. So, we tried reading.

We suspected reading to be the least effective solution because she is read to so much during the day that she seems bored by it when the evening rolls around. What book could we look to that she doesn't know already by heart? The answer jumped up and slapped me in the face last Tuesday night.

It had been sitting in Ainsley's bookcase on the second to the bottom shelf collecting dust for almost the entire two years we've lived in Kansas City: Her Children's Bible.

As I stared at the cover before reaching for it, I felt so ashamed that I had neglected to share these stories with her before. We pray with her at night, but I thought the stories of God's love were somehow not suitable for Ainsley's age, and had instead opted to read stories about different sized dogs, a curious little monkey, mice running from cats, and Aubie's big day at the football game. How silly of me. I should have known better.

Nine days ago we began reading from the beginning: where The Word was God, and The Word was with God. We have had nine nights of perfect sleep for Ainsley starting at 8:30 each night. No fits, no tantrums, no crying after being put down. She sits in my lap, puts her hands behind her head and listen to her daddy read with love, the story of her Father's love. A prayer later, and she's off to bed. Sound asleep, safe in her bed for the night.

Is it quality time spent reading with her father that has led to this relief for us all? Or is it quality time spent learning about The Father that has had this effect? Maybe a little of both.

We're cruising through the Exodus tonight, and her daddy might be as excited as she is re-learning the old stories as she is hearing them for the first time. Her daddy sleeps a little better too after reading the stories of love all over again.

Looking forward to tonight!

Have a great Friday!

It Seems to Me.....

By Alan Gable

that every man has at least one vice that continually beats the trash out of him. Once he becomes self aware enough to recognize it, he can then begin to try to conquer. However, he must exercise extreme caution because his pursuit of abolishing his one great flaw will leave him vulnerable to a multitude of corresponding demons.

Personal example: My great flaw is overindulgence. This mainly pertains to food, but can and does bleed over into other aspects of life. Increased discipline can pretty much control this habit, but this discipline (usually in the form of a restricted diet and exercise) usually gives way to anger (because my comfort mechanism is taken away), pride (because I think myself awesome for being able to slay the foe) and laziness (because my battle with gluttony becomes an excuse to neglect other things).

There are a few places in scripture that reference this principle saying that when a demon is cast out of a man, the place is swept clean. But when the demon returns, which he always does, he sees that there is room for 7 of his closest demon friends and the man is worse off now than in the beginning.

I think this may be a more subtle portion of man's share of "the curse". God talked about him working the ground by the sweat of his brow which would only produce fruit along with some painful thorns. Maybe the man's heart works in a similar way. The more he works to clear away all the junk, the more weed-like things will take root and just keep working him over.

May your fight produce good fruit, and may those thorns be small.