skillz

here’s a newish track by jon foreman of ‘switchfoot’ fame from his debut solo effort ‘fall’. the track is called ‘equally skilled’ and is taken from micah 7. i’d say it bares a bit of a resemblance. you?

How miserable I am
I feel like a fruitpicker who arrived here after the harvest
There’s nothing here at all
Nothing at all here that could placate my hunger
The godly people are all gone
There’s not one honest soul left alive on the planet
We’re all murderers and thieves
Setting traps here for even our brothers

And both of our hands
Are equally skilled
At doing evil
Equally skilled
At bribing the judges
Equally skilled
At perverting justice
Both of our hands
Both of our hands

The day of justice comes
And is even now swiftly arriving
Don’t trust anyone at all
Not your best friend or even your wife
For the son hates the father
The daughter despises even her mother
Look! Your enemies are right
Right in the room of your very household

And both of their hands
Are equally skilled
At doing evil
Equally skilled
At bribing the judges
Equally skilled
At perverting justice
Both of their hands
Both of their hands

No, don’t gloat over me
For though I fall, though I fall I will rise again
Though I sit here in darkness
The Lord, the Lord alone He will be my light.
I will be patient as the Lord
Punishes me for the wrongs I’ve done against Him
After that He’ll take my case
Bringing me to light and to justice for all I have suffered

And both of his hands
Are equally skilled
At ruining evil
Equally skilled
At judging the judges
Equally skilled
At ministering justice
Both of his hands
Both of his hands

And both of his hands
Are equally skilled
At showing me mercy
Equally skilled
At loving the loveless
Equally skilled
At ministering justice
Both of his hands
Both of his hands

PEACE!

poker and UFC 80.

a group of us went over to joel’s parents new house on saturday evening for a game of poker (i lost $10) and to take in UFC 80. the main event featured bj penn and joe stevenson. here’s a recap…

in the first round bj threw what looked like a fairly week elbow but it connected with stevensons forehead and boy, that was not good. apparently the forehead bleeds a lot. anyways, below is how this all turned out in the 2nd round. by the end there is just blood everywhere. looked way cooler on a giant HD TV though.

also, props to ron for taking the $70 pot.

peace.

best drum solo ever? oh ya, he’s 7.

on pain.

frig.

back in april i told you a bit about my friend “Stu”.

as a bit of a follow-up to that Stu was released from prison at the beginning of september (after spending 8 months incarcerated BEFORE his trial). anyways, i was so excited for his release because he’s one of my best friends and this meant that he was able to be in my wedding party at the end of september (he got special permission even though he was on house arrest).

well, today i found out that “Stu” is back in prison. this time he’s being held in central east out in lindsay. this is all really discouraging and i don’t understand why this happened.

please pray for my friend, that God would be with him.

i’ll keep you posted on how this develops.

peace.

on prayer.

“Christian prayer is at its most characteristic when we find ourselves caught in the overlap of the ages, part of the creation that aches for new birth.

And the strange new promise, the point at which Christian prayer is marked out over against pantheism and Deism and a good deal else besides, is that, by the Spirit, God himself is groaning from within the heart of the world, because God himself, by the Spirit, dwells in our hearts as we resonate with the pain of the world. This isn’t the pantheistic getting-in-touch-with-the-heart-of-things. This is the strange, new getting-in-touch-with-the-living-God, who is doing a new thing, who has come to the heart of the world in Jesus precisely because all is not well and it needs to be put right, who now comes by his Spirit to the place where the world is in pain in order that, in and through us (those who pray in Christ and by the Spirit) the groaning of all creation may come before the Father himself, the heartsearcher (Rom. 8:27), the one who works all things together for good for those who love him (8:28). This is what it means to be ‘conformed to the image of his Son’ (8:29). This is what it means, within the present age, to share his glory (8:18, 30).”

– N.T. Wright, Simply Christian, p. 162.

“Our Father in heaven

Hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come,

Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

Forgive us our debts, as we too have forgiven our debtors.

Do not bring us to the time of trial,

But rescue us from the evil one.

For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours,

Now and forever. Amen”

– Jesus

peace.

we’re all a bunch of liars (and a couple other links).

except me. i’ve never lied.

———-

ian writes about his experience as a salvationist. it’s quite liberating and resonates with me as i have common sentiments regarding my growing up in the pentecostal assemblies of canada.

———-

the raptors are on a 3 game win streak which is nice. hopefully they can make it 4 tonight in detroit. i’ve been pleasantly surprised in these last few games with the raptors ability to close out games (mind you in some cases they blow a 20 point lead in the 2nd half and make games much tougher for themselves). the portland game on sunday was a great example. 2 OT and they were still able to hang out by making good shots and playing D. one thing about the raptors that has always cheesed me right off (along with their inability to close-out games) is their complacency to just settle for jump shots. when you have guys like bosh, calderon, moon, graham, delfino and parker you have no reason NOT to take it to the whole. however, they have been doing somewhat of a better job with this lately.

peace.

watoto!

that’s the swahili word for ‘children’. it’s also the name of a ministry in uganda that cares for parentless kids. kids whos parents have been killed by AIDS/war. read more about what watoto does HERE.

they have a choir that travels around singing and raising awareness. tomorrow evening the ‘concert of hope’ comes to ACC. the kids hang out and have dinner with us and then the concert takes place in the evening. the children spend the night at different ‘host’ homes within the congregation.

now here is the sweet part. on wednesday morning all 18 of the kids are coming to the church at 9am until their bus picks them up at 11am. this means i have 2 hours in the morning to hang out with all of these amazing kids! i think i’m going to try to find a couple of nintendo wii’s to hook up and play sports with the kids!

SO, if you have a nintendo wii and would like to donate it to us for a couple of hours on wednesday morning so i can play with a group rad kids from uganda then please PLEASE let me know! we’ll take great care of your wii i promise!

peace.

on worship and idolatry.

    “This brings us to the first of two golden rules at the heart of spirituality. You become like what you worship. When you gaze in awe, admiration, and wonder at something or someone, you begin to take on something of the character of the object of your worship. Those who worship money become, eventually, human calculating machines. Those who worship sex become obsessed with their own attractiveness or prowess. Those who worship power become more and more ruthless.

So what happens when you worship the creator God whose plan to rescue the world and put it to rights has been accomplished by the Lamb who was slain? The answer comes in the second golden rule: because you were made in God’s image, worship makes you more truly human. When you gaze in love and gratitude at the God in whose image you were made, you do indeed grow. Your discover more of what it means to be fully alive.

Conversely, when you give that same total worship to anything or anyone else, you shrink as a human being. It doesn’t, of course, feel like that at the time. When you worship part of the creation as though it were the Creator himself–in other words, when you worship an idol–you may well feel a brief ‘high’. But, like a hallucinatory drug, that worship achieves its effect at a cost: when the effect is over, you are less of a human being than you were to begin with. That is the price of idolatry.”

– N.T. Wright, Simply Christian, p.148.

“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

– Jesus in the Gospel of John (10:10).

peace.

the western world.

here’s a little diddy courtesy of caedmon’s call:

“all across the western world / second hand, second skin / the rain comes through where the roof is thin / all across the western world / all across the ocean wide / with brothers, neighbours at our door / our banks are full but our souls are poor / all across the western world //”

peace.