Good point there.

Christ is in you. God is for you. Stop prequalifying your prayers and begin believing for God’s best in your life.

– Steven Furtick

There was a time that I figured, like many other people do, that “God hates me”. I think this is a lie we tell ourselves or is told to us by Satan who tries to keep you feeling beat down.. unloved.. unappreciated…

Its a lie we tell ourselves in our heads.

Its a comment we make around the table at the bar to our friends joking as a public excuse for the behaviors we do.

Its what you tell your coworkers when you feel guilt or a sense of longing for something more, but you dont feel “worthy” because of your past secrets.

Its an excuse to figure we aren’t worthy of being able to turn our lives around.

“I could never go back to church”. Another lie we tell ourselves. An excuse we make because you don’t want to get up early after being out all night Saturday hoping you can meet the person of your dreams at yet another bar weekend.. and coming up empty.

“I don’t know where to start”. Yet another lie when it comes to figuring out that maybe your plan in life has not brought you to the place you thought you would or should be.

Steven Furtick is right. God IS for you. God wants you to succeed. God wants you to know the love and grace he has for you, and no matter your past, your present, or what you have done in terms of screwing up your life, it can all be renewed in you. Stop listening to the lies in your head and reach out for the promise of living an awesome, best-in-store-for-me life right now. Not “when I die and go to heaven”.. but RIGHT NOW.

I wouldn’t have believed it was possible myself… I would have said “pfft yeah right” too.. Up until January 1st of this year when I decided to give it a try. Make no mistake, 2009 has been a rough personal year for me, but God’s love and strength has been with me and has brought me some amazing things and opportunities and provided for me all the way. The confidence that Faith brings is indescribable. And God wants you to have that right now. No, really.

Luke 15:24 “For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.”

Afterthoughts on Giving

So on twitter @human3rror posted about helping charity:water, which is a non-profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations. CW gives 100% of the money raised to direct project costs, funding sustainable clean water solutions in areas of greatest need.

Just $20 can give one person in a developing nation clean water for 20 years.

human3rror’s self campaign has just 8 days left and about $811 to go as I write this. I got inspired because as I came home from the gym after my run I realized that it appears my Nike running cap was either lost and/or stolen at the gym while there today. Its a $12 hat. I was obviously kinda pissed but as I eat my banana and drink my Ice Mountain 1 pint bottle out of the 24 pack for $3.88 at WalMart contemplating making a run out to go buy a new hat, I read the tweet and the charity:water website.

We have it so good here in this country and take so many things for granted. Giving $10, especially at Christmas is such a small drop in my persona l bucket considering the consumerism I am wallowing in. So I would encourage you to think about the fact that, again… Just $20 can give one person in a developing nation clean water for 20 years.

Want to give ONE person clean safe water for a year? Then avoid the drive thru or the vending machine to get that Coke and give it to these people instead. That phrase “its the least I can do”? It really is.

Want to help with me? –> http://bit.ly/21RMzG

Who’s in??

Genesis 1:20: And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.”

Walking a Mile

Tiger Woods.

A guy who is at the top of his game. Life going fine. Money. Power. Fame. Success. Perfect family. Loving wife. Beautiful child. Keeping it all private. Who wouldn’t want all of that?

Tiger Woods.

A guy who through his own actions, loses most of that overnight. Who would want that?

The internet is on fire with debate, rumors, gossip and everything you can imagine about all of that. That’s not my niche. Tiger’s self unraveling was set into motion a long time ago. Through a small series of mistakes. Bad decisions. “Just-this-once”’s. I can handle this’s. Before you know it… and I do.. you set forth a literal avalanche of truth that will eventually come rolling down your prideful life. When that truth shows its ugly side the devastation left looks like the aftermath of a tornado. As Jon Acuff mentions on his fantastic blog, none of us are capable of controlling the “I can handle this” when it comes to masking your dirty secrets.

Tiger knows he made some mistakes. Probably several mistakes. I don’t think the word mistake even adequately covers it when you have an affair (or two.. or…). I don’t think people ever set out with that kind of intention. Problem is, we live in a society where things like that are somewhat the norm. We are inundated with bad judgment, questionable sexual relations being made to be “okay”, and the sensationalism of acts of cheating as being ‘normal‘ in life. At the celebrity level, I wonder if its not even expected in a way.

Its a hard road to come back from when infidelity rears its very ugly head. Feelings of rage, denial, anger, self loathing, jealousy, and mistrust all come in to play. On the People of the Second Chance blog wrote, they note that our fascination with knowing the details and the ‘dirt’ “revolves around our insatiable appetite for personal destruction.” When you have so many people wanting to know all the details..wanting to know the who’s and the when’s.. wanting to see ‘proof’.. it becomes nearly insurmountable to pick up and move forward from.

I don’t need to know the details of the affairs. Of hearing or seeing the ‘proof’ he left behind through phone texts pics or voice mails. Don’t want to. Tiger is in the end, one of us.

A flawed individual.
Totally capable of sin.
Caving into lustful desires.
In need of God’s grace, forgiveness and love.

So I guess before you pass your self judgment on with others, try to look at the differences between your life and Tiger’s before you ask “how could he do that”. Because I can tell you the answer to that is easier to come up with than you would ever think possible. I have walked that judgmental mile, and I’m not doing it again. People never crumble in a day, and it really is a slow fade.

So when you think of Tiger when his life is dragged on tv for yet another day again, remember we are ALL capable of making HUGE mistakes with dire consequences and life changing outcomes. In need of God’s grace and mercy. and as POTSC says, realize we are either part of the judgment problem or the grace solution. But we can’t be both. So choose wisely.

Matthew 6:14-15 (NIV) “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But, if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

Twenty Twosday #7

Looking ahead to your future means you really need to examine your past even closer, to learn from where you screwed up.

Twenty Twosday #6

Everyone lacks motivation this time of year. So how come nobody puts it on Christmas wish lists? Because you can’t BUY it.

What else do you need more of that comes from inside you?

Out In The Cold

I stopped into the lobby of the station tonight this morning to pick up a copy of the newspaper. As I did so there was a young woman curled up in a ball in the lobby on one of our metal benches, which was clearly not made for sleeping or even offering any measure of long term comfort. One of the officers at the front desk said that the woman was brought there by the afternoon shift after being involved in some sort of call (reasons left out here).

From what I was told she had nowhere to go and the environment from which she came was apparently not conducive to staying there. Apparently efforts to obtain her local shelter through the YWCA, homeless shelters, etc. were unsuccessful.

I find it hard to imagine that in this city of social agencies, handouts, and places touting trying to be of service to others that nowhere could be found for this woman in need to go. The temperatures are not below freezing, so why the homeless shelters would be at capacity is beyond me. Maybe I don’t even have all of the facts. But I do believe from what I learned that a more than reasonable effort was made for this woman to have somewhere to go for the night. And that those efforts came up empty handed.

So curled up in a ball in a couple layers of sweatshirts in a public police station lobby she sat.

I asked her what time she had gotten there and when she expected someone to some for her. The time window? About 12 hours total in the lobby. I quickly racked my brain for ideas. At the point I asked her her wait would only be about two more hours. I wish I had known about this before hand. Perhaps a church member could have been of assistance in some way.

So I offered to get her some breakfast, which she politely declined. I tried a good sales pitch on a food run, but those efforts were futile as well. I tried.

I don’t know her situation that brought her there. I hope it gets resolved. I can’t imagine someone’s daughter/sister/cousin/mother having to exit a situation in where the only better situation to get into would be waiting out the night in a cold dark police station lobby.

As a Christian, a church is supposed to be about other like minded members coming together, and also trying to demonstrate the love of Jesus Christ to others, whether a fellow church member, a fellow believer, or just someone who has never even thought about where they stand with religion. I’m pretty sure that someone could have come to the rescue sooner if I had known about it sooner.

I feel kind of disappointed and helpless that I wasn’t able to do more for her. I’m sure she ‘didn’t want to be a bother’ in her situation from the few moments I spoke with her seeing if I could do anything. It makes me a little angry that local “service” organizations with their resources couldn’t or wouldn’t offer to do more as well to find her a safe and comfortable place to go.

If others would take the time to see where they could rise above the minimum effort and maybe rely on social or personal or even religious networks, then situations like this wouldn’t have to take place.

Luke 10:36-37- “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

Lets Get It Started In Here

Okay. Its the day after Thanksgiving Black Friday, and Carlos Whitaker’s blog here mentions the Pre Christmas/Pre New Years challenge. Loswhit has inspired me several times this year, given me pause to think and or reflect in others. Today’s challenge is no different.

Its 30 days.

Its easy. Yet hard. Makes you think and reflect on where and what you need to improve upon. And I think I’m up for it. Here’s how it works.

Choose 3 bench marks you would like to measure those 3 areas with and blog/tweet/facebook/whatever about them twice a week.
Come to my Ragamuffin Soul 30 Day Holiday Health Challenge post and use the widget at the bottom of this post to simply place a link back to your virtual space so our readers can easily go see your progress as well.

So measure the areas, blog/tweet twice a week about the progress? Easy enough… I think.

Well, here goes- My 3 goals?

Physical – Well, I’m in week four of being into running. This week I ran a 2.5 mile goal. Felt pretty good. In 30 days I will run a comfortably paces 5K. (That’s 3.1 miles- I’m not too far off). The 2.5 came pretty easy but I found the psychological aspect came into play- Needed to keep myself motivated to push on past the 2 mile mark. Mental talk.. conditioning.. Knowing you can do it.

Spiritual – To continue in my spiritual growth. I think my prayer time is generally good, but as with most other things, you can always do more. To take more time and to not give God my “leftovers”, as Francis Chan calls the half-hearted, sleepy, rushed prayers we often give. One other thing I’ve been thinking of starting is following Elevation Church’s “B90X” program..Its an intense Bible reading, that will take you cover to cover in 90 days. The original idea came from biblein90days.org where it’s called “B90″. I like the “B90X” title…reminds you of the exercises of spiritual discipline. (Here’s the link to a neat .pdf schedule- http://bit.ly/109fAo )

So I’m up for it. I was going to wait until January to start, but like loswhit said in the video, why wait to get started??

Relational – Here’s a bit of a challenge for me. First I need to be more honest with myself. I need to take steps to make amends for some things. I need to develop and strengthen some relationships with people in church and personally that God has blessed with getting to know, and with that comes a stringer bond, with like minded believers, who also will be a better focus on priorities and in leadership.

Not too much all at once. After all, I only have 30 days to get started. Sound intriguing? Its easy to get on board with Carlos and myself and dozens of others from around the net.

And hey, it beats complaining about holiday weight gain and saying “wait til new years” over and over.

What are you waiting for between now and Jan 1? Nothing.

Let’s roll.

No wonder Americans are so Overweight- Soda Portions

I was going to make a post about fountain Coke and sizes based upon the “large” soda the guy at Burger King in front of me ordered at breakfast yesterday. I mean not to sound old but when I was a kid, a “large” at McDs was 16 ounces. Medium was 12 ox and the small was a tidy 8ozs. Fast forward 25+ years and when you go to Wendys now and mistakenly order that same 20 oz “medium” you are used to ordering since 1989, you get a 32 oz behemoth.

So ordering a 44oz “large” at 7:30 am was probably an error on this guy’s part. Or maybe not.

It also irked me a bit that Wendy’s touts the original 99 cent value menu, but refuses to follow the “all sizes $1″ route like McDonalds. Maybe they don’t get the same premix syrup discount. And the large ise chunks Wendy’s uses also means less soda by volume, hence more profit.

So I came across this post in on the internet about pricing and as suspected, its ALL profit. Which makes me even more angry being charged $2.49 at Fridays.. but that’s a whole other rant. Read on.
In short – not very much.

According to this article at Newsweek, the syrup to make a single cup of Coca-Cola costs $0.000052, or .0052 cents.

The concentrate for 70 percent of Coca-Cola’s 1.5 billion drinks served each day originates in the tax haven of Ireland, where enough concentrate for 50,000 Cokes costs $2.60—including labor. The concentrate’s main ingredient? Caramel.

That means that one penny buys enough syrup to make nearly 200 glasses of Coke!

Of course, that is Coke’s cost, not the restaurant’s. And the restaurant certainly has other expenses – the initial cost of the fountain machine, maintenance, electricity, etc. But make no mistake – fountain sodas are nearly pure profit for the restaurant.

I would guess that many restaurants make a healthy percentage of their profits from soda sales. Blogger Greg provides a little insight into the world of restaurant upselling.

A lot of good lessons there, but the key one was the “up sell”. And the up sell involved those items that cost very little to the restaurant, but had tremendous margins. Interestingly, turns out, you don’t make all that much on the burger, but if you suggest grilled onions on that burger (costs 5 cents, sells for 79 cents) there’s your spread. That shot of lemon or cherry extract in your soda for 49 cents, pure profit. And don’t even get me started about the margins in the deserts! My god, 100x ROI on the basic chocolate cake or ice cream Sunday. And fountain sodas? Like printing money…syrup and carbonated water, maybe 2-8 cents per glass, but you are selling it for $1. If only I could get margins like that in my business!

This comment thread at Reddit has a lot of great first-hand anecdotal stories as well:

Cosmic_Charlie

I was a restaurant manager for a while (yeah, it sucked). The 5 gallon boxes of syrup cost 40 or so dollars each. At 5-1 mix ratio, we got 30 gallons of mixed soda from each. If my math is correct, that’s 3840 ounces of mixed drink. Each 22 ounce glass held about 13 ounces of soda (fill it with ice of course.)This results in somewhere around 300 glasses of soda per 40 dollar box. That works out to about 13 cents a glass, not including CO2 costs, which were minimal.

We charged each person 2.29 a soda.

A fast food franchise guy I knew once said the same thing. That McDonalds is the most elaborate Coca Cola sales operation on the planet, and exists pretty much to sell coke

Yes, America loves its Coca Cola. But keep in mind – with fountain soda running $2.00/glass these days, a family of four that dines out twice per week will save nearly $1,000 per year by skipping the soda pop and instead going with water. Don’t get me wrong – I like a nice, cold, refreshing (caffeine-free diet) Pepsi as much as the next guy. But personally, I’d rather spend that $1,000 on an extra weekend getaway or two. Wouldn’t you?

IF. Only.

I am finally updating the blog. Its been a few months and for that I am sorry. I have been on a path on refocusing some priorities in life, work has changed a few paths, fate has changed a few more, and God is sending me down some other ones I’m not even too sure about yet.

One thing I wanted to type about was specifically yesterday. Jon Acuff’s Stuff Christians Like blog yesterday was just… crazy. I woke up with a feeling. I read his blog about trying to raise 30K by the end of the month to support building a Kindergarten in Vietnam. It was a crazy idea. I decided I need to donate Friday when I get paid.

Something else was speaking to me yesterday as well. God was challenging me to do more. At first I thought He was referring to the donating on SCL. Then as the day went on I started having these visions coming into my head. About ways to grow a ministry locally. Ways to help the Underground Cafe establish a new home. Ways to maybe help a church plant another location. Ways to give myself and share in making a difference in the community by serving Christ.

The scramble of ideas has become more clear. I refined an idea for a start up coffee house/art gallery/community outreach/concert venue/church-that’s-not-a-church building. Its far from a unique idea, I’m sure. But I can’t think of anything quite like it around here. To borrow a phrase I found in researching, its ” an office for creatives. ” Not just arts, but for people passionate about their craft, be it photography, jewelry, art, music; but for people who are passionate about follwing in the ways of Jesus, and in trying to help invest, and grow the kingdom at the same time.

Not a bad idea, right? The possibilities. IF only it can happen.

I dont know a few things as of yet. Mostly, I don’t know where exactly top begin. I don’t know how to bring the resources together. I don’t know the first thing about starting a church, or how to pitch to a church that may want to expand. I don’t know the building (but I thing south or east sides locations are prime). I don’t know where all the money will come from, or who will even run it. But Yesterday the idea was presented and refined for me, and I think its one worth following up on.

So if not me, then who? Well, I do know that God is behind me on this one.

Part of faith is being tested and believing in what is unseen.

Part of it is obedience.

Part of it is knowing that impossible is nothing with God.

So by the end of yesterday something crazy happened. That end of the month 30K goal on SCL was reached in ONE DAY. And I woke up with my mind focused on going for my run and drinking coffee, and spent part of the day scouting suitable buildings.

And if SCL can raise 30k through social networking in ONE day, I think I can somehow coordinate this.

John 15:5 – I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.

It’s Been Awhile

I took a break from the blog here for a while due to some personal issues which are mine and not public blog worthy. Lets just say that I’m still here, thoughts still exist, and God is still good.

Distractions and disorder come at you when you least expect it, and as I read Perry Noble’s blog today, I was blown away by a specific set of Perry-isms that he reflected upon early this week. Specifically:

# God will often let more be put on us than we can handle so that we will stop boasting in our own strength and become desperate for His!
# Letting “all hell break loose” in our lives is the only way God can get our attention at times.
# Even though you are surprised by the problems you are facing…God is NOT…and HE’S got this!!!
# Don’t EVER give up on the God who hasn’t given up on you!
# Don’t waste your pain…if you are being overwhelmed…LISTEN to what God is trying to say.

Those quotes sum up things pretty perfectly for how things have been. It also sums up where things are headed, and where focus should be. So, It’s been a while since I’ve been involved in blogging, but I will try to do better.

I just remember that I am not my blog, I’m not how much money I have in the bank. I’m not the car I drive. I’m not the contents of my wallet. I am not my ___g khakis.

Thanks for reading.