A sovereign God at work

Two quick stories that have recently reminded me of God's complete sovereignty.

1. Thanks to Tony for sharing this video. The artist's name is Akiane (a-kee-ah-na). In a nutshell, her parents were atheists, but God had a different plan for her life.

2. We recently had the awesome opportunity to give away our old beat up Explorer. I really didn't feel good about selling it because it may be on its last leg (wheel). We asked around for about two weeks with no luck. Then one day, as I was driving home I really felt led to contact Travis. Travis was a new engineer to our office, but something he had said the week earlier had indicated that someone he knew may be looking for car. To make a long story short, we ended up giving the car away to a man named Watson - Travis's father-in-law to be (getting married this May). So here's the cool part:

Watson has given away several cars over the course of his life. The car was going to be put use immediately as a part of Watson's new project called the coaches channel. And the best part of all, when I received the title transfer, there is a part that asks "If the car was sold for less than the value, please state the reason why _________." On that line, Watson had written one word. "Friendship."

As I read that word, I just paused again to thank God for his Sovereignty. Not only were able to help another family in Christ, we gained some friends in the process.

What's in a name?

Profound: The life and words of Jesus Christ. I've heard it said that "Jesus Christ continually contradicts us in the way that we experience ourselves as alive, and he compels us to radically redefine what we mean by "life". He encounters us the way that he encountered the disciples on Easter morning. They, the living, were really dead; He, the dead, was really the living."

Simplicity: All that He asks is that we die to ourselves. It may take a different form for all of us, but at its core - that's it. "Die to yourselves and let me live inside of you. Be everything opposite of what the old man will desire - meek, humble, poor in spirit, loving your enemy." He says this is the way to true happiness.

Profound simplicity. It may sound like a paradox, but maybe its the best description I have for Jesus - a profound man with a simple message.

Tony Dungy

Below are some excerpts from a fantastic article on Tony Dungy. You can read the entire article here. What an awesome example of Christ to the world.


In the penultimate paragraph of his best-selling book, "Quiet Strength," a work whose subject matter certainly transcends the folly and fleeting stardom of sport, Tony Dungy wrote this: "I coach football. But the good I can do to glorify God along the way is my real purpose."

For one more year at least, perhaps even a little longer than that, Dungy will continue to moonlight in those pursuits, to address with great purpose the duality of his life, and to chase both his ultimate vocation and his higher-profile avocation.

And for at least one more season we're all the richer for it.

The former means serving his maker by bearing witness to his deep-rooted faith. The latter encompasses scratching the itch that on Monday precluded Dungy from simply walking away from the game that has been such an integral part of his life since he was persuaded by a respected educator and friend to rejoin the Parkside High School football team for his senior season, after he had quit in protest when his best friend was not elected a captain.

But make no mistake: The day is coming, and unfortunately all too soon, when those parallel paths surely will diverge.

Football is going to lose the personal tug-of-war for Tony Dungy's heart, essentially because he believes the battle for his soul is infinitely more important. And so while the much-awaited Monday resolution regarding his football future ended with a decision to remain with the Colts for at least the 2008 campaign, culminating a high-anxiety week in which his annual private inventory-taking was transformed into a public passion play he never intended it to be, Dungy is now officially a short-timer.

Then again, when it comes to football, that's precisely what Dungy always considered himself.

It would diminish the character of some of the fine people I have encountered in life, and in work, to proclaim that Dungy is the finest man, outside of my father, I have ever met. This claim, however, I will make: There have been none finer.

There are times in this business when you sit down to transcribe an interview or review your notes, and you quickly discover there isn't a usable quote to be had on the tape or among the scribbling. Spend even five minutes with Dungy, replay the tape, and you find yourself with the unenviable task of editing out material you'd kill to have on other occasions. In any story about Dungy, his words are far more eloquent than any of your own, but the bosses don't pay you to merely file a monologue. A lot of quality stuff, suffice it to say, gets left on the cutting room floor.

Without annexing the role of a Pigskin Pygmalion, he shapes lives and builds character. And his destiny is to somehow do the same outside the forum of sport. Which is why, with every day the NFL bought with Dungy's announcement on Monday that he will coach in 2008, and then again review his status, we are all the beneficiaries.

The clock is ticking, as it really always has been, on Dungy's public life. When he walks away from football, there won't be any return, no encore performance like a Bill Parcells or a Joe Gibbs. Nope, when Tony Dungy leaves, to commence the full-time work in the ministry for which he has been preparing, it will mark the end of his football career. And so we would all be wise to enjoy what remains of it.

Dungy's life in general has been a victory tour of sorts, but one that he believes will culminate in a reward much loftier than the Vince Lombardi Trophy. And so it's doubtful he will treat the 2008 season any differently than the dozen campaigns in which he has served as a head coach.

In planning his ministry, beginning his work with prison inmates, establishing family-centered initiatives, and by every day bearing witness with his own example, Dungy has embraced exactly what his "life's work" will entail in private. But with his Monday decision to stick around a little while longer, it's nice that he gave the rest of us at least one more public year in which to revel in the elegance and dignity of his simple, quiet strength.

My Worldview

So what's a worldview? In my opinion, a worldview should attempt to answer four basic questions about life. Origin, meaning, morality, & destiny. How did I get here, what gives life meaning, how do I define right and wrong, what happens when I die?

For folks who don't know me, I am convinced that the Christian worldview is true. Its not that the Christian faith makes me feel warm and fuzzy (although sometimes it does). Its that I believe the Christian faith provides the most comprehensive and collectively complete answers to these questions.

So why is that important? I guess I feel like too many times, I've seen non-Christians and Christians (myself included) get into a heated debate about something which is really a by-product of our particular worldviews. Take any of the heated political issues of the day. If someone believes that human life has happened by random chance and that each person can define their own moral code, we shouldn't be surprised at all to find out they are OK with abortion and stem cell research. What we need to do as Christians is understand that the problem lies a lot deeper than a person's view on homosexuality or the political candidate they happen to support. We need to find a way to meet them in their worldview and then show them the superiority of ours!

I think this is what the Apostle Paul meant when he said he wanted to be "all things to all people, so that by all possible means, I might save some." We live in culture that has a built-in discrimination against all things religious - particularly Christian. Not fair, but that's life. Our challenge should be to understand not only what we believe, but what's the worldview behind WHY we believe. Does Christianity make sense to us? If so, we should be able to explain why it does. Sometimes a simple question back to the person who is questioning us can open the door to the real foundational issue that needs to be looked at. (Just think about how often Jesus did this).

In any case, I don't think it takes an apologetics scholar or theology graduate to defend the Christian faith in everyday life. It simply takes each one of us being committed to always being "ready to give an answer for the hope that we have."

Rule #1

I have always been reluctant to start a blog. Like all of us probably do, from time to time I believe that I may have stumbled accross something that needs to be shared with my fellow man. In my case, this is usually something that is either very funny to me, or something that I found incredibly insightful or relevant.

So here's the problem: within about six months time, I will typically look back at said nugget of humor or wisdom and decide that it really wasn't that humorous or wise at all.

Therefore, Rule #1 simply states that any blog, at any time can be retracted, deleted, un-posted and/or denied in full by the author (me). That said, it is now time to bask in the freedom of self-publishing.....