well, i'll be... it's Thursday... i was all set to do a Wednesday post which according to this new schedule which i'm not sticking to very well would mean that i talk about stuff that i've found and enjoyed on the web... well, not today... today is Thursday and if any one knows who snuck in last night and stole my Wednesday, i'd appreciate the opportunity to give them a beat down, film it and become famous by posting it on You Tube... scratch that, people get arrested for acually trying that... yes i think to myself... what a wonderful world... excuse me while i escape reality for a bit and tune in to Andrew Lloyd Webber's Definitive Hits...
So, i watched the Idol Gives Back thing last night... kind of... we watched what the DVR caught with much fast forwarding... i'm not much for award shows or telethons and i tend to pick and choose which performances to watch and such... i was also really looking forward to the grand finale, which i had gotten a brief press release about yesterday, a few hours before the airing... befuddled as i was, i knew that the contestants would be singing Shout to the Lord, the popular worship song, to close the show...
I couldn't for the life of me understand why they were going to sing it - it still seems like quite a random selection - but i was curious as to how it would turn out... and then my DVR did me in... the show ended for me with a video of African children getting moosquito nets to the soundtrack of Daughtry's What About Now... once again, the network had overrun it's time slot and left me hanging with no closure to the show... fortunately for me and all my TIVO and DVR buddies across the globe, it's available (for now) on YouTube and, for now, right here...
now here's where it gets a little hairy... (that's such an odd phrase)... anyway, i know that i'm supposed to be outraged by this performance as so many other "good Christians" currently are... the biggest buzz about this performance today seems to be wholly focused on the first four words of the song... well, really, just the second... the producers chose to substitute "My Jesus" with "My Shepherd" for the on-air performance... CENSORSHIP!!!!! certainly... but i'm going to be honest for a second... i've probably sung or heard that song about a thousand times and i had NO IDEA that "Jesus" was even in the lyrics... i mean, i know the lyrics, but when someone told me that they had taken "Jesus" out of the lyrics, i couldn't remember where exactly it was in the lyrics... however, it's still quite clear as to whom the song is referring...
So, my feathers weren't entirely ruffled by that, and maybe that makes me a bad person to some extent, but, just as i didn't get my dander up about Veggietales coming to NBC with the agreement to take out "God made you special and He loves you very much," i don't really see why i should get all hot and bothered by this... for those of you who did get upset or are still currently upset, DUDE, they just had a little church service on the HIGHEST RATED SHOW OF THE YEAR, reaching 17-18 MILLION viewers...
this should ease the tension a little bit as well.. i went ahead and bought the single from iTunes since i had a credit still and it's for a good cause and all... and i'm going to strongly recommend the single... it's, as they say, a HOT one... it's just under 5 minutes in length, a studio version and, yes kids, there IS a Jesus on this version... it's unedited and spectacular... possibly the best version of the song i've heard... so that's that...
I'm jumping back over to Ephesians because it's been a while and because i can... i feel like i've been ignoring it for too long and it seems like the comparisons that were so clear to me before are fading slightly because i haven't gotten through the first chapter here... so onward we go...
the first three verses here really kick you in the gut... here's the gist... you were dead... you are sinful... you were just like the rest of the world... you were following the devil... you were a son of disobedience... you lived according to the passions of your flesh... you were marked by your wrath... just like the rest of the world... (ouch)...
BUT... that's right... BUT GOD... this is one of those very powerful "But God" moments... Biut God, who is rich in mercy, who loves us with the an unbelievable amount of love... reached down to us, picked us out of the gutter... lifted us out of the grave.... and sat us down next to Him... in Heavenly places... and through Jesus he's saved us... by this thing called grace... and He has plans to show off the "immeasurable riches of His grace" through the kindness he shows us... It's this grace that's saved us... it's this grace by which our faith seems mortared to our salvation... we can't really fathom it and that should remind us that we didn't have anything to do with it... "so that no one may boast"... amen...
So this section covers five chapters that talk about some of the rules of gameplay... Play by the Rules deals pretty intensely with issues of integrity and some common misconceptions about integrity including a bit about sin avoidance and how that's not the full extent of integrity... the next chapter talks about priorities and what activities and such should fill our lives... followed by a chapter about taking risks and really laying things out on the line, including an interesting step-by-step guide of being called by God...
following that is probably my favorite chapter of the section... and not just because of the Lou Gehrig reference, but that helped... anyway, the chapter is about grattitude and how important it is to live our lives with a sense of grattitude... towards God and towards others... and the last chapter talks about finding your mission in life and it includes a quote from Fredrick Buechner:
The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet... that's a lot to think about
Next section: HAZARDS...
OUT
and with that, i'm heading out for the day... i wish i had some links to give you, but i've been slack in my writing lately... i have been working on some behind-the-scenes improvements to the site, but i know that i need to get some stuff written... soon... soon... 'til then...
