While waiting for something to compile at work today, I started playing with this picture in a photo editing program…

These are what I came up with:

And then a little more boldly:

Adding texture to photos doesn’t always make them look better, but I kind of like how these turned out.

If you do, and would like to use one for a desktop, you can download them in higher resolution here and here.

Like many people, I first discovered Donald Miller through the book Blue Like Jazz. He had written several books before that one ‘hit it big’, but for some reason, that one got our attention.

I enjoyed the book a lot — not nearly as much as some of my friends — but I love Don’s writing style. He has a tone that would fit perfectly if he were your good friend and sitting across from you at a coffee shop telling you the stories he writes about. Where some books engage me in a way that is a mental workout, Don’s books engage me in a way that is a mental stress-reliever. I can read his writing before bed and it actually helps my mind slow down and try and take myself out of my shoes and put on his for a few minutes.

So, I’ve been excited to get my hands on his newest work, A Million Miles In A Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life.

I won’t endeavor to write a significant review of the book — partly because I don’t have the time, and partly because several hundred other people have already done so (so why add to the noise?). I recommend Chris Brogan’s video review. Or, you can go here and read the first chapter online for free.

I will say that I think it’s a really neat concept, and it has given me another angle from which to view my experience of life. The book probably won’t change your life, but it will entertain you, engage you, and might even nudge you to dream a little better. I guess, in a way, all books change our life to a certain extent.

Anyways, the point of this post is to offer the snippet below from page 123. Every input we allow into our lives shapes our perspective and, consequently, our ambitions:

Before I started writing for a living, I had a job as a marketing guy at a start-up company that sold textbooks to the education market. In learning about my job, I had to read all kinds of other books about how to sell people stuff they didn’t need. As near as I could tell from reading those books, marking is a three-step process. The first step is to convince people they are miserable. The second step is to convince people they will be happy if they buy your product, and the third step is to include a half-naked woman in your pitch…

The thing I never realized while I was studying marketing was the process of advertising products is, in many ways, a manipulation of the elements of story. It’s like I was telling you about an inciting incident disrupting the stability of a character’s life, throwing him orher into a story. Advertising does exactly this. We watch a commercial advertising a new Volvo, and suddenly we feel our life isn’t as content as it once was. Our life doesn’t have the new Volvo in it. And the commercial convinces us we will only be content if we have a car with forty-seven airbags. And so we begin our story of buying a Volvo, only to repeat the story with a new weed eater and then a new home stereo. And this can go on for a lifetime. When the credits roll, we wonder what we did with our lives, and what was the meaning.

The ambitions we have will become the stories we live. If you want to know what a person’s story is about, just ask them what they want. If we don’t want anything, we are living boring stories, and if we want a Roomba vaccuum cleaner, we are living stupid stories. If it won’t work in a story, it won’t work in life.

The ambitions we have will become the stories we live. If you want to know what a person’s story is about, just ask them what they want. If we don’t want anything, we are living boring stories, and if we want a Roomba vaccuum cleaner, we are living stupid stories. If it won’t work in a story, it won’t work in life.

Interesting how they’ve changed their story over the years…

Their slogan back then was pretty interesting as well:  “Every child a wanted child”

I guess it just depends on what they meant by that…

(HT Z)

Piper taught for an hour on what he has learned from C.S. Lewis over the course of his life.

Almost every single sentence is quotable and I STRONGLY encourage you to go download it or watch it (for free, of course).

But if you only have five minutes, watch this clip, where Piper explains how a sense of duty in the christian faith is not only a waste of time — it’s just about the OPPOSITE of the Gospel:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T00199dEipc

Well, I guess it wasn’t new. Let’s say I was reminded of a good lesson recently.

Since it involves a moment of personal vulnerability in someone else’s life, I’m going to leave out lots of details that would probably make it a better story and just cut to the chase. If we ever get the chance to sit down and chat, you can ask me for the long version :0)

Here goes:

A couple of weeks ago I sat with a handful of brothers in a friend’s dining room.

We were sharing prayer requests and praying for each other, and a new friend of mine shared a short story.

You probably can’t fully appreciate his story without knowing him a lot better than it’s my place to help you here, but we’re talking about a guy who seems to really have it together. At a glance, he appears to fit nicely into lots of stereotypes, several of which us hypocrites love to judge.

You also need to know that he has been jobless for quite a while, although, pulling up in his driveway, you would never guess that the man who owns the house hasn’t had a consistent paycheck in over a year.

OK. So with that tiny snapshot, here’s what he shared:

He said that the previous week, his wife had been out of town visiting family for the holidays, so, with nobody in need of his attention, he decided to seize the opportunity to catch up on a couple of movies he had been wanting to see.

One of the movies was the Russell Crowe film “Cinderella Man“, which is based on the true story of Jim Braddock.

He said it was strange that he decided to watch it, because he had already seen it in the past, and he never watches a movie twice.

Nevertheless, he put it in late one night after staying busy all day.

If you haven’t seen the film or read the story of Braddock, the crux is that he couldn’t find work during the great depression, so he became a boxer in a desperate effort to keep food on his family’s table. The movie is very deep – the cinematography is kind of gray, representative of the period in American history that it represents. And you get a glimpse into this guy’s daily grind of getting up early and doing whatever it takes to keep his wife and kid warm and fed, even when this means literally taking a beating in the boxing ring.

My friend vulnerably shared that while watching that movie, he cried for the first time in ten years.

He said that he looked at a man who was desperate to provide for his family — desperate to be able to look into his wife’s eyes and see respect and admiration.

He said that after a year of spending all day, every day looking for full-time work, he knows exactly how that feels.

He said that what has been especially hard for the last year is that when you have a full-time job, there is a clear calendar of when to work and when to rest. There are weekends and vacations and holidays. But when you don’t have a job, and your job is to look for a job, there are no weekends, no holidays, no vacations. You are always scrambling to try and figure out how you’re going to land a salary — and with it, some sort of stability.

He said that though he hasn’t been boxing, he knows the feeling of emotional and mental exhaustion of the character in the movie.

This wasn’t some sort of tear-filled, heart-wrenching, lay-hands-and-pray-for-me moment. It lasted for 2 minutes and he wash just sharing the way that he would like for us to be praying for him.

But it was a wealth of an education for me.

So far, by God’s grace, I haven’t had to experience what it feels like to be unemployed while being responsible for a family.

And I never in a million years would have guessed that this friend was wrestling with the weight he carries on his shoulders.

Never.

You could fit my house in his living room. He seems to be playing a different ball game.

But at the end of the day, a man is a man. Whether he’s hunting in a field, or boxing in a ring, or filling out endless job applications and networking with everyone he’s ever known, he’s really just trying to be a provider.

In the end, my jump to conclusions where a great hindrance to my ability to effectively love this brother.

Who are you doing that to in your life right now?

It’s one of my favorite websites, and while some of the photos are beautiful and inspiring, some stop me in my tracks and remind me how big the world is and how small my perspective often is.

This week, they have a post titled “2009 In Photos, Pt. 1“.

The photos are super high-res, and there are a lot of ‘em, so it takes a while for all of them to load, but it is definitely worth the wait.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Check out this excerpt from Seeing And Savoring Jesus Christ by John Piper (download the whole book as a .pdf file for free here).

The title of the chapter is “The Glory of Rescuing Sinners, Not Removing Satan“:

Now without sin and law to condemn and accuse and oppress us, Satan is a defeated foe. He is disarmed. Christ has triumphed over him, not by putting him out of existence, but by letting him live and watch while millions of saints find forgiveness for their sins and turn their back on Satan because of the greater glory of the grace of Christ.

It was a costly triumph. But God’s values are not so easily reckoned. If God had simply terminated Satan, then it would not have been so clear that God is both stronger and infinitely more to be desired than Satan. God wills for His glory to shine forth not only through acts of physical power, but also through acts of moral and spiritual power that display the beauty of His grace with lavish colors. To take sinners out of Satan’s hands by virtue of Christ’s sin-bearing sacrifice and his law-fulfilling obedience to the Father was a more glorious victory than mere annihilation of the enemy.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in southern California where there weren’t many trees and they didn’t really look all that cool when they changed, but the Fall in NC always blows me away!

My favorite thing about it is that the leaves aren’t actually becoming another color; the beautiful reds and yellows are actually there all year-round, but green chlorophyll covers the beautiful diversity. It is literally in their dying season when the leaves show their ‘true colors’.

It always brings to my mind the words of Jesus in John 12:24-25

Truly, truly, I say to you,^(AD) unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. ^(AE) Whoever loves his life loses it, and^(AF) whoever^(AG) hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

It seems God designed everything — even us — to be most beautiful when we think we’re losing our grip on the tree of life… God did everything so intensely!

Anyways, here is my favorite Fall picture so far this year:

And since I haven’t had much time to get out and photograph the Fall this year, here are two of my favorites from this time last year:

Here’s a post I wrote at this time last year that is still just as applicable today…

Where have you seen the prettiest Fall colors?

In case you’re on a mobile device or behind an office filter that blocks the picture, the article begins:

Islamists in Somalia have stoned a man to death for adultery but spared his pregnant girlfriend until she gives birth.

I am surprised that the BBC considered this story to be worthy of their main RSS feed, and I applaud them for posting something that is actually worthy of our consideration…

In a culture where the headlines are usually dominated by celebrity gossip and the latest tech toys — which, I confess, are as appealing to me as they are to you — It is rare and refreshing to be reminded about the harsh realities of the world.

I recognize that that statement seems contradictory.

What is refreshing about remembering the world’s harsh realities?

Well, for one thing, it puts things in perspective.

A 13-year-old girl was raped, and then legally murdered for having unwillingly committed the “crime” of adultery.

And this all happened in accordance with and submission to Islam – a global religion boasting 1-2 billion members around the world.

And it happens

every

single

day

Think about that for a minute.

Suddenly that rumor you heard about yourself isn’t such a big deal…

Suddenly the bitterness of being overlooked at work seems kind of petty and stupid…

Suddenly the freedom to go hear the Gospel proclaimed seems glorious, and the 30-minute drive isn’t as bad as you made it out to be…

And suddenly God’s grace…

Wow.

Stops you dead in your tracks.

-

-

-

God’s grace.

Before you consider the temptation to chalk this up to a corrupt culture, please consider that in Somalia, a woman committed adultery and they are going to kill the woman and ’save’ the child from her sin.

If this had happened in America, there’s a strong likelihood that the parents would kill the child to ’save’ the mother from the effects of her sin.

But sin is sin and murder is still murder, no matter what culture you live in.

And that’s why God’s grace is so AMAZING.

That 13-year-old girl wasn’t guilty of adultery.

But I am.

She didn’t deserved to be killed for her sin.

But I do.

And those cowards who hide behind their religion and stand with their smug sense of self-righteousness in judgment over those who are innocent?

I have heard and understood the Gospel, and experienced God’s grace, and I still commit the same sins.

And yet God shows me GRACE.

He sent Jesus to absorb all the wrath I justly deserve.

…and all the wrath that those Somali cowards who did this deserve.

He sent Jesus to absorb all the wrath that YOU deserve.

This is the beauty of the Gospel! Religion tells you that you have to do things to earn your righteousness, so that then you can judge other people.

But the Gospel is the Good News that you can NEVER earn your righteousness, and that’s why Jesus came!

He opened the door to God’s grace!

Have you looked in to it?

That lizard in the photo above: it’s called the “Jesus Christ” lizard.

Seriously.

Why?

Because it can walk on water.

From the article:

They drop into the water and then run across it, earning the lizards their nickname, the “Jesus” or “Jesus Christ” lizard.

Exactly how they do so is revealed by the slow-motion, high-definition footage taken at 2,000 frames per second.

“Because they run so fast they create a bubble as their feet hit the water and then they push off from this bubble before it bursts,” says Simon Blakeney, a producer on the Life series who helped direct and film the footage of both reptiles.

“They can only run at that speed. If they were going any slower, for example, they wouldn’t stay upright, they would slip into the water and would have to swim.”

How insanely awesome is that?

And then there’s this little guy, the pygmy gecko:

Again, from the article:

At just 2 to 4cm long from head to tail, the Brazilian pygmy gecko (Coleodactylus amazonicus) could be battered by a raindrop and risk drowning in even the smallest pool of water.

So it has evolved to be essentially waterproof, which in turn allows it to walk across the surface of any puddle it encounters.

Can you imagine God’s creative process?

“This guy will be fun. I’m going to make him especially sensitive to water and then give him the ability to walk right across the top of it. Scientists will have a blast coming up with a theory on how this works…”

So awesome.

He made you, by the way…

One really good idea that the folks at Mars Hill Church have implemented is a question and answer session after various sermons.

The way it works is that listeners can text questions during the sermon, and someone backstage collects and filters the questions, and then delivers them to the pastor at the end of the sermon to answer on-the-fly.

Of course this is risky, because it leaves the possibility for the pastor to get totally blind-sided by strange or uncomfortable questions. But it is also a very useful idea, because it gives people the opportunity to ask real questions that the sermon brings to mind, and for everyone to benefit by hearing the answer.

A couple of months ago, during a sermon series on the Song of Salomon — during which pastor Mark taught a lot about relationships and biblical manhood and womanhood — the following question was asked:

My boyfriend went to Vegas for a bachelor party. He went to a strip club. Do I have a right to be mad?

I think pastor Mark’s answer is really, really helpful.

So many guys I know struggle with temptations toward lust and pornography, and our culture makes that feel so normal and acceptable. It feels like such a victimless crime — like an innocent vice.

Take five minutes and watch the video of pastor Mark’s response, and let him push back hard against those lies.

(I couldn’t figure out how to embed the video, so you’ll have to watch it at the Mars Hill blog — just use the link!)

If you consider yourself to be a follower of Jesus, or someone interested in God in any capacity, I highly recommend that you take a minute and go read it.

The idea that God is ’sovereign’ is commonly thrown around and disputed in christian circles…

Some will throw the word around without even understanding its meaning, while others will argue about its meaning.

The Desiring God article begins with this definition for ‘the sovereignty of God‘:

We believe that God upholds and governs all things—from galaxies to subatomic particles, from the forces of nature to the movements of nations, and from the public plans of politicians to the secret acts of solitary persons—all in accord with His eternal, all-wise purposes to glorify Himself, yet in such a way that He never sins, nor ever condemns a person unjustly; but that His ordaining and governing all things is compatible with the moral accountability of all persons created in His image.

Do you believe that?

Really?

I struggle to…

I grew up in a stream of christianity that would probably push back against this definition.

As a freshman in college I encountered people who thought and talked this way, and it upset me. I wrestled for years with this understanding of God’s nature and character.

But over the years, my study of the scriptures and my experience with God have led me to confidently affirm this way of understanding God, and that transformation has dramatically changed my perspective as well as my lifestyle.

I want to challenge you: have you ever considered the sovereignty of God? Have you wrestled with it? Are your beliefs on the matter in keeping with the Scriptures, or have you done your best to tag this topic as ‘controversial‘ and avoid it because you don’t like it?

You might be missing out on some of the most exciting Truth in the Bible.

And as Tozer wrote: “What you believe when you think of God is the most important thing about you.”

So don’t take it lightly…

Got any thoughts on this?

As I mentioned in the introduction, Religion Saves + And Nine Other Misconceptions addresses the top nine questions submitted and voted on by people around the country.

Each chapter is dedicated to a question and pastor Mark’s answer, and they go in backwards order.

So, chapter one addresses the ninth most popular question:

There’s no doubt the Bible says children are a blessing, but the Bible doesn’t seem to address the specific topic of birth control. Is this a black-and-white topic, or does it fall under liberties?

Last week, I asked you all to share your thoughts on this comment, and boy did you come through!

I had a great time reading up on your thoughts and opinions, and I was looking forward this weekend to writing a lengthy exposition on the topic and how pastor Mark handles it in the book.

Unfortunately, things have not gone according to plan! Our internet at home was down for most of the weekend, work has been kicked up two notches, I had 2 computers dropped off that needed urgent attention, and we’ve been scrambling to get everything lined up so that we can leave for our first vacation in a while tomorrow!

And on top of all that, I actually got up extra early Monday morning and sat down and wrote most of the post anyways, and the infallible Firefox failed on me and I lost it!

So, rather than let this post dangle any longer, I want to point you at some great resources that you can check out for yourself, and maybe I’ll get a chance to come back to this at some point this weekend!

• First of all, I’m glad to announce that the official website for the book was launched on Monday! I love how creative those Re:Lit guys are!
• Secondly, you can download the video and/or audio of the sermon upon which this chapter is based here (and yes it’s free!)
• Here’s an interview with Mark Driscoll about the book that I came across today. Notably, he says that this was the hardest chapter to write because it’s such a weighty topic.
• Randy Alcorn’s writings on the topic of birth control are heavily noted in the chapter, and you can get your hands on all of those for free here (I think this article is the most succinct)
• Desiring God has a great article (Does the Bible Permit Birth Control) and sermon (Is It Wrong To Use Birth Control) on the topic

Finally, if you have any specific questions or opinions that you’d like to bounce off me, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment, or if you’d rather keep it private, you can email me at zack_at_therieslands.com

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBJzUnxiKwA

This is a short video from Sermon Jams featuring a sermon snippet from a modern-day hero of mine: John Piper (who is on twitter!).

Listen to him spell out Paul’s teachings about displaying Christ as your treasure!