Confusion...

Have you ever had those times in life when you were confused?  I've recently had a moment like that.  I didn't know what I should do.  I've learned that if you wait long enough and pray hard enough God provides you with the best option yet.  Life has a way of just throwing things at you that you could never come to expect.  But God always has an answer.  The question is are we listening?  

Late Night

Last night was a late night for the Downing family.  About 1:15 this morning our house alarm went off.  I had the decision of having to have the police come or not.  That's a tough decisions.  The alarm company said that when it gets cold the window sensors tend to set off false alarms.  I decided to not have them send the police.  Fortunately I was still awake when the alarm sounded.  I knew what zone in our house was tripped and could tell that more than likely no one was trying to break in. Needless to say that feeling is hard to let go of.  I didn't go to sleep until after 3:30 this morning.  I am so tired right now.  I think I'm going to take me an afternoon siesta.  

a weekend summary

This weekend was a great weekend.  It all started Friday.  Can you believe that? Friday night Em and I went to the Louisiana State Fair.  As you can imagine there were a lot of weird things at the fair.  The one that caught my attention the most were 4 high school boys who were strutting their stuff.  The only problem is that its hard to look "hot" when all 4 friends are carrying stuffed animals around the fair with no women along side of them.  I'm sure they thought they looked cool knocking milk bottles over with a baseball, making a basket or tossing a pingpong in a fish bowl.  I wonder if they thought about what it looked like afterwards?  Actually I know the answer to that question but I wonder how long it took them to figure out.  However a highlight came out of the state fair.  Fried snickers bars are really good.  If you have the chance to try one do it!  

Saturday morning I woke up and my wife and I went to Robert Church of God for their fall festival.  It was so cool to see around 50 volunteers helping face paint, entertain, ride horses, give hay rides, watch inflatables and serve food.  All of this was free too!  What a caring church!  I think my favorite part was watching one of the volunteers accidentally lift up a flap to one of the inflatables and let go of it only for that flap to fling back and knock this little kid down.  The kid laughed so hard.  You could tell the kid wanted the worker to do it again.  He just stood there and waited.  Very cute and funny.

Later that evening we had a couple of students from a local church in Baton Rouge come over.  We watched some football and played nintendo wii.  They are some cool peeps!

Sunday I drove over 2 hours to Lake Charles Louisiana to preach at a youth service.  I spoke on "A shot at love" playing off of mtv's television hit "a shot at love".  Talking about the need to understand what true love really looked like I gave them examples of what love "isn't".

Love isn't about...

I ntentions

S elf

N atural Feelings

T rends

Through the years I've seen and come up with a few illustrations to prove my points.  One of my illustrations was to pull out some gaff tape.  Gaff tape has more stick than duck tape.  I showed the students how every time they give themselves to another person in a way that God did not intend that they lose what God intended for them to have with their spouse.  So I found the hairiest guy and busted out the tape and stuck it on his arm.  Yanked it off and stuck it on again.  After a little while of doing this the pain wasn't as bad because it lost its stickiness.  Then I showed the tape to the students and they saw all the hair on the tape.  I took the time to share with them how if I were to take that tape and stick it on someone else that they would also have to live up to the person who had already visited that tape before them.  The point was received very well!  After that I also took two bottles of water and asked one of the students which one she would rather drink from.  She chose one bottle.  I then opened that one and my wife and I drank out of it.  I asked her the question again and this time she chose the other bottle of water.  I asked her why?  She got it quickly and so did the students.  The other bottle was pure and didn't have any germs on it.  I explained that's how marriages work.  You want the pure thing because you know where it came from and you know its safe.  

Overall we had a great weekend.  I'm a little tired now but I loved every moment of it.  Probably the highlight of the entire weekend was feeling my baby girl kick my hand though. That is a special feeling!  Lots of fun!!!

Thinking versus Doing

Recently I've been reading a book that I highly recommend.  The book is called "Wild Goose Chase" by Mark Batterson.  Yesterday I read a section that totally drilled me.  Mark talked about how many times we are lazy in our actions.  We pray and ask God to help us but never doing anything ourselves.  He says that "signs follow faith".  To many times I have found myself thinking of great ideas but never acting on them.  Mark reminded me that God's Word tells us that God isn't going to say... well said my good and faithful servant or well thought my good and faithful servant.  God is going to one day say..."Well DONE my good and faithful servant".  

To many times I find myself waiting on God to move when He is really waiting on me to move.  Don't get me wrong there are times when we need to wait on God but I think if we're honest with ourselves most of the time that is just an excuse.  

Mark also mentions that when we begin to make excuses like this we are irresponsibly responsible.  We are being irresponsible with the responsibility God has given us.  We should rather be responsibly irresponsible.  Meaning that we start to put God's passions in front of our own and by faith step out.  I.E.  Noah left his job to build an ark.  David left his sheep to fight Goliath.  Moses left his comfortable home to lead a complaining group of people.  

I've been challenged to look for areas of my life that I just need to step out and act.  What are some areas you need to step out and act on?

Super Funny!

Today I was driving to Office Depot when I saw something strange in the middle of the 6 lane road.  It was a break pad & rotor.  As you know you have to have those two item on your car to stop the car.  I didn't make it to much further past the break pad and rotor before I had to turn but I did notice that traffic ahead of me was stopped and not moving.  I sure hope those folks had insurance, lol.  

I hate to laugh at someone else expense but how bad must someone's brakes sound before they just fall off?  

Friendship

Friendship is the most amazing thing.  How great is it that you can call someone who isn't related to you and know that they care for you and your needs.  It blows me away to think about how much I depend on my friends.  I've even come to appreciate the friends I only speak to a couple of times a year.  I used to be much closer to them but they helped make me who I am today.  Its great to revisit those friendships.  Looking back on the past can also be pretty humorous.  

Just today I spoke with one of those friends.  I still consider him my best friend simply because he and I connect so close and trust each other's input.  He's truly one of those friends who wants what is best for me and that is what I appreciate about him.  This morning I received a text from him that something was wrong.  He didn't go into details but asked me to pray.  Immediately I dropped what I was doing and began praying for him.  

I'm glad I have friends I can depend on and friends that can depend on me.  Very cool!

A fun weekend

So this weekend I had a great time with my family.  Here's some of the highlights.

.01 I learned that I hate the gps on my cell phone.  Nice feature that doesn't work at all!  Instead of taking me to a golf course it took me to a cow pasture and instead of taking me to a corn maze it took me to a oil refinery. 

.02  I soaked my brother-in -law by taping the spray hose at the sink and then asking him to help do the dishes.  Good stuff right there.  

.03 I almost fell into a wall while playing raquetball.  Basically tripped over my own two feet.  Wife had a good laugh at that.  :-)  

.04 I played golf. 

.05  We bought 2 pumpkins and carved fall leaves and a smiley face on them.  It looks great on our fire place.  

Precious Memories!  

Pranks...

This weekend my brother-in-law and his girl friend are coming over.  I love when he comes and visits.  I get to act like I am much younger than I am.  One of those bonding moments that my wife's brother and I typically have is when we prank each other.  It has never really escalated to anything major but we love the bragging rights.  Typically I wait until the last night to get him so he doesn't have a chance to get me back until the next time we see him.  A couple examples of this might be...

.01 short sheeting his bed- This is when you take the bottom of the sheets and tuck them at the head of the bed.  You then pull the top of the sheets out and fold them in half towards the head of the bed again.  This causes the persons body to be sandwiched between 1 sheet.  Its actually pretty funny to watch them push and pull against themselves at the same time.

.02 dropping water from above- This was when he and his girl friend were sitting below the wooden deck I was standing on.  It came to my attention that I could pour water down on them.  With the help of Em's mom we both soaked them.  This ended in a water balloon fight at which I also soaked him good.  

These are just a few examples.  Here's where you come in.  Do you have any suggestions for good pranks I could pull on my brother-in-law?  

Can I have a do over?

Have you ever had one of those days where you wished you could just have it back to do over?  That's where I'm at (not a plug for the allstate commercial).  I think at the very nature of trying to be sincere that sometimes we lose focus.  Is that possible?  Can we lose focus trying to be sincere?  I think the answer is yes.  

Lets just think about it this way.  We're close to the election of a new president.  Both parties are very sincere about their candidates but some are sincerely wrong.  Sincerity is not a license to act or speak without consequences.  In fact sometimes it can be even more painful.  

Sincerity is an awesome tool when used with purpose, truth and compassion.  Any thoughts?

leadership snares

Sometimes in life there are moments when you think you've been doing good and all of a sudden BAM.  Everything you did is turned on you and taken out of context.  You hardly have the time to express your genuine thoughts/opinions.  Your response makes a world of difference as a leader!  

Yard Sales...ugh

Yesterday my wife and I woke up earlier than we should have to go out and search the vast treasures of the mysterious yard sales, or in some cases dirty garage sales.  We went through one neighborhood all day long (it was a neighborhood yard sale).  For real, it was the largest neighborhood I've ever been through.  We spent 3 hours driving up and down streets never stopping at one house for more than 3 minutes.  

Anyhow, we decided it was over when my overly eager wife said one more street.  We turned down Avalon Circle and sure enough there were two houses having a yard sale.  To Em's surprise they had some baby stuff.  The entire purpose for this trip was to find some clean used items for our new baby girl.  Once we arrived at this one house Em found a glider chair and a changing table.  It was awfully close to the one we registered with at Target.  Upon a closer look it was a Bassett.  That's a pretty good name brand for those of you who don't know furniture name brands.  To top it off there was a matching crib, ottoman and night stand.  

We proceeded to ask how much it was when she told us..."$250 but I just sold this a few minutes earlier... well sorta".  My wife began to ask her what she meant by that.  The lady said she had a deposit from a lady but she didn't have the money for it.  She said she didn't know if she would really be able to pay for it or not and was a little worried.  The desperate soon to be parents we were decided that it was worth bargaining for.  We told her we would pay today if she would sell it.  After speaking to her husband she agreed and off we were with a great deal.   

While I'm thrilled we have an incredible deal I know this will also work to my demise.  You see, now that my wife has found this treasure she has hope for all other neighborhood yard sale events.  My weekends may never be the same!  Pray for me folks!  Pray hard!

Fantasy COG

Today I was thinking about our upcoming ministers meeting when the thought hit me.  Voting for the youth board and state council is not that different from fantasy football.  How cool would it be if we had a score during voting that showed who voted the best.  We could call it Fantasy COG.  Winner gets a free COG logo and pictures with the COG Secretaries.  WOW, how cool would that be?