Kyle's Random

As I mentioned in a previous post, I really struggle to be an encouragement to my wife.  Honestly, that’s a bit of an understatement.  The reality is that she is the one who gets the dark side of my systematic and critical thinking.  As you can probably imagine, she finds it very discouraging.  Without intending to, I often deflate her with my words.

This is really hard to write.  Of all the things I hate about my flesh, this is probably the part I hate most.

“So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” – Romans 7:21-24 (NIV)

The Apostle Paul continues that passage to say that his deliverance comes through Jesus Christ.  Like Paul, through Jesus, I’m beginning to find victory in this area – learning that I don’t need to be less of a critical thinker.  Just the opposite.  I need to apply my critical thinking to understand how important it is for me to be my wife’s primary source of encouragement.

I’m curious to get some feedback on something.  When you’re making a purchasing decision (electronics, appliances, tools, etc.),  do you go with the name brand or not?  Do you think that there is extra quality/value in the brand, or do you go with the less expensive option when things appear to be equal?

(The photo above might be a little clue on the way I tend to lean on this.)

As I’ve mentioned before, Keri and I don’t own a TV.  It’s a decision that we made on purpose to help keep the lines of communication open in our home.  But even without a television, there are still so many things that try to pull the two of us apart from one another.  Whether it’s my wife’s desire to read her favorite blogs after an exhausting day with our kids or my efforts to manage freelance website & graphics projects, life has a way of trying to bring emotional distance between the two of us.

To combat this natural tendency in our relationship, we introduced a new nightly ritual into our schedule a couple of weeks ago.  Once we get the kids in bed and the house set back in order, we’ve committed to spend at least 20 minutes sitting on the couch together without distractions – just talking about the day and snuggling.  My personal goal is to begin our couch time with a few minutes of encouraging my wife and building her up – something that I’m ashamed to say I have neglected for the past ten years of marriage (more on this later).

In just these two weeks, I can already tell that God is helping us break down some barriers that were beginning to creep up between us.

(As an aside, I find it ironic that all the stock photography I looked at showed computers pulling families together for some fun family time.  Really?  I’m not saying that it’s not possible, but there’s no way that’s the norm.)

I had no idea what a nebulizer was until my daughter was prescribed one for her asthma a couple of years ago.  For those of you who don’t know, it’s a little machine that vaporizes medication so that it can be inhaled through a mask.  Kind of like an inhaler, only louder and much more time consuming.

Our nebulizer has become a normal part of life in the Gilbert household.

Well, yesterday, Keri called me on the phone at work to share the funniest story with me.  My nearly four-year-old daughter was doing a breathing treatment in her room, and Keri went in to check on her when she noticed that my daughter had turned it off sooner than it should have taken her to finish the treatment.

When Keri asked her why she turned off the machine, my daughter told her, “It was taking too long, so I drank the rest.”

Five years ago, I did an interesting thing. I sent myself a time-delayed email, and I received it just last week. Here’s a short excerpt:

As I write this you stand on the verge of something awesome that is happening at Southcliff. You’ve started training leaders on how to do cell groups, and tonight you have a strategy meeting with them to figure out how you’re going to multiply your first group. This Fall, Southcliff is also going to do a program called 40 Days of Community. This is an exciting time at Southcliff, and it is your first year of ministry as Associate Pastor.

Right now, I’m a bit scared about what will happen with all of this stuff, but I’m trusting God to do something beyond my wildest dreams.

Kind of hard to believe that was only five years ago. I sensed that God was up to something, but it’s amazing to look back at how things progressed:

• Experimenting with small group ministry and learning more about websites
• Planning and eventually launching a satellite campus of Southcliff and serving as their Campus Pastor
• Serving with great people and working hard together to reach out to the community
• Grieving through the process of seeing the campus close after two years
• Understanding that God was moving me into a new phase of ministry
• Moving from Texas to Tennessee to join with Faith Promise

Every one of these steps was challenging in one form or another, but it’s neat to see look back and see how God has been at work.  “Beyond my wildest dreams” is a pretty accurate description.

“For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come.”
- Hebrews 13:14 (NLT)

Isn’t it amazing how much comfort this world can try to offer us?  We’re surrounded by conveniences – fast food, nice grocery stores, amazing technology, and abundant entertainment.  So many things try to win our love and steal our attention away from God and eternal things.  For the Christian there is a constant struggle to remember that this world isn’t our real home.

Tonight, I am again praying that God will keep what is real and lasting in front of me.  I’m praying that He will give me eyes of faith and a heart that only finds fullness in Him.

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little, when we arrive safely because we have sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess, we have lost our thirst for the waters of life; having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity; and in our efforts to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of the new heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas where storms will show your mastery; where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. We ask you to push back the horizons of our hopes; and to push us into the future in strength, courage, hope, and love.

- Sir Frances Drake (explorer and naval pioneer during the Elizabethan era)

I recently started reading a book called Holiness by J. C. Ryle.  As soon as I heard of the book (I saw it mentioned in another blog’s comments), I knew that it was something I needed to read.

There were a couple of reasons in particular that it interested me:

1. With the nationwide push for churches to be cool and relevant, holiness seems to be often overlooked.
2. I really desire holiness in my life, but honestly, I fall so short of it even with my best intentions.

I’m only a few chapters into the book, but nearly every paragraph contains a powerful nugget of truth.  I’ll share a few of my favorite quotes just in case you’re interested.

Here’s one of my favorite lines: “A true Christian is one who has not only peace of conscience, but war within.  He may be known by his warfare as well as by his peace.”

Contrasting justification and sanctification: “Justification is a finished and complete work, and a man is perfectly justified the moment he believes.  Sanctification is an imperfect work, comparatively, and will never be perfected until we reach heaven.”

“Holiness is the habit of being of one mind with God… agreeing in [His] judgment, hating what He hates, loving what He loves, and measuring everything in this world by the standard of His Word.”

“I do not say for a moment that holiness shuts out the presence of indwelling sin.  No, far from it.  It is the greatest misery… that the old man is clogging all his movements and, as it were, trying to draw him back at every step he takes (Rom. 7:21).”

“In short, to talk of men being saved from the guilt of sin, without being at the same time saved from its dominion in their hearts, is to contradict the witness of all Scripture.”

Not trying to hurt anyone’s feelings, but I personally hate websites that feature background music.  Don’t get me wrong – I love music.  There’s just an appropriate place for it, and it’s not on your website.

Here’s a scenario: you’ve finally gotten the kids to bed and you’re enjoying the quiet evening, browsing the Internet, when… BAM!  Your silence is shattered, and it sends you flying for the volume control.

At home is bad enough, but the office is even worse.  Especially if you have a shared office environment (like I do).

This very thing happened to me on Monday.  I was going to pick up dinner for Aaron Goin and his wife who have a newborn, and I was checking a local restaurant’s website for their phone number and menu.  I was looking things over and pretty much settled on chicken fajitas and the Pollo Supremo when suddenly and without warning… the office filled with mariachi music.

The good news is that everybody liked the song (the guy’s laughter is contagious), and we’ve adopted it as the Office of Awesome theme song.  We’ve started a tradition of playing it each day at 4 pm.

If you want to hear it, swing by the Office at 4 pm sometime, or you can listen to it here.

Here’s a short video of my son and I doing a little wrestling.  Don’t miss his finishing move at the end.