Life
Why is the grass always greener on the other side?
photo by: orangeacid
It’s kinda become a tradition of sorts now with a few friends of mine. After church on Wednesday nights, we all go to a local bar and get a drink. We talk about sports (well they do and I listen), theology, politics, popular figures of our day, life experiences and the sort. It is one of the highlights of my week. It’s just a great time to hang out with friends and relax.
Last night my friend Donovan made a really profound statement about life.
You know why the grass is always greener on the other side?! Because they water it.
It struck a chord with me. There are so many times in my life that I look at my friends lives and wish I had what they have. I wish that had their job. I wish that I had their car. I wish that I had their __________. You get the idea.
The reality in life is this. We could go move into our neighbor’s house and have their nice green lawn. But it will eventually turn brown. Because there was an original reason why their grass was greener than mine. They watered and cared for it. They pulled the weeds out. They mowed it on a regular basis. They put down fertilizer. They were patient and waited for the results to show.
If we want to have greener grass in our lives, the answer isn’t to move into our neighbor’s house. The answer is to start taking care of our own lawn. So take some time today to water your lawn and pull a few weeds. Cause the only way your lawn is going to get greener is if you start focusing on it and stop staring at your neighbors.
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Tech Wednesday - Blog Fathers
If you’ve been keeping track, Shannon only has 10 more days until Asa is due to enter this world (June 1st…make sure to put your guess in for the pool). With this on my mind I’ve been noticing a lot of fathers-to-be on twitter. These are guys that have either just had a kid or are in the pregnancy stage. It’s like there is baby boom in the twitterverse.
So on this Tech Wednesday, I thought I would compile a quick list of all the twitter dads that I know of to date. These are either links to their dedicated blogs or their twitter accounts…whichever one they have.
Erik Anderson - Any man that has more grills than children is ok in my books. Erik has a 2-year-old and another kid due in September.
Joe Day - Joe is a pastor at Mars Hill in Seattle and is about to have twin girls. I’m freaking out about having one…may God give you the strength Joe.
Dustin DeKoekkoek - Dustin’s kid isn’t due until August, but he already has his own twitter account.
Jack Moffitt - Jack’s son was born in January and has already started blogging.
CJ Mills - CJ’s wife just had their son Asher on the 16th….oh yeah…Asher was two month early and they were on vacation. You need to go to his site and read the story. Also pray for Asher and his parents as you can imagine all the things that go along with having a kid that premature.
That’s all the fathers-to-be and recent-fathers in the tech world that I know of right now. If I missed you on the list, make sure to let me know in the comments below. It’s cool to know that I’m not in this crazy process alone.
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I’m sorry for being lazy…
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Count Down to Baby!
photo by: laffy4k
So I realized today that I haven’t given a baby update in awhile. So here is your update. We are currently four weeks from our due date of June 1st. I have to say that there are elivated levels of excitement and fear.
It’s kind of crazy to think that we are about to be parents. In no time at all, I’m going to be losing sleep and changing diapers. But I’m also going to get to use all the cool stuff that we’ve gotten for the kid.
We have the nursery pretty much ready to go (we still have to get a few minor items) thanks to two baby showers that were thrown for us. I’ve been having fun the last few weeks/days setting things up. I even have the car seat base already in the car. I know…I’m a nerd.
It’s also been fun getting to feel Asa move. He is already in posistion (head down) and has been really active. It’s crazy to watch Shannon’s stomach rise and fall. And from what we’ve noticed of his activity, we are going to have a night baby (he takes after his daddy). So, it looks like I’ve got a lot of late nights in the near future.
Speaking of the near future. Don’t forget to put in your guess for when our bundle of joy is going to enter this world.
Well that is pretty much it in baby world. We’re just getting ready here on the home front. Preparing the nursery and taking birthing classes.
Here is one question for all the parents out there. What was one thing that you think every new parent should have that they don’t typically get beforehand?
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Why I think being “organic” is stupid?
For those of you that know me, I’m a pretty cynical guy. I try my best to not be that way on this blog, but I decided that I had speak out about this one.
For awhile now I’ve noticed the concept of being “organic” has been creeping into the church. It’s become a buzz word. Whole ministries and churches are changing everything they do to be more “organic.” I even have a book on my shelf called Organic Church. But I’m coming out and saying publicly that I think being organic is stupid. I know I’m probably going to get some flack for this, but I don’t care. It’s just stupid. Let me tell you why.
Yesterday I was at a church meeting for the leaders of the small groups in our church (we call them Neighborhoods…it sound edgy and vague 
). For some reason, the word organic kept coming up.
We wanted our groups to form “organically.” We wanted to be “organic” yet intentional. It was like everyone was getting payed $5 every time they used the word organic. I was expecting someone to start marketing an Organic Pyramid Scheme at any moment.
Now I like the concept that they were trying to get across. That we shouldn’t be forcing relationship to happen in our church, but we also shouldn’t be sitting on our butts just hoping that relationships will happen.
My problem is with the fact that we were attributing so much power to “organic.” Who the hell is organic and when did he/she/it start leading the church?! The last time I check that was Jesus’ job.
We aren’t lead by some impersonal force:
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. - Jeremiah 29:11
Life, relationships, and groups don’t come about by some impersonal force:
In him we live and move and have our being - Acts 17:28
So I’ll say it again, attributing anything to this impersonal force called “organic” is just stupid. So if you are a church leader, please stop referring to organic as the leader of anything. Give glory where glory is due and trust in the true leader of the church. His name is Jesus and He’s a much better leader than organic.
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Tech Wednesday - PicLens
Ok…I know I’m a day late. But this is worth it. My friend Dave Ortega told me about this one and I’m totally sucked in now. It’s called PicLens. You have to watch the video to understand. I can’t explain it. If you have FireFox, download it and start using it now.
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Let me introduce you to my new blog….
If you’ve been following me on twitter, you know that this day has been coming for awhile now. I finally launched theBeerean.com. This is my new blog that is focused on the world of beer through the eyes of a Christian.
This is the reason I won’t have the Beer Tip of the Day on this site anymore. But don’t worry, I will continue to write on this blog. GregQualls.com will be where I will share my spiritual/theological/biblical/personal/youtube.comical insights. TheBeerean.com is where I plan so share all my beerical/theological/cultural insights.
I also plan to do a weekly video podcast on theBeerean.com called Beer Tip of the Week. I’ll give a new tip each week to help people enjoy their beer more.
This is a new venture for me and I’m really excited. I would ask you as a friend if you have your own blog, would you give theBeerean.com a little shout out. It’s hard getting a blog started from scratch. You need all the help you can get. For those of you don’t have a blog if you cold please tell everyone you know, it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for all your love and support, and I hope you to see your shining faces at theBeerean.com soon (I know I can’t really see you…or can I?)
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Tech Wednesday - ESV Study Bible
Ok I know…it’s a book. Some might say that a book isn’t technology, but I say tell that to Gutenberg. Anyways back to the point at hand. Crossway recently annouced it is coming out with an ESV Study Bible in Ocober. For most of you this won’t be a big deal, but I’m totally geeking out on this one.
Let me give you a run down of the authors in this Study Bible:
That’s just the authors. This thing has:
I’ve also heard that buyng this study Bible will garuntee a place in heaven and a new BMW. Ok maybe not. But the free online version is a nice plus. All I have to say is I own too many Bibles already, but I might have to add one more to my collection.
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Grilling with Greg - Brisket
This one was only done with about three hours of sleep. So it doesn’t contain as much humor as the last one, but it will teach how to make on heck of a smoked brisket.
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26 Tips for Spending time with God…Hardcore Style
photo by: JasonRogers
If you’re like me, you have trouble spending time with God (I don’t like to use the words quiet time…it makes me feel like I’m five and in a “time out”). I’ve written in the past on some tips and tricks that I use to do this daily. But just like in a marriage relationship, sometimes you just need to spend more than a few minutes with your spouse. You need to spend the whole day. I call this spending time with God hardcore style.
I learned this concept from Doug Fields a few years ago. He talked about one of his youth saying that they “take God on a date.” Now taking God on a date is a little creepy for me, but I liked the concept. The idea is to just spend some extended time with God and nobody else.
To do this, I normally take an afternoon and spend the entire time reading scripture, praying, walking, reading some more, praying some more, and walking some more. The idea is to have a large chunk of time that is devoted to nothing but growing closer to God. This isn’t time to study your Bible and parse Greek verbs…this is time to just be with your Creator, Savior, and Sustainer.
The following are 26 quick tips that can help you with your hardcore time with God.
- Get out of your house. There are to many distractions there. To many things to play with.
- Get away from people.
- Go to a park or go hiking. Go be in His creation.
- Wear comfortable clothing.
- Turn off everything…phone, pager, radio, ipod, laptop, ect. If it has an on/off, make it off.
- Look for God in everything and then give Him the glory.
- Take your Bible (ESV ), a pen, and something to write on.
- Anytime you think about something that you need to do when you get home, write it down and forget about it. This will allow you to focus on your time with God. (this is a good practice in general)
- Take a list of prayer requests and things/people you want to pray for.
- Have an agenda/time line.
- Don’t have an agenda/time line.
- Pray, pray, pray
- Take a snack and some cash.
- Take some water.
- Tell one person where you are going to be in case of emergencies (your wife goes into labor). This helps to keep your thoughts from being overtaken.
- Read through a whole book of the Bible several times.
- Read through a passage of scripture several times.
- Read all the gospels in one sitting (it can be done in an afternoon).
- Fast
- Eat
- Just walk and talk to God as if He was walking right next to you.
- Take a short nap (it’s better to sleep for 20 minutes than to fight it for 3 hrs).
- Write out your prayers to God.
- Pray for God to reveal sin in your life that is keeping you from Him.
- Take some time to sit and listen to God.
- Be diligent to focus on God and your relationship.
Well I hope that helps. I’m off to go spend some hardcore time with God. Leave me a comment, with any tips that you might have for spending hardcore time with God.
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