The Channels of Life

I was reading a marketing site yesterday where the resident expert was sharing his research on the generational differences in managing media intake. He said that the number of channels (input of information) that our generation can manage simultaneously is 1.7. For example, on average, most of us can watch TV and read a magazine and be full aware of both channels of information. Not bad, huh?

He said, however, that the next generation is more capable of handling up to 5 channels of media simultaneously. So, our children can play a video game, text message, surf the net, IM or chat with someone online, and talk on the telephone and still retain the majority of information. It slowed me down to realize how much more our children and grandchildren will be exposed to just because of the capacity of technology.

I'm not sure I could ever manage that many channels of information at once. I think I need music on in the background while I work, just so I tune out other channels of information, so I can concentrate. I listen to about 20 hours of CDs I've bought over the years, all stored on my hard drive and set to play in random order. They range from Christian Artists on the WOW Collections to individual artists including: Mercy Me, Newsboys, Michael W. Smith, Stephen Curtis Chapman, Casting Crowns, Mark Shultz - oh and just about Good Christian artists for the last 6 or 7 years.

Anyway, while I work, I listen. This morning, I found a website that has wonderful videos that also tell the messages with visuals. Here's one I found that just settled me.





So, while I get back into work today, I hope and pray that a little "GodTube" channels it's way into your life, and you can be blessed to take in a little more Him while the world is trying to overwhelm you with every other channel in this life.

A Funny Thing Happened While My Children Grew Up

I'm not sure how it happened, but while my children grew up I seem to have grown up, too. Somewhere between the "playing pattycake" with my infant son's hands, teaching him to drive donuts in a parking lot before he received his learner's permit, and going over his budget with him before he moved into his own apartment, I grew up.

I remember believing the lie that when I turned 20, I was almost too old to get married, and that I needed to get started in my life. I remember arrogantly telling my parents that I knew everything I needed to make informed decisions: when to get married, when to drop out of college because getting a degree wasn't going to affect my career, how to pick life-long friends, and what to do when problems arise.

Looking back, I can see the love my parents had for me in their eyes. They conversed rationally with me as I emotionally errupted on every point with them. I was determined and headstrong. I believed the lie that I knew what was best for me, and they were trying to hold me back from happiness.

In The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren explains that "Spiritual growth is the process of replacing lies with truth." Over the past twenty-five plus years, I've experienced the pain of many of the lies I believed, but I've also experienced some unchanging truths that carried me through the brokenness and hardships. The lies were replaced with the truth: God's Truth. Sixty-six books worth of truth - the Bible. And the reality that I definitely didn't know enough then, and still don't know enough now on how to guide my life without God's Truth from the Bible has tamed my arrogance.

Maybe being a grown up means accepting that I am forever a child in the eyes of God, and that I've never had to make my own decisions without Him. He's always listened, even when I'm so emotional I'm more like a volcano than a child. He's always cared about the tiniest consequences for my arrogance, stubbornness, and self-misdirection. He's been calmly filling my heart with the Truths of His Love, His Character and even His Purpose for me while I've been filling my head with lies and misinformation. He's the only one who knows what's best for me.

I now look at my sons with great love and patience. Just like my parents did to me. Just like God does for me with every day. Maybe now, I am a grown-up.

Mimicking the Psalms

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. 2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,and on his law he meditates day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water,which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither.Whatever he does prospers. 4 Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. 5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. 6 For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,but the way of the wicked will perish. - Psalms 1:1-6 (NIV)

There are 150 Psalms to read and meditate in the Bible. Each one has a purpose in the context it was written and now in the context of my life. So, I've been trying to get the "pattern" of Psalms in my mind, heart and especially my prayer life. There are times, especially when my emotions are huge and my patience level is tiny, that I need to write my own Psalms to God in my prayers.

I've noticed that almost all of the Psalms in the Bible have these components:

• Recap - my human situation
• Reframe - from God's perspective
• Rejoice - about God's power and ultimate control

I think that the mistake I often make is that I leave out or rearrange the order of these components. For instance, if I just skip straight to the "rejoice" component, and leave out the "recap" element, I still feel distant from God. I need the time to be honest with God, tell Him what I am really thinking and feeling, and trust Him with my human situation. Yes, I know that God knows what's going on, but I need to use my words to describe and communicate with God. It is the "relational" time I have with God: telling Him what's going on and what I am feeling.

"Reframing" my situation from my perspective to God's perpective is equally important. The God of eternity knows what the outcome of my circumstances will be, and I need to take time trying to view my short-term problems with His long-term results. There are times when my heart hurts so deeply, I can't see my situations from God's view. Suffering, pain, loneliness, loss - these are just a few of my human perspectives that need Godly refocus. This is the hardest component for me. I have to remember God's character as He reveals it to me through the Word and through the work of the Holy Spirit in my heart. Is He trying to grow my character? Is He trying to build my dependence on Him? Is He teaching me that He's the only one with perfect love for me?

"Rejoicing" is the culmination of the Psalms and of my life. After I've taken time to relate to God, to share my heart honestly and vulnerably with Him by recapping, then use all the things I know about God - His Character, my purpose and His plan for me - I can truly rejoice in Him. True rejoicing happens when I take the time and effort to recap and reframe my life. Those previous components help me be more authentic before God in my rejoicing. The more real I am before rejoicing or worshiping God, I've learned then my rejoicing is more true to my heart. I want my life to be a Psalm for God.

Mementos in all kinds of shapes and sizes

"In the future, when your children ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever." Josh 4:6-7 (NIV)

I have a large collection of plastic cups in my kitchen. My collection started when my first son moved on from breast milk and bottles to holding his own cup as a toddler. It was always important to me that my children drank plenty of milk, so the only real choices I gave them were about the cup their milk would be poured into. "Do you want your milk in the red cup or the blue one?" (Note that I rarely asked them if they wanted anything else but milk to drink.) Each boy adapted to their favorite cups and life went on with plenty of spilled milk in the process.

Zoom ahead twenty some odd years in time. I still have a bountiful collection of plastic cups in my kitchen. Two whole shelves in the cabinet closest to the refrigerator are their storage and selection display. Some are mementos from restaurants, others are take-homes from trade shows, retreats and school fundraising events. I do have some cups that actually match each other - like they were part of a complete set - but mostly they were used during those "have-to-be-fair-and-give-the-same-amount-to-both" years of parenting. Some of them have barely recognizable logos and images on the sides, while others have indelible stains and scratches from non-milk related activities in the backyard.

The collection of cups is worth little to anyone else but a mom who remembers her grown children's once tiny hands wrapped around them and the simultaneous milk mustache that occurred. Each silly old plastic cup has a fond memory for me tied to it.

Does God have fond memories stored up of our close times with Him? Does He have mementos about those quiet times while reading His Word that we "spilled the milk" of our problems, insecurities, circumstances and brokenness before Him? Do we still have the "cups" stored in our heart cabinet of times of nourishment and refreshment with God?

I love knowing that God wants us to remember close times with Him in our spiritual lives. From Noah to Revelation, the Bible recounts stories of people building altars to worship God and remember what He's done in our lives. Stopping to praise God after every battle, after every journey, after every milestone is important - to us and to God.