The Future

For those of you who don’t know, I’m going on a bit of an adventure starting next month. I have resigned from my position at DPC and don’t have a clear vision for the future. I know that it will include another short trip to Uganda (at least 3 weeks in July), and some time in Washington DC (northern Uganda Lobby Days at the end of June), but other than that it’s up in the air. For the fun of it I decided to write a quick list of possibilities that have entered my mind:

1. Take off my shoes, empty my wallet, grab my Bible and just start walking.

2. Start a non-profit to promote radical unity within the body of Christ.

3. Wander around Africa as the Spirit leads.

4. Join forces with my brother to bring the gospel to unreached people groups.

5. Start a church in Selma.

6. Intern with Jesse and help him push the cart so he can retire.

7. Find a way to get paid for being Matt Naylor.

8. Live off of the generosity of my amazing friends and encourage them in their walks with God.

9. Offer to work for food and housing for any ministry who just needs a little extra help and encouragement.

10. Become an internet phenomenon (this may be closely related to #7).

11. Walk through whatever door God opens when I’m in Uganda.

12. Pray and wander until I have seen how God is at work in the following places: Guatemala, Thailand, India, Swaziland, Australia, and throughout East Africa.

13. Keep writing until I get something published.

14. See if I can get kicked out of a seminary. Preferably for loving Jesus and believing the Bible rather than for anything related to #10.

15. Find a wife who is willing to join me in any of the preceding ventures.

Random Points

A friend of mine introduced me to the concept of random points. Basically, you accumulate points based on actions and conversations that come out of the blue. The more confused the people around you, the more points you accumulate. This could include random injections into conversation or bizarre interactions. For example:

“Just for random points,” I said mischievously as I reached into my pocket to get something. I placed the object on the footrest in front of her.

With consternation and amusement she voiced the perfect words, “What is that!?”

“It’s a dog wearing sunglasses. I found it on the ground.”

Random points achieved.

Interesting Word Study

In my preparations for Sunday I came upon an interesting set of words in English that come from the same Greek word-family.

Eucharist, Eulogy, and Euphoria.

Just something I found interesting.

Oh yeah, he’s back.

Don’t waste your robbery

On Friday and Saturday of last week I had the opportunity to hear John Piper speak at a Desiring God conference themed by his book Don’t Waste Your Life.  He ended with 20 areas of life not to waste, and I think my favorite by far was his exhortation to not waste your robbery.  It was a point not only inspired by the gospel, but also this NPR article.  Piper noted that although the article doesn’t mention Christ, at the very least the would be victim was running off of “Jesus fumes.”

G-lawr-ee

“The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth

and strips the forests bare,

and in his temple all cry, ‘Glory!’ “

Psalm 29:9

Maybe it’s just me, but connecting these three responses to the voice of God paints a fairly humorous mental image. I imagine several rather surprised deer giving birth, the bark and leaves flying off of trees, and a church full of people watching the spectacle shouting “Glory!” in a way that turns it into a three syllable word.

Time Traveling

I just figured out how to adjust the time stamp to be accurate for my location. All my other posts were from 8 hours in the future which means this post will be time stamped as about 7 hours earlier than my last post (Intimacy and Grace). Take that 4th dimension!