Luke’s Notebook

Just recently, I’ve been invited to be a part of a ski trip with my uncle and a couple of younger cousins in Colorado, in or near the Rocky Mountains. It looks like I will be able to make it, and we are tentatively planning on making the trip for a few days sometime in March.

I have never been skiing before, so I’m pretty ecstatic to be able to join them! The mountains are supposed to be gorgeous, and I’m sure skiing will be a blast. I don’t know how long it will take me to get the hang of skiing, but I’m optimistic that I’ll catch on pretty quickly. I sure hope so, because I believe we’ll only have two days to ski, and I’d like to graduate from the bunny slopes before leaving!

I’m not entirely sure what to expect from the whole trip, but it sounds like it will be very beautiful, and just a whole lot of fun. What’s also great is that I get to spend some quality time with family. It’s always neat when you have these unique chances to be with people that you wouldn’t normally have a chance to spend so much time with. What a cool opportunity!

I love how God will give certain distinct themes during different parts of life. I also love that God is kind enough to regulate the flow of lessons, as I’d be completely overwhelmed if He would just unleash everything all at once.

What’s front-and-center for me recently is realizing the best way to get something — whether it’s a situation, a relationship, or a job. Typical thinking would lead me to believe that if I want something, then I just go out and get it; I make it happen. In fact, that’s kind of the American way — “Nobody’s stopping you. Conquer the world. Be all that you can be. Take your future into your own hands.”

While this might seem like a noble approach, it’s actually very, very different than the approach that we see in the Bible. From Matthew 6:

“31So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Jesus tells us to seek first God and His righteousness, and then these things will be given to us. And then elsewhere, we’re told to simply take delight in God, and He’ll give us our heart’s desires. To be simply be still, knowing that He is God.

Over and over, the recipe for success is not to worry, to fry your brain trying to figure something out. The answer is so simple: Stop thinking. Just seek God. Just work on pleasing Him, getting close to Him, obeying Him, knowing Him.

It’s incredible how this works. My brain would tell me that in order to get what I want or to solve a problem, I need to be working on it 24/7. I need to clear the deck, and to not rest until something is solved, or until things are exactly as I would want them.

But that doesn’t work. It just doesn’t! It’s so frustrating, and it will simply burn you out. You try to figure it out on your own, and you think you have a handle on things, but there’s so much stress, so much unrest. Then you see what happens when God is behind something. How naturally it happens. How “easy” it seems.

Now, I’m obviously not advocating laziness. In fact, there is often a tremendous amount of work to do when God is telling you to do something. I’m just saying that our efforts are so futile, produce so little, if God is not in it.

As I was writing this paragraph, I was reminded, “Oh, yeah. That’s Biblical!” Psalm 127:

Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain.

When God says it’s time to build, then of course there is going to be plenty of action. But if God hasn’t given the green light, we’ll just be frustrating ourselves by trying to make something out of nothing.

The reason this is so important for me to remember is because I can easily slip into that mode where I start to think everything is up to me. It’s up to me to figure out how to make money. It’s up to me to find a wife. It’s up to me to fix different problems. My logic would say that the best way to accomplish these things is to go straight after them.

But history has proven so many times that, while that may be the popular approach in the world, God’s promises are still true, and that means that if you truly do seek Him first, He will take care of these things — in extremely tangible ways!

The best way that I can think of to describe this idea is to use a hunting analogy. I’m no hunter, but I think that, generally speaking, if you want to shoot a moose, you aim your gun at him, and then pull the trigger. Pretty straightforward, I would imagine. That is, if you want something, the best way to get it is to go straight for it. The shortest distance between Point A and Point B is a straight line.

But… following God, it’s like you’re a hunter who is using a gun with crooked sights. So in order to hit that moose, you actually have to point in the complete opposite direction. You’ll look foolish and reckless. But, because of the way the gun is made, you’ll hit a bulls-eye. It defies logic.

Basically, the lesson to me is that the quickest way to accomplish anything is to get close to God. Amazingly, He has ways to seemingly “warp” us ahead in situations. I have seen it happen in my family so many times. Conventional wisdom says that if you are holding still, you’re not making any progress. But if you are holding still as a result of God saying “Stay,” then once He tells you “Go,” He has ways to somehow make up for what you could be tempted to perceive as lost time.

So the lesson for me is to remember that these promises are true. They are very clear there in the Bible, and I have seen them work over and over. I’m amazed that I could still have the tendency to start to doubt or worry, and I thank God for His tremendous patience with me.

Also, I need to remember how real God is. When Jesus said that God knows we need food and clothing, it’s comforting! It’s so tangible. But when I really think about it, of course it is! God made us. He made food. He made the need for food. He made weather and the need for clothing. Of course He knows what we need. Of course He is aware of this world and what it takes to function.

I don’t think we can ever overestimate just how real, just how present God is, and just how much He loves us. He just really, really cares for us. And if we would love Him and spend time with Him, put Him first in our lives, then He is going to take care of us.

And one giant leap for — well, it’s not that big of a deal, I guess.

Anyway, the announcement! FamTeam Today now has video posts. The first-ever one, by the way, is very memorable, as it shows a pink loaf of bread that Mary-Elizabeth made in the bread oven.

But today, January 15, 2009 (2009 — wow), is the day we were able to make video posts straight from our BlackBerry cell phones to FamTeam Today.

FamTeam Today has been around a little over four years now, and looking back, there have been a few landmark days. The most significant was June 4th of 2007, when the first picture post was made. Six months later, on December 13th, 2007, we introduced the voice-posting feature.

Unfortunately, that feature is gone — as of now, anyway — as the BlackBerries we have don’t work very well for voice-only posts. It’s actually kind of strange that such an advanced device can’t easily do that, but it’s basically just a technical limitation. The last voice post was made on October 10, 2008, by John.

Bringing us back to today. We now have the ability to post videos instantly, from anywhere. This really excites me! I think of posts from our different trips. Maybe a video from a sandy beach, or from the top of a mountain. Once softball gets going again, perhaps we’d be able to give game updates!

We have a lot of options now. Pink bread is only the beginning!

Technically speaking, this was a pretty big challenge. Normally, it wouldn’t be such an issue, but again, due to the phones we have (BlackBerry Curves) and the cell phone company (Sprint), things were a lot trickier.

For some reason, we don’t have picture or video mail. We can send and receive text messages just fine to a 10-digit cell number. But we can’t send picture or video messages to a cell phone number.

We have e-mail access on the devices, so it’s not really a huge deal, because we can e-mail pictures or videos to anyone. When it comes to “true” picture/video messaging — or MMS, as they call it (multimedia messaging service) — we can’t do that. Perhaps in the future, as Sprint releases updates to the BlackBerries, but not now.

Anyway, that made things a lot harder, because a lot of sites (such as YouTube) allow videos sent from cell phones. But because we don’t have that true video messaging, it just doesn’t work like it’s supposed to. So a workaround was needed.

I’ve toyed around with roughly 10 different video sites like YouTube, and it has been extremely difficult to find one that would work. It really doesn’t seem like that hard of a task, but with the unique limitations and requirements, it ended up being quite tricky! It was surprisingly difficult to find a site/service that could do what is really a very simple function.

Last night, I was just browsing some websites on my laptop, and I had some inspiration. I saw a link to this site I had checked out before — Motionbox — and decided to visit it again, and try to figure out why I had left it or ruled it out.

Long story short, I sent a test video from my BlackBerry, it worked, and I was very excited. Since it was getting into the wee hours of the morning, I decided to break and pick it up today.

It was a big, messy job, but I’m thrilled with the outcome! It now works beautifully. I record a video on my BlackBerry, send it to a certain e-mail address, and within a matter of minutes, the video is up on FamTeam Today. Just incredible!

Now the main question mark is whether or not this will be reliable. Since the solution I came up with is akin to fixing something with duct tape, it’s not necessarily the most ideal fix, and there are plenty of points where a little hiccup could mess things up. For now, though, it looks like this patchwork job will do okay. We’ll just have to wait and see how it holds up over time. I’m optimistic that we’ll be all right.

So just a few weeks ago, I posted a pair of pretty long entries, all about dieting, exercising, and calories. My main point was that every calorie matters, every day matters.

What’s funny — and kind of embarrassing — is to read what I wrote in mid-December, and then to follow my actions over the following couple of weeks, specifically around Christmas and New Year’s. Long story short, I really went to town. I just ended up eating a whole lot of food on Christmas Eve, Day, and New Year’s Day.

It’s so ironic that I could write these entries entitled “60 Calories,” where I’m basically saying everything counts, and then I go and just eat a whole lot in the following days.

Needless to say, I felt kind of hypocritical, because I had just kind of reminded myself the importance of really taking every calorie seriously, and I just went ahead and ate several thousand calories in a few days.

In trying to dissect it all and figure out just why it happened, I think I have a pretty good explanation. While I very much knew the truth, knew the rules to the game, and knew how to eat wisely, I simply didn’t do anything about it.

Really, I just had no plan; I had no strategy, other than just the general, “Okay, let’s just see what happens” approach. So then what happened was I saw a cookie here, and so I would pick it up. Or there would be some crackers, and I would snack on them. Or some other desserts, or other entrees, or other snacks. Before long, I had snacked on pretty much everything, and even though it didn’t really feel like a gorging, as it was so gradual, I ended up eating way, way too much.

It’s frustrating in the sense that it’s a setback. If calories were dollars, and you were just trying to save every penny you could, you would be pretty upset with yourself if you just wasted $5,000 on some foolish purchase.

That’s kind of how I felt. I was confidently stating how important it is to be smart with the calories, to conserve where you can, and here I go and do this.

So I’ve been paying off my debt over the last week, and I’m doing a pretty good job, I think. Really, there was no major damage; after all, even with complete pigging out, there’s only so much weight you can gain in a few days.

Why I’m writing about this, though, is because as I was reeling from what I had just done, I started to realize the tremendous gap between what I said and what I did.

I said all the right things. What I said was true, and I think they are very wise principles to follow. Yet… I didn’t even follow them. You’d think that I, after “preaching” all of this, would have the easiest time following it. I’d be the most convinced, and I would have no problem following my own advice.

I’m really not too concerned about this, as if it was some character issue or lack of integrity. But it just brought to my attention how incredibly easy it is to say all the right things, and it is a whole ‘nother thing actually doing them.

See, talk can be so cheap. There are so many words out there. So many books, so many shows, so many sermons, so many blogs, so many opinions. The words don’t really mean anything if there isn’t the action behind them to back them up.

So what I really want to do is eliminate the what-I-say-to-what-I-do gap. If it was a ratio, I’d want to at the very least have a 1:1 ratio, if not a 1:2, where I actually would be better than advertised, so to speak, where what I do would far outweigh whatever I talk about.

One thing that I’ve noticed about this family is that Mom and Dad have always been very result-oriented, and they have helped us all have a culture of that. We know that talk isn’t really going to be worth much of anything if there isn’t the action, the character to support it.

I don’t think talk is bad, but I do think it really need to be secondary to a lifestyle that people can look to and actually see or experience. With Mom and Dad, they haven’t had to give a whole lot of long-winded explanations for why they do certain things, because their good fruit is so obvious.

I’ve been talking with a few different friends and family members over the past little while, and it’s clear that there is absolutely no shortage of words out there, especially these days. What we desperately need is people who are willing to actually do the things!

Most people have a pretty good idea of what they should and should not do in life, yet surprisingly few actually are willing to follow that and change their lifestyle accordingly. And I think that’s what we need, and that’s why I really want to be careful about what I write or say. If I ever challenge somebody to a higher standard, then I sure had better be there myself. If not, what am I saying? Essentially that I either don’t believe it’s possible, or that I simply don’t believe it’s worth it. Either way, it’s a really bad example.

1 Corinthians 9:27

No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

I like how Paul was aware of the danger of preaching without actually living it out himself. I don’t want to overestimate my role, but I know I have plenty of people looking up to me, even simply as a big brother, and I have a responsibility to set a good example. So I want to live a life of doing things, of being Jesus to people, where “preaching” isn’t even necessary.

Obviously, I want to always be ready to talk with someone or answer questions, but it’s so much more powerful if somebody can simply experience the love of God, since words can only say so much.

We just started watching the Ken Burns documentary on World War II, entitled “The War.” I really don’t know as much about WWII (or WWI, for that matter) as I would like to know. I know a pretty good amount about the Civil War, as we have watched several documentaries/movies on the war, plus we have visited many, many Civil War sites over the years.

One thing that is so striking when hearing about wartime is just how good we have it now. We live such comfortable, such peaceful lives. For the most part, we are very, very safe, very secure. I know people’s environments will vary, but by and large, we just have such a flourishing country here. We just have it SO good.

My problems, my “crises” are almost laughable, really, when put into perspective. Even then, I still have this amazing, healthy family. I still have food to eat — so much, in fact, and such a variety that it’s actually a challenge to not overeat. I still live in a safe house that’s warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Still have a soft bed. Still have plumbing. Still have electricity. Still have pure water. Still can go outside at any given time, and not be afraid of anything.

I can go on and on. So many things I just take for granted! I’m realizing that when my biggest concerns are about trying to fight away a few extra pounds or about just wanting to upgrade an already-amazing aspect of my life, then I sure need to work hard to keep things in perspective. If those types of things are really the worst conflicts I have going on in my life, then I should never, ever be tempted to do anything but just thank God for such an amazing life, for such incredible gifts.

It’s so easy to get spoiled these days, because we just have it so good. If we were in a time of war, famine, or sickness, then all of a sudden, I bet the vast majority of everything we worry about and lose sleep over would seem so insane, so trivial. But since we have food, since we have our health, since we live in a free country, we can actually have the time to get restless. And instead of just constantly thanking God for such an amazing country, we can start to complain about little minute details.

I’ve never been real big on New Year’s resolutions and all that, but one thing that I have been focusing on lately and want to continue to focus on is to just have an ongoing heartfelt “Thank You” from me to God. We just have it so good…