renown

a couple weeks ago i was working at a table outside Starbucks. it was a beautiful day and i was "in the zone" writing or ideating about something when the conversation of 2 college girls sitting behind me caught my attention.

it was obvious that they were both college students, probably at UNCC. 1 of them was really upset and the other friend was just trying to "be there" for her.

Because...
1 of her close friends had just committed suicide the day before.

let that sink in.

pretty heavy.

Her friend was obviously in mourning and i was putting my head phones in to try and give them some more privacy... but as i was cranking up some music i heard the friend of the girl who killed herself saying something like...

"She had posted on Facebook a couple days ago - 'my life is a mess. i don't have anything to live for.' i sent her a text and told her it's OK and that we could talk any time..."

the other girl at the table said - "Yeah i noticed her status saying that. then today i saw hundreds of people writing on her Facebook wall about how much they were going to miss her, what a wonderful person she was, how great they thought she was, etc..."

then the girl whose friend had just died got really passionate and said - "See, if all of those people would have just told her how they feel BEFORE, she would have never killed herself! Why did they wait til now?"

YOUR    WORDS   ARE   POWERFUL.

let me say that again...

your
words
are
powerful.

sitting at that table that day brought new and powerful meaning to the quip from Proverbs that = "The tongue has the power of life and death."
or, as another translation puts it = "Words kill, words give life; they're either poison or fruit—you choose."

no wonder Proverbs says that. it's because your words are more powerful than you think!

so use them wisely. use them LIBERALLY. GIVE THEM AWAY!

speak those kind words you want to say.

let those encouraging words fly off your tongue.

when you think something awesome about someone TELL THEM! don't just sit on it.

SAY IT! because who knows...
you may not get another chance.

i love to read Proverbs every day. ever since freshman year of college i've read 1 chapter a day (corresponding to the day of the month). this habit has helped make an unwise guy like me a little less and less unwise through the years.

in college one of my best friends, Ethan, had the same habit so we would often talk about what we read that day. those were some great conversations. But every month when it came to the 30th one of us would ask the other - "Dude, do you know what a hyrax is?"

nope. no idea. never even heard of it. but apparently, hyraxes are one of 4 things Agur (the author) says are "small, yet extremely wise".

verse 26 tries to tell us why they're so wise and even describe them a little bit = "hyraxes are creatures of little power, yet they make their home in the crags..."

huh. life changing, eh?

but it really did bug us. for years. we asked people. looked it up. we kind of just always pictured a beaver.

but then Crystal and i went to Kenya last Fall. a place where we stayed the 1st 10 days was crawling with these little fury creatures.

there were tons of them running around everywhere and this is one of the pics i snapped of them.
i asked a guy one day - "what are these things?"
"Hyraxes" he said.

case closed. now i've seen them up close and in person.

here's the really funny part. They would always be crowded all along the little path where we would walk to go to breakfast. Usually they would scurry off out of our way when we would come walking by. but i guess they're so wise that they can sense FEAR. because my wife, Crystal, was definitely afraid of them. (in her defense, they did have these massive sharp teeth.)

one day i went out early and was coming back to our room to see what was taking Crystal so long to come to breakfast. halfway back to our room i heard Crystal shouting "Patrick! help me!"
These little hyraxes had her cornered on all sides and she just stood there frozen as they inched closer. there were like 30 of them! she was pretty much freaking out.

it was a fairly funny scene, but of course i tried not to laugh. i just jumped up there and started shouting like a crazy man and clapping really loud and they all ran away.

now every time the 30th rolls around and i read this Proverb it makes me laugh when i come to verse 26. i can see those hyraxes chasing Crystal around. haha... they are pretty wise creatures i guess.

Crystal still says they are dumb.

(I originally posted this to renown on November 4, 2009.)
 
"Those who give to the poor will lack nothing,
but those who close their eyes to them receive many curses."
 - Proverbs 28:27

dang! just read that this morning for probably the millionth time. Can't get away from it so I figured I would write about it in my journal... and now here on my online journal = the renown blog.

that is pretty intense. Pretty hard core. "give... lack nothing... many curses."

I really want to give a lot to the poor. I want to give all I have in fact. There's no sense in me having a lot when some people have nothing.

I can always give more though... and I want to keep trying to give more & more. But I will agree with God's promise in this verse = "give to the poor & lack nothing." I honestly "lack nothing."

On the other hand... "those who close their eyes to them receive many curses." whoa.
So, basically God's financial advice is this: "Give to the poor and have everything you need. Don't give to the poor and you're screwed."

*But I kept reading that sentence over and over and it's even deeper than that! this phrase grabbed me = "those who close their eyes to them"

It's not just those who don't give... it's those who actually close their eyes to the poor. And I'm like "how in the world could anybody close their eyes to the poor?" Then it hit me that this is for us today. It's an indictment of OUR culture! WE close our eyes to the poor! US. American Christians close our eyes to them all the time.

We walk past the homeless guy and look the other way. We see and hear about children dying in Africa because they don't have clean water and we just go about making our car payments! we're closing our eyes to them!

I don't really know what "many curses" looks like for us? but I'm pretty sure it's not good.

I think our ultimate motives for giving to the poor should be an unquenchable love for God and His fame and bringing His Kingdom on earth. And also loving our poor neighbors like we love ourselves. (something like the 2 greatest commands...)

BUT, even though these should be our ultimate motives, I don't think this is a half bad financial plan either!
GIVE to the poor = lack nothing
Follow the rest of our culture and close your eyes to the poor = many curses.

seems like a no brainer to me.

this is a little private peek into my soul. i hope it's not too personal.

wise & risky & passionate & loving.
that was my prayer this morning.

kind of random like most conversations are and those 4 things just flowed together.

i need them.

we probably all need a double dose of each. so i'm asking for them. and i'm going to keep asking for them a lot.

i do have a crazy love for people. people i see, people i know, and people half a world away that i've never met. i love them. i want the best life possible for them.
but i'm praying that God would make me MORE loving. i want a love like God has for people.

but that love in me sparks this ridiculous vision God's birthed in me for the world. audacious and ridiculous. i'm passionate to see it happen. i'm passionate to be a part of this revolutionary vision. becoming more loving makes me become more passionate.

as far as i can tell, along with more passion comes more risk. so i want to be risky. i'm asking God to make me risky... and then even riskier. i am going to need to take some serious risks in my life time. This love and this passion in me is going to require risk.

but God, please give me Your wisdom to go along with being risky. i'm begging God to make me wise. i want to be risky and wise, not risky and stupid. there's a great balance in there somewhere and i hope i can find it. i really want to be wise like the proverbs talk about. not safe, but wise.

and that's my prayer. a peek into my soul.

God, make me wise & risky & passionate & loving.

i love me some Proverbs. i read one everyday - the chapter number of whatever day of the month it is.

it's crazy how much Proverbs talks about MONEY! Last summerish as i read through each chapter in Proverbs i wrote down every single time it talks about Money! Pages and pages and pages i filled up. 1 day i'll write about all those thoughts and what it has to say.

but this morning i just read 1 chapter. 28. because today's the 28th. and in just that short little chapter it talks about money in verses 3, 6, 8, 10, 11,16, 19, 20, 22, 25, and 27. Ridiculous. Even more than that talk about money indirectly. pretty much half the chapter.

just a little sampling some of these for fun since it's fresh on my brain:

It's better! i wanna be in that better category. i'll take being poor and blameless any day over rich & perverse.

Sweet. 1st lesson = never exploit, take interest from, or make profit off of the poor... hmmm... seems like most of business is pretty much the opposite. i don't wanna make people hate me but isn't this pretty much what a capitalistic society is all about... taken to it's logical conclusion? i'm just sayin'... i mean, do we just skip principles like this or something?
anyway, 2nd lesson is that all those guys who are exploiting the poor aren't even gonna get all that $ in the end! they're just saving it up for the peeps who are KIND to the poor! that's some beautiful irony.
i wanna be the 2nd guy, not the 1st.

(This was originally posted on January 29, 2009.)

I sat down to read Proverbs 29 today after stuffing myself at the Penguin with a Big Block burger & some fried pickles. (You can read my thoughts about reading Proverbs HERE.)

i LOVE that phrase - "limitless generosity". i think it's beautiful. i just read it from Brennan Manning. not sure if he coined it or got it from somebody else? don't care... it's mine now and it's how i want to live.

when i read the proverbs it feels like "limitless generosity". it feels like that's what we're called to + it's just that generosity is limitlessly talked about!

just 2 days ago i wrote some thoughts on "backwards" or "opposite" generosity in Proverbs. you can read that HERE and now today i'm struck with this from Proverbs 14.

         (Proverbs 23:4-5)

Proverbs 23 this morning was awesome. i have written a few times about how i like reading Proverbs every day. i wrote an article called Proverbs is pimp that you can read HERE. it tells the story of why and when i started & my method...

This is such a great reminder! i love the wise man's straight forward advice -> "Don't wear yourself out to get rich!" man, that's pretty relevant for today.

i admit that way too often i trust my own cleverness (not that i have much). but that's pointless because any day money can just be GONE! (as evidenced by our economy). Feels like this could have been written in 2010 not B.C.

So after reading Proverbs 23 this morning my prayer was: