Tuesday, November 23, 2010

My Favorite Commercial

I just love the Gieco commercials right now. The introduction dude always gets my attention when he says, "can switching to Gieco really save you 15% or more on your car insurance? Does ..."
So I decided in this blog post to rank the top five Geico "Does..." commercials.

1) Does an ex drill instructors make really bad councilors... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhlWddAXSRA
Drill Instructor berates an emotional young man who is expressing his feelings. Favorite line, "well let's go over to Mamby Pamby Land and see if we can find you some self confidence"

2) Does the little piggy really cry wee wee wee all the way home... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F_G2zp-opg
A lady is driving her SUV with the eerily high cry of WEEEEEEEEEEE reverberating through the car. We finally see a little piggy crying WEEEEEEEEEE out the back window all the way through the commercial even after the car stopped in which the driver says, "Max, Max, MAXWELL, YOU'RE HOME" at which time the little pig stops saying WEEEEEEEEE.

3) Is Abraham Lincoln honest? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdy3orO6tQA
Old grainy black and white footage show Abraham Lincoln in a room when his wife walks in and ask "does this dress make my backside look big". Abe is certainly flustered as his wife's backside is indeed big, after a moment he raises his hands and puts his fingers just so far apart and says "Perhaps"...to the angst of his wife.

4) Is having a snowball fight with pitchig great Randy Johnson a bad idea? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yenuvSUKugc&feature=channel
The Big Unit Randy Johnson throws a snowball through a guys arm, feathers from his down jacket falling out as Randy picks him up. The look farther on and see holes in someones garage in a snowball shape...

5) Does Charlie Daniels play a mean fiddle? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aZLw_KBdqc&feature=channel
Country Western star Charlie Daniels is seen playing the tar out of a fiddle. As he finishes you realize he is in a fancy restaurant as he hands the fiddle to a man wearing a tux and says, "That's how you do it, son."

Did I mention that I don't even use Geico? They couldn't save me 15% on all my insurance needs but I love thier commercials non the less.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Christmas is coming...

We always decorate our church so the Sunday after Thanksgiving we have our Christmas Decorations up. It is a real pain in the neck for our staff as we kind of go overboard for Christmas. At our church it is not acceptable to have one little tree on a tabletop with some twinkle lights. No, we go BIG. Multiple trees, lots of light and lots of Holly everwhere.
I know many times as a staff as we are dealing with hanging the lights and the greenery, we probably look at it as a temporary thing that we have to take down in a little more than a month. But JESUS is the reason for the season, and I think we should do it BIG to celebrate him.
So pray for our staff as they bring the seasonal items out of the attic, dust them off and put them on display for all to see as we celebrate the coming of the Savior.
Do you do it BIG at your church or do you just get by?

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Shattered lives...

We have the pleasure each weekend before Thanksgiving of hosting a Teen Challenge program in our area. Each year we have ten to fifteen girls from that program grace us with their presence for our service. And each and every year I am beset by tears and emotions as these girls share the stories of their shattered lives. Many of them abused as children by those close to them. Many of them turning to drugs, alcohol and self mutilation to ease the pain of their suffering souls. But each and every year as I cry tears of sadness hearing the stories of their lives, I also cry tears of joy as I hear the redeeming stories of their lives by the living GOD.
Where pain and shame once lived, now joy and pride of a newfound life is testified to all.
These young ladies are a living testimoney of how GOD can truely change a life.
GOD is still today taking shattered lives and mending them once again into a life worth living.
Shattered lives to Redeemed and repaired.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Planning...

I am remodeling my wife's closet. It was not a planned remodel. After our bed disaster we had to take everything out of our bedroom to dry out the floor. So the closet got trashed and today my wife complained that she did not have enough closet space because the closet was unorganized.
So I jumped into my SuperHero tights and thought I would save the day. Alas, I think I am more prepared to be a SuperVillan than a SuperHero.
You see SuperVillan's usually plan some monumental disaster but forget one little thing leaving room for the SuperHero to save the day. That seems to be what is happening on the closet. I am always a half inch this way or that way from making something work. It seems that everything is just a hair too big or a hair to small for it to work and it is frustrating me.
Now I should not expect some miracle, I am working with absolutely no budget and I am cobbling things together that were leftovers from something else.
I am not sure why I jumped into it without doing some proper planning. Well I do know why I did not plan, and my excuse is not good. My reason for not planning was the job was too small to plan. I figured by the time that I worked out a plan on paper I could have the entire job done. But alas my fiendishly clever plan to conquer my closet has turned into a nightmare. I guess there is nothing that is too small to plan. I just need a SuperHero to come and finish the job.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Drip, drip, drip...

For the last twenty or so years I have slept on a waterbed. Yeah I know I should have grown up many years ago but stay with me.
When I first got married back in the 80's waterbeds were all the rage. My wife and I however went conventional and bought a standard queen size matress and box springs to start our house. However not long after that we developed a hatred toward that matress and box springs. If I remember we bought it used, and we were starting to figure out why its previous master released it. My mother though was dealing with arthritis and the queen size waterbed she had was bothering her joints so we agreed to a trade. We took over our parts, swapped out with her and soon we were floating on a bed of water, warm water to be precise. It was one of those bladder type waterbeds where if your spouse was sleeping too close to the edge, you could actually send them flying out of the bed with a well timed flop. We absolutely loved that bed, it was warm as soon as you got in, soft as a pillow and the gentle waves lulled you to sleep. Waterbed 1.0 was great, then we got a pair of cats.
Yeah those cats ran through our bed one night while we were sleeping and we awoke with wet sheets from about a hundred claw marks that had penetrated the bladder. It is never a good thing to wake up feeling wet and cold in your own bed. It brings back bad memories of childhood that no one wants to relive. Well that was the end of that water bed, waterbed 1.0 died so we went searching for another bed.
What we found filled our hearts with joy. My brother in law was moving and decided he did not want to move his KING size soft side waterbed and offered it to us. It was the best of both worlds!! It was WATERBED 2.0! The hard wooden sides that greeted you every morning with a smack to your ankles or cut into your thighs as you manuvered yourself out of waterbed 1.0 had been replace with soft foamy edges on the 2.0 model. The free floating bladder from model 1.0 had been enhanced with some kind of foam in the middle that made bed 2.0 "waveless". Now I will tell you in just certain situations a flop from enormous heights still will create enough of a wave in a waveless waterbed that is capable of spilling your spouse right out into the floor. But the smaller waves of just rolling over disappeared overnight with that magical foam. The other great thing about this bed was it took standard size sheets. No longer did we have to shop at "Waterbeds R Us" to get our sheets. No longer would we awake in the night to find the sheets had slipped off and we were laying on a cold plastic filled zip lock bag. We could shop at normal stores, buy those neat frilly sheets that were in style today and they fit like a glove. We were so happy... and then it happened.
We had our first experience with a leak late one night many years into our ownership of waterbed 2.0. We probably had that bed at least 10 years before we ever had a leak. It had this thick cover that wrapped around the entirity of the bladder so cat claws would never come near to penetrating the liquid filled center. It was made of such thick plastic I actually considered putting some goldfish in there so they could swim around. It would be so cool to actually sleep in an aquarium. Of course my wife would never go for that, it would freak her out knowing that she was sleeping actually WITH the fishes!!
So it came as a shock to me when we first experienced a leak in waterbed 2.0. I remember waking up in the middle of the night feeling cold and clammy. As I laid there I realized that I was wet from chest to toe. My first instinct was that I must have had an "accident". I know, I know, I was at this time in my mid 30's, mature and still the first thought I had was that I had wet the bed. As I laid there, cold and wet I suddenly realized that I really had to go to the bathroom, and if I had to go to the bathroom then I could not have wet the bed. It was then that the most horrible thought came to my mind. My thirty something wife must have wet the bed and I am laying in HER "accident".
As a young child I always had to share a room with someone. And because of that sharing my brothers and I always had bunk beds. You know where I am going with this, but don't jump to far ahead. There is a reason why the OLDER sibling always gets the top bunk. There is nothing worse than waking up in the middle of the night to the feeling of rain falling on your body. Nothing worse except when you realize that you are indoors, and that is not rain that is falling.
So as I laid there, cold and clammy in my wife's "accident" I did what every husband, father, and grown man would do. I yelled at the top of my lungs, "YUCKKKKKKKK!!! YOU WET THE BED!!!!" which immediately waked my wife who was still sound asleep. as I jumped out of bed my hasty exit created another problem. You see in a water bed, the heavier of the two individuals displaces more of the bladder's water creating a hole or a depression in the bed. That hole or depression will collect andy and all liquids that are on top of the vinyl bladder of the bed. As I rolled out of the bed the depression that I had been causing was suddenly no longer there and the water quickly found the depression that my wife was now occupying, soaking her from chest to toe as well. She quickly awoke only to tell me she had not had an "accident" ("Yeah right" I thought to myself) and that I was a moron for thinking that of her. Actually she did not call me a moron, I added that part as that was what I thought of myself after I falsely accused her of being a five year old with a bladder problem. Anyway after a night on the couch (both of us) we discovered what had happened was that somehow something sharp had slipped down between the bladder and the soft edge of the bed and poked a hole in the bladder. We did a patch job on that hole the next day, dried out the covers and had a good laugh at our "accident" and went back to enjoying our waterbed 2.0.
That is until this last Monday. I had to catch an early flight that day so I was getting up early anyway but I was not planning on getting up quite that early. About 4:45 AM I heard the distinct sound of "drip", "drip", drip" which I chalked up to an early morning thunderstorm. But then I realized that the sound of this drip was not falling from the gutters outside but sounded like it was coming from inside the house. Since we had just finished remodeling out master bathroom I just knew that we must have broken a hose or the sink faucet had sprung a leak. My thoughts were derailed though when I put my foot upon the floor and found the carpet to be cold and clammy and really really wet. Not just soak it up with a towel it will be OK wet but water standing on the floor wet this is a sinking ship wet. It was then that I realized waterbed 2.0 was out for the count. I grabbed a towel and tried to stop the outflow of its precious liquids but it was beyond what I could repair. As I began to gather my things to quickly put it out of its misery and as humanely as possible drain its remaining fluids this thought caused me to choke up. My days as a waterbed owner were coming to an end. No, I would never again be lulled to sleep by the slow rocking of the waves, or have the opportunity to fling my wife out onto the floor with a well timed flop. No, that morning as I drained the last of its still warm water from its radidly deflating shell I realized that I had finally grown up, no more waterbeds for us. Sleep is too precious a commodity now than to wake up wet, cold and clammy every so often. But it was sure fun while it lasted.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

What do you do, when you don't know what to do?

That is a question that many have been struggling with lately. I have counciled many people lately who have asked that question. What do we do in this situation?
Well the answer is not always what they want to hear. It is not always the situation that they want to go through. And it does not always lead to an area of their life that they want to explore.
But through every situation we need to remember that GOD is still there. Many times we feel like GOD has abandoned us, that he has left on vacation and is not returning our calls.
But GOD has never left us or forsaken us. He is still there even when we feel like he is not.
But many times his answer to our cries is "not yet" or "no". And when we do not hear what we want to hear we think that GOD is not there. It is not that he is not there, it is just that he is not telling us what we want to hear.
So when you don't know what to do, make sure you are listening for everything that GOD is saying even those things that you may not want to hear.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Coffee... yum

So for Pastor's Appreciation day the church got me a coffee maker. Now before you go, "well they must not like him too much" they got me the bomb diggity coffee maker ever made.
It is one of those that makes one cup of coffee from those little packets you insert into the machine like loading a shotgun. The only way for it to be cooler would be if it made some sort of whoosh whish noise like on Star Trek.
So with the maker which is too cool (Oh I have already said that) came all these different kinds of coffees. There is of course the typical girly coffee, Hazelnut, Irish Cream, Vanilla, but there is this stuff called BOLD, Caribou, Columbian Roast that look promising. See I grew up on coffee made in a percolator, on a stove top. That coffee was the kind where if there wasn't grounds in the bottom of your cup it wasn't REAL coffee.
So I made pancakes for supper last night and decided, yum Coffee! So I made a cup and then I see my kids bringing cups in filled with... wait for it... HOT CHOCOLATE!
My coffee maker makes steaming hot cups of HOT CHOCOLATE also!
So I got to thinking, what other options could I put in that machine?
So here are FIVE things the little coffee packagers should put out for my do it all coffee and more machine.
1) Chicken soup - now I am not sure how they could get the noodles and chicken chunks to go through the little strainer but I am sure they can figure it out. Something like those sea monkeys that when they were added to water expanded and get bigger. That would be great to get a steaming cup of soup without using a can opener.
2) Milk - now stay with me. Nothing can cure insomnia like warm milk sipped from a mug. Not an every night drink but maybe one where you keep a couple of those little canisters next to the antacid in the medicine cabinet.
3) Sweet and Sour Sauce - pop some frozen chicken nuggets in the microwave and cook on nuclear. Then drizzle some HOT sweet and sour sauce on them. YUM!
4) Gravy - I can not make gravy to save my life, but if they had one of those little canisters, I could make gravy all day long!! Oh we ran out of gravy for the potatoes? Let me pop in one of these little canisters, whoosh whish and Viola!! Gravy nice and hot!
5) Pudding - Everyone needs a quick and easy desert every so often. How about a pudding canister that pops in there and out comes some chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, caramel, butterscotch or any kind of pudding you can think of.
It won't be long now when we stand in front of a little door and say, "computer, I would like a chocolate shake please" and whoosh whish the door rises and there is a chocolate shake.
I can dream can't I? Captain Pat, star date 76985 signing off.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Surprised? You should't be...

When the church helps people with no strings attached, why are the people being helped surprised? Isn't that what we are supposed to do?
We had a house in our community burn down the other night so my wife sprang into action. She started finding out what they needed. It is amazing the little things that you find you need when everything is gone.
So the people of our church started donating things, little things like razors, toothpaste and a hairbrush. My wife handed the hair brush to the lady of the home and she immediately ripped it out of its package and started brushing her hair. She said she had been wanting to do that all day.
And last night at church my wife mentioned that they were getting settled into a small RV but that they still had some needs. She had asked them if they needed a coffee maker (some of us would run out of a burning house clutching one thing, it might be the coffee maker) for the morning. They said yes but that they like to perculate their coffee on the stove top. They did not like the "drip" coffee makers. Well we did not have one of them but a lady in our church had two. So she offered it to them. My wife takes it out last night and pulls it out of a bag and says look what one of the ladies in our church had and the lady smiled a little bit. Then she pulled out some creamer and said she had found this also, and the the lady smiled a little bit more. The my wife pulled out two coffee cups and the lady's smile lit up the room. She told my wife that the coffee pot was good, and the creamer was good but they would not be able to drink it because they had no cups to put the coffee in. My wife is the bomb! She was told over and over how surprised they were that total strangers were helping them out. Church, we need to step up and quit helping people with hidden agendas and trap doors to get them in our church. We need to help because that is what Christ would have done.
In the end those people lost their home and everything that they owned inside went up in flames. But this morning as the sun rose once again they were able to sit together, side by side, maybe even holding hands and they get to drink a cup of coffee together. I am glad we got to surprise them.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Cowboys fire head coach...

Yeah I know it is old news but I just can't get over the look on Wade Phillips face as the Packers just beat the tar out of his team on Monday night football. He looked lost, he looked disappointed, he looked like his world had just turned upside down and he was the only one that was still with his feet on the ground.
Now I am not going to get into should he or shouldn't he have been fired. I probably would have fired him a few weeks ago before the season totally got out of hand. But what I want to discuss is what happened?
The Cowboys have all the talent in the world. Now don't get on the our star QB got hurt and that is why they are so bad train. He got hurt two games ago, and they only had ONE win then. They have arguably the most talented offense in the leauge. Their defense is not that much different than the one that ranked in the top ten last year. So what happened?
I think it is something that happens to many "teams", they get to believing in their own success and forget how hard it was to get successful. Stay with me a moment. To be successful in anything it takes a lot of effort. Nothing can replace hard work, nothing. But many times we become victims of our own success and we begin to feel entitled and that we have arrived. It is at that point that you have to check the ego at the door and put on the hard hat and go to work. When I looked at the Cowboys in the preseason they made all sorts of mistakes, missed assignments and yet all everyone talked about was that they were going to be the first team to host a Super Bowl. This was all before the season started. Some of the NFL commentators said there were big problems in Big D but most of the talking heads just brushed it off and said once the season started they would be fine. Well they are not fine today and because of it Wade Phillips is on enemployment.
So what can we do as leaders and coaches to avoid the pitfalls that snared the Boys this year.
1) Don't buy into the lie that you are all that and more.
Many times we get enamored with our success that we forget we are all still human and do not have GOD powers to simply speak something into existance. We still have to do the little things right, still have to lay the foundations and work hard.
2) Don't get complacent.
Abraham Lincoln said "the enemy of great is not bad, but good". I try to live that because there are a lot of people who could be great but settle for good. And the problem with that is the same problem the Boys are having today, they were pegged for greatness, just being good is not good enough.
3) Do the little things right.
GOD promises in his word that if we are faithful in the little things he will give us the larger things in life. It works like that in all aspects of life, start small and slowly as you gain experience you get bigger things to work with. But if you never do the little things right, you will keep repeating that job until you do.
4) Do your job with all your heart
I have watched some of the Cowboys play their tails off, and still I have seen others, well not look like they had their heart into it. I would be the last one to ever question an athletes heart, but I know that during my athletic carreer there were times when I just gave up when there was still time on the clock. Working in a losing effort is not fun, it is work. But that work will pay off later in life, trust me.
5) And finally, Sometimes change is needed.
Do I think that the new coach will do any better? Probably not. But I will say this, I guarantee you that this week in practice and in the locker room things are different. It may not be large change, it may be something as insignificant as a change of pace of schedule but many times change is needed to jump start our lives. As humans we love to be comfortable, but only in our uncomfortable state do we truely start to look for opportunities, for options to make life better. The world is changing around us and we need to be ready to change with it or we might find ourself on the end of a loosing record and a boss looking to fire somebody, think about it.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Conflict...

Man, who does not love conflict?
I love to watch conflict happen, especially when it is not happening to me. How many times are you drawn to a story becuase of the conflict found inside?
Think of all the great movies. What do they all have in common? They all have conflict. Great books? They all have conflict. It is part of the story, it is part of the backround, it makes life exciting. Yep, I said it, conflict makes life exciting.
It is that part of life that is unpredictable and uncontrolable. It just happens and how we deal with it defines our lives in so many ways.
Now when I am in the midst of conflict, I am never happy. I do not like conflict, I avoid it like the plague. But in every season of conflict I have come through I have changed and learned from it.
I have become a "better" Pastor because of conflict. I have become a "better" person because of conflict. I have learned to be a "better" employee because of conflict. I have learned to be a "better" boss because of conflict. I have become a "better" husband because of conflict. I have become a "better" father because of conflict. In every situation that has arose the conflict within it has made be "better". That does not mean that they were not painful, that they were comfortable and everything was rosey as I was going through them, but they all made me "better".
That is the key, for you see in every conflict there is the opportunity for you to get "better" or for you to get "bitter". The only difference in those two is the second letter. For when you get "bitter" it most times revolves around the "I" part in your life. When you get "better" is when you resolve the conflict and the we part of it becomes the central part. When you are wrong you get to appologize. When you are pridefull you get to be humble. When you are right you get to be a gracious winner, and when you are vindicated, you get to be free.
But when you get bitter, it becomes all about the "I". I have been made to look bad, I have been attacked, I have been wronged, and I have done nothing wrong. Sound familiar?
That attitude can cause bitterness to creep in and the conflict will never go away because it soon becomes a part of you. Instead of freedom being found when conflict is resolved you stay inside a prison made from bitterness.
So the next time you are in conflict, choose to be "better" than get "bitter".

Friday, November 5, 2010

So what move what moves you?

Remember that car commercial a few years ago whose tag line was "what moves you?"

Well I got to thinking about that yesterday in relation to my life. What really moves me, to action that is. See there are many things that move us emotionally. A scarry movie, speaking of, I hear they are making a remake of the "Thing". I will never forget that movie the rest of my life. We were living in Odessa, TX and during one of those free cable months we got HBO. Well I waited till all my brothers went to bed and Mom and Dad had turned in and I snuck back out to the living room to catch some late night TV (who am I fooling it was probably around 8:30, Mom and Dad were freaks like that). So anyway "Thing" comes on. The premise is these people in the artic find an alien frozen in the ice, after it thaws it comes alive and starts killing everyone. That movie MOVED me. I did not sleep a wink for the next few weeks just knowing "thing" was out there stalking me. I was emotionally scarred.
And who can't cry when they have to shoot "Ole Yellar" in the end. Oh and "Chariots of Fire" when the race is going on and your heart starts pounding like you are running for you life. And how about the original "Rocky" when he is running through the streets of Philly. All those things move us emotionally, but do they "move" us to action?
I am seeing a trend in our society that people are not as easily moved to action anymore. Is it because we are more educated? Is it because we are more selfish? Is it because we are too busy?
I do not think so, I think it is because we are oversaturated with suffering and needs. I will never forget the first time I saw a starving child in Africa. It was burned into my mind so badly that I wanted to box up the leftovers we had after dinner (it was goulash I think) and send it over to those starving kids. My Mom said it would spoil before it got there (I am not so sure) and not be any good to them. She then said that we needed to adopt a child, send money each and every month so that they could be fed and taken care of. The problem being, there were four young boys in our household and if we sent off money to feed someone in Africa one of the four in our home would be going hungry (we were really poor, yet I did not know it till I was almost grown). Even though I was unable, I was moved with compassion to the point that I was willing to DO something to help. Today we are so inudated with the needs of the world that I think we become insulated to the suffering and needs of people today. It all becomes white noise to our receivers and just does not garner our attention anymore. So much so that we even filter out the needs of those that are living right down the street from us.
So wake up America and see the needs around you for they are many and be moved to do what you can to make a difference in someones life.