Mourning September

Anyone ever heard of that band (Mourning September)? They had a song on The Effect Radio that I thought was awesome, so I bought the CD, only to discover that the rest of the CD sounded different, and not in a good way. It was a pretty monotonous CD, except for this one song, which was their single:

 Brings me back to my emo days...

September flew by. I was hoping that the end of summer would lead to a less-busy year, but not so! It was here and over before I knew it.

Being busy is both a blessing and a curse...I'm busy because I have lots of things to do with lots of friends, but when you're busy, time flies by way too fast. I want to find that balance between being busy for the right reasons and resting. It's October now, which is my favorite month as far as the weather goes. Let's hope it moves a little more slowly than this year so far.

Here are my notes from September's desk calendar:

• "Deep-fried Twinkies are an abomination against God and nature" - Tom
• Realization: I'm scared to ask God to do amazing things and expect them to happen because I'm afraid He will shake things up in an uncomfortable way for me. But then I complain about the monotonous nature of my life (mostly my job). I can't have both, nor would I want both. If it's up to me, I want God to shake things up in a good way, though it still scares me...
• Devout Jews prayed to die reciting Psalm 22 and the Shema (http://www.jewfaq.org/prayer/shema.htm). Jewish tradition says that Rabbi Akiva was reciting the Shema while being tortured. One of his disciples asked why he was still following God when it ended up like this. Akiva said that if it was this bad while he tried to obey God his whole life, how bad would it be if he hadn't?

BEING A DISCPLE - From the "Dust of the Rabbi" Series by Ray Vander Laan

• You can't be a talmid (disciple) alone
• You will be asked by the rabbi to be a discple-maker (Jesus' Twelve had 3 years to learn to be like Jesus and then were on their own. Even before that, he sent his disciples out.)
• The mindset is: I'm trying to be like Jesus, come be like me.
• It's all about the text!
• It's the only way to know Jesus the Rabbi
• That's what Jesus used to teach (what he said is all an interpretation of the Tanah)
• Rabbi Jesus knew the text
• Rabbi's were expected to: learn the text, live the text, teach the text, pray the text, die the text...become the text.

Being available is important:

• To Christ first
• To others as a servant
• To brothers doing the same thing

DISCIPLESHIP (3 "D's") - from a sermon by Jamie Winship - really good!

• Direction: what/who's direction
• Part of your time with God is about learning this
• Confession and repentance ("God, I confess that I believe [such and such] about You. Tell me what is true about [such and such].) 
• Decision: life is all about small decisions in the right direction 
• Depth: depth of the decisions (If God says, "go talk to that person" - I don't know what to say, but I'll do it anyway)