Posts in About Me

Responding to Pain

About Me Bible Thoughts

8I know I distressed you greatly with my letter. Although I felt awful at the time, I don’t feel at all bad now that I see how it turned out. The letter upset you, but only for a while.9 Now I’m glad-not that you were upset, but that you were jarred into turning things around. You let the distress bring you to God, not drive you from him. The result was all gain, no loss.

10 Distress that drives us to God does that. It turns us around. It gets us back in the way of salvation. We never regret that kind of pain. But those who let distress drive them away from God are full of regrets, end up on a deathbed of regrets.

11 And now, isn’t it wonderful all the ways in which this distress has goaded you closer to God? You’re more alive, more concerned, more sensitive, more reverent, more human, more passionate, more responsible. Looked at from any angle, you’ve come out of this with purity of heart.   – 2 Corinthians 7:8-11 (MSG)

Things I love about these verses:

  • Pain can either guide you to God or away from him. It’s your choice (vs9)
  • If you choose to go towards God then you gain from the pain and their is no loss. “God never wastes a hurt” no loss means it was all beneficial. Every bit of it. (vs9)
  • We never regret that kind of pain. I’m going through a divorce. I hate it. So does God.(Mal 2:16) I don’t want it. It hurts. It’s not my choice, but this pain has ultimately brought me and others closer to God so I don’t regret the pain I feel. (vs10)
  • If you choose to move away from God then you will regret it and you wasted a huge opportunity to grow closer to the best friend you’ll ever have (vs10)
  • Look at the fruit that comes into your life if you will draw near to God in your pain (vs11)

It reminds me of proverbs 24:
No matter how many times you trip them up, God-loyal people don’t stay down long; Soon they’re up on their feet, while the wicked end up flat on their faces. (proverbs 24:16)

If you constantly seek God with all your heart no matter what problems happen in your life you’ll ultimately be ok. It’s the second you give up on God or turn away that you end up flat on your face full of regret.

Taking care of the customer

About Me

I love it when companies understand it’s all about the customer.  I could go all spiritual here and say the Church needs to be all about Jesus and reaching the people he dah dah dah, but I won’t.

I just recieved this from Netflix:

Netflix Email

So I’ll enjoy my %3 off my bill and once again sing praises of Netflix and how awesome they are.  I love being a Netflix member!

What other companies have you seen that go out of their way to take care of the customer?

Power of Twitter – What Message does God want you to share?

About Me Thoughts Video

1986computersintheoffice

Ever since I was 8 or so I can remember having a computer in the house.  Now for today’s culture, that’s no big deal at all, nothing special.  However, in 1986 or so that was rare.  I’m thankful my grandfather wanted me to have one so that I could get started on one at an early age. I have always been obsessed with technology and computers.

That is one of the reasons I love twitter.  I remember being a kid and going on a trip and meeting people and being sad because we would never hear from each other again.  That doesn’t happen now. Now you share IM screennames, twitter each other, read blog posts, follow on facebook/myspace.  The world is a much smaller place now.

Watch this video about Ashton Kutcher, twitter, and Malaria.  There is a line that he says that I loosely quote, “now we are in a time where a single person can have as large of a voice as huge news network.”  I am thankful that we have this technology.  I know a lot of traditional churches fight technology, but those same churches are usually the ones that circle up and show their butts to the world. How is it wrong when people are genuinely coming to Christ through technology.  Just look here, here, and/or here.  Amazing stories of Christ at work through technology.  Especially this video. God’s hands and feet are being shown to the World through twitter.

So watch this video then ask yourself, “What message does God want me to share with the World?” (literally… the world)

Can you help Mark?

About Me

I just was driving home from Sam’s and I passed a guy walking on Hillman Highway.(about 3 miles from my house) He had his thumb out and since I didn’t have any kids or wife with me and he was a MALE (I would never pick up a female if I was alone) I decided to pick him up.

I asked him where he was headed and he said out on Old Saltworks Road. I asked him how far and he said about 3 miles, well I live about two miles out. So as we were driving I asked if he worked at shoney’s (since he was wearing a hat and shirt – I know, I know… “Here’s ur sign”) and he told me yes. I asked him if he always walked to work and he said yes.

Basically the summary goes like this… He’s worked there for over a month, he has to be at work at 9 and gets off at 2. It takes him 2 hours to walk to Shoney’s. He has been doing this for over a month.

So here’s the thing – sometimes my church gives away vehicles, and they always give out any help they can to others. I’m thinking that if we could raise $1,000 I could get this guy a scooter, that way he wouldn’t have to pay for insurance and gas would be really cheap. I will check with the church to see if they can assist at all.

So who’s in? Anyone? Seriously if 10 of you gave $100 that would be it. If 20 of you gave $50 that would be it. I’m using a website called ChipIn to help manage this. See widget below to donate and if you have any questions please contact me via the comments section below!

Here’s a chance for the Church to be the hands and feet of God.

A New Day has dawned for the blog

About Me

Hello all blog readers. Today marks the dawn of a new day. I have decided to stop letting twitter create a blog post everyday to my blog. I am going to step up my game on here. The main reason I kept it was for my family. My Grandpa and Mom were reading them pretty faithfully.

Now if anyone wants to read my twitters you can either sign up for twitter by going to twitter.com; send “follow timlem” to 40404 from your cell phone; go here to see my most recent updates; or click here to subscribe to my rss feed for twitter.