Newfound respect for Amare

If you really know me, you'll know that I'm a huge NBA fan. GO MAVS!!

Anyway, I was reading through one of my favorite sites, hoopshype.com and came across a little ditty on Amare Stoudemire.  Amare is definitely one of the best big men in the Western Conference.

Last year, only two games after the trade deadline passed (which Amare was rumored to be on the trading block, but never was traded), he was poked in the eye so hard that he suffered a detached retina that put him out for the remainder of the season.

This is the interesting part.  After having surgery, Amare went through rehab.  He was required to look downward, towards the floor for 12 hours straight!  I seriously think that 22 hours on the site was a typo, but if not, that's even more interesting...or torturous.

During his rehab time he read half the Bible! Impressive! Not only to do it, but to tell a reporter that you did so.  So, even for that little info, I will cheer a little more for the Suns and Amare Stoudemire next year:)

The Lord's Prayer: A Prayer of Selflessness

If you're ever gonna teach anyone how to pray why not use the Lord's Prayer as your basis, right?

I did and I'm not going to go through the whole message over a blog but there was one common theme that ran through the prayer that was a little groundbreaking for me, even though I have literally read or recited that prayer at least a hundred times or more. Here's the NIV's take on Jesus' teaching moment:

"Our Father in heaven,
   hallowed be your name,   (ok stop yawning already and focus)
 your kingdom come,
   your will be done
  on earth as it is in heaven."

Here's where it got interesting for me.  Peep the words I make bold. As I read this prayer with what felt like new eyes and a new mind, the parenthesis explain my thoughts.

" Give us today our daily bread."
 This is more than just asking for and then "blessing" our food, as if it would be less good for you if you didn't "bless" it.  It is God that needs to be blessed by our prayer and thanked for His Earth producing the food that it does for us.  And it is us that needs to pray for the whole world to get the food they need.  And if we would pray for that, I'm positively sure that God would convict us actually to something about it.


 "Forgive us our debts..." 
We are so ego-centric about our mistakes.  So much so that many of us stop giving or serving others just because we're sulking in our sins that no one else but God knows about.  How stupid is that? God chooses to forget.  Your sin doesn't linger with Him and if there's not a physical consequence for your action, don't make it a psychological one! How about taking the time to pray for God to reveal to someone else their sin for a change? Most of the time we either do nothing about others behavior or are so vocal that we come off as judgmental, arrogant Bible-bashers.  Humans are such extreme beings, either we're apathetic (or ignorant) or come on way too strong and that's particularly true of Christ-followers.


"...as we also have forgiven our debtors."
How often do we do this, really?  We usually forgive because we forget (someone else has already ticked us off) not because we literally have chosen to forget because we have forgiven. 



"And lead us not into temptation,
 but deliver us from evil."
Here again we usually focus so much on ourselves and our struggles or addictions that we fail, 99% of the time, to pray for the struggles of other people.  This statement can have corporate connotations, as well.  (imagine a local church, as a whole, praying this line) This statement also does not suggest only that people may sin but that Satan may spring on them for no apparent reason.  We shouldn't pray for someone just because they screwed up, or have the propensity to, but also pray for the vulnerable ones out there; the ones with low self-esteem, with no family, with mental deficiencies, etc.


For yours is the Kingdom
and the power and glory. Amen.

Thank you Jesus for reminding me today that my prayer life is not even closely all about only me.  In fact, it's more about all of us!

Think about it...how often (if you pray often) do you say something that goes like this...

"God thank you for this and this...
Sorry about this and that.
Help me to get or do this.
Amen."

You've been enlightened.  Get that prayer hierarchy worked out:)

Outdated Christian Lingo

Since my second job is at a Christian bookstore here in Elizabeth City, I hear a huge amount of outdated Christian lingo and cliches every single day...

I'm pretty sure I'm thinking about all of this because 90s style Michael W. Smith is playing on the house system right now.....uhhhhhhhh....

Its funny how people who have grown up and/or grown old in the church that talk with a deep-seeded Christianese dialect to their English actually think to themselves in amazement, "I just can't relate to kids today." Oh I have those same thoughts, too, don't get me wrong.

This is an example of how I really can't relate to kids these days. Yesterday I was heading back home from Williamsburg when the dj from 100.5 asked her callers to give her euphemisms that they and their lovers used to imply for wanting sex while in the company of others, you know, like a password. The topic didn't shock me, really, until the third caller called and said a version of this:

"Me and my boyfriend once heard our youth pastor, who was giving us a sex-talk at our church, say that he once turned down his wife's advance for sex (never heard a man do that, honestly) because he wanted to play Scrabble. So, from that point, since that teen couple were sexually active used the euphemism, "Let's go play Scrabble..."

Hmmm....that blows my mind. Must have been a great talk that night. Looks like the youth pastor's point got across.

Anyway, here's a few words or phrases that I don't understand why we use outside the church:

1) Praise - The more I hear it in the church, the more I hear the word 'thanks' outside. As soon as someone uses praise, they are immediately tagged Christian, which means they have substituted other common words for Christianese terms, such as steadfast for patience, for example.

• Normal English = "Thanks!"
• Christianese = "Praise be to you!"
  

2) Cool, dude - You might hear someone who's a parent say this and I usually say to myself, "they're trying at least." Other instances you may hear that same parent say, "that's the bomb," "boom shock-a-lock-a" or "awesome!" Not that I would wanna hear my mom say, "TJ, I got love for you," "what's poppin'" or "let's get crunk!" Talk like yourself minus the Old English and outdated pop slang and you'll be fine!

3) Thee, thou, thine - Speaking of Old English, I really hope this is a no-brainer. Of course no one uses it in common conversations as their own words, but I am a firm believer in ABKJ (Anything but King James). I mean, let's be honest, there are plenty of reasons for me to hold this.

• A) No one, including Jesus himself, spoke Old English. And now churches adhere to having only the KJV for two reasons. One of them is to appease the older generation that has always had it. I doubt, with every fiber of my being, that Jesus would've spoken his words only so the Pharisees and religious leaders could understand him. When he spoke, he was not only authoritative and powerful but he was ultra-practical!
• B) The KJV is the most outdated commonly-used translation of the Bible. Did you know that of all translations (NIV, New Living, New American Standard, The Message, even the New King James just to name a few) the King James is the only translation that does not include the Dead Sea Scrolls. You might be saying, "So?" Well the scrolls that were discovered in the 1940s are the oldest copies of biblical books that we've ever found. All the other translations incorporated these texts, but not the King James. So, the KJV is the Bible version of the game 'telephone' that would rather keep all the changes that had occurred through scribes' interpretations rather than to have the words that are closer to what the biblical writers actually said. Or than to have gramma read a different version of Psalm 100.

I'm trying my best to not be that weird talking, Bible bashing Christian. I actually think that using normal language (yes even slang) to speak the truths of Scripture is much harder and MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE!!

Try it sometime or you can notice the disconnect that occurs when you quote the KJV to an unchurched teenager...your choice...