I really don’t care for talk radio. When I’m in the car, music is constantly pumping through the speakers. Actually the only times I think that there hasn’t been music playing in my car are times when something very mournful has happened or I had just left my girlfriend’s house (these, of course, were times in the past.) In the past, the only talk radio that I remember hearing or listening to was The Prairie Home Companion, which was a national public radio broadcast featuring the famous monologues from Garrison Keillor and his adventures of his hometown of Lake Wobegon. On Sundays, Dad, after taking us to the Pizza Hut lunch buffet, would either sit in his recliner chair in the den or sit outside, during the fall months when the weather would be a little less cooler than normal, and listen to The Prairie Home Companion, eventually falling asleep listening to Keillor’s soft, grandfatherly voice. I’ll admit, even listening to it now, I could fall asleep myself. Garrison’s voice being just so smooth and so friendly, you couldn’t stop yourself sometimes from being lulled by the stories he’d share. Sometimes I never really understand or can pay attention to what he is talking about. Simply just the sounds he makes are enough to satisfy my mind.
This past Wednesday I was surfing through the iTunes store, looking for songs, videos, games, anything that looked cool or sounded new and fresh, and I had started to look through the podcasts. I only have a few podcasts, all including podcasts about video games, but I started to look through the numerous podcasts because a few of the staff at Church of Hope, Rei and TJ, had started to listen to podcasts from Rob Bell, Erwin McManus, etc. etc. etc. They would listen to them speak while driving and I thought that it would be beneficial for my intellect, or what was left of it, to listen and learn while I would drive myself. I was looking through the podcasts and I found The Prairie Home Companion podcast of Garrison Keillor’s stories of Lake Wobegon and all the people from there and it caught my interest instantly. I subscribed and got a few podcasts and started to listen to them. Within a few minutes of listening to the story of Garrison revisiting memories of the University of Minnesota and his past, I was reminded of Dad and reminded of Sunday afternoons sitting outside when everything was brown, red, or yellow because of the cold snap the previous night.
I’d like to think that I’d stay awake driving while listening to Keillor, but it probably wouldn’t happen. So, I also subscribed to Imago Dei Community podcast. If that sounds familiar to you Donald Miller fans, Imago Dei is a church in the upper Mid-West dedicated to artists loving God and being accepted for who they are that Miller visited in his book Blue Like Jazz. I also subscribed to the Mars Hill Church podcast, Rob Bell’s church, and the Relevant Magazine podcast. I thought by getting all of these podcasts I could invest time while driving to listen to pastors teach about the bible and hear things relevant that are going on in life and I could gain knowledge by hearing someone talk to me about Philippians while I got cut off by someone driving a busted up Honda.
Out of all of those podcasts, I’m still listening to Prairie Home Companion…on repeat.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Thursday, March 01, 2007
The Parable of the Lost Pikachu
I know that this post has been done on a Thursday instead of a Friday, but I wanted to share this devotion that I did this morning.
When I was in middle school, I owned a Pokemon Pikachu. Basically, take a Tamigotchi, a pedometer, and Pokemon, put them all together in a blender, and you've got a Pokemon Pikachu. It was a little device that operated on how many steps you took (or how many times you shook it) and you could interact with the little pixelated Pikachu on the screen.
The story begins when my mom was taking me to the Family Fun Center in Lakeland one day. It was pretty normal, nothing out of the ordinary. Just a mother and her son playing a round of miniature golf. I had the Pokemon Pikachu clipped to my pants as we walked around the mini golf course and I really wasn't paying attention to it. Somehow, someway, it came undone from my pants and I realized that when we got into the car, I lost it. I lost my Pokemon Pikachu. I got frantic and started hyperventilating. I went back to the mini golf course and started looking in bushes, looking in little rivers that ran throughout the course, looking everywhere. I looked like I was looking for a $100 bill. I was distraught when I sat back in the car and had no Pokemon Pikachu in my possession. I started to cry as we drove away. I bawled incredibly over this little piece of plastic and technology. In fact, I cried so much that I had my mom pull over to the side of the road and I threw up. I puked. I got myself so caught up in losing this thing that I threw up.
Looking back on it now, I say to myself, "Jon, man, you were pathetic." And it's somewhat true. I was so upset that I lost something that now I could care less about. I got so caught up in losing this one thing that I completely destroyed myself emotionally. But doesn't that happen to all of us? If we lose something, we will turn our rooms upside down just to try to find that one thing that we lose. I've had that happen to me many times in my life so far.
In Luke, chapter 15, the whole chapter talks about us losing something. The first parable is about the lost sheep and how when the shepherd loses one sheep out of 100, he will leave the 99 to find that one sheep. The second parable is about the lost coin and how the woman had 10 coins and when she lost one coin, she swept and searched, and looked all over her house for that one coin. The third parable is about the lost son and how he left with his inheritance of his father's estate, squandered it, and came back only to be welcomed with open arms of his father, who thought that his son was dead. All of these stories illustrate how God is concerned with people who are lost. Not physically lost, but spiritually lost. See, God's not concerned whether or not you're good or bad, He's concerned whether or not you're dead or alive; lost or found. And it makes me wonder if God throws up because He's so frantic and caught up in those who are lost. If I get so worked up over a little Pokemon Pikachu, how much more does God get worked up over those who don't know him?
I wanna be more empathetic when it comes to seeking out those who are lost. But it gets so hard to try to sift through all the people I come across and try to figure out which ones I need to be throwing up for. It's hard because I can't see the condition of a person's heart and I don't know if they took the sinner's prayer or not. I ain't God. Be on your toes when it comes to building relationships with people who don't go to church at all. I don't wanna be in their faces about the situation, I want to be their friends. That's pretty much all we can do.
-Jon
When I was in middle school, I owned a Pokemon Pikachu. Basically, take a Tamigotchi, a pedometer, and Pokemon, put them all together in a blender, and you've got a Pokemon Pikachu. It was a little device that operated on how many steps you took (or how many times you shook it) and you could interact with the little pixelated Pikachu on the screen.
The story begins when my mom was taking me to the Family Fun Center in Lakeland one day. It was pretty normal, nothing out of the ordinary. Just a mother and her son playing a round of miniature golf. I had the Pokemon Pikachu clipped to my pants as we walked around the mini golf course and I really wasn't paying attention to it. Somehow, someway, it came undone from my pants and I realized that when we got into the car, I lost it. I lost my Pokemon Pikachu. I got frantic and started hyperventilating. I went back to the mini golf course and started looking in bushes, looking in little rivers that ran throughout the course, looking everywhere. I looked like I was looking for a $100 bill. I was distraught when I sat back in the car and had no Pokemon Pikachu in my possession. I started to cry as we drove away. I bawled incredibly over this little piece of plastic and technology. In fact, I cried so much that I had my mom pull over to the side of the road and I threw up. I puked. I got myself so caught up in losing this thing that I threw up.
Looking back on it now, I say to myself, "Jon, man, you were pathetic." And it's somewhat true. I was so upset that I lost something that now I could care less about. I got so caught up in losing this one thing that I completely destroyed myself emotionally. But doesn't that happen to all of us? If we lose something, we will turn our rooms upside down just to try to find that one thing that we lose. I've had that happen to me many times in my life so far.
In Luke, chapter 15, the whole chapter talks about us losing something. The first parable is about the lost sheep and how when the shepherd loses one sheep out of 100, he will leave the 99 to find that one sheep. The second parable is about the lost coin and how the woman had 10 coins and when she lost one coin, she swept and searched, and looked all over her house for that one coin. The third parable is about the lost son and how he left with his inheritance of his father's estate, squandered it, and came back only to be welcomed with open arms of his father, who thought that his son was dead. All of these stories illustrate how God is concerned with people who are lost. Not physically lost, but spiritually lost. See, God's not concerned whether or not you're good or bad, He's concerned whether or not you're dead or alive; lost or found. And it makes me wonder if God throws up because He's so frantic and caught up in those who are lost. If I get so worked up over a little Pokemon Pikachu, how much more does God get worked up over those who don't know him?
I wanna be more empathetic when it comes to seeking out those who are lost. But it gets so hard to try to sift through all the people I come across and try to figure out which ones I need to be throwing up for. It's hard because I can't see the condition of a person's heart and I don't know if they took the sinner's prayer or not. I ain't God. Be on your toes when it comes to building relationships with people who don't go to church at all. I don't wanna be in their faces about the situation, I want to be their friends. That's pretty much all we can do.
-Jon
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