A Tree Grows on Post Oak and Other Thoughts

This is my little oak tree that hasn't given up and as much as I can love a tree, I love this little tree. Every day when I pull out or in my parking space, I am checking for the tree to return. On Tuesday night I got home around 11:00 pm and I saw it then. I had to keep my joy to myself because I came in and found Roy sound asleep. The next morning I checked on it before leaving for work. I have also been watching a little pine
tree that is growing very near to this one.




As I have mentioned before I love that trees are used as a metaphor in the Bible. We can be trees planted by the water with our roots going deep or we can be shrubs and bushes. Our growth begins as a tiny seed. Both of these trees have a lot of potential but where they have chosen to grow, even if they were left to grow, the roots are not going to be able to go down deep enough to sustain growth. They are in the wrong "container." These trees will never reach their full potential.

You and I have a choice. We can thrive in good soil, with the proper watering of the Word. We can reach our full potential. One of the ways we grow to our full potential is community and relationship with one another. I think that is one of the biggest reasons I love Blogging. What a wonderful way to keep up with friends and family. I love reading the thoughts that friends are working through. I am praying as I read about the journeys that are being taken and about all the change or the continual ruts that are static. The laughter and funny view of life is refreshing and invigorating. Of course I still journal, but a lot of what I put in my blog takes the place of journaling and I find that it is satisfying a creative need in me.

Planted in the house of the Lord, they shall flourish in the courts of our God. Psalm 92:13.

At times I probably identify too much with these little trees. I mean I am pulling for them and I need to find them good homes. I pulled some weeds today that were growing near by, I didn't want them to get choked out of what little sunlight that comes through the bushes and the carport.

Laurie Johnson has a great blog and has this link to see Napoleon Dynamite as told by bunnies. It is stinkin funny!

Tomorrow is CM and Faylinn's last Sunday at HFBC. He carries a composition book with him all the time and I have been trying to find different colors and kinds to give him. Tomorrow morning I need to bring him some more to the reception for them in The Hub. I cannot tell you how much I am going to miss CM on staff, but I am exceedingly more happy for them as they are walking in God's will and get to be on the ground floor of ministry. I used one of CourtneyS favorite words in that sentence. Never again will they have to hear, well, this is how we've always done it.

Last week, I stopped at Potbellies to get a veggie sandwich. Next door to them is a little boutique and I found something to hang in my office. It is a quote, "Excellence is doing the common in an uncommon way." I LOVED that definition. Since May I have been struggling, no more like wrestling with, what is excellence? A definite definition has never really been given to me in our staff meetings. Some have said that what is excellent for one might not be excellence for another. Between you, me and the above little tree, I think that is a cop out. There is a lot of faux excellence out there, the kind generated out of what is expected not what is from the heart. As I have prayed and asked the Lord to show me what is excellent, He has reminded me of verses that tell me how excellent His Name is in all of the Earth. Of course His Name is above everything that is named. Paul wrote he wanted to show us the more excellent way...and that would be the way of God's agape love. In the book Buck Naked Faith, A Brutally Honest Look at Stunted Christianity, Eric Sandras writes about those Christians that choose to live a stunted life. What happens? Why? He says the decision to live this stunted kind of life comes about from a lifestyle that encourages the appearance of being God's friend without the inner passion and tough choices. Then he gives simple principles that produce successful stunted growth.

• start with potential
• pick an attractive pot and prepare the soil
• limit the water supply and aim for predictability
• prune excess growth and protect from hardship

Ouch! So then he gives some opposite principles to a (and these are his words) "butt kicking, growing, life-giving friendship with Jesus

• wake up our potential
• embrace the power of community and enrich the soil of our lives
• feel the full reign of God and unleash our God given DNA
• call forth life and growth in ourselves and in others
• learn to embrace pain

I have spent the better part of the evening downloading music into iTunes and into my iPod. I was rocking out with Earth, Wind and Fire, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Al Green, lots of instrumental music and ended out with Billy Joel, oh yea and some classical music.

As mentioned before CourtneyS has blogged about words. I am working on words I don't like, but I would like to add to words I like. She has already told you I like the word duplicitous. I also like behoove, penurious, specious, participatory, pontificate, and counterintuitive. So far words I dislike, squat and wax. Not too fond of gynecological, but that could be more of a word association. Oh, don't like the word bosom cause most people make it sound like boooooosum.

Well, it is getting late and I guess I should go to bed so I can get up for church in the morning.

Thanks for reading all my randomness.