bob robbins

Bailing Twine

Have you ever sen a piece of bailing twine? It wraps hay bails and (in the old days) packages. Study a piece of bailing twine, and you see that it is not one piece at all, but thousands o f pieces wrapped around each other. One piece is easily broken... and two... and three, but eventually you will reach the point where you cannot break the string on your own.

Connecting to God works in a similar way. When we begin, it will be as though one tiny strand connects us to the soul of God. A slight movement, a veering thought, and the connection breaks. The longer you practice spiritual disciplines and work on your connection with God, the more strands you connect to God until breaking the connection is not an option.

Life is full of obstacles - spiritual obstacles, emotional obstacles, and mental obstacles. It is by the grace of God that we get over, around, under, or through them.

Adapted from "God Is Here"

Funny Monday's

I am going to try to provide something funny on Mondays because everyone needs a good laugh on Monday. The problem is that many people don't find the things funny that I think deserve a good laugh.

I don't know if you have heard about the Dead Body Guy. This guy had a dream of seeing his name in the credits of a movie or a TV show and he thought the best way to accomplish that was to be willing to play a dead guy. Not much training needed and he would not have to memorize any lines. He developed a website with pictures of him playing dead.

Dead Body Guy

Now that is funny and creative. What to you dream of doing? What is keeping you from your dreams?

 

Player of the Year

Who should be the NCAA men's basketball player of the year. I know I am a little biased but I would have to say that JJ Redick has to be one of the people at the top of the list. Jay Bilas, ESPN analyst, says that he thinks Redick and Adam Morrison from Gonzaga should share the title. I have not seen Morrison play in person but when I have seen him on TV he has been amazing. I might even have to say that he may have a slight edge on JJ. Unfortunately we will not get to see them play each other unless Gonzaga goes further in the tournament than most people think. If you would like to do some research of your own you can check out these sites.

Adam Morrison

JJ Redick

If you think that someone else might deserve the player of the year honor just let me know but the only other person that might get the honor would be another Dukie - Sheldon Williams.

 

Friday Night

My wife and I went to an incredible event last night with Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, and Louie Giglio.

Matt Redman

Chris Tomlin

Louie Giglio

It was a great to be able to sit back and worship without having to worry about anything else going on because I had no responsibilities. Louie talked about the bigness of God and what that means to us. We are going to take some of his concepts and talk about them at NHC in February. He talked about the universe, planets, stars, light, and the vastness of outer-space and how it relates to God. Matt Redman had a couple of new songs I had not heard before and one of them was very groovy. If you don't have any music by Chris Tomlin or Matt Redman then I would highly recommend it. Louie has written several books that would be great reads.

 

lunch

I just went to lunch at Jason's Deli and it is amazing how many choices you have at any one restaurant. The buffet has been a popular way of eating in American culture for a while now. I like choices just as much or more than everyone else. It is really great when you have picky eaters in your family because then everyone gets something they like. Buffets can be dangerous in so many ways. When we go to eat at one of these places I found it hard to control myself because everything looks so good and after wards I always feel bad because I eat way to much. We apply this buffet idea to other areas of our lives as well and it can cause us problems once again. In our spiritual lives we sometimes think we can pick and choose from many different places and we lose sight of the fact that the primary place we should look to is the Bible. The other problem is that just because someone places something on the spiritual buffet does not mean that it is something that God would want for us to have in our spiritual diet. Watch what you eat.

Information vs. Transformation

The world that we live in places a high value on information. You can get information about any topic and get it in several different ways in a matter of seconds. We sometimes feel like the more information we gather the better off we will be and as a result we develop great short-term memories. How long did it take for you to figure out that in school if you can just cram in enough information right before the test then you can make a good grade? As a result of this we equate the consumption of information with transformation. If we are not careful we communicate the same thing in our churches. If you will just memorize this Scripture, do this daily devotion, and prayer three times a day you will have life-change. Now I am not suggesting that these things are not important because I would say that they are vital. What I am saying is that just having the information about Christianity is not enough. It is the transformation part that we so often miss and we desperately need.

Clear Thoughts

All kinds of things fill our thoughts. But when we think of God, sanity enters the picture. It is as if the conductor takes his place at the rostrum: all the discordant sound, the tuning up and fidgeting, turns to silence; and then a melody, a full-bodied score in many parts, comes to birth in the very place where there had been chaos and confusion.

Lord, I think many things.
I have many thoughts.
Let me not forget You,
nor lose sight of You,
even for a moment.

Adapted from Celtic Daily Prayer

Monday Laugh

Everyone needs a good laugh and even more on Mondays. Check out this link and enjoy:

Milk and Cereal

Sad Day

I knew it would happen sooner or later but I still was not prepared for Dukes loss to Georgetown today. Even though I really did not think they could go all year without a loss I was still surprised at how it made me feel - I am very sad. The main reason I am so upset is because I don't think they played very well. JJ was the only one that had a halfway decent game - everyone else stunk it up. It is one thing to play the best that you can and lose the game and something completely different to not play up to your abilities and get beat.

The same thing is true about life - sometimes we don't give it our best effort and we still think we can pull out a win. If we live every day to the fullest and give our best I think we would be surprised out how well things turn out. We are not always going to win and we will have hardships along the way but it feels good to know that you played your best game.

Fry Facts

One of the earliest references we have to British 'chips' (French Fries in the U.S.) is in Charles Dicken's 'Tale of Two Cities' (1859): "husky chips of potatoes, fried with some reluctant drops of oil."

The first reference to 'French fried potatoes' was in 1894 in O. Henry's 'Rolling Stones', “Our countries are great friends. We have given you Lafayette and French fried potatoes.”                         

The 'French' in French fries refers to the method of cutting the potatoes; to 'french' means to slice into thin strips.

Americans eat more than 16 pounds of french fries every year, which comes to over 2 million tons!

Both France and Belgium claim that they invented 'French Fries'. Belgians claim that their street vendors sold these 'Belgian fries' from pushcarts before the French adapted the idea in the middle of the 19th century. They crossed the Atlantic to America in the 1880s.                                        

McDonald's uses about 7% of the potatoes grown in the United States for its French fries. They sell more than 1/3 of all the French fries sold in restaurants in the U.S. each year.

The French fries sold at McDonald's are peeled, sliced and partially cooked at factories in Idaho.