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A Week Divinely ordered by the Lord

It's been a crazy good week...

-Last Saturday night... Played a show in South Carolina.
-Sunday morning... got two hours of sleep... drove two hours to the airport and flew home to Houston.
-Sunday morning... drove straight from the airport to church service.
-Monday & Tuesday... lead worship at morning and nigh services.
-Wednesday.. played a show in Deer Park.
-Thursday... got up and moved everything upstairs so it wouldn't get flooded. Then we all drove 8 hours to Dallas in a six car caravan.
-Friday... woke up a 3:45Am and went to the airport in Dallas. Flew to Boise, ID and lead played that night.
-Saturday... played another show in Boise.
-Sunday... lead worship at both morning services and then ran straight to the airport...

And God was right smack dab in the middle of all it. This week has been such a blessing. God has spoken to me so much about His presence, destiny, worship, and just HImself in general.

Praise God for being there during the craziness!

-jack

The Wizarding world of Universal

Today we played at Rock the Universe in Orlando. One of my favorite things about these kind of shows is that we usually get an escort to take us around the park. We totally get spoiled because we get to go through the exit and pass up the lines. We feel kind of bad... but... we have fun any ways. Spiderman might have been my favorite; it's a 4-D immerive experience that cost the park $200 Million to build. Also, I hounded our guide with questions about the new Harry Potter park that's coming in 2010. Ok... it's going to be amazing! She said there's going to be new patented technology that's never been used before in theme parks! And JK Rowling herself is helping oversee the creative process. They've only leveled the ground and started building the first attraction (she couldn't tell us what it was... it's all very secretive you see). And it's going to be huge as well... just as big as Universal Studios itself. Wish I had more info... but really it was just a big tease. All Harry Potter fans can appreciate my anticipation. I'm going to be there opening day!

Cheers.

-jack

at the airport...

it's become our new home...

Reading for three reasons

You know how we can read books just for the sake of reading them? So we can try to impress others with how smart we are? I've fallen prey to that way too many times and I really can't stand to see it in myself or others. I have three primary reasons for reading 1) Drawing closer to God. 2) Gaining More knowledge of the world around me. 3) To have fun. And impressing people will never be one of them. Because I happen to read things all the time that are altogether unimpressive.

With that said... "The Confessions" certainly falls into the first two categories and at times wanders into the third. I never imagined a book this ancient could be so current. His honesty is comforting and challenging at the same time. It reminds us that sin is very real, and God's grace has always been, and always will be, the means to destroy it.

Here's a couple excerpts of St. Augustine pouring his heart out to God.

"Do not hide your face from Me; let me die so that I may see it, for not to see it would be death to me indeed."

"God, You are most high, excellent, most powerful, omnipotent, supremely merciful and supremely just, most hidden yet intimately present, infinitely beautiful and infinitely strong, steadfast yet elusive, unchanging yourself though you control the change in all things, never new, never old, renewing all things yet wearing down the proud though they know it not, ever active, ever at rest, gathering while knowing no need, supporting and filling and gaurding, creating an nurturing and perfecting, seeking although you lack nothing. You love without frenzy, you are jealous yet secure, you regret without sadness, you grow angry yet remain tranquil, you alter your works but never your plan, you take back what you find although you never lost it; you are never in need yet you rejoice in your gains, never avariocious yet you demand profits. You allow us to pay you more than you demand, and so you become our debtor, yet which of us possesses anything that does not already belong to You?"

I love worship... I hate 4am

So... we just got back from the Hillsong Conference here in Houston. It was amazing worship tonight! I was crying like a baby while we were singing "Hosanna". And "With Everything" was off the charts... God was off the charts. He totally overwhelmed me tonight with His love and His goodness. I love those moments when God sweeps you off your feet and just surprises you once again with how great his love is. Then when I feel the reality of that love all I can do is tilt my head up until my neck hurts... open my eyes and sing through the ceiling and just shout to heaven. This is worship people!

Any of you guys had an awesome worship experience lately? If so... tell us about it. If not, stop what you're doing right now and just tell God how amazing He is. Then begin to live for this incredible God. That's worship.

I've got to pack now and then go to sleep. We've got a 5am call time and that means I have to wake up around 4am. Fun!

Later gaterz.

-jack

Reading

I just finished "The Mysterious Benedict Society". It was so good and I'm going to read the second book soon. Any ways... this is my next book. And I'm totally going to finish it this time! Now I'm accountable to the few people that read this blog and I have to finish it. It's an amazing book, but certainly not an "easy" read for me. I think this is going to be my new book rotation; an easy kids' book/fun fiction and then a more difficult book. We'll see how it works.

In God We Trust

Africa blog #1

So... we finally made it to Malawi. After 36 hours of travel we're here! We've only been here for a few hours and God has already started something in our hearts. The second we walked into the football stadium and saw everyone dancing and singing we started crying. There's just something about the joy that these people have. Their thankfulness and praise ushers in the presence of God in such a powerful way.

We sang "Save Your People" tonight and they went crazy! Everyone was jumping up and down and singing as loud as they could. We're playing again Saturday night and Sunday. Thanks for all your prayers and comments... we appreciate it so much.

I'll post some pictures tomorrow. Love love love!

-jack

Planes Planes & more Planes

I'm off to Africa via London! YAY!

peace!

-jack

Christian the Lion

I love it!

New Band Blog

We just started a new band blog. Check it out HERE!

Colossians 3:15

Me and Whit are trying to memorize Colossians chapter three. Scripture memorization has never come very easy for me, but Whit brought up the challenge and it's going pretty well. Any ways, I was reading through and I got to the fifteenth verse:

"And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful."

The second I read that scripture I just started to meditate on peace. What a beautiful thing to think upon... the peace of God reigning in our hearts. But then I started to hear gun fire, bombs, and crashing debris. I visualized the most bloody, violent, and vehement battle scene one could imagine. And I felt God whisper to me... "This is your heart."

We're so hard on ourselves. We make Satan's job so easy. He probably just sits back and watches us wage war against ourselves. We hurl accusations at ourselves and inflict injury and punishment all within the confines of our heart. And we usually don't sop there but start firing at others. Pretty soon we're in a state of lovelessness. Not loving ourselves near as much as God loves us, and not loving others near as much as we love ourselves.

The cross, the grave, and the resurrection was the ultimate peace treaty. God crushed violence, accusation, and sin; freeing us to be at peace with Him and ourselves. We have to understand that we are loved beyond our understanding. The perfect love of Jesus, and that alone, will bring peace to our hearts.

The Power Stance

Please click on this picture and see the enlarged version...

The New Me

2 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV)

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."

Am I the only one that wakes up and feels like the "old" me sometimes? I think that's the epic struggle in the daily walk of most followers of Jesus. I think I'm just now realizing that I'm a new person. When I received Jesus I was molded and changed by the Spirit. When I say new; I mean that I was made new in all the ways I needed to be. Now I can just be myself; because "myself" now has the nature, the likeness, and power of God. I don't have to generate any more righteousness... He's my righteousness. I don't have to be impressive... because God's already impressed with Jesus, and Jesus is in me. Lord, help me to live this today. Help me to live like the new me... the real me.

George MacDonald - "Unspoken Sermons"

"Love is one, and love is changeless. For love loves unto purity. Love has ever in view the absolute loveliness of that which it beholds. Where loveliness is incomplete, and love cannot love its fill of loving, it spends itself to make more lovely, that it may love more; it strives for perfection, even that itself may be perfected - not in itself, but in the object. As it was love that first created humanity, so even human love, in proportion to its divinity, will go on creating the beautiful for its own outpouring. There is nothing eternal but that which loves and can be loved, and love is ever climbing towards the consummation when such shall be the universe, imperishable, divine.

Therefore all that is not beautiful in the beloved, all that comes between and is not of love's kind, must be destroyed. And our God is a consuming fire."

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George MacDonald (1824-1905) - Scottish Congregationalist pastor, novelist, myth maker, and poet, MacDonald had a profound influence on C.S. Lewis. Lewis said that MacDonald's Phantastes "baptized my imaginiation.

Golf

Today I had the wonderful opportunity to golf with Leeland and our cousin Wes. It's been a couple months since I've played so it was nice to get out on the course. I hit the ball pretty well, but my short game was terrible. My score was astronomical today.... (the lower the better in golf).


Great form... great form...


Cousin Wes... so good to have him back at home.


Leeland keep your head up bro... people miss birdie putts all the time.


Four hours well spent!

Some pix

The place to be!












I have to wear an eye patch at night so my eye doesn't dry out...



I tried acupuncture today... it's so awesome!


you gotta have a little fun when you shave...

Life is Good

Me and whit are off to Barne's & Noble armed with three gift cards... thanks Lana, Lauren & jason!

I'll post on my purchases when I get back. YAY!!!!

...

Ok, so we're back and we have quite a few books. here we go... it's a pretty random assortment...

Wrinkle in Time Box Set (Five Books)


even sawyer's read it...




The Signature of Jesus (Brennan Manning)




The Tale of Despereaux




Aesop's Fables




The Secret Power of Speaking God's Word




The House at Pooh Corner (For our kid's library we're building... and for us too of course.)




Do Hard Things (My friends Alex & Brett Harris wrote this. Giving my boys some support! They had a conversation with Leeland that made the book. Great stuff.)




Deceptively Delicious (Whit is going to try and sneak the good stuff into our food now. :-)


PS. Whit just updated our blog... check it out here.

Life this week...

I'm only in the fourth chapter and it's already so fun! I just love children's books. They have the most surprising and practical insights for everyday life. Whitney and I have vowed to never grow up and always read these books even when we're "old".


An amazing little book that has been so encouraging to me this week. I've had it on the bookshelf for years, and I'm just now diving into it. It's reminding me who I am in Christ.
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In other news, the doctors say I have Bell's Palsy. You basically lose muscle control on one side of your face. It's kind of funny... and not funny at the same time. I'm blessed because I only have a mild form of it (no facial drooping or anything), but my smile is pretty funky. haha... sorry, no pictures.

Any ways, I'm on a strict health plan with lots of vitamins and such. I'm getting way more sleep than I'm used to getting, and I'm spending a whole lot of time in the presence of God. It's been so refreshing to sit back and rest in God. What a concept! I'm learning that I don't have to control everything in my life... including the left side of my face. :-) I don't have to be impressive, powerful, or exceptional... I'm going to let God be all of those things. I'm just going to do what i was created to do... fall in love with him more and more. God's healing me, because healing is in God and God is in me! So I'm not worried at all. Please keep me in your prayers! And thanks for those of you that have been praying for me; it means a lot.

Love love love!

-jack

Bono at the NAACP

Matthew 25:35-40
"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Reading, Listening, Watching

The Movie & the Soundtrack... love it!

my new favorite band

the trons

living the dream

this is what I look like when I've been living in airports... and rental cars... haven't had any sleep, and I'm about to go on stage in three minutes... get pumped jack!

I had a dream last night that I witnessed to The Rock. He was in the checkout line at WalMart. So random...

Birthday Gifts!

Thanks everyone for my gifts! They're all perfect. Turning 23 wasn't so bad after all... :-)

Nice speakers for my laptop! YAY!!!!!!

Across the Universe (Blu Ray)

Pumas - Thanks Leeland!

Reason 4 - YAY!

Gattaca (Blu Ray)

The Prestige (Blu Ray)

The Lyricist's Notebook

The Little Red Writing Book

Planet Earth (Blu Ray)

Setting my hope in His grace

This scripture really encouraged me this morning...

1 Peter 1:13 "Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set you hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ."

Our hope can't be put in anything except knowing Jesus more and more. There are endless depths of knowledge, grace, love, and power to be explored in relationship with the Lord. And I'm choosing to set my mind on Him today. My hope is His grace!

My new look...

Viva la vida... Coldplay returns

The album cover is kind of mind boggling. Certainly not in typical Coldplay fashion. It looks like something out of "A Tale of Two Cities". They're also releasing the new single, "Violet Hill" tomorrow for free on the website. It will probably be just as surprising as this artwork. They're my favorite band, so I always get a little scared before every new release. But I have a feeling it's going to be genius. Viva la vida!!!!!

A Hole in Darwinism

Intelligent Design position statement 
By Michael J. Behe


Scientists use the term “black box” for a system whose inner workings are unknown. To Charles Darwin and his contemporaries, the living cell was a black box because its fundamental mechanisms were completely obscure. We now know that, far from being formed from a kind of simple, uniform protoplasm (as many nineteenth-century scientists believed), every living cell contains many ultrasophisticated molecular machines.

How can we decide whether Darwinian natural selection can account for the amazing complexity that exists at the molecular level? Darwin himself set the standard when he acknowledged, “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.”

Some systems seem very difficult to form by such successive modifications—I call them irreducibly complex. An everyday example of an irreducibly complex system is the humble mousetrap. It consists of (1) a flat wooden platform or base; (2) a metal hammer, which crushes the mouse; (3) a spring with extended ends to power the hammer; (4) a catch that releases the spring; and (5) a metal bar that connects to the catch and holds the hammer back. You can’t catch a mouse with just a platform, then add a spring and catch a few more mice, then add a holding bar and catch a few more. All the pieces have to be in place before you catch any mice.

Irreducibly complex systems appear very unlikely to be produced by numerous, successive, slight modifications of prior systems, because any precursor that was missing a crucial part could not function. Natural selection can only choose among systems that are already working, so the existence in nature of irreducibly complex biological systems poses a powerful challenge to Darwinian theory. We frequently observe such systems in cell organelles, in which the removal of one element would cause the whole system to cease functioning. The flagella of bacteria are a good example. They are outboard motors that bacterial cells can use for self-propulsion. They have a long, whiplike propeller that is rotated by a molecular motor. The propeller is attached to the motor by a universal joint. The motor is held in place by proteins that act as a stator. Other proteins act as bushing material to allow the driveshaft to penetrate the bacterial membrane. Dozens of different kinds of proteins are necessary for a working flagellum. In the absence of almost any of them, the flagellum does not work or cannot even be built by the cell.

Another example of irreducible complexity is the system that allows proteins to reach the appropriate subcellular compartments. In the eukaryotic cell there are a number of places where specialized tasks, such as digestion of nutrients and excretion of wastes, take place. Proteins are synthesized outside these compartments and can reach their proper destinations only with the help of “signal” chemicals that turn other reactions on and off at the appropriate times. This constant, regulated traffic flow in the cell comprises another remarkably complex, irreducible system. All parts must function in synchrony or the system breaks down. Still another example is the exquisitely coordinated mechanism that causes blood to clot.

Biochemistry textbooks and journal articles describe the workings of some of the many living molecular machines within our cells, but they offer very little information about how these systems supposedly evolved by natural selection. Many scientists frankly admit their bewilderment about how they may have originated, but refuse to entertain the obvious hypothesis: that perhaps molecular machines appear to look designed because they really are designed.

I am hopeful that the scientific community will eventually admit the possibility of intelligent design, even if that acceptance is discreet and muted. My reason for optimism is the advance of science itself, which almost every day uncovers new intricacies in nature, fresh reasons for recognizing the design inherent in life and the universe.**