this is how i’m doing: in case you were wondering…

up to the minute status report brought to you by The University of North Texas, the Power of Ideas…

Father Guido Sarducci’s 5 Minute University. Hilarious

I’ve been in a real rut the past week or so, just kind of coasting by resting on yesterday’s blessings and I have to say it’s starting to make me real apathetic.  Apathy really sucks the life out of things; food doesn’t taste as good, music starts to get old, God starts to seem distant and it becomes a chore for me to chase after Him. When I get apathetic I tend to become a critic and desire to drag everybody else around me into the same funk.

To contrast that, I was at CR tonight and felt so convicted of this and so encouraged at the same time. Hearing other guys talk about their struggles and what God is doing in their lives really helped me put things back into a perspective. While I felt that God was so far away I got to from other guys how near He has been to them this week and it helped me to realize 2 things: First, God has never and will never leave me. Second, just as their positive attitude towards their struggles and hardships affect me positively, my negative funk was affecting people negatively. Life in Christ isn’t always the good life; a lot of times it’s the everyday life and the down right miserable life. Charles Spurgeon once said “If we cannot believe God when circumstances seem to be against us, we do not believe Him at all.” How painfully true that has been in my life. I can say with my lips that I trust God but my actions reveal my heart; I can’t fix my heart. So, again, I must lay it all down before God. The pride that keeps me from repentance, the apathy that keeps me from pursuing.

“You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise.” - Psalm 51:16-17

<rant>

It’s like a fire truck driving past a burning building without stopping to help. THAT is how I feel every time I visit a UNT webpage… I’m only one man, and there is SO MUCH BAD DESIGN out there. I’m not even talking aesthetics - the organization (if you could call it that) of content is driving me crazy. WHY does everyone think they can do this kind of stuff on their own? WHY!!! I consider it as an insult to the profession…

</rant>

So remember when I said my homegroup sort of turned into a band? Well here we are, “Smooth Cookies”. Coley, our home group leader (not picture, nor is he in the band) would say something was “smooth cookies” when he thought it was cool or something. You know what, we really don’t know WHAT he means when he says it - we thought it was funny, and random so when we had to put our band’s name on the chalkboard we decided to go by Smooth Cookies.

This is a pic from open mic night at Buon Giorno Coffee House in Grapevine. Our “set list”:

Folsom Prison Blues - Johnny Cash
Thankful - Derek Webb
The Levi Blues - uhhhh… IDK my BFF Jill? (only funny if you’ve seen the cingular commercial)

Then, they loved us so much we did:

Wagon Wheel - Old Crow Medicine Show
Run Around - Blues Traveller

So anyway, this is us - Smooth Cookies

P.S. - In real live we are in color.