Brad Fish shared this with us first – FaceTabletting is the new Faceplank Gangnam Style Harlem Shake for people with tablets… [and faces]
So grab a Tablet and see how creative you can get. Then head over to the Facebook group and add them to the growing wall of FaceTablet pics: https://www.facebook.com/groups/FaceTablet
Need a Tablet with a front and back camera and then use a laptop camera to take pics of your face behind and through the tablet…
Or like this:
this is a pretty short psalm and to be honest i didn’t get a whole lot from it. we do know that it is written by David and it is written in a time of war and battle and so that influences the mood and the atmosphere of the writing.
the one thing i felt when reading the intro, and this may just be me, but it seems to read slightly differently from some of the other psalms. this one begins with the phrase, “You have rejected us, God, and burst upon us” but whereas in some Psalms it seems more like an accusation or a huge question of ‘Why, God?’ the way i read this psalm was almost more an acknowledgement that we deserved it [knowing Israel’s history, probably because once more we were disobedient or turned against you] and so this sense of ‘i get it God, but please turn it around now.’
1 You have rejected us, God, and burst upon us;
you have been angry—now restore us!
2 You have shaken the land and torn it open;
mend its fractures, for it is quaking.
3 You have shown your people desperate times;
you have given us wine that makes us stagger.
4 But for those who fear you, you have raised a banner
to be unfurled against the bow.
Like i say, that could just be my reading of this piece, but it’s the phrase, ‘now restore us’ that follows the first line, that seems to suggest there is no huge accusation or question, coupled with verse 4 which reads, ‘But for those who fear you, you have raised a banner to be unfurled against the bow.’
Verse 9 asks a couple of ‘Who?’ questions with David leading up to his conclusion by moving the focus squarely on to God before giving Him this acknowledgement. Yes, we are confident that our help will come from God:
10 Is it not you, God, you who have now rejected us
and no longer go out with our armies?
11 Give us aid against the enemy,
for human help is worthless.
12 With God we will gain the victory,
and he will trample down our enemies.
so my new Nexus 10 tablet arrived in the mail today and i’ve had too much to do to really get around to playing with it properly.
[altho i did have to take some pics of tbV’s frozen fruit – don’t ask – and new tattoo – ask – so i figured out having worked out the camera piece [our digital camera climbed down the curtain of life and joined the bleeding choir invisible a while back so that was part justification for getting this specific model over the Kindle Fire] i would have to take a pic or two of my own – see below]
and i spent a LOT of time wanting a tablet slash reader slash portable blog post carrier and was trying to figure out how, if at all, it fit into the whole living simply vibe we are trying to pull. did i need one? absolutely not. but not having a phone [tbV has one now but i have not had one for close to two years out of the last three] and not having a digital camera meant that in some way this will help with connection and picture taking abilities and having received a surprise boost of some preach money i really wasn’t accepting [don’t tell them but i would have paid them for the opportunity] we felt it was an okay thing to spend money on…
then i did these, which in my book is complete justification for the complete expense, although hopefully there will be some ministry and kingdom opportunities for it along the way from here:
Completely worth it, right? Let the new season begin…
My kids are evil.
Good. Now that I’ve got your attention, let me explain. Little kids are a lot of things – sweet, cute, sticky (most of the time), small, lovable, smelly (again, most of the time). But compassionate, kind, gracious and selfless? Nope, nope, nope and… nope. And here in lies the rub. All too often we mistake their sweetness and smallness for goodness. Our children are wonderful gifts. But they are not born with great character – the kind that will ultimately lead to world changers and planet shakers. Goodness is not a birthright.
Now, teaching our kids these kinds of qualities is easier said than done. I mean, just keeping them alive, fed, clothed and (relatively) clean is a quantum job! As a parent with three children under the age of five, I’m discovering that it’s better to integrate big life lessons than to separate them from our day-to-day lives. I’m hoping that as the days, weeks and years go by, my kids’ lives will be peppered with lots of useful moments that help them to become people of real character and to navigate their way through this oft upside-down world.
Here are some examples of character attributes we want our kids to have, and some ways we’re trying to instill them into the little buggers:
Compassion – I remember the first time I tried to teach my eldest this virtue. We pulled up at a traffic light and saw a man begging for food. I rolled down my window, greeted him warmly and gave him an orange. As we drove away, I explained to Eli what we’d just done. He cried all the way home. Not out of sympathy for the poor man, but out of utter self pity that I had given away our food. Our orange! He wailed as if it was the last piece of fruit known to mankind. Another time, he asked me why a man was digging in the bins. I knelt down and told him gently about the huge disparity between rich and poor in our country, about how that man probably had kids at home, and that their home was nothing like ours, and how different their supper would look to ours. And that, despite how different our lives were, we were no better than that man. Again, Eli wept. And again, not out of compassion, but because somewhere in my story I had mentioned the word cupcake, and now he was sure he would die if he did not have a cupcake right this very minute. I’m not making this up. My kids are evil!
Courage – One of our kids is inherently skittish. We feel it’s our job to build into him the confidence he’ll need to face life well. So we don’t just let him get away with not trying new, scary things. We encourage him. We often say, ‘Just because you’re scared, doesn’t mean you can’t do it – you can!’ And he’s always so glad when he does eventually try and succeed at something new.
Robustness – This is such an undervalued attribute these days. When was the last time you heard someone say, “John is such a catch. He’s so robust!” And yet it’s one of the make-or-break qualities to get through life alive and happy! We try to teach our kids to suck it up when life sucks. We don’t say that of course, we say ‘It’s not the end of the world.’ And we say it sooo often that most of the time now, we just say, “It’s not the end of the?” and they finish the sentence themselves, as they take a deep breath and wipe their snotty faces clean with their sleeves. Children are charming like that.
So to sum up, I’m learning that good character isn’t going to fall from the sky onto my little ones. But every day is jam-packed with great opportunities to teach, inspire and drag them (kicking and screaming) toward it!
[Julie, among other things is someone with a gifted prophetic voice, a writer of note and an amazing woman role model for hundreds of younger women around her. She is the wife of Terran who is a friend of mine i have done a bunch of speaking with or near for many years and they keep their friends constantly amused with an assortment of things their kids say via the Facebook]
Sat in on a church service on Sunday where the preacher preached how we’ve got it all wrong.
Life has become all about pursuing happiness. He stuck up definitions of the words ‘hedonism’ and ‘narcissm’ on the screen so we could see just how bad it was.
I’m with you so far.
And then he dropped the M.Night.Shyamalan twist. ‘The way of the Christ follower is that we must pursue God. And happiness will follow.’
Ouch. Instantly i realised this was not of the ‘The Sixth Sense’ Shyamalan twist variety… this was the more recent Shyamalan twist where the twist was ‘This movie is crap!’ [Although let’s be honest, it’s stopped being a twist by now, we should have taken not of the signs]
The rest of his message was ‘convincing’ us that God is a happy God and therefore us pursuing God is us finding happiness.
And i agreed with him to the extent that it sounds nice but is completely not true. At all.
Was the apostle Peter happy do you think when they crucified him upside down? [he allegedly refused to be crucified right way up because he didn’t feel worthy to die the same way Jesus did]
Was James happy when they sawed him in half?
Do you think Paul was happy when he was flogged and beaten and stoned and shipwrecked and eventually lost his head?
Were the early christians happy to be covered in tar and set on fire to be used as human torches for Nero’s birthday celebrations?
No, i don’t believe they were happy.
I DO believe they were very likely filled with joy though.
Because Paul would write things like this:
‘For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.’ [Philippians 1.21]
Which followed on from statements like this:
18 But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.
Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, 19 for I know that through your prayers and God’s provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. 20 I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. [Philippians 1.18-20]
The difference really seems to come down to the distinction between ‘Happiness’ and ‘Joy’ and it might be that the preacher just mixed the two up and that he meant everything i am saying here. But if so, I didn’t hear that. He told us that if we pursued God we would be happy. And i think most people have the same kind of idea when they hear the consequence of their actions will be happiness – no problems, no pain, everything will go smoothly, certainly no suffering or death.
But then a family member gets cancer. Or someone they know is killed in a car accident. And suddenly the ‘promise’ they were given from the front of the church doesn’t seem so true any more because they certainly aren’t happy. And so because it isn’t true then God is made out to be a liar. [in cases where it really IS the messenger we should be holding accountable for broken-telephoning it]
This is how i see the difference:
# HAPPINESS is circumstance dependent – you give me a present, i become happy. i win a prize, i am happy. she says “Yes!” i am happy. but if you scratch my new car or a friend dies or it rains when i’m wanting to go out then i might be unhappy. happiness is more an emotion – something you feel.
# JOY, however, is a deeper experience that often encompasses happiness but can also be present even when circumstances don’t naturally lead you to feel happy. a deeper knowledge of and trust in God is often what leads people, like Paul, to be able to rejoice [celebrate joyfully] even in adverse conditions or circumstances. joy is more a state of being that may or may not involve the emotion of happiness.
So even if you are being persecuted or having a bad day or even if circumstances are looking bleak, there is that deeper something [which i believe only a deep faith in Jesus can truly bring about, so some of you may not understand what i am talking about if you don’t have that – joy after all is a fruit of the Spirit] which still brings you hope and encourages you to keep going and even allows you the chance to celebrate in the face of adversity or challenge.
And i will agree with the preachery guy in terms of his focus of things. That as we seek God and to be in good relationship with Him, so joy will follow.
But following God and receiving happiness? There are hundreds and thousands of christians through the ages who have gone through real and actual persecution, who have lost loved ones and limbs, who have lived in adverse circumstances and who have been beaten, imprisoned or killed because of what they believed, who might take issue on that statement. But joy? I bet you they would talk you ear off for hours, maybe days, about that one.
So for the past few months my 7 year old son and I have been on a mission to infect the world with kindness.
It all started when after going through a tough time I got to a stage where I was feeling really grateful for all the good things in my life and I decided to do something nice for someone who was less fortunate than me. It left me feeling so good that I decided this would be a great thing to share with my son. I suggested to him that we have one day a week where we do something nice for someone else be it a friend, family member or stranger.
He was immediately excited at the idea and asked why did it have to only be one day a week, could we not do it every day! So this is how our journey began.
One particular thing that we decided to do one day (and have continued to do generally once a week since then) is full a flask with boiling water and take some coffee, sugar, milk and cups together with some muffins we had baked and drive around our neighbourhood looking for homeless people we can share a warm drink with.
It is currently winter in Cape Town and there have been some really cold days! The first day we met Thomas, Louise and Charlotte. It was really nice to take the time to sit down and talk with these people. They were so surprised that we took the time to sit and talk to them, find out their name and take an interest in their lives.
[Sally used to be on a youth leaders committee with me a very long time ago and we ate a decent amount of Milo out of the tin together]
[If you are interested you can read more about what they have been doing on their blog – http://caydenskindness.wordpress.com or our facebook page – www.facebook.com/CaydensKindness]
being a parent of young children can be one of the toughest things in the world.
for some parents, more often than not it can be more a matter of survival than thriving and any hope of finding creative ways to raise your little people into being the world changers you hope that will be one day is often replaced by just trying to make it to the end of the day without killing any of them.
which is where this series comes in. i am not a parent myself, but i have heard some inspirational stories recently of some parents doing some things, which in some cases are very simple and in others took a more invested amount of involvement, which are likely to teach their children great lessons about living life well and ultimately will change the world. the idea is for me to collect a whole bunch of these ideas to hopefully inspire those who maybe don’t have the time or inclination to sit down and try and imagine them for themselves.
the hope is that you will find an idea, or ideas, that might work for you or that these stories might spark a different idea for you to try with your family.
let me say that i think being a parent is one of the most important ‘jobs’ in the world. it is so crucial and important and because there is no test you have to take to become one or manual to read that shows you how it will all play once you have one, must rank as one of the most scary things you can do in life, in terms of worrying that you will get it wrong.
which is why learning from those who have walked the journey can be a powerful thing…
THE PARENT, THE CHILD AND THE PAID-FOR-RESTAURANT-BILL LOTTERY
I heard the story of when my bossman and his wife Meeghan went out for a meal with their young son, Justice. After the meal was done, they turned to Justice and said he could look around the restaurant and pick any family he wanted and they would pay for that family’s meal. So essentially they were the ones doing the good deed, but by inviting Justice to make the choice it suddenly started to feel like his good deed. So he picked a family and they went to the front and paid for their bill and the other family’s meal. Then the hardest part happened when they took Justice out without being able to watch the family receive the gift [a further lesson in terms of doing something good in secret].
‘There are a lot of times that people get to thank us or times we get to witness the impact of our sharing. This was a moment that it wasn’t necessary and perhaps more important for us not to need or receive.’ [Meeghan]
Simple, yet profound, because that is going to be a story that sticks with him. And because, more importantly, he was a part of it.
That is what this series is all about – as a parent, what creative life lesson have you been able to teach your child, or what practice do you do as a family that you feel will help them grow up to think differently and be different from the herd, in a world changing way?
Meet Bruce, Gemma, Emily and Mikaela
Meet cousin David and the members of his clan
Meet Three Manns and a little Goat
Meet Nigel and Trish and their five kids who moved into a dangerous area in Hillbrow, South Africa
Meet Lara, Chris and their daughters who also moved into a dangerous area in Philadelphia, Americaland
Meet Lisa and her children Hailey, Noah and Isaiah who also moved into a dangerous area in San Francisco, Americaland
Meet Dalene Reyburn and read the letter she writes to her two boys to see them grow up as world changers
Meet Ro, Ad and Aaléyah and hear about the time they gave Jesus a shark!
A very worthwhile addition to this list is a reading of this letter from Magda Pecsenye to her sons about stopping rape [Excellent read for any parent!]
Look forward to sharing and hearing some more stories.
[If you have one you would like to share please email it to brettfish@hotmail.com – I won’t necessarily use them all, but it will be great to have a whole bunch to choose from]
Irresistibly Fish 