Wisdom [in Speech] Will be Justified…

One of my roommates gets the news magazine, The Week. I was leafing through it just the other day and discovered a blurb that piqued my interested, listed as the “Health scare of the week”:

Girl talk is depressing

Teen girls often form strong friendships by venting to one another for hours about their social problems, boys, and other anxieties. These “girl talk” sessions are usually presumed to offer comfort and support. But a new study of girl talk has found that discussing problems over and over can actually make them worse. When she studied the venting sessions of 813 preteen and teenage girls, phsychologist Amanda Rose found that the hours-long conversations were reinforcing their feelings, not eliminating them. “The more they talk about it, the more anxious and depressed they feel,” Rose tells the Los Angeles Times. “Too much talk is too much of a good thing.” In fact, by obsessing over normal problems, teens can actually drive themselves into depression, eating disorders, and other self-destructive ways of coping with their anxiety.

So it looks like James knew what he was talking about… “And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire by hell” (Jas 3:6). We often couch this in kinder language — we’re processing or venting. While there is definitely a place for talking stuff through with one or two advisors when you are genuinely seeking help for dealing with a situation, this is not that. What this article is talking about, and what I wanted to point out, is that often we complain and backbite and whine when we’re faced with personal drama. It feels good at the time, which I can testify to from personal experience, but it only leaves us feeling more drained and stressed out when all is said and done.

Taming the tongue is not easy; James said that no one can do it (3:8). Whoever can successfully keep their tongue in check is said to be “perfect” (3:2). It can be painfully difficult to resist picking up the phone to call that one person who we know will pat us on the back and justify our lousy attitude. Thankfully, we have God the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, and by His help and grace, that pesky tongue can be brought into submission. And you know He will be faithful to give us plenty of opportunities to grow…

Keeping the Fire Burning

Since I’ve been at IHOP, any time an event needs to take place in the prayer room, somewhere on the missions base, there is a “keep the fire burning” meeting happening. Sometimes it’s just a couple people and a guitar in a back room. It used to be at the Herrnhut clubhouse quite regularly. Wherever it ends up being, it’s a small meeting of people keeping the prayer and worship cooking while the big prayer room is in use.

I’ve always wanted to be in one of these meetings. Last night my team got to lead one.

Random Thoughts while Cleaning FSM

So since we have the prayer room moved to FSM right now, the cleaning teams which normally take care of our little IHOP building are now cleaning the auditorium and multiple bathrooms off of it. It’s not that different from IHOP in some ways, but in others… yeah. Here are some of the things that went through my head while cleaning tonight. Hopefully at least one or two of them will be entertaining.

Hello, all you out there in TV land…

Okay, so that’s not what I said, but that’s how I felt when I had to address the camera tonight. I introduced our time of small group prayer just like I would for any prayer meeting, except I had been instructed to tell that directly to camera two.

Weeeeeeeird.

However, I think it’s actually a pretty good deal that I’m not exactly cut out for this TV business. In my weakness He is strong…

The GPR at FSM

So the the Global Prayer Room is being relocated to the FSM building this week. It’s always odd to see our little Red Bridge facility empty. Even though we’ve had to make this trip a few times in my experience here, it never seems normal to me.

It’s always a good test to find out how flexible everyone is. The sound is different. The setup is different. Are we going to try and have dance teams? How do we go about cleaning? Where do we sit in the gigantic auditorium? Where do we put the intercessors’ chairs? What about burn teams? …etc.

In a strange way, I am looking forward to it, though. I always love seeing my NightWatch comrades respond in kindness, humility, and a good sense of humor to all the craziness that comes with moving our whole operation somewhere else. And it will be interesting to see what all has happened to the original prayer room when we get back.

Compulsive Reading

I think it’s high time I put up another random post. And to that end, I must confess before you all that I am a compulsive reader.

What I mean is that if there is legible text within my view, I have to stop and read it. It doesn’t really matter if I’ve read it before. It doesn’t matter if it’s insanely boring. It doesn’t matter if it has any relevance to my life. Must… read…

I didn’t quite realize that it was anything out of the ordinary until I caught myself on the road once, compulsively reading license plates. Since then, I have caught myself compuslively reading all kinds of bizarre things. One time Christine and I read every single word on a half-pint milk carton — including the lot numbers and ink tests. You know, those weird letter/number sequences that are printed in four different colors? Yep, we read them, and then analyzed their differences.

Sometimes I compulsively read out loud. Usually around Christine. Sometimes I find myself reading the ridiculously oversold advertisements in the junk mail. Other times it’s a magazine cover. Yesterday it was a can of tuna.

I wish I could say I was kidding about that last one.

So the moral of the story is, if you ever need to get ahold of me, point some printed text at me. You will almost certainly gain my immediate rapt attention.

Wow, we really are global, huh?

For the past few days, there’s been a leadership summit going on in Seoul, South Korea. Allen and Samuel Hood, Daniel Lim, and I believe a few other people, are leading this conference. I haven’t heard a whole lot of details about it, but I knew it was happening, and I knew it was a pretty big deal.

What I didn’t know until a few days ago was that the NightWatch would be dedicating our 4-6am intercession sets to praying for Korea. The prayer leaders have led out in prayer for the nation, and there is also a very strong representation of Korean nationals here at IHOP praying on the mic in Korean and in English. I love seeing these dedicated men and women awake at times they are normally sleeping, standing in the house of prayer, leading us in intercession — and I want to one day have the authority on my prayers that they do on theirs. I love the unity that it’s brought between the international section and the NightWatch. I love watching our interns and staff pick up the torch and intercede for this nation that most of us have never even visited.

And it has also brought the reality of what we’re doing here back up into my attention, in a way that still almost doesn’t seem real…

Forgiveness unto Fearing

“If You, LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared.” (Psalm 130:3-4)

I’ve been reading through the Psalms lately, and Psalm 130:4 particularly struck me. I was quite surprised at the psalmist’s assertion that being forgiven by God would lead to the fear of the Lord. Of course, my next realization was that my response to this passage was a good indication that I had forgotten what forgiveness truly is.

Well it was about time…

…It was bound to happen. I’ve at long last changed the appearance of my blog.

My lovely mother is the one who both took and Photoshopped the image above (although I cropped it). She’s a wonderful photogropher.

Aftermath

So it is the day after my crazy non-sleepage days (although Zack definitely wins). I don’t normally do weird things like this to my sleeping schedule, and I don’t think I was quite prepared for the impact it would have on me.

I just slept for twelve hours solid. Yipes.

On another note, on 07-07-07, my page views hit a record low, which made me really happy. That means we were all doing what that day was designed to do (borrowing Corey Russell’s famous line): “Shut it down and pray.”