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Patience
I wasn’t born with an abundance of patience. As a kid, I could rarely sit still for more than 5 minutes at a time, I stayed up all night in anticipation of big events, and I’d often ask “are we there yet” before we got to the end of our street. Not an atypical story for a kid, unfortunately it’s a phase I never really grew out of. In college, a friend finally pointed out to me how annoying my impatience really was. I wanted to get to a movie an hour early – my argument was to beat the…
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Loading Legacy Content in an iFrame
At my day job, I’m responsible for bringing our various web products up to modern standards. Right now, that involves pulling our old website off a static, table-based system built with FrontPage and executing a new design using ASP.NET MVC 3. It’s been a fun project so far, except for one major hang-up. We have a legacy system our customers use to download content from our site. The legacy system is a CGI script on the server that handles rudimentary authentication and presents a list of user-specific downloadable files. Simple, straight-forward, but something we want to throw out entirely. My…
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Perseverance
Every now and then we all come across situations we feel are hopeless. A project is due with too soon a deadline. A work task is just beyond our realm of comfortable effort. An important appointment is endlessly rescheduled. Our finances never seem to balance income versus expenses. It can be exasperating to keep going. Yet we still endure. We persevere. We keep going despite our fears and reservations. My old Scoutmaster used to call this “sticktoitiveness” He, and other leaders of my youth, reminded me frequently that a mark of good character was to keep going when you felt…
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A Change of Perspective – Hiking in Yosemite
I recently picked up Wild Goose Chase by Mark Batterson and read through it with a small group from my church. It’s a fantastic, approachable work explaining different ways you can reconnect with your journey to follow after Christ. The part that stuck with me the most, though, was a single line: “a change of pace plus a change of place equals a change of perspective.” I’m pretty much in a rut. I work the same hours every weekday, followed by a set list of appointments and obligations in the afternoons. My Saturdays are spent cleaning house and catching up with…
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Boundless Summer Challenge – Task 20
This is your final task: Write an essay or make a video describing how this challenge has brought reconciliation and/or growth to one of your relationships. Keep your essay to 700 words or less, or keep your video to four minutes or less. It must be completed and submitted by 11:59 p.m. on Aug. 8, 2011. The winner will be selected on or before Aug. 15, 2011. You might find it helpful to review the contest rules. As part of this task, find someone to whom you can recite 2 Corinthians 5:14-20. Then at the beginning of your essay or…
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Boundless Summer Challenge – Task 15 – Part 2
Last weekend, I was unable to fully complete task 15 because I was out of town to teach a class. As reminder, we were tasked to: The second part is much more clear-cut: Go to church. While you are there, we’d like you to do two specific things: 1) Thank the pastor. If you know your pastor well, you may wish to do something ahead of time like bake him cookies or write him a card. But just thanking him in person after the service is great, too. Try to be specific, such as pointing out a part of his…
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Boundless Summer Challenge – Task 19
God made us male and female — wonderfully complementary. Clearly He designed us for marriage, but we are also in a position to be a uniquely positive influence on each other. Sometimes it is a woman’s encouragement that brings out the best in a man, and a man’s encouragement that brings out the best in a woman. Whether or not you have a significant other, there are people of the opposite gender in your life for whom your encouragement could mean more than you realize. Think about your parents, siblings, extended family, platonic friends, co-workers, children, professors, bosses or others…
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Boundless Summer Challenge – Task 18
Prayer is an important part of your current and future relationships, whether those include acquaintances, friends or your significant other. This week the focus has been on strengthening current dating relationships and marriages and preparing for future relationships. Today’s task involves praying for your future spouse and members of the opposite sex. Before you pray, read “Pray Boldly” by Candice Watters. If you aren’t currently in a relationship, pray for the men or women in your acquaintance you believe would be godly husbands or wives. If you see potential for a godly relationship with someone, pray about it and ask…
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Boundless Summer Challenge – Task 17
Today’s task is two-fold. We want to add to your biblical understanding of marriage by giving you two tasks. The first is reading, and the second is a little more interactive. Part One: For Guys: Download or read online “A Guy’s Guide to Marrying Well.” We encourage you to read the entire booklet, but for the sake of time, it’s not required. The booklet is separated into four sections: Intentionality, Purity, Community and Christian Compatibility. Pick three articles from each section to read depending on your interests and what applies to you. Part Two: It’s good to get advice from…
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Boundless Summer Challenge – Task 16
We are dedicating this last week to one kind of relationship in particular: your spouse or your future spouse. As the majority of Christians are called to marriage, and as your marriage partner is to be the most important human in your life, we think it’s worth spending a whole week on. But before we launch into a romantic relationship present or future, we’d like to take some time to deal with the past. Many of us are walking around with pain or baggage from past relationships. Some of us find broken family relationships influencing our views of marriage. Perhaps…