Hey thanks for visiting my blog. Often times when I am preparing a sermon an idea comes to me that I want to unpack a little more. Hopefully, this blog will allow me the place to do that. Then again, maybe I’ll just talk about my kids. I’ll try to update it once a month..

I just lost one month of my life. I’ll never get it back. It’s like I was in a coma from August 9th to September 7th of this year. I didn’t exist. At least that’s what my computer tells me. Somehow those weeks got deleted off my calendar. I had no soccer practice, I didn’t meet with anyone, didn’t have any staff meetings and didn’t get my car fixed. That vacation? Never happened.

There was a movie with Steven Seagal where he got put in a coma by some bad guys (they thought he was dead.) When he awoke, although very weak, he was able to go back and kill all the people that took his life away. That’s how I feel. I’ve been betrayed by technology. Like Seagal, the very people I trusted (in this case an Intel Core Duo Processor) were the very ones that stabbed me in my digital back. I’m getting to the bottom of this. By the way, since I bite my fingernails, I thought it would be kind of cool to wake up from a coma after a few months and be like, “Man, those are some seriously nice nails.” Maybe I wouldn’t bite them anymore because they would be so beautiful. Or, maybe I’d go at them like a Vegas buffet. Where was I? Oh yeah.

I keep everything on my calendar. As a matter of fact, it’s color coded. Sports are black, personal stuff is red, church things are brown and so on. At a glance I can tell you if my life is out of order. Now I see only white. Nothing. My wife puts her stuff on her calendar, I put my stuff on mine and they sync together over the internet. Those calendars then sync with my phone via bluetooth.  It’s magical. We never conflict with dates because we are always in sync. Now I see nothing BUT conflict.

I have all sorts of rules about putting events on the calendar and get all bent out of shape when Lisa doesn’t follow them. You have to capitalize the first word, put precise times on the events, sync right after you finish and so on. Yeah, I know, “poor Lisa.”  I’m sorry but was Lisa in a coma? Did Lisa lose 4 weeks of her life that she can never get back? Was Lisa betrayed by a loved one? No, she wasn’t so let’s just put the focus back on me.

You have to understand, my calendar is everything. If I get my Visa bill and I don’t remember a charge I just go to my calendar, “Oh yeah, we DID go to Knott’s Berry Farm last week.” Sushi? I don’t remember having sushi! Oh yeah, I did have sushi with Buzzy at 11:52am on Tuesday. It lasted 63 minutes. You want to meet with me? I’ll check my calendar. Meet with the in-laws? Sorry, I’m all booked up...see, look at my calendar. Want to take me to sushi? Looks like my calendar just cleared up.

A quick review of my calendar and I can tell you how important I was. What I did. Who I am. Now it’s gone. iSync (the program that syncs my calendars) has made me iPoor. I’m a nobody. I didn’t do anything. No family. No job. No church. Nothing to offer anybody.

I’m quickly realizing that I get a lot of value from what I do. If I have something to show for it then I can prove that I’m worth something. If my calendar is filled with events then I must be very productive. Very important.

This week we are talking about being poor in spirit at church. It’s a pretty killer greek word that is used for “poor.” It’s the understanding that you can only beg. You have nothing to offer and anything you get must be given to you. You are incapable creating value. You have nothing on your calendar. You’re not needed.

This is the attitude that gets you the Kingdom of Heaven. To wipe your calendar clean and say, I am nothing unless God does something through me. God is the one that writes the events in the squares. He is the one that gives value. Our job is just to understand that He can use anyone and that we are immensely blessed when He uses us.

Having said all that spiritual stuff, I’m going to try to get my stuff back from a back up I did a couple of days ago.