Admiral Ackbar

Most famous for his quote, "IT'S A TRAP!" in the final Star Wars movie, Admiral Ackbar has inspired people everywhere to be suspicious of fishy (pun intended) situations.  The next time you're feeling uneasy about what you or others are about to do, ask yourself, "What would Admiral Ackbar say?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dddAi8FF3F4

Facing My Giants

The past couple weeks have been very exhausting for me.  With my obligations to swim and student government during homecoming week, I have fallen behind on a lot of my schoolwork.  I'm under a lot of pressure to maintain my class rank in order to be competitive for the colleges I wish to attend.  I guess you can say that the tipping point came when I asked my wrestling coach for time to make-up my assignments before starting the season and he refused to work with me.

     Honestly, I can say I was wholeheartedly considering not wrestling this year.  I didn't feel like I could deal with all of my commitments as well as the added stress from unreasonable coaches.  Lately, I have been asking God to reveal His will for my immediate future and tonight I believe my prayer was answered.  After stumbling across a clip from this movie I decided to watch it in its entirety.  The entire movie is outstanding, but there are two particular scenes that stuck out. First there is a point in the movie where Grant Taylor,the Head Coach, hits a sort of crossroads in his life and he simply asks God for help.  I feel like I am in a similar situation:

"Lord Jesus, would you help me? I need you. Lord, I feel that there are giants of fear and failure staring down at me, waiting to crush me. And I don't know how to beat 'em, Lord. I'm tired of being afraid. Lord, if you want me to do something else, show me....But You're my God. You're on the throne. You can have my hopes and my dreams. Lord, give me something. Show me something."

The second comes when the coach blindfolds a player and makes him crawl with his teammate on his back across the field.  The player thinks he is only going fifty yards, but the coach tricks him into crawling the whole field as a way of making a point about the team's potential:

Grant Taylor: "Brock, you are the most influential player on the team. If you walk around defeated, so will they. Tell me you can’t give me more than what I’ve been seeing. You just carried Jeremy, a 140-pound man across this whole field on your arms. Brock, I need you. God’s gifted you with the ability of leadership. Don’t waste it. Can I count on you?"

I'm not necessarily saying that I am the athlete in this scene, but I felt like by watching this movie, God was asking me the same things as the coach: "God’s gifted you with the ability of leadership. Don’t waste it. Can I count on you?"  I have resolved to go forward with the wrestling season.  I do so not for me or for my parents and coaches, but because I feel like God is telling me that that is where I need to be.  Even though there will be adversity and bad attitudes to overcome in my teammates and coaches, I am going to do this for my Savior.  To be his instrument. "I've resolved to give God everything I've got. Then I'll leave the results up to Him."

Christian Meditation

Many people falsely believe that meditation is only an Eastern practice.  A little known fact is that Christian meditation is rooted in the Bible. In fact, the Bible commands us to meditate. In Joshua 1:8, God says to meditate on His word day and night so we will obey it. The psalmist says "his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night" (Psalm 1:2). Actually, the Bible mentions meditate or meditation 20 times.  I have been experimenting with mediation as a method of prayer and I am very pleased with the experience.

Captain Hindsight

“What they should have done is installed a backup valve, in case that valve broke.”
– Captain Hindsight

“I believe they did install a backup safety valve, Captain Hindsight.” – Worker

“Hmm. Right. Then they should have had a backup safety valve to THAT backup safety valve!” – Captain Hindsight

“My God he’s right!” – Worker



I have a feeling that Captain Hindsight will be back to let me know that I shouldn't have wasted so much time today.