My 3 Year Old Sons Was Meditating on Katy Perry

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Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:4-9

"'Baby you're a firework!' Daddy, are you a firework?" was asked by my son Quentin yesterday. I had to laugh and then try to explain to him that the "firework" was metaphorical... I lost him at meta. We're not big Katy Perry fans. No, let me say that another way, we're not Katy Parry fans at all. Yet somehow Quentin knows the firework song. He doesn't know who sings it, but he does know a lot of the lyrics and knows that it's off Madagascar 3.

What The Rocket Summer Taught Me About A Bad Life

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I recently went to a music festival called Creation. Let me give you picture of what it was like. Think about standing on the surface of the sun and then someone hands you a baby. Yeah, it was hot, and we had kids, but it was also AWESOME!

While there we saw the one-man-band named The Rocket Summer. It's front man is a guy named Bryce Avary. I've been following him since Allie and I were dating. This guy is incredible. He has more talent in his emo hair than I have in my entire body.

The Rocket Summer's new album is titled Life Will Write the Words, and in the title track he writes these lyrics,

Life will write the words, but you choose your own melody.
Yes, life has given me hurt, but I choose my own melody.
And sometimes it's that sad, sad song I'm singing all my day long.
I'm just trying, trying to find the right notes.

I absolutely love this line! If you're waiting for life to happen to you, believe me, it will. Life is going to take you out back and kick your butt at some point. It's never fun. Life will write the words. There is a story that you are a part of. It's not always good... just to be honest, it seems most of time the bad out weighs the good. Life can be hard. This is what the Apostle Paul says,

And not only that, but we also rejoice in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. Romans 5:3-4

Through all the junk that happens we rejoice! What? Whatever it is, as much as it probably sucks we are supposed to rejoice in the bad stuff that happens to us. Talk about being freaks. People are going to think something is wrong with you.

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. James 1:2-3

Get this, you are being blessed when life is terrible! Be happy you freak, because that is when your faith is squeezed out.

Even Jesus jumped on the be-happy-when-life-stinks-bandwagon when He said,

Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me... You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even! Matthew 5:11

Listen, life is going to hand out some major troubles, but you get to right the melody to your life story. Are you going to go through life singing that depressing melody or are you going to sing a beautiful praise chorus? Sing the praise chorus, it doesn't make it all better, but it does put your life in perspective.

I'm tired of seeing all these defeated Christians on Facebook. They are admittedly going through some really tough times, but don't tell the whole world how depressed you are.. Why? Because Jesus, James, and Paul said rejoice in your afflictions. Next time something goes wrong praise God. You have victory!

The Fray, the National Anthem, and a Poorly Chosen Chord

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The Fray

Last night my Facebook and Twitter feeds were blowing up about The Fray butchering our national anthem at the NCAA championship game. I like The Fray and they're a Christian band, so, I decided to see how they desecrated on the national anthem.

When I watched the video I thought I was going to be bombarded with complete disrespect and awfulness. I was greeted with an unconventional version of the Star Spangled Banner, but it didn't appear to be disrespectful. A drum similar to one that might have been played by a drummer boy during the revolution was beating, two acoustic guitars were harmonizing, and the singer was pretty straight forward in his interpretation of the melody.