to God be the glory

This post is dedicated to Zach Blickens, a friend of mine who is a youth pastor and worship pastor at River of Life in Cedar Rapids, IA. You can find more info about him and his wife's ministry here.

Last Thursday, I heard a message on Daniel 2. Daniel is a great example of a young leader. Many people of faith can benefit by taking his example of leadership. In this chapter, King Nebuchadnezzar can't sleep due to repeated dreams that keep him awake. He demanded his magicians, scorcerors, and "dream experts" to not only interpret the dream, but first tell him what the dream was. If they can't, they will be put to death. Well this was impossible and they said no man can do this. Daniel and his three close friends- Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah- got wrapped up in this, too. They came together and fervently prayed to God for wisdom. God granted them the mystery of the king's dream and Daniel ended up telling the king his dream in great detail.

I encourage you to read about the dream and the whole chapter. There are many points to be made, but the one I want to bring up is how Daniel gave the glory to God. First, when he received the mystery of the king's dream, he praised God. Then, standing before the king, he gave God full credit for being able to relay the king's dream and its interpretation. In addition to that, he gave credit to his friends twice in the chapter for their accountability to him. After all, they prayed fervently to God with Daniel and ate the vegetables and water diet with him in the previous chapter.

Now why do I dedicate this blog to Zach? Because he always praises God for gifts that he and others have, good things that happen in his life and those around him, and probably even the bad things sometimes too. He doesn't take credit at all when he receives compliments because he knows that everything good comes from God. So when I try to be more like that, I think of Daniel's character in these few chapters, and Zach too.

Ode to Mink part 2

One of my best friends, Stephanie, just got married after Thanksgiving. Lots of good feelings come to mind seeing her married. If you missed my first Ode to Mink blog, you can view that here.

Stephanie has been wanted to get married for a long time. If you've ever read Wild At Heart or Captivating, a lot of that stuff resonates true with her. She's very romantic and does want to be swept off her feet. She's also very adventurous.

Stephanie has wanted to get married for a long time- probably since childhood. The first time she met Peter was even during childhood. I got to talk with her on the phone a little bit after she got back from her honeymoon. She told me a couple things. One, that little things excited her in the house, such as folding his laundry. I told her that it wasn't surprising, given what I knew about her about wanting to get married for a long time. Yet her response was different than I thought. She said that being married is quite different than what she had been thinking about all this years. I would agree. Obviously someone can't picture exactly what their marriage is going to be like. However, I think that wanting to be married for so long would lead to being excited about simple chores. Things such as folding laundry for her husband, atleast in Stephanie's case.

And Peter is so good for Stephanie, as well as Stephanie for Peter. He's a strong Christian with great integrity. He's a hard worker, but also just a very likeable guy with a good sense of humor.

You have to roll with the times. My friendship with Steph has changed a lot since high school. Back in the day we would hang out whenever. I would work in the daytime at Albert H. Wohler's Insurance, then a few hours at night at Jewel-Osco. Then we would actually hang out for an hour or two when I got off of work at Jewel around 11 or 12. We both would be exhausted the next day, but sometimes do that again anyway. Obviously, friendships change when one of the friends gets married, especially good friendships. But ours has been changing since college.

It's mostly been less hanging out time. But no matter how brief or infrequent, I have also appreciated time spent together. Whether it was just a conversation over the phone in college, a brief stop at her parents' house, or catching a meal now with her, Peter, and other friends. Stephanie is one of those friends that I know I can pick up where we left off no matter how much time has elapsed in between talking. However, while we are all still in Chicago, I am excited to spend any time I can with Mr. and Mrs. Gorham.