Dahhh…

I like lettuce. I like subway sandwiches because they are filled to the brim with lettuce.  The cafeteria at my work has tostadas almost every week, which I order with extra lettuce.  Quite tasty.

The last post got me thinking about lettuce.  Well actually, the term, “Let us…..”  I’m sure it appears in the bible many times.  Let us take a look…

A quick search in biblegateway.com finds hundreds of verses with “let us” in them.  Some of the ones in the old testament are from God speaking in plural, for example, “let us make man in our image….” Some are spoken in the heat of battle, “…let us fight bravely for our people…” Some work only in the context of that chapter, “… let us go to the king of Israel…”  But many are commands that are useful to us today.  Here are some of my favorite.

Let us discern for ourselves what is right; let us learn together what is good.  -Job 34:4

Glorify the LORD with me; let us exalt his name together. -Psalm 34:3

Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. -Psalm 95:2

This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.  -Psalm 118:24

In that day they will say, “Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the LORD, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”  -Isaiah 25:9

Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way.  -Romans 14:13

Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.  -Romans 14:19

Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.  -2 Corinthians 7:1

Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.  Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.  -Galatians 5:25-26

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.  Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.  -Galatians 6:9-10

But since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.  -1 Thessalonians 5:8

Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.  Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.  And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.  Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.  -Hebrews 10:22-25

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.  -Hebrews 12:1

Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.  -1 John 3:18

I read an interesting quote today. Charles Kettering of General Motors said, “The key to economic prosperity is the organized creation of dissatisfaction.”

I’m still thinking about this, but I think it’s very true.  It was probably very true back in Kettering’s days in the 40s and 50s, but probably a lot truer now in the 21st century.  The basic premise of marketing is to convince a customer of a need that they may or may not be aware of.  If you convince the customer that they need your product, you make the sale.

The age Kettering lived in was the start of the marketing era, when radios and TVs became common place and billboard ads started appearing on the newly created interstate highway system.  Now in our modern society we are constantly bombarded by marketing.  Wherever we go, whether in the physical world or in the virtual world, we are surrounded by advertisements.  When we drive down the freeway we see billboards, when we drive down the information superhighway we see banner ads and popups.  Any information we receive is surrounded by ads as well.  You can’t watch the news or read an article without being bombarded by stupid ads.

It seems like in this world ads are the key to economic prosperity.  And ads seem to fit the description of “the organized creation of dissatisfaction.”  I wonder if that’s part of the reason why we are so unhappy?

Anyways, that was a really weird and overly philosophical rant… quite unusual from me….  perhaps I have too much time on my hands nowadays to think.  I will finish with a bible verse that was mentioned in passing a few posts back…

This is the day the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.    -Psalm 118:24

Or in other words…… Let us try to tune out the organized dissatisfaction and be satisfied, let us return to rejoicing and being glad.  Let us realize that each day is a gift from God.  Let us find joy in simple things again.   Let us remember the gifts from God that we already have.

I know I am definitely blessed, and I need to stop wanting more and be happy with what I have.  Even the gift of waking up on a new day should be reason to rejoice.

I finished reading Life After God. It’s been a while since I finished a book so quickly.  It’s pretty similar to one of my favorite books, Catcher in the Rye.  The entire book is short stories, each written in a Holden Caulfield style first person rant/reminiscence.  At the end of the book one of the characters, Scout, realizes this…

Now–here is my secret.

I tell you with an openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God–that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love.

Life After God. page 359

The funny thing is, I don’t think the author is Christian.  But he comes to the conclusion that we need God.  Whether he believes in the Christian God, or some sort of other god, he realizes that we have an emptiness that can’t be completed without God.

I originally found out about this book through reading a sermon called, “The Problem of Love.”  The author of that sermon quotes that exact line that I quoted above.   Basically the problem of love is that we are given the command to love on another, but we really have no clue about how to go doing that.  The funny thing is, that’s the topic we’re studying at bible study on Friday.  It should be interesting……

http://theresurgence.com/the-problem-of-love

Today I started reading a book called “Life After God.”  I’m already half way through it.  That’s partly because it’s a small book and there aren’t many words on each page.  But partly it’s because it speaks to me so much.  This page reads almost as if I wrote it myself and sorta sums up how I’ve been feeling lately….

I am a quiet man. I tend to think things through and try not to say too much. But here I am, saying perhaps too much. But there are these feelings inside me which need badly to escape, I guess. And this makes me feel relieved because one of my big concerns these past few years is that I’ve been losing my ability to feel things with the same intensity– the way I felt when I was younger.  It’s scary–to feel your emotions floating away and just not caring. I guess what’s really scary is not caring about the loss. I guess this is what your mother is responding to. I make a note in my mind to talk about this with her.

From Life After God. page 150

WOW. It’s been a while since I’ve been on here.  Lately I’ve been struggling with lack of contentment.  I’ve just been unhappy with where I am at life, almost bitter even.  Things are not really that bad, I don’t know why I’ve been so unhappy lately.

Today started off badly.  I overslept by almost an hour, waking up at 8:30, still exhausted from the night before.  If my Blackberry wasn’t buzzing, I probably would’ve slept for at least another hour.  I checked the message on my Blackberry… f(@#$(… I seriously messed up on what I was working on the night before… I get ready as fast as humanly possible, taking a 5 minute shower and throwing on whatever’s available on the top of my clothes pile.  Flying down the freeway at 85-90 miles an hour gets me to work just before 9.  Dahh I’m pretty late… guess I’ll have to park in the garage today. $1.25 an hour… the penalty for tardiness.  I arrived at work to find the problem had already been fixed… but that in itself is a problem… the work I was doing last night was supposed to be sort of hush hush…. now several people know, there may be fallout later…

The rest of the morning goes by surprisingly uneventfully.  I have a ton of stuff to do, but not feeling much motivation to do it.  Wow I just remembered, it’s Tuesday.  Small group day.  It feels like forever since we met.  Doh… haven’t read the chapter yet.  Another thing to do.  Maybe I’ll get to it at lunch time.  Luckily the book’s in my car.  Blah… but I really don’t feel like reading.

1050am.  My stomach is telling me it’s lunch time. Or it’s just pissed cuz I skipped breakfast and didn’t have much of a dinner yesterday.  Ok ok… a nice big stamina ramen should appease it…. At 11 I leave for Akebono, arriving there at 11:10.  DAAAAHHH… what the heck, they open at 11:30?  I don’t have enough time for this… I decide to try the place next door.  Happy Corner it’s called. Hmm.. it’s quiet.  Maybe I will actually read the chapter.  The chapter is called, A DEE DAH DAY.  It begins with a quote.

Joy is the serious business of heaven. – C. S. Lewis

Wow it’s pretty ironic that I’m reading about joy when I’m feeling joyless, in a restaurant called Happy Corner.  Maybe it’s a sign?

This passage really stuck me… It’s so good that I’ll actually type it out now so I can read it again later.

The first step for pursuing joy is simply to begin now. The psalmist says, “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” He doesn’t say, “Yesterday was God’s day–how happy I was then.” Nor does he say, “Tomorrow will be the great day– I’ll just endure until then.” This day, with all it’s shortcomings, is the great Dee Dah Day.

We live with the illusion that joy will come someday when conditions change.  We go to school and think we will be happy when we graduate.  We are single and are convinced we will be happy when we get married.  We get married and decide we will be happy someday when we have children.  We will have children and decide we will be happy when they grow up and leave the nest– then they do, and we think we were happier when they were still at home.

If we don’t rejoice today, we will not rejoice at all.  If we wait until conditions are perfect, we will still be waiting when we die.  If we are going to rejoice, it must be in this day.  This is the day that the Lord has made.  This is the dee dah day.

From The Life You’ve Always Wanted by John Ortberg