Landed in Denver, and then drove back across Kansas with my brother.

Graduation in the morning, followed by my brother’s ordination in the evening. It was a pretty awesome day.

The back to Colorado for some hanging out and hiking.

Awesome stream running through the mountains.

Recently Tim Tebow was cut from the New York Jets.  That’s right, our favorite outspoken Christian quarterback has now rode the bench for two teams in two years, and is now struggling, trying to find team number three.  Now, there are plenty of teams out there who would be lucky to land Tebow.  There are lots of teams that really need a quarterback.  Yet, Tebow remains unsigned.

One would wonder how a quarterback with a playoff win, several miraculous comebacks, still a long career ahead of him, and a humble personality wouldn’t get picked up immediately.  Well, several coaches have made it clear that it’s not Tebow that’s the problem.  It’s us.

Teams are staying away from Tim Tebow because of the Christians he brings along as baggage.

Christians are the ones who chant Tebow around the 3^rd quarter when their team is behind.  Christians are the ones who second-guess the coach or who whine about the management of a team because Tebow isn’t seeing playing time.  Christians act like the aggressive parent who calls their child’s coach and asks why little Timmy isn’t starting.

Unfortunately, Christians are the reason Tebow can’t find a job right now.

Perhaps the problem is that we’ve become very adept at building idols.  Whether it’s political issues, or Christian celebrities, or even things like our kids or our jobs.  I’m not really sure how to get Tebow a job, but the one thing I am sure of is that I need to clear out some of the idols in my life.

I showed up at the bus stop ten minutes before my bus home, and was informed that the driver had left five minutes earlier.  After speaking with the guy helping people load onto the correct busses I learned that I could get to DC on the next bus, not back to Hampton Roads.  Washington DC is still about three hours (no traffic) from home, but it’s closer than Philly.  I called my wife, and asked her to come get me that night at 10pm when the bus would arrive.

A few minutes later I get a call back, and Bethany told me that one of our mutual friends, Nicki, has some friends in DC who are coming down to Hampton Roads the next morning.  Plus, they have a spare bedroom where I can sleep.  Once I get to DC, after a short metro ride, I get picked up by Adam (Nicki’s friend).  I met Lindsey, his wife, when we arrived at their beautiful home, and soon afterwards I crash.  The next morning they brought me down with them on their trip.

I know I shouldn’t be amazed at the willingness of the church to serve others, but often I am.  Standing in Philadelphia I had already begun researching rental cars, Amtrak tickets, and a variety of other ways to get home.  I honestly figured I would need to figure out how to do it on my own.  Yet even though I felt alone in Philadelphia, I wasn’t really alone.  I had an army of friends willing to do anything to help me out.

I should mention that besides Adam and Lindsey, and Nicki (who got me in touch with them), there were several others who offered to drop everything and come get me.  There were even more that would have been willing had I called them.  All of this just serves to remind me how blessed I really am.

In what ways are you blessed beyond what you deserve?

When something isn’t working, the temptation is to keep trying it, and assuming that it’ll work out eventually.

Yet, rarely does that work effectively.  But what if we did something different?  Anything different.  I’m normally a silent pray-er so what if I prayed aloud?  Or perhaps wrote out my prayers?  Maybe if you pray sitting in your living room, you went out and sat on the porch, or laid on the floor?  A small change in style or posture or location can make your prayer life totally different.

What if you mixed up the contents of your prayers?  If you’re a big picture kind of person, pray for specific needs of those in your life, or vice versa.  There’s many different things we can do to introduce variety into our time with God.  And who knows, maybe that little change will plunge us back deep into our prayers.  Maybe through changing something as simple as how we pray can inspire us to connect with God on a deeper level.  Maybe a little change can fix our lifeless prayers.

If you pray, how do you normally pray?