As soon as I finished watching this movie, I immediately wanted to go home and start to dream.

What is one dream you have had lately that you can share?

*kyle

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In fact, some believe that as a country we have no hope.
This might not be a new piece of information for you, and you could even be one of those people who sees the country as hopeless. I mean I read Drudge Report ever single day. I watch 60 minutes every Sunday. I even listen to conservative radio in the car (well only when the local ESPN radio station is on commercial). I have heard all about our collapsing economy, out of control spending, endless war in Iraq, oil spill, and rising jobless rate.

It does not take an expert to figure out that we have problems. But it does take an expert to fix the problems.

I want to let you know that I think I have the solution to all the problems that present themselves today….

We are SINNERS

Ya, I said it, you and me, we are sinners.
That is it, that is the answer…we are sinners.
It amazes me to see people complain and even voice their frustrations with all the things that are wrong in this country and never give a thought to the idea that there will always be things wrong with this country and world.

For a long time, corruption and deceit really would get to me. It would enrage me enough to make sure that everyone knew of the problem. The way I voiced my frustration was through complaining. This complaining would lend itself to things as small as not having milk in the house so that I could eat golden grahams to the corruption of political leaders. It seemed that I had an opinion on everything and a complaint that followed each thought. And to be honest, I did have an opinion and a couple of complaints. But the reason I complained was because I wanted others to see the problems. There was something wrong and I needed to make sure everyone knew about the wrongs that were taking place.

It took me a long time to realize that things will never be okay.
It took me a long time to understand that we will always have problems.
It took me a long time to figure out that as much as I complained it never brought results.

It is taking me a long time to understand that we are all sinners.

The problems of this country, the problems of this world, come down to one thing…sin. This is no excuse to continue in our problems, but it brings a whole new context to each and every situation. The need for redemption is huge. Not the redemption of a country or world, but for the redemption of souls.

For a long time I focused with what was wrong with the world, now I focus with what is right with this world.

We are all sinners…and I am the chief sinner.

We have a Savior…There is Hope

*kyle

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I am the guy that can run through a situation from start to end in less time then it takes for you to read this. It could be a simple idea, response to an inquiry, or even a non verbal communication that someone has given me, I just seem to turn expectations into a session of daydreaming about the future.

What I am learning is that my expectations get me in real trouble. Not only are they always ridiculous, they never come true. There have been several times when I have gotten upset with people because they did not meet my unfair expectation of them.

There have been several times where I have been frustrated with myself because I set high expectations on my life and ideas and they have not been met.

The interesting thing about expectations is that if you have none you are set up for success. Thats right, if you can have no expectations then you will always succeed. Which is crazy, because we all have expectations, but I think if we can start to be realistic instead of expecting, things might be different.

Case in point. Musicians that seem to have great success do no start out with the hopes that they will be huge. My favorite example, the guy from Owl City, he set out to make music, not a million fans. Bloggers that set out to have thousands of followers usually quit after 2 months because they only have 10. It just seems that we let expectations of what others have done dictate what we deem as being successful.

As for me, I am dropping my expectations.

*kyle

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It’s reported that the image above is photoshopped.

To the naked eye this image looks to be a typical command center style photo. But behind every photo is a story, and this photo is screaming with unseen details.

This photo was “taken” in the BP command center for the oil spill.

Upon further investigation you start to see just how photoshopped this image really is:

Thanks to Gizmodo (haven’t we seen them catch other things out in the wild before?) and their investigative work, BP has been busted, again.

As I read this story I couldn’t help but wonder how BP could make such a terrible mistake, till I  realized that I photoshop my own life all the time.

Photoshop is a great tool, but sometimes we can get a little carried away in the “retouching” department. The temptation to make things appear better than they are one button at a time is often the method of choice, and the vehicle we use is often twitter, blogs, or Facebook. Yet, Under the surface our problems still exist, no matter how much we photoshop our appearance, response, or profiles… we will still be the same person.

Can I make a confession?

I “photoshop” myself to give off the appearance that I have things figured out. This is usually masked in my speech. It’s not that I try to be someone else, it’s that I try to stand on the same level as everyone else. I have this idea that if I can be like (insert famous blogger here) or be like (insert well-known twitterer here) then I will be someone and something.

Have you photoshopped yourself?

*kyle

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One of the many new features that excited me was the camera. But honestly, I have not used it as much as I should. But some people have gotten the most out of their iPhone 4 camera. Maybe a little to much. Check this out.

Have you taken any cool shots with your iPhone camera (or any other cell phone camera)?

Lets see them

*kyle

Please help make this post, The Right Way To Take Pictures With Your Phone a whole lot better by adding some value to the conversation by leaving a comment. This is a post from: Standing On Giants - Looking to Stand on the Shoulders of Giants

Pretty crazy that I would need a celebrity to tell me that christianity was cool and even a life worth living, but I needed to hear this. Maybe because others followed what celebrities said and like what they did, or maybe it was because 96% of the time it was not cool to be a christian. Whatever it was, I got my validation from celebrities.

Fast forward to 2010 and the same thing is happening, only a little bit more covert. Today we mask this by looking for the approval of celebrities in what we are doing. I am not a 11-year-old boy anymore, I am a 24-year-old guy that now hopes most celebrities are not christians (see Mel Gibson) and instead looks for celebrities stamp of approval. Well, semi celebrities, more like christian world celebrities. Nothing like getting a big name christian speaker, blogger, or musician to stamp their word of approval on you with a tweet, video endorsement or even a post about what you are doing. For some reason the gatekeeper that is the christian celebrity holds the keys to validating a movement or an idea.

Don’t believe me? Go and check out any blog that has had a small amount of success (maybe one big post or wrote a review of someones book) and did not mention “insert big name christian” here in their tweet or replied to their comment in the comment stream. Listen, I am not complaining about this. I have done this as well. Part of the way that I spread the word about scarletcordm.com and prayer for prostitutes was that I got the “christian celebrities” to tweet about it, even Max Lucado tweeted it out. The blog went from getting about 14 views a day to over 1000. But it was almost like I (we) need that stamp of approval to say what we are doing is right. And I see this all the time with people who are looking to get to be friends with “big name blogger a” and “big name author b” because it could make the next “big name whatever”

Even though I have progressed 15 years since Puff Daddy told me I was cool,
I still am looking to be on the in-crowd of celebrity christians. Why? Maybe because I want to be a celebrity christian? maybe, maybe not. Or maybe it is because people have given those celebrity christians approval and validation and I/we are looking for people’s approval and validation.

Whatever happened to finding approval in the Lord?

We might have a validation problem that needs to be flipped on its head.

*kyle

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You?

*kyle

Please help make this post, This is What My Life Feels Like Right Now a whole lot better by adding some value to the conversation by leaving a comment. This is a post from: Standing On Giants - Looking to Stand on the Shoulders of Giants

See at first I started to say, “ya me too, I am tired of mediocrity and its mediocrityness” but then I realized

I love mediocrity

Mediocrity calls me to settle
Mediocrity calls me to play it safe
Mediocrity calls me to be content with little
Mediocrity calls me to do nothing

Mediocrity is not sexy or even something to be desired, but it is easy and doesn’t call for much.

For someone who is afraid of failure, mediocrity might just be the best thing to be.

How do you reject mediocrity?

*kyle

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You can answer them all or just one

1) Where is somewhere you can go where everybody knows your name?

2) Do you like the heat of the summer or the cold of the winter?

3) July is almost over, I am _______________?

Answer them all or just one….these are questions for you.

*kyle

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Perfection has lost its perfection.

The word perfection is one of those words that has lost its meaning. Things like:

This is perfect…Find the perfect fit…The perfect way to lose weight

It seems the word perfect can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. In a society that wants to test and measure everything, perfection has to be obtainable. This could be why it always seems that we are judged on perfection. Because truly, we have not done something well unless we have done it perfect.

In chapter 5 Greg Boyd dives into what it means to live a life of love perfectly.

Read more at bibledude.net

*kyle

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