The Shot Heard 'round the Stadium!

We were in Edmonton last weekend for Joel's final hockey tournament of the season.

On Friday morning, Joel's team, Shaw Meadows Ironheads, won their first game 3-1 against an equally matched team from Edmonton.

On Saturday morning, the Ironheads won their second game 3-1 against another equally matched team from Edmonton. In fact, this one went down to the wire with the score being 2-1 Ironheads with 2 minutes left. The other team pulled their goalie and we got an empty netter. (We would meet this team in the final!)

Following this game was a skills competition and then the kids went to West Edmonton Mall for the afternoon.

In the evening, the Ironheads played another Calgary team. There wasn't a heck of a lot of gas left in the tank. Despite this team not having won a game to that point and we not having lost a game to that point - we lost 4-2. Good for those guys. As a parent it stinks to watch your kids work so hard yet come out on the winless end of a tournament - NOT THAT I CAN RELATE, BOOYA!!

Sunday morning, the Ironheads played the Edmonton team from Saturday morning. Both teams had 2 wins & 1 lose. It was a well fought game. Tied at 1 all for the first 2 1/2 periods when the other team scored with 4 minutes left in the third period. With 29 seconds left in the third one of our guys (an unlikely hero who stayed up until 1:30 a.m. that morning) took a one time slap shot from 6 feet out and beat their goalie tying the game. No overtime. Straight to a 4 man shoot out.

First shooters for each team didn't score.
Second shooters for each team scored 1-1.
Third shooters for each team scored 2-2.
Fourth shooters for each team didn't score....
We go through 4 more shooters from each team without scoring.
Shooter #9 from Edmonton - saved by our goalie.

I look at the bench and see Joel with his stick up motioning to the coach to put him in. The coach does!

Shooter #9 from our team is Joel. I yell out "shoot it hard Joel!" He gets the whistle and makes his way down the ice toward the goalie. Back and forth, back and forth he stick handles the puck until reaching the hash marks. He keeps skating as he spots the opening between the goalies legs. He shoots hard...the puck goes five hole & hits the back of the net! The ref points to the back of the net! Joel's arms and stick goes into the air as his teammates pour off the bench and mob him! His coach makes his way to the center of little bodies where he picks Joel up and carries him on his shoulders back to the gathering crowd around our other hero, our goalie!

What a great game! I'm biased but seriously one of the best games and best finishes I've witnessed in any hockey game, even professional.

Hip Hip Hooray Ironheads!

Sanders on Big Decisions & Guidance

• Be unconditionally willing to do it, whatever it is. It may be that your will needs to be redirected. Be willing to be made willing.
• Be obedient to any light the Lord has already given. If you are not obeying that, why expect more?
• Be patient. The road ahead may not be revealed all at once; it seldom is. But God will show you each step as you need to take it.
• Remember the intellectual component in this exercise. John Wesley maintained, “God generally guides me by presenting reasons to my mind for acting in a certain way”—not feelings to my heart.
• Gather all the information you can about the options that are open to you.
• Seek advice from your Christian parents, your pastor, or a trusted Christian counsellor. However, don’t allow them to make the decision for you. It is your life that is at stake, and you will have to live with the consequences of that decision.
• Ensure that the course you propose to pursue is biblically legitimate. Submit it to the test of Scripture.
• List the pros and cons of the course you propose, and as you weigh them, ask the Holy Spirit to sway your mind in the direction of His will, believing that HE does it in keeping with James 1:5.
• Don’t ask for extraordinary guidance, for that is the exception and not the rule, especially as you mature spiritually. Spectacular signs are given only by he sovereign choice of God. Faith is content with quiet guidance.
• Make the best decision you can in the light of the facts, believing God has answered your prayer for wisdom.
• Expect the witness of the Spirit in a deepening conviction that this is the will of God for you. Circumstances may confirm your guidance.
• Be prepared for Satan to challenge your decisions. He did that with the Master.
• Unless action is urgent, allow a little time to elapse, and if the conviction remains and the peace of God guards your heart, act with confidence.
• Don’t dig up in unbelief what you have sown in faith.

~J. Oswald Sanders "Every Life is a Plan of God"

Furious Pursuit II

I've been going through Tim King & Frank Martin's book Furious Pursuit. It is an unbelievable book.

Brian McLaren says this about the book, "If you're sick and tired of spiritual to-do lists, religious shoulds and oughts, and the self-hatred that comes from feeling unacceptable, you'll find in Furious Pursuit better news of a better story. Tim King and Frank Martin have given us powerful truth, well-told."

The Bible talks about personal transformation in the context of thought patterns & ruts (Romans 12:2). How many of us need a change of thinking as it relates to God? How many of us need to hear His story retold? I do & this book is doing it for me.

Here's a lengthy quote worth thinking on:

If you and I are hard-wired to be in relationship with God, created by Love and for Love, then doesn't that relationship need nurturing? If our identity is wrapped up in God, then how do we open ourselves to the identity that God wrote for us? How do we allow it to transform us?

This is not your ordinary shift in relational dynamics. It's an about-face, a 180-degree turn, a reversal of everything we've been taught about our responsibility toward God. His Story not only compels us to see God in a different light; it exhorts us to live in a different state of mind, to relate to God differently, love him differently, and allow him to love us differently.

And that demands a life dedicated to drawing near to God, but not in order to get him to draw near to us--he has already done that. And not in an effort to please him--he's already pleased with us. And definitely not as a means of activating his love toward us--he already loves us. We draw near to God in order to allow his love to transform us and compel us to cast our eyes higher. He wants to engage us in the divine Courtship that is already underway. (From Furious Pursuit, page 72)

Imagine living life confident that God is near you, God is pleased with you, and God loves you no matter what. How would that thinking change your living?

It's a rut worth getting stuck in!

Furious Pursuit

Whether or not we ever choose to accept it, God loves us wholl and unconditionally in spite of our penchant for sin and rebellion and in spite of our faithless tendencies. His love is unlike anything we could possibly fathom on our own.

The great Baptist minister Will Campbell summed it up succinctly: "We're all bastards, but God loves us anyway."

One of the hardest truths any of us will ever grasp is that God is completely enamored with us, absolutely smitten, in love with us unconditionally with all his heart and soul! He loves us regardless of anything we've done, thought, said, or felt. It is possible to convince ourselves that the God who knows our every flaw could love us still?

~Tim King

Prodigal's Brother

Why do I feel so bad, heavy hearted, sad inside?
Why at a time of celebration am I bitter - unable to join in?
Why do I feel neglected, unwanted, unloved, uncelebrated?

I'm supposed to open my arms too, without judging
I'm supposed to forgive, without entertaining thoughts of punishment or justice
I'm not sure I'm ready for this - it will take time
I'm not sure I'm big enough for this - it will take more love than I feel

"He was lost and has been found" I'm told
"Come celebrate and rejoice" I'm invited
"All that I have is yours" I'm promised
"He's your brother" I'm reminded.

~Adrian Riley

Prodigal Returns

It was while we were yet far off

Before we had hatched a plan

or mapped a route back to your heart.

Before we had sent a postcard

to warn you of our imminent return.

While we were yet far off

you could see our footprints

turning in the opposite direction.

You knew that our hearts were entirely captured

before ever we recognized

a chink in our self-centered armor.

While we were yet far off

You had sent out the invitation

and blown up the balloons.

The presents were wrapped

and the chairs pushed back

to make room for the dancing.

As we rounded the corner

we could dimly see you,

craning your neck and leaping for joy.

We thought then

that a reconciliation might be possible.

While we were yet far off

you popped the cork

and added the final touches

to the party tea.

~Tracy Wheeler

Tempted

The Temptation of Jesus

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil.