September 12, 2007

• The Next Phase

  It has been 6 months since my gig at The Planet ended.  I have been working diligently to get the next work gig up and running and everything is slowly working toward fulfillment.  Our School Safety Audit software is in the final stage of development and we are poised to clinch the contract with the State entity that will be managing this monumental task of collecting the data from over 1500 school districts.  My prayer for this is that we are able to be the clear choice for the data collection solution.  If and when this happens, all of the time invested will pay off in a big way.

  That being what it is, Cyndie and I are now somewhat empty nesters.  Our last J is now attending college with the middle J and both of them are enjoying their classes.  They have both been back home each weekend to wash clothes and bless us with their presence.

  The icing on the cake is that we are now going to be Grandparents.  The oldest J and his lovely wife in Florida are expecting their first child.  They started letting nature do it’s work a few months ago and from the Dr. reports, everything is looking good.  We have been praying for their children for over 3 years now and it will be cool to get to see the first one we have to touch sometime in May of 2008.

  Our church family is as healthy as it has been in 2 years and we are within months of moving into our new building.  I toured the new building yesterday and it is everything we could have hoped for.  The actual date of move in is still contingent on many factors so we are still doing the work we are called to in the at the high school campus.  The transformation of our congregation into a place where the hurt and lost can find  God has been bumpy because we are shackled with many old views of what a church should be but we are being faithful and God has been faithful to do what He says He will if we seek His face.  The emphasis on prayer that has grasped our attention is paying off.  There is a wave of momentum that is building as our members are experiencing the promise of answered prayer.

  One of the recent sermons on payer  opened my eyes to something that has made a substantial impact on my own prayer life.  In the writings of Jesus found in Luke 11 verse 8.  The word boldness is from the Hebrew word Chutzpah and is the only time it is used in the New Testament.  Chutzpah takes the term persistence to the raw edge of our understanding.  The definition in Wikpedia is:

  In Hebrew, chutzpah is used indignantly, to describe someone who has over-stepped the boundaries of accepted behavior with no shame. But in Yiddish and English, chutzpah has developed ambivalent and even positive connotations. Chutzpah can be used to express admiration for non-conformist but gutsy audacity. One common English adaptation of “chutzpah” is “hoodspa,” which has a mostly positive connotation. Leo Rosten in The Joys of Yiddish defines chutzpah as “gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible ‘guts,’ presumption plus arrogance such as no other word and no other language can do justice to.” In this sense, chutzpah expresses both strong disapproval and a grudging admiration.

  One example given of the ultimate of chutzpah is: “A boy, having just been convicted of murdering his parents, begs the judge for leniency because he is an orphan.”^[1]

  This gave me a new appreciation for the personality of the Jewish people.  They really get Chutzpah and use it in many aspects of their life.  For some reason we as Christians have given this trait a negative connotation when asking for results in prayer as well as our requests to others.

  Chutzpah is now a word that I am incorporating into my prayer life as well as my interaction with others.

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