This last Sunday my family and I, along with our guitarist, and his girlfriend, made the trip to West Palm to hang out with our worship leader, David and his family. Our bass player was there also so I found myself surrounded with some very musically talented people. Other than experiencing some incredible food… and by incredible, I mean incredible, I enjoyed spontaneous breakouts in music and song.
David has a music room with a drum kit, keyboard and about 1500 guitars. OK so it wasn’t 1500 but he did have a ukulele. I almost asked for a little “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” but I didn’t want to have my man card revoked. Probably just mentioning that on the internet is going to cost me some points.
The amazing part was that he would just hop from instrument to instrument and just start playing. So then Sebastian (our guitarist) gets in the mix and started playing random tunes. The experience brought two thoughts to my mind:
It was either like being the non-musical kid adopted by The Partridge Family or watching the making of the “Viva Viagra” commercial. I am glad to announce that jingle was never sung but if you ever get a chance ask David and his family to sing their jingle about cheese.
A group of alumni, all highly established in their respective careers, got together for a visit with their old university professor. The conversation soon turned to complaints about the endless stress of work and life in general… Offering his guests coffee, the professor went into the kitchen and soon returned with a large pot of coffee and an eclectic assortment of cups: porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal - some plain, some expensive, some quite exquisite. Quietly, he told them to help themselves to some fresh coffee…
When each of his former students had a cup of coffee in hand, the old professor quietly cleared his throat and began to patiently address the small gathering… ”You may have noticed that all of the nicer looking cups were taken up first, leaving behind the plainer and cheaper ones. While it is only natural for you to want only the best for yourselves that is actually the source of much of your stress-related problems.” He continued… ”Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In fact, the cup merely disguises or dresses up what we drink. What each of you really wanted was coffee, not a cup, but you instinctively went for the best cups… Then you began eyeing each other’s cups….”
”Now consider this: Life is coffee. Jobs, money, and position in society are merely cups. They are just tools to shape and contain Life, and the type of cup we have does not truly define nor change the quality of the Life we live. Often, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee that God has provided us. God brews the coffee, but he does not supply the cups. Enjoy your coffee!” The happiest people don’t have the best of everything; they just make the best of everything they have… So please remember: Live simply. Love generously. Care Deeply. Speak Kindly. Leave the Rest to God.
And remember - the richest person is not the one who has the most, but the one who needs the least.
The Griffis family is moving… and one of the upsides to our new apartment is that it comes with a gym. I haven’t had much time for the gym lately (shame on me) and to conserve some cash my wife cancelled our YMCA membership 5 months ago. So I have done a little running but for the most part have done little to no exercise in the past 9 months. I love to exercise and when I am in routine (every day) I am dedicated but when I am not in a routine I won’t do anything. So I noticed some added pounds joining my mid section in the last couple of months and have been trying to motivate my appetite for exercise instead of food. I was thinking how great it would be to have 24 hr access to a gym so that I can use my crazy sleep habits to my advantage, but then I came across this article. Apparently I have 46lbs between me and obesity so what’s the rush. This scale must have slid quite a ways recently because I remember a much smaller number for my 5’9” frame. I wonder what the percentages on the map would be if we were working off the old scale.
Never mind I went here and found out that I am only 13lbs from overweight so I am re-motivated. New apartment gym and racquetball court here I come…
I know BMI isn’t the most efficient way to analyze your health because a whole lot of professional athletes are considered overweight because of their muscle mass. But for me muscle mass isn’t the issue so now I just need to figure out which 30 - 45 minutes I need to dedicate.
I told you last week that we started working on a new project that was really going to push our faith to the limit. Today I discussed some work on the website with the designer.
I will try to give you updates as we go and hopefully by the time we fill in all the blanks we will be able to go public with what God is asking us to do. I have told a few people and so far we have gotten mixed responses. Some people think we are crazy. Others have broken into tears and think it is awesome. So far I have had both those responses myself so I think they are justified. Others have been astounded by the amount of “guts” this takes. My prayer is that it won’t be all guts and no glory because our purpose is to bring glory to God’s name through this.
That’s right… she is an absolute push over. This in turn makes me a complete push over. I give my family an inch… I agree that Owen, who has been begging for a dog for months, can have a puppy. This is a big step for me because being the “rational” level headed guy that I am, I know that we have a pretty hectic lifestyle right now and a dog does require a certain amount of care.
As a kid I never had a dog. I had a rabbit and some other lower maintenance animals but my dad wasn’t into having a dog in the house. So… since marrying Harmony, who grew up with tons of animals around all the time she has continued to try to persuade me in the dog department. I think I have given in 4 times and every single time it turned out to be a disaster. Whether it was the mutt with heart worms or the pure bread basset hound that needed a $1000 eye lift, dogs have just not worked out for us.
Since Harmony and I have not been successful in giving Owen a brother or sister and at this point adoption is just way out of our financial means, I was being pressured again. So I gave Harmony an inch and she took 37 miles.
A non-successful trip to the pound on Sunday left me with a very sad little boy. One who is praying that Jesus would break into the pound and bring him his puppy. One that thought his behavior was the reason why they wouldn’t let us take a puppy home. (Which was not the case) the pound found out that we are planning to move in a month so they didn’t feel it would be good to put the dog through that. WELL, I’m sure the dog could probably handle a move better than being put to sleep if it doesn’t get adopted. Anyways…
So Harmony was now on a mission to get Owen a dog. Well to make a long story short… for just a little more than we were going to pay for a pound puppy we got not “one” but “two” pure bred American Bulldogs. No… I didn’t see that coming either so now I have the option, do I play the mean husband/dad and send the other one back or do I, well there really is no other options, so let me introduce you to Thelma & Louise the two newest members of the Griffis family. So you have heard of a double portion blessing, well I guess I’ll thank God for responding to My Son’s Prayer x 2.
This was under an e-mail signature that I received today and thought it was worth sharing…
Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you
can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the
people you can, as long as ever you can. This is the day that the Lord has
made, I will rejoice and be exceedingly glad!
Always P.U.S.H. meaning Pray Until Something Happens
Congratulation to our new Worship Leader, David Quiles (keyless,) for winning Song of the Year from KCCM. What did he win? Hopefully sleeves to his shirt! LOL
Man, are we excited to have this guy and his family at InDependence. Week two with the band was great. God really is setting us up for some great things.
I purchased a new domain name today for a little project my family is taking on. We got a little sidetracked this last week but we are back on course and moving forward. This project ties right into the series we are in at InDependence.
We are getting ready for week two of the “I became a Christian and all I got was this lousy t-shirt” series. This series is basically about us as Christians no longer reading or hearing about somebody else’s exciting journey and settling for a souvenir t-shirt. For more information on the book it is based on click here.
This project is certainly going to be an exciting journey for us. It is going to involve faith, risk, and even a little danger. (Written with my best Australian accent) I am sure there will be moments were it seems impossible. I am sure there will be moments of joy. I am sure that this little project will probably feel a little like the emotional roller coaster ride that accompanies planting a church.
Can’t wait to share more but for the next month or so you will just have to anticipate hearing about the ridiculous thing God is asking us to do.
This post is totally selfish and it isn’t intended to mean anything to anybody but me. I am hoping to be able to look back at this period in future years and read this post title and have this statement remind me of something that started today.
We had debut of the InDependence Band on Sunday and they came out of the box strong. They opened with this song from Switchfoot and followed it up with an original song written by our lead guitar player Sebastian. I knew our worship leader David Quiles (keyless) had mad writing skills but apparently he isn’t alone.
We have the help of the bass player for City of David, Bob, and Sebastian’s brother George pounding on the drums. They practiced for about 3 hrs on these two songs and they sounded great. I can’t wait till next week when they have had a few more hours together. It really is a God thing and I couldn’t be more excited to have all of them on board. There are a few more pieces waiting in the wings so I see it only getting better…
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