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Triumph on Day 1

March 4, 2012 / Seán / 3 Comments

Did you catch what I caught?

Thirteen words into the book of Acts, and I’m already seized by the tenor of triumph.

That one word, “began.”

The whole (previous) Gospel full…

Luke says it was just the beginning.

Just the start.

That’s really, really good news.

“Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto God a sweet savour…” 2 Cor 2:14, 15a

It’s not too late to join us! 🙂 Check out the previous post for all the details. This is day 1.
Day 300, here we come!

Acts: The Revolution… Starts on Sunday.

March 2, 2012 / Seán / 79 Comments

Winter blurs into spring; projects blur into each other. And blogs sometimes fall silent while we trace the trail assigned us. (Texas and Minnesota being the destinations in the last 7 days.)

But always there are those moments in between…when we remember what’s really important.

Seattle skyline as seen from the hotel that will be hosting GYC.

Into the midst of our overflowing life, Tasha brought back from the most recent trip an idea destined to radically change our summer… Exactly how it was born, I know not. But a friend (and fellow GYC ECOM member) from Canada had something to do with it, and now the 5 of us are getting geared up for a challenge. 🙂

In the simplest terms,

The book of Acts:

28 chapters

1,007 verses

24,308 words

in 300 days.

And not just because GYC 2012 is going to be all about the book of Acts.

Because we want to enter in to the life of Acts.

Since after all, the book is still being written.

So here’s the big question:

You want to join us?

Yes, you.

Consider it an investment in your mind. An investment in your spiritual life…

Three verses a day isn’t really that many, but only the absolutely determined will actually pull it off. And it will take more than 10 minutes a day. But what if it changed your life forever?

You don’t think you can.

I know you can. You should. And we’d love to cheer you on. (and hear you cheer for us!) 🙂

So here’s the plan:

1: Subscribe to our memorization and review schedules with any calendar application (iCal, iPhone/pad/pod, Android, Google Calendar, Outlook, etc) using the subscription links below.

OR:

Download and import these two .ics files (calendar will be static however, and won’t update if we change or adjust anything) (click the link, and on the page right click file and select “download”)

2: Just a suggestion… Get yourself an audio bible so you can listen at least an hour a day… to the chapter you’re working on, plus ahead and behind.

3: Let us know you’re with us!

GYC, here we come. 🙂

p.s. If you can’t keep up the pace, or if you’re reading this post late and we’ve already started, no worries! Take it at your own pace, or jump in in the middle… So what if you only have half the book memorized by December! You’ll never be sorry.

p.p.s. Hint #1:
You’ll notice the memorization assignments fluctuate between 2 verses and 5. Three verses a day is the average. The daily dose is split by logical thought breaks, not by number of verses. But no worries, until the second half of Acts, 30% of the days have no new memorization assignments at all. They are just for just review. So if you can’t seem to grasp 5 new verses in a day, do three. There are review days coming. Just check the schedule to make sure you’re roughly on track. 🙂
Hint #2:
If you’re jumping in in the middle, or you get way behind, skip a chapter and get back on schedule. (or ahead) Nobody said you couldn’t come back to something. Your morale will stay higher if you don’t feel like you’re always trying to catch up. 🙂

______________________________________________

Subscribe to our memorization schedule here: (iCal)

webcal://p08-calendarws.icloud.com/ca/subscribe/1/cS21hHbOrOSRPcrfC_vHp4S3zfxv2eraV8XHi_Y611coj2Kk-d1VkgfOuDCZFzE5HgkyjHBVp7wNB7fCfTP1ZbgAOpQkPQmRIol2o1zJvn4

And to the review schedule here: (iCal) (Yes, you will want both.)

webcal://p08-calendarws.icloud.com/ca/subscribe/1/m5O5AqFpbyrgRnIlMho_YblamjH87rWrjeij1jiE0NOsWjypR4DHbBUntICR19xWSBiqT4hCdE8_CK-FKCq7E_dDTDu-MmoNWGAyNKO9ATY

Or subscribe with Google Calendar:
Memorization: https://www.google.com/calendar/ical/8ko4ui9l5gjl6l825bencd20q0%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics
Review: https://www.google.com/calendar/ical/h0cet12jp99d2kufm7n97s615c%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

Or check out the Acts: Memorization tab on either thenebblettfamily.com or seannebblett.com

Go get yourself an audio bible from a place like this.

Or, listen to it streamed on demand, here.

Or, download an audiobible app for your iDevice here.

Or your Android. here.

Under Any Circumstances

February 16, 2012 / Seán / 13 Comments

“Isaiah 58 speaks of a ‘chosen fast’, of the service our God values…

‘To loose the bands of wickedness,’ undo ‘heavy burdens,’ ‘let the oppressed go free,’ break yokes, feed starving children, provide for the poor, dress the naked…

This morning as I was pondering here, it struck me that for the given, every act of service or obedience is an act of war.

and God has given us the privilege of going to war — of breaking yokes and letting the oppressed go free — right here. With music.

We would do well to remember.”

The hours fly by, and since those words were spoken, all 9 family songs have been tracked, and all but two of the rest. Voices lasted long enough to finish that which was necessary to proceed, and then mine rebelled completely, to remind me I’m just dust. So, we work our instrumental accompaniment while we drink gallons of water and let the voices rest for the final two… 🙂
And yet, even in this mercy we feel our need. Our violinists both awoke under the weather this morning. But Chantée resolutely declares she will record under any circumstances. Fuel for Glory, right?

We press on. 🙂 Coveting your prayers always…

Designs of Grace

February 13, 2012 / Seán / 2 Comments

The day closes on hours of setup and sound checks. Tomorrow the real work begins… Mean time, miracles on the instruments are in full swing. The lost voices are mended, or mending. (how could they do otherwise, after prayers from 4 continents?)

I patter around the studio after the troop has gone upstairs, capturing these sights in the silence. The stack of preamps brings a smile to my face.

Grace Design.

Naturally. Couldn’t have put it better myself.

Off to War

February 11, 2012 / Seán / 12 Comments

The four Nebbletts junior land in Albuquerque yesterday after the week of GYC business etc in Seattle and Canada. In company with us is our friend and engineer, and suitcases full of thousands of dollars in recording equipment.

And now, we seem to have a fight on our hands.

But the fight is where glory unfolds, and I want you to be in on the joy. 🙂

So pray that the voice that disappeared suddenly (and completely) in a coughing spell at midnight last night, and the other one that’s likewise suddenly considered “high risk” will be theaters for miracles.

We don’t do this for ourselves… In consequence, we always face war with darkness.

But grace will prevail. It always does. 🙂

Even if it Leaves a Scar

February 8, 2012 / Seán / 14 Comments

“It is broken hearts that long for Home,

and change the world.”

That’s why.
That’s why though I have thousands of beautiful photos of beautiful friends, my phone shows me this one every time I swipe to unlock it.

Image: ©New York Times

You reel. You should.

– – – – –

“That would make me sick every time I saw it.”
Words of a trusted friend, those.

“It does make me sick.”
That’s why it’s there.

. . .

“I don’t understand…
Why her and not me?
Why am I not a starving child in Africa?
Why was I born into my family here in the US?”

“I know… I don’t know.
That’s why it breaks me.”

There are two kinds of people in the world:

Those who have been given the gift of suffering,*

And those gifted with the responsibility to do something about it.

I’m asking God to burn the needs of His children on my heart…

Even if it leaves a scar.

His hands are scarred, after all.

*Suffering: the gift of being able to

uniquely identify with a heart-broken God.

Thoughts Made Visible

February 5, 2012 / Seán / 4 Comments

“The more men learn of God, the greater will

be their admiration of His character.”

–last page of The Great Controversy

Sitting cross-legged by the hearth in the dark, those words ring in my ears. I flip to the best-selling biography of the Man that was God.

And I read:

“His name shall be called Immanuel, … God with us.”*

God with us.
God. Given.
Ours.
Not just for then, but forever… “For God so loved the world that He gave…”
Not loaned. Gave.

Grapple with that for a moment.

I read on.
“By coming to dwell with us, Jesus was to reveal God both to men and angels. He was the Word of God– God’s thought made audible.”*

So this Man Who was God came to be the Song of God’s heart, that the world might hear God’s thoughts, and understand…
And He, in a human frame like mine.

I wonder…
Are not the men & women who are God’s, called to much the same thing, human frames notwithstanding?

What if we were to take His thoughts (made audible) and live them…

And become to the dying world,

God’s thoughts made visible.

–*first page of Desire of Ages

Strength and Joy

February 1, 2012 / Seán / 7 Comments

Pounding out (up, actually) mile number 4 yesterday, my brain tells me “You’re going to die. As in, now.”

But as Providence would have it, I run listening to one of my favorite audiobooks. And the girl reading through my workout playlist was at just the right spot on the page…

“Those who decline the struggle lose the strength and joy of victory.”

Well timed.

I laugh. Breathe. Run a bit faster.

Thanks Allie.

Afraid of Nothing… But Forgetfulness

January 28, 2012 / Seán / 9 Comments

I truly am not.

Not when I trace the working of God in boyish cursive now 15 years old…
Not when I ask a question, hear in His gentle whisper a familiar strain, and then find the original answer… Written 7 years ago, to the week. 7 years before I asked.

Not when I can understand in retrospect (as if it were the simplest thing in the world) why there was always reason to praise through bleeding days. Always.

I promise you, if you can’t trust Him with your today, it’s because you’ve already forgotten yesterday.

Write. Read. Remember.

You can’t tell the future. That’s why God has given you your past.

Go get yourself a journal.

Relentless Men

January 22, 2012 / Seán / 6 Comments

Luther. Tyndale. Huss.
Lenin. Stalin. Hitler.
Winston Churchil. William Wilberforce. William Pitt (the Younger)…

Names all that ring down the halls of history.
World changers.

Extraordinary? Certainly.
All particularly advantaged, talented, clever, wealthy and wise?
Hardly.

But they shook the world. Their tread resounded across the borders of countries and continents. In their day, greatly loved or greatly feared. In ours, household names.

They brought the horror of great darkness, or returned the people to light.

And they all had this in common:
They faced unbelievable odds, and failed more times than you and I have tried.

But they were relentless men.
Relentless men.
______

There is a reason my iPhone chimes at 11:00 am on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays reminding me to go outside and run. And it’s not because I don’t have other things to do. Ok, so exercise is good. But for this pilgrim, there’s way more strategy in it than just that.

I’m a mercy-loving man. But sensitivity being one of my stronger points, in my natural personality I sometimes have far too much mercy on myself…

I need to learn relentlessness. Just as thoroughly as I study what it means to be a world-class gentleman. Or, . . . never be a world-changer.

So I’ve set out to do just that.

That’s why I get up when I do.
That’s why I put on neon-blue Nike+ shoes and run 8 miles, Sun, Tues, Thurs…
Every week.

I don’t love running that much.
That’s exactly my problem…
______

What makes us think God is going to train us for service while we sit here?
God has no intentions of doing for us what we can do for ourselves.
Grace enables.
You decide.

Yes, you.