everything designed » life

Paradise

lundstudio — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 06:20:21 +0000

It has now been a month since I have relocated to Paradise, Texas. For the first time in four weeks I have been able to spend more than three days in a row with my beautiful wife and two amazing kiddos! I thought it would be tough but tolerable to be here without them waiting for school to end and for the house to sell. It’s been tougher than I could have imagined. The good news is we are moving our essentials up this weekend!

Imagine 81 acres in the country with a stocked fishing pond, a metal barn that has been converted into a house and wide open space to roam. There is also a creek that cuts through the rock & hills lined with huge trees! Every bit of the area was created to photograph. Beautiful wild Texas flowers, tall grass perfect for horses, cattle and a spectacular sunset every night! God knows what we desire and in time He speaks.

This was a very tough transition for us relationally – we are starting over 100% in every way. For me things went quiet almost over night. Timing is never what we expect but each step has been one of faith – and believe me mountains have moved. For Myra she is leaving so many great friends and memories. But somehow it seems like God is underlining that He created us to do life together. He has a purpose for us that we do not yet fully see or even understand and that He desires our full attention.

Funny – how just two years ago I sat in my car in a shopping mall parking lot reading over with the faith of a mustard seed we could move mountains. I literally began to pray for mountains to move, for anything to move – for one particular brick on a wall to just move an inch! I trust God, I have faith that He loves us and would do anything for us – He truly does want to give us our heart’s desire – it’s just not the way we ask or expect sometimes. Honestly, I began to pray that He would give us Colby back – that losing him had caused so much pain – left wounds that we could not repair. Just as in 2 Kings – I expected for God to raise him and give him back to us. I truly believe God could do that and I wanted to see it happen. That we did not deserve to lose our son and that Colby did not deserve to go at the age of three – especially to Cancer.

For the next two years – I prayed, pushed, ran out of patience and let myself burn out. I was insistent on my timing for everything; our finances, my marriage, for leaders to lead & love, for negative or blinded people to find Jesus again – to forgive. I had faith that a mountain would move but I was more focused on my wants rather than His will. Even though I was not asking for anything out of the norm – I was unknowingly expecting it to happen now. I was fighting God. Again. I kept it up until I exhausted everything in me.

When we tell God that we are in control we are taking the first steps to totally messing up. I promise. We can move mountains without God – it’s called dynamite – it ugly and destructive. It’s impatience, selfishness and hurtful. Blasting your way through a mountain to get your way is not His plan.

When questioning His plan and thinking about heading out with our own He allowed us to go through some of the toughest yet most clarifying trials in our life. He hammered us with trials and storms and each brought a clear choice. Each one with very clear consequences. It was then I heard clearly “it’s your will or Mine”. In his grace, He allowed us to see that he was in control, that we have no clue what’s best for us. He knows exactly who we are and how He wants to use us. We had to choose. Especially since we claim to believe that Jesus died for us – and that we are to spread His story to the world, but we could not be in His will without choosing Him every-time – not just when we feel like it. Every time.

Mountains have moved. Our hearts have moved. Our vision, passion and love have moved. Stone by stone I have seen the mountain move. I am grateful to have chosen Him every step of the way.

God thank you for who you are – we truly do get to experience Paradise with you, here on this earth if we simply seek and trust you. Thank you for calling us to a place where relationships are first – with You & with others. Thank you that we are on our way to being totally who you created us to be. Thank you for using us.

Ministry + Media

lundstudio — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 19:16:08 +0000

Resurrection by Rob Bell http://vimeo.com/10639312 // thx @johnotjen

The Crick Family – Hospital Trek in New Zealand

lundstudio — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 05:16:10 +0000

My sister and her family are currently in New Zealand working to connect with the local church in Queenstown and surrounding area. My brother in law is suffering from major lower back pain and sounds like the doctors are saying he has a bulging disc. Lay-mans terms, lots of pain. Last night around 8:30pm an ambulance transported him to the nearest hospital with MRI scan capabilities so they could get an updated look at how bad his back is. Blows my mind what we take for granted here in the states. Quick info-graphic showing the trek. Took 3 hours to get there.

Google Map Link with more detail >>

Praying constantly for them. They are 100% supported by donations and are currently spending the last part of their savings on the medical expenses. You can learn more about The Crick Family at their blog. Thank you for joining us in praying for them and they definitely love reading and hearing your encouragement while they are on this journey. bit.ly/crickfamily

I will be more organized on my next post – just being a bit of a concerned brother at the moment.

Google’s Angel Investors

lundstudio — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:05:44 +0000

Who or what are you investing in? Google’s employees have done well since the company went public six years ago. Excellent article here at Business Week. Investing in people and ideas is something I am really digging right now. I can think of ten people right now who are interested in starting a company, three of them have a business plan and two of them are actually making it happen.

My little brother is down from Michigan for a couple of weeks. He is studying to be a chef and has some great experience. He has two years to go and is working towards his degree in culinary arts but it sounds like he is leaning towards traveling to experience different cultures and cuisine. It’s amazing to see when people come alive and passionate about something. He and I brainstormed for a couple of hours and he may test out a mobile cuisine service for their local Cherry Festival or Film Festival in Traverse City.

If he moves forward with it I will post updates and hopefully some video clips of his Journey. I believe in him – yes because he is my brother but also because he has experience, passion and is an excellent cook. The question is when the rubber meets the road. Would I invest in his journey? What could I do to help propel his efforts? I have a few ideas. It’s fun.

Fun topic. Just the start of it hopefully. =)

FIFTEE % Project = Clothing+Charity

lundstudio — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 21:41:41 +0000

The FIF-TEE % Project, Coming February 2010

Give to your Favorite Charity – Get Style. Be watching for more details on the FIF-TEE % Project. It’s a pretty exciting venture putting half of our money back into some of your favorite projects. You buy a tee, you get and we give, geeeesh, its too cool, glad we thought of it.

SakridClothing.com << For More Information

Clean Drinking Water & Supplies for Haiti.

lundstudio — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 01:37:45 +0000

What we can do to help those impacted by recent earthquake:

1. Pray for the people in Haiti.

2. Pray for our pastor of disaster relief Jerry Davis and our team as they go into Haiti and direct our relief effort.

3. Give to the relief effort to provide water filtration systems and other needed relief supplies to the people of Haiti.

Be$t Time to Travel via Expedia

lundstudio — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 04:35:17 +0000

Clicked onto Expedia.com to see how much it would be to visit family in New Zea-land next year. Looks like we can get the tickets for round-trip with 3 week car rental for about $1600 per person. Not bad actually. Then I stumbled on to their new Trend Tracker Tool – it tells you the trends on best time of year to travel (for cost). Digging it. So I know I was thinking initially about New Zea-land but I have been curious about the best possible time to visit Cozumel, Mexico and it looks like January is the best time to get out of town – around $360.00.

Love travel, love good deals. Love Expedia.com, still.

Oral Roberts Memorial Service – Monday, December 21 2pm CST

lundstudio — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:18:23 +0000

Celebrating the Life of Oral Roberts: The Man Who Obeyed God
January 24, 1918 – December 15, 2009

Join us online tomorrow for the live stream of Oral Roberts Memorial Services. http://www.orm.cc I am told there will be more than 200,000 people joining in to watch the online service. Amazing.

Here are some quotes from Oral Roberts from his site.

“Expect a miracle!”

“In the midst of the turmoil, the fear, the anxiety that’s in our nation and in our world, as I was walking and meditating, I heard the voice of God. I’ve heard that voice many times; it’s familiar to me, and there’s no way that I can fail to understand it’s His voice because I’m familiar with it.”

“God is a good God, and the devil is a bad devil.”

“Something GOOD is going to happen to you today!”

“God wants you well. God wants you prosperous. God wants you a whole person.”

“God came to take off you what the devil put on you,
To take out of you what the devil put in you,
To put back on you what the devil took off you,
And to put back in you what the devil took out.”

“I respect doctors, and one reason is that they have grasped this eternal truth and are against sickness and for health. Consciously or unconsciously, they have a pretty good theology of healing. Sometimes I wish we Christians had such a good theology of healing. Then we might be less inclined to argue about whether it’s God’s will to heal or not.”

52″ SmartTV by Apple*

lundstudio — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 19:01:17 +0000

How many years until we all have the brand new 52″ Apple SmartTV* ?

Technology is moving. Fast. Just think about this: a bit more than 100 years ago Ford Motor Company started putting cars together on an assembly line – a major technology advancement. Now we are streamlining how we access information and communicate with different people and culture groups all over the globe. Get ready to see technology rapidly change our world. Here are the quick stats from 2007 just for comparison:

What’s next? X.X B (post it)
Mobile Phone 2.7 B
Television 1.5 B
Credit Card Users 1.4 B
Interent 1.1 M
PC Users 850 M
Registered Vehicles 800 M

Stats from Cameron Moll’s book, Mobile Web Design, and link. Also, for more on where Mobile is going see: MW4D Mobile Web for Social Development Road Map (MW4D) #mobile #web

*it’s real, it just hasn’t replaced your TV, yet. And it’s not quite 52 inches.

Filtering to the next Generation

lundstudio — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:57:02 +0000

Working through the principle – What we do effects everything. We can have a positive impact on this world or the inverse – and it’s our choice. What impact are you having on the world around you? What we are doing today will eventually filter down to the next generation. It will. You can bet on it. Ripple Effect. Starting this weekend @woodlandschurch