Some time ago, I heard the question, “what would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?”

I asked the question on my Facebook account and have received several interesting answers….

…but it begs the next question: what is it that you WANT to do that you AREN’T, due to fear?

Fear is crippling and can render us ineffective. What do you fear? Failure? Ridicule? Getting caught? Loss?

From where does fear come? What is it? Is fear not simply a response to potential danger not unlike pain?

Fear merely is a natural defense from things that we perceive can harm us… in most cases, the unknown. Or… perhaps fear is the absence of something else. Love? Wisdom? Faith?

Maybe fear is an over-abundance of something else. Assumptions? Bad history?

I’m reminded of Phillipians 4:13 – “I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.”

…which leads to the next question: where is your heart rooted?

I have the answers to my questions for myself:

If I knew I couldn’t fail, I would awaken the Church to action and revival. It grieves me that we live in a culture that sees the image of Christ as a sleeping, impotent, powerless myth; foolish, ignorant, irrational, reactive and tired; a cheap imitation; a fraud; a crutch; an excuse; a hypocrite. Our culture can only assess Him by the image His bride portrays… and if Christ truly were equal to the portrait the Church paints, culture would not be wrong.

Please understand that when I say, “Church,” I mean the Body as a whole… not necessarily my specific home-town church where I attend, though we too struggle with some of the same issues.

What do I fear? The thing I fear most is being stabbed in the back by the same Church that I would be attempting to awaken. Our track-record is to tear at ourselves and criticize our own, rendering us all ineffective and powerless to act. I fear it because I’ve seen it; I’ve heard it; I’ve done it.

Where is my heart rooted? I’m rooted in my own self-absorption. How do I know? If I was truly rooted in Christ, there would be no door that could close out truth; no chain that could bind; no ear that could not hear; no eye that could not see His power.

Alas, I remain just one more member of a silent, sleeping giant… trembling, weak and ineffective.

…but with a fire in my belly, a spark of hope in my eye and a prayer in my heart to galvanize me to action and to someday soon root me in Christ.

God is in the silence. …and when He chooses to reveal himself, even hell will step aside as the rocks cry out.

Did you see it tonight?

“Gimme a break, Gimme a break…break me off a piece of that Apple Sauce.”

I thought I was gonna die.

<nonerd>Work bought me a new laptop.</nonerd>

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<inside processor=”2.5Ghz Dual Core 2″ hdd=”320GB” RAM=”4GB” L2_cache=”4MB” video=”256MB” bluetooth=”1″ wifi=”G” />

<outside screen=”17-inch WUXGA” annoying_glossy=”yes” optical=”DVD +- RW” USB=”4″ IEEE=”1″ bgcolor=”#000″ keyboard=”full” numberpad=”yes” camera=”1″ battery=”9-cell” />

</nerd>

So this morning, I left the house with a Bluetooth headset for my phone.  I frequently lose it, which is irritating, so I acquired another one.

Recently, I lost them both.  My wife found one of them in the yard the other day.  I have no idea how it got there.  That’s the one I had when I left this morning.

Getting into my car, I found the other missing one and put it in my pocket.

While both of them were missing Woot was selling two of them for $19.99.  I decided that was a pretty good price, so I bought them.  Today, with two of them in my pocket, I get to my desk to find that Woot had delivered them.  I now have four Bluetooth headsets jammed in my pocket.

Even better: After I’d paired my phone with all four of them and turned them off, my phone rang.  One of the headsets had pushed up against the others and turned itself on.  Like and idiot, I had to listen to each one, one-by-one to find the caller.

“Hello?  Nope.  Hello?  Nope.  Hello?  Nope.”

How do you explain that to the person on the other end?

Want more?  Both the new headsets and the phone vibrate when I get a call.  I had to pick myself up off the ground after that first call.  I’m going to have to buy a strap or something just to keep myself in the chair.

Technology.  Good times.

Ok, so I have a question:

How does the whole “generation” thing work?  I’ve always understood that I was third-generation: ie. my grandparents came over from China (gen 1), my parents were born in the US (gen 2), as was I (gen 3).

It has recently come to my attention that I am only second-generation in that the first-generation folks were my parents, since they were the first ones born in the US.

Which is it?

(Make your response good.  I’ve got $20 riding on this.  If you say ‘3rd gen,’ I’ll cut you in.)