On the way home this afternoon, I was listening to Mark Packer’s radio show and he was talking about how The University of North Carolina can redeem this horrible basketball season, calling it The Road to Carmichael.  The details are…

• Go ahead and accept NIT bid.
• Announce all home games will be played in Carmichael Auditorium.
• Wear the silver bullet uniforms for the whole tournament.
• Go old school… no air conditioning, bring back the “N.C. vs. Vis.” manual scoreboard, no ribbon boards, HD scoreboard or frills.
• Most importantly, when UNC wins the NIT and cuts down the nets in Madison Square Garden, hang the banner in Carmichael Auditorium and NEVER mention of this season EVER AGAIN.  “NIT… what are you talking about?  We’re ready for next year.  You want to see the banner? Go to a women’s game.  The 2009-2010 season never happened.”

Can you imagine the sight?  Carmichael Auditorium hot and rockin’ as the Campbell Fighting Camels come rolling in at 23-10 for a first round NIT game and get ran out of the building.  It would be awesome.  Dean could be on the sidelines for this event.  It would be a great way to salvage the 100th season of Carolina basketball.

Let’s make this happen…

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to fact my perils alone.

~Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

I admit, I watch a lot of television.  My TiVo puts more time in than it should recording several shows each week because I rarely get to watch shows when they come on.

After watching the season (and hopefully series) finale of Heroes the other night, I started thinking about some television shows that just need to end… quickly.  My friend Chad Whitley came to a similar conclusion and specifically mentioned four current television shows that need to end after this season (one which definitely is and three we can only hope and pray for).

I know several people who love Lost, but I never really got into it.  I try to catch 24 and Heroes every week, and became disinterested in Smallville several seasons back.  Chad mentioned that it seems to be an end of an era with these shows hurling toward their eventual demise.  I felt the same way back when Alias and The West Wing came to an end.

I’m currently leading a small group study on Monday nights based on the book Prayer: Does it Make A Difference by Phillip Yancey.  One of the questions we started discussing last night was our own reason for participating in this study.

I shared that for me, I wanted to be able to understand prayer better.  I admit that there are times when I struggle with prayer.  I wonder why some of the prayers I pray are answered like I want them to be, and yet some (even the more serious ones I pray) of them are not.

It seems that everyone has prayed for someone who was sick or dying, and while some of them tell stories of miraculous healings—like the ones found in the New Testament—most of them do not.

And there’s the problem.

People want to know what it takes to get results from their prayers, the right kind of results.  How can they pray in a way that guarantees healing, or solves a very difficult situation?  When our prayers don’t work we tend to assume:

1. We didn’t have enough faith.
2. We didn’t pray the right prayer.
3. We didn’t say enough prayers.
4. We didn’t have the right people praying.

There is biblical support for each of those assumptions, but behind them all is the idea that if we could just learn how to do it correctly our prayers for healing would be answered.

I grew up in the mindset for the longest time that if you prayed and had enough faith, God would answer your prayer and give you what you wanted.  My response to this logic though is “how much faith is enough?”  It left me wondering if I was praying the right prayer, or praying enough or should I have asked a certain person who I thought was “closer” to God to pray.  This mindset left me more frustrated than anything else.

It’s almost like trying to get a vending machine to accept a wrinkled dollar bill.  You put it in the machine and the machine spits it back out.  You keep trying over and over again until the machine accepts the bill.  In your excitement, you push your selection and the machine either responds “Sold Out” or your candy bar gets stuck against the glass before it falls.

That’s the way it is with some of us, isn’t it?  We bow our heads and clasp our hands and offer up prayers like wrinkled dollar bills, hoping that one of these days God will accept them, but worrying at the same time that if and when he does the answer we are looking for may be sold out.

Is that really how it is?  Is that really how God works?  Like a vending machine in the sky from which we can get the answers to all our prayers if we can only figure out the secret?

I’d like to think God is more than that, and prayer is more than a way to get what we want.  These healing stories in the Gospels are reminders that God loves the world, and that he loved it so much he sent his only son, who ladled out God’s healing power on any who had need.  If God really does love us like that then we don’t have to “trick” him into hearing and answering our prayers.  And if God really is God then there is no way we can force him to do what we want.  Instead we can talk to him like a child might talk to loving parent, telling him exactly what we need or want and trusting him with the answer.

During my childhood and early teenage years, from time to time I would ask my dad to buy me a pack of baseball cards, bottles of Dr. Pepper or a Snickers bar.  Most of the time, he would say no.  If I asked him why, he would say that I didn’t need it or it wasn’t good for me, or he might just repeat his answer: “No!”  Every once in a while, however, he would say yes, and I would get excited over popping open a bottle of Dr. Pepper or opening a pack of baseball cards to see what potential treasure awaited.  Does my father love me?  Of course he does.  He shows it in any number of ways, and I came to trust his love so completely that even when he said no I could accept his answer.

There have been many occasions where I’ve sat with people and prayed with them during a difficult situation.  During those prayers, I always found myself coming back to the point where I say something along the lines of “God, we trust you with the answer to this prayer, and pray for your will to be done.”

It’s not easy, leaving things in God’s hands, but there are no better, stronger, or surer hands than those.

So here’s the video of Digger Phelps dancing with a Clemson cheerleader this past Saturday before the Tigers took on Duke.  I don’t know if this is creepy or awesome, but it sure is amusing… enjoy.

On February 1, we’re starting a new small group study series at Yates Baptist Church on prayer.  This study is based on Philip Yancey’s book Prayer – Does It Make Any Difference? and will last for eight weeks.  Our pastor, Don Gordon, will be preaching a series of sermons on “Great Prayers of the Bible” during this time as well.

• Have you ever wondered why you should pray if God already knows everything you’re thinking or saying?
• Have you ever wondered why some cancer patients who are prayed for recover from the disease and others don’t?
• Have you ever wondered why we should have to ask a good God to do good things for us?
• Have you ever tried to pray but then lost your focus and began daydreaming about what’s on your To-Do list for tomorrow?
• Do you wish you could have some honest conversations with mature Christians about prayer?
• Would you like to strengthen your relationship with Christ through prayer?

If you answered “Yes” to any of these questions, you will want to participate in this series.  There are several groups available meeting at various times throughout the week.  For more information, you can check out the sign-up page on the Yates website.  I will be leading the group meeting on Monday evenings at 7:00 PM.  You can pick up books at the church office for $15.00.

Today, I turn 32, or releasing RW version 3.2, a full year in the making since the last major release.  This version includes dozens of enhancements ranging from more photographic and social media support to removal of “vampire fangs,” which have been around for the past 20 versions.  The knowledge base has been expanded.  Also, we’ve fixed the bug that was around since about 1.7 where it thought the knowledge base was already full.  Now it knows more, but knows it knows less.  Short-term RAM is still a little flaky, but continues to be improved on through the help of GTD.  Motivation and priorities are continuing to be improved, thanks to the help of BC-W.  Email processing is also still slow, but the “reading” plugin has come a long way.   Most people surveyed agreed this was a solid upgrade, but we know there’s a lot of work left to do still.  We hope to continue listening to feedback and keep up the regular release schedule.

All kidding aside, as I reflect back on life so far, I’ve realized I’ve accomplished quite a bit, but still have a long way to go.  Life has brought a lot of great experiences through places I’ve been, people I’ve met and friends I’ve made along the way.  It’s also brought some trying times, which I have worked through and become a better person for it.  God has blessed me in so many ways.

I’ve got some personal goals to aim for this year, and hope to reach them by the time version 3.3 is released next January, so stay tuned to this site and you’ll see them unfold along the way.

Also, to further prove how much of a geek I am, I remembered that the CNET show Loaded used to have birthday announcements every Thursday.  I emailed the show to ask about this, and while they no longer do birthday announcements, I did get this nice email from CNET Senior Editor and CBS Early Show Correspondent Natali Del Conte.

I’m so glad my family got me a Nintendo Wii for Christmas.  It’s moments like these that just make my day.  EA Sports is bringing back “NBA Jam”, the 2-on-2 arcade basketball game that stole a billion quarters from me back in the day. I spent way too many days over at Yesterday’s arcade in Wilkes Mall in heated contests, setting up windmill dunks and setting the rims ablaze when Scottie Pippen was “on fire.”

The “remix” version of the game is set to arrive on the Nintendo Wii this year, but no word if a classic version will be included. Frankly, the game is worthless if I can’t set up a game featuring Larry Johnson and Alonzo Mourning of the Hornets versus John Stockton and Karl Malone of the Jazz in HD.

I know, it’s been a little while since I posted, so I wanted to let you know I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth.  I’ve been in and out of town, trying to catch up on a few projects and really just haven’t had time to blog over the past few days.  Plus, it’s Bowl Season, so I’m watching a lot of college football.

I’m also working behind the scenes on this site and reflecting on where I want to go with it next.  I’m thinking about to blog and what goals I want to achieve with this site over the next few months.  So stay tuned, but don’t interrupt me on Thursday night, especially you weather geeks out there.  I don’t care if I-85 or I-40 is shut down.  Plus, Lord help us if Alabama wins, as I’ll never hear the end of it from some of my Bama friends.  HOOK ‘EM HORNS!!!