Eating three lunches (or the quickest way to get fat).

I like being personable. It's great to have the chance to sit down with a friend and have a one-on-one talk about life. To get the chance to hear what's really going on in their lives. And I feel like that's what a large part of college is about: building relationships.

But there are so many people at college. So many.

Also, it's really hard to tell someone no. If they want to invest in your life and share part of themselves, are you really going to say no? Really?

So, sometimes, you end up having to double or triple-book lunch. (A problem that somehow still persists despite near OCD Google calendar organization.) How do you deal with it?


Chances are if you forgot about your previously scheduled lunch date and planned another, you might forget your first one entirely. This gets extremely awkward if you told both people you'd meet at the same place.

"Hi. Waiting on someone?"

"Yep. I'm getting lunch with my friends Brad today."

"What a crazy random happenstance! I'm waiting on a Brad too."

Get used to asking "Do you like coffee?" What's that? You don't like coffee? Maybe you should try to develop a taste for it. Or at least be able to stand it. Text that second lunch date and switch it to a coffee break. You'll need the caffeine to make through to your double-booked dinner anyways. (If you plan to meet multiple people over coffee, make sure you stick to the same coffee shop so you can take full advantage of those free refills.)


This is a dangerous one. You realize you scheduled two people and decide that you'll have an awesome friend group collision lunch. They've never met before, but it doesn't matter. They're both friends with you, so they'll get along, right?


You get fat from eating three lunches everyday (if it makes you feels better, you can call them different things like hobbits do: breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, luncheon, afternoon tea, etc.). But don't worry about your weight. What really matters is that you're building up your relationships. (While building up plaque in your veins. It's like a two-for-one deal!)

So, next time you get lunch-merged on by a caffeine-addicted friend making their way towards obesity, remember: they're doing it for the relationships.

Love.

Easter is in two days, and that's gotten me thinking a bit about love and how we can show love to each other since Easter is really about how God showed His love for us.

First off, I love having people ask me questions and really listen. I love when people comment on my pictures, or use them as their profile pic. I love having you guys comment on my blog posts. I love getting encouragement. I love having people actively pursuing my friendship. I love having people in my life who aren't afraid to ask me tough questions and call me out. I love having people who can answer other types of tough questions and point me to the Bible and to Christ.

All of those things make me feel wonderful.

But.....I fail miserably at doing the same things for other people.

I wish I could say I was habitually the kind of person who comments, compliments and encourages, pursues, asks and answers tough questions, points people to Christ, and does all of the things I love having people do for me. But the truth is that I really don't. Not as much as I should. I usually have to be actively thinking about it.

What's sad is that I do actively think about it for myself. I'll post an album to facebook and keep checking back to see if people have commented or liked anything yet. I'll continually check my Google analytics and see how many visits my blog has gotten. (I can almost assure that I'll be doing that right after I post this.)

Shouldn't it be the other way around? In John 13:34 Jesus says to love one another as he loved us. Mark 12:30-31 says to first love God and then love others as you love yourself. 

If you can relate with me, you may be thinking, "Okay, great. I should be more loving. I need to do that intentionally and through God. Wait - how am I going to do that?" I have two words for you: Love Languages.

There was an author a few years ago who wrote a book called "The 5 Love Languages". The concept is simple: he proposes that people give and receive love primarily in these five ways. They are: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch. If you're able to recognize the ways in which your friends typically feel the most loved, then you can know how to love on them.

If you're interesting in finding out how you typically feel most loved, you can go here and take a quick 30 question assessment. At the end, you'll see something like this (these are my results):

Your Scores

8	Words of Affirmation
11	Quality Time
0	Receiving Gifts
5	Acts of Service
6	Physical Touch

Now that you know your love language, here’s some more information you might not have realized about it, and why certain behaviors affect you more than others.

Your Love Language

Quality Time

In Quality Time, nothing says “I love you” like full, undivided attention. Being there for this type of person is critical, but really being there—with the TV off, fork and knife down, and all chores and tasks on standby—makes you feel truly special and loved. Distractions, postponed activities, or the failure to listen can be especially hurtful.

The max you can get for any one category is 12, so, according to this assessment, I almost maxed out feeling most loved by just being with people. Secondly, I like being affirmed. Nearly tied are acts of service and physical touch. And, lastly, gifts aren't very important to me. That's all very true. It's basically what I'm trying to say in that opening paragraph (which I wrote before I took this assessment).

I encourage you to take five minutes and figure out how you best receive love. If you're open to it, post it on here as a comment so I can know how to love you best. Post it on facebook so your friends can. Tell some people close to you. Encourage them to take it and let you know how they receive love.

So, in a nutshell, God calls us to love one another and I think one of the most practical things we can do with that is loving people in the ways that actually make them feel loved the most. And here is a place you can figure out what that is.

(*I considered leaving out my results and talking about things I like because I don't want this to be about what you could do for me. It's meant to emphasize how you can love on the people around you. But, at the end, I ask you to be open and share your heart, so I didn't think it was fair to not also be open about myself.)

The awkward (almost) interactions of people who (sort of) know each other.

By the end of this post, you will almost certainly be judging me. Some of these things are things I've had happen to me. Others I've done, and probably shouldn't have. So, you'll judge me. And that's perfectly okay. I'm pretty sure you've done similar things.

You know the people I'm going to be talking about. The friend of your friend. You got dinner with them once, maybe twice, but can't remember their name. You have the same group friends, or you had a class last semester. You're in a club together and had the obligatory talk about your majors and hometowns the first night, but have seen each other since.

And now, you see them off in the distance, walking towards you while you walk towards them. What do you do? You don't know them well enough to say hello. They probably won't recognize you. But what if they do recognize you? You don't want to be a jerk and ignore them. You have to have a reason to not say hello.

I've identified a few of the ways this happens:

The Fake Text

This is by far the most common, and perhaps the most effective. You simply pull out your phone and pretend you just received a very important text message. It happens to be very deep and intense, you know, because texts usually are. As such, it takes you a good long while to type up a reply. Coincidentally, it takes just long enough for you to pass this person.

This technique allows them to still greet you, in which case you can be surprised to see them and offer your own greeting in reply. You successfully avoid awkward eye contact, but still allow for an exchange of hellos if they notice you.

The Fake Call

I'm not certain I've actually seen this one in action, but it makes enough sense. I'm sure someone has used it. You simply  pretend to suddenly have received a phone call. It's probably from your mom so you can't not answer it, obviously.

This one gives you an excuse for not verbally acknowledging the other person, and if you're caught up in your conversation enough, reason to not nod or otherwise make a gesture. This does not protect you from awkward eye contact. Also, you better make sure your phone is on silent. You don't want it ringing while you're in the middle of a fake call.

The Death Stare

What's the really the awkward part about seeing someone and not knowing whether to say something? The eye contact. If you make eye contact, they absolutely know that you saw them and didn't say something. And for some reason, when you recognize someone, it's impossibly hard to not look at them. So, the death stare isn't an angry sort of stare, but more of a strict denial of your natural tendency to look at them. You stare straight ahead as if you're caught up in a little own world of your own. Who could blame you for not noticing?

The Wave

You're in the middle of deciding what you're going to do. Your hand heads for your pocket as you consider the fake text, when all of the sudden, everything is made clear: they wave at you. Or so you think. You happily wave back, glad that they remembered you, when you realize it's actually someone behind you they're waving at. At this point, you have two choices: put your hand down as inconspicuously as possible, or pretend that you're waving at someone behind them. Both of these choices are hard to pull off. You're pretty stuck here.

Did I miss anything?

Why people call me an old man.

Since at least freshman year in high school, I've had people tell me I'm an old man. Here's why:

1. If you are in my dorm late into the evening, I will inevitably offer you hot chocolate or coffee at some point.
2. I really want to wear tweed suits with the reinforced elbows and carry around a briefcase and pipe.
3. I like wearing the Western Snap button shirts.
4. I'm stubborn.
5. I can be grumpy. Usually if I haven't had enough sleep.
6. Sometimes, I grunt unnecessarily doing simple things like sitting down.
7. I like patterns. I go to restaurants and order the same things. If possible, I go at the same time on the same day of the week.
8. The opposite of 7. If there has been a pattern, I don't like changing it.
9. I forget things. A lot. Right now I'm stuck cause I can't remember more reasons I'm an old man, but I know there are more.
10. Since I forget things, I tell the same stories over and over, and I don't even realize it until you steal my punch line.

And that's where I ran out of things I could think of, so I asked some friends who've called me an old man why:

"You like to just sit around. You read old books. You're grumpy sometimes. Basically you just do what old men do except you have real teeth."

"The things you say the things you wear and that you're interested in. You listen to and like old music. "


So there you have it. Unless I missed something, which I probably did. In which case you can add it as a comment.

Leadership.

(To the people who told me they liked reading my blog because I didn't write ridiculously long posts: I'm sorry. I won't be offended if you skim.)

I've been thinking a lot about leadership recently because I've been watching Band of Brothers, had a leadership position, applied for IV leadership, and have had friends talk about disappointment in leaders over them. So, I thought I might as well blog about it.

I've been exposed to leadership in many different contexts and I think they've all got something to teach us about how to lead well.

In high school I took JROTC which largely taught about how to be a good leader, and that's where I'm going to start. JROTC teaches that leadership is "the art of influencing others to get the job done." They propose three ways to complete this: The directing leader who gives clear instructions, the participating leader who involves subordinates in the decision making process, and the delegating leader who gives decision making authority to subordinates. Each has an appropriate time. The directing leader is essential when subordinates don't know what to do or there is little time. The delegating leader is good for situations where the subordinates have experience and know what to do. Finally, the participating leader is good for most other situations. Those are good general statements about leading, but they don't tell you very practically what to do.

Next up is Band of Brothers. There are two episodes where leadership and the lack of it are the focus of the episode.

Firstly, there's one about Major Richard Winters. From the first episode, you know he's the kind of leader you want to follow. He respects his troops but knows where to draw the line. He's decisive and confident. But, there's one episode that exemplifies how he was a great leader. He and his company were trapped in enemy territory and had been for a day or two. He constructed a plan to get him and his men out of there by taking out the nearby outpost. He did this by first getting into position and then running out in front while his men gave covering fire. After a  minute, he had them follow behind. Let me make that clear: he ran directly at an enemy camp, depending on his men to cover him. He didn't look back to see if they were following, but trusted them to do what they needed to. So here's my first two leadership points:

1) Lead by example. If you ask people to do something, do it yourself first. If you're asking men to risk their lives running towards the enemy, you better be doing the exact same things.

2) Trust those you lead. Trusting others is one of the quickest ways to earn their trust. Same goes for respect.

Secondly, there are two other people from Band of Brothers I want to focus on: Captain Ronald Speirs and First Lieutenant Norman Dike. Lt. Dike was leading the company's assault on a city but didn't know what he was doing at all. He ordered his men to stop in the middle of an open field because he was confused and many of them got shot because of it. Once near the city, he couldn't make a decision on how to continue the assault. After a long time, he ordered one platoon to circle around and attack from the other side while the second platoon attacked from their current position. Due to their already lowered numbers, that was a horrible call. Major Winters, now the battalion commander, ordered Speirs to relieve Dike. Speirs, once at the front of the attack, reorganized the attack. Only the other platoon was already around back and there was no way to relay the command. So, Speirs got up and ran through the city to relay the command verbally. That city full of German soldiers trying to kill them. Not only that, but once he relayed the command, he ran back to through the city to his platoon to lead the charge into the city. Which brings me to my next few points:

3) Be decisive. No one likes a leader who just deliberates on what to do for hours. People like a leader that leads and gets stuff done. That takes decisions.

4) Show that you can be trusted. Trust is essential to any relationship, including leader-follower, so it gets two points.

I have a few more points that I don't have Band of Brothers examples for:

5) Make sure you have open communication with the group you're leading. If they aren't comfortable with or if they don't have a platform to propose ideas and offer critiques, then they will start to resent you when things go differently than they wanted, and you won't have any clue.

6) Know your own strength and weaknesses, and take those into account. For me, I'm very prideful. I tend to think that whatever way I do something will be the best. So, If I'm leading a group, and I don't take that weakness into consideration, I likely will end up leading more dictatorially, and that's not good. I'm not the best at everything, and I need to consciously account for that and make sure I'm not leading like I am.

7) Know the strengths and weaknesses of your group. Don't have people do things they aren't good at - that's asking for failure.

I have one more point about leadership.

8) Lead with humility.

As a Christian, I should ultimately look to God as my example of what a leader looks like and that is best seen in Jesus' life on earth. Jesus was extremely humble. Not only did he not brag about himself and how awesome he was, but he took one of the lowliest of tasks and washed his followers feet. We should follow suit.

I'm sure there have been hundreds or thousands of books written on leadership, so I doubt that my ten paragraph or so blog post is all you need to know to be a great leader, but hopefully it helps. Feel free to add on with your own points about leadership too.

How He Loves

You may or may not be familiar with this song, but it's one that's caused some controversy over the past year or two.

("If you’re not familiar with John Mark McMillan’s song “How He Loves”, first off tell me what it’s like to live in a cave. Do you pee in one corner of the cave or do you go outside to do your business and risk being mauled by a jaguar with your pants down?")

The song focuses on God's love for us, and in the second verse describes it saying "heaven meets earths like a sloppy wet kiss". Not everyone is a fan of that line. It's caused enough controversy to get it's own post on Stuff Christians Like (which is where that wonderful cave quote is stolen from).

In that blog post, the author considers whether or not the line should be changed, as it often is, to "unforeseen kiss", but I don't think that's even what we should be concerned about. There's bigger and better question here: are we missing the rest of the song? Have we really noticed the vivid descriptions of God's grace and mercy?

How much does that one line really matter? Obviously, every line in a worship song should be true to God's word, but when it's just an awkward metaphor and not a false teaching, it's rather irrelevant. The song isn't about heaven and earth making out, it's about God and His love for His people, and that's a beautiful story worth singing about. And not only that, but "How He Loves" gives us many other excellent metaphors to express what God's love, grace, and mercy look like.

"He loves like a hurricane, I am a tree, bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy." 

"If His grace is an ocean, we're all sinking."

"We are His portion and He is our prize, drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes."

Maybe you haven't had any problems with this song. Maybe you have such a problem with it, you conveniently have to use the restroom every time it's being sung at your church. Either way, the point here is, whether it's this song or something else, don't let yourself get so caught up in little things you disagree with that you miss the bigger, much more important picture.

Wait, what is this?

This is my blog!

Umm... Why haven't I seen it before? You've got like 60 posts already.
That's because this blog started out as more of a journal. When it was first started, I kept it private. After a  while I started writing some less personal and more thoughtful posts, and I made it public so people wandering the interwebs could stumble upon it. And now, I figured I'd start promoting it.

Does that mean if I go back to the beginning of your blog, I can read your journal posts?
Nope. I hid most of those. Sorry.

So, this post isn't really that exciting to read, but you've got too many old posts to go through all of them. Which old posts should I read?
You should read Define: Sin, which is me processing what sin really is. You should also check out A faded picture which is one of my favorite posts that I've written.

How often are you going to post?
I'm shooting for 1-2 posts a week. I'm going to try to capture ideas whenever I have them, and then develop them into well-written posts. You might not get as many well-written posts with what's already on here.

What do you talk about?
There isn't one subject. There are some rants of things that bother me, some thoughtful posts about things I ponder, some insight into my mind and myself, some thoughts on God and religion, and some more informational type ones.

I like what you've written - how do I keep up?
I'll try to link any new posts to Facebook, but you might not always see them there. You can always use RSS to make sure you don't miss anything.

Why is it called "in this very moment..."?
Because, "in this moment..." was taken. It was inspired by the Starfield song by that same name. To me, it's what I try focus on: I can't change the past and I can't change the future. All you've really got is this moment.

I'm getting really bored of this post. What else could you possibly have to say?
Feel free to contact me through Facebook or at brad.nemitz@gmail.com if you want to talk about anything more (or if you just want to correct a grammatical or spelling error).

Everything is about to change.

Today feels strange. It's a little bit of the calm between storms. I just finished up a hectic few weeks, and I know I'm headed straight for another couple. But I also know these past few weeks just flew by me cause they were so busy. So I expect the next few will too. By then, school will be over. Seniors I've come to know and love will be leaving. I'll have final grades I can't change anymore. Relationships will have changed. I won't see some of my closest friends for several months. I'll be halfway done with my college career. I'll have a job I go to every day. I'll be living back in Charlotte. My sister will nearly be married. One of my best friends will be off to boot camp.

Everything will be different.

And, right now, I feel like I'm standing at the door to airplane, just waiting for my turn to jump. I've made similar jumps, and always survived, but that doesn't make staring down at 30,000 feet any less terrifying.

Worship songs.

I love worship songs. There are some great ones out there. But there's one thing that bothers me: when the song lyrics include an action.

Now, what I mean by that is when the lyrics say something like "I lift my hands up", because 90% of the time, no one is actually raising their hands. Something about that seems very wrong. To sing those words without raising your hands is a blatant lie. But then, if you raise your hand solely because the song says to, that's also kinda bad cause you're just doing something the song says to. You're not raising your hands in worship. So, you get stuck in a lose-lose.

The other part of this is that the same song that has a lie about having hands lifted up most likely also has a line about some other action. It probably talks about trusting God or trusting him, and for me that's problematic to some extent. You just lied about raising your hands. So how can anything else you say be trusted?

I know that's kind of silly, because it's really about your heart. But, then again, I feel pretty strongly about honesty, so forcing people into a lie in worship doesn't sit well with me.