The Big Diehl

I just wanted to let you all know that I’m not dead. I got really sick a few weeks ago, and that set me back enough that I’ve been playing catch up ever since. The weeks leading up to Easter are the busiest weeks of the entire year for most worship pastors, and I’m no exception. I’ve got lots and lots of things to blog about, but just no time to develop the thoughts into clearly written communication. I’ll be back on regularly in awhile, I’m just taking a blogging break I guess. Hang tight! I love you all!

My second year of college was the busiest year of my life. I was a full time university student studying music (which meant a lot of practice time). I led and directed a midweek evangelistic children’s program at my church. I worked a significant amount empowering the worship teams and choirs to serve more effectively. I took Bible college courses in the evenings. I had never been so stressed in all my life. I actually wrote out my schedule to help me organize my time and realized that I had a grand total of something like 4 hours PER WEEK of non-committed time. That means for every week, I had a grand total of 4 hours to hang with friends, watch T.V., take showers, or just whatever I wanted to do. I was about that busy all four years of college, but my second year was the worst. It nearly killed me.

During that crazy busy time, I grew 3 gray hairs. I knew exactly what they were from: stress.

Yesterday when I was getting ready in the bathroom, I realized that my gray hairs were gone. (Don’t even start with the, “You’re going bald” crap. I’m not going bald – the gray hairs are gone). It was quite cool – I mean do I have less stress? Maybe. But more than that, I think I’m handling the high levels of mental stress much better now that I’m doing a better job at living a LIFE of renewal.

Now of course I’m not equating no gray hairs with good spirituality. That’s not the point. I’m talking about what the gray hairs represented in my life. Good spirituality will eliminate the “gray hairs” (ignored stress). “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.” That means if we’re spending time with God, eagerly anticipating Him, our strength will be RENEWED. We’ve heard that scripture in Isiah a million times, but seldom do we live like it.

When crazy busy times come our way, I think we go into a “focus” mode and we only do the things that MUST be done — which ignores our time with God. That thinking is killing Christians! When we have more work to do than ever before, we should pray twice as much! God will make up the difference, he never lies: “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.”

I’m not really sure what brought this on, but I felt compelled to make a top ten list of my favorite musicians, music groups, or songwriters. When I critique music, I usually consider the style or public interest (in many ways, that’s the only thing that matters). But this list transcends all that and is based solely on WHAT I LIKE.

Israel Houghton and New Breed. His music is ultra creative. The rhythm is the tightest I’ve ever heard. The sound is sweet every time. I love this group. My ears became 10x more sensitive to details after I started listening to this group. Great stuff.

John Tesh. What I like most about John’s music is the sound that he creates in the groove.

Eric Whitacre. Eric is a young modern music composer. He walks a FINE LINE between harmony and dissonance. It’s incredible. I cried the first three times I listened to the CD.

Leeland. Leeland Mooring’s voice is incredible. Oh my word.

Elton John.

Audio Adrenaline. 

Bobby McFerrin. Best vocalist in the world.

Ross Parsley and New Life Church.

DC Talk. DC Talk successfully evolved through several eras of popular music with the aim of spreading Christ. Unlike Carman, they did an incredible job changing styles.

Phil Collins. I love Phil’s voice. Beats are pretty tight, too.

Never be lacking in zeal, but always keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. This is Romans 12:11.

I used to think that I had spiritual fervor, but in reality I had none. It’s not that I was attempting to fool anyone about my spiritual fervor: the only person I was fooling was MYSELF. I genuinely thought I had spiritual fervor.

The deal was that I wasn’t passionate for “the world” nor was I passionate for God. God would rather that I have no relationship with Him at all than for me to just be wishy washy like I was. Wishy washy makes God want to vomit, and it certainly won’t get me to heaven. I had the attitude that because I served God so much and since I’ve personally led hundreds through a sinner’s prayer, (and so on and so on), then I don’t need anything else — but I didn’t realize that I was wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I needed to CONTINUOUSLY RENEW my relationship with God — because when I’m truly plugged into The Power Source, I become rich, clothed, and my eyes become open. (Revelation 3:15-18, Adam Diehl Version).

Most of the people reading this right now probably fit into this category. You can’t talk about maintaining spiritual fervor because there is none to maintain . . . you think there is, but there’s not. Most of the people reading this right now just thought to themselves, “Oh, well that’s not me that’s someone else.” And that’s exactly what I’m talking about.

I plead with you – read Revelation 3:14-22. Then read it again, asking God to show you how and if you fit into the description of this Church.

“Do you really think God will reveal himself to you when you haven’t bothered to search for Him?”

I’ve decided I will follow Dr. Dobson’s suit, and I will never vote for a candidate who supports the killing of innocent babies.

I won’t do it.

But its not the only issue?

In 1861, neither was slavery.

I’m almost 24, but I feel old right now.

Yesterday I was eating lunch with a 16 year old that I mentor. He told me something he was going to do, and I asked him, “Are your parents down with that?”

He said, “What?”

I repeated, “Are your parents down with that?”

“Are they what?”

Again, I repeated “Are your parents down with that?”

Then he laughed at me. “Are they ‘down with it’? Man Adam, I had to think about what that meant. That’s old school. Nobody talks like that anymore.”

Readers – please tell me I’m not the only one who uses the phrase “down with it”! At least I’ve backed off my usage of words like “tubular” and “rad” (yes, I really did say those words quite often).

To close out the year, I wanted to take a minute to link back to a few of my most favorite blogs that I wrote in 2007. I tried to describe each of them so you can pick and choose which (if any) you’d like to read.

This post would have to rank as my number one favorite blog post. It’s pretty heavy. It’s about the time that I almost killed a man, and the lesson I learned in it. Go read it.

I’m not sure how many times I’ve linked back to my “Don’t Be Such A Sissy” post, but I’ll do it again. It’s right on. Christianity isn’t for sissies.

This one explains why I believe we do not see drastic spiritual renewal/revival in the American church today.

I’m a worship pastor, and I occasionally write about Worship Teams. This is my favorite of those.

I think many of us misunderstand how evangelism is supposed to work. I love this post about evangelism.

One of my favorite things is interpersonal communication and how personalties plays into it. I complied one “interpersonal communication driven post” about the backbone of all relationships. Check it.

My previous post was about the need to live a life of a crescendo – never be lacking in zeal but always holding your spiritual fervor. If you’ve been a Christian longer than 7 days, you probably know that keeping your spiritual fervor is easier said than done. Today I want to present an idea of how to keep living with zeal and spiritual fervor for a lifetime.

Have you ever noticed that airport terminals have a lot of chairs? What are those chairs for? –they’re for waiting. I am on my way to a conference this morning and my flight was canceled. I was put to a later flight to the same city. So here I am — sitting in an airport terminal. In the chairs. Waiting.

***

If we want to live a life of continual zeal for God, we must live a life of consistent spiritual renewal. Oh, how I wish that God would have told us how to live a life of consistent spiritual renewal! Oh wait, he did. Check it out, “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength” (Is. 40:31). The NIV says that “those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.” After looking up the original language, I think a great translation would be, “Those that earnestly seek after God will renew their strength.”

Do you want to maintain a high level of zeal and fervor for Christ your entire life? That’s the secret – seek Him. Wait for Him. Expect Him.

***

It’s really annoying to have to wait for this next flight. I’m waiting for my flight and I’m hoping and trusting it will depart timely. But after the waiting – I know I’m going to get on my flight. The Good Thing can only come after the wait — the hoping — the seeking.