Brooklyn Nine-Nine

I’m sure many of you were saddened when you heard that Andy Samberg, the man responsible for hilarious projects like The Lonely Island and Hot Rod, was leaving Saturday Night Live after nearly seven years on the show. I personally do not watch SNL very often, but I still was not happy to hear that he was leaving. Of the skits that I have seen from the show, his are some of my favorites. But he had outgrown the show, and like many SNL actors before him, he decided to try something new.

And now I am so glad that he did. Because in September 2012, a year after Samberg left Saturday Night Live, his new show, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, premiered, and it is hilarious. I was introduced to the show shortly after it premiered, and I was immediately hooked. I’ve watched every week since, and it has consistently kept me entertained. But if you don’t want to take my word for it, just ask whoever’s in charge of the Golden Globe Awards. Brooklyn Nine-Nine won the award for Best Comedy, and Andy Samberg himself walked away with the award for Best Actor in a Comedy. Obviously, this show is making a buzz.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a comedy about the lives of detectives working at the fictional 99th Precinct in Brooklyn, New York. But this isn’t your everyday detective show. Sure, the main characters solve mysteries and catch criminals, but the show also focuses on the inner workings of the precinct, especially their reaction to their new captain. Detectives compete to catch the most perpetrators, bargain with each other to solve cases, and ultimately work together for the greater good.

The ensemble of characters on this show is just perfect. Andy Samberg plays Jake Peralta. He’s probably the best detective on the squad, but he’s also immature and unmotivated. There’s also Sergeant Jeffords, payed impeccably by Terry Crews. Jeffords has been stuck doing desk work for a while due to PTSD and an overprotective wife. Other characters include Amy Santiago, the overachiever; Rosa Diaz, the precinct’s resident bully; Charles Boyle, a quirky detective with a self-destructive streak and thing for Rosa; Gina Linetti, the self-obsessed secretary; and Captain Holt, the precinct’s new captain, whose history of overcoming prejudice in the police force has made him stern and unsympathetic. There’s also Hitchcock and Scully, two best friends who serve as the scapegoats for the series. Each character is hilarious in his or her own right, and I can’t imagine the show without each one of them in it.

Just as much as the character’s themselves add humor, the relationships and interactions between the characters really give the show some heart. The characters play off of each other in interesting and fun ways. The show plays with all kinds of different match-ups throughout the series. The characters push each other in different ways, and each of them shows some growth throughout the series.

But even though the relationships between the characters are important, they never distract from the plot or the main point of the show, which is of course to make you laugh. One overarching plot throughout the first season so far has been the potentially romantic relationship between Peralta and Santiago. There are hints every now and then, and a couple of episodes have featured it pretty prominently. But the writers handle the story in a way that doesn’t make the relationship the central focus of the show or bog the viewer down in emotional stuff when really all he or she wants is to laugh.

And that’s what this show does best. It makes you laugh. It’s a nice break from the dramas and mysteries on TV, which are great. But sometimes I just want to watch something that makes me smile and laugh. Brooklyn Nine-Nine does that in a way that’s not crass or over-the-top. It’s a witty show with a lot of heart and even more potential. Brooklyn Nine-Nine will be around for a while, and you’ll be hearing about it more and more, so do yourself a favor and start watching it early. You won’t be disappointed.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine aires on FOX Tuesday nights at 9:30/8:30c. Several episodes are available for free on Hulu, and you can watch the entire series if you have Hulu Plus. The first season finale is set to air March 25, with a second season coming this fall.

Mountaintop Experiences: Moses

This is part two in a series called Mountaintop Experiences. It is based on a sermon I preached at a retreat last month at Camp Beaverfork. You can read part one, Mountaintop Experiences: Abraham, here.

Last week, we talked about Abraham and the life-changing experience he had with God on the mountain. Abraham had what we call a mountaintop experience, a one-on-one encounter with God where a person takes his or her relationship with God to the next level. These experiences signify shifts in a person’s life where he or she can look back and say, “Because I had that experience with God, my life will never be the same.” Abraham had that kind of experience when he climbed the mountain and laid the most important thing in the world to him—his son—down before God and said, “I want You more than even this.” What an incredible, life-changing encounter with God Abraham had on the mountaintop that day.

This week’s mountaintop experience story is about Moses. Moses was God’s hand-chosen leader for His chosen people, the Israelites. During Moses’ life, God’s people went from Egyptian slaves to free, roaming conquerers on the brink of the Promised Land. Moses lived an incredible life and went down in history as one of the strongest men of God to ever walk the earth. And it all started (and ended) on a mountain.

Moses had several notable mountaintop experiences in his life. Moses’ journey with God really started on a mountain when God appeared to him out of the burning bush and called him to lead the Israelites out of Egyptian captivity. Once Moses had led the Israelites out of Egypt and across the Red Sea, he returned to the same mountain and spent 40 days on top of the mountain with God receiving the commandments for God’s chosen people. And Moses’ life came full circle when he climbed his final mountain on the border of the Promised Land and died in the presence of the God he had served all his life.

The particular mountaintop experience from Moses’ life covered in this post comes from Exodus 33:18–23. It comes right after a major crisis in Moses’ life. As I said before, Moses spent 40 days on a mountain with God receiving the commandments. And when he came down, he found that the Israelites had rebelled. They had given up on Moses and on God, and they were worshipping a golden statue of a calf that they had created themselves.

Moses was livid, and so was God. Moses destroyed the idol and punished the people, and then he headed back up the mountain to do some damage control. The people had broken their covenant with God, and now it was questionable whether or not God would even continue to go with the Israelites as they travelled to the Promised Land. Moses pleaded with God not to give up on them, and when God finally agreed to continue going with Israel, Moses made this request to Him in Exodus chapter 33 verse 18: “Show me Your glory.”

I think Moses really needed three things in this situation. First of all, he needed some encouragement. He was charged with leading a very stubborn group of people who couldn’t seem to learn their lesson. They had watched God send plagues down on their Egyptian slave masters so that they could be set free. They had walked across the Red Sea that God had miraculously parted for them. They had eaten the manna that God had miraculously provided for them. And yet, they still rebelled against Him and against His chosen leader Moses. Moses didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t handle these people alone. He needed some encouragement, and that’s exactly what he got on the mountaintop.

Moses also needed to feel God’s presence in his life. Really, when Moses asked God to show him His glory, Moses was asking God to show him His presence, to show him who He was. Moses felt betrayed and alone. The people had rebelled against him. God had almost abandoned the Israelite people and left Moses to lead them on his own. He needed to know that God was with him in a very real way.

Finally, Moses needed some direction. He was in charge of God’s chosen people. He not only had to lead them to the Promised Land, but then he had figure out how to lead them in claiming the Promised Land for themselves despite the fact that it was already inhabited. Moses had no plan. He had no sense of where he was going. He needed God to show him that, and God did show him that on the mountaintop.

Moses got everything he needed from this mountaintop experience that he had with God. He received encouragement and a very real sense of God’s presence in his life when God set him up on the mountain and let him see His back as He walked away. Moses literally saw God’s glory on the mountain, and this had a profound effect on his life. When Moses came down from the mountain, scripture tells us that his face radiated with God’s presence. He literally shined from reflecting God’s glory. He had to wear a veil on his face because people couldn’t look directly at him. That’s how present God was in Moses’ life after this experience that he had on the mountaintop.

Moses also got some direction up there on the mountaintop. God refused to show Moses His face because He said that any man who sees God’s face will die. And that’s true, but I think there’s more to it than that. While discussing this passage, a friend of mine once asked me, “Why didn’t God show Moses His face?” My friend paused for a second, and then he answered, “It’s because we’re supposed to seek it.”

When Moses looked out from that mountaintop, he literally saw God. He saw His back as He was walking away. And seeing God in that way gave him some direction to follow. It gave Moses something to seek. Moses wasn’t content with just having that one experience of God’s glory. He sought God’s face for the rest of his life. He spent the rest of his days following the direction God gave him on that mountaintop. Because he climbed the mountain and asked God to show him His glory, Moses’ life was never the same.

Moses was a great man of God. He has served as an example for billions of people throughout history of the kind of faith and dedication to God we should all strive to have. Moses was so great because he took the time to get away, to climb those mountains, and to have those life-defining experiences with God that shaped him into who he was.

Maybe you see yourself in some aspect of Moses’ story today. Maybe you need encouragement. Or maybe you’re in desperate need to feel God’s presence in your life right now. Or maybe you’re looking for some direction in making a big decision or figuring out what the next step is for you. If you see yourself in any of these situations, follow Moses’ example. Climb that mountain, whatever that looks like in your own personal spiritual life, and ask God to show you His glory. Choose to make today one of your mountaintop experiences. If you climb that mountain, I promise you will find Him there. And I promise your life will never be the same.

Day One

You’ve all heard it before. Journaling is important. Everyone should do it. It’s good for you. Blah blah blah. I used to think it was all made up. I didn’t think that journaling could have a positive impact on my life. I tried to start a couple of times, and I always stopped because I didn’t enjoy it. I thought journaling wasn’t for me. But then I discovered an app that changed all that.

Day One is a journaling app for Mac and iOS. It features a gorgeous interface, effortless syncing between devices over iCloud or Dropbox, and some extra tools for power users. I’ve tried journaling by hand, in a word processor, and in other journaling apps, and none of those methods has even begun to compare to the awesome experience I’ve had with Day One.

Day One really simply gets out of the way and lets you write. The interface is simple, and they don’t bombard you with anything that’s going to distract you. I’ve found that Day One is designed to really let my creative juices flow. I can just sit there and write for as long as I need to. It’s enjoyable and elegant, but it doesn’t get in the way of self-expression, which is its main purpose.

The app also offers cool features like adding photos to your entries. They are displayed beautifully along with whatever you’ve written. You can add tags to entries to create categories. Day One allows you to export all your entries into PDFs for safe-keeping. The app automatically adds location and weather information to every entry. You can write your entries in Markdown, which is something I really enjoy. And on iOS, you can even have the app automatically record what song you’re listening to while you write. It’s a pretty neat new addition.

I write in my Day One journal every day. Usually, I just write about the events of the day and how they made me feel. Sitting down and writing it all out gives me time to process what happened to me that day and really think about how I felt and why. It gives me an opportunity to reflect on my life in a meaningful way, and that has been really good for me.

You can use Day One for more than just a personal journal, though. You can write out ideas or use Day One to save pictures along with write-ups about them. You can use it as a travel journal or just to jot down notes really quickly throughout the day. The potential uses are endless.

And soon, Day One will be giving users the ability to share their entries with the world, if they choose to do so. They are currently testing a new feature called Publish that allows you to choose an individual entry and share it on a gorgeous webpage for all to see. Obviously you wouldn’t want to publish all of your private entries this way, but if you want to write something and share it quickly, Day One gives you the opportunity to do that.

If you’re not journaling, you really should be. I know it sounds uncomfortable and lame. And I know many of you have probably tried journaling and given up on it. I really think that if you give Day One a chance, you’ll love it. You can even tell the app to remind you at a certain time of day to write in your journal. If you’ll invest the few minutes each day it takes to meaningfully journal, I think you’ll find it very beneficial. I know I really have.

Check out Day One on the Mac App Store ($9.99) or the iOS App Store ($4.99), or visit their website for more information. Thank you guys for reading this edition of Stuff Devon Likes. Have a great day, and happy journalling!

February 2014

I know, I know. It’s already been March for almost a week. But I’m just now getting around to looking back on last month and writing it all out. I’m sorry. This month just snuck up on me. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t bother to know what day it is.

Anyway, February was an exciting, exhausting month. It may be the shortest month of the year, but I filled it with lots of fun and memories. Cool stuff is happening in my ministry, my education, and just my life in general! Here’s what happened to me in February.

I started the month off right: neon bowling with my Merge Ministry friends. I am so thankful for all the fun and fellowship I have with my friends in Merge and my entire Cavanaugh Church family. Running the Merge website and being plugged in at church have been such amazing experiences for me, and I cannot say enough how glad I am to have my church be such a central part of my life.

As far as school goes, I’ve mostly just been working on my thesis. I made a point every day to do something to get me a little closer to that 25 page/8,000 word goal, and I’m making progress. I’m a little over halfway done with the first draft, which is due in two and a half weeks. That means I’ll have a complete draft of my senior thesis soon!

I also got some exciting news about my future educational plans. I’ve already announced my plans to attend Truett Seminary at Baylor University next fall to begin working on my Master of Divinity. And now I’m happy to share that I have been awarded a full-ride scholarship! It’s called the University Minister’s Scholarship, and I am so blessed and thankful that God has given me this opportunity to earn my degree without going into debt.

Valentine’s Day was this month, and I spent it with the coolest person I know: my nephew Aiden! I watched him while my parents went out to dinner, and we had a lot of fun. We ordered a pizza, watched TV, and played. I can’t think of any other way I would have rather spent my Valentine’s Day than that.

Another big thing that happened this month was my haircut. It was pretty dramatic. I had been growing my hair out for six months, but I finally decided it was time to tame it. My mom cut off around 3.5 inches of hair, and it really made a difference. I look more clean-cut now, and I definitely appreciate how much more manageable my hair is. Don’t expect me to bring back the ridiculously long look for a while.

On February 22, we celebrated my great-grandmother’s 90th birthday. She had a great time seeing family and friends come in from all over. It was so nice to celebrate her life with her and see my dad’s side of the family. We all really enjoyed it.

I spent the last day of February at Camp Beaverfork, one of my favorite places in the world. I had the honor of preaching the Friday night service at the teen retreat. It was the biggest crowd I had ever preached for, and I was scared to death, but God spoke through me, and it was an awesome experience. I love preaching God’s word, and I can’t wait to do it more and more.

So there you have it. A small glimpse into what I’ve been up to this past month. March is already off to a crazy start, but I’ll save that for my March life update. Be looking out for plenty of blog posts and Stuff Devon Likes articles between now and then. Thank you for keeping up with my life. Enjoy my February 1 Second Everyday video below, and feel free to contact me and let me know what you’ve been up to!

Mountaintop Experiences: Abraham

Note: This is the first in a series of blog posts entitled Mountaintop Experiences. These posts are based on a sermon I preached at Camp Beaverfork in February.

A good portion of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, is dedicated to telling the story of Abraham, the father of the Jewish people. Abraham was a God-fearing man who moved his family from his homeland in search of a land that God promised to give to him and his descendants, who God promised would be as numerous as the stars. There was just one problem: Abraham didn’t have any children. His wife, Sarah, was barren, and they were getting too old to be having children.

But Abraham clung to the hope of having a son. He suffered a lot and faced many trials throughout his life, but he knew it was all going to be OK because God was going to bless him and would someday fulfill His promise of giving him many descendants. And eventually, God did give Abraham a son named Isaac. Abraham loved Isaac and saw him as the fulfillment of God’s promise He had made so long ago. God had finally come through for Abraham.

And then what did God do? He told Abraham to give up the one thing he had wanted his entire life. In Genesis 22, we read the story of God instructing Abraham to take his son up to the top of a mountain and sacrifice him on an altar. Think about it. God finally gave Abraham the son he had been waiting on for so many years, and now God was telling him to take his son and slaughter him like a sacrificial animal. How crazy does that sound? And yet, Abraham obeyed.

The Biblical text does not give us any information about what was going through Abraham’s mind, but one can only imagine the anguish he must have felt. He journeyed to mountain for three days, all the while knowing what he was about to do. He had to hide it from Isaac, who expressed confusion about why they weren’t bringing an animal along with them. How hard it must have been for Abraham to look into his child’s eyes and simply say, “God will provide.”

When they reached the top of the mountain, Abraham built an altar to the God who had asked him to give up the most important thing in the world to him. He prepared for the sacrifice, and then he took his son, his beloved, and he took out the knife to kill the person he cared about most. And then, suddenly, he heard the voice of an angel telling him to stop. He didn’t have to do the thing he dreaded. He had passed God’s test, and God had provided another sacrifice to take his son’s place.

In this story, we see that Abraham had a mountaintop experience. A mountaintop experience is a point in someone’s life where they come face-to-face with God and there is a sudden, drastic change in their lives. Abraham’s mountaintop experience literally took place on a mountaintop, and there are other stories in the Bible of people having life-changing experiences with God on the top of a mountain, and thus they are called mountaintop experiences. However, they can take place anytime and anywhere, and each of us can and should have at least one of these experiences during our lives. There should be a point or points in our lives where we can look back and say, “That was a turning point in my life where my relationship with God went to a new level, and I have never been the same since.”

Our mountaintop experiences probably won’t be as extreme as Abraham’s. God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son because He knew that Isaac was the number one thing in Abraham’s life, and God wanted Abraham to show that He meant more to Abraham than even Isaac did. God wants to be number one in our lives, even more important than great things like our families and friends, and He calls us to lay those things down before Him and show Him that He is more important than anything or anyone else.

God wants us to want Him more than we want anything else. More than we want to do well in school. More than we want to be successful. More than we want to someday get married and have a family of our own or whatever our ambition is. More than anything else, God wants us to want Him and to depend on Him for everything. As long as we’re doing that, the relationships and the school and the career and the family will fall into place. As long as God is your number one, you’ll know that you’re on the right track.

Abraham chose God above even his own son. He went up on the mountaintop and had an encounter with God where he laid the most important thing in his life before God and said, “Here, it’s yours. I choose You above all else.” And because Abraham did that, God blessed him and used him to create His chosen people from whom would eventually come Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. Because Abraham chose to put God first, the whole world was blessed through his descendants.

Maybe you’ve been putting something before God in your life. If so, He’s calling you to climb the mountain and lay that thing down before Him. I know it may be hard, but if you take the time to get away, to have that mountaintop experience with God, to say, “This thing means the world to me, but I’m choosing to give it to You,” I promise your life will never be the same. God will honor your commitment to Him. He will bless you, and He will use you beyond what you ever could have imagined. Maybe today will be your time to have a mountaintop experience with God.