patience

Life boggles the mind sometimes. The ebs and flows of the world around me often defies all reason. For instance, how a bad attitude and a busy morning turns into a slow afternoon longing for some action. Yet, patience is the key. The Lord blesses and controls things in His way, not mine. Sometimes my down is someone elses up. Sometimes the Lord is teaching through those instances that frustrate. Patience is the key. The Lord does reward those that are faithful and patient in Him.

first game back

Last night I had my first hockey game in a couple of years. Just rec rollar hockey, but a few things never change. I felt like it was deja vu in the locker room. I guess those things are always the same. And it became painfully evident that I gotta get my legs under me to really play at the level I know I'm capable. Gotta love picking up old sports.

No hands but yours ...

You are the Body of Christ. He is physically gone, but you are not. Teresa of Avila was quoted:

"Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours; yours are the eyes through which Christ's compassion looks out on the world, yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good, and yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now."

Live as the Body of Christ today. Do as Christ would and leads you to.

A word of encouragement to remember

A word of encouragement to remember:

"Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entagles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." (Heb. 12:1-3)

When our hearts are weary and our bodies are faint, remember that Jesus Christ left heaven, came to earth, and died a horrible criminals death (though He was innocent) all for you. He was resurrected, defeating death, all for you. He loves you. He cares for you. And you must focus on Him, for He will carry you through anything and all things.

Books

Can I just say that I love books. I grew up in a world that is overwhelmed with motion media, where "veging out" is meant in front of a TV, and here video have come to replace actual activity. And in the midst of this I also grew up with a learning disability in reading that forced me to learn a whole new way to read because my brain doesn't function like most other people's. And in spite of all these things, I love reading. There is nothing that can replace it. I believe God is in books and I love what he tells me there. So, please put down the remote and pick up your library card.

A blast from the past

George MacDonald once said:

"No man can order his life, for it comes flowing over him from behind ... The one secret of life and development is not to devise and plan but to fall in with the forces at work - to do every moment's duty aright - that being the part in the process allotted to us; and let come - not what will, for there is no such thing - but what the eternal thought wills for each of us, has intended in each of us from the first." (thanks to CS Lewis' anthology)

Thus to say, for those planners like me, forget it. Life is not planned. Life is life. It happens and we need not to plan everything, because those plans will always fail. And we need not to resign ourselves to always having our plans fail. We need to step into life, live it for its worth in the moment, play our role, and then move on to what is next. Or, as John Lennon is quoted as saying, "Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans." So stop making plans and start living life.

Experiencing God

It hit me recently how I experience God. Broken down to its most basic levels, people experience God in four ways: 1) scripture, 2) experience 3) tradition 4) reason. Each one of these has much deeper nuances then it seems, but for the most part this is how things can be broken down. But we all a different order of these things. My order is scripture, reason, experience, tradition. What is your order?

Proper stewards

Gen. 2:15 states, "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." Thus begins one of the minor themes of scripture, the stewardship of God's world. We are not just called, not just commanded, not just compelled, but it is our duty, our responsibility to take care of the earth and all the things in it. 

God created all things, good and bad, He created them. As the pinnacle of that creation, He created man and placed man in a position to rule over it, cultivate it, and be stewards of what God has created. It has come to my attention how terrible of a job we do of this.

So please, please, please, I beg you please, consider this each day. Carpool, recycle, put your gum in the trash not in the grass. Please remember that you are a steward of God's creation and you should take care of it as best you can because it is not yours. And at the very least, be sure that some day you will have to give account to the master for what you have done with His property.

Kill Fear

So I was reading Seth Godin's Tribes last night and was hit with some truth. Too often we are affraid of being leaders. That's why the good leaders are so popular, they have overcome that fear. Whether that is daily or once-for-all is something that each one of us has to figure out for ourselves, but the first step is stepping into the fear to overcome it.

This reminds me of a Andy Stanley's talk from CatalystWest this year where he discussed venturing into the unknown. If we are to lead, and Godin would say that the world needs leaders right now, then we must jump into things without knowing where we are going. We need to be willing to step out with a new idea, not knowing if it will succeed or fail or how we will even do it. We need to be inivators and be willing to live beyond the fear and actually promote the inovation that we have been blessed with.

Seed and harvest

Based off of some of the things we heard from Louie this afternoon, my brain started processing. He specifically brought up the BIBLICAL idea of seeding and harvesting. Not the prosperty gospel form of giving money and watching the harvest of the church you gave to. No, this is the actual process in the Bible about the cyclical planting, harvesting, planting more, harvest, etc....

This brought to my mind much of what the Lord has taken me through in the last several months. Too many of my peers, and I am included in this group, have been brought up with a sense of entitlement. We believe that a college degree, or even more a master's degree, entitles us to something great. We forget that we do not get to be a VP of a company on our first day. As Louie talked about we must sow the initial seeds of this phase of life and eventuall harvest them. Then we sow more seed and harvest more crop from that. This is a continual process that we all go through during our entire lives. We must work and build the bridges, get the experiences, and sow the seed in our youth so that some day we actually can do all those things that God is calling us to do. Live faithfully to your calling and God will reward you at the harvest or the next cycle. You are entitled to very little, so stop expecting a whole lot.

Louie Giglio

Ok, so I just sat in on the recording of a new Catalyst podcast with Louie Giglio and I all I have to say is EPIC. It was quite amazing. That guy was spittin' gold at us for an hour and a half. I trully recommend that everyone watch www.catalystspace.com or iTunes for the next podcast.

To Start ...

This is my first post of my new blog. It has come to my attention that I have two major areas where a blog could be helpful.

1) It is very hard for me to keep up to date with many of my friends and family... sorry folks but there are too many of you for me to stay in touch with everyone and I hate recapping six months in five minutes. But in reverse it is hard for me to keep up to date on all of you, so please feel free to comment on any post and give me updates on what you are doing now.

2) I often get hit with ideas that seem to be epiphanies to me and I need to hash them out. I know the people around me can get sick of hearing "Do you think ..." all day and since I'm in an office now I will quickly drive people away from there desks and my boss won't like that and then I'll be looking for new employment. So this will be the place where I get those things out and not only welcome, but encourage comments on those things.

So with all of that, here it is my blog. A new venture and I hope you all enjoy