Uniquely Me
August 10th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
For those of you who know me, the book “Crazy Love” by Francis Chan, is one of my favorites. In the 10th and final chapter there is a quote that I love; “God is a creator, not a duplicator.” God created only one of me (this alone shows God’s infinite wisdom, the world can only handle one of me…) and he does not intend for me to be like anyone else or serve anyone else’s purpose. In Psalm 139:14 it says, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” Notice where it says “Your works are wonderful”; God is talking about me. He doesn’t make junk.
I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about how I should be more like this person or that person. What I really need to do is spend more time being more like the person God intended me to be. I am “wonderfully made”, not in an arrogant way, but in a way that brings glory to God’s creation.
God Sized Answers
August 9th, 2010 § 2 Comments
I have read the story of Lazarus in John 11 many times, but this morning something new struck me. In verse 23 Jesus makes a statement to Martha about her brother Lazarus, Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha reacts in a way that most of us would say was a faithful reaction to Jesus by responding in verse 24 with, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Martha obviously had faith in Jesus and knew that Lazarus would be in heaven at the resurrection.
What I started to think about as I read on, was how we tend to approach God’s will with preconceived notions about how God will answer our prayers. When we are sick we assume that God will either heal us or take us home. With great faith Martha knew that Jesus would act at the resurrection, but Jesus surprised her. In the last part of verse 43 and the first part of 44 Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out. Jesus provided in a way that no one in this story could have dreamed of.
God is capable of so much more than any one of us can ever realize. We put God on par with human capabilities and assume that God can not think of new and creative ways of providing for us. When I ask God for help, I must be willing to accept God’s way of providing for me. I need to remember to pray with an open hand, knowing that God can and will provide for me in ways I could never dream of.
Before I Was Ever Formed
August 8th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” – Jeremiah 1:5
This passage was written to describe Jeremiah’s relationship with God and His purpose for Jeremiah’s life. The amazing part of this verse is that it shows just how soon God knows the purposes for each of our lives. Before I was ever formed, God had a purpose for my life that was explicit and planned. It helps me to know that my life is directed through the plan that God has for me. The purpose for my life is very clear to God and it should be very clear to me as well, but I need to be actively pursuing a relationship with God that ensures I am working in the plan he has for me. One of my biggest struggles is that I tend to work hard at finding a plan for my future and what I really need to do is work on listening to where God is leading me. He knows where I need to be and where my gifts will be most effective. If I listen to God’s leading in my life and listen to His voice His perfect plan for my life will be revealed and I will be everything He planned for me.
Spirit of Power
June 15th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
I hate heights! In fact, I am deathly afraid of heights. It is one of the few things that truly cause me anxiety. A few years back my company was experimenting with Satellite technology and I had to accompany the satellite tech to the roof of our six story building. I was fine up there right up until he walked to the edge of the roof and asked me to join him. I was so terrified that I actually started to hyperventilate; it was so embarrassing. What’s interesting is that I don’t experience this fear when I walk to the edge of a natural structure like the Grand Canyon in Arizona. I can walk right up to the edge of a 300 foot drop-off with a 20 MPH wind at my back and it just doesn’t faze me. Why is that? Honestly, I don’t really know, but I think it has something to do with my subconscious understanding that the Grand Canyon has been in place for thousands of years. While it may experience changes over time, it does not shift from one day to the next; in fact, it hardly shifts from one century to the next. On the other hand most buildings, especially in the United States, have been around less than a few decades. As ridiculous as this may sound, I guess my simple mind feels like it could collapse at any second.
This is very similar to the way I feel when I walk without God’s power and presence in my life. In 2 Timothy 1:7 it says “7For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.” It is so easy to forget that we are not alone because we have God’s power through the Holy Spirit with us in every situation. With the Holy Spirit I don’t have to have all the answers, but I can rest assured that He is there to see me through. There is another key piece to this verse that I don’t want to ignore; God gives us a spirit of Love as well. Without love this power can come across as something other than confident and become something that turns people off instead of on. The spirit of Love and the spirit of self-discipline give us the ability to face any situation this world may throw at us in a bold and confident way. Fear is an emotion that God allows in every one of us and is what reminds us of our humanity. But with the power of the Holy Spirit we can overcome that fear with a confidence that can only come from God.
What do I Really Need?
June 6th, 2010 § 2 Comments
I am so used to wanting more; more time, more food, more money, more, more, more, and then some more. What do I really need in order to do what I was created to do? I love the passage in Proverbs 30:8-9, “8…give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. 9Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.” I love this passage because it reminds me that the only thing I really need in my life is God. He provides everything I need, from the food I eat, to the time I have on this earth. What I see as necessity is not necessarily what I need. The passage points to how I really act, which makes me want more than I need so I don’t have to rely on God. I want a security blanket so I don’t have to rely on someone else. God wants us to rely on Him, not so that we are codependent, but that we are fully within His plan. God reminded me of this when I lost my job a few years ago. The day I received my last paycheck and the health insurance ran out, He not only continued to provide my family with food and shelter, but He also provided the time I needed to reconnect with Him. He gave me the time to see that He had not left me and that He still desired to be in relationship with me. Even through that experience I still find myself wanting more than what I really need. I want that security to know I can survive when things go badly. My prayer is for one day to believe the realization that even when things go bad, God is still there and wants me to rely on Him and not on my own security. One day I will have the courage to ask for ‘just enough’; it’s all I really need!
The Skit Guys – Meet the King
February 25th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
I love these guys… Does it really matter how we visually look to the world?
Silly Rules
February 14th, 2010 § 1 Comment
Why do we constantly create rules we want God to follow. Just because we need rules to exist in a society, we feel we need to create rules on behalf of God. This is not something new to the human existence. In Genesis 3, Eve created a rule that God never made. When she told the serpent that God said ‘…You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die’, she created a rule that God never made (God only said that they could not eat it). We do this all the time when we create barriers that God never made.
God never told us to be perfect. He never said that we needed to follow the rules in order to receive salvation. He spent time with the lowlifes of this world and all he asked was that they follow him. He never said stop being a tax collector; Matthew 9:9, ‘he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.’ How many times in my conservative upbringing did I hear that dancing and drinking will lead to a life that is not approved by God?
Sin is something that is defined by God as disobedience to Him, not disobedience to the rules that can lead to sin. We need to have personal responsibility for our actions. We need to realize that if our drinking leads to drunkenness, then we need to stay away from drinking. This does not mean that we make the entire world stay away from drinking alcohol. The same goes for just about every rule we have ever created for our Christian lives.
God wants a relationship with us… PERIOD! Relationship does not equal a summation of acts that lead to a relationship. Relationship is the action. I am beginning to see the enormous number of rules that God never said we needed to create. Salvation is a free gift that we are to receive from God through Jesus’ sacrifice of His life on the cross. I don’t work for it and I don’t act or jump through hoops for it. I simply accept it and live a life that includes a personal relationship with Him, which allows me to reap the benefits of living with Him.
Leaning Out
January 31st, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Recently, I heard one of the greatest definitions of faith; “faith is leaning out so far that you have no choice but to jump.” Imagine a child standing on the edge of a deck, asking their father to catch them if the jump. The father will catch them, of course, but the fear makes the child hesitate and even a little anxious. They walk to the edge, then take a few steps back. They walk to the edge again, only to stop again in frustrated hesitation. Finally, they are on the edge, with arms stretched out leaning to the point that they have no choice but to push off the edge to the safety of they daddy’s arms… That is where God is for us. He does not expect us to blindly go forward until we know he is there. Faith is not hesitation and it’s not unbridled boldness, it is the trusting of our heavenly father that he will catch us when we jump. So many times we feel we cannot be afraid, but God just doesn’t want the fear to keep us from jumping. Sometimes this means that we need to take risks and it may even mean that we need to exercise our faith in the same way we exercise our physical bodies as we prepare for a race. Most importantly we are to never give up. We are to never feel as though God will not be there for us.
Hebrews 12:1, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”
Baggage That Holds Me Back
December 27th, 2009 § Leave a Comment
It’s been a few months since my last posts. One of my goals for this next year is to be better with this thing…
I have to be honest, over these past few months I have also felt a bit inadequate to be sharing my thoughts in a potentially public way (for the three people who actually read this). I have been allowing my past mistakes to dictate the amount of God’s presence in my life; mostly because I tend to find it difficult to leave my past mistakes behind. I tend to hang onto my past baggage and limit the ability of God to use me because of all the junk I carry around. I allow so many things to hold me back and what I’m really saying is that my baggage is more important and more powerful than the message God has to work through me. Romans 6:11 says, “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive in God in Jesus Christ.” When we hold onto our past sins, they hold us down. They become an anchor on our lives that keeps God’s current from moving us forward. How many times have I let the limitations of my life dictate how I can and will be used by God? I need to live my life as though I will live forever… because I will. The way I live my life is only the beginning of eternity with God and I need to live until I die on this earth. In the second part of John 10:10 Jesus says, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” God did not come to give us a mediocre existence after we accept salvation, he came to give us a full and meaningful life; one that exceeds our expectations, not limits them. That verse says “Full”, not half or limited, but FULL. I need to remove the weighted baggage that limits my ability to be fully used by my creator. If I believe that God is really the creator of everything, including my existence, then I need to live as God intended when he sent His Son to die and save me from those mistakes.
The Effect of Fear
September 13th, 2009 § Leave a Comment
This past week we had world renowned author and minister Max Lucado speak at our devo at work. As usual he had some really incredible things to say about the effects that fear has on our lives. For starters, fear causes us to question God’s goodness. The world loves to question God’s willingness to allow the evils of this world to exist. We forget that the evils of this world exist because of our lack of obedience (the fall of man), not because of His lack of goodness. It is our free-will in choosing to be disobedient that has allowed the evils of this world to exist. Second, fear turns us all into control freaks. When things start to go wrong in our lives we begin to grab onto things that we are not equipped to control. When I worked for Home Depot, my manager would tell me, “Control what you can control”. I was personally responsible for 126 different metrics and I usually had to pick which ones need to be handled in what priority, most of the time to the detriment of other metrics. If I tried to control all my metrics at the same time, I would have failed at most of them. What I learned was that I need to let go of some of my metrics and let others take control that had more experience or were better equipped to handle in order to succeed. In the same way, God does not ask me to be perfect in every area of my life, but to be obedient to his leading. He does not need me to control every outcome of every situation; he simply wants me to trust that he has a better understanding of the situation and knows how things will turn out in the bigger picture. Finally, fear is a perceived loss of control because most of us feel that during times of fear it is because of our inability to control the situation. We are the small child who is unable to see in a dark room and is afraid to step in and not accept that their parents are just in the other room and able to protect them. Fear is the one thing that causes most of us to irrationally act in accordance to our ability instead of relying on the ability of God to protect us and lead us through.
Isaiah 41:10 – “Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.”
