Friday, December 17, 2010

The Power of Ian

For anyone that reads this blog, I'm sure you are wondering "who is Ian?"  Well...Ian is one of my nephews.  He is one of my brother and his wonderful wife's sons.  I won't spend a lot of time on what he is like, except to say that he is 3 at the time of this posting.

Today Ian's mother posted something on her blog, The T.I.E.S That Bind, today that gave whole new meaning (at least to me) of "out of the mouth of babes".  For those that don't click on the link, Ian asked his mom to play a specific song on the way to drop his older brother off at school.  The song was Sovereign God by Maurette Brown Clark.  The song ended up encouraging the mom, the mom posted on her blog, I get emails of her blog posts so once I read it, I shared it with some loved ones, one of which posted parts of the song on FB as their status.  Someone that I know was having a rough day, "liked" the post.

So from the desire of a 3 year old to hear a song, the effect radiated out to an unknown number of individuals to help make their day better.  If that isn't powerful, I don't know what is!

Thanks Ian and thanks Ian's mom!!  You've positively effected the lives of numbers of people.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Sermon Note: As The Spirit Moves

Often times, I talk out loud to God, especially when I am home alone.

While walking and talking and doing laundry and cleaning the kitchen, I paused to watch something on Mythbusters.  What I saw and the fact that God is so good that He would point out these natural thngs that have spiritual implications, has inspired me to capture these "Sermon Notes" as blog entries.

So from now on (or at least until I change it or forget) whenever you see a blog entry that starts with "Sermon Note", this is what it will be.

Okay, so I was watching an episode of Mythbusters where they are trying to fool the contraband sniffing dogs.  I watched most of the episode off and on, but the part that I stopped to watch was where they determined that they couldn't fool the dog so they switched to trying to full the handler.  So...they wrapped the contraband in a actual dirty diaper that had been sitting for a week, put it in a ziploc and then put it in a piece of luggage.  After a few moments the dog found the bag and gave the signal.  The handler (a man) started opening the bag, saw what it was and proceeded  to pull the contraband out. 

Insight gained.  The handler, knew the dog well enough to totally trust what he/she (the dog) said.  Even at the onset of what looked undesirable or potentially wrong, the handler went ahead with the task because he knew and trusted the dog.

As we know God more and more and trust Him more and more, we should get to the point where we recognize the move of the Spirit and then follow through.  Understand though that this isn't an instant development upon accepting Christ into your life, this is a process of developing a relationship with God through the Holy Spirit.  The play out of our lives, when viewed in retrospect, should show supporting evidence of who God is.  Thus, as we get to know God, we should be able to move confidently in the Spirit; doing what God would have us to do no matter the circumstance, no matter what it looks like.

Monday, November 8, 2010

You Have To Be More Aggressive

When I was about 8 or 9, I played on an indoor soccer team.  After weeks of practice and trying to master the skills associated with soccer, I found myself mostly sitting the bench only playing a couple of minutes at the end of the game.  Granted it was my first time playing soccer, and I realize I didn't have the skills that a lot of the other players had, but I felt like I was being slighted and my quite demeanor and cowadice dictated that I would never ask the coach to put me in or let me play more.  My response at that age was more along the lines of feeling sorry for myself and thinking that I couldn't do it.

I remember one Saturday game, while the game was ongoing, I was basically sitting on the bench looking forlorn.  I look up to see my dad walking torward me from around the outside of the field.  I get up and meet him as he is walking and he takes one look at me and says, "What's wrong?"  My response was to tear up, lean into him for the expected consoling and comfort that I always recieve from him, and declare (whine) "I never get to play."

As he embraced me, I very distinctly remember him speaking these words to me..."son, you have to be more aggressive."  I will admit that at the time, this enlightenment did not take root.  It wasn't for a couple of years still when I would understand the intent of his advice and put it into practice.  I will admit, (with great delight) that once I integrated this advice into my person...it became a permanent, persistent feature of my personality.  Eventually shyness went away, sports became fun, and I set out to accomplish everything I did with a confidence that I was going to not only succeed, but that I was going to be the best there was.  Obviously, being the best there is at something didn't always pan out, but that mindset runs deep and it still is at the forefront of most of my endeavors.

Even today, as an adult, a lot of my drive is motivated by being "the best there is."  In a lot of areas, competition with others is uncalled for so I compete with myself and the excepted norms.  For example, I would never compete with other preachers to see who's best, but I do push myself to know God more and more so that I can be more and more effective as His servant.  Most areas of my life get the same or similar type efforts.  I have often been recognized for my intensity which is in large part part of my drive to be the best there is.  In love, in life, in work, in play, in spirit, in every positive area...I don't want to be adequate, or even good.  I want to be the best there is!

I realize that part of my aggression is provoked by pride, and I realize that to much or the wrong type of pride can be hazardous, but I am confident that keeping God first will keep me in a place of confidence without slipping over to the pride path that leads to destruction.

So reader...how aggressive are you?

Thursday, October 7, 2010

To Have Or Not To Have: Goals

The flow of my life generally consists of living day to day, doing the things that I know are right and not really caring about the future.  The thought process has generally been, if I live "right" (a good Christian life), then I need not worry about the future.  Why stress about things that I have already been promised will be taken care of?  Even the Bible talks about taking no thought for your life in regard to what you will wear or what you will eat.  God tells us to seek Him first and all the things that we have need of will be added to us. So why do I need to have goals?

The other fact in regard to my life and goals, is that most things that I want to do don't have timeframes attached to them.  For example, I am working on customizing a truck and I do work on it from time to time, but I don't have a goal of being done with it in 5 years or even being so far after so much time.  My goal is just to work on it.  What's wrong with that?

A very close friend (not one of those friends that I occasionally talk to, this is one of those real friends that can tell you the truth whether you like it or not without worrying about the fallout of a disagreement.  I would expound on this more, but I think I'll save that for another blog entry) confronted me about my lack of goals especially in regard to timeframes. One argument was, "how do you measure progress if you don't have a timeframe?".  My reply had something to do with the fact that stuff is getting done.  That didn't go over to well.  Time marches on, and my projects and endeavors seem to span out longer and longer.  Should I care?  Should I change something?  How do I measure the "success" of my life if I have no goals?  Isn't it enough to press toward the mark?  Do I have to be 2 milestones closer by the third quarter of next year?

In my life currently there are somethings that I would consider successes and similarly there are some failures.  I keep pressing on.  One thing that I have noticed in retrospect, again thanks to my friend, is that sometimes I just let things drag on and eventually get out of control and then have to deal drastically to handle them.  If I would put goals in place to handle these issues in a reasonable time frame, I am sure I could reduce a lot of stress points in my life.  I often feel like I am behind the wave of events in my life and I am simply reacting.  I am starting to wonder what it would be like to be in front of the wave on somethings and then direct there conclusion and/or direction.

I realize that this entry is probably loppsided toward the non-goal lifestyle, that is only because I am more familiar with it.  I am trying to remain open so that I can reap the benefits of both worlds.  Now that my eyes have been enlightened (another aspect of a real friend) it would be irresponsible of me to ignore the potential peace that could come from implementation.  I plan to work the mix and see where it takes me.

Monday, September 20, 2010

2 Minutes To Tell Time

Very recently, my mom started redecorating her house with special emphasis on the living room.  She has replaced the furniture, totally redone the fireplace mantle, purchased a colorful rug to liven up the overall feel of the space, and finally purchased a decorative wall clock to replace the 1' diameter clock that has been hanging for at least a decade.

Now, the clock.  While it is appealing to look at as decoration...the overall use of the clock is questionable.  The face of the clock is black wrought iron decoration with real openings that allow you to see the wall behind the clock.  The hands of the clock are also black, and finally the numbers on the clock are black roman numerals.  Mom asked me the other day what time it was and my response was, "I don't know, I'm still reading the clock!" My dad has similar issues so I am certain it is more than just poor time telling skills.

After you look at the clock for a minute or two (probably exaggerated a little) you can decipher what it says.  Unfortunately, I haven't seemed to LEARN the clock, so each time I look at the clock I have to study it anew to determine the time.

People are a lot like this clock.  We see people, and most of the times they are striving to look acceptable if not their best, but we often fail to take a deeper look into who a person is to determine what they are about, or how they are doing, or perhaps what is going on in their life.  Far to often we look at a person and unconsciously or consciously super impose stereotypes and then neatly slide them into their respective slots in our minds.  We recognize them for their appearance, but fail to take the time to understand who they are.  Even more so, if by chance we do spend the time to get to know a person, I believe it is a sad mistake to assume that what you have seen in the past is who that person will continue to be.  We should be ready and willing to get to know people with each encounter.  Each conversation should be a "new read."  That is how you get to know someone.  You don't make assumptions about who they are, you take the time to allow them to continue to tell you.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

How Can the Flawed Deliver the Perfect

Let me start this post off by stating that my inherent (pride backed) nature is to impress. I realize that can be seen as an asset in most situations, but trust me, it also can generate great problems in life.

I say this now because I am going to strive to write each and every post with what is on my mind and not necessarily to impress an audience (perceived or realized). I'm not a total stranger to grammatical constructs and syntactical fluidity, (I know, a bit much probably) but I want to write these posts with the idea of accurately documenting my perspective as opposed to impressing the reader with word usage and sentence structure. That being said...

I was thinking today about my growing willingness to criticize those that deliver the Word of God. I will admit that the very thought of doing this unsettles me and I have begun to pray that God would diminish the desire to criticize, and specifically that what criticism remains would be constructive and reasonable.

The thing that struck me as I began to pray about what I hear was that man (when I say man, I mean humans in both sexes) is not perfect. It is totally unreasonable to think that any one person should be able to say everything perfectly or even accurately at any given time. Some place so much importance on the man of God as he/she delivers the Word of God from behind the "sacred desk" that they hold all that they say as Biblical truth. The problem with this, at least in my mind, is that the standard (unreasonable as it is) that I have generated requires total accuracy on ALL points in order to validate the whole of the sermon or message. The thought process has been, if you represent God and He is leading you with what to say then you shouldn't say things that are not true or at the very least are not accurate. For example (this is totally made up, so don't try to figure who said it), if you are preaching and you say something like "the Holy Spirit works in you like the electricity in your house. He moves in only one direction, that is the holy direction! That's why the plugs now days have a big side and little side, so the current will always flow in the right direction." Now that may sound good, especially with "preacher voice" backing it at the peak of a message, but as some would know, the current in your house is AC (alternating current) which is to say it doesn't matter which direction it flows. Now that isn't a monumental untruth, but it is not accurate. Should this invalidate the whole message. I willingly write, "of course not", but I personally know that things like this cause me to struggle sometimes with God motivated portions of the message. Truth is, most people wouldn't know or care about the difference and the analogy works to portray a point. What's the big deal? I don't know! That's why I'm writing this blog post. Why do I get hung up on things like this. I don't know everything. I say the wrong thing from time to time. Why would I expect the person delivering the message to be any different? Well, maybe because at the time they are delivering the message they are representing God and my expectation is for them to speak as "the oracles of God" and to be "God's perfect mouthpiece". With these expectations, flaws diminish my confidence in both the message and the messenger.

A realization that I came today is the fact that man is flawed. We are not perfect. We haven't "arrived" (those that are seeking the Lord). We are going to make mistakes. We are going to perhaps be inaccurate in what we say. I believe the importance of what we say, especially over the pulpit, should be measured by the spiritual connect that should happen as hearers listen to the preached Word of God. The power of God through His Word, spoken, read or otherwise is a given. His Word is perfect and without flaw. The Word deliverer is not perfect, but with the help of the Holy Spirit he/she should be able to preach a sermon that has been motivated by God and will identify with the spirit that resides in those that hear the message.

The next logical thought then becomes, what if you aren't moved by the message?

My advice: Be careful not to judge the man/woman of God based on what you know or may think you know about who they are as a person. God is more powerful and far smarter than any of us, and I am a firm believer that if you purpose to hear from God, He will speak to you through the preached word, or a song, or a testimony, or something: EVERY TIME you go up to worship. It may be that He leads you to another ministry, and that's fine as long as it is Him that is motivating the move. The obligation of the believer is to set their mind to hear from the Lord and then leave the rest to Him.

Initial Failure

Well, I put this blog up more than a year ago and then promptly forgot about it. Pretty typical for me actually. I am going to restart this effort and see if I can't keep it up for more than just one post. A ton of stuff has happened that I could have been blogging about, but totally forgot about this. FAILURE

Sometimes in life you fail. For those that are anything like me, failure is a frustrating disappointment. I start out to do whatever I do with the intention of "exceeding expectations." That's just how I do. Whenever that outcome is not reached I evaluate, and re-evaluate to see what I could have changed, what I did wrong, and how can I do it better the next time.

If you let it, failure can either help you or cripple you. My advice to whoever reads this is to let failure help you. Do all that you do with all of your might, if you fail...try again. (Good things only of course). Don't let failure or anyone else that would try to hold your failure(s) over you cripple your future. You may not be able to do a lot of things, but the one thing that you can always do is "better."

Time to try again!!