On the night of the last super bowl, we had just left church services when it began to snow. Large, lazy flakes were floating to the ground and soon it was covered, Before I went to my house, I went to my daughter’s house to build a cheery fire for her in her lovely fireplace. Then I hurried home to catch the rest of the game which was now at the half. As you know, the game outcome was not certain until close to the end. At approximately two minutes before the end of the game, our picture blurred. In the next few seconds the screen displayed a rather cryptic message. It simply said, ” You have have a complete loss of signal”. The condition continued until about five minutes after the game was over. As this malfunction was occurring, I scrambled for a radio and just as I got it tuned in, I could hear congratulatory remarks being made to the winner. The snow had covered our dish and cut off our signal.
Thousands of years ago someone else lost their signal. King Saul became so out of touch with his God, he finally lost contact. He kept distancing himself from God, a fatal mistake for a human to make. Saul is a tremendous study in lost communication between the Creator and the creature.
” He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” Ecclesiastes 3: 11 (NIV)
” Draw near to God and He will draw near to you….” James 4: 8 (NIV)
“Energy follows thought ”
These three words were my take-away from three days of leadership training. Not that everything else wasn’t good information is was just more of the same from previous training events. I probably even heard these three words in training before but it never struck me the way they did that day.
What a simple rule for Christians.
When we take stock of what occupies our thoughts we will likely find an inventory of passions, fears, interests and distractions. These thoughts are the ones that determine what we do. A necessity of being human
But, when we consider what consume our thoughts we will discover our idols. The idols that consumes our energy will guide who we are not just what we do. Here we will find the birthplace of addiction and depression unless we allow our energy to be guided by love for God.
Make quick count of the things we humans tend to idolize: ourselves, people, family, food, things, abilities, money…all of which are destined to fail us in a temporal world. No wonder we are a depressed society. When our idols fail our energy also fails.
“Love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Jesus of Nazareth ( Matthew 22:37)
When we allow our thoughts to be consumed with the love of God and love for God our energy will never fail.
Shalom
NOTE: For those who have followed this blog I apologize for a delay in posting. On March 10, 2010 we had a devistating fire that completely threw me off my routine. I posted the following article on my personal blog days after the fire. We hope to be fully back to posting articles in the coming weeks. God Bless.
It began with the emergency call code from Angie to me. [ NOTE: If you don't have one of these I recommend it. When I'm in a meeting or otherwise unavailable at work I press "ignore" when she calls which sends her call immediately to voicemail. She then redials and I know to answer because it's an emergency.] During my Wednesday morning meeting in Austin I answered to hear that our house (in Merkel) was on fire. Considering the situation she was surprisingly calm, frantic yes…but definitely not hysterical. Once the front windows broke and flames with smoke rushed from the house we both knew it was best for Angie to go next door to her parent’s home and wait instead of watch. As she was walking in I could hear through the phone the horns blowing for firefighters to evacuate and let it burn.
The fire department was on the scene within minutes of Angie’s call to 911. We found out later someone passing the house had called earlier so they got a head start. Even with the quick response there was nothing that could be done. Our house burned from a mix of accidental ignition of a heat source warming the dogs and 35 mph (with gusts to 50) winds. Even with seemingly initial success in controlling the blaze, the fire and wind created a blow torch effect that would require more water to extinguish than the two Merkel trucks and seven Abilene trucks could possibly pump. The responders fought until exhausted and made the correct choice to retreat, there wasn’t one thing in the house worth even an injury. Thank you to the Merkel VFD and Abilene FD for their efforts, you just can’t beat nature.
I have thanked God every day for Amie’s presence at our house on that day. She only periodically helps Angie clean the house but without screaming for Angie to come downstairs when she saw the smoke, Angie would have been in the shower on the second floor and endangered at best. I’m thankful Angie didn’t open the door to the back porch where the blaze was raging, the wind would have certainly blown the flames into her and Amie and I would be typing this from the hospital She could have thought she could save the dogs (they got out anyway) or put the fire out with her kitchen extinguisher (too late for that) but she had the presence of mind under pressure to just evacuate.
The community of Merkel is phenomenal…I will certainly write more on this in the coming weeks, we would not be as strong right now without the hundreds of our friends and neighbors who showed up to help.
Service to community and help to fallen comrades are tenets so engrained in the ethos of the Texas Army National Guard that we were almost overwhelmed with support. It took direct orders and a promise of future help to keep these Great Americans away. I will always be grateful to God for the blessing of working with such a great organization.
So we find ourselves at zero. Even with the donations of clothes and essentials from the community we still can fit our earthly possessions into the back of my truck. We have always talked big talk that we don’t put any stock on earthly things but the talk falls flat when we actually lose everything. An inventory runs in our minds of all the things we lost…
It’s not so much the loss of stuff that causes sadness but the loss of the memories connected to the stuff. We are saddened to think of losing Angie’s wedding ring, wedding dress, childhood doll “Susie,” cookbook collection, and high school cheer uniforms (into which she still fit!); Chelsea’s impressive collection of books, cheer and dance gear, senior scrapbook, and American Girl dolls; Chera’s sports medals, cheer gear, scrapbooks, snow globe collection, and artwork; The Bible I carried through combatin Iraq and my Jeep (it’s a jeep thing you wouldn’t understand) [Note: Monkey is safely secured at my parent's house because my mother rightfully decided years ago I wasn't responsible enough to have him yet] .
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust [and fire] destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust [and fire] do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.” Matthew 6:19-20 (NIV)
On Wednesday night we had a family meeting in our hotel room to discuss the importance of the day. I believe that with every life changing event there WILL BE change. It’s up to us to make it positive. After a family hug we all confirmed that stuff didn’t matter and our memories will survive without the stuff. More importantly, we had each other.
The GREAT thing is we are only at zero in terms of possessions. We are blessed beyond description in so many other ways.
- We still have treasures in heaven by the grace of God through Jesus Christ
- Our family has never been closer and each are stronger
- We live in the greatest community in the world
- I work for an organization dedicated to service to others
- Starting at zero gives us the unique opportunity to rebuild with focus on what’s REALLY important
We are thankful and at peace…Shalowm
In my last post I outlined how through Christ we bask in the light of God and become the avenue of redemption for God on this old earth. Our mission is to let the light of Christ reflect from our lives so that others will follow. In doing so we are preparing for the day when “the glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it” (Rev 21:26 Our primary purpose is to live and build the glory and honor for God on that day. This drives our worship, mission, and life.
But we take our Light for granted WAY to often. It’s tempting to focus on the prize at the expense of our mission to build the glory and honor for God. One of the most convicting songs written and performed by the late Keith Green:
The world is sleeping in the dark,
That the church can’t fight, cause it’s asleep in the light,
How can you be so dead, when you’ve been so well fed,
Jesus rose from the grave, and you, you can’t even get out of bed,
Oh, Jesus rose from the dead, come on, get out of your bed.
What a rallying cry for us. We are blessed with the comfort of eternal life and guidance from God through the Spirit. Put it to work.
The little English sparrow is a great success story. The insignificant little bird is actually not a sparrow, but a member of the weaver family of birds. Brought to America, probably as a stowaway on early ships, it took hold in the New World and became one of the most dominant birds we see. Jesus also spoke of sparrows, the sparrows of Jerusalem. He remarked in Matthew 10 that two of them sold for just a penny. Then He makes the astounding observation that not one of them falls to the ground apart from the Father. The implication is that not only does He know when the tiniest of His creation dies, He is there. Jesus is making the obvious thing obvious. If God loves His little sparrows like that, then how much more does He love His children? When we are in trouble, God comes to our rescue. The psalmist in Psalms 102 considers himself as a sparrow alone upon a housetop facing great danger. That’s a pretty good picture of a helpless and hapless individual. But in verse 17 he says the Almighty would regard the prayer of the destitute. No one is ever alone who has his Father.
I laugh every time I watch this Pixar short film but it is a great illustration of the unintended consequences that come from the exclusion of people who aren’t exactly like us. God loves ALL people and calls his children to include everyone in the saving gospel of Jesus Christ even if they don’t fit the mold we are used to.
He was so proud of it. The lines were right, the joints fitted, the wood finished to a glow. The boat drafted better than any other and its beauty inspired use. He could remember it now looking at the vessel before him. Where had the beauty gone? The years had worn it so slowly he hadn’t even noticed. Now weathered, dull and leaking, the boat’s original beauty was only a faint remembrance…
Growing up in the church a lot of time was spent on two categories of sin, namely sins of commission, those things God tells us not to do but we do anyway, and sins of omission or those things God tells us to do but we ignore. These are important categories but with a warning: if we focus on a checklist of things we should and should not do, we by our nature grow to rely on OUR goodness and not on God’s. Jesus clearly stated over and over that his disciples would become children of God and be consumed with a relationship with God through him.
Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ Matthew 22:37(NIV)
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! John 3:1(NIV)
Over and over the Word of God explains Christians are about relationship not rules. Our obedience (omitted and committed) is because we love God and value His presence in our lives. We want to please Him. Because of this, I believe there is a far more dangerous category of sin, attrition. Attrition is any activity that causes a slow drift away from our relationship with God. The dangerous thing is that it can take the form of just about anything, including religion. Sometimes seemingly harmless activities over a lifetime (or less!) lead us to a point we are separated from God and don’t even recognize it until it’s too late.
We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. Hebrews 2:1 (NIV)
The book of Acts presents a beautiful picture of early Christian believers and their natural desire to be together. The model then was clearly not just a Sunday morning assembly but a model of assembly together, focusing on each others needs and praising God as one.
All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:44-47 NIV)
I attended a small town congregation on Sunday and there was a good 20 feet between groupings of family and friends during worship, not as I imagine when reading Acts. If you are a new Christian, seek out a church family who love one another and worship as one every chance they get. If you are part of a congregation that on Sunday mornings resembles a doctor’s office waiting room during flu season, don’t leave – be the one to bring people together. A healthy Christian community focuses on assembling together not just on the assembly.
