Thursday, September 28, 2006


Always remember that in life, things are not always what they seem. I know that I need to trust God completely with my life and what may appear to be everything out of control and a dead end situation with my eye. It may appear like that in the physical realm, but in the Spiritual realm I need to focus on His promises for me. I don’t think that changes whether you are dealing with emotional or physical crap. We “rate” the level of our pain and react to it instead of saying “Jesus, you know what I am dealing with so take my life and do what you know is best for me”. We know in this picture that the guy is not actually holding the sun, but it appears that way. At times, we may not think that God is listening or that He cares about what we are going through but it may just “appear that way”. Don’t give up.

Monday, September 25, 2006

True Success


I have had a lot of time to think about what the word success means and the full implication of that term in my life. I used to think that success meant that a lot of great people knew my name and that I was well respected in my professional field. That people would seek me out for my knowledge and wisdom about Godly issues and want to glean from years of experience. I just don’t believe that anymore. I really believe that true success in life is measured by two things; what I did with what God gave me in my talents and abilities as a man of God and did I use those talents to improve the people around me? I really believe that the only legacy that we can truly leave behind when we die is the investment that we made in others. Money and things in the physical world can all fade away or be lost for whatever reason, but when you make an investment in another human being they are a carrier of the things that you gave them. Because I am a Christian, I believe that the only things I can give others that mean anything is what God has given me first and that I can’t give away anything that I have not first possessed myself. I know that through this time of testing that God is bringing to my memory people that I have touched through the years of my life. I just got a packet of information from a guy who used to be in my youth group and now lives in New York as a school teacher and has a healing ministry that he wants to see touch the greater New York City area. I am so proud of him and to say that God used me in his life is a little humbling to say the least. He calls himself my “protégé” and I am honored to have him not just as a former teen that came out of “my ministry” but as a friend. Tonight I was walking and praying and God was bringing names of people that I have touched with God’s help through the years. It was also good to get perspective from my wife as we were getting dinner ready tonight and she said, “No wonder the devil hates you so much. Look at the lives you’ve touched”. I guess the really scary part is that I will probably never know the people that are watching my life and the crap I am going through with my eye and who I am even touching with this blog site. One thing I can promise you in this life; if you want to really be successful in what you do and who you are then be ready for opposition but know that it’s worth it to make the devil more mad and Jesus more popular.

Sunday, September 24, 2006


My wife and I really wanted to go to Disneyland this year for our vacation but we are not going to be able to go. The money that we needed never came in and it looks like we get to take our vacation time and go to St. Luis for an eye exam. Whoopee. This season that God has us in really doesn’t seem like it will ever end. It is so hard to keep faith that God has your best interests in mind when it seems like every turn in life is another disappointment. I guess God is trying to help my wife and I realize that everything we have and are is not really ours in the first place. I am realizing more and more that I can’t complain that “God took this or that” because it has always been His in the first place. When I realize that my very breath is his and not even mine I can’t complain about things taken. I must have the perspective that if God wants me to have something that it will be in his time and not in mine. This is probably one of the toughest life lessons I have ever had to learn.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Conplaining versus Petitioning

I think there is a fine line between making our requests known to God and complaining about our circumstances. I think that sometimes we mix what we want in the form of requests and asking God for his will to be done in our lives. This kind of goes along with my gratefulness provides an atmosphere for change blog that I wrote a while back. The Bible tells us to make our requests known to God but I think sometimes it becomes a “Christmas wish list” on one hand or a "list of complaints in my walk with God" on the other instead of having a conversation with God and letting him know with your mouth what is in your heart. He already knows what’s inside us but we need to speak with our mouths the things we want to see. I am not trying to say that we need to be fake with God. We need to have honest conversations with God and not just religious rote chantings. I know that when I am spending time with him that my desires will become his desires and I won’t have to worry about whether or not I am asking him for things that are his will or just my will. When we deal with crap in our lives, it always seems like our prayers revolve around those issues. It is so hard to try and pray for others when you are going through personal struggles. I guess the point of this blog today is to be careful not to cross the line of asking God for help in a situation and complaining about the process that he is having you go through. Sometimes we can miss the things he is trying to teach us because we don’t like the method being used and that God loves us enough to keep that “method” going until we learn what he has for us.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

The Vessel

This picture is from the World Prayer Center in Colorado Springs and is called "The Vessel". It reminds me of a prayer, "God, pour into me so that I can be the vessel that you have called me to be. Never let me think that anything good that comes from me is naturally from me. It has always been and forever will be about you and your power flowing through me. Use me and my life to glorify you and make you popular to the people around me".

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

My Personal Mission Statement


Two things that are my mission statement and I will forever live by:

My life will not be a result of a lack of prayer

I will live my life to make others around me better than me

Monday, September 18, 2006

Jesus is my crutch

What do you lean on? Did you realize that everyone has a “crutch” that they lean on when times get tough? I was told a few years ago that God was just a crutch that I lean on in my life and that I couldn’t stand on my own. I was thinking about that tonight as I was praying about my situation with my eye. Everyone that I know has a crutch or something that they lean on. For some people, it is their money and the love of making more and more of it. For some, it’s their love of self and the crutch of “self-sufficiency”. I can think of people that lean on friends or others for support in tough times. I guess you can say that God is my crutch. He is the one that I have learned to lean on in this trying time. I went to the eye doctor today and he said that I need to get a second opinion from a doctor in St. Luis in about a month. He is supposed to be one of the best in the world as far as eye conditions like mine. He actually studies the cells that cause the type of inflammation that I have. We have one more drug that we are going to try and my eye doctor here wants me to get the opinion of this other doctor before we start the treatment. My wife was asking me how I could be so happy after this current news that we got today from the eye doctor and I told her that I am not willing to stay where I am at because of a poor attitude. I told her that we can either trust God for the future or have crappy attitudes and stay longer to have God teach us what He wants us to learn. I know that she knew just what i meant and so we are not going to have crappy attitudes keep us in a place of "learning" with God. Who am I to say that God doesn’t want me to meet this world renowned doctor and witness to him in some way? I know now more than any other time in my life that God is absolutely my crutch because I know he won’t break, he won’t come apart and I can lean on Him all day and know that he will support the weight of my life very well. I can’t say that about money because it could always run out. I can’t say that about myself because I know that I will even let myself down sometimes with discouragement and confusion and I can’t say that about any human being that I know because every person on this earth has the ability to let another person down. So think about your life and what you lean on when times get tough. Is there enough alcohol in the bottle to wash away life’s pain? Is there enough marijuana to keep a person high enough to forget about life's issues? They will still be there when the buzz is gone and the high turns into a sluggish low. I choose to lean on Jesus and the strength of that crutch.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Worry and The Future


Did you realize that if you are worrying about tomorrow that you let the devil steal your today? This was an amazing point that came out of a small group that my wife and I were running with college aged kids about a year ago. It really got me thinking about where I place my mind each day that I get up. There are some days that I get up, look out my eye and worry about whether I am going to go blind in my left eye. My mind races ahead to the worst case scenario and I wonder what it would be like to have to live life looking only out of one eye or worse to be blind. I know that these are just mind games that the devil plays with me and that combined with the medication that I am on that can also mess with me emotionally is a volatile mix. If I will let the devil cause my mind to wander into the future then the quality of my now has been destroyed. I can’t stay in the now and appreciate the things that God has given me if I am busy worrying about things that I have no control over. This blog is actually connected to my “worry and bending spoons” blog that I posted earlier this month. Matthew 6:34 actually says not to worry about tomorrow because tomorrow will have its own worries. When I first read that scripture I thought, “yeah, that’s cool. I don’t need to worry about tomorrow”. Then I read the verse again. It says that tomorrow WILL HAVE WORRY. It didn’t say that as long as I don’t worry and give it to God that there would be no worry. What that verse told me is that I need to take the worry that comes up each day and learn to give it to God. If anyone has ever dealt with an eye condition it is unlike other ailments in your body. I am not saying worse necessarily, just different. I have no way to ignore what is going on in my body with the condition of my eye. When I open my eyes in the morning I am clearly reminded about the condition of my eye because it has NEVER felt or looked the same two days in a row in the two and a half years that I have dealt with it. My eye is always getting better or worse everyday which is very strange. I can choose to worry about the future of my eye or I can give it to God that day, realize that I will have worry tomorrow to give God as well and live the best quality life that I can today. So don’t let the devil win in your mind by getting you to be concerned about things that you really have no control over. (that is unless you have a time machine like Michael J. Fox and 1.21 jigawatts to get you to the future, change it and get back)

Friday, September 15, 2006


I love this picture. This picture screams, "God please protect me so that I can break the law speeding on my driving trip". Kind of something to think about. Nice one.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

UPS, Ebay and Blessings


I had a revelation today. I have actually had quite a few of those the past couple of years. I can remember a little over a year ago continually repeating that I couldn’t hear God talking to me. I really think that God was talking to me, but I was just too busy complaining. Anyway, here is my thought for you today. I got a new phone that I ordered off of Ebay with some birthday money that I received (thanks mom and dad). This is probably the coolest cell phone that I have ever had so needless to say I was very excited to get it. It was being shipped from a person who lives in New York so it was going to take a few days to get. I waited and waited and eventually received an email that said I would be getting it second day air through UPS with a tracking number to check with their website for updates on its status. I can tell you that I checked that UPS website at least four times a day to see where my package was and its status along the countrywide journey from New York to its eventual resting place of Denver Colorado. I woke up this morning and looked out the window before nine am which is when UPS starts making its deliveries with a certain excited expectation. I checked the website twice today and finally my package came!! I left work for about a half hour and came home to pick up my phone to start playing…I mean using it for work :) I told you that little story because I got a revelation about the promises of God and the expectation that we have or don’t have about receiving them. I thought that if I could bid on a new cell phone online that I had never seen before, paying someone I had never met and having them ship it from somewhere I had never been then I could start believing the promises that I read in the Bible for my life with that same level of expectation. I was waiting in expectation for my new phone because a promise was made to me by someone I couldn’t physically see and that it would be sent by UPS and received today. I read promises about health and financial provision in Gods Word that I need to believe and have the same level of expectation for. I can’t say that I don’t have faith because it wasn’t hard to believe that I would get my phone today. I had a guarantee from UPS for crying out loud! So I need to live in a place of expecting blessings and supernatural provision that goes beyond what I can or can’t see. Wow…thanks Ebay and UPS.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Curiosity traffic and my relationship to Jesus

If you have never driven in Denver then you are missing out on life. It is a real experience. Take tonight for example. I was driving home after church tonight and there were two cars in front of me and one of them had their lights off. A police truck had passed us on the other side of the road and whipped around, came up from behind all of us and started to tail the car with their lights not on. The police truck turned on its lights and so the car he was tailing started to pull off to the side of the road into my lane. The car that was next to the cop and the car with no lights on started to slow down and gawk at what was going on trying to get a better view of the situation. I got in the lane behind him thinking he would speed up so that we could both go around the “situation” with the mysterious car with no lights on and a cop. He didn’t. He kept trying to get a better look to see if the cop was going to maybe pull his gun or maybe yank the guy out of the car and start to beat him with his club or something. I don’t know what it is, but drivers in Denver are always on the lookout for disaster on the roadways. This is the first city that I have ever lived in where you will have what are called “curiosity jams” on the roads. This is where, for example, you have four lanes of traffic with a meridian in the middle and an accident will be on one side of the road but BOTH SIDES will have traffic jams because the side of the road with no accident will be looking on the other side of the road for blood, guts or maybe a head rolling down the street. It is so frustrating when you are driving and in traffic and find out that it is not from an accident on your side but the opposite side of the road. Its almost like Denver drivers have a little bit of cat in them and you put shinny red and blue lights in front of their eyes and they lose all sense of consciousness and “follow the pretty lights”. It’s interesting that our human nature is to look for disaster in situations instead of the good. If you don’t believe me look at how popular “disaster footage” is online. When the crocodile hunter died one of the most searched points on a media website that I look at had that as the top story requested. I know that I need to ask God DAILY to change me and my human nature. I know that it isn’t enough that I have gone through this crap with my eye for a couple of years and now I always search God for all my needs everyday. It is a crucifying of the flesh every day that keeps me in tune with God and not catering to my human nature that wants to naturally find disaster in situations including the thought of my eye rotting out of my head.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Barrel o' Fun...

Interesting to think that the person in this truck at the time probably didnt think it was very funny that his truck was on fire. Looking at this picture now with the caption at the bottom makes this pretty funny. It really is all about perspective.

Monday, September 11, 2006

The dentist and more perspective

I got my teeth cleaned the other day. I know that makes my parents happy to hear that I am taking care of the pearly whites after all the money in braces and dental visits that they paid for all my years growing up. I used to think that one of the worst things in the world was going to the dentist. My orthodontist’s name growing up when I got braces was Dr. Fear for crying out loud! (I’m not even kidding about this) With my eye condition that I developed the past couple of years my perspective on “the worst thing” or pain really changed. I was sitting in the dentist’s office and thought to myself, I used to get upset stomachs when I would just look in the general direction of the dentist’s office growing up and now its really no big deal to go get a check up or get my teeth cleaned. I still don’t like the feel or sound of metal-pokey things being scraped on my teeth but in general I am not the nervous wreak that I used to be back in the day. I would say that I “grew up” with my thinking about how bad those encounters were in my life. As bad as I thought it was to go to the dentist growing up it is nothing to the crap I have went through with my eye these past couple of years. I can remember when my eye was really bad only getting about an hour and a half of sleep a night and actually watching the inflammation increase in my eye as I laid in bed with headaches and ice packs to try and help with the pain. I would get up from the couch and look in every mirror in the house at how red my eye was probably no less than forty times. I actually developed “dents” in the muscles in my thighs from leaning against the counter in my bathroom. The pictures I posted were from my compulsive obsessive nights of looking at my eye continuously and complaining about just how bad I had it. I think about what I have went through the past couple of years and know that there are others out there that have dealt with their own version of pain and duress. I guess what I am trying to say is that no matter how bad you think something is in life, to keep perspective on it and don’t get down thinking the worst about it. Some of you reading this don’t have a relationship with God to be able to lean on him. I would encourage you to give your stuff to him and see what happens instead of trying to deal with it on your own. I look back on my physical issues and know that I need to keep perspective and not look back but look forward. I believe that I will come out of this season with the same perspective I have about the dentist now; that all in all, it just wasn’t that bad. I am not saying that the pain is or was any less excruciating, but if I can learn what God has for me in the midst of all this then I can come out on the other side with a perspective that goes beyond me asking “why did this happen to me” and to “God, what are you trying to show my through this”.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Random funny picture


I think that one thing that has helped to get me through this season of crap in my life is humor. Even at the expense of this little kid. Sorry for those of you who still believe in Santa. Family, please dont let Jalen see this picture.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Your attitude in adversity


The fact is that we will all go through a certain level of crap in our lives. It may not be happening right now to you, but it is a fact of life that we will go through adversity. The question is not whether we will go through it but what will our attitudes be when it happens? Your attitude in adversity will determine the power of God in your life. I really used to think that if I would just pray more or read my Bible more or tell more people about Jesus that the level of God’s anointing would go up and I would be better spiritually. All those things are important to have a healthy and vibrant relationship with Jesus, but I know that what Jesus is watching for is not what I can do MORE for him but what am I doing WITH him when I deal with struggles in my life? I have said in this blog a time or two that adversity or struggles that we go through do not make who we are they show who we are. If we can understand that, I believe that we will be more careful to seek him and desire to be closer to him in the times when we feel like things are going good. Right now in my life, I don’t feel like things are good and I am in a struggle. I believe that through this time of testing that God has shown me who I really was and I didn’t like what I saw. I want the power level of God to increase in me and I know that it will only come from me having the right attitude in the middle of the adversity. That is so easy to say when you physically feel good, you don’t have crushing medical bills and life is peachy. I want people to read this blog and realize that I am not saying these things from a position of the testing being over and I want the devil to hear that as well. I will praise my Jesus through this storm.

Friday, September 08, 2006

I don't serve a brussel sprout Jesus



My inspiration for this blog is from our small group tonight. We were talking about the word sacrifice and what it meant to each of us. I think that sometimes we think of Jesus as the one who makes us do the things that we know we should do but the things that we don’t necessarily want to do. Even the word sacrifice has a negative tone to it. I really believe that God wants us to move from a place of feeling obligated to have to do religious stuff for him to a place of doing things because we want to. Sacrifice is simply higher priority things living and lower priority things dying in our lives. It is looking at everything that we CAN do and deciding on the things we SHOULD do. When I say that I don’t serve a “brussel sprout” Jesus, I am saying that I serve a God that wants me to enjoy serving him and not always something I do out of obligation. I am not saying that serving God will always be fun and easy but that everything I do for God has a greater purpose than what I can see or imagine with my finite mind. Oh yeah, thanks Dustin for the visualization of serving a hot fudge sundae Jesus at CAST tonight. We all know that’s the kind of Jesus we want to serve!

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Dont be wasted potential


It's interesting to think that each one of the matches in that box have the potential to affect everything they touch. The thing is that they must be struck on that box, given oxygen and then placed on something. Are you letting your true potential be seen or are you going to "stay in the box"? Its your decision so dont blame anyone but yourself for your indecision. Dont be wasted potential.

Staying Motivated


What does it take to motivate you? Actually, the greater question is what are you motivated to do in your life? I thought about what causes people to do the things they do on a daily basis. For some people it is looking in the mirror and seeing that they need to lose a few pounds around the middle so they start to exercise on a regular basis. For others it’s the loss of a loved one to alcohol abuse in some way so they decide to change their lives and stop drinking. The real question is not what starts the motivation it is what keeps the motivation. I have seen many people be motivated to start something good for their lives, but then quit because they “lose motivation”. I can remember when I was in high school and was all motivated to get up early every morning and go running to get in shape for basketball. I started with a blaze of glory. I had motivational pictures up in my room with sayings that were going to keep me going and cause me to get up and get in shape. Somewhere between the third and fourth week I gave up. I lost my motivation and have not gotten up early in the morning like that to run ever since. At the time, I thought that the most important thing in my life was to make the basketball team and be in shape. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to make the team and that I wanted to be out of shape that caused me to quit. It was that I didn’t think it was important enough to make the sacrifice of getting up early to exercise. So I go back to my original question; what does it take to motivate you? It has been very difficult these past couple of years to stay motivated to pray and believe for the very best for my life. I have discovered that at the foundation of motivation in my life that if I don’t have a fresh relationship with God every day of my life that I will lose motivation to want to get to know him. I challenge you to seek a relationship with God that goes beyond a single experience and into a consistent experience with him.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006


I love the picture of a key. It is so intriguing to me to look at every groove and think that because it was cut a certain way that there is some sort of lock out there in the world that it will open. That is really like out lives and the things that we go through. Each of the life issues we deal with is another “cut” on the key of our lives. This sometimes feels like a grinding of life’s pain or a buffing of the good times of life. Shaped into something that can be used to open a locked heart of a person in need. If we can think of the crap that we go through in life as a cutting or developing of our character to cause us to be useful to a locked heart of some person that needs to hear about how God changed us then it makes the stuff we go through a little more bearable.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

We Give God a Bad Wrap

We give God a bad wrap. I was talking with a friend today and thought about the process of learning. It all starts when we are young and not in school yet with mom and dad telling us about life and trying to get us to realize just what is important in life and what is not. Depending on who your parents were definitely determines who you ended up being right now good or bad. When we were little we didn’t know if our parents were giving us something we would need in life when we got older or if they were just trying to educate us the best way that they knew how with something that we would never use in our everyday lives when we grew up. I always appreciated my parents and know that I am the person I am today because of my upbringing. Then I went to school. You know, the place that has requirements for passing a grade and being able to advance to the next one? On the whole, I never really liked school. I know it was an important part of my life and I am proud to have made it though college with two degrees, but I can say that it was a very hard experience for me. One thing I could always count on was the fact that if I didn’t do well enough to finish a grade in school that I could be held back or forced to retake a subject so that I could be ready to graduate to the next level. Why do we give God crap for using the same process in the spirit realm and our spiritual education? We get so bent out of shape sometimes when God has us put to the test in life and prove that we are ready for the next “grade” of life. If we were still in school, and maybe you are, and you failed to prove that you were ready for the next grade or the next class you were not allowed to move on you would not have a problem knowing that you need to retake that subject or class before the next level. In fact, if you were to go to the next level or grade you would probably not be prepared for the teachings from that class because school really is built on layers of learning and a necessity to know foundations before you move on in really any subject. I believe there is no difference spiritually with God. Don’t be angry when you feel like you are being tested in life. The more you fight the process the longer God will probably have you there until you get it. If God were to release you to go to the next “grade” spiritually before you have learned your lesson then He would only be setting you up to fail instead of helping to build a lasting foundation that will be able to be built upon. I know that this season of life I am in right now is only preparing me for something greater and that I need to not set my eyes on my circumstances but on the process of learning so that I can move on and graduate. So I guess God is trying to tell me that I need to start liking school because until I meet him in heaven I will always be in a place of learning so I should just get used to it.

Monday, September 04, 2006

Pics to make you think


I made this last night. Can't lose perspective on why I live for God. Its not just so I can make it to heaven because that would be kind of selfish. Keep it in perspective.

Playing a game of "uncle"

I was driving to go and pick up more pills at Walgreens last night and I had a kind of revelation about what it happening to me right now in my life. Remember that game growing up called “uncle”? I feel like I am playing that game with the devil right now. It’s like our hands are tied up and we are battling back and forth trying to see who will win. I had a realization that the only way that I am going to get him to say “uncle” is to get even closer to God the more I feel emotional or physical pain. I want people to watch me go through this and be an even greater testimony to God by having them see that even though physical things are happening to my body that I can still live for God and not get mad at him but fall more in love with him. I want the devil to see that the harder he pushes or tries to get me to say “uncle” the more people will be encouraged in their faith or want to know more about what I believe and how I can have a faith that goes past what I emotionally or physically feel. Basically, I want him to give up because by pushing me even harder, and me not giving up, it’s actually a greater testimony now than when God decides to heal me. I want him to realize that he will lose now by my testimony going through this and my testimony later of healing. Wow, what a double loser. I will not be the product of a lack of prayer. If this is where God has me right now it will not be because I didn’t spend enough time seeking God. The devil might as well say “uncle, aunt, niece and nephew” for all I care. He already lost before we started playing.

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Absolute truth does exist and you just proved it

The age we live in is very interesting with the belief system that people have. I don’t ever remember a time in history when people selectively believe things especially of the spiritual nature. I have also never seen the inundation of spiritual themes in movies, music and tv. It is amazing how much the spirit world is emphasized and highlighted almost every day of our lives. The Bible teaches important absolutes about the spirit realm and being very careful about how we entertain spiritual things in our lives that don’t glorify God. I used to be a youth pastor and I would have kids that would tell me that they didn’t believe in absolute truth. That the Bible was a nice book of stories and a great suggestion on how to live your life, but that there were also other things from other religions that you can incorporate into your life as well as codes to live by. The problem with that statement is the Bible is very specific about what is important to believe and there is only one absolute way to get to heaven and that is through Jesus Christ. If you don’t absolutely believe that then hell awaits. My physical situation with my eye and the crap I have been through these past couple of years has really made me evaluate what I believe and what I think about certain religious actions including a belief in absolute truth. I can say that it has brought me closer to God and a better understanding of who He is and who I am not. My opening statement was titled that way because I wanted to make a point that absolute truth exists because of the fact that you are reading my blog. If you would have gotten ANY word, letter or punctuation wrong when you typed in my blog sites address you would have been redirected to a different site and would not have been able to read this. You couldn’t just say, “at least I got 99% of the address right. I am so surprised that it didn’t come up correctly”. That is absolute truth. Either you typed it in right or you were wrong. That is the same with God. Whether or not we believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven doesn’t change the fact that it is correct. So next time you type in the web address of a website you really want to visit remember that you are reinforcing my point that absolute truth does exist.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Worry and bending spoons with your mind

I got this information from the internet and I thought it was very interesting…

Every system in your body is affected by worry. In addition to raising blood pressure and increasing blood clotting, worry can prompt your liver to produce more cholesterol, all of which can raise your risk of heart attack and stroke. Muscle tension can give rise to headaches, back pain, and other body aches. Worry can also trigger an increase in stomach acid and either slow or speed up muscle contractions in your intestines, which can lead to stomach aches, constipation, diarrhea, gas or heartburn.

Have you ever thought about worry? What it is, what it does and what starts it? Until I started to deal with my eye and my physical condition I never really cared or thought about the physical problems that come from worry. I have been told multiple times from my eye doctors that stress or worry is not good for my eye and can actually make things worse for me. So, you’re telling me that I might lose my eye after all this time and I might need to go on Chemo if you can’t find a “better” drug to put me on and on top of all that don’t worry because you can make everything worse for yourself. Interesting conversation with my doctors eh? Philippians 4:6,7 says that we should not worry about anything and that we should just ask God for everything we need. Anything and everything are very absolute words. They don’t have a lot of wiggle room when you try and define them. I really believe that circumstances and situations we go through have a polarizing effect. They will either push us towards God or we will allow them to distract us and cause us to worry. I have a daily decision to either give God my crap or keep it with me and think that I can change my circumstances by worrying hard enough.
I can’t bend a spoon with my mind so why would I think that my mental worry power would do anything for my physical, emotional or spiritual condition? If you can bend spoons with your mind please call or email me and let me know your secret. In fact, if you can bend spoons with your mind then tell every person you know how you do it so that they can all worry about life’s situations and improve their lives by it. The only thing to remember is that until the day that happens, scripture’s principals of giving everything to God still stands.

Friday, September 01, 2006

I Love Jesus More Than my Eyes

That is the hardest thing I have ever had to admit. What do you need to love Jesus more than? If you can’t put every person you know and every worldly possession that you own at the end of “I Love Jesus more than…” than you have something in your life that will keep you from knowing and trusting God in the deepest way. Whatever you love is what your life will revolve around. If its money you love then your life will revolve around making it and your life will be controlled by the desire for more of it. If it’s a person than you will do everything in your power to make that person happy and you can’t think about what you would do without that person in your life. If it’s yourself than you will do everything in your power to make sure that you are the center of attention and that every need is met even at the expense of others. I have told my family that I believe God has this happening to me so that we can each “figure it out”. I really serve a very selfish God that wants more than my attention. He wants my thoughts, attention, devotion, time, possessions and anything else that I could put before him. After all, the first of the Ten Commandments is “thou shalt have no other God’s before me” isn’t it? If I can’t love Jesus more than my eyes than can I say that I have put him first? If you have a loved one dealing with a physical condition right now and you have a relationship with Jesus but care more about what’s happening to them rather than trusting that their life is in Jesus’ hands then are they your God? If you are in the middle of a serious financial situation and more concerned about just “making more money” than trusting God for your every need do you have the relationship with Him that you thought you did? Your reaction in a negative situation will be the true gauge of the strength of your relationship with God. I believe that worry and a lack of trust in God in hard times is a byproduct of a lack of a relationship with Christ. I am saying this from personal experience and not from a judgmental attitude. Think about it; if I trusted God then why would I worry? I can say that I discovered a lot about the lack of relationship I had with God when I started going through everything physically in my life. I learned that it is not about the amount of time I spend with him, how much of the Bible I read or even my position in the church. It’s about letting all my guards down and asking God to change me from the inside out. I am not saying that our life and the lessons that God teaches us will be easy but I do think that in the end they will be worth it. We have to learn another level of faith in Christ that transcends the crap that we see (no pun intended) here on this earth to be able to see into the heavenly realm to something greater. The hardest thing about that statement is that God loves us enough to keep us in that place of “learning” until we get it.