time to think

Finding God’s presence in your pain is definitely a hard thing to do. I think that the process of searching for God in the midst of the crap that you go through is important because it focuses your mind on asking God for his will instead of giving you time to complain about what you feel like God has you going through. I think that time is one of the greatest enemies of the mind when you are going through issues in your life. I can remember when my eye was at its worst about a year and a half ago and I was out of a job and had all the time in the world to sit at home and consider my life and how much I hated it. It was time that I had to consider suicide; it was time that I had to think about going blind and time to think about how much I was not providing for my family with finances. I know that I cannot give my mind time to think things that don’t line up with the word of God. The doctors don’t really think that the medication that they have me on is working and they want to have me go to St. Louis and get a needle stuck in my eye for a biopsy and see if it could be some kind of tumor or mass in my eye. I am listening to the doctors that I believe God has put in my life, but I also want to put my mind in a place of believing for God’s healing touch. Time is such a huge commodity in our lives and we need to think of how we spend it. If we don’t learn how to be stewards of the time that God has given us, we get caught making the mistake of giving the devil inroads to our minds and the ability to cause confusion in all areas of our lives.

more than a promise

I was thinking about Noah and the rainbow that God gave him after the 40 days and 40 nights of the flood as a promise to never flood the earth again. I thought about what was going through Noah and his family’s mind about the 39^th day of everything that was going on and wondering if it was ever going to end. That rainbow that God gave to Noah was not just the promise for the future but a changing of seasons in the present. It was going from a season of rain and destruction to the earth drying out and life to begin again. When I think of the “season” that my wife and I are going through right now it is hard to believe that it will ever end. I really feel mentally like Noah on the 39^th day of rain and asking God if there is really ever going to be a change of seasons. We have 286,000 miles on our car and my wife asked me if we were ever going to have a new vehicle and I gave her some smart-aleck response and said with the way life is going right now probably not. I was speaking honestly out of how I felt but I know that it’s not about what I feel it’s about what promises God has given me that says we have seasons in our lives; seasons for growing and seasons for dying. I also know that in Hebrews it talks about how the trials that I go through will only produce good things if I am trained by them. If you are going through something in your life remember the rainbow that God gave Noah as a promise but also an assurance that life is made up of seasons and to ask God for the patience to learn what he is trying to teach you in the crap you face today to develop strength for your tomorrow.

selfish listening

We have become a society of selective hearing. I really believe with all the marketing of what do “you want” and a ridiculous level of self consumption that we listen selfishly. Listening selfishly is when you only hear what you want to hear and say anything you want to say. This is not only true in human relationships but with God as well. I remember when I was in what I call “full complaint mode” when my eye was doing really bad and was saying continually that God was not listening to me and my needs and didn’t really care about what was going on in my life. I know now that God is always talking to us and the greater question is whether or not we are going to listen to what he says. When I don’t listen selfishly and spend time waiting to hear what God has to say I have to put myself in a place of submission to what he wants and not what I want. To listen in this way, I need to realize that whatever he has to say is way more important than what I have to think and that his words have the power to alter my destiny if I will let them. Today, practice the fine art of listening. Just because you have the ability to listen doesn’t mean that you are good at it. It takes work to be a good listener to God as well as people but it is worth it.

Do you ever have one of those days that just feel like a "throw away day"? Don't make that today! As Christians we are to focus on the things that bring life and not death and an attitude that says I don't care has death written all over it. Look past the crap of life today and look to help the world around you. God knows they need it!

victory

I read this in my Watchman Nee book today and it really challenged me to think differently about the crap that my wife and I area going through and looking for God to break through all the issues in my life.

"Victory should be the Christian's normal experience, and defeat should be abnormal. According to the Biblical standard, it is deemed to be strange if you do not overcome, and reckoned as common when you do overcome."

That challenged my thinking to change from begging God to heal me to working on expecting that my situation will change because God knows where I am and what I need.

billy graham

I was watching the Billy Graham birthday special on TV yesterday and heard him say something awesome that really challenged me. They gave him a star on the walk of fame and he said that they had talked to him a few years ago about giving him a star and he refused because of the “company” of who was on the walk. He said that he reconsidered his stance and decided to let them honor him. When he started explaining the reason why he changed his mind it made me cry. He said that in the future if some kid was walking with his mother and he asked “who was Billy Graham? Was he a rock star or movie star?” His mother could tell him that he was a great preacher and it would give the mother an opportunity to share about Christ with her son then it would be worth being on the walk of fame. Basically he was saying that it was only important to him to have a star if it could bring glory to God. What an amazing perspective on life and bringing honor to God in his life. I want my life to be the same; that everything I do reflect Christ and what he has done for me.

what's really important

I used to think that the most important thing about being a Christian was what I did for God. This eyeball time, as I like to call it, has really changed my concept on Christianity. If our walk with God was based on the things that we do for him then we would develop a false understanding of the expectations of what it means to follow Christ. I used to think that my greatest calling or purpose in life was to win souls for the kingdom of God or to read my Bible everyday and pray long extensive hours but those things are not true. They are all very important elements to a true Christian walk, but my highest calling in this life and on this earth is to know God. That sounds so simple but it is not something that is looked at as a priority in this life. It is about the doing for God instead of the being with God that we emphasize. When I focus on wanting to get to know him, then the other things I mentioned flow out of that. It takes me from a place of having a servant mentality to having a son mentality. It takes me from the obligation to serve God to the privilege of serving him. Anytime in life when we feel like we have to do something out of obligation we will always be looking for the end. When we want to do something we are not looking for the end but enjoying the time we spend on the journey.

effect and affect

For whatever reason, I always have screwed up these two words. They sound alike and are the same amount of letters but mean something different. If you change one letter from “Effect” to “Affect” you change the entire meaning of the word. Effect means the result of something while Affect means influence or to act upon. In this life there are products and by-products; you are either producing something with your life or you are the byproduct of someone else’s decisions and choices. You are the one that is going to decide what happens in your life and not someone else. I think with being a Christian all my life I have expected Jesus to not only give me direction for my life but to take me there as well. It’s almost like we expect Jesus to his part and ours as well. The Bible talks about the working together of God and his will and our actions. We are not exempt from the process. Think about it; to accept Jesus into our hearts (action) to giving our life to him (action) and the constant reminder to spend time with him and reading his Word (action). These are the foundations of having a walk (action) with Christ and completely our decision. In fact, each of these actions elevate the honor of Christ in our lives because they have a level of voluntary action to them. I want my life to be the product of positive actions that move me towards Christ and not the by-product of others decisions.

anger of man

James 1:19-21

19 My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.

It is so true that man’s anger has power but that it doesn’t bring any glory to God in our lives. As humans, we screw up the first part of that verse on a regular basis and most times it involves us dealing with some sort of pain in our lives. When we go through things that cause us pain I think our first reaction is to be slow to listen, quick to speak and quick to become angry. All these things lead to man’s anger and not God’s righteousness in our lives. When we feel like we have been wronged or we feel like people don’t understand the pain, whether its physical or emotional, we react to situations to be noticed. If we would have the perspective that God knows what we are going through then we are not in such a hurry to be justified in our pain that we deal with. I want the kind of life that God desires for me and not the one that I think is best. If I am slow to listen but fast to speak I am usually setting myself up to temporarily feel better but not to have a better life. If we live our lives in a state of reaction instead of action we let circumstances dictate to us the direction of our lives. That means that the devil can throw something like physical disease at us and it has the power to alter our destiny and the quality of the life we live. Don’t be governed by emotional responses to life. Ask God to help you to be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. These are the things that turn us from ordinary humans into extraordinary people.

Complaining

I had a type of revelation today. I don’t remember if I brought this up in a previous blog or not, but I really think we need to realize that God is not going to be convinced that we need to have a change in our lives because we complain about it. In fact, I think that we prolong the process with growth and maturity with Christ when we complain about the things going on in our lives instead of asking God to confirm his presence in the midst of trials and crap. This is so easy to say and so hard to live as I am experiencing right now in life. If you are at a place of being able to complain about something in your life or being able to ask God for the strength to learn from your situation please choose the latter of the two options. Its like my situation with my eye; I can either ask God to give me peace with everything, or I can complain and get nervous, raise my blood pressure and make life crappier for me. By complaining about where I think God has me right now I put myself in a place of prolonging the process. Please, speaking from experience, don’t prolong the process.