I am Now at Wordpress

Hello everyone. I am now at www.7holycrap.wordpress.com I am going to try and post blogs about evry other day. Thanks and enjoy! (You can also Blog-roll me too!)

I have moved to myspace and given in to the dark side!!

Greetings all,

I have officially moved this blog to a myspace site. I know, i have officially given in to the dark side by bowing and having a myspace site but I wanted to get my blog in a place where it would be seen the most and do the most good. So go to www.myspace.com/7holycrap and become my friend!! Thanks!

failures all quit

People who are failures in life all have one thing in common; they all quit. Whatever you are going through in life, don’t quit. When you quit you took the first and most important step in failing at anything. When you don’t quit you put yourself in a position to see something extraordinary in your life. Think of this; if you tried something and were not successful, think of what caused you not to succeed. Usually when you fail at something you learn more than if you were successful and automatically good and usually you learn something that you may be able to help others with. Think about it.

bad news part III

Ok, so this is the last point that has to do with bad news. Bad news is always a test of your relationship with God. Our reaction when we are confronted with bad news is a litmus test that shows how much we trust that God is in control of our lives. I am not saying that we are not going to have an initial reaction to it, but that we have the option of dwelling on it or releasing it to God and trusting that our lives are in his hands. One thing about releasing things to God is that when we do, we identify that there is nothing in our power to change what is happening to us or a loved one besides pray a believe God for the best. I used to think that prayer was like a wish list from God when really it is not. It is an opportunity for us to communicate with God and not just a time to tell him what we think we want. Remember, bad news is seasonal so that means that there has to be an end to what is causing that bad news. I am saying that as a faith statement right now considering my physical condition with my eye. It needs to get better or I may be looking at some bad news in about two weeks from the eye doctor. Like I said, my life is in his hands and not my own.

bad news...holy Lord II

Today is the second point about bad news. Usually, bad news means that you will still have to go through something in life. It’s not like you get the bad news and there is nothing connected to it. That said, it is important for you to remember what you go through so that you can help someone else who is possibly going through the same thing. I don’t think we really understand how important it is to “not forsake the gathering together” in the church. When we gather together (aka have church) its funny because we are usually in the mode of “what is the church going to do for me today?” I took time out of my busy schedule to bless you with my presence so pony up the Spiritual feel good stuff. Really, especially when we go through something that is connected to bad news, we should probably look to others in the church and how we can help give them just a little more hope to get through the day or through their situation. Tomorrow point three.

bad news....holy Lord

When we get bad news, no matter what form it comes in, we have an opportunity to check our relationship with God (or a lack of). Bad news is inevitable no matter who you are and how long you are alive. The question is not IF you are going to get bad news but when. There are three things you need to know about bad news to help you to deal with it. First, Bad news has the ability to become something worse than it already is. Your mind is a great place for the devil to play “worst case scenario”. This is when you play out every negative scenario connected to the news that you received. Many times this is based on nothing but your worry and can take you to a place mentally that can affect more than just what you think but your actions as well. We need to take bad news just as that; bad news. That sounds funny, but when you can keep your perspective on the situation it makes it manageable. This also has to do with you submitting your mind to Christ everyday and not letting the devil use your mind for his playground. Tomorrow, I will talk about point two.

finding God's best for you

How many times have you said that you are trying to find God's best for you? In your job, in relationships, etc. I think that many times we are trying so hard to find God's best that we forget to work on becoming God's best. I am a firm believer that God will never give you more than you are willing to take care of. That includes a car, a job, money, relationships, etc. When we focus on who we are becoming for God then he will take care of giving us his best and giving what he thinks we need and not what we think we need. One of the questions I am going to ask God when I get to heaven is why is there such a huge difference between his timing and mine? I know that he is waiting for me to learn what I need to learn each day, but sometimes it just gets hard to "wait on God's best" for me. In those times of waiting, I know that I need to work on becoming the best I can for God and he will do the rest. (but it still doesn't mean its not hard!)

It's not about the event of healing

It should not be the event of healing that gives us a motivation to truly be who God wants us to be. If that were the case, we would need a “miraculous event” on a consistent basis to keep us motivated to serve him and become who he has created each of us to be. I have learned these past years that if I want to be the absolute best that I can be I need to find who I am in the middle of my storm instead of waiting for the storm to end and then committing to a healthy relationship with God. My wife and I have recently started a prayer schedule. We use Sunday nights to pray for others needs that we know of, Monday nights are for prayers for healing and Tuesday nights are for our finances. I used to think that I needed to pray for hours everyday if I wanted to see change in my life. I believe that we need to spend some amount of time everyday with Jesus but that it needs to be intentional time and not just convenient time. When we spend intentional time with Jesus we are saying to him, “I want more than just and event of healing in my life. I want to be different and learn from every experience that I go through in life”. When we take that attitude with Christ we open a door to a relationship that we will not be able to contain and it will spill out all over every one we come in contact with. Jesus knows what we need, how we need it and how much we can take. Never forget that.

doubt is an opinion

If I am spending time trying to get to know Jesus better, I will not have time to doubt him. It’s the age old adage that "those who row the boat generally don’t have time to rock it". Either you are helping with the direction of the boat or you are being dead weight and making it hard to go anywhere. If you think about it, doubt is based on a personal opinion of someone or something. If I doubt someone I have already set in my mind how I feel about that person. I am telling myself that I don’t trust that person because of a set of mental rules. If I tell myself that I am still trying to get to know that person, I will maybe have questions about the relationship but I am open to learning more about them before I have an opinion about our relationship. With Jesus, I think he always wants us to be in a mode of seeking his face and not his hand. What that means is that I am not looking for what he can do for me, I am looking for who he is for the development of the relationship. Any relationship that is based on “what can you do for me” is doomed from the start. If I had that type of relationship with my wife it would only be a matter of time before she would feel used and probably leave. If you have friends around you that you treat that way it is the same thing. They will probably stop being your friend after a while and not want to be around you because of your attitude. With Jesus I think we treat our relationship with him differently and we shouldn’t. We need to consider the fact that he gave his life for us and we should want to do anything we can to give our lives to him. We cannot let the storms and crap of life determine the depth of our relationship with Jesus. We need to work on getting to know him better and in that process see doubt leave our minds and hearts. The crappy thing about it is that this is an everyday process. It’s not something that we can do infrequently or just when we feel like it. It is a daily discipline that will reap a great reward and change us into people who can touch a world that is hurt and needs hope.

expectation

Have you ever thought about the word “expectation”? I am beginning to see the greater importance of this in communicating with God. I heard a message at church tonight about the amazing miracles that are being seen and experienced overseas and I compare that with what is going on in America and it is pretty sad. We don’t see the demonstrations of God’s power like they do overseas and it gets me in a mode of thinking about my own life and the healing that I want to see in my eye. If you have grown up in church like me, you have those church services where you can just sense something different and I believe that comes from expectation. Do I really expect God to heal me or am I content with my Rheumatologist thinking that my life is in his hands? Do I expect to be debt free and take the steps to see that happen and believe that God is blessing those actions? I think that expectation is dulled by all the comforts of America and really being spoiled into a sense of false security. It is the truest sense of the statement that good will always be the mortal enemy of the great. I am going to start asking God to show me how to have a heart of expectation with everything I pray for. Not even just my healing but in everything. Even that statement is hard for me to type right now with where I am financially and physically. I guess I just have to expect that I will see something different than I have seen for the past three years in my health, emotions and finances.