Sitting this morning one a hot cup of coffee and a pastor leader post on vacations and time away, it came to my mind that I use to blog a bit. It took over a half hour to even find the blog and get signed in. Here I am though.
Update: I am getting married in just under two weeks. I now live in Plentywood Montana and I am starting a new missional church called Living Hope.
Life is so very exciting right now and I don't see any signs of it letting up.
When we face challenges and problems in our lives, as christians, how do we see them. Do we look to them the same way the non - believers do or do we hyper-spiritualize every experience in life?
To put our faith in God is certainly new with each experience but something that we can attain with every experience. What I am saying is that it doesn't need to be a daunting experience that brings us to our knees. We can live our lives on our knees, bowed down to the creator of Heaven and Earth.
It requires surrender to Him though and that is tough for a people that love so much to be in control of our own lives.
I have been doing a small series based on a quote by Louis Lamour. He said " sometimes it feels as though everything is finished, That is the beginning" I don't know much about Louis, but I wonder if he knew he was so theological or deep.
Like the trees in the fall, giving up their leaves, they do it so beautifully (until you have to rake them). They say good bye to the old leaves with such grace and beauty, that we miss what is actually happening. They are shedding part of themselves in preparation for the beauty and new life in the following season. Spring brings new growth and new life. It brings the fruit of a new year.
When we surrender, we can learn to welcome in the new fruit of a new season in our lives, but we must first give up some of the old. It is scary to let God in completely and take control completely. It is against everything that we have grown up knowing. We need not be in control of anything, but instead allow God to fully take the rains and guide us to a life that worthily magnifies His amazing love for us. Romans 6 speaks so wonderfully of this very thing, that we are not slaves to sin, that we have new life in God.
Will you have the guts to let go - it is the ultimate trust fall. Will you allow God to catch you and change you to be all that He has for you. Greater is the wisdom in His little finger than in all our minds, if you don't believe me, ask yourself what He was thinking when He made the sunrise and then to top it off, the sunset.
If we do this thing right, we just might get out of here alive.
Monday, November 25, 2013
Thursday, May 17, 2012
To Bury Your Pain
Frederick Buechner
To bury your pain is a way of surviving your pain and therefore by no means to be dismissed out of hand. It is a way which I venture to say has at one time or another served and continues to serve all of us well. But it is not a way of growing. It is not a way of moving through adolescence into adulthood. If you manage to put behind you the painful things that happen to you as if they never really happened or didn't really matter all that much when they did, then the deepest and most human things you have in you to become are not apt to happen either.
This is an amazing way to "Cope", to hide inside something that is tearing you to pieces, it just doesn't make sense. Bitterness and pain do drive us, but they drive to places that we don't want to go. To be angry and hurt all the time is no way to live either. I know, I am a recovering pusher - I dealt with life by pushing down those points in my life that hurt to much to deal with. I have been learning in school the difference between pushing feelings down until they seemingly go away and actually dealing with those things. It is only through hours of counseling that I am beginning to get free from a pushing.
Ya see the thing that I had to recognize is that I was just a child and that those things which happened to me were done to me, not because of me, I was a victim of anger and rage, I was a victim of someone else pushing their pain away. You have to see that if we are to break the cycle then we have to deal with our stuff. It is painful to bring it all back up, but God will take it from you. He sent His Son that we might know life and life in abundance. LIfe does not have to be a continued act of coping, God want s you and I to live free. The crucifixion of Christ assures that those who come to Christ with their hearts, will be set free from those chains that bind.
We can actually help with that. we are called to be in relationship with one another, but we fixate on what others tell us is right and wrong. We need to listen to our hearts, listen to God. He calls us to be together, Adam needed Eve as to not be alone. I need you and you need me, we need each other. You don't need to be a great brain that has all the answer to help me get over it, you need to be there for me and I for you. "No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care." We can do this thing together, we can Love others and ourselves.
If we do this thing right, we might just get out of here alive!
Saturday, April 28, 2012
To Love is to Live
I often struggled with the ability to love the unlovable. We all have those people in our lives that drive us nuts. You know the one that it is just best if you stay out of their vicinity. Well, I think that God has a way of bringing those people and placing them right in my path. Recently I had one of those people placed all but dead center in my world. This person was one of those that would not listen as they know everything that you are trying to teach them, on top of that he is grumpy about everything. Now I don't get mad about it unless you act as if you already know it and then can't do the work, and you get angry at me for trying to help.
One morning this person was extra specially ornery and I was not in the mood to take it. I sent him away to go and do his work. I was undoubtably angry at this man. God interrupted me and told me to go and love him, to which I said NO. He interrupted again and told me to love him and again I said no. This went on one more time and finally I gave in.
I went down and found this guy and told him that I love him, which I honestly do at the most basic level of love. I also told him how much God loves him. He began to weep and I continued to love on him, telling him the truth about how valuable he is and so on.
The feelings that took over my body were amazing. This young man and I were then able to talk about things. I was able to coach him in his work from that point on. Our relationship changed from that point on and I am hoping and praying that it never goes back the way it was.
When God tells you to love someone and you do, it will not go unnoticed. God has given me eyes to see others from time to time, the way that He does. The peace that fills my spirit most times is amazing. I have been freed from those old awful and defeating feelings. God made an upgrade, and all I had to do is what He said, I had to love my neighbor.
Here is the challenge - The next time you are annoyed at someone, love them first. When they then don't act the way you want them to, love them some more. Love will win! Jesus is Love!
It is really amazing - The more you love, the more opportunities you will get to love!
If we do this thing right, we might all get out of here alive!
One morning this person was extra specially ornery and I was not in the mood to take it. I sent him away to go and do his work. I was undoubtably angry at this man. God interrupted me and told me to go and love him, to which I said NO. He interrupted again and told me to love him and again I said no. This went on one more time and finally I gave in.
I went down and found this guy and told him that I love him, which I honestly do at the most basic level of love. I also told him how much God loves him. He began to weep and I continued to love on him, telling him the truth about how valuable he is and so on.
The feelings that took over my body were amazing. This young man and I were then able to talk about things. I was able to coach him in his work from that point on. Our relationship changed from that point on and I am hoping and praying that it never goes back the way it was.
When God tells you to love someone and you do, it will not go unnoticed. God has given me eyes to see others from time to time, the way that He does. The peace that fills my spirit most times is amazing. I have been freed from those old awful and defeating feelings. God made an upgrade, and all I had to do is what He said, I had to love my neighbor.
Here is the challenge - The next time you are annoyed at someone, love them first. When they then don't act the way you want them to, love them some more. Love will win! Jesus is Love!
It is really amazing - The more you love, the more opportunities you will get to love!
If we do this thing right, we might all get out of here alive!
Monday, March 12, 2012
Get a Life
Anna Quindlen
So here's what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life.
Get a real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast?
Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze over Seaside Heights, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water gap or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a Cheerio with her thumb and first finger.
Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you.
Source: Commencement address at Villanova University (February 8 1999)
The Father has made us to be in relationship - First with Him and then with our neighbors - Will your life matter when it is over?
I am not sure much else can be said!
If we do this thing with His love flowing we will get out of here alive!
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Getting Stoned- for His Glory
Christ tells us as Christians that we will face persecution as believers. That we won't be recognized in our home towns. Never in the bible does it say that we will life a life free from persecution or that we will have an easy life.
Too often we act as though we expect to get through this life without battle scares and sorrows. That is not the promise at all. It sucks somedays to be quite honest. It would be a lot easier if Christ would have made that promise to us and subsequently we would not suffer, but He didn't.
An unfortunate consequence is that we go through life almost alone sometimes, it is the rare friendship that is true enough to listen and understand everything. i.e. we don't have a real place to take our issues. Most of us are unaware of our responses to things, as in we don't know why we act the way that we do.
I recently went through a class on shame and grace. What an amazing experience. Rev. Robert Walter taught it at The Masters Institute in Minneapolis Minnesota. We were taught such great things as identifying some of the things from our childhood, times when we were shamed, or guilted into certain things. Those play a part in our childhood and how we felt with things as well as our adult lives and how we still do things.
As we learn how to recognize those symptoms and how to deal with them, we can then start the healing process. Learning how to forgive and break the chains that bind will without a doubt break the chains that bind. In my life there have been so many different things that have brought shame, but I thought that I forgiven those things and those people that caused the shame. I thought that I had forgiven myself for the things that I have done to myself and others. I had stated that I forgave and found that for what ever reason I am holding onto some of those things.
We (my seminary class) got an amazing opportunity - we got to do some Theophostic prayer. An amazing time that involves some of those ingrained memories and thoughts. Recognizing the belief as well as the feeling and then asking Jesus what He might think about it. The amazing part is seeing for yourself that He cares for us, He cares for me and for you. We worship a great God and I am thankful for Jesus and His sacrifice. By my own effort I am not worthy, by His economy, I am made worthy.
Learning to be real with each other and being there for one another, is a great beginning. I pray for God's strength to continue the therapy with Christ and the healing that I know He wants for me. Phillipians 3:20-21-"20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body." I continue to grow in Christ and continue to flesh out what the word relationship means. He has laid this on my heart and as well as a genuine love for people. His healing will aid me in being the same person in all circumstances. To be able to Love all His kids, not just the ones that I agree with.
I praise God for His goodness and long for His spirit to dwell so richly in me and for me to be able to walk with Him in all that I do.
If we do this thing in His will, we may just get out of here alive!
Too often we act as though we expect to get through this life without battle scares and sorrows. That is not the promise at all. It sucks somedays to be quite honest. It would be a lot easier if Christ would have made that promise to us and subsequently we would not suffer, but He didn't.
An unfortunate consequence is that we go through life almost alone sometimes, it is the rare friendship that is true enough to listen and understand everything. i.e. we don't have a real place to take our issues. Most of us are unaware of our responses to things, as in we don't know why we act the way that we do.
I recently went through a class on shame and grace. What an amazing experience. Rev. Robert Walter taught it at The Masters Institute in Minneapolis Minnesota. We were taught such great things as identifying some of the things from our childhood, times when we were shamed, or guilted into certain things. Those play a part in our childhood and how we felt with things as well as our adult lives and how we still do things.
As we learn how to recognize those symptoms and how to deal with them, we can then start the healing process. Learning how to forgive and break the chains that bind will without a doubt break the chains that bind. In my life there have been so many different things that have brought shame, but I thought that I forgiven those things and those people that caused the shame. I thought that I had forgiven myself for the things that I have done to myself and others. I had stated that I forgave and found that for what ever reason I am holding onto some of those things.
We (my seminary class) got an amazing opportunity - we got to do some Theophostic prayer. An amazing time that involves some of those ingrained memories and thoughts. Recognizing the belief as well as the feeling and then asking Jesus what He might think about it. The amazing part is seeing for yourself that He cares for us, He cares for me and for you. We worship a great God and I am thankful for Jesus and His sacrifice. By my own effort I am not worthy, by His economy, I am made worthy.
Learning to be real with each other and being there for one another, is a great beginning. I pray for God's strength to continue the therapy with Christ and the healing that I know He wants for me. Phillipians 3:20-21-"20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body." I continue to grow in Christ and continue to flesh out what the word relationship means. He has laid this on my heart and as well as a genuine love for people. His healing will aid me in being the same person in all circumstances. To be able to Love all His kids, not just the ones that I agree with.
I praise God for His goodness and long for His spirit to dwell so richly in me and for me to be able to walk with Him in all that I do.
If we do this thing in His will, we may just get out of here alive!
we have enough- Elizabeth Canham
We Have Enough
Elizabeth Canham
"Knowing that we have enough takes us out of the never-ending tension created by greed, out of the constant envy of others that causes us to overlook our own riches, and out of the turmoil of unmet desires.
Traveling back one afternoon to the seminary where I taught two decades ago, I found a seat on the upper deck of a red London bus. Smoking was permitted 'upstairs,' so I usually chose seats below, but on this day they were all full. Maybe God wanted me 'upstairs' that day, for as we journeyed south along the Old Kent Road, a sign painted high on a building caught my eye: CLUTCH CLINIC.
It took a few moments for me to realize that the advertisement referred to an automobile service center specializing in the repair of defective clutches, for I heard the advertisement that day as God's invitation.
"Supposing you spent time in my clutch clinic," God seemed to say. "What are some of the things you need to relinquish so that your hands can be open, ready to receive the grace I wait to give?"
Beloved, do you have enough yet? What is enough? Can you put a stick in the shore and wait until the tide rises above that stick and say, thank you God for all that you have given me, and pursue no more? Will you be like most everyone else and change your level of "need" ?
Beloved when the day is over and your game has been played will you have realized how much is enough, or will you forever pursue more?
If we do this thing right, we might just get out of here alive!
Psalm 56
Psalm 56:1-4 Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me; My enemies trample on me all the day long, for many attack proudly. When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid, What can flesh do to me?
I am guessing that I am not the only one that feels this way some days? It is tough, this life and the way that we live it. We are called to love our neighbors, aren't we? If we are called to it, are we doing it? I struggle with both of the commandments that Jesus left us with. I have a hard time loving those who seem to take advantage of me. I might even come across a little harsh sometimes.
If I were to really love my neighbor and stop attacking or oppressing my neighbor, what would happen?
v:6 They stir up strife, they lurk; they watch my steps, as they have waited for my life.
I don't go out doing these behaviors purposely, but I know that I do this. I have not been the brother that I need to be and sometimes get a little self righteous. This, by lack of love, is doing those very things. If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem.
Why do people feel alone in this day and age? We are living in a world with more people in it than ever before and yet we have people, children feeling alone and unwanted. We have children that are so picked on that they kill and hurt other children. We then make them out to be monsters and point fingers at how awful they are. Are they? or are they just really alone and hurting with no where to go? Has anyone introduced them to the Lord and showed them how valuable they actually are? We may never do this thing perfectly but I believe beloved that we can do it better.
v:8 You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?
How deep the Fathers love for us, how far beyond all measure. Beloved, we can make a difference in this thing we call LIFE. Please read this Proverb and then go and read 1Cor. 13:1-4. All that we are doing is no good beloved, it is no good if we don't have love.
Please, Please, Please, Love your family today and tomorrow and everyday from here to eternity. Repent openly to your children and God for mistakes made. They will forgive you, this I know. Humble your self in the sight of the Lord, ask Him for strength and guidance. Can we learn to Love our neighbors, even if they are not believers or overtly friendly?
Beloved we are empowered by the strength of the Holy Spirit as were the disciples to go and Love and make disciples of every nation. God said it and He has given us the ability to do it, now go and do it.
Beloved, if we do this one thing, we might just get out of here alive!
I am guessing that I am not the only one that feels this way some days? It is tough, this life and the way that we live it. We are called to love our neighbors, aren't we? If we are called to it, are we doing it? I struggle with both of the commandments that Jesus left us with. I have a hard time loving those who seem to take advantage of me. I might even come across a little harsh sometimes.
If I were to really love my neighbor and stop attacking or oppressing my neighbor, what would happen?
v:6 They stir up strife, they lurk; they watch my steps, as they have waited for my life.
I don't go out doing these behaviors purposely, but I know that I do this. I have not been the brother that I need to be and sometimes get a little self righteous. This, by lack of love, is doing those very things. If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem.
Why do people feel alone in this day and age? We are living in a world with more people in it than ever before and yet we have people, children feeling alone and unwanted. We have children that are so picked on that they kill and hurt other children. We then make them out to be monsters and point fingers at how awful they are. Are they? or are they just really alone and hurting with no where to go? Has anyone introduced them to the Lord and showed them how valuable they actually are? We may never do this thing perfectly but I believe beloved that we can do it better.
v:8 You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?
How deep the Fathers love for us, how far beyond all measure. Beloved, we can make a difference in this thing we call LIFE. Please read this Proverb and then go and read 1Cor. 13:1-4. All that we are doing is no good beloved, it is no good if we don't have love.
Please, Please, Please, Love your family today and tomorrow and everyday from here to eternity. Repent openly to your children and God for mistakes made. They will forgive you, this I know. Humble your self in the sight of the Lord, ask Him for strength and guidance. Can we learn to Love our neighbors, even if they are not believers or overtly friendly?
Beloved we are empowered by the strength of the Holy Spirit as were the disciples to go and Love and make disciples of every nation. God said it and He has given us the ability to do it, now go and do it.
Beloved, if we do this one thing, we might just get out of here alive!
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