Boo-boos

My son was playing when he fell and landed on one of his toys which hurt him.  boo-boosHe started whimpering as he climbed up on the sofa next to his mother. He laid on his back, pulled his legs up and said, “Mommy, kiss my butt.”  Yes.  We had taught him when he gets a boo-boo mommy and daddy can kiss it and make it all better.

Last Friday morning I read an email from my daughter.  Her pain was so great I could feel it leap from the phone and into my heart.  I wanted nothing more than to pull her into my arms, kiss her cheek and tell her, “It will be okay.”  When our children become young adults it seems as if their boo-boos cut deeper, and hurt worse than when they were toddlers.  Because we are separated by many miles I couldn’t be there in person to hold her in my arms, but my concern for her and the situation is there none-the-less.

Jesus sees our struggles, our pain, our hurts, and even our boo-boos.  Hebrews 5:2 says, “(Jesus) should be able to deal gently with their failings, since he knows what it’s like from his own experience.”  Hebrews 5:8 “Though he was God’s Son, he learned trusting-obedience by what he suffered, just as we do.” (MSG)

We can go to Jesus at any time with anything, but definitely turn to him when you get hurt.  Turning to anything, or anyone else just isn’t the same.  Jesus knows how to guide you, heal you, or teach you to make it all better.

The Final Edit

DSC_4416As I mentioned last week I was going to a writer’s conference.  I did.  As a result the mechanics of writing is in the fore front of my mind.  As I was walking around the campus, and thinking on what those that have “been there and done that” taught me, I was also searching God concerning a host of thoughts.  One of those was about you.

One of the nice things about writing is the fact there is usually time to re-write.  This act creates many drafts of our first words.  Even up to this point I have hit the backspace key seven times.  During my walk God reminded me life is different than writing.  In life we only get one draft.  No rewrites, and there is no backspace key!  Wouldn’t it be nice if there was?  You could take back what you said, or did.

You only get this one time, now, to live life.  This is why life is so precious.  How you choose to live your life is important.  For there will be a day when you stand before God to give an account of how you chose to live your life.  It is at that time God will perform the final edit.  As it says in Hebrews 9:27 “Everyone has to die once, then face the consequences.” (MSG)

The Word

This week I am going for the third year in a row to a Christian Writer’s conference.  I have been asked why do I write, and their other question was what qualifications do I have to write about Christian living?  Well, I haven’t gone to school to learn how to write, but it does seem as if there has been an emphasis on writing in my education.  Also I enjoy the process of creating something with words that wasn’t there before.  After all, we are made in God’s image and He gave us the ability to create.  To answer the second question it seems as if a lot of people won’t read the Bible, but God still wants to communicate His truths and love to them, so He directs individuals to write as He so leads.

I feel as if I am one of those individuals.  I always ask God what He wants to say this week.  After all He knows who will be reading the blog that particular week.  I pray for those readers that somehow the words they read will encourage them, lift them up, and help them know God.

So you see each week this blog is for you, the reader, and it’s not just words, but it comes with thoughts and prayers about you and for you.  So I go to the conference to learn how to communicate better “The Word.”

Running Out of Bread

It’s Sunday morning.  After getting out of bed and opening up my eyes BreadI realized, “I’m hungry!”  I proceeded into the kitchen to make breakfast when I became aware, “I had run out of bread”.  I hate that feeling of realization when you are all set to do something and you don’t have what you need to do it, and you have to go get it.  This morning’s alternative was to cook cheeseburgers, (which I almost did) or go hungry, so I went to the store.  Even if I had made the cheeseburgers I would still be out of bread.

It was on the drive back home I had the realization that some people run out of bread all the time.  They run out of the “Bread of Life”.  Jesus said in John 6:48, “I am the Bread of Life”.  How do they do this?  They stop going to church.  They stop reading their bible.  They stop hanging out with their Christian friends.  Not all at once of course, but little by little.  Satan’s deceptions don’t happen overnight!  It is a slow process of time that he works on you in order to take over your mind.  You see all he wants is to kill, steal, and destroy anything, or anyone that God has made or loves, and that includes you.

The hard to believe part of this is when these people get hungry, they don’t run to the store meaning to the church, but they start trying to satisfy their hunger with the things of the world which satan has now convinced them is okay.

So go get some bread.  It’s free, because Jesus has already paid the price for you by dying on the cross.  Partake of the Bread of Life all you want.  It does a body good.

A Conversation with God

I said unto the L052012_47JBord, “God I love you so much.  I will do anything you ask me to.  I will go anywhere in your name.  God I’ll even go to Iraq if you want me to.”  But God said, “I want you to go next door and speak to your neighbor.  Maybe you don’t think they care about me, but you don’t know their heart like I do”

I then said, “God I will give everything I have for your Glory!”  He replied, “Thanks but I would rather you look around and give to those you see in need.  Whether their need is food, clothing, or shelter – give.”

“God I could start a great foundation for you.  What do you think of that?”  Then God said unto me, “Go visit the sick, and not just for 5 minutes either!  Sit with them.  Attend to them.  Let them know they are not going through this alone.  Then when you are done with that go visit someone in prison, or at least sit down and take the time to write them a letter.  Let them know that though they are locked up they are not forgotten.  Show them there is hope.”

“But God I want to do something great for you” Then God spoke to me this, “If you want to do something great then give what I did; give your heart, give your time, give your life.”

Mat 25:40  Then the King will say, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me–you did it to me.’ (MSG)

If God Only Answered One Prayer

One thing I just learned is don’t writ072912TB 230e a blog about contentment.  This past week I had the hardest time remaining content!  Every morning I would wake, and get mad because I’m not getting to live the life I really want to.  I felt bad about this, because I just wrote in my blog how important it is to be content with the life you have.

While I was riding the commuter train I was praying and I begin to run down my list of, “God it sure would be nice if you would answer this prayer request concerning one, two, three, and four.”  Then the thought hit me, “What if God promised to answer only one of those request?  Which request would I pick?”  As I picked one in my mind I then realized this, “Does that make the other request not important?  Could I do without them?  Should I not really be praying about those things?”

The truth is we are to bring ALL of our request to God.  “Phi 4:6  Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns.” (MSG)

This verse coming to my mind helped me get through the rest of the week.  It’s okay for me to tell God the desires of my heart.  The real miracle is when my desires align with God’s desires for my life.  “God, until then, help me not to lose focus of you.”

Another thought:  “When you are intently focused on your life, others who desperately need to know God might walk right by you unnoticed.”

The Life You Should Really Want

Phi 4_11I was talking this past week with someone and it didn’t take long before I realized they were depressed.  I asked them why, and they responded they weren’t sure.  I asked them if they were happy with their current situation concerning life.  They replied, “No.”  Then the question of all questions came to me, so I asked, “If your world looked like you wanted it to what would it look like?”  I mean this is the kind of question my friend Steve usually comes up with, but not me, so it had to come from God!  The person I was talking to said that was a really good question, but wasn’t sure how to answer it.

What if you were asked that question?  Would you be able to answer it?  Would you have a different job?  Live somewhere else?  I hate to ask, but would you be in a relationship with someone else?  If your world could look like you wanted it to would that world be the result of making better decisions?  Have you really learned from the life you have lived in the past?

You can’t live in the past, and you shouldn’t live with regret.  Whatever it was, it happened.  Okay?  So get over it with God’s love, help, and power.  Learn from it.  Give it to God, and allow him to use it to help someone else who is about to do the same thing.  Paul tells us:

(Phi 4:11)  Actually, I don’t have a sense of needing anything personally. I’ve learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances.

Contentment is a powerful thing to say, but even a more powerful thing to practice in your own life!  I think once you learn to accept and relax in your current situation it is then that God can begin to lead you to the life He wants for you, and I assure you, this is the life you should really want.

Letting Go

I was at my eye doctor’s office this past week for a follow up visit to some recent treatments.  One of the things they needed to do was take some pictures of both eyes.  It was while I was getting those pictures taken that I heard probably the best example of what real faith is.

Andy, the eye photographer, told me that when he was much younger he went parachuting.  He said that he only went three times, but that is still three more times than I have.  He told how back then they would connect your rip cord to a static line so when you get far enough away from the plane it would tighten and thus pull the cord that would cause your chute to open.  So that only left two things for him to do.

1) Step outside of a perfectly capable airplane of landing to the little 2×4 connected to the bottom of a wing support.

2)  The hardest part: Let go of the wing.

He told me he was scared like crazy!  Not exactly his words, but I think you get the point.  He informed me that the hardest thing to do was letting go of the wing.  He said as he was going 120 mph out there on the wing thoughts would run through his mind, “Who packed my chute?”  “Did they do it right?”  But no matter what came to his mind, he did it.  He let go.

Yes, Andy is right.  This is one of the best examples we have of faith.  When we are faced with a situation that is bigger than us there are a lot of things we can do, but none is better than “letting go” and trust in God.  If you happen to be faced with one of those kinds of situations do what Andy did; “Let go.”

What Does Your Fruit Look Like?

Gen 3:1  The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal GOD had matemptationde. He spoke to the Woman: “Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?”
Gen 3:2  The Woman said to the serpent, “Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden.
Gen 3:3  It’s only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘Don’t eat from it; don’t even touch it or you’ll die.'”
Gen 3:4  The serpent told the Woman, “You won’t die.
Gen 3:5  God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you’ll see what’s really going on. You’ll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil.”
Gen 3:6  When the Woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it–she’d know everything!–she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate.
Gen 3:7  Immediately the two of them did “see what’s really going on”–saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves. (MSG)

Packed into these few verses is so much!  So much of how sin appeals to us.  So much about how we start thinking in our mind that we understood what God “really” must have meant, but He didn’t say.  In verse 4; no the woman wouldn’t die physically, but after disobeying God she begin to die spiritually.  In verse 5 we see the devil tell Eve that she will be “like” God.  The very thing that got him and his followers kicked out of heaven.  In verse 6; Eve no doubt on the first shopping trip pictured how the fruit would match her outfit, and thus complete her ensemble.  In verse 7; was the first time a woman uttered the words, “Don’t touch me!”

Seriously here is how sin works:  Eve saw, Eve thought, Eve touched.  One will sin every time most likely when they “look” too long.  When they “think or reason” in their mind too much, and it is almost impossible to stop once they “touch”.

So what does your fruit look like?  What is your weakness?  What do you need to not look at too long, or at all?  What thoughts do you need to stop thinking?  What, or whom, do you need to not touch?

It Isn’t Finished

jesus-crossempty-tomb-of-Jesus-ChristWhen I was a youth minister in Massachusetts the local ministers from various churches would gather for a pre-Easter service.  Seven ministers would get up one by one and share the last seven phrases that Jesus said from the cross.  I always wanted to be asked to share number 6, “It is finished”, but I was never asked to, so today I will.

Saying the words, “It is finished” can bring relief.  The pain, the distress, the task at hand, or the conflict is over.  No more of whatever was causing such discomfort.  Those words certainly said a lot for the one who spoke them that day, for he was going down a “dead end!”  But was “it” really finished?  Sure the work Jesus came here to earth to do was, but I believe our work was just beginning.

Jesus showed us how to live, pray, “be”, love, overcome, deal with evil, trust our heavenly father, face fear and even die.  When He said, “It is finished” He might as well gone on to say, “You are just beginning.  Now go and show others there is a better way to live.  Don’t just tell them, but show them the love of my Father as I have shown you.  Convince them that in believing in my death and resurrection there is so much hope it will last for eternity.”  For us, it isn’t finished, yet.