So It's Been a Couple Days

So it's been a couple days since my last writing, but I have good reason - my family from up north paid us a visit! This past week of time with them inspired great conversation and much contemplation. The memories of past seemed to be so vivid and offered much reflection while we compared them to the present. How things have changed and how different the course of life can be paved. So what's your story? Each of us has one (or a million) that impress footprints into the fabric of history. Whether you are simple in your life efforts or built to take on the world, you have been on a journey before your birth. But who takes the reigns while on expedition? Consider this note I recently sent to a friend....


What a journey the Father takes us on? Are you up for the trek?

It can be challenging and even discouraging - the choice to follow Jesus. I always think of the guy in the gospels that asks the question to Jesus, "Can I go bury my dead father?" and Jesus responds, "Let the dead bury the dead, those that want spiritual life... follow me!" (a paraphrase of Matthew 8:18-22) But imagine the story that unfolds as you witness what this man does - as long as you partner with Him on His journey! And even though the trek can be unbearable, you aren't on it alone!

I have learned (and forgotten) much, but one one simple truth haunts me each day... We are not capable of anything on our own! I mean we can do a lot and even be successful learning how to "will" our way through or fake it until we make it, but at the end of everyday (or the beginning) we need a savior! He gives us strength to deal with impossible people and impossible situations and He puts us in front of impossible people and impossible situations so that we will have to come and talk to Him more and more. Otherwise we would never need to spend time with "Daddy"! You see, He doesn't need our love as much as He is one that wants to give us His love and build a dependency on it - nothing else! This is the fuel that gives life and stamina to our journey! Even in the midst of the worst struggles.

I suppose I write this all to say - do whatever it takes to be in His presence and share His presence (sometimes this means saying "no" to others - YIKES). Make His journey your PASSION. Fill up with His grace and mercy and let it overflow in all the areas you touch. Let Him carry your backpack of junk for awhile... He won't mind! Matter of fact, He has been asking for it for years! Without this fueling and partnership (constantly) we are bound to give ourselves away in vain and try to carry some other person's backpack when we are incapable of shouldering our own. This will steal your zeal and the journey starts to look like a jail cell in which we are serving a life sentence. Trust that He has what it takes to nourish your soul for the adventure. The journey is sweet when you keep your heart's compass on the destination.

Falling in Love with Grace

Karma - What goes around comes around. If I do the right things and do good to others, maybe just maybe my pay it forward will come back to me and I will experience the great reward. But what about those of us who have, in the past or present (not to exclude the future), messed up and done something we are quite sure will come back and hit us in the back of the head!??

It's interesting that most of us are built to define life's journey through an entry point of reason. Most decisions and actions are based on reason. We take into consideration our past experiences and weigh them against the current cirrcumstances to build a theory of what will most likely happen. We reason a path of where and how a cause and effect develop. We use reason to justify why we should or shouldn't do things. It gives us an intellegent anwser to why things occur. Makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside. Well then, what about GRACE.

Grace, unlike Karma, defies reason and logic. How can someone love and extend grace to a murderer or adulterer. It's not logical. Why would a person that has abandoned a child or taken advantage of the poor be allowed freedom and relief? They don't deserve it. They deserve justice! Right? - Don't we all?

But what about Grace. Do we really understand it? It's not reasonable... It's not logical. It's not just. It's uncensored love that interrupts the consequences of our actions. It is a foolish thought that each of us should be released from shame and guilt and live with momentum - not oppression, regardless of the circumstances. It purifies our hearts not just our actions! This is in fact, unreasonable! It's love!

Love often produces far from logical results! Ever driven several hours just to spend 5 minutes with someone? Seems a bit silly, right? Well, it is! Grace is silly. It defies the very logic that we are taught and often live out. Unfortunatley our logic stands not only in the way of loving others, but maybe more importantly, in the way of us being loved. In order for grace to be given, we must believe that we can receive it. Without this, an exchange is impossible. (God is love. To know love is to know God. 1 John)

Maybe today is a day to fall back in love with Grace. She is totally head-over-heals for you. Go show her off. Tell your friends about how beautiful she is. Get some alone time to talk to her. She doesn't want to judge you or bring up the past. She only wants to lift you up so she may show you hope of the future! The Father has sent her to you as a gift from His son. Enjoy being unreasonable with her!

TB

When Fear Has You Trapped!

Have you ever experienced something like this? You have been busy and concentrated on a path that has led you to a place where you are just stuck and trapped. No matter what you try to do you can’t shake it and you are just searching for a way to avoid the hit. Maybe you are a skilled survivor and have found ways to maneuver around the hit but this time it’s different, there is no way out! And so we think!

Getting to a place where our hearts are revealed so we may see why we are trapped allows God to remind us of His works (Psalm 77:11). We check ourselves before we wreck ourselves with the blind fact that we are fearful creatures! We all have them... That's right! Are you bold enough to admit it? Call it out...write it down... tell somebody. Or does that just make you more anxious!? If I am exposed and tell other people my fears, "they're all gonna laugh at me!" - Billy Madison.

What if that is the only place in which freedom comes and you are released to live? (1 John 1:7). What if facing the brutal facts of what you are fearful of is the only way out of the box? More importantly... if you swerve around the deep rooted issue this time, masking the real stuff, will it just come back to nibble you to death later?

Fear traps us into a belief system of hopelessness and lies. It produces in us a method of surviving instead of thriving! Surviving is not what God intended for His children. Even at the cross, Jesus endured for the sake of joy (Heb 12:3)!

Stop a moment to think about what has trapped you in your box. I mean what do you have to lose anyway... your life???



Check us out this Sunday!