No Erasing

In youth group I've been teaching lately on how the youth define success for their life, how they would want their lives summed up, etc. Last night we looked at things like the parable of the houses built on sand or rock and the idea of Jesus as a cornerstone and foundation. Then I taught on the idea of our lives being like a house we build—how we have decisions like what foundation we will build on, what "materials" we will use to build it, and what our "house" will look like (our image, or His image), etc.

To start that off I gave each of the youth a stubby pencil and a blank piece of paper. I had them envision their dream house, to include location, what it is built out of, and what it looks like. Then I gave them about 10 minutes to sketch it. The requirements were that their sketch had to capture the location, the type of material used, and the general look of it.

There was also one rule, and it turned out to be the most powerful part. The pencils had no erasers and I told them that even if they brought an eraser they couldn't use it. If they made a mistake they had to incorporate it into the drawing—make it something beautiful.

I think this spoke to a lot of us. We can't erase our mistakes, or often the consequences of them. But, given over to God, they can become a part of something beautiful. They become our testimony, a testimony to His power and goodness, a place of learning and growing.

This was powerful to a lot of us, and I felt like God gave me that idea as I was planning, and I wanted to share it with you in case it might bless you, too. Thanks for sharing in my life. God bless you.

Quiet Nudges from a Big God

As you set out this week on your journey with Jesus, I’d like to encourage you to make yourself available to the Spirit’s quiet nudges. It is one of the most amazing and astounding truths of all the earth that, as one who has surrendered their life to the Lordship of Jesus, He has come to dwell in you and live through you! Why He chooses to live in us and work out His will through us is almost too incredible to fathom, but none-the-less He does, and I encourage you to be ready and available to it, and looking for His divine appointments and leading.

Jesus said, basically, that He only did what He saw the Father doing, and He only said what the Father was saying—that required tremendous intimacy with the Father to be able to live like that. Likewise, Acts records when some, submitted to God’s call on their life, were led by the Spirit to His specific appointments when it says in Acts 16:6-8, “And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas.”

I remember back to a time when a lady in our fellowship kept popping in to my mind. Her husband was away on a work trip, but I didn’t give it much thought. The next day, at our Sunday service, I asked her if everything was OK with her the previous morning. She said that it was, unless you counted the fact that her water heater had sprung a leak and water was pouring all over her kitchen floor. I could have been there in under 15 minutes and helped tremendously, but I missed the nudge.

On the other hand, recently I was doing a hospital visitation with a friend and as we were leaving we passed a man parking his car and locking it. His hazard lights were on and my friend told him. He thanked us and began opening his door to turn them off as we walked past. I made a friendly comment about him not wanting to come back and find his battery dead. We were past him as I made the comment and he said something in response to the effect of, “Yeah, I don’t need any more bad news today” (or it might have been “anything more bad today”).

It is amazing the thoughts that can go through our minds in seconds . . . I was running a little late, I had an hour and a half drive ahead . . . and I also realized that was a God-loaded comment he had just made, and a divine insight into his heart. I turned around and stepped back toward him and said some something like, “You are having a bad day? What’s up?” My friend took my next words out of my mouth and said, “Yeah, we can pray for you right here.” Neither of us expected what was next. He seemed so grateful and he told us his daughter had a fever and was in the emergency room and could we come pray for her. Again, the thoughts that crossed my mind in seconds . . . what if we can’t get in for an hour or two? . . . could we just pray with him right here and go on? . . . but then there is the realization that God gives us these moments and asks us to be His hands and feet in them.

We said "sure" and within probably five minutes of passing his car I was signed in and being led by a confused mom who had already been there back to a room in emergency where a precious little girl was lying down and feeling poorly. I knelt next to her, told her a little about myself and my daughters, and asked her if I could pray for her. She nodded yes, with big eyes, without saying a word, and while the nurse was talking to the mom I had the privilege of praying over this little girl I'd never met before, and being a vessel to bring His presence and power to her. It was an awesome privilege, and it felt almost “tingly” to have seen God so clearly setting something up, and bringing about something so very unexpected, but wonderful.

How many moments did the Holy Spirit direct us toward that encounter that we didn’t even realize He was doing it? The nudge to say it was time to go? The decision to walk back to our van on another route from the one we took to the hospital? The man leaving his hazard lights on, or my friend noticing them and saying something? My lighthearted comment about the battery? I have no idea how many times my friend, or I, or the man, were nudged unaware to set that moment up. All I know is that, in that moment, there came one when I knew God had “set me up” and that I had a choice I was responsible for. It came when he made the comment about the bad day and I could have kept walking, or stopped and gone back. It was such a casual comment . . . but what a moment lay in the balance around it!

I don’t share this to brag on myself in any way (that’s why I shared my “water heater failure” first), but because there is power in the testimony to increases other's faith, and I want to encourage you to look for these moments, and expect them and be available to them.  Let’s:

1) Expect divine encounters, because He loves people, and all you have to do is read the Gospels to realize that the Jesus that lives in you was always having wild, "unexpected" encounters with unlikely people!

2) Be available to those encounters and looking for the tiny, quiet signs (a drooped head, a sad face when they think no one is looking, a co-worker whose not as cheerful as normal, a person who appears in your life (or thoughts) multiple times, etc.).

3) Realize who we are in Christ, and Who goes with us, in (hint: the Creator of the Universe!).

4) Walk in gentleness and love and service and humility toward the people we meet, and in authority and righteous anger toward the darkness that enslaves them. Let’s remember that every time we come in to a room or a situation the Creator of the Universe just entered with us, and the entire spiritual atmosphere and dynamic just changed! Let us never forget that we serve a mighty God, and that the hosts of hell tremble before Him, and that with Him all things are possible!

God loves the world and His Kingdom rule and power are waiting to come to bear in it. We are the vessels of His power and authority amidst the world. Let’s walk in a manner that honors that.

So, what divine encounters do you want to share? Send them to me, I'd love to hear them. Let me know if I can share them. You can send them as a comment. It won't be seen until I "publish" it. Just let me know if it is OK or not. Remember, your testimony instructs and encourages others!

Entering in with Thanksgiving . . .

I wish all of you a heart of Thanksgiving this morning. I hope that your day yesterday was as special as mine was, and that thanksgiving continues to permeate your heart and soul in the coming year. I will be teaching on thanksgiving this Sunday, and as I have prepared my notes I am struck by a few things:

Daddy & his girls with the Praise Jar.

1) The thankful heart is the humble heart. Thankfulness implies a recognition of something not coming from us, but from another. God draws close to the humble heart (whereas He resists and opposes the proud heart). Romans tells us that those who have rejected God are those who have failed to worship Him as God or give Him thanks (Romans 1:18–25). In contrast to this, Psalm 100 gives us a picture of God's temple in which He sits at the center and it says that we enter His gates with thanksgiving (verse 4)! We could go so far as to say that we are commanded to be thankful when 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 tells us that God's will for us in Christ Jesus is to rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks through all circumstances.

2) Thanksgiving floods the Bible. Read the Bible looking for verses on thanksgiving, or expressions of thankfulness and rejoicing, and you'll find that it is all over! The believer's heart should be a thankful heart!

3) The devil hates me (and every other believer). He hates all that we stand for and the very One within us! He is a liar, a murderer, a thief, an accuser, and a deceiver who comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. If he could, he'd kill or destroy believers in a second. The obvious implication of that is then that every good thing in our life (every breath, every heart beat, every smile given, every smile received, every love felt, every love expressed, every laugh, every meal, every item of clothing, every healthy cell in our body, etc.) comes from God! No wonder James reminds us that every good and perfect gift comes from above, from our Father in Heaven (James 1:16–17). Looked at that way, that every tiny bit of goodness in our life is the Father intervening against the enemy's desire on our behalf, and we have so much to be thankful for!

Yesterday morning we did what for us is a Thanksgiving tradition we started some years back in an effort to keep God at the center of the day and our  hearts. We call it our Praise Jar. During the year we endeavor to write, each night, praises of God's hand in our life that day (sometimes we miss weeks at a time, but it is still our desire). Then, at Thanksgiving, we spend the morning by the fire with hot drinks taking turns pulling a praise out and reading it. Two things strike me about it that I'd like to share with you:

1) You'd be amazed how many things God does for you that you thought, at the time, you'd never forget—and which, even a few months later, you realize you had forgotten!


2) You will find your faith shooting through the ceiling when you spend hours at one time reminding yourself of all the different ways God has blessed your life in the past year! I was stunned how many times over the last year we have seen a physical healing in our family after prayer, how many times we have been blessed by someone reaching out and helping us or giving something to us, how many times prayers have been answered, how many times God has taken care of needs or anxieties I have had that were just special "gifts" from Him to me, how many times He has loved us in our "love language"—just gifting us with something He knew was special to us, how He has met our every need, etc.  Each of these, alone, are amazing when we realize the Creator of the universe has moved in our life in a visible way—but taken together, at one time, it is an incredible faith building and thanksgiving producing way to focus our hearts and joy! If you don't have some tradition like that (a Praise Jar, a journal, etc.), I encourage you to consider starting one. Preserving the testimony of God is a strong Biblical theme that not only builds faith, but gives God glory and speaks to generations to come (our heart is to make copies of all the praises in to books that each of our daughters will get when they leave home . . . they will take with them a record of years and years of God's hand on their family to then begin their own record as they begin their own families).

Robbed, or Given Away?

Today was the 10th anniversary of my first Sunday as a pastor. When I realized that last week I got really excited about spending this morning sharing with my fellowship the things I have learned in that time. Then, last night (Saturday), two things hit at once.

First, I hit eleven typed pages of things and realized I had hardly begun to capture the different things God has taught me in that time, which caused me to start to doubt the whole message idea, and feel suddenly overwhelmed at realizing that what I had intended for this morning wasn’t going to work. Second, some things happened in my personal life which, for some reason, hit me hard and in a vulnerable place and I found it difficult to pull out of it.

It is almost shocking to me how quickly I hit a place where I found the heavy situation of my heart standing as a mockery of all I had written about the strength and worship and joy, etc. which I had “supposedly” learned. I, in deep pain in my heart, cast to the side all I had written and in amazing speed was saying to myself, “Who are you kidding? You want to seem like some mature, sagely, aged pastor imparting years of wisdom when you are really so weak and shallow.” I became acutely aware of both the pride, and the insecurity, at work in me. It is amazing how those seemingly contradictory things can both work in you at the same time!

As I shared with some people, it was like I was surrounded by a black storm cloud that, thirty minutes before, hadn’t even been on the horizon! As a result I shared none of what I had written down about things God has shown me.

Here is the thing, though, and that which we must be acutely aware of. The devil, just as when he tempted Jesus, wraps just enough truth around his lies to get you to swallow the whole thing. Yes, some pride had slipped in. And, yes, there was some insecurity in wanting to be seen as wise and mature. But, I let those truths cause me to swallow the whole lie which said I had nothing to offer. I let the reality that I still struggle invalidate the fact that while I have a long way to go, I have also come a long way and learned a lot. I have, in these last ten years, gained a great amount of what I call “seasoning”—the depth of experience that accompanies the knowledge in the head about God, and has not only believed something to be true, but has also experienced its truth.

I have, through countless conversations and counseling sessions, involvements in people’s lives, funerals, watching lives and marriages both blossom and self-destruct, disappointments, hurts, heart wrenching fire calls, personal tests, etc., gained a depth of faith that is tremendously deeper than that which I had ten years ago when most of my faith was based more on Bible verses than the experience of living in faith based on those verses and seeing God back up His Word.

Did the devil rob me last night and this morning, or did I gift wrap it and give it to him? I’m not sure. But I do know that whatever happened he got one in. I tasted the truth coating and swallowed the whole poisoned pill. It is a tactic he has used time and again—since the Garden, in fact—and one we all need to be aware of and on guard against. And, it is usually true, that when he robs one person, he robs many more at the same time.

Happy Thanksgiving, New Year!

As I write this Happy Thanksgiving wish to you all, Mary Ann is in the kitchen, preparing the turkey, and wishing her family a great one on the phone. The girls are playing together in their play area, and the fire is crackling and the worship music is playing. The cows are fed, the coffee and hot chocolate has been had, the sun is out, the frost is melting, and we are looking forward to fellowship this afternoon with a wonderful couple we have grown closer to over the year.

The best part of the morning so far has been the opening of our Praise Jar. Some years back, in an effort to put God at the center of our holidays, we came up with the idea for this jar. (You can see it in the picture of Mary Ann and the girls by the fire—and its lid in the picture of Abigail and I that Bethany took this morning.) Basically, I took an old pickle jar and I made a wooden circle and cross which I then fastened to the lid of the jar.

The ideal is that each night at dinner we bring over the old cigar box (now painted gold and covered in "jewels") that you see the Praise Jar sitting on in the picture. Inside it is a pen and a pad of small sheets of paper. Then, we record any praises from the day—times or instances we have specifically felt or seen God's hand in our family's life that day—and put them back in the box. At the end of the week we read the week's praises to remind ourselves of God's hand and goodness in our life, and then we put the week's praises in the Praise Jar. On Thanksgiving, we spend the day opening it and reading the past year's praises. It is an amazing time of remembrance and joy and praise as so many things we thought we'd never forget, and did forget, are brought back to us.

For us, in many ways, doing this is our "New Years." I say this because we spend the day looking back over the year remembering God's hand in it, and then we empty the jar and start filling it again the day after Thanksgiving. So, in a sense, the year we keep record of goes from Thanksgiving to Thanksgiving.

My hope is to, one day, make copies of all the praises, year by year, and bind them in a book for each of the girls to take to their own homes. This is, after all, the testimony of God's hand in our lives—in their family—and it is the heritage and legacy they carry forward. Biblically, the preservation of the testimony is very important, and Biblical history shows that any time the testimony of God is lost the people fall away. The testimony of God and His hand in His people's lives, beginning with the first pages of the Bible and continuing in to our lives today, is critical to preserve. It is our heritage. It is our inheritance in the family of God. It builds faith and thankfulness, and carries with it power to reproduce. If you think about it, we are all living in the period of the Bible between the last epistle and the book of Revelation. We are, in that sense, still "writing" the work and hand of God—filling in the blank pages until He comes again or takes us home.

So, now I head back to the family and the fire. I wish you a wonderful, blessed, praise-filled day in which God is glorified in your hearts. May His love and goodness break through any barriers in your life or heart, and may the joy of the Lord be your strength today. If you ever want, or need, to talk just drop me a note in a comment. No one will see it if you ask me not to publish it. Let me know how I can help, or get in touch with you, and we can talk. Even if we can't share a cup of coffee and fellowship in person, in this day and age we certainly can share together over the phone.

That's My God!

I want to share another story from Gayle Erwin’s book That Reminds Me of Another Story . . . (you can read another post sharing a story from his book in my November 16, 2009 post “Coffee and Angels”).

This story tremendously touched my heart. It reminded me of Amy’s story of her first Christmas in which she, for the first time, understood and personally “owned” the words found in Christmas carols she’d sung all her life. (Her story is in my November 18, 2009 post “A Christmas Memory to Share . . .”).

Here’s the story, then a few thoughts:

Ezekiel Guti thanked me profusely for taking him to Universal Studios theme park in California. Guti, founder of a very large organization of black churches in Zimbabwe, was not excited about the rides or other shows. He especially appreciated the knowledge of how they fooled our eyes and made things seem to be something that they were not.

He explained, “My people are not sophisticated enough to know that this is trickery. They think that what they see on the movie screen is what actually happened. This is wonderful that I can go back and tell them the truth.”

I tell you this to introduce another event of great proportions. Another friend, Bruce Coble, went from Tennessee to Zimbabwe to serve as the director of Gutis’ Bible College. He became a much-loved person to the students. On one of his trips back to the United States, Bruce collected some of his favorite videotapes to take back and show to the students. The tapes included Hollywood’s version of The Ten Commandments. The classic scene in the movie is the parting of the Red Sea. Bruce found it difficult to tell me this story without choking up with tears, but he said that when the students saw that depiction on the screen, as far as they knew, the camera was actually there recording the scene. They got so excited that they were all standing on their chairs shouting, That’s my God! That’s my God!”

Such straightforward love of God!

Back to my thoughts. It is truly touching to me to see a people who so unashamedly rejoice and shout about the works of their God, and who so personally claim Him as their very own. I see people shout like crazy at sporting events, cheer for celebrities, etc., but rarely do I hear people shout with childlike joy and pride at the works of our Father, be it the miraculous, the healing of a marriage, the salvation from depression or addiction, or any way in which He works. I know that this story truly challenged my heart. May it will speak to yours as well. God bless you all.

Fallen Giants and Big Stars - Good Reminders . . .

I have some green plastic washers in a jar in my garage that I collected somewhere, and today, with Mary Ann and Bethany and Abigail watching, I nailed two of them in to the outside wall of our house, one 9' 6" off the ground and the other 15' off the ground (about dead center in the second story of our house). Then, I set a golf ball on the ground below them. No, I haven't lost it.

Sometimes, when life gets hard, we need a reminder of how big our God is. Lately I have really needed that reminder, and I know I'm not the only one who does. So, these nails stand as a place we can come out to and reflect on. The nail at 9' 6" off the ground represents the height of Goliath when God delivered him to David, a simple shepherd boy with a giant-sized faith. The nail at 15' off the ground represents the diameter our sun would be if the earth were the size of a golf ball—and our sun is one of the smaller stars, all of which God breathes out and calls by name.

So, if things get rough, come stare at our wall and be reminded of how big our God is and how giants fall before Him. Then, when you are done, I'll show you the boulder I put in our field to remind us of the day the turkey died . . . but that's another story.

Picture: Bethany and Abigail hold golf balls below the reminder nails, with arrows added so you can see the nails (better yet, just come on over!).

Happy Birthday to Me!

Hello all! No, I haven't disappeared---I have just been in a very busy season as well as a season of reflection. For those of you who know me well, no, you didn't forget my birthday! You'll understand in a moment.

Not too long ago I found an old Bible that they gave me as a cadet at West Point. It remained very unused until the early 90s when, after many "nudgings" from God that I didn't recognize then but do now, I began a quest to find out about this Christian claim that I had mocked and considered a crutch for weak people afraid to die. After a long season of studying the faith, bugging people with hours of questions, arguing long in to the night, etc., I came to the most critical day of my life. I recently opened this Bible, which I had used during that searching season, and I found the following written in the back, surrounded by penned in stars:

Fri, 28 Aug '92-
Decided to ask Christ/the Lord in to my life. I still don't know he exists, I still have trouble w/ some of the implications---some of the things I'm told I should believe, but I have to take a leap of faith, and turn my life over to him, and hope I soon know and love him

Wow! What a neat thing to read and look back on. I can still remember getting up from my knees in front of the wall heater in my Pacific Grove apartment and wondering if I'd just been the biggest fool and sucker there was.

What a journey it has been from that day! I can remember my early days as a Christian thinking I had so much to offer God---to the day they asked me to pastor the church and I realized, in my fear, that I had come completely to the point where I realized I had nothing to offer God other than my willingness. I remember my early Christian days trying to reconcile evolution and Creation and saying the two could co-exist, to the point where I now know, beyond doubt, that God created the world in six days as His Word declares and to eagerly defending that position. I still remember in my early days wavering on the abortion issue, to today where I believe without wavering that life begins at conception and is worthy of defense.

I remember the hesitation and embarrassment I felt telling some intellectual giants in my life who had been so familiar with my Christian criticisms that I was now a Christian---and now how I love wearing Christian t-shirts and the conversations they generate in Walmarts, grocery stores, etc. I remember being arrogant and proud, and now I feel so insecure at times that it is only who I am in Christ that keeps me going. I remember writing about God with a lower case "h" in "him" (see the entry I typed above from my old Bible)---to now where I am passionate about making it "Him" or "His". (I don't say this legalistically like others have to do that, only as a reflection of how I have changed.)

It has been such a journey---and it has just begun! That day, 17 years ago today, I was born again! My eternal life as God's child began and it will be just that, eternally with Him. I can't thank enough all the people in my life who have been a part of this journey---from the best parents a guy could ask for; to Mary Ann, the most amazing wife I could have ever imagined (one whose faith and love for God were the catalysts for bringing me to Christ and have upheld me many times in the years since); to Bill Holdgridge, our pastor at the time at Calvary Chapel Monterey Bay, whose faith and love for God led him to make the most courageous stand to remind Mary Ann that I wasn't a Christian when she agreed to marry me, and who walked with us and stood with us in the coming hard months as I wrestled myself to the point where I could receive Christ and we could get married; to the people in our little church in Bryson who nurtured and grew me through arrogance to walking in grace; to the friends and family and fellowship I have shared in these recent years pastoring in Bryson and Lockwood---to all who have loved, encouraged, been iron sharpening iron, been friends and family; and to my beautiful girls, Bethany and Abigail, who are, already, blessing me with their love for God and the way He uses them to speak to me even at their young ages.

I could go on and on thanking all those who have seeded in to my life. Some of you reading this have only know me recently, and others of you have known me from before that day 17 years ago. Remember, Amy, that night Mary Ann and I stayed up half the night with you and I kept arguing and arguing with you two and how that night I had that dream where sheer, terrifying evil was coming up from a pit at me and I had to be woken by you guys because I was wimpering like a little puppy?

Like I said, I could go on and on, thanking person after person. I will just say to you all---I love you and while I may let you down, while I may be often wrong, while I may not be the best of friends, I consider myself blessed and privileged to have you in my life and I can't thank you enough for your love and friendship and encouragement.

If I could offer one thing that might help anyone reading this to whom what I wrote in my Bible 17 years ago today sounds really familiar to their heart, I would say that the key for me to going from there to here (and I still have a long way to go!) was that I took that decision seriously and brought my life captive to it. The constant refrain of my thoughts from that day forward---whether in doubt or not---was, "I made the decision that Jesus was who He said He was and I need to make this decision or take this action based on that." I began, even though I still had doubts at times, to read the Bible to see what God had for me, not to see if it was true. As I honored my decision to give my life to God, He honored His Word to draw near to those who draw near to Him and to be found by those who seek Him and He revealed Himself to me in deeper and deeper ways as I lived, simply in a faith that felt blind at the time, in respect to my decision.

So, my final reflection and thanks goes to the One who made me, died for me, and gave me life again. To my God---THE God---Jehovah, God Almighty, King of Kings, Immanuel, Lord, Jesus, I say, "Thank You." You have taken me out of darkness and in to your marvelous light. I love You and only wish I could love You more and serve You better. You are everything. You saw me and knew me before You formed the earth, You knew all my mistakes and rebellions and rejections and blasphemies, and still You formed me and lovingly knit me together in my precious mother's womb---knowing all along that Your own Son, Jesus, would need to come to earth and be murdered for me. You have sealed me in His precious blood, You have given me a righteousness and redemption I could never have afforded, and You have born me again as Your precious child and I will know You and love You and be with You forever. Thank You, from the bottom of my heart.