Coke Zero 400…

Well the reason I haven’t been writing in the last couple of days is because I was out at the Daytona Speedway working the races leading up to and including the Coke Zero 400.  The weather was hot but luckily no rain even though there were moments it looked like we were in for it.  Overall the long days were worth it I met a lot of new people, learned a lot about the track, worked with some really nice people, and spent some quality time with a young man from the youth group.  It was great to hang out with him I learned some things and hopefully imparted some to him.

If I were to theme the whole experience it would be one of learning how to separate responsibility (work) from relationship (friendship).  Sometimes we have work to do and apart from friendship we have to get accomplished what is set before us.  This lead to an area of trust and respect which are two thing I value very highly and both where achieved by this time spent with this guy from our youth group.  

Anyways I just wanted to let you know what was up and I will get back into writing tomorrow now that I am free from the Coke Zero 400…

Look any different?

In a world full of choices and options it’s no wonder we are sometimes in the situations we are in.  Speaking with someone today about a recovery class made me realize that there are plenty of people wanting their lives to change or be different but can’t quite get it accomplished.  There are numbers of people flooding the church looking for answers to their problems while still others look elsewhere because the church doesn’t always appear ready to handle it.   I know I’m touching a lot of different subjects here but hang with me. 

I pulled in to Chick-Fil-A my favorite food place and all I could see or imagine was that sweet ice tea large no ice.  I didn’t want any interruptions or anything trying to stand in my way I wanted that tea and I was going to get it.  You know what I am talking about we all have those things that we just have to have or we will go insane.  Well it hit me when my friend said her addiction was potato chips and everyone told her potato chips can’t be an addiction.  Actually yes they can and so can most other things that you can become obsessed with to the point you will do anything to have it and once you have it you must have more.   While we continued to talk I started connecting the feeling of wanting change and not being able to accomplish it with the addiction to stuff.   Maybe the addiction to stuff is because in your time of seeking change you were presented with too many options and made the wrong choice.   Then thinking the choice you made would somehow bring you the change you wanted that when it gives you a false moment of change you became addicted to it because you just had to have more. 

As far as the church is concerned I think a revolution is taking place and that is because there are many of us who finally realized our addiction has been religion and not seeking after a true any cost relationship with God that is personal and not based on anyone else’s ideal or beliefs but from those reveal to us by God Himself because we sought after him on our own.   This type of relationship is where you trust Him with everything including your life and life of those around you.  Where you wake up in the morning and all you crave the most is some one on one time with the Father and it’s still the last thing you think or want before you go to bed at night.  

You see the more you go after God for yourself the more He reveals to you who you are and the more you understand who you are the more you begin to see yourself as Christ like.  Then people will be drawn to you and you can show them how to accomplish this relationship as well for themselves.   See the reason some people don’t turn to the church is because if you’re looking for something different why look for it with people who don’t look any different than you are…

Nicaragua…

Hey everyone check out the team in Nicaragua…Go to my blog roll and click on al force.  You will see pics and read about there exciting trip.  The word is that God moved immensely and lots of lives where saved.  There is also a rumor going around that some of you guys broke out of your shells and allowed God to use you.  Pray that is true it sure appears so.  Don’t past this by take a peek at what is going on in Nicaragua…

Blue Piece of Gum…

Well today started off real cool, I was watching a video with a friend of mine about prayer and my friend noticed a piece of gum I had at my desk that was a big blue ball.  She told me I just have to have one of those do you mind and I thought at first to warn her but then out of curiosity I decided to say yes.  She took the piece of gum put it in her mouth and went off to work.   This gum of course was the infamous 5 minute chew that goes nasty after 5 minutes I know you hear what I’m saying we’ve all had a piece of that gum it use to be called Hubba Bubba.  Well sure enough 5 minutes later I got a text saying wow this turned to rubber and lost its entire flavor.  So I texted her back and said now you know why some times our prayers aren’t answered.  

Isn’t that the way that we see something we really think we want because its enticing to us and can’t wait till we have it.  We sometimes get like that in our prayers as well, we believe we know what’s best or what we need so we pray for God to do it just that way.  Then when it doesn’t happen we start assuming God wasn’t listening or was holding back from giving us what we really wanted like it was some parental stand on authority.   Well realizing that God is God and he knows the beginning from the end it would only lead anyone to believe if you didn’t get it even after you prayed that maybe it was because you weren’t suppose to have it.  Maybe just maybe God knew something you didn’t…You see it was like that with the gum, it looked good and desirable but 5 minutes later it became something else and not something you wanted to keep around.  I just find it funny how we put God in this box of self and blame him for never taking us to the levels we so long to go.  Is it that He doesn’t want us to go or that we feel we are unable to get there so we feel He is unable?  (There is a whole lot to be said here but I will leave that for another time.)  So next time you see a great looking piece of bubble gum and you feel like you just can’t pass it by remember sometimes thing aren’t always what they seem even when they are a Blue Piece of Gum…

If I Could Save Time in a Bottle…

Okay so it’s been awhile and I know it but cut me some slack it’s been quite busy and I have personally been going through some heavy stretching.   Now that is out of the way I can move on…

 

How many of you have a problem saying no?  How many of you ever get to the point to where you feel so overwhelmed you might explode?  Or maybe you feel like if you only find the time to do (this) my whole life would be different?  Well you’re not alone welcome to the club.   I have had more conversations lately on the subject of time and the management of it.  Currently I am working on some ministry concepts, recently felt lead to teach a class in our school, and about 10 chapters into writing a book and all this while working a very busy 40-60hr work week.  Now right off the bat you can see the work week is an area of concern because 40 is acceptable but the extra 20 is probably me saying yes to thing I should have said no to.  While all this is going on I keep asking myself why isn’t anything being completed and where does the time go. (Which of course leads to me get ticked off at others even though the problem lies with me)  I just finished talking to a young man I’m real close to about this time management issue and I jumped into the cheesy “ let write it down and see where all your time goes.”  As we wrote the time spent and the time remaining I realized this gig wasn’t so cheesy after all it actually started putting perspective on things.  Once we figured out where the extra time was we made plans to spend it doing the things we truly desired to do and that was study and zoom in on the things we are aiming for.

     

This entire subject still has to do with learning to say no so you can accomplish the things you already said yes to.  All of us have a destiny and that creates a desire which create mission which requires steps.   Once we have accepted the call on our lives and begin to discover our destiny’s it is up to us to keep our eyes on the prize.  Rob Bell’s latest Nooma series number twenty called Shells is a good teaching on the subject, for those who don’t have these teachings 1. Get them and 2. Get them.  (www.nooma.com ) I will give you a blurb out of this one about his family at the beach collecting shells and his son sees something he really want quite bad and when given permission seems to have some issues acquiring it.  The problem his son states is he can’t grab it because his hand are full of shells.  Wow how many times have we been there?  I was moved by this store because that is where I find myself as well as others around me wanting to do something so bad but because we can’t say no to certain things (time management) we fill ourselves up preventing us from accomplishing anything we want. 

 

I’m sure there will be more on this subject to come so stay tuned.  Remember to share your heart with some near you the you feel you can trust it is amazing how you will discover we are all a lot alike, more than you could imagine.   All this reminded me of a song from some time ago that just seems to fit, “If I could save time in a bottle”…

Vulture Mentality…

God tends to show me things by giving me a visual or allowing me to experience something and then explaining it later. Driving to work the other day I saw the strangest thing and not a moment passed before the teaching began.  As I drove down the road I noticed on the other side of the road a very large cat had become one more specimen of road kill.  Not half a block further I saw a large group of vultures on the side of the road ripping at a small est. 3 or 4 week old carcass.  I found it strange that with such a large menu ½ a road further why they settled for something lesser. 

        You could only imagine the outcome can’t you.  Well my first thought would have been lack of information but I did a search on this unique bird and found their smell abilities are very strong as to located food from high in the air.  That eliminated lack of intel because the two meals were not far apart.  Upon further review I learned that if a vulture thinks an animals hide is to tough to prevent damage to its mouth it will wait for a larger bird to come and rip the hide before feeding.  In addition the birds on feed on dead or severally injured animals’ never healthy ones.

        Now how this can relate to us.  Sometimes even though we know there is something better we will settle for something lesser because it may appear easier or because we went with the rest of the group to fit in.  The fascinating thing to me is how like vultures we will pick something apart for everything its worth even though it’s already dead.  Partly because we thought we weren’t strong enough to go after the healthy stuff.  Our self image is impaired when we look to someone one else abilities to make things easier because we don’t thing we have the ability our selves.  When will we get to the place were we realize it’s not us anyways.

        I look forward to the day when we go after the fresh stuff with everything we have and never once think about our abilities or the thought of trying to stay with the so called in crowd.  You know the day when we seek ye first and trust in Him always.  The day when we die completely to self and allow God to be God in all things not just the ones that are easy and standard or the day when our pea size brains stop trying to put an endless God in a human size box.  The day when we stop having the vulture mentality…

Contained…

So I just want to tell you about a conversation which was short but packed a bunch.  Someone asked me isn’t God great?  My response was so great and yet we try to fit Him in to such a small box.  Who are we and were did we ever get the idea of being able to contain the greatness of an all powerful everything to everyone kind of God. Just a thought for the day!

 

I took my fried Henry’s advice and bought a book called “Stop acting like a Christian and just be one” by Mrs. Caine from Australia.  I’m starting the book tonight and pray it’s all it appears to be. 

 

Well just couldn’t allow the month to start without saying something.  So take a moment and think of the ways you might be trying to contain the one thing that can’t be contained…  Peace Out  

Average to Great…

I watched a movie called Mr. Magorium’s Wonderful Emporium.  Good movie, short and sweet and had an excellent story line and a really first-rate saying.  The story line boiled down to you can have people believe in you and say things like, “your going to be something big one day”, all you want but until you believe for yourself nothing will ever happen.  When you believe, all things are possible. (Sound familiar?)  The saying Mr. M described this phenomenon with is one many have heard before but I’ve never heard it this way.  Life is an opportunity, seize it! (I can’t even try to explain that if you didn’t get it)   Anyways here is my take on the movie.  If you believe in God with all your heart then believe in yourself that through Him all things are possible.  So see the life He gave you as an opportunity and seize it.  This is the very way we turn a life from average to great…

Possession is what percentage…

If you’re even close to the perfectionist that I am this will make so much sense to you.  In my quest to alleviate myself of some of the projects that didn’t necessarily have to be done by me, I learned a lesson about my relationship with God.  Letting things go and not worrying about them are two of the hardest things to do.  After somewhat mastering the letting go part I got even worse at the not worrying part which in turn ruined the letting go part.  What was I worried about anyways?  What I told myself was it was the dumping on others and not fully explaining the process or maybe if I could just coach a little bit we will all be on the same page.  What a joke that wasn’t the case at all.  It wasn’t even that I didn’t trust the person I gave it to it was I just wanted it done the way I had always done it.  Because every perfectionist know my way is best, the most thorough, and the best presented.  Who are we fooling?  After a recent situation where a co-worker called me on this very topic I realized what I was doing.  You don’t ever see it with your own eyes it has to be pointing out by someone else.  Once I realized I was handing things off and then turning around and taking them back the light went on.  This is my relationship with God as well.  I say total surrender to His will and place my life in His hands trusting everything will go according to His plan.  Then the minute I feel things aren’t going as I planned or the way would have done them I start taking back.  As if for some strange reason I could actually handle it better than God Himself.  What arrogance we as humans have that we can trust Him for breakthroughs, wisdom, knowledge, provision, healing, peace, joy, and so much more but the second things aren’t the way we think they should be we start second guessing the ability of the all mighty.  This is not a word of condemnation but of self awareness.  When do we/I get to the place were we can say total surrender and actually stick to it and trust God with every situation, every second of every minute of every hour of the day.  The saying is possession is nine tenths of the law, but in this situation possession is everything, you either take possession yourself or give it to God.  Take a moment and inventory every area of your life while asking the question, “Possession is what percentage?”

Timing is everything…

Just a quick note because I know it has been awhile.  I recently blogged about doing a Daniel fast and that I was being specific with what I was seeking from God.  Well it hasn’t been that long and already I’m seeing some breakthroughs that I was praying for.  It struck me funny that just before that latest developement took place I recieved a negative report on a seperate issue I was praying about.  I stood firm and just knew in my heart that God had it under control and I would come out on top of this thing.  Not only did things turn around in that situation but as you can tell things broke in other areas as well.  I know I’m being vague but I will need to spend some time and explain later.  Just remember don’t get discourage over anything that you have truly turned over to God or over things He has promised you.  Timing is everything…