Executing Your Plan

I want to take you to a place where, frankly, we aren’t invited.  For just a minute, let’s be one of “those” people we often gripe about – those rubberneckers on the highway, who seem fascinated with somebody else’s messes.  

In this case, we’re creeping up to a closed bedroom door, where on the other side, we can hear muffled sobs. 

A man’s sobs.

A few days ago, somebody from home had rocked his world.  The news was bad, and every ounce of optimism he once had was crushed.

You should have been here yesterday.  He was really blubbering then.  And he will be again tomorrow.  Fasting, too.  And praying.  Lots of praying. 

But as he cries and prays and cries and fasts and cries some more, something happens.  [click to continue…]

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So Send I WHO?

by Andy Wood on November 18, 2009

in Executing Your Plan, LV Cycle, Tense Truths

map and time

(Tense Truth:  The perfect truth of the gospel was placed into the hands of a group of people whose lives were a complete mess.  Jesus knew this, but commissioned them anyway.)

Picture the scene in that upper room on the day of the Resurrection.  Rumors and testimonies are flying!  A strange mixture of fear, joy, and disbelief.  Suddenly, according to John’s account, the Lord Jesus appears and says, “Peace to you; as the Father has sent me, so I’m sending you” (John 20:21). 

Hello and head out!  Victory and a vision.  A Conqueror with a commission.  And now these disciples would duplicate on earth what was first transacted in heaven.  “The Father sent me.  In the same way, I am sending you.” 

But wait a minute.  Before we glory in our visions of Pentecost, it would do us good to remember who it was the Lord was talking to.  So send I . . . WHO?  [click to continue…]

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I’ve long since retired, my son’s moved away
I called him up just the other day
I said, “I’d like to see you if you don’t mind”
He said, “I’d love to, Dad, if I can find the time
You see my new job’s a hassle and kids have the flu
But it’s sure nice talking to you, Dad
It’s been sure nice talking to you”

And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me
He’d grown up just like me
My boy was just like me

-Harry Chapin, “Cat’s in the Cradle”

reading letterHe’s an old man now.  His physical vision is virtually gone; his heartbeat will soon follow.  His spiritual vision?  That’s another story.  It’s still bright and filled with fire and hope.  But it’s a vision that now sees through the eyes of other men.  He has no children of his own, but does have a relationship with a man who may as well be.  He’s one of those blessed individuals who knows his time is up, and who faces eternity with no regrets.  And now he writes the man he calls his son in the faith.  His future looks bright; he can only pray the same for Tim. 

Stand steady, and don’t be afraid of suffering for the Lord. Bring others to Christ. Leave nothing undone that you ought to do. I say this because I won’t be around to help you very much longer. My time has almost run out. Very soon now I will be on my way to heaven. I have fought long and hard for my Lord, and through it all I have kept true to him. And now the time has come for me to stop fighting and rest (2 Timothy 4:5-7, LB).

 A decade before I became a father myself, Harry Chapin sucker-slapped dads everywhere.  [click to continue…]

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backwards clock“So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so much in retrospect, that the amount of each person’s genius is confined to a very few hours.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Whatever happened to Green Stamps?  They’re an indelible memory of my childhood.  In case you missed it, the Sperry & Hutchinson Company, began offering stamps to retailers back in 1896. Grocery stores, gas stations and the like bought the stamps from S&H and gave them as bonuses with every purchase, based on the amount you bought.  In their heyday, 80 percent of U.S. households collected some kind of stamp.

My sister and I grew up licking green stamps and pasting them in books.  When the A&P bag began filling up with completed books, we started getting excited.  We’d peer at the two pages of toys in the S&H catalogue, surrounded by page after page of sheets, clocks, toasters, and other boring things.  (Truth be told, you could get virtually anything with stamps; a school in Erie, Pennsylvania, exchanged 5.4 million stamps for two gorillas for the local zoo.)

Anyway, when we had collected enough to make the trade, we’d go off to the Redemption Center.  Technically, we’d already “bought” the stuff.  We were presenting evidence of our purchase (the stamps) in order to redeem – to buy back – our merchandise.

This is not about Green Stamps, but about redeeming.  About buying back something that already belongs to you – namely your opportunities and your time.  [click to continue…]

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wishful thinking“I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!” -1 Corinthians 9:22-23, The Message

I’ve devoted a lot of time to a life powered by wishful thinking.  With that came a lot of declaring about what I was going to do, and by when.  Those lists I referred to in the last post even contain a pretty crazy collection of audacious plans.  Just one problem.  Some of them are lifetime pursuits, and I still haven’t started the chase.

Setting goals or writing down wish lists is a bit like writing a check.  [click to continue…]

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grasshopperThis week a friend sent me a poignant and compelling image that describes what it’s like to live in a climate or with a spirit of fear.  But the image is so strong, I think it describes anybody who feels as though they are in a no-win situation.

I feel like a grasshopper on the ocean hanging onto a leaf.  I cling to the leaf to keep from drowning.  If I eat the leaf to keep from starving, I lose my life preserver, and drown.

I’ll tell you later what he learned in the process.  But can you relate? [click to continue…]

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fox-and-rabbitWhat gets you to mash on the gas?  To run, not walk.  What gets you to turn off the TV, marshal all your forces, or move to the front of the line – even if you, like me, are a procrastinator?

There, I admitted it.  I’m one of those people who dances with deadlines and lives by the motto, “Only do today what you can’t put off until tomorrow.”

But that doesn’t mean I never hurry.  (After all, even the hare hurried when he woke up from his nap and found out he was losing to a tortoise.)

Yesterday I got a kick in the quick.  It wasn’t so much a Jesus-jab in my procrastinating rear end as it was a moment of conviction that really captured my attention.  More on that in a minute.  As a result of God’s little attention-getter, I did some thinking.  I’d like you to do the same:  What do you hurry to do?

My Hurry Points

I found five things that get me to “grab a gear.”  [click to continue…]

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thailand-7In the previous post I talked about the principle of planting abundantly.  Today I want to tell you about somebody who did it.

I married an MK.  That’s “missionary’s kid,” in case you’re uninitiated.  It was enough of a culture shock to marry a Texan, but to say “I do” to somebody who could have repeated her vows in Thai if she wanted was really special.  For 26 years I have heard the stories, met most of the major players, and lived vicariously through the memories, the loves, and the laughter of a family whose lives are invested to this day in Jesus’ mandate to take the gospel to the world.

All of that came calling the day after Christmas 2004.  To this day Robin refers to the event as if it were a proper name – an evil killer who has somehow become an unwanted part of the family.

His name:  Tsunami. [click to continue…]

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planting“Our behavior, attitudes, and initiatives toward others are an act of sowing.  The acts of others toward us, at least in a general sense, are an act of reaping.  If others are being critical, judgmental, or hostile to us, before we write them off as uncaring jerks, it may be wise to examine what we’ve been sowing in our own attitudes and relationships.  If we aren’t seeing generosity being returned, maybe we haven’t been giving.”

-from my journal, January 10, 2001

Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others – ignoring God! – harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life (Galatians 6:7-8, The Message).

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Sometimes when the Lord wants to tell me something significant, he opens my eyes.

Sometimes he closes them.  Literally.  And speaks to me through a dream.

A few years ago I was on an airplane, reading about how God reveals himself through dreams, and I decided to see if the Lord had anything to say to me in that manner.  That night in the hotel room, I asked him to speak to me through my dreams, and I “instructed” my brain to remember.

Remember I did.  Clearly.  Vividly.  Unforgettably. [click to continue…]

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Another saint doing battle with the powers of darkness

“Arose.”

Fascinating word.  Occurs 173 times in the New American Standard Bible.  Nearly always, something interesting, if not transforming, follows.

Jesus uber-arose, as I hope you know.  As in, from the dead.

Abraham arose, too, as in from the bed.

Jacob arose, and bugged out of town.

A new king arose in Egypt, and things got ugly for Jacob’s descendents.

Moses arose and went up the mountain.

Balaam arose and got up on his donkey.

Arose is the difference between sleeping and moving.  Between sitting and acting.

Arose changes things. [click to continue…]

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