Faith

You May Want to Dig That Hole a Little Deeper

by Andy Wood on March 11, 2009

in Consumers, Enlarging Your Capacity, Five LV Laws, LV Alter-egos, LV Cycle, Principle of Abundance

digging I heard a funny story recently about a lady with certain-colored hair, who was in a desperate financial condition. The details are a little hazy, but here goes:

She knelt down beside her bed and prayed, “Oh God, please help me win the lottery. If I don’t win the lottery, they’re coming to cut my power off.” She didn’t win the lottery, and her power was cut off. She prayed again to win the lottery to avoid losing her car. She didn’t win the lottery, and her car was repossessed. A third time she prayed to win the lottery. This time, the bank foreclosed on her house. She prayed again, frustrated and angry. “If this is how you treat your children, I’ll never pray again.”

About that time, there was a knock at the door. She opened it to find a stranger. “I have a message from the Lord,” the stranger said. “Would you PLEASE buy a ticket”?

We serve a God who is capable of doing “far more abundantly above all we could ever ask or think” (Ephesians 3:30). But He insists that somehow we get involved in the process.

Two Candidates for a Miracle

This is illustrated in back-to-back stories in 2 Kings 3-4. Two different people summoned the prophet Elisha. The first was the king of Israel, whose army was dehydrated and facing sure defeat. The second was the widow of a prophet, who was facing the loss of her sons to slavery to pay off her creditor.

Elisha advised similar things. [click to continue…]

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

The Truth Within

by Andy Wood on March 5, 2009

in Ability, Gamblers, Life Currency, LV Alter-egos, Tense Truths

Tense Truth: God gives you desires you can never satisfy and makes demands you can never fulfill. He then goes about bridging the gap, doing for you what you can never do for yourself. Your primary responsibility is to trust Him to be Himself – to rest in His faithfulness.

++++++++++++++++++++++

Have you ever felt like God was somehow playing a joke on you? You hear people talking about being forgiven, and you feel guilty for, well, feeling guilty. You read the stories about miracle-working power, and wonder why you got left at the station. You learn more and are less happy; work harder, but feel weaker. You’ve learned to speak “Christianese” and go through the motions, but sometimes you just feel like a fraud.

What if I were to tell you that God has a glorious answer? Something more liberating than a self-improvement project or yet another string of self-disappointments?

David’s Truth Discovery

For nearly a year, David had played the role. The psalmist of Israel, the beloved king, had gone through the motions, mouthed the words, and tipped his hat to the man he once was. Very few knew people the real story: David was just a shell of the man he once had been. [click to continue…]

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

How Abundantly Are You Planting?

by Andy Wood on February 24, 2009

in Executing Your Plan, Five LV Laws, LV Cycle, Principle of Abundance

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).

+++++++++++++++++++++++

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…]

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

What if Your Biggest Hindrance to Abundance Was God?

by Andy Wood on January 28, 2009

in Five LV Laws, Principle of Abundance

loving-father God wants us to get it. We typically don’t.

We want to have it. We often won’t.

God says, if you don’t get it, you won’t have it. And you can’t have it just by going out and getting it. You have to… well, get it, first.

Get it?

I think I’ll start over.

Jesus told a variety of stories that present God as a wealthy landowner with servants. These include the laborers in the vineyard, the wheat and the tares, the talents, the landowner, and the vine-growers. The common theme that runs through each story is that humans fail to understand the heart of the One who owns it all. To God, the relationship always is more important than the “stuff.”

Get it?

The laborers in the vineyard didn’t. Our friend the hoarder didn’t. The vine-growers sure didn’t get it. And while we’re keeping score, neither did the Prodigal Son or his pouting older sibling.

They all missed it.

Somehow they all got it in their head that God was holding back, unfair, mean, scary, selfish, whatever. They became so hung up in the grapes and the goats, they missed it.

And lost it.

Because they didn’t get it. [click to continue…]

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

I Gave God Time

by Andy Wood on January 19, 2009

in Life Currency, LV Cycle, LV Stories, Time, Waiting

(For once. Sort of. Actually, I didn’t have much of a choice.)

The house was quiet, as it usually is at 4:30 a.m. I was awake, stretched out on my face on the living room floor. I’d been studying the life of Abraham. I’d been studying my life, too. It was Fall 1997.

Two years earlier, I’d been through a “crash and burn” experience, followed by a difficult, but amazing healing and restoration process. Through it all, I had a more intimate relationship with the Lord, a greater marriage than ever, and an awesome relationship with my kids. I was serving on the staff of an exciting, dynamic church. Just one thing was missing.

“Lord,” I asked. “When will I get to be a senior pastor again?”

There as I prayed, Abraham’s faith became mine, and I received the freedom and faith to enter into new territory with the Lord.

“You haven’t told me what kind of church you want,” I heard Him say.

The faith began to rise, and I began to write: [click to continue…]

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

What if It All Depended on Jesus?

by Andy Wood on January 16, 2009

in Ability, Five LV Laws, Hoarders, Life Currency, LV Alter-egos, Principle of Abundance

Help Wanted: Branches

Master of the Universe, a firm dedicated to establishing change agencies throughout the world and providing eternal dwelling places for an undisclosed number of people, is seeking branches on which to conduct its fruit-bearing strategy. Generous benefit package. Unlimited positions available to trusting and trustworthy candidates. No previous experience necessary. Will train the right candidate(s). (Please note: No advancement possible. This is an entry- and exit-level position. The other two positions – Vine and Gardener – have been permanently filled.)

++++++++++++++++++++++++

Stop doing God’s job. Not only is it unnecessary, it’s ridiculous. And believe me, when you try to solve God-sized problems with man-sized vision and wisdom, you will be ridiculed.

So, following up from the last post, how DO we approach situations, opportunities, challenges, and problems that are larger than we are?

You approach them like a branch would. [click to continue…]

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Why Haven’t You Won the Lottery Yet?

by Andy Wood on December 10, 2008

in Ability, Enlarging Your Capacity, Five LV Laws, Hoarders, Insight, Life Currency, LV Alter-egos, LV Cycle, Money, Principle of Abundance

Why do you have the resources, abilities, relationships and intelligence that you do? Why do you lack the brain, the pain, the financial gain that others have?

It all comes back to the Trust.

What you “have” isn’t yours any more than what somebody else “has” is theirs. It all – even your life – belongs to God. He purchased it completely with the death and resurrection of His Son. But He has entrusted the management decisions to you. Incidentally, the primary management decision you must make is what you will do with the death and resurrection of His Son!

Jesus’ story of the talents illustrates the point. (You can read my paraphrase/summary here.) Each of the servants received part of the master’s possessions to manage for him while he was away. That represents your life and all it entails. [click to continue…]

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

The Language of Surrender… and Freedom

by Andy Wood on December 1, 2008

in Enlarging Your Capacity, Exploring the Possibilities, Five LV Laws, Hoarders, Insight, Life Currency, LV Alter-egos, LV Cycle, LV Stories, Principle of Freedom, Principle of Legacy

I don’t have to win.

I don’t have to lead.

I don’t have to debt.

I don’t have to worry.

I don’t have to be first.

I don’t have to survive.

I don’t have to give up.

I don’t have to overeat.

I don’t have to be right.

I don’t have to succeed.

I don’t have to be afraid.

I don’t have to get angry.

I don’t have to be served.

I don’t have to look good.

I don’t have to be noticed.

I don’t have to cradle pain.

I don’t have to have things.

I don’t have to be offended.

I don’t have to be stressed.

I don’t have to feel rejected.

I don’t have to procrastinate.

I don’t have to resist change.

I don’t have to be depressed.

I don’t have to defend myself.

I don’t have to always say yes.

I don’t have to spend all I earn.

I don’t have to hide my failures.

I don’t have to control outcomes.

I don’t have to get instant results.

I don’t have to hide from the truth.

I don’t have to hide from intimacy.

I don’t have to harbor resentment.

I don’t have to feel sorry for myself.

I don’t have to judge others’ motives.

I don’t have to blame myself or others.

I don’t have to be thanked for what I do.

I don’t have to take counsel of my fears.

I don’t have to crave words of affirmation.

I don’t have to repeat destructive behavior.

I don’t have to compare myself with others.

I don’t have to criticize weakness in others.

I don’t have to envy the blessings of others.

I don’t have to live in the shadow of my past.

I don’t have to spend money to impress others.

I don’t have to see every (or any) expectation fulfilled.

(I’m sure there’s plenty more I’ll discover. How about you? What does your language of surrender/freedom sound like?)

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Can You Give Thanks for What You Have Yet to See?

by Andy Wood on November 25, 2008

in 100 Words

There are two ways to say, “Thank you” – thanksgiving by sight, and thanksgiving by faith.

One counts the blessings; one anticipates them.

One traces the path with hindsight; the other blazes the path with foresight.

One leads gently to humility; one calls boldly to expect.

One looks back and connects the dots; the other looks ahead and creates a destiny.

No one expects a “thank you” before the gift is received.

Precisely.

That’s why thanksgiving by faith wields such power. While sight recognizes our many blessings, faith lays hold of a covenant-keeping God.

Give thanks…

By sight.

By faith.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

A Love That Redeems

by Andy Wood on November 11, 2008

in Life Currency, Love, LV Cycle, LV Stories, Waiting

You’ll want to read this story… because it’s yours in some way.

Do not fret because of evil men
or be envious of those who do wrong;

What do you do when you’ve done everything you know to do? What do you do when your tried-and-true system, which has worked before, doesn’t work this time? How do you respond when God makes a promise and you’ve seen it fulfilled – but this time it doesn’t seem to be “working?”

Trust in the Lord and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

They’ll laugh when they read this, but I sometimes call Kaye and Mark, whom I love very much, Barbie and Ken. From a distance, they have a storybook life that looks like an 8×10 glossy. Kaye was a Baylor Beauty; Mark was a quarterback/safety for Frank Broyles’ University of Arkansas football teams. They married, settled in Little Rock, and had four beautiful children.

Delight yourself in the Lord
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Mark and Kaye weren’t just church wallflowers. [click to continue…]

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →

Faith