For all the ones who wouldn’t give up on me
When I would have given up on myself…
For the ones who modeled patience
As they gave and gave me the gift of waiting…
Thank you for showing the sweetest of love.
For everyone who saw what I saw before I saw it –
The many changes I need to make in me…
For everyone who showed me grace
When they found me stuck in my own stubbornness…
Thank you for showing the sweetest of love. [click to continue…]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
I will give You thanks with all my heart;
I will sing praises to You before the gods (Psalm 138:1)
Gratitude is not for the half-hearted.
It’s all-in…mind, will, and emotions.
And it’s a choice, regardless of our current state. [click to continue…]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
I love photography for two reasons. First, I love capturing light and images and special moments that I can share and re-live. The one to the left is a recent sample.
Second, taking pictures puts me on the right side of the camera. As long as I can stay away from that nosy lens, I can imagine that I actually look the way I do when I look at myself in the mirror. No awkward angles. No unflattering poses. No ruthless inventory of how I really look.
The same kind of thing happens in the spiritual realm. There are plenty of ways to pose so that we get a flattering, but dishonest look at ourselves. That’s unhealthy for two reasons. First, it can put us in denial of something that can really hurt us in the long run. Second, it can produce shame that blinds us to our great, great value to God and to the world.
How would you like a strategy for taking an honest inventory of your heart and soul?
Wait.
Maybe I should phrase that a different way…
Do you need a strategy for taking an honest inventory of your heart and soul? I don’t really care whether you want it or not.
Here are eight questions that can turn the lights on in your spiritual life. They can be used alone or together. You can go through them in 15 minutes, or an hour, or an entire day. The questions are based on Paul’s energetic series of charges to the Thessalonians:
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies. Test all things; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil (1 Thessalonians 5:16-22).
Take a few minutes or however long you can. Get alone with a journal, legal pad, or an electronic tablet and write down some notes based on your first response to these questions: [click to continue…]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Brandi is a student in upstate New York. She introduced herself by saying, “I am a little bit of a new health nut, and love exercise, hiking and biking… I also have a serious love for candy, totally in contradiction to my healthy side.”
Then she adds this pearl: “But hey, everyone has to have something they irrationally love.”
I love it! And I think she’s on to something. When everything in your life is reduced to what you can fit inside a logical, predictable box, it’s time to check some vital signs.
Charge to 20… Clear!
Sure, integrity and authenticity have their places – hugely important places. But if there isn’t something that drives you on, keeps you up at night, fills your conversations, or fires your passion to the point that people think you’re just a little stubborn, obsessed or crazy, you need CPR (That’s Cardio-Passion Resuscitation). [click to continue…]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Sort-of-random thoughts from going over the river and through those woods for Thanksgiving…
When the weather report is rain-free and the only wind that is blowing is in your face as you’re roaming through the pasture on a hayless hay ride, that’s a sign you’re having a good week.
I wonder what would happen if there was a new global holiday and the whole world got to swing as high as they could on a swing that is big enough to hold lots of different people. Maybe people would be less on your case and more at your side. It works for little kids – why not big ones?
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
He may have never fired a shot in battle.
But a nation slept peacefully last night because he grabbed a rifle and stood his post.
She may have been criticized for serving an unpopular cause or occupying a non-traditional role.
But thousands of voices are free to cry out – even in criticism – because she does her duty. [click to continue…]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
How many times have you heard or said something like this:
These and many more are expressions of a strained or dysfunctional fellowship. And if you’ve ever been part of the church scene or had any experience with Christ followers for any length of time, more than likely you’ve landed there. Which reminds me…
Somebody once asked, “Pray for me. I’m surrounded by non-believers every day at work.”
My reply: “Pray for me – I’m surrounded by Christians every day!”
Is it any wonder that Jesus’ one explicit prayer request for this generation was that we would be one, so that the world would believe in Him (John 17:20-21)? So, Phil, how’s that workin’ out for ya’? [click to continue…]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Oh happiness, there’s grace,
Enough for us and the whole human race
-David Crowder
Sometimes we just make it more complicated than it should be… than it has to be. Can you relate?
We’ve long ago learned that money and things don’t buy it, though that doesn’t seem to stop us from trying.
Technology promises to serve it up, but that server keeps crashing… hard. Of course, that won’t stop us from lining up for the next iThingy when it comes out (complete with a three-year service plan and a monthly charge).
Love? Can’t love do it? Sure, depending on whose definition you’re talking about. Honestly, most people’s definition of love would complicate a two-car funeral or reduce the rest of the world to service providers. And can you really be happy when the people around you are so miserable trying to keep you satisfied?
Yeah, I know. It’s complicated.
We’re like the parents of that preschooler who just spent hundreds on that latest gotta-have-it toy with its techno-wizardry, who are mystified that the kid just wants to play with the box. And he’s having a blast with the box, while the exasperated parents keep shoving this strange, noisy thing in his face trying to get him to be happy.
Most of us, though, have trained ourselves to look past the simple source of creative imagination (the box) and demand that the latest products or people provide us the happiness we demand. And we never quite arrive at what’s advertised… at least not for very long.
Maybe we’re looking in the wrong place. Maybe it’s time to go back to the box. Maybe it’s time to unplug – to go from “batteries not included” to “no purchase necessary.”
Maybe it’s time to rediscover the beauty of Simple Happiness. And you’ll find it: [click to continue…]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
No one prepared me for how empty the Emptiness could be…
How vain the attempts would be
To fill it with things and times and feelings
That were never designed to satisfy.
It was like dropping feathers into the Grand Canyon…
Always wishing for a little more time and a little less wind.
(A few more feathers would be nice, too.)
But I would never have known the deep satisfaction
That only Your love could provide,
Had I not known the void created by a life
I tried to fill on my own terms.
But I know now I’m loved
With a love that fills deeply and completely.
And in this satisfied life… I’ve been blessed. [click to continue…]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
UPDATE: The giveaway has been moved to Tuesday, May 29. (Forgot it was Memorial Day Weekend.)
(Shameless Plug: Be watching Sunday, May 27, for our first-ever prize giveaway.)
The Thanksgiving holiday is still a long way off. The turkeys are still strutting around the barnyard as if life will go on forever.
Nobody’s playing football on TV, though I did hear that Peyton has started working out with his new team and somebody else has joined the sue-the-NFL club.
School is out this week in a lot of places, so maybe families will be getting together for the Memorial Day Weekend holiday. But I fear as a nation we’re just as thankless on Memorial Day as we typically are on the fourth Thursday in November.
So. Since nobody’s going around the table making you share what you’re thankful for, what are you thankful for? Since you haven’t eaten yourself into a ‘bout-to-pop stupor, what are you thankful for? Since nobody is having a pre-Christmas sale right now (that I know of), what are you thankful for? [click to continue…]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }