How Can I Pray?

How can I pray for you today? You can be specific or generic, it doesn't matter. What matters is lifting up our petitions and praise to God. Let me know.

An Open Hand

A picture thought went through my head today that wasn't really profound, but it sure was telling about life in general. It was a picture of a clinched fist. Isn't there so much agony when you think about a fist holding on to something so tightly, that whatever the contents may be, begin slipping out of the cracks in the fist? For many reasons I think we all find ourselves living life like this. We are constantly holding on for dear life to the things we have, or even holding on to control the things we want so much. In the end, we find ourselves losing the more precious things in life than that which we were holding onto in the first place. For example, many people give up time with their family to climb the corporate ladder, financial health for keeping up with the Joneses, emotional health for harboring bitterness towards another, and on and on.

It's this very kind of life where God calls gently asking us to let go and let Him be in control. What would happen if your life turned out differently than you planned? What would happen if you didn't get that big fancy house? What would happen if you didn't drive that nice shiny dream car? What would happen if instead you found a true joy and fulfillment beyond anything you could produce through your own effort?

While I try to run from the obvious sometimes, it seems to me, the riches of God's promises far outweigh anything I could ever produce for myself or by myself. I want to put a shout out to a friend tonight for reminding me of this very thought. God sustains us even when we cannot sustain ourselves, even when all the things around us seem dismal and downright ugly. Yet the abundant joy promised to us in John 10:10 is only there for us when we truly open our hand, receive the gift, give it away and keep it open for God to continue to pour more joy into it.

A closed hand receives nothing, but eventually loses everything. An open hand receives everything, gives it away, and receives more.

Life

So I haven't written in a week because I've been out of town and sick. I'm feeling better now, but today is a very curious day for some reason. I'm struggling. I'm struggling with a zillion questions going through my head about how things are supposed to work out in the future. Which way do I go? Do I even know what to look at or what I'm supposed to do? I just don't know. One day I feel I'm at the cusp of making a good decision, the next day I'm out in the wilderness lost.

Kristi and I recently found out we will be having a second baby. YEAH! I'm excited that our family is going to expand because I absolutely adore my little boy and hopeful that he will have a little playmate now. But the responsibility in me shutters at the thought of what this will do to our family financially. I know everyone else is or has gone through what I am feeling right now at this point, but for the most part I feel very alone. Are we going to make it? Do we need to sell our house? What does that mean about saving for retirement? College education funds? Like I said, a zillion thoughts are going through my mind. And then to top it all off, I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up.

I have a great job, work with great people, and have a bright future if I'm willing to just be patient, learn and work hard. I even have several alternative paths, any of which my employer will help me get there. But is it what I want to do with my life? In 2001, I made the decision to leave seminary to pursue a different career in order to take care of my new wife and our financial responsibilities. I think about this decision a lot. I don't think a day goes by I wonder what my life would be like if I had stayed put and finished my degree. Would it have been different? Should it have been different? These are questions I ponder over wondering if I made the wrong decision or wondering if I'm right where I'm supposed to be. Today, I can say confidently, I just don't know.

There is a side of me that believes ministry is the only thing that would bring me true happiness in fulfilling what I'm supposed to do with my life. Then, there is the other side of me that says I'm taking care of what I'm responsible for. I've been in ministry, and frankly, it's no cake walk. And then, there is the reality of the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence. While things always look greener from here, sometimes they are just the mirage of the water in the desert. Only when you make the journey to it, it turns out you were better off where you were. This is my struggle. What I thought was up is down and what I thought was down is up.

Sometimes I wish I could just go back to high school or college and do it all over again. I know I would make better decisions. But would I really? Would any of us make better decisions? I don't have time to play the what if games as my reality sits in front of me screaming in my face. How should I answer?

The Highway

If you've ever driven on a North Dallas highway, you know what a pain it can be, especially during rush hour. Drivers late for work swerving in and out of traffic is a common scene. Well, this morning I was driving down the North Dallas Tollway approaching the toll booth, when all of a sudden this BMW pulls right in front of the car in front of me. There was no room for a car there, but this guy thought it was necessary to fit his nice shiny BMW into this tiny gap. Of course the car in front of me had to slam on their brakes and thus the chain of cause and effect begins. Thankfully, there wasn't anyone rear ending each other in this case. But I have to say, there is a welling up of anger in the soul that happens at this point. For me, all I could think of, if that guy pulled in front of me like that he would of gotten a full face of Colonel Sanders chicken (the bird that is, or a bucket of birds).

It's amazing to me when faced with daily life how a natural response like this seems to just rear it's ugly head. Is it a big deal? Probably not, but it's a reminder of what comes out of the mouth is an overflow of the heart.

There is a verse of Scripture that came to my mind as I continued to drive to work this morning. Proverbs 14:12 says, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death." I am reminded how much I am in need of transformation through God's grace and wisdom. A natural response, or shall we say giving the bird to my fellow drivers, just shows that God isn't finished with molding me into His likeness. Now all I have to do is take a deep breath, calm down and remember, what seems natural to me leads to the opposite of what God wants for my life.

Homework Part 2

So I made you wait a day to finish this thought. Here's the rest....

What are these principles needed to raise spiritually healthy children? First we must build a foundation to stand on. This involves making loving relationships our priority. It's like a chain. The first link in the chain is our relationship with God. We must be connected in a loving relationship with God in order to attach loving relationships to us. It also allows us to emulate a loving relationship with our children. When our foundational relationship is set on God's command to love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, it becomes easier to view our children like He views us. And we can pass on this love to our children. A wholehearted relationship with God is the foundation for all subsequent relationships.

Secondly, we must model God's love and laws. Here's a statement for you: You can't pass down to children what you don't have. All I have to say is ouch, that's a condemning statement. If we don't have love, and can't model it to our children, our children won't be able to model love. Here's a story to illustrate the point. My father's way of handling conflict was to run away. I remember when my mom and him got in a fight one day. The next thing I know, he's out of the house and I didn't see him for 3 hours. When he came home, he had spent about $2k on computers and such to make himself feel better. Here's my point, is that what I want my child to understand how I deal with conflict? My story isn't about showing love, but nonetheless, I struggle today with the need to run away from conflict because it is what was modeled to me as a boy. Our children are little imitators and what is modeled to them is most likely how they will act, think, etc when they get older. If we don't choose to model God's love to them, how will they be able to love God and others?

Finally, we must continually teach them and incorporate God's laws into our lives and the lives of our kids. Every day we have an opportunity to instruct our kids how to act, how to swim, how to dance, how to brush their teeth, how to read a book, and how to ride a bike. These things are wonderful chances to spend time with our kids and they love it just as much as we do. So why not spend some time teaching them about God and His desires for our lives? We can do it anywhere and anytime. In the grocery store, at a restaurant, in the park, watching TV, or as we are tucking them into bed. Every opportunity is a chance to point out and talk about (assuming they can talk) God's desires for our lives. This is what Deut 6 is teaching us. We must make God's laws apart of the daily lives our children.

If we follow this, we can impact generations of our offspring. Our children will teach our grandchildren, and they will teach our great-grandchildren, and so-on. That's a pretty awesome thought. Let's encourage one another to effect our future generations through diligent homework and simples lessons now.

Children will follow us anywhere, we just have to make the choice to lead them in the right direction. To listen to the sermon, visit Preston Trail Podcasts and click on Homework.

Homework

If you read my recent post entitled Heaven or Harvard, you know that my church started a sermon series on Parenting. Today, the sermon was entitled "Homework", and the question was asked, "What do you really want for your child?"

Deuteronomy 6:1-9 says, "1 These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. 3 Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you. 4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. [a] 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates."

Verses 1-3 give us a basis of God's desires for our life. First, God loves us and wants us to live a long joyous life. But let's be honest about something, just because God wants us to live a life full of joy, doesn't mean everything will be perfect and easy. Secondly, to guide us in our life, God has given us boundries to live our life within. These boundries are meant for our good. Unfortunately, we still battle with wrong choices resulting in unintended consequences, or we are swept up in the consequences of others' wrong choices. This is a reality of life. And last, when we choose to follow God's commands we are invited to partake in the great promises of God. God's promises are true. When we obey Him, he allows us to experience the fruits of His promises. Then we are able to live a life of joy.

So how does this apply to parenting? If we are to raise spiritually healthy children we must choose to incorporate several principles into our life. Stay tuned....

Living Faith Part 2

Yesterday, my mind was spinning with all the ideas and thoughts from the previous day's conversation about Christianity. Maybe it's was more of a personal evaluation of where I feel I am today, and hopefully a challenge to grow in my own faith.

If I had to really take a look at how I lived out my faith today, I would be more on the traditional side. It's easier! It's easier to be more focused on my own holiness and relationship with God because that means I only have to study on my own, attend church on Sundays, pray in private, etc. This point of view hasn't forced me to do anything with anyone else if I don't want too. Basically, I can make a routine, and boy am I in a routine right now, check off my "duties" and that's it.

Anyone who knows me knows that I would do anything for you and I'm not afraid to share my faith with someone who is interested. But I don't go out of my way to do it. I don't just start talking to someone for the sake of talking to them about the Lord. It's just not my personality. I don't want to be intrusive in people's lives. I do hope that my life is a reflection of God in some way so that people will say, "hey you are a good person tell me why", and I'll get a chance to share with them about Christ. Well, as far back as I can remember, that has never happened to me. Just living a good life and checking off the duties of a Christian don't seem to work very well in a world where relativism abounds. No one seems to care as long as you don't get in their way.

This forces me into the realization that something is missing. If I can't share Christ with people by waiting for them to come "see my good life", then maybe I need to do something that makes a difference in their life. Then I might actually earn the right to share my faith with people.

I really like Kyle Sears comment about balance in the last post. We can't just be doing the do's and not do the don'ts of faith. It takes getting messy from time to time to actually serve others for the cause of Christ. When I was in seminary, it annoyed me to no end how many guys would sit around and talk/debate all day about the matters of theology. I do understand we need to be grounded in what we believe, but it seems crazy to me to waste so much time arguing over ideas that will never serve any purpose to helping others.

So today I'm challenged to take a fresh approach. A more balanced approach in my walk with God. While it's very important to be holy, it's also very important for the holiness to manifest itself in serving others through living faith. Now, I just need to figure out how....

Living Faith

I wanted to expound on a dialogue from a another blog from today. Please read Kyle Sears blog and comments for the basis of my thoughts.

Today we discussed the idea of two schools of thought. On the one side, a Christian is a Bible-toting, church-going, evangelizing, righteousness-reaching, rule-abiding citizen. On the other side, a Christian is a people-serving, relational-focusing, home-group attending, buck-the-rule-living citizen. Now, please understand that I'm being extreme on purpose to make my point clearly. There are many crossovers between the traditional church and the emerging church. They are both reaching for the same goal. And bringing people to an understanding of faith and relationship with Jesus Christ and growing disciples is that very goal.

But what would happen if we looked towards a marrying of the two ways of doing church? The point was made by Kyle in his comments that Jerry Falwell had a polarizing effect on this country and possibly the world. People disliked him for this, but he knew what he believed and wasn't ashamed of it. An interesting statement was made at his funeral, "He could look you in your face and totally disagree with you, but you knew he loved you." On the other hand, U2's Bono, who is living out his faith by combating poverty in Africa, has a polarizing effect on those who tend to lean towards piety more than a service-oriented faith. This we would categorize as the "social gospel". People dislike him because this is a messier way of living out one's faith.

It seems clear to me, Jesus had a polarizing effect during his day in both words and deeds. He talked to people right where they were. Today, we would probably turn and walk away saying "what a jerk to talk to me like that!" But he also ate with tax collectors and sinners who in reality, would be unwelcome in many of our churches today because of the mess they would make.

So what's my point? Here it is...A Christian is someone who can draw a line in the sand on faith and say "this is my faith", while at the same time taking the shirt off their own back and giving it away. Sounds easy huh? Well, I think reality would tell a different story. We are all different, and we all have different gifts to bring to the table. This is the exact thing Paul wrote to the believers in Corinth in 1 Corinthians 12. We are one body, with many gifts. These gifts manifest themselves in different ways. They manifest themselves in different thoughts. And they manifest themselves in different actions. All of them combined make the kingdom of God whole.

I can sum this up through James 2:20-24: "You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness," and he was called God's friend. You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone."

There is a time at hand when we are all pressed to the brink of deciding how we are going to live out our faith. Will it be through words and Sunday church? Will it be through actions and feeding the hungry? Or can we combine both to be a greater witness for Jesus?

Please pray

Today I feel that I'm standing at a fork in the road and both options are very appealing. Not sure what to do or which way to go. Please lift us up in your prayers today. Thank you so much.

Thought of the day

Here's what was in my fortune cookie today. "Service is the rent you pay for having room on Earth."

How God must feel

Poor little guy. It's been a rough night. Nathan's not feeling that great. Not exactly sure why, but it's obvious he just doesn't feel good. All he wants to do is be held and comforted to ease the pain. It's a night like this I understand how God must feel when we come to him for rest.

Since becoming a father, I have been more and more amazed at how God must view us as his children with unconditional love. As Nathan is growing older, and becoming more independent, times like tonight don't seem to happen as much anymore. So when they do, I know I have to take advantage of getting to spend "comfort" time with him.

God must really enjoy that intimate time with us when we finally say, "I need you..help me." It's just a shame that we wait until times of need to take advantage of our time with God. I know it's a constant struggle to carve out a time to meet with God each day, but I'm finding a greater sense of meeting with God through this blog.

He calls out to us today saying...."Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matthew 11:28-30

Measuring Up

PhDs, MDs, JDs, Masters degrees are the sign of highest academic accomplishment. Upon completion of these prestigious programs, careers are launched paying high dollars and the American Dream is well on it's way to being fulfilled. But what if you don't have the education background to compete against those who do?

For many of us, there is a great struggle internally about measuring up against others. Sometimes it includes academic accomplishments. Other times it is just plain knowledge about a subject. And sometimes the feeling of inadequacy is merely the result of a low self-esteem and it just doesn't matter what the subject is about...you just don't feel you measure up to anything or anyone.

I had a family member ask me one time how I felt about a pastor of their local church who didn't have a seminary degree. They obviously felt that no pastor should shepard a flock without this credential. While training/education for the ministry is and can be extremely important, it's amazing how we have come to a place in our Christian world where we put education above everything. I'm not saying that education is not important, but what I'm saying is that from a Christian viewpoint, sometimes we get so caught up in worldly credentials that we miss out on understanding that God can work no matter who we are or what we know. It's like saying that God only works through those who have a seminary degree. That's crazy!

Look at this verse: 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

"Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31Therefore, as it is written: 'Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.'"

The Bible is filled with story after story of God's men and women who would never measure up in today's world. And, if they stood before our churches, they would be run out of town. Yet God used them mightily. And Paul, who was very educated, confirms this very point to the church in Corinth. You, who do not measure up, who do not feel good about yourselves, who make all kinds of mistakes, and who will never be on the cover of People Magazine, are created strong through the Spirit of God. In this we can boast. And in this we can make a difference in the lives of others through His strength.

Heaven or Harvard?

That was the question this morning at church. Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it". Here's some points that struck me...

1) Children need to be trained. This seems rather obvious, but when you really think about it someone will be training our children. So we need to decide whether we are going to let the school system, their friends, our churches or us do the training.

2) A scary statistic...George Barna says that by the age of 9, your child's understanding of right and wrong, their openness to God and their values will be set. And by the age of 13, the spiritual war for your child's heart will be decided. Basically, a child's DNA for spiritual matters will be in place by these ages.

3) Someone will help your child decide the trajectory of their life. Our primary responsibility as parents is to train them so their trajectory/life is grounded in the matters of God. We need to partner with others, i.e. church, to bring them up and help them understand this foundation. When it comes to preparing our children to be great at academics, music, or sports, it seems easy to spend so much time, energy and money preparing them for greater "earthly" things than "eternal" things. We need to think about how we spend our resources in "training" our children and what priorities we have for our children. Our actions are indicative of our priorities.

4) The average amount of time parents spend with their kids in meaningful conversation in America is 15 minutes a day. Barna's research shows children whose parents spend 90-120 minutes a day are more stable and better grounded.

5) Children learn by repetition, but for some reason the average parent expects their child to hear and listen the first time they tell them something. This doesn't make much sense when we are trying to help our children learn values and character. But we encourage them to do their math problems or memorize the alphabet over and over until they learn them.

You can listen to the complete sermon by visiting Preston Trail Podcasts and click on Heaven or Harvard.

Revolutionary Parenting, book by George Barna.

The phone rings....

So the phone rings at work this afternoon and from the other end I hear, "You would be so proud of your son.." Of course I'm thinking to myself, "cool he must be hitting his golf ball right handed like I've been showing him instead of left handed." But no! Kristi goes on to say, "he managed to take off his diaper and peed all over his bed." Not the kind of thing I will be puffing my chest out in honor of my son's accomplishment, but it sure is funny. Especially since I don't have to clean it up.

I guess it's the antithesis of my point from yesterday. He didn't learn that from me! I would like to call this free will not imitation. Sometimes our choices cause us to make a real mess of things....