Britta and Me

Yesterday, I went to the park with my family. This is a somewhat usual occurrence for us. Often times we go and hang out at the park so my daughter can play and get some energy out. Sometimes its all of us that go and sometimes its just her and dad or mom. But this day we all went. It was one of those beautiful days that was warm but not to warm. The sun was out and there was a nice quite breeze. All in all it was the perfect park day. So we jumped into the car after naps and headed to the park. When we got there it was full of kids climbing things, running around, playing tag and games about dinosaurs that they had made up. The smaller kids were chasing the ducks and dog's were out getting there walks in. Babies were in their strollers being walked around the small pond where dads and their sons were bonding as they fished for anything that would bite. What a beautiful scene of God's creation and His people enjoying life. When we got there my daughter and I headed out to the playground and we climbed all the steps. We went on the swings with big underdogs and lots of laughter. We went down the slides and through the tunnels. We climbed the rock walls and went on the monkey bars. It was pure joy seeing her enjoy the outdoors and all the things that her body would allow her to do as she got her energy out. For me it was a big day as I enjoyed my daughter and my family being able to be there together and enjoying one another.
The reason I write this is because the park for was often a place that I did not enjoy my family. It was often a place where my mind would be thinking about all the things I needed to do and get done. It was a place where I was distracted by ministry and work and projects hanging over my head. Which often left me irritated and irritable. It often made our time at the park short and left my family always wanting more. You see I was consumed with what I had to do rather than who I needed to be in that moment. Because I was so consumed with what I needed to do I missed out on lots of things. I missed out on small moments of laughter, joy and God's creation. I missed out on my daughter's desire to be with her daddy. I missed out on the laughter and the moments of trust when she wanted me to help her. I was not in those moments because I was so distracted by what I had to do. But yesterday and over the last few weeks I have been desiring to be in those moments. To embrace being a dad so that I can enjoy my family and enjoy being a dad. Being in those moments allows me to see the love that I have been missing. It allows me to see my daughter as my child and not a chore. It allowed my wife to have a few moments to think. It allowed my son to laugh as he got put in the swing for the first time. And I did not miss it this time. I was there. Fully present with my family. It was such a huge moment for me and my prayer is that I will be able to continue to BE the dad I need to be and stop just doing the things that will always be there to get done.

Frustrated?

Sometimes our frustrations lead us to break through thoughts, ideas, and spiritual enrichment. Usually our frustrations are the cause of someone else doing or saying something to us. Sometimes our frustrations are due to ourself as well. But the range of emotions that we go through during frustration is huge.  We get angry, mad and ticked off. We then sometimes move to self loathing, depression, and other emotions as well. Often times we put those emotions on someone else or we keep them in. Both are unhealthy to us mentally, spiritually and emotionally and sometimes even physically. So how do we deal with frustration? Frustration is often times and opportunity to either embrace the emotion in a negative way or to allow it to push you into a positive direction. When we allow it to push us in a negative way the emotions stated above play out in your life and usually there is sin involved there. But what does it look like to use frustration in a positive way? If we are willing frustration has the ability to make us look critically at our life or what we are doing. It has the ability to allow us to come up with great ideas because we allow the frustration to make what we are doing or who we are better. It can allow us to dream about what if I was not this way or what if what I am doing was not this way. It can allow us to be creative, and push ourself to something greater. Maybe that greater is our character, our ministry, our job, our family, our relationship with Jesus or others. Frustration can bring joy to our lives as we embrace the thoughts or criticism that comes to us, whether that is personal or form someone else. Either way frustration can be turned positive and be used to bring greater glory to Jesus Christ in our life and in others lives. So don't let frustration get your down let it pick you up. Allow frustration to let your mind be creative, visionary, disciplined, and loving. Let it show you who you really are and move from that in a way that moves you closer to Jesus. Let frustration give you life in who you are and what you are doing.

Do you love going to Church?

Does your head pop off the pillow sunday morning because you are so excited about going to Church and spending time with below believers? Or are you like most of us where sunday morning is the hardest day to get up. Maybe you were up to late on saturday, or your church starts way to early. Maybe its getting all those kiddos dressed, fed, and out the door on time not to mention you getting ready in the midst of all of that. Or maybe it is a spiritual thing where you know you are going to be convicted and so you drag your feet. For a lot of us I think we have this experience maybe more often than we should. And for others of us maybe the Church we attend we are tired of, we don't like the music, the pastor is not all that great, you feel lonely when you go. Maybe you are not sure where you fit in and so you just sort of wander in and out when you feel like it. Sure, there are so many reason why we should not love going to Church. But they really are all selfish reasons. I think that we as Christians need to develop a love for Church one again in our lives. A time to worship Jesus, Spend time with one another, share with each other, give of our time, gifts and money, pray with one another, fellowship, laugh, listen to God's word, reflect on our lives. We need to love the drive to and from with family and friends. A time to share what God is going to do and what He did in our life at Church. We need to develop an excitement about Church that goes far beyond the building. so that we don't just love going to Church but we love being the Church wherever we are.

Feeling Empty?

Some days just feel empty spiritually. Maybe it is because you have poured out all that you have for a season or for an event or walking with someone as you do life together. Maybe it is because you have walked far away from God and your emptiness is an absence of that which gives you life. Or maybe your tired and its just a gloomy empty felling sort of day. I often find spiritual emptiness like the emptiness of our stomach when we are hungry. Out stomach moans, and groans because it wants food. It churns and sometimes cramps up because it needs nutrients. Our body gets weak, we get headaches, and our muscles don't feel as they should. And when we are spiritually empty the same thing occurs in our heart and mind. We moan and groan cause we feel the way that we do. We pace and stress and wonder and question why God feels so far away. We know that we need Him yet we feel weak cause we don't feel Him. An so our spiritual life gets weak, and our spiritual muscles get tired and fatigued. But what I find so interesting about this spiritual emptiness is that there is a need to be filled. Yet for so many of us all the moans, and groans, and headaches, and wonder and questions don't push us to fill that need with Jesus. Instead we fill that need with other things. For each of us it is different. But what each and everyone one of us has is a need and I believe that everyday we all feel an emptiness and a need to fill it with something. For many of us when we have that need physically we fill it with junk and this is why we are overweight which shows us our poor choices in an obvious way. But in the spiritual realm we can fill our need with junk and maybe hide the results. But this need is not something that is going to go away. We will wake up with it every morning and walk with it all day long. I believe that God put the need there for us to fill our lives with Him. Well so many people ask what does that look like? When you decide to fill your life with God you have chosen to live in a way that fills others needs through Christ. So God uses us to fill others needs when they are empty. We can show love, a listening ear, serve, give, show compassion, mercy, grace, maybe be a strong voice of change in someone's life. Whatever it might be the very things that we can be to someone else are the very things that we desire for ourselves to be filled. I often find so many unhappy Christians, maybe it is because we have only fed the emptiness with things like anger, hatred, gossip, lust, sarcasm, and other things. Rather than fill each other's emptiness with good things in Christ. Maybe there would be less junk in others lives if we could walk with one another through emptiness. I have felt empty at times in my life and all I wanted was someone to walk with me and fill me with the good things of Christ. My prayer is that as Christians we begin to not feed the emptiness with junk and thus create more emptiness but to feed the emptiness with the good things of Christ in order for people to find true satisfaction in Him.

Only God

There are times in my life where I feel as though I have to get so much done and accomplish things in order to do other things. There is always stuff hanging over our head and the stress of that sometimes feels overwhelming. I believe far to often I lean on my own strength and wisdom when I should be relying on God. I believe in the Church we rely on the help of others for so many things when we should be relying on God. Now I am not saying that God does not use people but have we gotten away from totally relying on God and mixed that with a reliance on people. In other words we trust God will do it but we rely on people. Rather than rely on God and trust that the will provide the means or the people to accomplish what He wants. I believe when we rely on people we limit what God has for us. As I sat and listened to a pastor last night he said something to the effect of when we come to God in prayer for things what if we did not come with our own agenda but came with only His Word from scripture and said God this is what you say and promise, please do this in my life, my Church, my communities. I believe that we have moved so far away from this reliance on God that He will help us, guide us, support us and love us but we must go to Him and not others first.

Lighting up God's world.

As I look at light in the scriptures it has so many implications to our life. In creation it separated light and darkness. Showing that there is a difference between the two. Light is often associated with God, Christians, salvation, Christ, and God's people. Darkness is often associated with satan, sin and death. When God created light and separated it from darkness He established that they are different and that they have nothing in common. Just like god and Evil have nothing in common. When God created light it fostered and symbolized life, joy, justice and deliverance from the darkness. God was in complete control of what He was doing in creation.  The fact that He said "Let there be light" and it was there shows that he is in complete control, no one can thwart His plans or His will. No one can challenge His word or His power over all things. The light that He created was "Good" as our God is good. What is even more interesting is that as God created and gave the name of light and many other things, showed that He had complete power over those objects. This shows His sovereignty and rule. And the fact that no one gave God a name means that he has existed forever and He is the one true God. No one created Him because He is the creator. No one is over Him because no one existed before Him. What I love about this whole light thing in creation and God's sovereignty is that from the first day of creation God gave us life and grace through His creation of light. He wants us to be light in our world to offer the very things He created light for: life, joy, warmth, deliverance from darkness, a path to Him and so on. If we would be the light of the world we are being the very thing that can show people the Creator of Light, God, who wants all people to be separated from the darkness of this world. So let's shine like light in our dark world.

Tired?

What is your day like? Most of us run from one thing to another. We move in and out of conversations with people we love and care about and people we don't. We do things that we don't want to do and things we want to do. We have joys and regrets. And by the end of the day we are so tired that we just want to crash. Our minds or weary, our bodies our worn out. Our emotions have run dry. And we are someone who is wiped out. We live in a culture that goes, goes, goes. And as a result the Church has jumped on that bandwagon as well. With endless ministries, programs, and meetings. Now not all of this is bad. But as I look at the culture and the Church and see similarities in terms of doing a lot of things, I see a problem as a result of this busyness. Because we are so busy and so tired there is little time for God and when there is time for Him it is so scattered and broken because we are thinking about all the things we have to do or serve in. And the result is much sin in our lives. If you think about the sin in your life could it be a result of being tired and worn out and as a result of that tiredness we did not spend time with God and then chose to sin. Being tired can lead us to not care about things because our minds are not thinking clearly. We are stressed out so we overeat and do not stay healthy. We don't make time to exercise and we get slothful and our muscles get weak and fat. We make poor judgement calls in what we say, watch, and listen too. We are tired so we allow ourselves to get angry, upset and we then gossip, slander and talk behind others backs. If married we begin to go to bed without being intimate with our wife and then when we are awake during the day we choose another way to satisfy that desire other than our spouse because our judgement is weak. Truth no longer matters. We begin to be prideful and try to do everything because we have become impatient to wait on God. Being tired is not good and most of us live in a constant state of tiredness and busyness. This is why Jesus says come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. He was not just talking about taking a nap but He was talking about restoring your soul. Taking you out of your busyness. Making you fresh heart, body, soul and mind. You see we often just keep living in a tired state of mind and this is not good because we will end up choosing to sin if we do not go to Jesus for rest. So are you tired? Tired of being tired? Tired of living in sin? Tired of being busy? Maybe stop for a few moments and run to Jesus for rest. Maybe if we stopped being so busy in our culture and Church's we would have time to rest in Jesus and live a more pure life. So go get some rest.