Growing Toward Rest

The past few weeks have been a spiritual step ladder.  It's always fun to have spiritual highs, but this has been even better.  It has been a steady growth, moving step by step, toward a deeper relationship with Christ.  Personal reflection along with a fresh injection of Christ's teachings have provided a new awakening to the love of God for us.  This past weekend, for example, was amazing to see God working in the hearts of those at Sonrise.  I was thrilled to be able to share what God was showing me about giving EVERYTHING to Him and the healing that doing so can bring.

I talked about it this past Sunday, but it seems to keep coming up to me.  If we are unwilling to give EVERYTHING to God, than we cannot heal.  The things we decide to hold back are the things we need healing from.  It is easy to give God the good things, but we try to hang on to our hurts, hang-ups, and habits.  Those are exactly what we need healing from!

The basic reason we don't want to give those up is fear.  We fear that God can't love us the way we are, that He can't heal us from our past, that He can't help us overcome the things we struggle with, or that we will have to give up the sins we cherish.  Quite honestly, we fear commitment.

The verse that has become my current favorite address this struggle is 2 Timothy 1:7.  Christ hasn't given us the spirit of fear, but the spirit of power, love, and self-control.  Those are exactly what we need to be made whole.  Who wouldn't jump at the offer to receive power over that which we are powerless, love for where we are unlovely, and self-control to overcome our personal struggles?  All He wants us to do is commit to Him, give Him all our burdens, and He will give us rest.  I am happy to be getting that.  I enjoy resting in Him.

Time to make a change

We started Life's Healing Choices this week.  It's always encouraging when you've been looking forward to something for a long time for it to finally arrive.  One of the points made in the book is that we don't make any changes until the pain in our lives is greater than the pain related with making that change.  How much pain do we want to go through before we change?

I have a pretty high pain tolerance.  I don't like pain, but I can deal with it.  This allows me to do some really stupid things, not caring about the physical consequences.  While playing football on astroturf I continually tore my knee up.  It was like sliding on gravel every time I dove to make a play.  When it came game time, I intentionally banged my knee on the wall to open it up a bit so I wouldn't be bothered the whole game by it.  Here's an idea, how about wrapping it?  I guess that would have been too much trouble and I would have missed playing time.

I do the same thing relationally.  It takes me a long time to decide to stop the bleeding when things go bad.  I don't mind being hurt a bit, but if it keeps happening, a change is needed.  Rather than beating ourselves up over things, we need to let God just wrap it up.  We can't fix it ourselves, or we already would have.  We can't, so we don't.

Never too old

I have been waiting a long time now to start my Masters degree program.  My scholarship finally went through, so I can start in a few weeks now.  I already feel old going back to get another degree, but when it's free, I can't refuse that!

I do have a complaint to lodge about people in general.  Why do people never return phone calls?  It took me 8 months to get in contact with the people for the scholarship.  I have been waiting 3 months for an insurance agent to call back.  I don't need to go into all the calls dealing with our house people refused to return.  What is it?  I don't know that there can be anything more unprofessional than not returning calls from clients/customers/friends whatever they may be.  I took the time to call because it was important.  There is a good chance I don't really want to talk to you about it either if it has been months, but I have to.  Is it really that hard to return a phone call, or even an email?

My blog has been to "churchy" so I had to throw this one in the mix.  Whatever.

Real Serenity

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

--Reinhold Niebuhr

Unfortunately, most people never read the whole prayer.  They end without acknowledging that hardship is part of life, and that Jesus will make all things right in the end if we surrender to Him.

My favorite part is the prayer that I will be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever in the next.  Our faith in Christ guarantees us eternal happiness with him.  I taught this week on how much better Heaven is than the box of cotton balls portail we get from Hollywood.

I want to talk about this life.  What is reasonably happy?  I think that is the definition of content.  There is two sides to this, one being the obvious.  We need to find joy in spite of our troubles.  We need to find happiness through all circumstances, no matter how difficult that is.  This is the most obvious point of being reasonably happy, because this is where we struggle the most.  I see myself as reasonably happy.  I like my life.  I have everything I could ask for in life, and then some.  Sure I have problems to fight through, but I do my best to not let them steal my happiness.  My happiness is in Christ, my "crutch" if you want to call it that.  I don't care, I'm willing to admit I'm broken and need Him.  If you are more hard-headed and would like to try to fix your own brokenness, go right ahead.  I'll let the one who created me take care of it.  That is a different subject, but I want to leave it in here because it needs to be said.  The point is, even though struggles come, I can always focus on the end result.  One day I'll be with Jesus and He will make everything right.

Which brings me to the other side.  We can't be fully happy in this life.  Even our founders wanted to insure the pursuit of happiness.  Serenity and contentment are based on the knowledge that we will never be fully happy in this life.  This life is messed up.  Our bodies are broken, our morals are broken, our families are broken, even our mentors/idols are broken.  To top it all off, we remain separated from our creator until our lives here come to an end.  We need to embrace that the only time we can be supremely happy is when we see Him face to face, and he makes all things right.

What is too much faith?

The preachers of a couple generations before mine are retiring, or at least attempting to.  One of the problems they are facing is that many of them set aside nothing while they ministered for so many years.  For many of them, it was an issue of faith vs common sense.  Many of them strongly believed that Christ would come back prior to them ever reaching retirement age, and preached that way.  This caused two problems.  One, their faith made them believe it was ignorant to save up for retirement since they would never reach it, and two, it caused the youth of those times to feel they would never live a full life because they two would be gone soon.

The Bible tells us how foolish it is to save up treasures on Earth, but that we should build up heavenly treasures.  So is it a lack of faith that tells us to save for the future?  Why am I on this kick?

Let me start with the scripture, it is much more important to focus on our heavenly existence for eternity, after all, it is eternity.  It does not mean we shouldn't provide for ourselves and our loved ones while on Earth.  This in no way tells us to live off society or those around us, but rather to share what we have been given, and focus on those eternal things.  In all things, our common sense should support faith.  For example, common sense tells us we didn't originate from an inanimate object and later a monkey.  That supports our faith.  Common sense (and scripture) tells us to be good stewards of what God blesses us with.  That supports our faith.

In a small group discussion centered on stewardship and tithing, we talked about what should be done in hard times.  The Biblical answer is give, we are giving out of what we have, not out of how we feel God is blessing or not blessing at the present moment.  Those are the times we can be most joyful in giving, because it means more (see the story of the widow's mite).

Why this, why now?  Pretty simple, it relates.  Jess and I recently made some decisions about giving above our normal giving.  It just so happens this was before the recent financial surprises we have had.  We had to choose to stick behind them, or to follow through, knowing that we were already using some savings to cover the surprises (isn't that what savings are for?)  Anyway, we stuck to our decisions and God is continuing to bless.  Not only are things not near as bad as they could have been, but we get to be a part of what God is doing through our giving.

Anyway, here's the point.  It is often difficult to find the balance between living by faith, and being financially sound.  I prefer choose faith if it is a close call.  I'll take God's blessing over my own financial wisdom (or lack thereof) any day.  But I don't want to end up working until I'm 90 (if I live that long) because I didn't balance things now.  I guess that's having faith in him guiding me financially now too.  At least we aren't socialists. That would make it crazy deciding what to give, but that's another days rant.

Cars Are of the Devil

I have the car in the shop for the FOURTH time in as many days. Shift lever linkage, two flat tires (which of coarse were not repairable), & now a cyllanoid (which low and behold just went out of warranty). Are you kidding me? Cars are of the devil. God continually blesses us and helps us get through all of this, but it still amazes me how much can happen at once. This ranks as one of the worst summers I can remember. From the housing, to the car, to the mower, to Pastor's health things have just been messed up. This is all to arrive at a point. I'm a big optimist. I enjoy life knowing that somehow it will work out. God always provides, & there is always a rainbow at the end of the storm. At least ther isn't some pious moron telling me God is punishing me for who knows what. That drives me nuts. I am praising God more & more for the health and well-being of my fam. We got to have
"family time" this summer. I love my fam and church, and God is blessing both. He is good, all the time.

Perspective

Our car will work again, our mower will work again, our shower will work aga... well for the first time. Things break and they get fixed. I do my best to put them in perspective. Jayden loves school, we are no longer homeless, have a beautiful country home, we are mostly healthy, and God is really blessing our church and family. It's all about perspective. It's a good day.