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Desperate prayers from blinded eyes

Today is going to be one of those days I will never forget.

It started more than 10 hours ago, but my heart is still racing. I think my chest hurts a little, no joke.

I take my boys to school every morning, so there’s always that last minute hustle to grab bags, sign journals to make sure lunches are packed. Today was like any other day of the thousand days in our household.

Once again, on the way out the door my youngest son said he’d forgotten to make his lunch for school. So, his plan was to run to the garage and pick up a snack pack out of our second refrigerator.

He asked me, “Dad, can you pick me up around back.”

I huffed a little because he was not prepared, as usual, but said, “Yes, I’ll meet you back there in a minute.”

So, Noah and I piled into the truck in front of the house and made our way around back where we idled and waited for Nathan to emerge. After several minutes, I sent his brother to go find him. He came back out and said Nathan wasn’t in there.

By the time I put the truck in park and ran in the back door, mom was running out alarmed by Noah looking for his brother.

She already had tears in her eyes, Nathan was not where he was supposed to be and Continue reading “Desperate prayers from blinded eyes”

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Where’s your happy button?

This is the time of year that I am usually giddy with anticipation. In fact, when I see Halloween decorations creeping out at Wal-Mart, feelings of joy start to gurgle up from deep down inside.

Nope.

You can cancel your plans for the letter explaining to me the evils of October 31st, that’s not what makes me gleeful. However, when you see the Trick O Treater gear clogging the aisles I do get a skip in my step because it means just one thing to me… The NBA season is almost here!

It’s the most wonderful time of the year….

For you ESPN addicts, you’ll be sure to note that owner/player talks may delay or even cancel this coming season.

Nope. Still not dismayed.

If the season starts late, or never even begins, I’ll be just fine. Why? Because

Continue reading “Where’s your happy button?”

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You call that worship?

The following video clip is a teaching/story I have been telling for years (12 to be exact), but I have never captured it on video.

A few nights ago I was asked to speak at the first ever CrossPoint Country worship/concert event. It was more than awesome and hope we can do it again soon.

It was the perfect time to share this thought and I hope it’s an encouragement to you.

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Intentionality

As a pastor, one of my greatest joys is watching people in the church get excited, grow and develop deeper and deeper passions for Jesus.

This is most clearly evident in the lives of people who are retuning from mission work. Excitement produced by a little fear mixed with complete dependance, wrapped up in abnormal relationships and fellowship, all against the contrast of our lives back home.

In 20+ years of ministry I have seen (and experienced) the “Just Got Back Home Blues” innumerable times. They are somewhat justified because the experience on the mission field was so real, so raw, so amazing that home by contrast seems fake, plastic or even irrelevant.

A couple of years ago I was on mission in Europe and Asia and new that I’d be hitting the blues in just a few days. So, as I wrestled with myself on the rollercoaster ride that so often is personal spirituality, and I stumbled a crossed a word that nailed me to the wall… intentionality.

So, whether you are coming back from a summer mission trip, heading out on one, or you are staying home and trying to realize that you live on a mission field already; please take time to view this short video and lets get intentional.

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INTENTIONALITY

 

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Watch your mouth

We really need to learn to be careful with our words.

Most words are important and tend to get thrown around flippantly. And, I don’t mean  just the bad ones.

Criticism, condemnation, cursing all cut deeply. Even if the hard to hear words were not spoken with malicious intent.

For example, I got to play bass with our worship team at a children’s camp a couple weeks ago. It was so much fun and the kiddos were totally into it. There were a couple of days I was really feeling it, and loved saying, “I’m with the band.”

But, one day in the lunch line this precious little 4th grade girl asked me, “Why are you so old and the rest of the band is, like, teenagers and stuff?”

She didn’t mean a thing by it, but I have done at least a 1,000 sit ups since then. Pass the Rogaine, please!

I think its obvious we need to watch what we say when negativity (intentional, or unintentional) comes tumbling out of our sound holes like a devastating mudslide. But, that’s not what I’m writing about.

I think we, especially believers, need to be careful how we use our words, even in a positive sense.

For example, watching the NBA playoffs… by the way… you did hear that the Dallas Mavericks are world champions… MMMMAAAAVVVVEEEERRRRIIIICCCCKKKKSSSS!!!!

Pardon me, getting back to the original thought, watching the NBA playoffs I have innumerable times seen a Bible-believing, Jesus-trusting professional athlete give a court side interview and thank Jesus for the win, or give glory to God.

But, have you ever heard an interview from the losing locker room where some dejected, defeated athlete asks, “Why does Jesus hate me?”

Or, worse yet, have you heard an athlete give glory to God in a halftime interview and them watch them mouth the F-bomb half way through the third quarter.

We need to watch Continue reading “Watch your mouth”

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My Wife’s Mother’s Day Reflections

I’m so excited. I think my wife has a lot to say that’s worth hearing in a world of people speaking loudly about nothing. I encourage her regularly to speak with me and write. She sent me this late Sunday night (Mother’s Day) and I think it’s worth sharing with you.

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Ahh…Mother’s Day. I love Mother’s Day. I remember always loving it as a kid too. It was I and my sister’s turn to spoil my mom for one day, because Heaven knows we couldn’t have kept up the ‘no fighting’ rule for much longer than that! I remember making the macaroni art pictures that really only a mother could love, and doing my best to “keep the house clean.” It is still a mystery to me how a house can be clean when you go to bed, but by the time you wake up, it’s a disaster again…thus, I digress.

I recall part of Mom’s Mother’s Day was that she was not to do anything. We would wait on her hand and foot. Whatever she wanted, we would do. Well, that was from my perspective and our intention. I suppose she did plenty more than we thought since my attention span has never been long and I tend to whine when I don’t really want to do something.

Yes, I know my Mom had mercy on us.

I’m writing this while sitting on our front porch listening to the birds and enjoying the beautiful warm day God has given us. I have just finished a wonderful lunch that my amazing husband and boys made for me. I asked that this be the one day a year that I don’t have to make a decision, which I have not had to do, and I love it. I have peace and quiet.

Every Mom’s dream for a Sunday afternoon. Yet, I am unsettled.

I don’t really know what it is. I love the idea of Continue reading “My Wife’s Mother’s Day Reflections”

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The Glory of Moms

Jochebed. Now there is a name for you.

Of all the biblical names you might know, this probably isn’t one of them.

Go ahead, take your guess: some incredible warrior whose story is tucked away deep in 2 Chronicles, a prophet who didn’t last long at the hands of Babylonians, or a Pharisee who conspired against Jesus?

Nope, she’s a mom.

But, not just any mom. Jochebed is the mother of Moses.

I love her story.

She was a mother in unfortunate circumstances. She was a slave in Egypt while a partial genocide was in progress. Baby Hebrew boys were being sacrificed to the Egyptian God of the Nile.

She defied the authorities and hid her son for three months. When hiding him was no longer possible, she got a basket and set him afloat on the Nile where he was discovered by Egyptian royalty and adopted.

This is the story of motherhood.

Perseverance. Even in the most difficult of circumstances she never gave up. She was a slave (any mothers beginning to identify?) in a culture so difficult to raise a child she literally had to save his life everyday.

Humility. Her name is hard to find, let alone spell. She is not even identified in this story that describes her most memorable moment. Its chapters later, in the genealogy of her son, that we finally see her name.

Risky. Hiding her son not only implied he was in danger, but her actions now put her and the rest of her family in danger, too. But, it didn’t matter. She made the decision that being a mother was risky business.

Creative. Without the back story, placing your child in a basket and floating him downstream hoping something good might happen probably won’t win you the mother of the year award. But in reality, this was brilliantly creative: children were daily being sacrificed in the river and a floating basket with a boy inside would not be out of place, placing the child in the reeds so that he would not float aimlessly was strategic, and selecting a spot on the river where he could be discovered by the only ones who could save him… that’s how biblical mommas roll!

This Mother’s Day weekend I hope you will celebrate the mothers in your life. Whether it’s your mom, your children’s mom, or just a mom near you, I hope you’ll take time to be thankful and thank them.

For all the times moms have persevered by making those sack lunches creative when the budget was tight. For all the times mom humbly helped with homework for which she never got a gold sticker. For all the times mom risked personal safety to stare down that bully who dared lay a hand on her baby. And, for all the times mom creatively schemed, manipulated and implemented her “whatever it takes” plan to get you in the church; we say thank you.

Mom, you are amazing and today we call you Jochebed, whose name in the original Hebrew means, “Glory of God.”

We see His glory in you… Happy Mother’s Day.

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Osama Bin Laden

Osama Bin Laden is dead.

That’s not really meant to be a statement of fact, because by now it’s extremely old news. It’s really more of a measuring rod.

When you hear that phrase, what does it do inside of you?

I’ve been watching Facebook,Twitter, reading other blogs, and have stayed dialed into major network news for the last 24 hours.

It appears the responses to the worldwide obituary run the gamut of human emotion:

  • Predominately there’s an expression of glee, in exuberance and celebration.
  • To a lesser degree there is an expression of relief, with cautious optimism.
  • Yet others, in a much smaller minority from what I can tell, are actually conflicted.

By conflicted I do not mean there is an outpouring of sympathy toward Osama Bin Laden. Far from it!

But, in several expressions I have read and heard, there is a difficulty in reconciling the spontaneous joy over the news of another man’s death (undoubtedly evil though he was), and the “Christian” call to be a person of grace and mercy.

The emotions on both sides of the fence are very real, but seem to be contradictory. The only normal response is frustration, confusion, hurt and… well, being conflicted.

I have no desire to be a global psychologist, but I must admit I find myself in that minority of the conflicted.

Here is why:

  1. I believe the world is a better place without the leadership of a mass murderer who cloaks his “mission” under the veil of God. I believe he and his actions were evil, reprehensible and totally deserving of punishment afforded by the authorities that are over us (Romans 13). I do not weep for the life of this terrorist at all.
  2. I believe God cares, loves and pursues even the worst of us. I’ve preached it before, so I better stand on it today, that no one’s sin is worse than anyone else’s sin in the eyes of God. In our human economy it does not seem to make sense that my gluttony at the buffet after church on Sunday was just as much a sin as acts of terror and murder. But in God’s economy, sin is sin.
  3. I believe that justice should be carried out, future lives protected, and the world made safer by the absence of one of evil’s chief architects for the current generation.
  4. I believe God’s people should take on the character of Christ (Philippians 2:5), who was willing to empty Himself and make Himself nothing becoming obedient even to the point of death, offering forgiveness even to those who were crucifying Him in the moment.

My problem… everything I believe doesn’t seem to hold hands. So, I’m conflicted.

I’m sure I will wrestle with Continue reading “Osama Bin Laden”

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You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means

I love Easter! I even love Easter for the stuff that we “serious” Christians should not love it for:

  • small children in new Easter clothes
  • that fake plastic grass you put in the bottom of Easter baskets
  • Cadbury eggs… Oh, thank you heaven above for those eggs
  • the knowledge that the week after Easter they’ll start putting the Christmas displays up at Walmart

I just love this time of year, even for those nonreligious, way over-commercialized things. But, the reason I love Easter the most is because of what this time of year means for people of faith.

We celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ. We were lost in our sin and desperately needed a Savior. The God of the universe became flesh for us, lived a perfect life, died a sacrificial death, all for the purpose of paying the price for us, a debt that He did not owe. Then after three days in the tomb, He rose from the dead putting an exclamation point where the devil wanted to put a question mark.

He’s alive!

The resurrection of Jesus Christ proves that He is who He said He was; that He had the authority to do what He came to do. Easter is awesome.
Every year during this holiday I feel the need to clarify some Christian vocabulary. I think we have trouble with the word Continue reading “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means”

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Wake up!

Below is a writing from the most beautiful of The Addi. My wife has some amazing things to share and teach, but is often reluctant. So, until I can get her to start her own blog, I will continue to steal her stuff and post it here for you.

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Some people like to be scared, I don’t. Some people, like my beloved husband *note sarcastic tone* think it’s hysterical to try to scare me. Thankfully after 16 years of marriage I am catching on to him and can usually avoid it. There is still one device that he will occasionally use that I can barely tolerate having in our home…an alarm clock.

I hate (yes, I know that is a very harsh word and shouldn’t be used lightly, but it is very applicable here) waking up to an alarm clock! I find them to be a tool used by the devil to put me in a very bad mood. I know many people who use them regularly and wouldn’t think of getting up any other way, but for me it is almost a guarantee that the rest of my day will be cranky.

The sad thing is that I have always been this way. I have never appreciated that piercing sound regardless of what setting I had it on. It was always the most wretched sound I can think of!

For me the thought of being yanked from my dream world of slumber in which I am typically playing a role of some kind or being chased down an old empty hall by a guy with the head of Will Smith and the body of a goat while I’m wearing a prom dress, is frustrating and profoundly annoying.

For as long as I have had to use the awful things, they have started my day off on the wrong foot. I feel the need to apologize to my Mom and sister for being so hateful on so many mornings growing up.

Consequently, as a means of maturing in my faith, and trying to save my marriage by not being such a grouch I started earnestly praying about this very subject 12 years ago. Through His amazing grace and forever faithfulness, He planted an idea in my head that seemed so crazy, but a welcomed alternative.

After the birth of my oldest son, God gave me the incredible blessing of being able to stay home with him, and I no longer had much of a need for an alarm clock. I really appreciated this, but there was on occasion a need to be up before my kiddo and I was presented with the same old issue.

That is where this idea was brought to life. As I prayed about having a better attitude, God made it very clear to me that I needed to learn to trust Him more, in all things.

The verse in Proverbs 3 that says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek His will in all you do, and He will direct your paths.” began to make a little more sense.

I confessed my weakness of being easily irritated by such a little thing like an alarm clock and asked God to help me have more trust in this. He offered me a solution that has worked for me everyday since.

I trust the Lord to get me up when He feels I need to be up. I ask Him to give me enough time to get done what I need to and He has faithfully woke me without fail for the last 12 years. Even on those mornings when we have had to be up super early, He always gets my attention.

Here’s the kicker, when He wakes me, I better get up! See, this arrangement doesn’t
just depend on Him finding amazingly creative ways to wake me, the other half is me doing my part by obeying Him and getting up when I feel His gentle nudge.

God has been very creative in the ways He wakes me with things like our cat meowing me out of bed, my husband snoring (which is rather unusual) or the traffic outside. There have been a few times when I really think He has simply whispered my name.

Regardless, He wakes me and my day is better, no matter when He decides to do it. That is one aspect of this arrangement that I had not really planned on. His schedule is not always the same as mine. There are many mornings that He will wake me when I am certain it is way too early, usually around 5:00am.

I know many people get up by then and even before, but for me, that is EARLY. He knows that is when it is the quietest in our home and He and I can spend some quiet time together. I would love to say this is the way it always happens, but sadly it’s not. I am very often stubborn and disobedient.

I don’t pretend to ‘get’ all scripture and I am far from a theologian, but I believe God has given me a very practical application to Proverbs 3:5-6. I trust Him in the simple matter of getting me up in the mornings and I seek His will for me in what time my day will begin.

I am so thankful for the privilege of serving a God that cares about even the smallest part of our lives.

God may not be wanting to be your alarm clock, but He is wanting to be be the One you trust, depend on and seek. In the many arenas of your life like marriage, faith, career and family, we need to let Him set the agenda.

When He whispers your name, however that whisper comes, it’s time to wake up!