What’s Next God?

  As part of my daily routine for work I spend a LOT of time sitting in my email corresponding with people.

One email that landed in my inbox this morning from a vendor had this tag line attached as part of the signature. “In the pursuit of excellence, there is no finish line.”

  Made me think about what we do on Sunday mornings as we try to put together entertaining, engaging and life changing services. There are a lot of people involved in that process who put a ton of work into it so that it all comes together on Sunday.

Hopefully, in the end creating an experience where people can encounter God.

Sometimes we may miss the mark, but the effort we put forth should not be anything less than the pursuit of excellence…if it is, then we’re cheating God…and I think we can all apply this truth at a personal level.

-c

  After reflecting on last night’s conversation for almost 24 hours now, I’m somewhat amazed at Gods patience with me. As I chatted with my friend, I was reminded of all the areas of my life where I do NOT make God a priority and how many times I fail him on a daily basis.

  THANKFULLY, our God has incredible patience, and why wouldn’t he? He loves his children more than anything we can imaging and wants only the best for us.

So much so that he sacrificed his Son for us…now there’s a phrase that we hear over and over again in the religious realm but sometimes I wonder just how much we comprehend the magnitude of that statement. It’s become almost a passing phrase, used to woo unbelievers into salvation. I got to believe that if we really really believed and grasp the connotations of that statement we would fall on faces daily before God and beg forgiveness for being so nonchalant with this incredible gift he has giving us.

  Sometimes it feels like faith can become somewhat mythical, what mean by that is it can become something that is just out there and intangible. Something we say we believe and maybe even live life by a certain set of rules according to our faith.

I am guilty of letting my faith become part of an everyday routine instead new exciting adventure every day.

  One thing that has helped me has been a series of messages being delivered every Sunday by our pastor Dr. Tim Cox. The series is called “Txt Messages” and focuses on breaking down scripture and setting a time line from beginning to end.

  Tim has a way of really bringing the text to life (thanks tim) and it’s helped me be to able to engage the bible in a different way. I’ll be honest, I struggle sometimes to focus or concentrate when I reading scripture. If you’re like me, then this series would be very beneficial. If you’re interested, we’ve recordered the entire series and you can find them on this site. http://media.miamivalley.org.

I’d encourage everyone to check it out…

-c

  I had a meeting tonight with one of my closest friends.  As we sat down and started to talk, the first words out of his mouth were “Do you trust me?” Without blinking an eye or skipping and breathe I immediately answered Yes.

 You see my friend had observed something in my life that was cause for concern and decided he needed to share it with me. His concern was the pace at which I have been running and the amount irons I have in the fire.

Although all things I’m involved in are all good things they can be detrimental if they are outside of what God has called me to be passionate about. What He wants me to poor my life into.

We talked for two and a half hours about this and other topics, we’re both passionate about ministry and shared with each other what we want to accomplish in ministry and bounced ideas off each other.

It was a great conversation, and good to just sit and chat with a friend.

There are so many lessons I walked away from that meeting with. I won’t go into all of them (more on these later) but for now two thoughts I want to share with you that resonated into this evening with me.

1: I’m glad I have people in my life that care enough to have hard conversations with me and keep me in check.

2: And this is the one that’s bugging me…I didn’t flinch in answering his question “Do you trust me?” I’ve been through the best and the worst with this guy and I know he cares and has my best interest at heart and I’m thankful for that. BUT I can’t help but be reminded of how many times God has ask me that exact same question…and I hesitate to answer.

Seems I have to ponder it, evaluate it and water it down to make sure it all makes since in my little pea sized brain…this is insane! The God of the universe, my creator and savior say’s I love you and I have the best possible plan for your life…that should be enough.

So where are you at? How quickly will you respond the next time God ask…”Do you trust me?”

-c 

In my last post I mentioned I work with the youth at our church, did I mention they are awesome?!?!

Anyway, this past week some of them performed the song “On my Own” by Barlow Girl.

Great Job Erin, Abby, Kody and Devin!

Here’s the video…(once playing you can double click the video to show it full screen).

-c

For those of you that may not know, I have the awesome privilege of leading the youth every week at my church. (we have an pretty amazing bunch of teens).

This week we had a great discussion and as we parted I challenged the youth to spend some time daily reflecting on James 5:13-20. (The Message)

If you’re not familiar with it I encourage you to look it up.

It’s in these verses that I believe defines a lot of what we as follower of Christ are to be about. The challenge to the youth (to all of us) is to find where this scripture intersects our lives daily. There is always opportunity to forgive or be forgiven, pray for someone or be prayed for, to heal or help someone heal.

This is great stuff right…..WRONG!!!! Not two days after issuing this challenge to our youth, it hit me directly where I live. Isn’t that just like God to challenge me to “Practice what I preach”?

Well, I don’t like it one bit. The issue that has flared up in my personal life is the last thing in the world that I want to deal with…it’s hard and very painful. It is forcing me down a healing and forgiveness path that I ABSOLUTLEY REFUSE to go down.

So “Whats next?”…I honestly don’t know. I’d like to say I’ll be obedient to what Gods asking of me, but right now I don’t see it happening.

Disobedience = SIN, simple enough…but how do we move past fear, anger and pain to that self-forsaking place where we can be and do what Gods ask of us?

Not sure yet…but I believe a HUGE part of it starts with community, I have a few people in my life that I trust completely.

My pastor (one of my closest friends)

My brother (without whom I would have self destructed a long time ago)

My Life Group (you guys are awesome)

And my Wife (Gods personal gift to me)

I can’t imagine doing life without these people, and I’m sure they will all play a role in this part of my journey.

I hope you have similar people in your life that you can do life with…if you don’t, you really don’t know what you’re missing.

-trying to figure it out…

-c