40

What is 40?

It is a great song by U2, but that is not what I mean today.  Today I turn 40.  I have not struggle with turning 40 as some do, but it has caused me to reflect on my life.  To tell the truth, I have been reflecting for a month or so on this as I have been heading toward the BIG 40.  In my reflecting, I have thought “what positive difference have I made in peoples lives”.  This has caused me to think more deeply.

I have come up with a life purpose statement as a result of this reflecting.  I want to make a positive difference for Christ in peoples live and then in turn see them make a positive difference for Christ in peoples lives.  Whether this statement will change or morph over the years I do not know, but I would suspect that it will, but for now this is what I want to see happening.  I want my life and my time here on this planet to count for the Kingdom of God both now and for eternity.

Do you have a life purpose statement and if you do what is it?

5 lbs. at a time

I happen to find the show The Biggest Loser to be inspiring in many ways.  The finale for this season happened a couple of weeks ago and something that Ally, the women who won said has been ringing in my five pounds.  She would get on the scale again a few weeks later and notice that she only gained five pounds.  Every time she got on the scale she would see a five pound weight gain, until one day she looked at herself in the mirror and she said “all the sudden I was fat, but I did not realize it because I was getting fat 5 pounds at a time”. 

 This statement has been bouncing around in my mind since tI heard it.  We do not normally make one bad choice but we make one small bad choice then another.  We think I have only made one small bad choice here and one small bad choice there until we have made so many that we are in a sea of poor chioces that we feel like we can not get out of.  

To me, this five pounds at a time is a powerful illustration that can be used in many ways.  I have a friend who has made a number of bad choices and now he feel like there is no way out but to make more poor choices.  The lady from the biggest loser faced her five pounds at a time down and fought through and it has made a difference on the outside and on the inside.  My hope is my friend will fight through to begin to make good choices even through it will not be easy.

This is not only about my friend, it has caused me to think through the choices that I am making.  I have been apathetic and unmotivated which has been taking me down a path I do not need to travel.  Just like she got fat 5 lbs. at a time, I can make good choices 5 minutes at a time.

Any thoughts?

Do you ever “go negative”?

One of my favorite quotes comes from Zig Ziglar, it says, 

“Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.” 

Have you ever been stuck thinking about things you either cannot change in your life or have your thought life taken over by negatives?  I have and had struggled for years in doing mental gymnastics in the negatives.  I have found that the Bible does address this issue.  There are several places that I could go but what really helped me was Philippians 4:8, it says,

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.

When I am tempted to “go negative”, I come back to these things I should be thinking about.  When I “go negative”, I get negative results every time, but when I think about the right things, I cannot say I always get positive results but I get them a huge percentage of the time.

What is that you do when you are tempted to “go negative”?

Wet head

I have hard a very tough exterior my entire life.  One of the things that I prayed for was that God would soften my heart.  Well little did I know that a couple of years after that prayer I would cry at more than sports movies ( come on what man does not cry at Rudy or get teary eyed at Hoosiers?).  Let me give you a for instance, my family went to bed early one night last week and I was up doing work.  I flipped the TV around and came across “Mr. Hollands Opus”.  I was weeping like someone in the family died after the father sang and signed beautiful boy  to his deaf son and again when they played his opus at the end.  I weep at times when I look at my kids and my wife and see how blessed I am.  I find myself weeping a lot these days.  When it first happened I was embarrassed, but now I am glad that God has choose to make my heart tender  and that I am now a Wet head.

Rereading the sinful start

I have taken time in my personal time to begin to reread Genesis.  Each time I read it I am amazed by what I read.  Adam and Eve have an unlimited amount of tree to eat from and they choose the one they cannot eat from.  They are thrown out of the garden.  Cain kills Abel.  The sinfulness of man grows to the point where God wants to kill them all, but spares Noah and his family.  Not long after the boat comes to rest, Noah plants a vineyard and get drunk.  Abram lies about Sarai being his sister and not his wife.  Lot goes into Sodom and Gomorrah and offers his virgin daughters to an angry mob.  His daughter later think they will never marry so the get their father drunk and sleep with him and get pregnant.  The sad part is that I am leaving stuff out!

Now do not get me wrong, I also see and read the positives in there.  Some of these that I already mentioned allowed God to work and move through them.  I sit here and think about how we are so quick in the church these days to cast people off when they sin.  Would we be casting off these people today in our churches?

 

One of those days….

Today is one of those odd days for me, it is a day when I feel emotional.  What you need to know is that I am not someone who shows a whole lot of emotion, emotionally constipated might be a good term for me.  Today though in my reading I read several things that touched me and really have me thinking.  I finished I became a Christian and all I got was this lousy T-shirt today and I laughed out loud at some points and was on the verge of crying at other (in a touched way).  Then I started reading Leadership by Rudy Giuliani and and the first chapter is on September 11th.  Reading his account brought back memories and pictures to my mind of that time.  I remember my daughter who was in 1st grade then asking me about it and me weeping trying to tell her what had happened.

I am also dealing with some continual struggles with my spiritual life.  My desire to live a Godly life does not always match my actions and it causes me to question many things. 

Thoughless Jerk

There are times that I amaze myself with how thoughtless I can be.  The Church I work at has a pantry which we offer to the community and it really is for those who are in real need.  Today the person who normally handles taking people down was not avaiable so I said I would do it.  While I am standing outside the pantry, it is a small area and there were two adults and two children in there already, I hear a cell phone ring.  It was the phone of the lady using the pantry.  Then I think to myself, if they can afford cell phones I am sure they can afford food.  The the Spirit of God slapped me upside my head, someone needed to, and reminded me that I knew nothing of this families situation.  There are a myriad of reasons that I could come up about their need but the truth is none of them would be important.  What is important is that I stop juding people and start loving.  Sometime I can be a real thoughless jerk.

Enoch and Noah

Two observation from some reading in the Bible, specifically in Genesis.  I have been reading in the Message (side note:  I love the Message). 

Genesis 5:24 Enoch walked steadily with God. And then one day he was simply gone: God took him.

Can I say that I love that!  Enoch walked steadily or another way would be consistently.  Then he was taken away or simply gone.  God took him.  That is the way that I want to go, I want God to take me.  I love the word picture that is in this verse.

Then there is this:  Genesis 6:8 But Noah was different. GOD liked what he saw in Noah.

We often think of different as being bad but this was a good, wait no, this was a great thing.  Noah was not out of control like everyone else, but he was different, he was in control.  God liked what he saw in Noah, does he like what he sees in me?  Am I different in a good way or in a bad way?

These are questions that will ring through my mind for the next week!

Do you have any thoughts on this? 

Dampened My Eyes

I am not saying I cried or anything because I would not want people getting the wrong idea but my eyes were dampened or maybe misty this morning in Panera.  Monday is my day off so I drop the kids off at school and head to Panera for some reading and surfing the web on free wifi.  I have been reading I became a Christian and all I got was this lousy T-shirt and I am loving it. 

Today I read a powerful story on prayer in it.  Vince, I call him Vince because I feel like we are friends now that I am reading his book, retells a Brennan Manning story on pages 86, 87, and 88.  Manning gets a call from a lady who asks him to come and visit her older, sick father.  Manning goes right over and talks to the man.  Manning sees a chair beside the old man and says, “I see you have been expecting me”.  The man tells him that he has believes in Jesus and God but never really knew how to pray.  A Pastor gave him a book but he did not know some of the words on the first page so he did not read it.  He had a friend named Joe who he knew was a Christian who he asked how to pray.  Joe told the man to get an empty chair and talk to it like Jesus was sitting in the chair, tell him all of your thoughts and feelings and share you life with him and that is it.  The old man had been doing this for years now and ask Manning if this was wrong.  Manning told him “no” and they talked for a while longer then Manning prayed with him and left.  The old mans daughter called a week later to let Manning know that he father died.  She said she went out to buy some groceries and when she left her father was fine.  When she returned he had passed away.  She then said, “But here is the strange part, he crawled out of his bed and died with his head lying on that empty chair”

To read it from the book is much more powerful, but I hope and pray you get the idea.

Until next time…

Thoughts from this AM

It is 10:30 AM and it is a good – wait no – a great day. 

I had a blast driving my kids to school today.  My daughter who is 12 and I joking and singing 80’s tunes.  My son who is 5 making random wisecracks from the back.

I forgot a check at the house I was to deposit and had to make the 20 minute drive back to get it and then 10 minutes to the bank.  I listened to Craig Groeschel’s message from Catalyst and God spoke to me through it.

I then came to Panera and God kept on working.  Did some reading in the Bible which has me thinking.  I then read two chapters in “I became a Christian and all I got was this lousy T-shirt” and found myself laughing out loud (people were staring) and then then weeping (people became uncomfortable and left).  I will make another post on this a little later.

I am looking out the huge window beside me and seeing the clear blue sky and being in awe of God.  I look forward and see a mother with her 2 year old who has wonder and awe in her eyes.  This causes me to smile just seeing the life in her eyes.  I hear a couple of ladies at a near by booth discussing their church and how wonderful it is that the one lady’s husband is involved.  When I look to see and hear God, amazingly enough, I see and hear Him.  Are you looking for Him today?  Are you listening to Him today?

I am now wondering why this is not my perspective everyday, but I am thankful that it is mine today.  As the Psalmist writes, This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.  It is my choice what kind of a day I am having and today my choice is a wonderful day!