Reflection of 20 Years

Last week I spent Tuesday through Friday with my wife because last Wednesday was our 20th wedding anniversary and it was absolutely fantastic time that I will always cherish. We drove to just outside of Charleston South Carolina to a place called the Middleton Inn and I owe a debt of thanks to Dusty Rayburn for the suggestion of staying on the Middleton plantation.  It was an absolutely gorgeous place!   We got to take a carriage ride around the plantation, walk through the gardens, sit and reflect over our years together on the grounds and at the lodge.  We also spent time in Charleston walking through the market, taking a carriage ride, and just spending time together in the city.  We ate at the Middleton Inn Restaurant which was a lot of fun because it is such a beautiful place and it is also an  expensive type place that we normally do not eat in.  We simply had an awesome time together! 

I have been blessed with a wonderful and godly wife.  In reality we were young and immature kids when we got married.  I have been blessed to watch my wife grow into a beautiful and godly woman.  She has honestly got more beautiful over the years!  She has grown so much over the years in her relationship with Jesus and truly is one of the godliest women I know.  She has a heart for others and desires to see them grow in their relationship with Jesus.  She has a deep love for her family and is a great mother!  She is honestly a fantastic Pastor’s wife!  I am blessed to have married her!

In the past twenty years we have had many great times and a few rough times but through it all God has been so very good to us!  We have been blessed with two great kids and we have great family and friends.  We live in a culture where when things get rough we just throw in the towel and to honest when we got married we made the commitment that divorce was not an option and because of that we have forced ourselves to work through the hard times. While we were on this trip and we would tell people that we were celebrating 20 years and they would respond by how amazing it was to be married that long.  A number of times we heard – “You do not see that too much these days”.  How sad this is because just a generation or so ago it was not uncommon at all.  

I love my wife and my life.

When I counsel couples getting married I always tell them to never make divorce an option and work through whatever the issues are and keep Christ in the center of their marriage.  I want young couples to be forced to work out their problems and to do it with Christ.  

What advice would you give to a young couple getting married?

It is Over

On several occasions I have asked those who read this blog to pray for the housing issues I have had. 

Back in January 2008 I was given six months to find a new job and at that time we had only owned our home 11 months.  I have talked about how hard this was on my and family and me but one of the things that was particularly hard especially for my wife and I was the house – what would happen with the house?

We tried to sell the house but this was at the point when the housing market was falling apart.  Our house was underwater financially and there was no way out.  We had people come through the house – a lot of people come through the house – but no offers.  We then switched tactics.

We then had the house on the market to sell but also added it in to rent.  We had several people who were interested in renting the house and about two days before we moved we signed a year rental agreement.  We could not rent the house for what the mortgage was and so we lost our shirts so to speak renting it.  It was nice having renters but they were moving out and now we were stuck with an even worse housing market and we could not afford to rent anymore.  We then went to plan b.

Plan b was to short sell the home.  We put the house back on the market and began the process of trying to short sell the house.  We went several months with nothing then we got an offer and the offer went to bank and we were praying that it would be accepted.  Word came back that it was not accepted by the bank and we had not been paying the mortgage and so we were in need to do something different.

The new idea was to do a deed in lieu of foreclosure – giving the house back to the bank.  We were approved for the deed in lieu and on Jan. 21st of 2011 we signed and it was notarized.  In Feb. we were told that everything with it was taken care of.  In late April we found out that the negotiator we had quit and that created issued with the deed in lieu. 

Over the course of the summer we found ourselves battling each week trying to get this taken care of.  In November I was told it was in the hands of the lawyers and basically finished. In the course of  time we were not paying the Home Owners Association fees because the mortgage company told us they would pay them.  On December 23rd there was a knock on the door at 8:30pm and it was some dude in a trench coat who asked me my name.  I told him and he told me he was serving me court documents.  I was being sued by the home owners association.

I did some research and found on Jan. 5th of 2012 our house was recorded in the county courthouse and was no longer ours.  I was frustrated and sent out a tweet a week later that resulted in this post.  All along I had a nagging thought  (which I believe came from the Holy Spirit) which was that as of Jan. 21st  we did not own the home and we were paid up on our HOA fees at that time plus the mortgage company give us a cancelation of debt and was dated the 21st of Jan.  I did some research and really thought this was right so I sent an email to the attorney for the HOA a week ago Friday and on Monday I got this short response from the attorney:

It appears that you are correct.  I will dismiss the lawsuit and follow up with you in more detail by letter.

This past Thursday we got the official letter from the Attorney.  It was like a weight lifted at the moment I read the letter because it has been a long hard road with this house but it is all over – Praise God!  Thank you to all who prayed!  You have no idea how much your prayers mean to me! 

Have you ever had something that happened that was like a weight being lifted? 

3 years later…

Last year at this time I wrote this post called 2 years ago and weaving and today it is three years.  Here is the short version of what happened:

It was three years ago that I had a normal meeting with my boss and a man who I considered a dear personal friend and he looked at me and said “You have six months to find another job”.  I do not want to go into detail on all of what transpired but I want you to know that there was no moral failure nor any failure on my part at all.  Let me put though into perspective a couple of things.  One is that I had planned to stay at this place for a long time and had many talks with my boss about me being there long term and even a few weeks before this happened.  Another thing is that my wife and I 11 months earlier  bought our first home after 16 years of marriage and it was a dream home for us.  For us before the news – life was going great and when the news came – it seemed like everything came crashing down upon us.

We had the six months hanging over our head and it was a tough thing to deal with.  We had to think about things we were not ready for.  We had to think about contingency plans for if I did not get another job. What were we going to do with a home that we had no equity in that we needed to sell. How were we going to explain this to our young son but even harder our teenage daughter.  There were a lot of blanks to fill in and we did not know how they were going to be filled in.  All my wife and I knew at the time this all went down was that we had God and that we each other to get through it.

You see through it all God provided for us in a mighty way.  It did not always seem like it – there were many sleepless nights and a lot of tears as well as just plain crying out to God.  There was much concern and prayer about what would happen to us and where we would land.  In a situation where someone made a choice that changed our lives God has helped to move us forward.  I am reminded of the quote from the movie Rocky Balboa –“It ain’t about how hard you hit, it is about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much can you take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!”  The only way we kept and keep moving forward is and was God and like I said – God provided a ministry and it is awesome.

There is still the house – we tried to sell it and it did not sell.  We then rented it for a year and it ate away all our savings because the rent was less than the mortgage.  Then we tried to short sell after the renters moved out and it the short sale got denied by the mortgage company.  We then did a deed in lieu which is basically giving the house back to the bank.  We thought we were finished with it but then found out the negotiator we were working with at the mortgage company quit and our case had to be completely redone.  During that time we thought it was finished we stopped paying HOA fee – that will make sense in  a moment.  We then find out that we have to go through the whole process again – the house just sitting in a another state!  The mortgage company realizing that they are at fault promised to pay the back HOA fees and fix our credit because we ended up with 11 more month of bad credit due to their error.  Two days before Christmas I get served with papers saying I am being sued by the HOA for the back fees.  The house is now been finally given back the bank but the HOA fees are unpaid and the credit is not fixed.   I spent hours yesterday trying to get it all taken care of and still no resolution.  So I share that with you to say please pray that it all gets taken care of very soon.

I can see in all of it how God has used this terrible situation to grow us.  To strengthen us.  To mold us.  I am blessed to be a part of the church family I am.  I am blessed beyond measure.  There are many positives to this story even though it is and has been a tough thing for us.  Here a few of the positive:  My wife and I were blessed to move to where we are at now and we love it.  We love the church, the people, the community, and to be honest, God has blessed us beyond measure.  We have seen spiritual revival in our own lives and in the church we are serving.   God has weaved a whole lot of good into this terrible situation.  I do not believe that God caused all this – I believe it was the choice of my boss  and simply life -  but I do believe that God is able to take it and use it in my life as well as the lives of others.  God is always good!

Romans 8:28 – And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called  according to His purpose.

What good is God weaving into tough situations in your life?  How can I pray for you?

Enjoying Life

I have been refreshed by my Christmas break from blogging.  I have enjoyed all my family and it has been awesome but now I am back and ready to blog away.  I pray you have had a great Christmas!

One of the things I hate to hear in life is complaining. It drives me crazy!  There are some people complain constantly and there is nothing ever right in their lives. They are many times people people who always have some sort of drama happening. There is always someone sick in their family or there is always a stressful situation going on at work with others around them, there is always something. The problem that I see here with these people is they do not realize that everyone has sick people in their families or stressful situations going on at work or around them. The fail to realize that there is always something for everyone. They fail to understand this and they miss out and fail to enjoy the life that they have been blessed with because their focus is all wrong.

As we start a New Year, I want to encourage you begin to enjoy your life. If you already enjoy it – I want you to enjoy it some more and if you do not enjoy it – I want you to see that it is a spiritual thing to enjoy life!

Let us begin this by looking at 1 Timothy 6:17, Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. -NAS

Do you see the word enjoy there at the end of the verse? Here is what enjoy means – taking pleasure or satisfaction in something.

In life we sometimes get stuck in faulty thinking and many times we always think we will really enjoy ourselves when…I turn 18, when I turn 21, when I turn 30, when I retire, when I make enough money, when I can afford that new car, when I can get that job, when I get that promotion, when I get married, when I have kids, when the kids move out, when I get the really good job and make a lot of money, when everything is perfect, when I….

We all have a tendency to think that with money, age, status, retirement, good health, fame, or a nice car will be that one thing that will brings us to the point where we will really then begin to enjoy life. So in many ways we think that life will be enjoyable later and think we really have nothing to celebrate in life now. We think things like,”There is nothing in my life that I can celebrate now but later I will be able to”. For many, this faulty thinking follows them through life.

Sometime the faulty thinking leads them down this line of thinking.  They think that enjoyment of life is sinful or wrong because we always have to be dead serious. They think that there can be no enjoyment in the church or life because that is wrong because Jesus never really enjoyed himself.

People when you talk about enjoying life on a daily basis ask questions like: Can you really enjoy everything?  Is everyday a celebration? Can everyday be a party?

Look at these verses from Ecclesiastes from a variety of versions and see what they say about the enjoying of life.

Ec 2:24 – Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God. – NKJV

Ec 2:25 – For who can eat or enjoy anything apart from him? – NLT

Ec 3:12 – So I concluded that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to enjoy themselves as long as they can. – NLT

Ec 3:13 – And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God. -NLT

Ec 3:22 – We were meant to enjoy our work, and that’s the best thing we can do. We can never know the future. -CEV

Ec 5:18 – Here is what I have seen: It is good and fitting for one to eat and drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labor in which he toils under the sun all the days of his life which God gives him; for it is his heritage. – NKJV

Ec 7:14 – On a good day, enjoy yourself; On a bad day, examine your conscience…. – Message

I will spend more time this week talking about what it means to enjoy life but for now let me ask you these questions:

What are two things that you really enjoy in life?  Does complaining drive you crazy?  Have you ever been stuck in the  faulty thinking of “When I”?

Rules Kids Will Not Learn in School

Charles Sykes wrote some rules that kids will not learn in school – sometimes these are incorrectly attributed to Bill Gates.  They were written in 1996 in a book called “Dumbing Down Our Kids”.  He later wrote a book called “50 Rules Your Kids Will Not Learn In School”. 

No real “Spiritual” insights here but they are some good thoughts for kids to know and learn!

Here  are 11 :

RULE 1

Life is not fair – get used to it.

RULE 2

The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

RULE 3

You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice president with car phone, until you earn both.

RULE 4

If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure.

RULE 5

Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping they called it Opportunity.

RULE 6

If you mess up,it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

RULE 7

Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

RULE 8

Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

RULE 9

Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.

RULE 10

Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

RULE 11

Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

What are your thoughts on these?  What would you add?

Parenting–Is Discipline Something of Great Importance?

I have some thoughts I want to share about parenting today. I am not an expert by any means on parenting but I am a parent  of a 16 year old girl and a 9 year old boy.  I have work with teens in the past as a Youth Pastor for over 8 years and more than that I spent over 10 years working in the counseling field with teens – some with mental health issues and some with addiction problems and some with both.  So today as I talk about my view of these verses and of parenting I do so with an understanding of teens and know some of the pitfalls. 

Now let me share these verses with you that got me thinking about this subject – Colossians 3:20-21 -  20 Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord. 21 Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart.

Obedience means there is a higher authority and it implies respect for one in authority. Obedience is yielding one’s self and will to authority. Obedience is a form of guidance and through it children learn to adapt behavior to proper standards. I see and believe that obedience is the foundation for character. Parents – if you are not obedient to rules, laws, morals, and God – do not expect your children to be because you are the one who models this behavior.  In other word – Parents need be people of character.

Obedience to parents is God’s design for order in homes and disobedience is rebellion which is a sin and causes disorder in the home. To obey means to do so on the basis of paying attention to the parents, what they are teaching you, and what rules they have for you. This principle applies as long as the child is under the roof of the parents regardless of the age.  What children need to understand is their parents are their authority. This authority has the responsibility to train children how to live principles of the Word of God and live life in general.

The verse says that fathers are not to exasperate their children so for the parents I have listed four things that we can do to not exasperate or irritate our children or cause them to lose heart.

1. Make sure a balanced discipline is a part of life in the home – too little causes children to lose heart and too much causes children to lose heart.  Balance out the discipline.
2. Unfair punishment causes loss of heart in children as well as parents who are impulsive when punishing their children. There must be a balance between discipline and love. All discipline should be done in love and not out of personal hurt. Discipline is not the same as punishment. Punishment simply tries to control the behavior while discipline seeks to teach the child to do something a different way.
3. Parents must not threaten as a way of discipline – it is useless. Threats just make more threats till you have to do something that is not effective in teaching a better way. Discipline should be a way of teaching the child to do things a different and right way and that does not come through threats.
4. After discipline, express forgiveness to the child.   Then help the child with their outlook because parents are to encourage their children. Ephesians warns against discouraging our children. It is important to give the child a sense of belonging, worth and confidence in Christ.

Discipline when it comes to children helps us be better parents and helps our children to live a better life and a better life for Christ.

These are just a few thoughts I have regarding parenting,kids, and these verses from Colossians 3.   So what is at least one piece of advice that you would give when it comes to patenting – I do not care if you are single or married or a parent  or grandparent– you were raised by parents so what is something that you learned that an invaluable piece of parenting advice?

What’s Going On?

Funny thing about life is that it can be full of blessings but generally they come during some pretty hard times.

Around the home right now we have some things that are just plain frustrating to deal with.  For instance we have had things popping up and they eating away at our finances.   We have been dealing with car issues with both vehicles that are distracting to say the least.  I still have a home that I have been dealing with for two years and I am giving it back to the bank but the paper work just never seems to get processed by the bank.  These are just a few thing and they are to be honest making things stressful in life.

With all this going on I have seen God doing some pretty amazing things.  I have seen prayers answered.  I have seen God working in people’s lives in a powerful way.  I have seen God use His Word to make a difference in people’s lives.  I have seen God work in my life in a powerful way.

Let me just share some specifics.  I have been doing a study of Radical Together by David Platt with deacons of the church and I have been so encouraged by my time with these men and by what God is doing.  I have grown in my relationship with them and I believe they have grown in their relationship with me.  I have been praying for some specific things in my prayer time – like God would provide to help us get our vehicles fixed.  My father-in-law who is great at working on cars is here this weekend and he is prayerfully going to help get the cars in good running order again.  I have preached on forgiveness recently and had someone call yesterday and tell me that they have forgiven someone and do not know if the person knows, so they have asked me to go with them to talk with them.  I am seeing discipleship happen in the church and I am seeing God work in me through all this.  I am being encouraged by these things and many more things and ways God is working in me and others.

Is everything going great?  The honest answer is no.  There are things that are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination in my life and in the church but God is working and moving.  God is changing lives.  That is where I choose to focus my attention  these days. That is where I choose let my mind dwell.  That is where I am going to meditate.   I choose to look at life like Paul tells us too.

Philippians 4:8 – Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. (Message)

Let me ask you:  What is going on? What is going great in your life?  What good things are filling your mind?  What things are you praising God for?

Doing the Menial?

On Sunday’s, at the church I Pastor, all the adults meet for announcements and prayer request before the start of our Sunday School. Just before we pray for the requests the Sunday School Superintendent reads the devotional for the day from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers.  This past Sunday he read it and this portion really has stuck in my head ever since.

If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet —John 13:14

Ministering in everyday opportunities that surround us does not mean that we select our own surroundings— it means being God’s very special choice to be available for use in any of the seemingly random surroundings which He has engineered for us. The very character we exhibit in our present surroundings is an indication of what we will be like in other surroundings.

The things Jesus did were the most menial of everyday tasks, and this is an indication that it takes all of God’s power in me to accomplish even the most common tasks in His way. Can I use a towel as He did? Towels, dishes, sandals, and all the other ordinary things in our lives reveal what we are made of more quickly than anything else. It takes God Almighty Incarnate in us to do the most menial duty as it ought to be done. – My Utmost for His Highest Sept. 11th 2011

Let me say that this spoke to me.  We so often think we have to have so much in order do minister to people.  I am guilty of this – you know what I am talking about – I have to have this or that to be effective for Christ.  When I heard this and then read it later it spoke to me that I do not need those things.  Just think that Jesus did a powerful act with a towel, a bowl, and water – ordinary things in life.  Jesus used the ordinary to do the extraordinary and we so often think we have to have the extraordinary to do the ordinary.  It is simply not the case.  We have so many ordinary things around us that we can do extraordinary things with if we just allowed God to lead us.

Let me ask you:  Does this speak to you at all?  If it does, what does it say to you?  Do you see something different from me?  Please share it.

Death of a Dream (Part 1)

This week we are going to look at how to deal with a No from God by looking at David and the No He got from God.  Let us get right into it.  1st Samuel Chapter 7:1 When the LORD had brought peace to the land and King David was settled in his palace, 2David summoned Nathan the prophet. “Look!” David said. “Here I am living in this beautiful cedar palace, but the Ark of God is out in a tent!” 3Nathan replied, “Go ahead and do what you have in mind, for the LORD is with you.”

You can see the control that God has; He is the one who brought the Peace to the land. There is a lesson for us in the first line of this Chapter. God is in control and He is the one who brings about the Peace in our life. Any attempt of us trying to bring about peace is useless. How often do we attempt to be the ones who bring peace but the only true peace comes from God.

So what we see is that David comes to the realization that God deserves the best. David sees that he is living in the lap of luxury in his new palace and God is living in a tent. Then we see Nathans reply to this and that is that He sees nothing wrong with David having an idea and tells him to go for it because God is with him.

Then we read this:4 But that same night the LORD said to Nathan, 5 “Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the LORD says: Are you the one to build me a temple to live in? 6 I have never lived in a temple, from the day I brought the Israelites out of Egypt until now. My home has always been a tent, moving from one place to another. 7 And I have never once complained to Israel’s leaders, the shepherds of my people Israel. I have never asked them, “Why haven’t you built me a beautiful cedar temple?”‘

There is a lot of information in it that we need to look into. The first thing comes is this is where God uses His veto powers and vetoes David’s idea for him to build the temple. What we see is that God is honored that David thinks enough of Him to build him a temple. God sees someone who is willing to go above and beyond for Him. Are you willing to go above and beyond for God or are you doing to what it takes to get by? Unfortunately most will only do what it takes to get by. Let us never fall into the let us just to the bare minimum for God mentality. Give God your all.

Now God’s veto of this is not done in a mean way but in a very nice and complimentary way. He did not treat David’s idea with anger or distain but in a loving and gracious way told Nathan to tell David that it was not what He had planned for him. He has honored David even though he tells him that it is not what he has planned for him.

Sometimes what we plan and what God plans are two different things in life. We need to be willing and understand that God might have something completely different in store for us. Part of understanding this come in the idea that we need to trust God and trust that he has our best in mind at all times.

David is going to find out that God didn’t want him to build the temple. Here is the important thing and it is in the response of David in this. David didn’t respond by doing nothing as we will later see. Instead of building the temple, David gathered all the materials for its construction so Solomon could build a glorious temple to God.

Lesson for us in all this, is that when God says no to you, you do not pout about it and do nothing. You help out and do what you can to serve God and others! Read this quote by F.B. Meyer: “If you cannot have what you hoped, do not sit down in despair and allow the energies of your life to run to waste; but arise, and gird yourself to help others to achieve. If you may not build, you may gather materials for him that shall. If you may not go down the mine, you can hold the ropes.”

Here is the difference between those who are successful in life and those who are not. When you get word that you are not to do something or a door has closed – instead of pouting and getting angry – the successful person figures out what God wants them to learn and where He wants them to go and what He wants them to do. In is not about hanging your head, being depressed or climbing back in bed and pulling the covers over your head. When you get the no then your job is to seek God for what you are to learn in the no, where He want you to go, and what He wants you to go. Sometimes it is going to involve helping someone else achieve what you dream as in the case here with David.

Here though is an incredible principle when it comes to all this and if you can understand this, it will be life changing for you when you get a No from God. When God says “No” to what you propose, God will show you His better plan. You can count on that. When God says “No” He will show you his better plan. You are going to get to see it here in the life of David, so when you get a no you just wait and let the Lord work!

How are you at getting a no from someone else when you are really looking forward to something?

Living out my faith is seen in the……

Been doing some thinking about living out my faith today.  It comes from some of the good discussions I have read on some of the other blogs I have read today and from  a book  I started reading that is pushing me.  Also some music I was listening to as I  was making a long drive to a hospital and back today.  So I pondered today what does it mean to live out one’s faith.

Here is where I landed today.  So when it comes to living out your faith, it is simply trusting and obeying God in all areas and aspects of life. It is about others seeing your faith lived out daily. This is one of the most important aspects for any believer.

Living your faith before others means: God is more precious to you than any other thing on earth which includes your wife or husband or children or friends. This is difficult, but God must be more precious to you than these are, for if you do not have a relationship with God then your relationship with your husband or wife or children or friends  will suffer and/or fall apart and/or will not be all that it can or should be. This is why it is so important  that you keep Christ at the center of relationships  – so that all relationships will be strong and what they are meant to be.

Living out my faith is seen not in the words I use but in the actions I do.  Living out my faith is seen in the attitude that I have toward those I agree with and those I disagree with.  Living out my faith is seen in the way that I serve and love everyone. 

Finish this sentence:  Living out my faith  is seen in the ……..  Then tell me what you think about what I wrote – agree/disagree and why.