a mediocre outcome

Rest.

Unwind.

De-Stress.

I have decided to let go of a few things in my life in order to de-clutter and focus my efforts. Right now it seems that I have been running around this city trying to do God's work, and in the process have done a lot of things, but only maintained enough time and effort to accomplish these tasks with a mediocre outcome. I would rather do a few things well than do many things okay.

It's time to apply laser guided focus again...

"Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him..."

-Psalm 37:7

saving a lost brother

I was very encouraged the other day at Calvary when my dad talked about jumping into the river and saving a lost brother or sister in Christ. How am I mobilizing to help those brothers who are straying from the path? Am I being an encouragement or am I being a nag? Are my intentions behind my actions pure and right?

I was encouraged by Paul's words to Philemon. Paul knows what Philemon should do (in regards to Onesimus) but doesn't force him to do it. Instead he says, "I could demand it in the name of Christ because it is the right thing for you to do, but because of our love, I prefer just to ask you."

I don't want to force people to love God. It will just lead to a false religion. Instead, I want to lovingly encourage those who are struggling and allow them to make the right decision on their own.

"I will keep a protective eye on the godly,

so they may dwell with me in safety."

~Psalm 101:6

Was Jesus just a great moral teacher?

I am studying various religions in my theology class at school and have been hit with the fact that every single religion that believes in Christ (except for Christianity) just believes that he was a good teacher, not the Son of God (John 1:1).  

What do we say to this?  Read the quote below and tell me what you think.

"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus 

said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a 

lunatic - on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg - or 

he would be the devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this 

was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. 

You can shut Him up for a fool or you can fall at His feet and call 

Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing 

nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left 

that open to us. He did not intend to". 

 -- CS Lewis

just a set of stairs?

This movie made me think about how the mundane things in life can be turned into fun and really have an impact on people's lives.

It also made me think about my own personal testimony.  Am I a person who is viewed as "just a set of stairs"?  Am I boring and dullish for people?  When people are around me, does it seem like they have to exert more effort than it's worth?  Do I bring a sense of fun and excitement to people's lives?

Anyway.  Enjoy.

If you can't view it on Facebook, please visit my site at Your Daily Source of Vitamin A.

record everything

So I am currently reading through the One Year Bible (OYB) and keeping accountable with a men's group that meets every Wednesday morning.  It is such a blessing to be encouraged in the faith!  I feel as though sometimes it is just me against the world.  I know that this isn't really the case, but it sure can feel that way.

Not really a huge post today, but I noticed something intriguing while reading through Jeremiah chapter 30.  God tells Jeremiah to "write down for the record everything I have said to you" (verse 2).  

The thought that hit me that I don't journal enough.  I must write down how God moves through my life; not only so I can be encouraged when I'm down, but so that I might encourage others in the faith.

God is so good.

America (Granger Community Church Interview)

I had the honor of being interviewed for the 4th of July weekend service at Granger Community Church.  Thankful for LeRoy King (vocals) and Trace Rorie (guitar).

Stand By Me

This song says:

"No matter who you are,

No matter where you go in your life;

At some point you're going to need somebody

to stand by you."

Do Something Great

Abraham Lincoln often slipped out of the White House on Wednesday evenings to listen to the sermons of Dr. Phineas Gurley at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. He generally preferred to come and go unnoticed, so when Dr. Gurley knew the president was coming, he left his study door open.

On one of those occasions, the president quietly entered through a side door of the church, took his seat in the minister's study, located just off the sanctuary, and propped the door open just wide enough to hear the preacher. During the walk home one Wednesday evening, an aide asked Mr. Lincoln his appraisal of the sermon. The president thoughtfully replied,

"The content was excellent... he delivered with eloquence... he had put work into the message.."

"Then you thought it was an excellent sermon?" questioned the aide.

"No," Lincoln answered.

"But you said that the content was excellent, it was delivered with eloquence and it showed much work," the aide pressed.

"That's true," Lincoln said. "But Dr. Gurley forgot the most important ingredient. He forgot to ask us to do something great."
------------------------------------------
There is nothing wrong with average lives and average accomplishments.

Most of the good of the world is built on the accumulated efforts of everyday people. But, as Lincoln seemed to know, a life should strive for some greatness. Are you part of a relationship that, if given more effort, could be outstanding? Do you volunteer for an organization which is truly doing something excellent? Have you joined a cause that is attempting something great? Or have you ever said to yourself concerning a beautiful dream, "I could never do that," while knowing that if you were to attempt it and succeed, you could accomplish something significant?

If Lincoln is right, then every life should strive for some greatness. Including yours and mine!

*this article is from Life Support System, 12 January 2007.

the only complete realist

Just wanted to share one of my favorite C.S. Lewis quotes from Mere Christianity.  It talks about those who resist temptation and those who constantly give in.

"No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.  A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means.  This is an obvious lie.  Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.  After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in.  You find out the strength of the wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down.  A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later.  That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness.  They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in.  We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means--the only complete realist."

Daily Reading: 31 March 2009

Wow, the Bible always amazes me with its wisdom and insight into daily human life.  I was taught a long time ago that if I wanted to understand mankind then I needed to understand man.  So in college I took Psychology, Sociology, Biology, and other natural and social sciences.

But the more I go to church, the more I read God's word, the more I begin to realize that if I TRULY want to understand mankind, then I need to study God.  

I enjoy reading stories that show God's heart and his compassion for me.  In Deuteronomy 18:16 it says that the people of Israel BEGGED God to stay away from them.  They didn't even want to hear His voice!  And what did God say?  "Fine, I will do as they requested."

But He can't keep from loving us and communicating His will to us.  He sends a prophet that will "proclaim on My behalf".  

How amazing is God's love?!  That even when I push Him away (which is quite often) and shut his voice out of my life (which is a regular occurrence) HE still pursues ME!

And yet, He doesn't push me to love Him.  In Luke 9:42, Jesus has been asked to heal a child with an evil spirit.  He told the people that they were "stubborn" and "faithless" and yet, He didn't just walk up and heal the boy.  He ASKED the father to have faith and bring the boy to Him.  Jesus didn't push the man to believe, but still gave him the opportunity, even though the man had already exhibited qualities of faithlessness.  How amazing!

In Psalm 73:1 it says, "Truly God is good to Israel, to those whose hearts are pure."  That verse, by itself, would depress me sometimes when my heart wasn't so pure.  But then I read the next verse and remember how much I enjoy David's testimony of falling down and getting back up again: "But as for me, I came so close to the edge of the cliff!  My feet were slipping, and I was almost gone."

There are some characters in the Bible that I cannot relate to.  Joshua is one of these. He seems to have an almost impossible strength of character!  But David is so relatable because, like him, I have fallen down the mountain, patched up my cuts and scrapes through the grace of God, and climbed back up.

A question I hear a lot from my friends is "how can GOOD things happen to BAD people?".  There are a lot of different ways I answered that question before, but after reading through the rest of Psalm 73 it become much clearer.  I am going to write the entire Psalm here in the NLT.

3. For I envied the proud when I saw them prosper despite their wickedness.

4. They seem to live such a painless life; their bodies are so healthy and strong.

5.  They aren't troubled like other people or plagued with problems like everyone else.

6.  They wear pride like a jeweled necklace, and their clothing is woven of cruelty.

7.  These fat cats have everything their hearts could ever wish for!

8.  They scoff and speak only evil; in their pride they seek to crush others.

9.  They boast against the very heavens, and their words strut throughout the earth.

10.  And so the people are dismayed and confused, drinking in all their words.

11.  "Does God realize what is going on?" they ask.  "Is the Most High even aware of what is happening?"

12.  Look at these arrogant people--enjoying a life of ease while their riches multiply.

13.  Was it for nothing that I kept my heart pure and kept myself from doing wrong?

14.  All I get is trouble all day long; every morning brings me pain.

15.  If I had really spoken this way, I would have been a traitor to your people

16.  So I tried to understand why the wicked prosper.  But what a difficult task it is!

17.  Then one day I went into your sanctuary, O God, and I thought about the destiny of the wicked.

18.  Truly, you put them on a slippery path and send them sliding over the cliff to destruction.

19.  In an instant they are destroyed, swept away by terrors.

20.  Their present life is only a dream that is gone when they awake.  When you arise, O Lord, you will make them vanish from this life.

21.  Then I realized how bitter I had become, how pained I had been by all I had seen.

22.  I was so foolish and ignorant--I must have seemed like a senseless animal to you.

23.  Yet I still belong to you; you are holding my right hand.

24.  You will keep on guiding me with your counsel, leading me to a glorious destiny.

25.  Whom have I in heaven but you?  I desire you more than anything on earth.

26.  My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; He is mine forever.

27.  But those who desert Him will perish, for you destroy those who abandon you.

28.  But as for me, how good it is to be near God!  I have made the Sovereign Lord my shelter, and I will tell everyone about the wonderful things that you do.

third house from the end

I go to Jordan Ford at least once a week to get a free car wash (sorry, only for people who bought their car there). Recently, I ran into an old high school buddy named Jacob, who also works in the used car area. But usually, a guy named James takes my car through.

I've been getting to know James for some time now and that's been good, but on this particular occasion, a middle-aged woman came out and hopped in my drivers seat.
"Hi, I'm Jonathan"
"Hi, I'm Roxanne".
We talked, as most polite humans do, about a host of different topics. Where she used to work, how she got the job she has now, and what her hobbies are (it's a long car wash).Then we got on the topic of where I went to elementary school. I told her Battell, on Cedar Street. She said that she used to live off of Cedar, on Lawrence.

I said, "Oh, that's interesting, I used to live on Lawrence too". She asked me where, and I said, "I don't remember the exact address, but it was the third house from the end on the right, just before Division". She snapped her head to the right and looked at me real funny. She said, "Was it a duplex?" I told her it was.

Her mouth dropped open and she did a double take. She said, "That was the exact house that I used to live in!" She lived in the same house I did, just ten years before my family moved in.

Now, is this a coincidence? No. Not only has the Lord allowed me to develop a relationship with James, but he also placed Jacob there (someone I already know), and now this woman named Roxanne, who I now have this very weird connection with. There were quit a few layoffs at Jordan ford recently, and they only kept three people in the used car area; three people that I now have a direct connection with. I believe that the Lord is priming this as a significant ministry opportunity.

"At the same time pray for us too, that God may open a door for the message so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ."~Colossians 4:3 (NET)

servant's reward

Have you ever been blessed by the Lord? Some things happen and I don't necessarily think that the Lord is blessing me, when in fact, He probably is.

First example. Last December I was sitting at Fort Bragg getting ready to head overseas. Because of the ice on the streets, me and some buddies decided to stay in our barracks and play a game of Spades and order pizza. There were six of us and the pizza came by the truckloads. We finished our game around 11pm and the guys started to head back to their rooms just down the hall. The weather had turned worse and freezing rain was now coming down pretty hard. No one wanted to run the empty pizza boxes out to the dumpster about 200 meters away from the building, so I volunteered. I cleaned up everything, all the tables, the half-eaten breadsticks, the marinara sauce, and hauled those four empty boxes to the dumpster in my sweatpants. On the way to the dumpster, I found a $20 bill.

"Cool!", I thought as I picked it up. I walked another five feat and found another $20 bill, then another, then another, then another. In total, I found $100! I thought that it was neat that I had volunteered to be a servant and reaped the reward. The next morning I told everyone in the building that I had found a certain amount of money, but no one claimed it. It's literally like it fell from the sky.

Second example. My brother called me late on Thursday and said that he and his friends wanted to get together for poker. Well, it was past 9pm and the weather was said to get really bad, I hadn't had any coffee, my brother lived 25 minutes away, I had to swing by the ATM to get $5 for the buy-in......my mind was racing with a thousand reasons NOT TO GO. Then I had this quiet thought of "He's my brother and I need to reach out to him whenever he reaches out to me". And I went. Now, mind you, I have never won at a poker game in my life (and I've played quite a few) but I won the top prize of $30 that night. And I got to spend time with my little brother. Did God honor my obedience to do what was right? When I get to heaven I'll ask Him.

pull out all the stops

I wanted to share a short paragraph that my pastor gave me just before I left for Iraq. It's an excerpt from a letter written by a missionary out in the jungles of New Guinea:

Man, it is great to be in the thick of the fight, to draw the old devil's heaviest guns, to have him at you with depression and discouragement, slander, disease. He doesn't waste time on a lukewarm bunch. He hits good and hard when a fellow is hitting him. You can always measure the weight of your blow by the one you get back. When you're on your back with fever and at your last ounce of strength, when some of your converts backslide, when you learn that your most promising inquirers are only fooling, when your mail gets held up, and some don't bother to answer your letters, is that the time to put on mourning? No sir. That's the time to pull out the stops and shout, Hallelujah! The old fellow's getting it in the neck and hitting back. Heaven is leaning over the battlements and watching. "Will he stick it?" And as they see Who is with us, as they see the unlimited reserves, the boundless resources, as they see the impossibility of failure, how disgusted and sad they must be when we run away. Glory to God! We're not going to run away. We're going to stand.

"No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it."~1st Corinthians 10:13

The three onlookers

At GCC this past Wednesday Ron spoke about setting up "ducks" in my life that are difinitive places where I have seen God working. I pulled this story from a year ago, but wanted to share it with you if you haven't heard it.

//December 29,2007//
This past week was spent in Minnesota with my fantastic family. It was a welcome break from Fort Bragg.My trip was very interesting. I left Kalamazoo around 0230, hoping to beat the rush through Chicago and make it to Minneapolis around 10am. The roads were clear and traffic was light when I left. The temperature was around 48 degrees.

I got through Chicago without incident. However, as soon as I hit the west side, the temperature started to drop very quickly and the snow began to fall. Temperatures were now at 16 degrees.I kept driving north into Wisconsin cheese country, as the temperature kept dropping and the traffic steadily became more congested.

I pulled over around 0740 to grab some coffee from Starbucks. They weren't open yet because their delivery truck was stuck in the weather, however, after my sob story of being deployed to Iraq and this potentially being my last cup of hot coffee in the United States, they were obliged to give me a fresh brewed cup. As they passed it out the window they said, "Don't drink it for a while because it's extra, extra hot." And they were right. Even with gloves on and the cardboard coffee wrap, my hands still felt hot.I got back on the freeway and kept driving north, determined to "be home for Christmas".

About fifteen minutes later I'm cruising along and decided to call my mom on my high-speed hands free device. We're chatting and joking when all of a sudden my car hit black ice and immediately began turning clockwise on the freeway at 55 mph. It completed a 180 degree turn, slid to the side of the road, hit the ditch, flipped on it side, and continued sliding into the ditch until it came to a halt. I had my seatbelt on, and was laying on my side with the ground right next to my head. I was still on speakerphone with my mom, and had just finished narrating the entire thing to her as it happened, so she sounded very distressed and asked me all sorts of questions.

I undo my seatbelt and turn off the vehicle. I look up to the passenger door and there are two faces staring back at me. It shocked me at first because it had only been 30 seconds or so since the accident. They ask if I'm okay. "Yeah, I'm fine." It was two men who looked like they were from West Virginia and had baled hay their entire lives.One man opened the passenger door and held it open for me, while the other grabbed my hands and helped me out. As I'm pulled out, I noticed there was a third person standing next to the two men. It was a women, dressed in a white fur coat. She says, "Are you okay? Do you have any injuries? I'm a registered nurse, let me look you over."

She has me pull off my hat, she examines my head, and then checks for any other injuries. She smiles and says, "Everything checks out". Just then, a police car pulls up. Again, I'm shocked because I hadn't called for any help yet. The state police officer began asking me questions, and put me into his car to stay warm. The officer needed my registration, so I went to my vehicle and opened the passenger door, holding it open while I fumbled around in the glove compartment. Those doors are heavier than they look!

After a moment, I retrieved my registration. As I was shutting the door, I noticed my coffee cup. Remember? That steaming hot cup of coffee? It was sitting, straight up, without the lid, on the drivers side window, completely full. It had not spilled one drop during the accident. Unbelievable.I walked back to the police cruiser, just as a fire truck was stopping at the scene to check that there weren't any injuries. It was still only five minutes after the accident.

About five minutes later, a tow truck pulls up, flips my car right side up, and hoists it out of the ditch and onto the back of his truck.The truck driver took me south, about five miles, to DeForest. We drop my car off at the repair shop and he offers me a ride to the airport to pick up a rental. I said, "Aren't you still on duty?" He says, "Actually, this works out well. You were my last pickup so I'm off the clock now and would be happy to give you a ride." So, he drives me twenty minutes south to Madison to get a rental.

I decided to continue driving to Minneapolis, but I first wanted to grab everything out of my car in case it was declared a "total". As I'm cleaning out my car, another tow truck drops off another SUV that had rolled. The truck driver says, "I hope you aren't planning to go out there, it's real bad. We just received a call to go and get another car that had flipped in the ditch." This changed my mind, and I got a hotel room and waited out the storm. So I made it up safely the next day. After thinking about the incident and going over everything in my head, I realize how much God had His hand on the entire accident.

The most amazing part were the three people who arrived almost instantly after the crash happened. Although I didn't think of it at the time, I never recalled any vehicles at the scene but mine. The three onlookers didn't have a car anywhere near mine and I never saw where they went after my attention was diverted to the police officer. I am convinced that the Lord allowed me to visually see my guardian angels, even for a brief moment.

He also provided a police car, a fire truck, and a tow truck right behind me before the accident happened so that they were on the scene immediately. He orchestrated where my hot coffee would fly during the accident, and he provided me transportation to the airport by means of an off-duty truck driver. And to top it off, I didn't have any injuries. I am grateful this holiday season to worship a God who answers prayers before I even ask.

"Before they call, I will answer. While they are still speaking, I will hear."-Isaiah 65:24