In the still morning hush I looked out over a mirrored surface of the mist shrouded river. Moving molten over the rocks and riffles, still and glassy in the eddies and pools. Into this painting I stepped with a slosh and muffled gravel crunch. Into the shallows of the flow and then, again more hesitantly a second step. Deeper and more unsure my boot shod foot searched for a third purchase under the dark moving current. My eyes were flitting carefully between the murky evidence I could see at my feet and searching the moving waters for a path from rock to rock. Purposefully yet slowly I eased into the more swift and treacherous waters. My goal for the morning is the exposed round of granite that holds steady at the confluence of two deep channels, and forms the head of an even deeper slow moving pool. Each step that moves me closer to my goal brings the flow further up the edge of my faded green waders. Another sure pace moves my feet deeper into the shadows under the water, where the rocks are becoming as slick as the feel of the icy water. As I approach the conclusion of the mornings obstacle course I can feel the profound weight of the water seeking to roll me into the depths. Finally the heaviness began to lessen, and more of my waders emerged to shed their water along the near side of my stony fishing platform.
Climbing to the top I paused and reflected on how this rock was much like God’s place in my life. All around me was beauty… and danger. At any point a slip could have been disastrous. There are things in our life that seek to make us slip under the waters. If we keep our focus, remain steady and purposeful towards our goal (and all of our goals should be His will) there is a rock solid steadiness at the best possible location in the middle of the torrent.
God does not desire that we remain fearfully at the waters edge, wondering what life would be like. He seeks to gain our trust through the journey, so that when we reach the goal we are able to look around in amazement. He is there to hold us steady and bring us into the life he has in mind for us. Hold His hand; Step into your stream…
Friday, April 30, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Out of Thin Air
Life is but a grand paraphrase, plagiarized from those around us then compiled and rewritten from our point of view. What is your source material?
As I travel through life I find myself picking up pieces of knowledge from many sorts of places. These seemingly diffuse items line up into lessons if I just pay attention.
Envision walking down a crowded street with all of the areas of your life lined up like so many shops on each side of the road. There to your right is the TV store with hundreds of screens stacked beside and on top of each other, each one tuned to a different station. Add to that the radio station next door with as many receivers commingling music with their amplified clamor roaring like a waterfall. Ahead is a sidewalk café with those you will meet today, conversations overlapping and intertwining. Their words forming a cloud that drifts into the street.
Your work life is represented along this throughway as the bustling unnamed souls on the sidewalk, hurrying by, bumping into you as they hasten to their diverse destinations. The towering buildings across the street that block the light from the sun are todays troubles you just can’t seem to shed. Moving slowly by on the street are the things you would enviously have if you only had the means. The next shop is the dessert store where your gluttonous desires can be fulfilled to overflowing. The items in this shop are glorious, sensuous, stunning, magnificent... and attainable. They can not only be obsessed over but consumed until the pain of envy is but a small distraction.
Each step you take, every vacuous face you look into, is speaking into your life with sights and sounds that overwhelm your senses… but you cannot stop. Even in this clutter and haste that we call life, God is speaking to you. Are you able to slow down enough to listen? Look patiently into each of the things in your life as points on a masterful impressionistic painting. Allow God to combine the drifting words into inspirational sentences. Let him show you the beauty thrown by the shadows of your fears. Permit him to point out the face in the crowd that is tinged with sadness and ask what you can do to help.
Combine the sights and sounds of the urgent until they become like thunderous waves on a beautiful beach. Drink in the peacefulness of a life slowly embraced. Turn your face to the again visible sunshine, and let His light warm your soul. If you allow Him, God will bring you to a place where you can see the majesty of the symphony he is daily creating, and your part in it.
As I travel through life I find myself picking up pieces of knowledge from many sorts of places. These seemingly diffuse items line up into lessons if I just pay attention.
Envision walking down a crowded street with all of the areas of your life lined up like so many shops on each side of the road. There to your right is the TV store with hundreds of screens stacked beside and on top of each other, each one tuned to a different station. Add to that the radio station next door with as many receivers commingling music with their amplified clamor roaring like a waterfall. Ahead is a sidewalk café with those you will meet today, conversations overlapping and intertwining. Their words forming a cloud that drifts into the street.
Your work life is represented along this throughway as the bustling unnamed souls on the sidewalk, hurrying by, bumping into you as they hasten to their diverse destinations. The towering buildings across the street that block the light from the sun are todays troubles you just can’t seem to shed. Moving slowly by on the street are the things you would enviously have if you only had the means. The next shop is the dessert store where your gluttonous desires can be fulfilled to overflowing. The items in this shop are glorious, sensuous, stunning, magnificent... and attainable. They can not only be obsessed over but consumed until the pain of envy is but a small distraction.
Each step you take, every vacuous face you look into, is speaking into your life with sights and sounds that overwhelm your senses… but you cannot stop. Even in this clutter and haste that we call life, God is speaking to you. Are you able to slow down enough to listen? Look patiently into each of the things in your life as points on a masterful impressionistic painting. Allow God to combine the drifting words into inspirational sentences. Let him show you the beauty thrown by the shadows of your fears. Permit him to point out the face in the crowd that is tinged with sadness and ask what you can do to help.
Combine the sights and sounds of the urgent until they become like thunderous waves on a beautiful beach. Drink in the peacefulness of a life slowly embraced. Turn your face to the again visible sunshine, and let His light warm your soul. If you allow Him, God will bring you to a place where you can see the majesty of the symphony he is daily creating, and your part in it.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
There is a Spiritual Battle Going On ...
My children are the most important thing I will ever accomplish in this life. Most people are unaware that our enemy strives every day to ensnare our hearts and minds to things that are of the world. Our society gladly accepts these things as right and true until the point that they are choked on the excess and pride of accumulating insignificant things. God brings us into this world holding a basket into which he will fill our life with joy and happiness beyond our dreams. Too many of us greedily fill the basket ourselves, to the point where we cannot accept the gifts He would have for us. I am committing to my children that I will fight every battle I can to help them break through these enemy lines. I will show them who is the ultimate leader and the Book where all of the answers are written. Then hopefully I will explain the love I have for each of them by reflecting some of the love that God has given to me. After all, what good is love unless you give it away?
Every gift that we are given in this life comes from Him, and the only way we will quit receiving them is to fill our life with other things, or feel that we are unworthy. God loves us despite this unworthiness, and out of our appreciation and gratitude we are called to share His love with others. If I can point my children in the right direction, with His help, they can continue this battle for our family until the day we are all together again. If I leave a legacy in this world, I hope it will be viewed as gratitude and love.
Every gift that we are given in this life comes from Him, and the only way we will quit receiving them is to fill our life with other things, or feel that we are unworthy. God loves us despite this unworthiness, and out of our appreciation and gratitude we are called to share His love with others. If I can point my children in the right direction, with His help, they can continue this battle for our family until the day we are all together again. If I leave a legacy in this world, I hope it will be viewed as gratitude and love.
Solitude- Be quiet and listen… God has something to say to you.
Isaiah 40:29.He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.30.Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall;31.but those who hope in (wait on) the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
Psalm 25: 5.guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you (for thee I will wait) all day long.
Notes taken from a study of the chapter on Solitude in Richard Foster’s book Spiritual Disciplines …
I have a habit of retreating to the woods or lake to find peace. I find that I can hear God much better when everything around me is still and quiet. It is something done by Jesus over and over (Matt. 4:1-11, Luke 6:12, Matt. 14:13 and 23, Mark 1:35, Mark 6:31, Luke 5:16 …) These are examples of Jesus retreating to a quiet place in times of high stress just before a big decision or event.
God wants to speak with us but we must learn how to listen. The first step is find a place of silence. Foster says that we should not equate being away from others as loneliness. He says “Loneliness is inner emptiness. Solitude is inner fulfillment.” This can actually be a silent place but over time we are to cultivate a peaceful quiet soul “Whether alone or among people, we always carry with us a portable sanctuary of the heart.” P.97
God knows that we cannot fully listen while distracted. The warning is that sometimes we confuse speaking with God (prayer) in a public place as real communication. Foster shares that intimate time with God is needed and it almost always needs to be done in a place of silence. Without silence there is no solitude. Without solitude we may not fully understand what God is leading us towards.
Matthew 6: 6.But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
That is not to say we shouldn’t pray in public. Thomas a Kempis says “It is easier to be silent altogether than to speak with moderation” We all from time to time need to learn the lesson of keeping our mouth shut. As we learn silence we will also learn from God the right things to say at the right times.
Ecclesiastes 3:7 …a time to be silent and a time to speak.
God will sometimes lead us into a period Foster calls “The Dark Night of the Soul” which is a period of being away from all things so that we can appreciate what is to come. It is a complicated concept but my take is this. If you want to really hear something, plug your ears for a period where you almost forget what sound is like, then unplug your ears and sound becomes much more beautiful. We get caught up in ourselves and sometimes God needs to separate us for a period so that we will actually listen when He speaks. When this happens it will feel like punishment… until he reveals the reasons why. Sometimes God can only be understood while looking back at how things transpired to get us to this point.
He sometimes gives me illustrations to explain complex messages. I recently had a new radio installed in my Ford Expedition. More features, more power, better sound, etc. Listening to God can be like that radio. It is always there but I need to go to where it is. Just sitting in the truck is not enough, I have to also turn it on and then tune the station. When I do there will be beautiful music… How often do we wonder where the beautiful sound of Gods voice is although we are not doing our part to be in his presence? Through practice we should be able to hear his voice at all times in that inner peaceful place we have created inside ourselves.
I have to admit a little bit of selfishness here. Whenever I take on an opportunity to study and translate what God would have me say to others a flood of information seems to coincidentally fall into my lap. That relates back perfectly to what this lesson has been about. If we listen correctly He is there.
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
~ Albert Camus (1913-1960) French Writer
The problem is not that God hasn’t spoken but that we haven’t listened.
~ Max Lucado
Calmness is the cradle of power.
~ Josiah Gilbert Holland
Nothing gives a person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Begin by finding a quiet place and waiting on the Lord. He is already there and will speak when he feels you are ready.
Psalm 25: 5.guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you (for thee I will wait) all day long.
Notes taken from a study of the chapter on Solitude in Richard Foster’s book Spiritual Disciplines …
I have a habit of retreating to the woods or lake to find peace. I find that I can hear God much better when everything around me is still and quiet. It is something done by Jesus over and over (Matt. 4:1-11, Luke 6:12, Matt. 14:13 and 23, Mark 1:35, Mark 6:31, Luke 5:16 …) These are examples of Jesus retreating to a quiet place in times of high stress just before a big decision or event.
God wants to speak with us but we must learn how to listen. The first step is find a place of silence. Foster says that we should not equate being away from others as loneliness. He says “Loneliness is inner emptiness. Solitude is inner fulfillment.” This can actually be a silent place but over time we are to cultivate a peaceful quiet soul “Whether alone or among people, we always carry with us a portable sanctuary of the heart.” P.97
God knows that we cannot fully listen while distracted. The warning is that sometimes we confuse speaking with God (prayer) in a public place as real communication. Foster shares that intimate time with God is needed and it almost always needs to be done in a place of silence. Without silence there is no solitude. Without solitude we may not fully understand what God is leading us towards.
Matthew 6: 6.But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
That is not to say we shouldn’t pray in public. Thomas a Kempis says “It is easier to be silent altogether than to speak with moderation” We all from time to time need to learn the lesson of keeping our mouth shut. As we learn silence we will also learn from God the right things to say at the right times.
Ecclesiastes 3:7 …a time to be silent and a time to speak.
God will sometimes lead us into a period Foster calls “The Dark Night of the Soul” which is a period of being away from all things so that we can appreciate what is to come. It is a complicated concept but my take is this. If you want to really hear something, plug your ears for a period where you almost forget what sound is like, then unplug your ears and sound becomes much more beautiful. We get caught up in ourselves and sometimes God needs to separate us for a period so that we will actually listen when He speaks. When this happens it will feel like punishment… until he reveals the reasons why. Sometimes God can only be understood while looking back at how things transpired to get us to this point.
He sometimes gives me illustrations to explain complex messages. I recently had a new radio installed in my Ford Expedition. More features, more power, better sound, etc. Listening to God can be like that radio. It is always there but I need to go to where it is. Just sitting in the truck is not enough, I have to also turn it on and then tune the station. When I do there will be beautiful music… How often do we wonder where the beautiful sound of Gods voice is although we are not doing our part to be in his presence? Through practice we should be able to hear his voice at all times in that inner peaceful place we have created inside ourselves.
I have to admit a little bit of selfishness here. Whenever I take on an opportunity to study and translate what God would have me say to others a flood of information seems to coincidentally fall into my lap. That relates back perfectly to what this lesson has been about. If we listen correctly He is there.
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
~ Albert Camus (1913-1960) French Writer
The problem is not that God hasn’t spoken but that we haven’t listened.
~ Max Lucado
Calmness is the cradle of power.
~ Josiah Gilbert Holland
Nothing gives a person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Begin by finding a quiet place and waiting on the Lord. He is already there and will speak when he feels you are ready.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Important Words
You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world's happiness now. How? By giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. -- Dale Carnegie
One day my father asked my daughter Lauryn if she was “self conscious” of her braces. She told him no but then asked me later, “Daddy, What does self conscious mean?” She was 13 at the time and I am very glad to hear that was something that hadn’t been a major concern for her yet. On the other hand I was worried that the Pandora’s box had now been opened. Each day as we go through life people try to hand us words of affirmation or degradation. It is up to us whether we hold them and carry them onward or leave them there.
I believe we can change our life, for the better or worse, by what we choose to pick up and carry in our “baggage”. I also believe we have the power to impact those around us for the good if we make it a purpose. Each day in your interactions with people are you talking about something good that you have experienced, or are you sharing a negative thought. If you start paying attention to how you relate to others it may be revealing that dark secret of your soul that you thought no one else could see. If you see a dark slant, don’t let it get you down, you have just identified the obstacle to your happiness. Start building others up with positive, affirmative language. Tell everyone that you meet something nice about them and share a positive experience. “Marge, that is a beautiful purple dress that you are wearing! It reminds me of a color I saw in a gorgeous sunset last week”. Marge may have a load of negative things in her basket but your words will replace some of that bad with good. Do what you can to be a positive influence on the life of others.
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle. -- John Watson
I am not in any way saying that I have this mastered this fine art. I am far from it, believe me I know. I do however recognize other people with this talent. They typically have crowds of people wanting to be near them. You know of whom I am speaking. They are the best salespeople, the best restaurant / shop owners and hopefully your pastors. That one close friend that you still have 20 years down the road is that type of person.
Think about some ways that you can start on the path towards being a better influence on those around you. First, realize that a change needs to be made. Second, do something about it. Take the time to sit down and find five positive words on which to build your life. Use them as a filter to judge your actions. I have decided on these: Honor, Appreciation, Humility, Gratitude, Accountability. I may fine tune later but I think you get the idea.
Being nice may seem contrived at first. It may be difficult to say something nice to that person who you hold a grudge against for some long lost reason. Each time you take a small step towards helping someone else into the light of happiness brings it closer to yourself. You may even think that some don’t deserve it, but you do. Keep at it and your life, along with those on your path will be better for it.
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. -- Aristotle
One day my father asked my daughter Lauryn if she was “self conscious” of her braces. She told him no but then asked me later, “Daddy, What does self conscious mean?” She was 13 at the time and I am very glad to hear that was something that hadn’t been a major concern for her yet. On the other hand I was worried that the Pandora’s box had now been opened. Each day as we go through life people try to hand us words of affirmation or degradation. It is up to us whether we hold them and carry them onward or leave them there.
I believe we can change our life, for the better or worse, by what we choose to pick up and carry in our “baggage”. I also believe we have the power to impact those around us for the good if we make it a purpose. Each day in your interactions with people are you talking about something good that you have experienced, or are you sharing a negative thought. If you start paying attention to how you relate to others it may be revealing that dark secret of your soul that you thought no one else could see. If you see a dark slant, don’t let it get you down, you have just identified the obstacle to your happiness. Start building others up with positive, affirmative language. Tell everyone that you meet something nice about them and share a positive experience. “Marge, that is a beautiful purple dress that you are wearing! It reminds me of a color I saw in a gorgeous sunset last week”. Marge may have a load of negative things in her basket but your words will replace some of that bad with good. Do what you can to be a positive influence on the life of others.
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle. -- John Watson
I am not in any way saying that I have this mastered this fine art. I am far from it, believe me I know. I do however recognize other people with this talent. They typically have crowds of people wanting to be near them. You know of whom I am speaking. They are the best salespeople, the best restaurant / shop owners and hopefully your pastors. That one close friend that you still have 20 years down the road is that type of person.
Think about some ways that you can start on the path towards being a better influence on those around you. First, realize that a change needs to be made. Second, do something about it. Take the time to sit down and find five positive words on which to build your life. Use them as a filter to judge your actions. I have decided on these: Honor, Appreciation, Humility, Gratitude, Accountability. I may fine tune later but I think you get the idea.
Being nice may seem contrived at first. It may be difficult to say something nice to that person who you hold a grudge against for some long lost reason. Each time you take a small step towards helping someone else into the light of happiness brings it closer to yourself. You may even think that some don’t deserve it, but you do. Keep at it and your life, along with those on your path will be better for it.
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. -- Aristotle
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