Jun 5, 2015
Have you ever had a time in your life when you felt so stressed out you didn’t know how you were going to make it through?
Or maybe you have just been super worried about some big thing in your life that looks impossible to overcome e or get around. I know I have had to deal with these things before. Worrying doesn’t help anything! Worrying always seems to make the situation look darker and more impossible! Worry takes our focus off of Jesus and puts it on our own life. Worry makes us try to figure everything out ourselves when what we should really be doing is seeking the Lord more! I think that is exactly why the Bible tells us so many times not to worry.
God gives us trials and tribulations to draw us to Him and make us stronger in our faith—not to show us how awesome we are at figuring things out. We are to trust Him in hard times to take care of us, whether everything works out like it is supposed to, or if everything falls apart. This is not an easy thing! For me, I always think I know exactly how everything should go. How arrogant of me! God is faithful; His ways are so much higher than my ways! How could I presume that my plans and my preferences are better than His?
One of my favorite passages in Scripture is Psalm 146. This passage has been a real help to me in the hard times, especially verses 1-6. I encourage you to read this passage next time you start feeling stressed or are tempted to worry. It will be a great help to you!
Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, my soul. I will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save. When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing. Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.
He is the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them— he remains faithful forever. He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free, the Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.
The Lord reigns forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations. Praise the Lord.
—Psalm 146:1-6
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Sep 3, 2014
Here is a poem I wrote based off my experience in the second year of School of Discipleship. The Lord taught me how I needed to surrender everything and trust Him!
My Surrender
The time has come to look ahead,
To hit the mark, my path to tread.
The past is gone, the past is dead,
I’ll look to Christ, my daily bread.
I’m not my own, I am His slave;
He came to earth, my soul to save!
In Christ alone, this is my call,
He is my strength, my all in all!
In times of sorrow I can see,
My God and Father leading me.
And when I stumble, when I fear,
my precious Savior draws me near.
I’m not my own, and this my plea:
That I could give my all to Thee!
In Christ alone, this is my call,
He is my strength, my all in all!
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Jun 9, 2014
I Love Mockingbirds. They are just happy all of the time, and it seems like to me that they are free to sing whatever they want; they can chirp, squeak, trill, peep…you get the picture. Any way I love them, and yesterday I was sitting at my desk thinking to myself, “I haven’t seen a mockingbird in forever!” (they usually are all over down here in Texas). I really wanted to see, and hear a mockingbird (did I mention they are AWESOME!).
But I wrote it off because one, it’s not spring, and two, it was cold and if I were a bird I would want to be where it is warm right now. So that was me, depressed and sitting at my desk because there were no mockingbirds in Texas.
This morning I awoke from my very restful sleep, I sleepily got dressed and went outside for my morning prayer/walking time, but as I closed the door of my apartment guess what I heard! A MOCKINGBIRD! Needless to say I thought it was cool, but not much more than that until I started praying.
“That bird is for you” said a still small voice, “What!? No way! Are you serious God? You care enough about me to put a single mockingbird on the roof of an apartment complex, in the middle of Carrollton, in the state of Texas, in the center of America, in the country of the United States, on a tiny planet called earth, in a tiny solar system (comparatively), in a huge galaxy, in the unending expanse of space? It’s not possible!”
Or is it? In John 17:23 says “…Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (Emphasis mine). Friends God loves us as much as he loves Jesus Christ! It blows my mind the vastness of His affection for us. Psalm 37:4 says “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” I didn’t even pray for that Mockingbird, but God still put it there for me, and the reality probably is that He does stuff like that for us all the time!
I will stop saying things now and let scripture speak for itself:
Matthew 6:25-34 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air (Strangely appropriate); they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
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Nov 28, 2012
Boot Scoot Boogie
I awoke that morning on the train, on a bed that was to short for a 6’ 1” White guy (my feet stuck off the end). But that was okay, I was in Asia BABY! This was the day a lot of us were looking forward to, why? Because we were going to visit our first Bridge of Hope center that evening! Almost my entire background in ministry is children’s ministry, so needless to say I was AMPED. But nothing I had ever experienced before could prepare me for that evening. The day went by like a blur, our schedule was packed full, and I was so focused on what we were doing that it seemed like time doubled its speed. When we arrived at the center, I saw them, dozens and dozens of smiling, laughing, joyful kids. This didn’t surprise me, we were here to see kids, what did surprise me (maybe even shock) was how joyful these kids were, my heart melted right there! Here in America whenever you hear of “poor children” or “underprivileged kids” there is always a sense of depression and hopelessness associated with them, but not here!
We hurried inside and sat down so they could start their program. And so began the most epic night of my life. A few kids came in first and shared a memory verse, and after that the man who was announcing said that it was time for the dancing. The children danced to three songs that night, multiple times! The first time through the songs we sat there and watched, the second time through, somebody in our team started dancing too! Then everyone joined in! We all started jumping and dancing around! Needless to say the kids were delighted, and so was everyone else. But in the back of my mind there was this little voice asking me one question: “WHY ARE YOU DANCING?” That kind of caught me off guard, why was I dancing? If any of you know me, I have probably told you “I DON’T dance!” or more precisely I can’t dance, nothing in the world (I thought) could ever get me to dance, so why was I? Plain and simple, these kids were dancing for Jesus, I wanted to praise Him too, so I started to dance (although it probably made Jesus laugh more than anything else). It made me think of a verse: “And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” Colossians 3:17.
Even though this may be a funny story, it does have relevance for me everyday. Do I do everything for Jesus? Or do I go through the day and complain about every little “unimportant” thing that I have to do? Am I filled with joy when I get to serve Jesus, even in the small things? 1 Corinthians 10:31 says this: “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” I am so thankful that God gave me this story because it gave me a permanent defense against pessimism and complaining! Now whenever I start to feel like I want to complain about how “normal my job is” all I have to do is think of those kids laughing, singing, and praising Jesus, and that makes my whole day better!
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Oct 29, 2012
How many of us have ever been in some kind of situation that made us just want to scream? I know I have; But really, what is it that makes us so jumpy, so on edge? Maybe it’s our tendency to want to control everything.
Really, when you think about it we would have been a lot better of if God had just made us robots with no freedom of choice, and no personal creativity, but He didn’t. So there comes a problem that we as Christians all face. We all “freak out” when our “control” over circumstances is threatened.
It’s true! Think about it, I can’t begin to tell you how many times, in my own life, when God stepped in and said “ok I’ll take that, you have had it way too long” or “this is how I want you to do it” or even just plain and simple “no” that I started running around (mentally) like a chicken with my head cut off because my “control” was threatened, I “freaked out”.
I absolutely love the quote from a certain movie that I like where the heroine says to the hero “don’t freak out!” because I feel that that’s exactly what God is saying to us! Psalm 46: 10 says “He (God) says, Be still (Don’t freak out!), and know that I am God…” and I must say that God has really been challenging me with this verse over the last couple of weeks.
I was sitting down thinking the other day (a dangerous occupation) and it occurred to me quite humorously: The animal God chose to relate us to as Christians was sheep, SHEEP!? I don’t know about you, but when I heard this I wanted to say (freaked out) “Come on God, a sheep? Really?”. Friends, the fact of the matter is, sheep are stupid and easily freakoutable. I wanted to say: “God, about this whole sheep thing, I personally would love to be an eagle or a wild mustang”. But I didn’t, in all my wisdom and knowledge, I decided to give God the benefit of the doubt; after all, He does know everything. Then it hit me, what’s really amusing about this sheep comparison is that we even make bad sheep!
When a sheep gets to know its master, and learns to hear His voice and recognize, it comes when called. But in keeping with our analogy from earlier, when I (one of God’s sheep) hear His call I tend to want to run the other direction.
I’m so glad that God gave us examples to look at and apply to our own lives especially in those twelve men that were closest to Him. When you think about it Jesus’ disciples were masters at the art of freaking out. Look at Mark 4:35-39 “…when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Isn’t this great?! I love it! I can just here Jesus waking up and saying to those guys “Could you please stop yelling?! And Peter stop hiding in that barrel we’re not going to die!” (That was a paraphrase). Now we come to my favorite part in verse 39 “And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.” I have a sneaking suspicion that Jesus was not just talking to the wind and waves here. I know what I would say if I woke up to my friends yelling and screaming at me, and the wind was blowing, and huge waves crashing. I would say exactly what Jesus said: “Peace! (stop freaking out) Be still!
Another place we find this example of being full of peace in God is Psalm 37: 7-8 “Be still (peace) before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret (don’t freak out)—it leads only to evil.” In this passage it is a little different. Here we see that “freaking out” can actually damage our relationship with God (“…it leads only to evil.”)!
Friends, the Bible says “do not fear, worry, fret (don’t freak out)” over a hundred times, almost as many times as the word grace is mentioned! So why is this so important? Why is it so damaging to us to worry? The answer is simple; Freaking out causes us to focus on our self, to take our eyes off of Christ, and ultimately, (if not dealt with) causes us to try and take the control of our life back from Jesus!
So how than, if we have a problem of “freaking out”, do we deal with it? The prophet Jeremiah says “But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in Him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” The answer: We simply trust Him. Remember the Lord and who He is, be still and trust that whatever the issue is, He is bigger! Also memorize Psalm 25: 4-5 and let that be your comfort whenever you are tempted to “freak out”.
“Show me your ways, LORD, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.”– Psalm 25: 4-5–
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