Quote: The Travelers Gift by Andy Andrews

I will greet this day with a forgiving spirit. For too long every ounce of forgiveness I own was locked away, hidden from view. Waiting for me to bestow its precious presence upon some worthy person. Alas, I found most people to be singularly unworthy of my valuable forgiveness, and since they never asked for any I kept it all for myself. Now the forgiveness that I hoarded has sprouted inside my heart like a crippled seed yielding bitter fruit. No more. At this moment my life has taken on new hope and assurance. Of all the worlds population I am one of the few possessors of the secret to dissipating anger and resentment. I now understand that forgiveness only has value when it is given away. By the simple act of granting forgiveness I release the demons of the past about which I can do nothing and I create in myself a new heart, a new beginning. I will greet this day with a forgiving spirit.

I will forgive even those who do not ask for forgiveness. Many are the times that I have seethed in anger at a word or deed thrown into my life by an unthinking or an uncaring person. I have wasted valuable hours imagining revenge or confrontation. Now, I see the truth revealed about this psychological rock inside my shoe. The rage I nurture is often one-sided for my offender seldom gives thought to his offence. I will now and forevermore silently offer my forgiveness even to those who do not see that they need it. By the act of forgiving I am no longer consumed by unproductive thoughts. I give up my bitterness. I am content in my soul and effective again with my fellow man. I will greet this day with a forgiving spirit.

(Our topic this week at church was forgiveness. I came across this quote from a book on tape I have and I thought I would share.)

Oh the temptation!

My passions have been wet lately and now I must face new temptations. I am usually very responsible with my money and it is hard to tempt me to spend on things I don’t really need, but tonight I almost came home with a lot less money than I went to work with. I think I have been spending too much time with the boys and their toys lately.

In my job some co-workers have been slowly pulling me away from what I was hired to do and have adopted me into a different group. Even the regional vice president has gotten in on this activity… it is actually a very funny story how they are teasing my boss and trying to take me away. This new group is the team that gets to play with all the video and audio toys for a major technology company. If they get their way I may be working with this team (of all men….boys with toys) even more. During this same time period a new group has started at church that is looking at the how to engage the arts more in our church and to use our facility to its greatest capacity. Some of the conversation at our last meeting really got my mind going.

You see I am a kinesthetic learner. That means different things to different people, but for me it simply means the more of my senses you can engage (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste, etc.) the more I connect. I am highly inspired through visual and experiential things, and the use of audio, video, photography, and media is actually a passion of mine, although one that I have never really revealed to anyone at my church. (I’m a closet fanatic.) A couple weeks ago my pastor also learned that I used to design and manage web sites, something I guess I also haven’t really shared with most people at work or church.

My temptation tonight came because I have been playing more and more with my music. I love to play the guitar, have dabbled with the djembe drum, and I used to play the piano/keyboard. I put the keyboard down a few years back and mostly due to accessibility issues I haven’t played in a few years. For the last few months though I have been drawn more and more back to that medium and tonight I almost purchased a music synthesizer workstation. Oh the fun I could have through combining music, photography, video, video editing, audio, and a blank canvas. Most of the things I have done in the past have been restricted through work so I haven’t been able to openly express my passions and creativity. How tempting it is to purchase the tools and toys to have at my fingertips at home. Ok, time to stop drooling and go find my guitar. I also better avoid the hardware store since I have been dreaming of wood working again lately.

What did we do this weekend?

• I changed my sheets and towels, replacing the dirty ones with a second set from my closet. They used a rag to clean with and had no bed to sleep on.

• I changed clothes and threw the first set in a pile on the floor. They valued the only oufit they own and were thankful they were not naked.

• I did laundry and dishes with the help of machines. They didn’t have clothes or dishes to wash and haven’t seen a machine.
• I listened to music through a stereo system. They made music through hand made instruments.
• I used water and cooked food without a second thought. They walked for miles to gather unclean water and went hungry.
• I cleaned my home and relaxed on my furniture. They sought to find a safe place to rest, and hoped for a roof to put over their heads.
• I read a book and thought of the future. They spent their time meeting the necessities of life and lived for today.
• I used tools, machines, electricity, and artificial things without thinking about what I was doing. They used their hands, feet, and minds to meet every daily need they were faced with.
• I failed to recognize the many blessings and gifts I am surrounded by every day. Many of them are thankful for each day they remain alive and recognize the great wealth of blessings they receive daily.

 Most of those who share our world don’t have enough food, shelter, water, clothing, medicine, warmth, safety, or support to meet their daily needs. They struggle through life each day, and yet they are so thankful for all they have. I overlook the blessings and gifts that are in my life and take them for granted all the time. I need to repent of my grumbling, self centeredness, and ungrateful heart. May I daily be reminded of all I have that I am called to use to bless the lives of others.

Sharing our gifts

A few days ago I made an offer to help someone from my church with a need they have. I received the following response. “I would definitely not decline your offer to come and help. I think it is a gift and I don’t want you to deprive you of offering it if you want to.”

Her response made me think about how my words and actions will at times allow and at other times not allow those I relate with to share their gifts. Do I recognize and appreciate the gifts that others have? Do I allow them to use those gifts?

What an amazing response my friend gave “I think it is a gift, and I don’t want to deprive you of offering it.” Have others offered to share one of their gifts only to have you turn them down? What could you do next time to recognize that gift and allow others to use and express their gifts more fully? This world could be a different place if we were both allowed and encouraged to share our gifts openly with each other.

For those pastors and leaders….we will be grateful

The Bible tells us to examine everything carefully and hold on to only that which is intrinsically right and true (1 Thessalonians 5:21). It is important even in our church family, to examine what we learn and what we’ve been taught.  Just like our own well-meaning parents, are pastors and leaders also see life through the reflection of a broken mirror.  It is absolutely critical for the health and well-being of our soul to ask, seek and find God’s truth about who he is, who we are and how we are to live.  The Lord said that if we hold on to His teachings, we will know the truth and His truth will set us free.  In our churches we have given the pastor a position of authority and power to influence our beliefs and actions in many ways.  No one, except our families, has this kind of jurisdiction over our lives.  For those pastors who’ve mirrored health, healing and love into our lives, we will for eternity be grateful. (Toxic Churches: Restoration from Spiritual Abuse by Marc A. Dupont)

What are you allowing others to speak into your life? Is it truth? There are many, many wrong thoughts and beliefs out there. God’s heart for us is that we will know the truth. His word, the Bible tells us to examine what we have been taught, and to test it. He doesn’t want us to follow blindly or to be misled. Do you have people who are speaking into your life with authority and power? Most of us allow our families this power, but we also give this authority and power to the leaders we follow. Don’t follow and submit to leaders that are leading you astray, but if you find worthy leaders that you can trust, open up to, submit to the leadership of, and share your life with you will be better for it. I have made bad choices before and served with and worked for poor leaders, but I have also served and worked for great leaders and pastors. As Marc says in the above quote, for those who speak into our lives in healthy and loving ways, and for those leaders who help us become even better than we are today, we will be grateful, very grateful.

Where do you find truth?

My past week has been filled with exposure to a lot of different points of view, outlooks on life, and interpretations of truth. I don’t know if I have ever been so impacted by the huge variations of beliefs that exist out there and moved by the conviction believers of each thought pattern show. Here are a few of the places I have visited.

• Camp Quest – A summer camp for children of atheist, free-thinkers, humanists, brights, etc. http://www.camp-quest.org/
• Jesus Camp – A summer camp for children of evangelicals. An intense training ground to recruit children to become an active part of America’s political future. http://www.jesuscampthemovie.com/
• An ex-Christian going through a de-conversion process http://jonfeatherstone.wordpress.com/
• Richard Dawkins, an outspoken atheist, secular humanist, and sceptic. http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/video.php?id=1563
• Tony Campolo a Baptist preacher who claims to be a different kind of evangelical http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/video.php?id=1401
• Five Churches Experiment – two participants, who had little church experience, were paid to visit five church services http://drewmarshall.ca/fivechurches.html

Two and a half years ago my belief system and confidence in all I held dear was tremendously shaken, and in many ways shattered. I have spent a great deal of time since then examining exactly what I believe, why I believe it, and working through (often painfully) the areas of doubt and lack of understanding that remain.

This week has show me exactly how misguided we can be if we aren’t grounded in the truth, and if we don’t know why we believe. We are influenced by things around us, whether we admit it or not. Radical views, religiosity, anger, bitterness, division, and judgment only hurt others. I have never been more convinced that Christ’s message of love and acceptance are what this world really need, only it is needed without all the trappings man puts on top of it. Quite simply, it boils down to a message my church has been speaking lately….Love Wins.

Where do you find truth? Are you sure it is truth? What if you are wrong?

I got tagged!

Andrea at http://heaintthroughwithmeyet.wordpress.com tagged me with some questions. While I answered them at her site I thought I would post them here too.

1). What is your favored worship song/hymn?
My favorite hymn is Be Thou My Vision because my dad died right after his best friend finished singing the last verse to him.  My favorite worship song is much harder. I think it changes every week. Lately I have gone back to an older one by Rita Springer, You Are Still Holy.
Holy, you are still holy,
Even when the darkness surrounds my life
Sovereign, you are still sovereign
Even when confusion has blinded my eyes
Lord, I don’t deserve your kind affection
When my unbelief has kept me from your touch
I want my life to be a pure reflection
Of your love And so I come…

2). Favorite verse, and/or chapter in the Bible?
I don’t think I can answer that. This is part of where I see scripture as being “alive” because it reaches me right where I am at, no matter what that place is. There are places I turn in joy, sorrow, sadness, and anger. Stories show or remind me how to live, Paul speaks guidance that directs me when I am off base, and history reveals God’s ways over time to me.

3). What lead you to God? Let us hear your testimony!
When I was 14 I cried out to the sky speaking to what others said was God. I told him if he was real he would have to prove it to me. That night, he showed me a miracle. I’m a tough nut though and even that wasn’t enough for me to believe. It took another two years of him pursuing after me, and having to go through some of the darkest days of my life as I fought suicidal thoughts before I came to a place of believing. When I was ready I made a very conscious decision. I was at church camp and I told me counselor a day and a half before I made the commitment that I wanted to do it. When I finally did it was amazing. The suicidal thoughts were taken away overnight, and God immediately began making some changes in my life. Two weeks later I was in a car accident where I rolled a car. We should have been seriously injured, but by the grace of God that didn’t happen. I still wonder if it was because of the commitment I made.

4). How do you live day by day with the Lord?
Some days well, and some days pretty poorly. The biggest thing is I have learned that life is unpredictable so just a quiet time in the morning isn’t enough. While I try to have some time with God before my day starts there are times that is interrupted. I have learned that God lives in me so he is with me wherever I go. I try to use my commute time to listen to teachings or praise and worship music so that my mind is on God and not traffic. I try to look at every person I meet as a creation of God therefore deserving my respect and love. I try to learn more and more every day so that I can work at being the best person I can be as my love for God grows deeper all the time. Finally, I recognize and acknowledge my incredible need for God every day. I can’t go through this life without him.

5). Living Bible? NIV? KJV? The Message? Which is your favorite and why?
I typically use the NIV. I was raised on the RSV but was introduced to the NIV in college and it became a little easier for me to understand. I do however have other versions including a side by side comparison of four different translations and I refer to different versions at different times for greater understanding and insight.

How could you not love it?

When was the last time you fell in love? Not the romantic, sappy, lust filled stuff, or even the life long commitment love. I mean simple, real love from the heart. When was the last time you opened yourself up and shared your heart with someone else and allowed them to see you and love you.

A few weeks ago someone stepped into my life and showed me that I had become rather self-centered in how I was living. It wasn’t something he pointed out, he was just being himself, but through our interactions he touched a place in my heart that I found I had been protecting and hiding. Since then I have been working hard to open up more, embrace relationships more, and to allow myself to fall in love. I wake up each day now wondering who I will meet, who I will share with, and what I can do to open my heart up to others. Today has been a great day, I have had lots of opportunity to see people through God’s eyes, and to love them in new ways.

Here are just a few places I have been touched in the last two weeks….Most of these people won’t read this and don’t even realize that I have fallen in love with them, but they have impacted my heart and life. Thank you for opening my eyes and my heart Ken, I am deeply moved and grateful. I am still seeing the impacts you had on me in just three short days. Clara, thank you for changing me by showing me how to value life and enjoy the simple things. Scott, thank you for a smile that melts my heart. Nick, you reminded me that I have a weird sense of humor and it is fun to share it with others. Reiss, every time I see you my heart breaks open to love you even more. John, your trip to the hospital opened my eyes to remind me how much I overlook in our relationship and how much I love you and your family. Thank you for sharing life with me. Sweet Kaitlyn, you have helped me know I can love kids again and realize it is okay to grieve that I can’t have a beautiful angel like you. Alyssa, your games remind me to enjoy life, see it through new eyes, and find ways to play differently. Mark, we may come from two different worlds but your presence in my life makes it better and I can’t imagine not sharing life with you now.

Who have you fallen in love with lately? What can you do to open your heart up love and be loved in new ways? Awaken your heart, and let love show you how to live differently every day.

Where’s the noticeable difference?

I posted a comment on someone’s blog today that solicited a frustrated response. The owner if the blog is wrestling with Christianity and is frustrated with Christians and their hypocrisy. He had posed a great question about why there isn’t a noticeable difference between Christians and non-Christians if one group goes to paradise and the other to hell for eternity. My response wasn’t meant to be a “Christian” response, but rather is how I approach work, relationships, and all of life because I am a life-longer learner who is unsettled with ever thinking I have reached a point of not having more to change. I had asked, “How can we challenge each other and hold each other to live differently?”

As a group Christians are not doing well at supporting our words with actions. I agree with my “blog friend” on that point. In fact I have wrestled with even continuing to call myself a Christian because I don’t want to be lumped in with others who aren’t living a life that is different than non-Christians. I believe that people knew Jesus and his disciples were different back in Biblical times. I wonder if anyone I cross paths with in life thinks I am different.

Over the last few months I have had conversations with Christians about whether it is okay to drink and how much, go to race tracks and casinos to gamble, spend money on entertainment like movies and sporting events when you don’t tithe to the church first, what we should use the Internet for, and whether it is okay to use others unsecured internet connections. Do I live differently than my neighbors? Does the way I live make a difference to anyone? Is it noticed by anyone? Does it point anyone to God?

If I am claiming to be a Christian/Christ Follower/believe in Christianity, then what noticeable difference exists between me and someone who believes differently? Unfortunately I think the answer is ….. not enough.

Who is in charge?

A couple months ago I started having a weekly Sabbath. It is something I still struggle to use to the fullest, but it is a time that I guard carefully. I need the period of rest and a time to be restored as life can really beat us up. Over the last few weeks one of the focuses of that time has been wrestling with the idea of who is in charge of my life. Do I truly have freedom of choice to do what I want to in life or does God have a hand in bringing opportunities, obstacles, and people into my life? Does God control the circumstances and I am only in charge of my response to the circumstances?

During my Sabbath this week I spent some time in prayer and found myself praying some really difficult things, things that I honestly couldn’t even speak out loud at first they were so difficult. Will God honor those prayers? Will they be honored any more than a prayer that was easy to say? Is the whole process about what it took to pray those prayers, or about the content of the prayers?

Who really is in charge of my life? Am I really free to make up my own mind, or am I influenced by the hand of the almighty who is changing things around me to influence me toward a relationship with him.

Evolution or does God have a hand in it?

How can people believe these are just evolutionary changes and doubt that God is involved? They sure have stronger faith than I do!

“For at least a century, according to the experts, bacteria called Wolbachia had been playing puppet master with Hypolimnas bolina butterflies found on two Samoan islands (see an Oceania map). The bacteria had been killing off nearly all the male larvae of the butterfly, also known as the eggfly or the blue moon butterfly. But males made a comeback in 2006, the researchers found, with nearly as many of them as females.

“We thought this kind of thing was happening, but we didn’t know we’d be lucky enough to see it,” said Sylvain Charlat of the University of College London, one the researchers involved in the new study. The shift happened in five years or less—just ten generations for the butterflies—according to the new study, which will appear tomorrow in the journal Science. This is a “very, very fast evolutionary change, possibly the fastest ever monitored,” Charlat said.

The findings show that evolution can strike in a flash, even after long periods of time with little change, researchers say.”

Excerpts from Butterfly Evolves Leg Up on Male-Killing Parasite by Mason Inman for National Geographic New
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/07/070712-butterflies.html

Love…sincere, deep, and from the heart?

I have been thinking about love a lot lately. When someone says the word “love” what do you think of? It is something you can easily define?

My church has been using that term a lot in its teachings over the last few months, but I realized this week that no one has defined how it is being used. Are we using the same definition of love? When I say I love someone, I should treat my neighbor with love, or all I do should be done in love does that mean the same thing to someone I am talking to?

Christians often us the word love to refer to how we should treat each other. I think most people assume that others know what it means to love someone, and yet the expectations we carry about what that looks like might vary significantly. During my quiet time this morning I spent time in 1 Peter 1. The author expresses that the audience of his letter have sincere love for each other, but he then challenges them to love deeply from the heart.

“Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.” (1 Peter 1:22)

Do we love without loving deeply and from the heart? If so, how can we change so we are learning and growing in our quest to become more holy?

Coming before a king’s throne

When was the last time you focused on approaching God and coming before him as a king who sits on a throne. I had the opportunity to do that this week as a group of people gathered to pray for my church. We came together for the sole purpose of lifting up our pastors, leaders, community, and ministries in prayer. This wasn’t a church lead activity, in fact our pastors didn’t even know it was happening. It was just a gathering of a group of people who care so much about our community that we wanted to bring it before God and ask for his direction, leadership, and help as the church continues to grow and change. We spent two and a half hours before God, seeking his heart and giving him worship. It was amazing!

What would it be like to have the opportunity to meet God face to face? While on the surface it sounds incredible, I have to wonder if it would be so completely overwhelming that I couldn’t handle it. I read a book this week that expressed this happened when the ten commandments were presented. The first few seem to come from God directly, and then they shift to talk about how we should relate to the Lord your God. Was it too much for the Israelites to receive these from God directly?

During the prayer time I was lead to this passage from Malachi 3:2
“But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears?”

I don’t want to stand when he appears. I want to fall on my face and worship him. In fact, I don’t want to wait until he comes again to do that because his spirit is here with us today. Take time to remember that God is a king, and he is due all our worship, praise, and honor. Nothing, absolutely nothing compares to him. Who can stand? Why would I want to stand in the presence of someone so holy, pure, and loving?

Being a Christian is the easy part….

I have come to a conclusion, believing in Christ is the easy part, it is walking as a Christian in relationship to you that is tough. I don’t know who you are, what you believe, or where you are located, but the bible makes it clear that I have certain responsibilities in relationship to others.

Not only does scripture tell me what I should not do, it also tells me what I need to do in relationship with others, such as tell truth (You shall not lie.) and hold each other accountable (If someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Galatians 6:1-2.)

We read scripture and hear what we are supposed to do, but do we live it out? When was the last time someone around you sinned? What was your response? Are we sinning when we are not living by every truth we have learned from God’s word? If you know you are not to lie, lust, discourage, break unity, gently restore someone who is sinning, and do all for the glory of God what happens when we don’t live that out?

Are we trying to make others like us?

“By failing to let others be themselves before God and move at their own pace, we inevitably project on to them our own discomfort with their choice to live life differently than we do.  We end up eliminating them in our minds, trying to make others like us, abandoning them altogether or falling into a “who cares?” indifference toward them.  In some ways the silence of unconcerned can be more deadly than hate. Like Jesus said, unless I first take the log out of my own eye, knowing that I have huge blind spots, I and dangerous.  I must see the extensive damage sin has done to every part of who I am -emotion, intellect, body, will, and spirit – before I can attempt to remove the spec from my brothers eye (see Matthew 7:1-5).” (Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero)

How do you treat others? Are they people with needs, desires, feelings, emotions, and brokenness, or do you treat them as objects or a means to an end? Does it very from person to person? Do you treat some people well but your co-worker, neighbor, relative or in-law, or maybe that punk teen who drives loudly through your neighborhood don’t deserve that same level of respect?

The second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. Do you like to be treated as an object? If we expect others to change how they relate to us, we first need to change how we relate to them. Who can you look at differently and start changing your attitude and actions toward?

Post Church – Has the calling occurred or are they ready for action?

I was thinking about the “post church” movement recently. Back in May my church taught on Ecclesia, the greek word for church. My pastor said the word translates to “called out”.

According to the Greek Lexicon available at http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/NewTestamentGreek/Ecclesia translates to:
1. a gathering of citizens called out from their homes into some public place, an assembly
2. an assembly of the people convened at the public place of the council for the purpose of deliberating
3. the assembly of the Israelites
4. any gathering or throng of men assembled by chance, tumultuously in a Christian sense
5. an assembly of Christians gathered for worship in a religious meeting
6. a company of Christian, or of those who, hoping for eternal salvation through Jesus Christ, observe their own religious rites, hold their own religious meetings, and manage their own affairs, according to regulations prescribed for the body for order’s sake
7. those who anywhere, in a city, village, constitute such a company and are united into one body
8. the whole body of Christians scattered throughout the earth
9. the assembly of faithful Christians already dead and received into heaven

That means the “post church” movement would actually translate to the “after a gathering of citizens are called out into an assembly” movement. It depends on your perspective – that could be sad because the calling and gather has already occurred, or it could be great because they have already been called and gathered and now is the time they can achieve so much more.

I wonder what perspective those in the post church movement hold? Since they are taking a stand against church and all the religiosity in the church I am a little surprised they even have the word church in the name of their movement.

God’s love…an unending rope

I love seeing God work. On Sunday I taught a lesson to the youth at my church on Restoration of relationships. This followed a lesson on living honestly from last week, a lesson that was taught by someone else.

First, I was able to take the lesson from last week and build on it which reinforced what was taught. The part that I was able to build upon involved the use of rope to symbolize the relationship we have with someone.

As I studied the restoration of relationships last week I came to a point of believing that to have restoration in our relationships that are broken comes down to two points, the greatest two commandments: Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and Love your neighbor as yourself.

One of the youth asked, “How we can love others if we are loving God with all we have and are?” As I  described the relationship with God and how it is like an unending rope that just keeps pouring out and filling us up one of the youth picked up the end and started passing it down the line. Before I was done answering the rope had traveled around the circle and everyone was connected to it. God’s love had just shown itself as a visual image that made us all pause and acknowledge what had just happened.

How does God show you that He is working? Are you overlooking something he is trying to show you? Maybe you need to stop and pause to take in something that just happened, or pause to remember something you observed this week. Life can be hectic and times, but don’t forget to slow down enough to take God in.