Tough Journey

Struggling seems to be what most of us are doing right now and I wanted to share my journey with my wife and family of the past two years. It all started for us when  I lost my great job with Starbucks.  I had just lost my Grandmother, who was one the most important encouragers in my life at the time.  It was very hard to deal with that since I had just lost my best friend the year before to a murder.  Then comes our wonderful baby daughter, our second child.  My wife had left work to have the baby with plans of remaining at home for good.  Then due to my inability to concentrate at work I made some bad choices that ended up in me being separated from my job.

The economy was taking a dive and I was now jobless.  I had my part time pay from my Pastor job but it wouldn't be enough to cover all of our monthly needs.  My wife luckily was still receiving disability for the next few months.  Financial stress is very difficult on relationships and the next year or so was going to be very difficult for us.  Against my wife's wishes I started working with my Uncles at a business they needed help managing and so I became an owner in a business.  My wife had warned me to not get involved but I thought I knew better.  By the end of the year my Uncles had left the business with me holding all the debt.  It was devastating.  But it was also life changing in a great way.

See it took a lot of mistakes for us to realize what we truly needed to focus on.  I had put money as a priority in my life and so had my wife.  Now that we had failed at our business and both had no job other than my part time pay we were putting faith in God to survive.  It was very liberating and also very stressful.

When I have read the word and read others struggles you don't really appreciate them till they happen to you.  This is what I was experiencing.  God never forsook us, He always provided food for us.  I did however realize how I had been treating my wife.  I was blaming her for our problems since I felt she was supporting what I thought God was telling us to do.  I had to look in the mirror and at that point I realized that I needed to have been listening to my wife.  I had been selfish.  I thought I was doing the best for my family but I wasn't even listening to my partner.  I came on my knees begging for forgiveness and I finally let go and let God have us completely.

Shortly  after this revelation, my wife's work called and begged her to come back.  They ended up giving her a raise.  I am still searching for full time employment but God hasn't provided anything.  It is very hard and discouraging to go on interview after interview to be told you are a great candidate but then passed on.   I have put my trust in God and I know He will provide in His time.

If you have been in or are in my predicament I encourage you to let God have control.  He knows what is best for you and will give you more than you could ever dream of.  May God richly bless your life as you seek after Him.

Out Of Focus

It seems to me we all have a hard time focusing at one point or another.  But why is it so hard for us as Christians to focus on Christ?  We are given the most amazing lives once we surrender to Him, yet we seem to keep grabbing onto those things around us that aim at our destruction.  Paul even struggled with this and wrote how he wished to do what was right yet still did what was wrong. 

I am finding it is very important for us as believers to surround ourselves with people of like mind.  When I have tried to tell myself that hanging out with non believing friends will be ok for me, I fall fast and hard.  I know that it is important to have non believing friendships so you can invest in them and show them God's love, but it is entirely another thing to rely on them to be there for us.  It says in 2 Corinthians 6:14,15 (NLT)
  ¹⁴ Don’t team up with those who are unbelievers. How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live with darkness? ¹⁵ What harmony can there be between Christ and the devil^[a]? How can a believer be a partner with an unbeliever?
 That is a strong warning for us to make sure who we surround our selves with.  My sister shared her journey with how she put trust in her friends.  When the time came for her to go through some heavy stuff, like my best friends murder, losing our aunt and finally our grandmother passing away, none were there to comfort her.  They pretended for a bit but never really invested in my sisters pain.  This caused my sister to feel alone and forsaken.  My sister had put her focus on friends that had no idea what true love was all about.

Later she shared that while attending her church she became jealous of the relationships other women in the church shared.  She longed for such a relationship but hadn't realized her investment in her old friends was fruitless.  Finally at the end of herself she joined a small group in her church and fast made amazing loving friends that she had longed for.  God finally showed her what true friendship was all about. 

Colosians chapter 3 talks about a new life we have in Christ.  It tells us to leave the old way and live in the new.  It seems so easy yet our flesh keeps us going back to the old ways.  Why do we feel so guilty for putting our priority on Christ?  Why do we feel obligated to compromise for our earthly friendships?  They don't give us any comfort or respite, yet we invest heavily into them.  We are willing to fight to the death even to keep unhealthy relationships alive. 

Yet God has warned us about these possible deadly relationships all throughout the bible.  Jesus tells the young ruler to give up everything and follow Him.  Which makes me ask myself: What am I putting in the way of Christ?  Some of us it is friendships that aren't healthy.  Some of us it's partying, dancing, drinking, drugs, pornography or money.  I could list a million other things but you, I hope, get my point.  What ever we put over Christ is something that will ultimately destroy us.  It is time to focus on the perfect friend we have, Jesus.  If we center everything in our lives on Christ then healthy starts to happen and we can truly focus on life.

God Bless

Never Alone

From an earlier post on my uth ministry site but I wanted to share it here as well hope you enjoy.

Do you wish you had purpose? Do you struggle with a lonliness feeling inside? A deep void inside you that needs to be filled? Well I used to struggle with that when I was in Jr High. I struggled with the anger that consumed me. The lonliness of not fitting in with the more popular kids. The feeling of losing close childhood friends to a different clique. I started finding solace in the darkness. I saw the light but felt it didn't give me what I needed. I felt it had abandoned me in my most needed time. I felt that God had left me in the desert of life, without water or shelter.

Many of you feel this too. Many of you feel a huge hole in your life and try to fill it with worldly success. Some push themselves to sports, others to money and still some to power. These things become our god. They consume us. We spend our lives chasing the next best thing. Then there is that time when we start to feel alone and lost. Some how that hole in our soul that we have been trying to fill with our worldly pursuits can not be filled by those things. We then feel that we have no purpose in life. We strive to fit new things into that hole. We find drugs, sex and alcohol. But then we are addicted and overcome by this new god. We can't get ourselves out and then the true lonliness sets in.

How are we to overcome this? What is our true purpose? How do our lives get so messed up so quickly? Why are we so alone? I struggled with those feeling so many years ago. I had put so much anger in my heart for my circumstances that I started to fill my God shaped void with items that wouldn't fit. I wanted to be popular and cool. I wondered why God wouldn't give me the things I so desperately wanted. Why God would keep me in an abusive home. Why God wouldn't let me live with my father who loved me so much. Why I had to keep staying in a place where I felt so alone and unloved. I didn't understand it. So I looked for other ways to feel my void.

After high school I started selling drugs and doing drugs. I started partying and then I started to focus on making money. All these things didn't make me feel any better. They just kept getting me in to trouble. I felt guilty, I felt even more alone. Most of the friends I had during that time never really cared fo me. A few stole from me. But not one filled my void.

I remember going to this building one night. The preacher came out in shorts and a ball cap. I had never been to church like that. But that night I found something out. For most of my life I had been the one abandoning God. I had been running from Him. I was scared to finally admit that my anger came from myself. That my void could only be filled by the one true GOD. I surrendered that night. What a feeling that washed over me. My problems stilled existed. They didn't just vanish, but something did. My guilt, my shame the darkness finally came off. I was alive. I finally didn't feel alone anymore.

Today I still struggle with feeling God in my life. I struggle with understanding God's will. But now I do it knowing that He has my best interest at hand. He wants the best for me. Yeah I still struggle and feel alone. But I get to come back to Him and I get to walk next to Him. I only feel alone for as long as it takes for me to ask Him to hold me.

I hope that you can understand these things. Those feelings are normal. We all feel alone once in a while. I don't begin to understand how God works. I just know that He does work for me. You may be struggling with a void in your life. You may be struggling with a hurt or a pain. You may be running. But that night at that church I realized He is standing right there just waiting for you to ask Him to hold you.

Jeremiah 29:11 says this:
11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

So even before Jesus came God promised us this. What other religion or what other god can boast that promise. God gave us the hope through Jesus Christ. If only we are to believe in Him can we be saved from the death of sin. How easy, yet how hard to do. Most of my issues stem from pride. I keep thinking I can save myself. I can give myself peace. I don't need anyone to help me. But that only brings me to death.

My hope for you is to understand that the feelings of hopelessness are human. But the feelings of hope are divine. God Bless you today. Remember you are never alone.

Eyes of Christ

Sharing our lives with others can bring us to self examination.  Tonight I taught on Romans 15:7.  This verse really caught my attention as I shared with my teens the truth of this verse.  It says:

Romans 15:7 (New Living Translation)

 ⁷ Therefore, accept each other just as Christ has accepted you so that God will be given glory.

Now upon first looking at it is seems simple enough.  The response from my teens was just as simple.  They responded as I did upon first glancing it over, that what Paul is saying is we have to be nice to one another and play nice.   But upon closer examination and the fact that I had just preached on 2 Corinthians 5:12-17 on Sunday, I saw something much grander here lying in this verse.  I saw that we are to live our lives giving glory to God.

Now my teens said yeah of course by being nice to others we are giving glory to God.   I begged to differ with them.  I said really.  You are giving God the glory when you are nice to someone but then brag about it to all your friends.  Or even more deeper when you are loving or nice to someone and say to yourself, "Man I feel good for helping that guy or gal out."

What I think Paul is saying goes back to the 2 Corinthians verses:

2 Corinthians 5:16-17 (New Living Translation)

 ¹⁶ So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! ¹⁷ This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

We have to think with our hearts that we are out to truly help others, just like Christ.  He didn't come for His glory but for the Glory of His Father in Heaven.  We are to be motivated to help others because that is the right thing to do.  We should do it to make the other person feel better.

The other night we had gone to an overnighter youth event at another church.  One of the young men there was wearing a hippy outfit.  He told us he was promoting peace.  I told him if he really wanted peace he would have to wait till Jesus came back or until everyone became a Christ follower.  If we follow what Paul is telling us here and truly accept others and love others as Christ loves us then that is when peace will reign.  Unfortunately, satan has other ideas and our own flesh fights against it.  Peace will never happen as long as sin is alive.

I challenged my teens this week to reach out to someone around them that might not fit in.  Someone they may not necessarily like.  I asked them to accept them and love them as Jesus loves them.  I challenge you to do the same.  It really isn't that hard once you let go and let God help you.  The hard part is the first step.

Put on your eyes of Christ and see things around you where you can make a difference.  It only takes one person to change the world for the better.  As long as that one person has God.

God Bless.

New Living Translation (NLT)Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers.

Practice Well

This Sunday I had the honor of speaking to our congregation at CornerStone.  It is always exciting to share the fire inside my heart I have for God with others.  This Sunday I shared about a personal experience I had on a trip I just had to my fathers house in Washington State. 

I had taken the trip to spend time with my father and grandfather who is 92 years old and doesn't have much time left with us.  I try to get up there as often as possible but with not having funding over the past year it has been hard.  My father had offered to bless me by paying for a ticket so I could come.  So I found a great deal and booked my flight.  I notified my sister who lives up there to give her the good news and she was excited to see me as well. 

About a week after letting her know I was coming I received a phone call from her.  She said she wanted to ask me a question.  Now as a brother and sister go we are pretty close yet we do have our times of rivalry and this statement brought me on guard.  She then proceeded to tell me that my father was not going to ask me since he would feel bad.  So she came out with asking if I would allow my father to have a few days respite from my grandfather, who has Parkinsons disease.  I knew what she was asking and I was a bit frightened by images of changing adult diapers and cleaning dentures.  I proceeded to give her the standard pastor response of "Let me pray about it".  I already knew the answer I needed to give but for an instant my flesh cried out in my mind.

It said, "No way this is supposed to be a vacation not a servant retreat."  I then proceeded to run every excuse I could think of through my brain.  But of course the love of our Father in heaven rained true and I knew what I had to do.  I started to pray, not for excuses but a solid heart of service.  I knew I needed to bless my father and grandfather with this gift I could give.  I wanted to go there and help out as needed.  I had told my father that the trip was to help him in the first place and here I was trying to be selfish.  So I prayed and asked God to change my heart.  To work His love all through my soul. 

Of course I went and let my father have the days he needed to catch up on some needed repairs at our family cabin. Those three days are etched into my heart forever.  I learned that our hearts matter to God.  2 Chronicles 25:2 sums up what God is looking for in us. 

2 Chronicles 25:2 (New Living Translation)

² Amaziah did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight, but not wholeheartedly.

God wants our whole hearts.  I used this verse Sunday to drive home a this point.  God wants us in the game.  If you were to play a sport you would practice for the games.  You wouldn't just show up.  But that is what a lot of us do, who say they are Christians.  We some times just show up on Sundays.  Monday through Saturday our hearts are not God's.  With God the practice is more important than the Game itself.  He is looking for us to go all in.  Later in 2 Chronicles Amaziah gets asassinated.  God takes our hearts very seriously.  I challenged our congregation to pray God will help them change their hearts like I did when I was asked to help out by my sister.  God is expecting you to do the same thing.  Get in the game.  You don't know who or what God has in store for you.

It's about time we start practicing for game day and show up ready to play.

God Bless 
 

New Living Translation (NLT)Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers.