Category Archives: Life

The Difficulty of Silence

09 Thursday May 2013

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I’ve wrestled with the silence of God for awhile.  I have wrestled with it through a divorce.  I am wrestling with it through a job search.  It’s been a lot of years with a lot of silence.  I don’t understand.

Today I was reading through the blog of a man I don’t know.  What I do know is that he just lost his wife and he has friends who love him, hurt with him and mourn with him.  And I came across the following post.  I hope he hears God through this dark time.

I hope I hear God soon.

http://keithbrenton.com/2013/04/16/when-god-is-silent/

Grace and peace.

What Is God Up To?

08 Wednesday May 2013

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I want to be a peacemaker.  On Saturday I will graduate with a Master of Arts in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation.  It is something I have worked hard at doing well and worked hard to receive and maybe the greatest thing I have done related to the passion of my heart.  And my life is full of turmoil.

I have walked hard roads.  Self-imposed at times.  As a victim of circumstances at times.  Recently I have suffered through a divorce that has been devastation at best, debilitating at worst.  Currently I am technically unemployed and watching my bank account drop (I have had some consulting works that keeps me floating).  Turmoil.

I was talking with a friend today who was sharing the Acts 16 story of Paul and Silas sharing the gospel and winding up in jail, flogged but still singing and praising God.  That’s when a thought struck me.  Does God want me to understand turmoil so I can better understand God’s peace?  To be a peacemaker, does God want me to understand the absence of peace or, at least, the attacks against peace?

Maybe so.  Maybe He has something planned for me that will rock my socks, that will allow me to live a life of passion and significance using what I am learning today in what seems like a walk through the wilderness.

I don’t know the plan.  I don’t know the time.  I am trusting God does and it will all fall together and the exact right time.  Then I will say, “I love it when a plan comes together.”

Grace and peace.

Monday Starts It All Over Again

06 Monday May 2013

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Monday starts the workweek for most people.  Some have schedules that work on different days.  Some don’t currently have jobs.  I digress.  For most people, Monday starts the week and is often viewed as a “bad” day.  Why not a good day though?  Why not a day for a fresh start?  Why not a day to begin again?  To improve?  Monday is just like any other day.  It will be as good as I want it to be, the choice is mine.

I’m going to share another blog post I ran across.  It’s a good thought on how to start the week, how to start everyday really and how to do it with courage.  It’s not always easy to overcome the obstacles I see and imagine.  In fact, it’s a challenge.  I seem like I have to flip a 750 pound tire…

http://everydaypowerblog.com/2013/05/05/3-things-i-learned-from-flipping-over-a-750lb-tire/

Grace and peace.

It’s Confusing Out There

02 Thursday May 2013

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Tim Tebow is berated for his Christian beliefs and planning to speak at a church that speaks out against homosexuality.

Jason Collins is praised as courageous and a hero for publicly saying he is homosexual.

Those who are supposed to be so inclusive, the GLBT community, or very inclusive to those who agree with them and profit from them.  They are pretty exclusive when it comes to Christians who simply state their belief of what the Bible says.

Then there are Christians bashing those who call Collins courageous.  Well, he is.  It’s hard to admit a secret.  I have had to admit some secrets and it was VERY hard.  They were secrets that disappointed some.  That played a role in destroying a family.  That today has some Christians still talking about me and treating me like a lesser human.  Collins admission isn’t that much different other than he is admitting it in a society where many will praise him for his action.  Still, it takes courage.

It seems what many from both sides are missing is love.  Fortunately, I have had many, many people who have surrounded me with love.  My life is full of pain but it is modified by the people who are living out the call of Christ to love me.  Christ-followers need to love Collins and the GLBT community.  Those are all children of God who are under the same attacker as I am.  The GLBT community needs to love those who disagree with them and who want to love them even though we think their lifestyle is in opposition to God’s desire.  We all have desires that tempt us.  God doesn’t want me to have sex with a woman I’m not married to just because I think I love her anymore than he wants two people of the same sex having sex because they think that is who they love.

I do believe this…our society will reap what it sows.  When we celebrate the things that are not from God and when we celebrate the things we have decided to OK in God’s image, we will get what we are asking for.

Please Lord, open our eyes and our hearts to your desire.  Fill us with love that we may overflow with it to all we meet.  Our world doesn’t need more rules, just more of you.  We don’t need more legislation, just more of you.  We don’t need more churches or programs, just more of you.  Lord, lead us to yearn for more of you.

Grace and peace.

Quotes

01 Wednesday May 2013

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I’ve read a couple of things yesterday that I want to post and have to go back to.

“The hardest thing in the world is to be where we are.” – Rowan Williams 

How true is this?  I want to be somewhere else most of the time.  When I had a job, I wanted to be somewhere else.  Now that I’m looking for a job, I want to be somewhere else.  I’m learning a lot about living in the present moment…and APPRECIATING the present moment for what it is and what God wants to reveal in it.  It reminds me of something a friend said to me not long ago, “the grass is greenest where we water it.”

I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;
    apart from you I have no good thing.” – Psalms 16:2 

All that I have can disappear in a flash.  My house.  My stuff.  My relationships.  Oh, how I fear losing those things but what do they mean if I’m not walking with God in this present moment?  My struggle today is that I feel like I am putting my full trust and faith in God and may still end up losing some of these things but they are not important in the long term.  My relationship and faith in God is, however.

“This is where you are meant to live – in the present; it is the place where I always await you.  Awareness of your inadequacy is a rich blessing, training you to rely wholeheartedly on Me.” – Jesus Calling by Sarah Young 

Interesting that I read this on the same day I was reading Psalms 16.  Does God want me to get something through my head?  The challenge is that I believe I am living more and more in that dependency but I keep expecting to see answers to my prayers in that living.  Maybe I’m not fully dependent yet?  Or maybe I’m still in training.  I don’t know.  What I do know is that I want to live more like a disciple of Christ but, man, it is hard for me to do much of the time.

“Rejection is the most painful wound you will ever receive because it is the most painful wound God ever experienced.” ~Robert Morris -Gateway Church

Rejection.  Wow.  Rejection by employers.  Rejection by friends.  Rejection by spouses.  Rejection of ideas and hopes and dreams.  I like to tell myself I handle rejection well but I just bottle it up and put it on a shelf.  Then, when a situation comes up that reminds me of the old wound, I go open the bottle and drink from it so I can build walls and protect myself from the possibility of more rejection.  I’m so thankful God doesn’t deal with rejection like I do.  I pray I can begin to deal with rejection more like God does.

I’m learning to live a different life.  I’m learning to see things differently.  I wish I knew where it was all headed.  I’m impatient.  An old friend, Jerry Meade, once told me that God is slow…at least in our version of time.  One more thing for me to accept and work out in my own life.  Be patient.  Have faith.  Quit trying to fit God in my box of how things should look.  Tough stuff.  And yet, hope and faith are all I have right now.  All I have is hope in Him and His power to do great things through me.  Let that be enough for today.

Another friend gave me one of those rubber bracelets once that said “MY GOD IS BIG ENOUGH.”  I wish I still had that bracelet.  Instead, I will try to keep that thought in my head all day today.

Grace and peace.

And then there’s the new day…

30 Tuesday Apr 2013

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Darkness before the dawn?  Rain before the sunshine?  Storm before the calm?

I’m in a place in life I don’t understand and I don’t particularly care for.  At least in my way of thinking.  Today, I keep wondering what God is thinking.  His ways are not my ways.  His thoughts are not my thoughts.  I was reading Jesus Calling (thank you Sarah Young!) this morning and this sentence is hanging with me, “The secret of being thankful is learning to see everything from My perspective.”  Seeing things thorough God’s perspective is a gift I haven’t mastered yet.  I can look back and see it but seeing it in the here and now is difficult.  I told a friend the other day I wish God would hand me the script so I would know the ending and then I would patiently wait.  Of course, that’s probably not true either.

As I sit here today, trying to understand God’s perspective, I try to remember that He didn’t give me a journey of living in the Middle East, He didn’t give me the journey of a crippling disease, He didn’t give me the journey of being imprisoned, He didn’t give me a lot of journeys that seem so hard.  On the other hand, He is giving me a journey of waiting and wondering.  How long?  Will I be able to meet the obligations, financial and otherwise, I told people I would meet?  Today, waiting and wondering is my journey.  And I will be thankful this day.  That doesn’t mean I won’t miss some of the good things He has put in my life or that I won’t feel loneliness or sadness.  It just means in those times today, I will try to stop and see it from God’s perspective and try to understand what He wants me to see and feel and know today.

I share my scariest thoughts here but it is good for me to release them.  Today, I want to release those scary thoughts into God’s hands and see what He wants to do with them and with me.

Grace and peace.

It’s a Struggle

29 Monday Apr 2013

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This weekend has been a hard few days.  Physically.  Emotionally.  I feel alone.  I read Psalms 13 a few times this weeknd and it resonated.  Then I read it in the Message version and it jumped off the pages at me.

Long enough, God.  You’ve ignored me long enough.  I’ve looked at the back of your head long enough.  Long enough I’ve carried this ton of trouble, lived with a stomach full of pain.  Long enough my arrogant enemies have looked down their noses at me.  Take a good look at me, God, my God, I want to look life in the eye, So no enemy can get the best of me or laugh when I fall on my face.  I’ve thrown myself headlong into your arms – I’m celebrating your rescue.  I’m singing at the top of my lungs, I’m so full of answered prayers.

I don’t know David’s full intent when writing this but I can see my life in it.  I am ready to look life in the eye, to see God’s purpose for my coming days, to stop the people who speak negatively about me.  I hear their words and they sting.  Not so much that the words hurt but who they are being said to and what damage that is causing.  I want to celebrate.  I want to show people what happens when you put your full faith in God, how He rescues, how He saves.

But today, I simply join David in crying out “Long enough, Lord, long enough.”

Grace and peace.

Monday Thoughts

22 Monday Apr 2013

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I’m going in different directions today and so is my blog.

I have to finish my Practicum today to complete my Masters program.  It’s tough.  My mind is bouncing off walls.  I’m so close.  Please, Lord, get me through the finish line early today.

Wolf Blitzer, on CNN, asked the stupidest question today.  Did the two men who set off the bombs in Boston have licenses for their guns?  No Wolf, criminals don’t follow the laws!  They don’t go register their guns.  It’s why gun control won’t work!  The bad guys get the guns in illegal ways.  And, if they can’t get guns, they will build bombs or find other devious ways to do what they are going to do.  Criminals don’t follow the rules!  I think the guy may be going senile too.  He asked the same questions 2 and 3 times in an interview this morning.  Wow.

Two friends on Facebook posted scripture from 1 Peter 5 yesterday.  I think it was more than coincidence and it certainly speaks to me in the place I’m in right now.  10 And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.  I hope restoration is coming and coming soon.  I’m getting in a tight spot and it is scary.

Oh God, hear my pleas.  Hear my cries to you.

Grace and peace.

A Bad Week

20 Saturday Apr 2013

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Last week was tough.  Hard.  Bad.  Boston, MA and West, TX were the highlights of a week of bad news, death, tragedy and pain.  The question “why?” keeps coming to the forefront of my mind.  I know I will not get an answer anytime soon and don’t need one.

As I write this, I’m listening to Fox News and their reporters certainly want to get to the bottom of the how, why and who of the two men suspected of setting the bombs off in Boston.  (Note: I am not a Fox News fan.)  Supposedly they are Russian.  Maybe they are Muslim.  Whatever they are or were, they both had hearts turned against a loving God and likely had wounds that drove them to do such disastrous things.

As I think on this the thought of how bad so many hate “radical Muslims”, call them terrorists and think they deserve the harshest response they get.  It leads to so many questions for me.  How do those people respond to “radical Christians” and the tyranny they bring to killing and hating those they oppose?  Why are people who come into the country and kill Americans with bombs terrorists but crazy folks who walk into a theater or school with a gun not terrorists?

Our society is bad about putting layers or priorities to the bad things that happen in our world and happen to us.  So is the church.

I look forward to the day I treat everyone as a child of God, scarred by the world, sinful and broken.  In these times, I pray I treat them equally and love them equally.  I am not saying discipline is not a response, only that I want to be careful to treat those who hurt me with the same measure God would require.

“Do to others as you would have them do to you” applies in the good times and the bad times.  It’s not always easy though.

Grace and peace.