In Christ alone, my hope is found…

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I love this song.  I heard it for the first time during one of the darkest periods I have known and it has become a source of strength for me.  I get emotional every time I sing it because the words conjure up so many feelings about the power and strength and love and compassion of my Savior.

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In Christ alone.  There is no where else to find hope.  Or life.  In Christ alone, through his life as man, his victory over temptation and evil, his caring and concern for the least of society, his teaching and patience, through his death and his resurrection…in Christ alone can I find hope.  Can you imagine this world without Jesus?  Can you imagine if President Obama, or Bush, or Clinton, or Bush, Reagan, Carter, if any of these people were supposed to be what gave me hope?  Can you imagine if we were supposed to find hope in our neighbors, our friends, our family?  Can you imagine if we had to live a life full of hope from people who hurt us, let us down, disappointed us at times?  I know if people were pinning all their hope on me, they would experience some hard times but that’s not the case with Jesus, the Savior.  Put all your hope in him and the rewards will be more than I can possibly describe.  Put all your hope in him and know you will be in the presence of God one day.

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In Christ alone, my hope is found…

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Grace and peace to you.
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More from Eldredge today.  I have often wanted to walk through life figuring it out as I go and not really listening to outside counsel.  I’ve lived too often telling God what the plan was and how he fit into it.  I was giving God a role in my plan instead of realizing that I had a role in God’s plan.  I tried to get out ahead of God but He is smarter than me so He gave me a counselor for when I was ready to listen.  Praise God!

This from John Eldredge’s Waking the Dead:

Our life is a story. A rather long and complicated story that has unfolded over time. There are many scenes, large and small, and many “firsts.” Your first step; your first word; your first day of school. There was your first best friend; your first recital; your first date; your first love; your first kiss; your first heartbreak. If you stop and think of it, your heart has lived through quite a story thus far. And over the course of that story your heart has learned many things. Some of what you learned is true; much of it is not. Not when it comes to the core questions about your heart and the heart of God. Is your heart good? Does your heart really matter? What has life taught you about that? Imagine for a moment that God is walking softly beside you. You sense his presence, feel his warm breath. He says, “Tell me your sorrows.” What would you say in reply?

“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth” (John 14:16–17). Come again? How would you feel if your spouse or a friend said to you, “I think you need some counseling, and so I’ve arranged for it. You start tomorrow; it’ll probably take years”? I’ve got five bucks that says you’d get more than a little defensive. The combination of our pride—I don’t need any therapy, thank you very much—and the fact that it’s become a profession—Freud and Prozac and all that—has kept most of us from realizing that, in fact, we do need counseling. All of us. Jesus sends us his Spirit as Counselor; that ought to make it clear. In fact, we apparently need quite a lot of counsel—the Spirit isn’t just stopping in to give us a tune-up; not even an annual checkup. He has come to stay.  

Today, I’m definitely more aware of the power of counseling in my life and I cannot thank God enough for giving me all that I need in the Holy Spirit.

Grace and peace to you.

My spiritual journey has been full of revelations but one that stands out above others is that our biggest struggle is a struggle of heart – turning our heart over to God, allowing it to be broken of the damage we have done and allowing God to rebuild it and opening it up to the direction of His will for us.  John Eldredge has written some wonderful stuff about our story and relationship with God and the following comes from his book, Waking the Dead:

Remember, the purpose of this thing called the Christian life is that our hearts might be restored and set free. That’s the deal. That’s what Jesus came to do, by his own announcement. Jesus wants Life for us, Life with a capital L, and that Life comes to us through our hearts. But restoring and releasing the heart is no easy project. God doesn’t just throw a switch and poof—it’s done. He sends his Counselor to walk with us instead. That tells us it’s going to be a process. All sorts of damage has been done to your heart over the years, all sorts of terrible things taken in—by sin, by those who should have known better, and by our Enemy, who seeks to steal and kill and destroy the image bearers of God. At best, “hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Prov. 13:12). Certainly there’s been a bit of that in your life. “Even in laughter the heart may ache” (Prov. 14:13), which is to say, things may look fine on the outside, but inside it’s another story.

We’re told to “trust in the LORD” with all our hearts (Prov. 3:5), but frankly, we find it hard to do. Does trust come easily for you? I would love to trust God wholeheartedly. Why is it almost second nature to worry about things? We’re told to love one another deeply, “from the heart” (1 Peter 1:22), but that’s even more rare. Why is it so easy to get angry at, or to resent, or simply to grow indifferent toward the very people we once loved? The answers lie down in the heart. “For it is with your heart that you believe,” Paul says (Rom. 10:10). And in Proverbs we read, “The heart of a man is like deep water, but a man of understanding draws it out” (20:5 NASB). Our deepest convictions—the ones that really shape our lives—they are down there somewhere in the depths of our hearts. 

I have elected to trust fully in the Lord.  I don’t always succeed but find that when I do submit to Him, my life is more peaceful and more enjoyable.  My prayer is that I will continue to live more in His will for my life each day and in doing so will glorify Him before those who’s paths I cross.

Grace and peace to you.

Dallas Cowboys…don’t care too much.  Dallas Mavericks…don’t care too much.   Dallas Stars…don’t care too much.  Texas Rangers…starting to wish I didn’t care so much.  Man, the Rangers are wearing me out and I’m thinking as soon as the ownership transfer takes place Ron Washington’s days are numbered.

I got a little sunburned from some weekend baseball in Wichita Falls.  I wish the games would have worked out better but it’s always fun watching the kids play and it was even better because everyone on the team spent the night and the kids got to hang out and have some fun together.

I spent Saturday night talking with a dad-friend on the team about the concept of “the church has left the building.”  This guy has a great story and has a passion for sharing Jesus with people.  I see God’s hand at work in our paths crossing. 

Steve McCauley on Channel 8 talks more about “the cap” than any weatherman I’ve ever heard.

If you know me, you know I like my music hard and loud.  Here’s one of my favorites from Creed.

Most of their lyrics are based on their faith but for the life of me, I can’t figure out the video.  Still love the song though.

Grace and peace to you.

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OK, this headline kind of cracks me up.  On one hand, I’m thankful that President Obama sees fit to defend proclaiming May 6th as a National Day of Prayer.  A group or groups representing agnostics, atheists and some others have sued the government and a Wisconsin judge ruled the proclamation unconstitutional so the federal government is taking up the fight.  That’s cool but what I’m wondering is how many Christians, who abhor the Wisconsin judge’s ruling and who will write and scream and talk in their homes and on their church pews knew what day of the year this typically occurred or how many of them ever spent the day in prayer.  I wonder.

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Here’s where I walk on thin ice with some of my friends.  I do not believe the government has the responsibility to defend our faith.  I do not believe God blesses our country because a bunch of folks show up for church on Sunday morning.  I do not believe this country is a Christian nation (have you seen the ads on TV, on billboards, the sex on TV and in the movies?) and I do not believe the government has to defend a National Day of Prayer.

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Maybe I’m passionate about this because I’m convicted by it but I do not believe I can ask the government to defend this day or advocate prayer in schools or anywhere else if my kids aren’t hearing me pray with them regularly, if they don’t see me reading the Bible regularly, if they don’t see me working among the hurting, the poor, the hopeless just like Jesus did.  If my life isn’t consumed with Christ and living out his example, why would I expect Washington to do it for me?  What about you?

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Don’t get me wrong.  I appreciate President Obama for taking this stance and hope he wins.  I’m all for recognizing and promoting the positive aspects of Christianity but Christ-likeness starts with me…and with you.

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Grace and peace to you.
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If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plan.

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I’ve heard that quote more than once but read it in a book Wednesday and wondered how many times I heard it while I was still telling God my plans for Him.  Why, oh why did I ever waste so much time trying to tell God the right thing to do?  The bigger question is why do I still do it even today when I’ve seen His power at work and I’ve seen the train wrecks my bright ideas led me to. 

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I’ve heard God laugh too many times.  I want to put my plans in the trash can and follow His.  I just have to swallow my pride and realize the Creator knows better than the created, the Savior knows better than the saved.

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I work in a pretty bizarre place.  I haven’t had another job where the accounting department shuts down in the middle of the afternoon and leaves en masse because one of the staff members wanted to be baptized and didn’t want to put it off.  It’s a way cool moment and I am extremely blessed to work in an environment where I can participate in a Bible study each week and I can lead my staff in prayer.  God does some upside down stuff and I am fortunate to be allowed to participate in it at times.  My God is mighty to save.

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Grace and peace to you.
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I recently watched Up In The Air starring George Clooney as a guy who travels for a living and is in pursuit of 10,000,000 miles flown with American Airlines which would make him the 7th person to do it.  He teaches a seminar on getting rid of all the things that will hold you down if you are a person who is wanting to achieve such status, things like homes, cars, photos, family, anything that would slow or stop the pursuit.  For achieving the goal he gets a card made of real gold, lifetime Executive Platinum status and he gets to meet the Chief Captain of the airline.  The turning point of the show is once he achieves this great feat (in his mind), he has realized it was an empty dream. 

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In Rick’s sermon yesterday, he stated (and I’m paraphrasing a bit) “man spends the first half of his life looking for success and the second half looking for significance.”  What happens when we set our course to pursuing something we think we want so badly only to realize it was the wrong thing to pursue?  What then? 

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Some of us have been fortunate to learn there is only one thing we need to pursue with all of our being – a relationship with God – and having been successful in that effort, everything else will fall into place.  If we put all of our energy and devotion in pursuing wealth, relationships, happiness, 10,000,000 miles, anything other than God we will come to the end of the pursuit realizing it is not wholly fulfilling.  Only God can fill us up, only God can give us everything we need and only in God can we be truly content with what we have.

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My daughter, who only saw the end of the movie but got the concept pretty quickly, got up and simply said “depressing.”  Pursuing God will not be an easy road full of laughs, smiles and candy-canes but one thing I am confident of, at the end of the pursuit “depressing” will not be the response.  Instead, I expect to be speechless and filled with amazement at how wonderful the prize my God will give me.

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Grace and peace to you.
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What do preachers and management consultants have in common?  They speak to hundreds of people each week about ways to improve the listener’s lives, the listener’s hear the message and agree it’s a good idea and then the listeners go back to day-to-day living seldom implementing what they heard and agreed would improve their life.  What if I really lived the life I talk about living?  What if I really sought God in everything I do?  What if I really acted like the hands and feet of Jesus all the time?  What if I implemented all the good things Rick talks about on Sunday mornings?  Instead, I often spend my time talking about it and living a life that isn’t full of glory to God.

I was talking to a good friend who I have had some great theological conversations with the other day.  I had got up and got ready to come to work, my mind full of the things I needed to do to a) leave the house dressed appropriately and b) get accomplished that day to make work seem successful.  On the way to the office, I knew I would see my friend that day and we would have another good theological discussion about all the things we wanted to do to live closer to God and I was glad we would talk.  Once we got together and started our discussion, I realized I had started my day full of the thoughts of the worldly things I needed to do and been excited about talking to him about God…but I had not spoken to God that whole morning.  Another day that I was happy to talk about it but failed to live close to God.

In a sense, this blog is that very thing.  It’s a place where I write my ideas and talk about things I want to do but maybe haven’t attempted yet.  My prayer today is that God will use me and that I will be open to His direction and, if he is still preparing me for what He wants me to do, that I will be content in the preparation and the relationship I will build with Him.

I don’t want to be full of ideas and short on action.  I want to be His child and His disciple, doing what He would be doing on this earth.  Lord, give me strength and courage to act, wisdom to guide me in the right path and joy in all that brings glory to your name.

Grace and peace to you.
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A blog I read on Monday left me reeling with troubling thoughts, thoughts that scare me and leave me wondering what is going on in this evil, crazy, mixed up world.  As I thought about what I read, tears in my eyes, this song came on the radio. 

Our God is an awesome God and I like what Mullins has to say about Christianity.  If you want something to hold on to that makes sense, our God isn’t the answer but if you want something to hold on to that brings LIFE, my God is the answer.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.  Isaiah 55:8

Truth.

Grace and peace to you.

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Way to go Phil!  Phil Mickelson won the Masters over the weekend.  I’m not a golfer, don’t watch it on TV other than the highlights and haven’t played in years because of a back problem but Mickelson remains one of my favorite players because a) he seems like a good guy and b) he’s a left-handed golfer.  I saw one shot he hit from behind a pine tree that landed on the green in almost perfect placement.  Wow.
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I wonder why I have so much trouble living in submission to God?  I think I know and it boils down to a) I don’t take the time to seek His guidance because b) I think I can handle it on my own.  This leads to several problems for me because submission is much easier, simpler and peaceful yet my flesh wants to set about creating my own path.  Crazy.  It’s something I’m working on and wish I could get where I want to be quicker.  At times I can’t help but criticize myself for being so self-focused.  Thankfully, I have experienced the unmatchable love and grace God covers me with and feeling it allows me to move closer to Him.  I hope my heart will be completely broken and open to God’s good and perfect will soon and that I will not go backwards.  Perfection in my relationship with God is something I know will be hard but it is where I want to be because I know the reward will lead to perfect peace in every situation.  Just give me Jesus.

Grace and peace to you.

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