God and the Spider

During World War II, a US marine was separated from his unit on a Pacific
island. The fighting had been intense, and in the smoke and the crossfire
he had lost touch with his comrades.
Alone in the jungle, he could hear enemy soldiers coming in his direction.
Scrambling for cover, he found his way up a high ridge to several small
caves in the rock. Quickly he crawled inside one of the caves. Although
safe for the moment, he realized that once the enemy soldiers looking for
him swept up the ridge, they would quickly search all the caves and he
would be killed.
As he waited, he prayed, "Lord, if it be your will, please protect me.
Whatever your will though, I love you and trust you. Amen."
After praying, he lay quietly listening to the enemy begin to draw close.
He thought, "Well, I guess the Lord isn't going to help me out of this
one." Then he saw a spider begin to build a web over the front of his
cave.
As he watched, listening to the enemy searching for him all the while, the
spider layered strand after strand of web across the opening of the cave.
"Hah, he thought. "What I need is a brick wall and what the Lord has sent
me is a spider web. God does have a sense of humor."
As the enemy drew closer he watched from the darkness of his hideout and
could see them searching one cave after another. As they came to his, he
got ready to make his last stand. To his amazement, however, after
glancing in the direction of his cave, they moved on. Suddenly, he
realized that with the spider web over the entrance, his cave looked as if
no one had entered for quite a while. "Lord, forgive me," prayed the young
man. "I had forgotten that in you a spider's web is stronger than a brick
wall."
We all face times of great trouble. When we do, it is so easy to forget
the victories that God would work in our lives, sometimes in the most
surprising ways. As the great leader, Nehemiah, reminded the people of
Israel when they faced the task of rebuilding Jerusalem, "In God we will
have success!" [Nehemiah 2:20]
God is there, He is listening to your every need. We must understand that His plans and His ways are far greater than ours. Remember in Ephesians Paul says, "Unto Him who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all we can ask or imagine."
God can do so much more with a spider web than what we ask Him to. So continue to cast your fears and your prayers on God, He is listening, and He is working in our midst.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

My criteria

So, some people have asked me how I choose the verses for the daily blogs that I write. They wonder, because I am the first to complain that I can't come up with sermons or sermon ideas on my own. That is why I always have preached expositorily, and most likely always will. With Palm Sunday and Easter approaching I once again had to figure out what to preach on a few weeks ago as I was preparing. It took me longer to decide on one than to actually do all of the planning and research for it to this point.
But, back to the blogs. I spend hours each morning searching, praying and looking for just the perfect verse to bring up and illustrate each day. Hours upon hours of research goes into each and every blog. I mean it's intense every morning. Okay, if you bought into that, I apologize it's really quite scientific.
I subscribed to a national local Christian radio station and by doing so I can listen on-line from my office. Each morning that radio station sends me their verse of the day, and I would have to say that 90% of the time I use that verse. I open up my Bible, my couple of concordances that I have at my office and I pray about it. Then I start typing and presto! A blog.
Proverbs 20:5 The purposes of a man's heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out.
This verse interestingly enough is not the verse of the day for today, but it illustrates a little bit what I am seeking here. If I blog on my own, without the randomness of what I find, it will become more about me. My heart and my purposes, or motives will come out and it will no longer be something anyone will want to read. So, I use the scientific approach of opening up my email and studying that particular verse. It leads me in different directions each morning which keeps it fun for me, and allows me to extend my knowledge of the Word in a way that is not driven by my own purposes.
So I hope I didn't let you down too much with my selection process. Atleast I don't close my eyes, open my BIble and point to a verse.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

David's heart's desire

Do you ever think about the difference between a want and a heart's desire? There is a major difference in the two and it's fun to see how that works. I am still a racer at heart, I always will be and my want is to be the best drag racer around. I want to win races, track championships and ofcourse a lot of money doing it. I want to travel around and race all over, make a name for myself and be feared as a racer. I want all of those things and have wanted all of those things since childhood. I can honestly say that I am passionate about those things when I am at the track, but anywhere else they are just minor feelings.
On the other hand, my heart's desire is to reach St. Johns County for Christ. I love softball and I want to become a great highschool fastpitch softball coach, but it's just a want. When it comes to the things of God it is completely different. I desire above all things to reach this town with the Gospel. The things that make me able to accomplish that drive me beyond my own strength. Wednesday nights are a natural high like I cannot explain, as well as Sunday mornings. I love nothing more than being in the house of the Lord, or working to reach more people to bring them into the house of the Lord. This weekend we have a City Wide Youth event that I am extremely excited about. The passion and the hunger goes far, far beyond my anticipation of any race. Why? It's my heart's desire, and because Jesus has full reign on my heart it is His desire as well.
Psalm 27:4 says, "One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lrod and to seek him in his temple."
David's heart' desire is mapped out in this verse and it can mean 1 of 3 things. He can be first of all referring to the tabernacle at Gibeon that he built to house the Ark of the Covenant. Secondly, he could be referring to teh temple taht His son SOlomon would later build. Or thirdly, and most likely I beleive he is referring to being in God's presence. There is nothing greater than the feeling of knowing that you are in the presence of the Lord. That's a feeling that we know when it is there, and we should long for when it is missing.
So, what is your heart's desire? I hope it is to be in the presence of teh Lord all the days of your life, just like King David.
Thanks for reading and have a wonderful weekend!

God's other gift

So have you ever looked at your life and all that it entails? Have you ever taken the time to realize all that God puts together for you each day just for the day to happen? And think about how far in advance He put those things together that you can barely plan a day ahead of time. It's amazing isn't it. God gives us all that we need to endure each day, no matter the storms or the problems we have all we need to get by. How many of us have to get up and make a phone call to make sure the sun comes up? How many of us have to think about every step we make, every breath we take, every motion that our bodies make each day? If we thought about any of this we would worry ourselves to death wouldn't we.
Matthew 6:33 "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well."
Think about those words of JEsus Himself. "Seek first His kingdom and righteousness." That statement alone should make us so intent, so hungry to seek Him that we forget about everything else. ANd then, when we learn to seek Him each day, we will start to forget about the little things that worry us. I find myself thinking about my day a lot lately, but there are 2 days that I don't think about the day much at all. It's as if my feet barely hit the ground at all and those 2 days are Wednesday and Sunday. Why is that? What makes these two days so different from the rest? I get up each day and spend about 30-45 minutes in the word and prayer every day. I type out my blogs each week day early in the morning. I plan out my days and make sure my calendar doesn't overlap in any way. Yet only on those two days do I forget to do all of that. That's because on Wednesday I am a youth Pastor, and on Sundays I am a Pastor. I am so focused on God and serving Him, reaching others with His message that I totally forget about the details of the day. Sure, I'm a Youth pastor when I go eat lunch at the middle and High schools each day. Sure I'm a pastor when I visit someone in the hospital on my lunch break or between work and softball practice. BUt truly, I am almost confessing to you that I fail the rest of the days, and those days are filled with a little more stress and a lot less peace of mind.
So focus on the things of God, seek Him and let's have 7 days of peace of mind together.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Grace + Knowledge = Well placed Glory

So we did an exercise at work the other day with all of our outreach staff. We had to make a number of choices for adjectives that best describe us. At the end we added up the total number of choices in each column and we took that math and found out what our color was. I found out that I was a green. Greens are generally perfectionists, have a high variety of interests, they are intelligent(ofcourse!) like gaining wisdom and knowledge in all areas of life, and are always exploring ideas. There were 3 other choices gold, orange and blue. Each of them with different explanations for the way they were.
I can admit that I do like to gain knowledge. Everytime we take on something new here at Betty Griffin House, or I have to speak on another topic I'm not just happy with knowing the material, I try to know everything I can about it. When I prepare a sermon I can't just put together what I see, I have to find out the history and background of the situation that I am preaching on. Gaining knowledge is fun and exciting for me. I even have books on racing, softball, football and all sorts of things that I am involved in because I want to know all that I can about it.
Well there are two things that we can do with knowledge. We can use it in our own lives and the lives of others, or we can hog it and boast about it, much like I did above(but come on you knew I was a genious!)
Here's a verse that explains how I feel about knowledge and my endeavors in that field. 2 Peter 3:18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.
Here's the deal, if you like knowledge and you strive to gain it all the time. You soon find yourself overwhelmed not by what you know but by what you don't know. If you grow in your knowledge of the Bible you very soon see yourself in a full grace situation. The exercise we did last week with the colors at work showed that one of the biggest weaknesses of the greens(my color) is that they sometimes have a low tolerance for ignorance. Not necessarily people who don't get it, people who don't try to get it. Well, I will confess to those moments of feeling exactly that way towards others. But, think about God. Think about how ignorant we must seem and how little time and effort we put into knowing the things of God.
If you want to find grace, and realize where to put the glory try to study God's Word every day. Strive to know all that the Word of God has to offer and very soon you will grow and understand not only God's grace, but you will readily hand off all glory to God on a regular basis.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

building up

So as we all know I coach softball. Sports have always been a major part of my life and I have always liked competition, but team settings are nice as well. We need to all work together, if one person slips in the body there should be several people there to not only pick them up but help them along.
I recall a time when I was really struggling, I talked to Pastors, youth Pastors and others who I respected majorly. I read books, I read the word and I prayed every day for something to lift me out.
Then, a 16 year old who isn't that strong spiritually made a comment that made it all clear to me. They were not just helping me out, they were spurring me on as well. And through that spurring I started doing the things I needed to be doing for the Lord.
Ephesians 4:15-16 Paul said, "Speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the HEad, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work."
There you have it, we all need to do our part, whether you are a 8 year old new Christian or a 75 year old seasoned and spiritually strong believer. Each of us has a place and each of us is to lovingly build up those around us so that we can accomplish the things we can for the Lord. If we are going to reach this community for Christ it is going to take all of us doing their job.
Thanks for reading and sorry things are a bit wacky. I had to work a Golf Tournament today at 6:30am and I couldn't get our internet card on the laptop to work this morning. Tuesday, I will be out as well. SO this is Monday-Tuesday together.
Thanks and God Bless!

Crave the growth

As babies we did a lot of things that weren't so right. We were not potty trained, we did not communicate our problems very well, and we didn't eat right. We were given formula or milk that was specifically for us and we did it in a way that we got all of the nutrition we could. We did, however, do one thing well. We strived to grow, we worked hard to grow every day through properly eating, through experiencing new things, and through working different parts of our brains and bodies.
Today, however we are adults, fully functioning in society. I will venture a guess that over half of us can't remember the last time we actually had a glass of milk. Many of us watch what we eat and make sure we don't get too many carbs, or calories, or fat content. We read labels for nutritional value as if they are the Gospel. We do all this while many times neglecting our spiritual growth.
1 Peter 2:2 "Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good."
There you have it, we shouldn't just grow, we should crave growth. We should crave all that is good and about God in a way that we understand that God is good. As a child we didn't want anything that wasn't in that bottle until we realized it was good, then we would eat every bite of it. Soon after that we wouldn't accept the bottle, because we craved what was in the jar, in the next spoonful and so on.
So crave growth, spiritual growth so that you can continue to grow. Growth is one thing, craving growth with everything you have is different. God is looking for workers, workers who crave growth, and love to motivate others to do the same.
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

the flowers

I showed a Nooma video last night to our teens at youth. It was the Sunday video and it's really interesting how it tied in with what we are talking about in youth as well as what we discussed yesterday in the blog. In the video Rob Bell is sitting in a diner and eating a muffin of some sort and sipping on his coffee. That has very little to do with the story but it's a neat setting none the less.
He talks about men taking flowers home to their wives. This is where I change the story up quite a bit but get the same results. The first husband takes a dozen roses home and says that he picked up a dozen beautiful roses for her because he thought that was what she expected. The second husband picked up 2 dozen mixed roses of extremely high quality and took them home to his wife and handed them to her and said here are your roses, they were on sale so I picked them up for you. THe third gave his wife a huge bouquet of flowers of all sorts, an extremely expensive arrangement and told her how expensive they were and how he thought she was worth it. The final man took his wife 3 roses, handed them to her on no occasion at all and told her that he loved her, and thanked God for her every day.
That's a perfect picture of the different people who go to church. You have your hyppocrites who are just dragging down the others around them because they are doing what is "expected of them." Then you have those who go to church and do a little more than what is expected as long as it is convenient. Thirdly, you have those who go and do above and beyond, but they announce it and hope to be rewarded for it and praised for it.
Then, you have God's people. Those who have given God their hearts, their souls and do whatever is needed to exemplify God's love. They do it willingly, and most importantly they do it for no earthly reward whatsoever.
Jesus saw this type of hypocrisy and actually called the leaders of the religious groups of His day hypocrites!
Matthew 23:13 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you are hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those trying to enter. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are."
Jesus didn't just call them hypocrites because they taught one thing and lived another. He didn't just call them hypocrites, he called them sons of hell. That's strong words from the Son of God.
So do what GOd calls you to do, do it lovingly and in a way that it points to the cross and CHrist not to man.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

The puzzle

So I used to like to put together puzzles as a kid. I would pick out puzzles that had cool designs on them, mostly sports or cars but some were based on shows I liked. There was a He-Man puzzle that I liked that was about 300 pieces that was quite a booger to put together because so many of the characters looked alike. So you could realistically have 20-30 pieces that looked very much alike. Last night I got home from our softball game to Alexa and P.J. sitting on my parents' living room floor with puzzle pieces all over. They were working on a puzzle together.
If we truly think about our lives as a puzzle, if we see each day as a piece of that puzzle think about the building process that God goes through. He has the box top with the picture of the finished product and we are just taking it one piece at a time. Each day is another piece of your earthly puzzle that you will one day trade in for an eternity of heavenly wonder.
Think about the longevity of your life, Right now I have been alive for 11,865 days and that is a lot of puzzle pieces. Let's say I make it to 50 that's 18,250,70 will be 25,550, and if I made it all the way to 90 that would be 32,850 days. That is a huge puzzle. Each day is ordained for us and planned out by God. He knows our mistakes and our triumphs in each of those days and we need to trust that God has started that puzzle and He won't stop putting it together until His good works are fulfilled in our lives.
Philippians 1:6 "Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."
There you have it, God started that puzzle and like my 2 little girls He will not stop working on it until it is complete, whole and in the image of all He created you to be.
So take today's piece, give it to God, glorify Him and know that it is part of His plan unraveling in your life.
Thanks for reading and have a great day! Say an extra prayer today as I will be in Jacksonville with Kiara Carmichael a 14 year old in our youth ministry who is having back surgery at 1pm.

Giving willingly

It's funny how sometimes life goes full circle. I mean, I do realize that being a parent that automatically there are going to be things that I was on the other end of as a child that will flip with my role as a parent. But there is another situation currently in my life where I have seen some changes. Tara and I are working on a loan modification through our mortgage company and with a local agency. When we talked over the phone with a company about all of our finances from our water bill, to gas, to groceries and so on they came up with one solution. To cut back on spending, duh that was brilliant. If we spend less we will be in better shape, wish I could have thought of that myself!
But no, they looked over our spending and they decided they couldn't find any area that we could cut back very much on. We spend less than expected in most every area but gas. And then, they had us fill out this sheet with all of our monthly expenses on it and that's where it got interesting. They decided that we give way too much to the church. I showed them what we make and what we give and it comes out to about 11-12% depending on when our paychecks actually fall. So the lady told us, if we quit giving to the church we wouldn't be in a bind right now. To which I quickly replied, if we don't give to the church we can cross out one of my major incomes.
I recall about 2 years ago I was working for the Homeless Coalition as a literacy program leader. One of my other jobs was as a case manager for the families. I had 2 families in particular who I knew were CHristians and went to a local church pretty regularly. When we worked out their budgets I asked them about giving to their churches. One said they didn't have the money left over to, to which I shared the giving the first 10% and not the leftovers. The other family said they didn't have enough to give, but that the Lord would help them out of this situation eventually and they would start giving. What a sad pair of commentaries on giving to God.
I am defending myself on both ends, once as a person who sees someone else's need to give and then more recently as a believer being told not to give.
2 Corinthians 8:12 says, "For if the willingness is there,the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have."
There you have it, it isn't just giving that God accepts. It is actually giving willingly that He is looking for in His people. So do you give willingly, the first 10% or do you just give whatever you ahve leftover grudgingly. ANd if you do give it grudgingly is that truly giving?
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

March Madness

It's Monday morning and I have a whole new definition of March Madness. I sat down to my computer 1 hour and 30 minutes ago to start on this blog and it has taken my office computer this long to let me on line and into the blog to start typing.Amazing!
So I wanted to quiz you and see if you know what the most quoted BIblical story is in the world of sports. Take a minute to think of all the analogies that are used in sports and see what you think it is. With the NCAA Basketball tournament coming up this phrase is used a lot, "David vs. Goliath". They will use this phrase to match up 1 vs. 16 seeds, to show the difference between teams like University of North Carolina and Duke, against teams like East Tennessee State and Cleveland State and so on. You have a colossal major university up against a school that most people don't even know exists. That's what's fun about the NCAA tourney, seeing kids at smaller schools get a chance to play on teh same floor as the teams they possibly grew up dreaming of playing for. It's all good fun.
But over and over we will here the phrase "David vs. Goliath" and there is one major problem with that. The sports world still thinks that Goliath is the favorite. In reality we know David, and we know his love for the Lord and also that he was chosen by the Lord so we know that Goliath was absolutely no match for David. So again ESPN and the sports world has got it all wrong. Goliath is the underdog and David is the powerful favorite.
Thanks for reading and ahve a great day!

Secular thinking

So I am studying a new program that I am going to be using at the jail and at the Hasting Youth Academy in teh future. THere are two different models that the whole book is based on, the book is "Thinking for a change", Integrated Cognitive Behavior Change Program. The whole thought of this book is to get people to think about their behavior and recognize patterns in their behavior before they lose control.
THe first portion is the pyramid and in it the base is your beliefs, the second part is your thoughts and feelings, and the top piece at the points is actually your behavior. Unfortunately , they have hit it right on the head with this thought. Your actions actually only make up a small part of you, who you are and what you do.They are admitting that the most important part of change is your beliefs. If you can change someone's beliefs then their actions will soon follow.
Here's the Cognitive Behavioral Motto:
Watch your thoughts for they may become your words.
Watch your words for they may become your actions.
Watch your actions for they may become your habits.
Watch your habits for they may become your character.
Watch your character for it will become your destiny.

So much of this is right in line with Christianity. We know that in order to control anything you need to change the beliefs of a person. Faith is the first step in making any behavioral changes. Just read Josh Hamiliton's book "Beyond Belief" and see for yourself. He went through over a dozen different change programs for drug use and abuse and nothing worked until he dropped to his knees and asked GOd to help him. This is the whole purpose of the Gospel to change lives, and that begins with us sharing with those who need the Lord most.

Thanks for reading and have a great day. I may not be blogging tomorrow as we are taking a day away and going to the Gatornationals tomorrow. IT all depends on teh morning.

forgetting yesterday

So have you ever been faced with a task that you failed at in the past? If you played or are playing any form of sports this verse is great for you. I can gaurantee that if you play any type of sports you have faced a failure and had to stare it right in the face.
I think baseball/softball are some of the toughest sports to face failures in. You can get in a hitting slump that can last more than a few weeks at times and the end seems to be no where in sight. You go to the plate a hitter, ready to punish any pitch that comes your way. Then, it happens you strike out a few times, pop out or just don't hit the ball well at all. You start in your mind to doubt your abilities and then you start looking at your mechanics. you wonder if something needs to change when in reality it is mostly in your head. No one is perfect, in fact the great hitters in baseball only hit .300. That means that they get a hit 3 out of every 10 at bats. That's 7 failures to every 3 hits. If you play that math over into life we are going to have to focus on God to get through the 7 failures for sure.
Philippians 3:13-14 "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus"
Paul says in his own way that he is throwing the past away and looking to the future. We need to admit when we sin, when we fall short and when we are no where close to the Christian we should be. We need to confess those times directly to God and do everything we can to set ourselves up to not do it again. Then, we focus on tomorrow not yesterday. The best analogy for this is that we can't drive to work only looking in the rear view mirror. Well, we can't walk through life only looking at our past.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

THe first step

The first step to becoming fully aware of exactly what Jesus Christ has done for you is admitting your need for Him. We walk through life like we have it all together. We act like we don't sin, we're all puffed up and proud and don't make mistakes. In reality Christ is looking for people who don't live in sin, but are willing to admit it when they do fall. People who realize how much and how badly they truly do need Him.
We don't share this idea though. We keep our mistakes and our shortcomings bottled up and don't ever take them out. We have a closet full of skelatons when we should have a life full of admitted failures. You should share your mistakes and your stumbles with others, that too will help you realize your need for a savior.
1 John 1:9-10 "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives."
There you have it, every time we act like we are perfect, we are making God out to be a liar. God sent His Son to die for our sins and conquer both sin and death all in one trip. He didn't send His Son because some people sin and some don't. He sent His Son for the most common of man, the sinner. We all sin, we should all readily admit it to anyone who thinks otherwise so that we can fully experience God's grace and mercy. Without sin, there is no need for God. Without sin, God sent His Son for no reason and I am fully assured that saving us from sin was part of God's original plan and the most important piece of this puzzle is admitting you need that forgiveness.
So admit your wrongs, accept God's grace and do so publicly.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Plan for it

So I have always had a theory on getting into trouble. You can't plan for it, but you can plan to stay out of it. Most everyone knows what their weakness is and the best thing you can do is plan your way around it. Make sure you do things in a way that it doesn't allow for you to get caught with spare time in a situation where you can allow yourself to stumble. I just got through with Josh Hamilton's story, the book is a great read. He was a pro baseball player who was given 3.96 million dollars to play baseball straight out of high school. He got injured in a car wreck, had some back injuries that it took months for the doctors to figure out and ended up with a lot of down time. He was the kind of kid who never did drugs, drank or even went out in high school. He even skipped homecoming dances and proms to avoid getting caught up in anything that make him mess up his chances at professional baseball.
Well, after his injury in the minor leagues he was left with a lot of down time. He went to a tattoo parlor and got a tattoo, then another then another. Pretty soon the guys doing the ink work invited him to come hang out with them. He got offered some crack and got hooked. That sent his life on a downward spiral that led to him being kicked out of baseball, and he even traded his wife's wedding ring in on crack. All this because he was sitting around with free time and didn't plan for avoiding trouble.
He came face to face with his situation after a few years of attempted rehab clinics and doctors he realized he couldn't do it alone. He asked God to take control of the situation even if it meant he would never do anything he loved again, just to get him clean from the drugs was all he wanted. He opened up a Bible after giving his life to God and read James 4:7 Submit yourselves to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. He said to this day, some 4 years later he still quotes that to himself in his down time.
There's another verse that applies to this situation. Ephesians 5:15 "Be careful then how you live, because the days are evil."
We must be careful how we spend our time. We need to plan our days and our free time to involve people and events and things that will keep us out of trouble and not allow for trouble. I have seen far too many teens and young adults with too much free time start experimenting with things they shouldn't and get hooked in on them.
So plan your time wisely, plan it so that you don't get into a situation to stumble.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

By design

I used to mow grass for a close friend who owned a campground. I would mow around the trailers, many of the people are just passing through on vacation and many are there as regular tennants. I usually run around the whole place for the first 2-3 hours on the riding mower getting as close everything as I can, then I come back around with the weedeater and finish up around each spot and their cars and possessions. I sometimes catch my mind wandering about the people in there based on their possessions. There is one family in particular that had a business it seemed, and the business was childproofing. Apparently they come into the house of someone with little ones and they childproof everything from cabinets, to electrical outlets, to pool areas and so on. It seemed like a pretty cool idea, if you have the money to invest in the safety of your little ones. But why don't we just make things automatically child proof so that we don't have to worry about it.
Well, God had a grand plan, and in His plan He made everything adult proof. He saw to it that each piece of the puzzle and His Gospel was completely intellect proof. No matter how smart or intelligent you are, you will have a harder time understanding faith than a 5-6 year old little child. CHildren get it, that's one reason I really like doing a children's sermon because the little ones truly get it, they understand it and they don't over think it as we as adults often do.
Matthew 11:25-26 says, At that time Jesus said, 'I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure'"
Think about JEsus' words right there. They hid it from the wise and learned, and revealed to children. God's will is that His plan and His Gospel is fully understood by children. It's about faith and not about intellect and that was God's plan from the beginning, to keep life as simple as possible. Think about it, every part of life that is difficult is man made headaches that were not a part of the original plan.
So don't over think the Gospel, trust it with the faith of a child and you will see it the way God intended.
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

Road Rage

Okay, so pretty much its a given that everyone has experienced at some time a form of road rage. I can honestly tell you that it has been a long, long time since I truly got caught up in it but I can remember those times when it came to the surface. It's this raging, bubbling, boiling point that we come to and what we do with it is up to us. I told you before that we get mad because we chose to get mad, not because someone made us that way. WEll, road rage is the same way.
What causes road rage? What is the leading cause, well one of the main causes is pride. It's our inability to put ourselves in the other person's shoes. We think we are the only one on the road in a hurry to get to where we are going. We think that the rush and the hurry on our part is the only emergency going on at that time, we don't think of others.
James 1:20-21 "for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you."
I can remember a time when I was driving with another person in the car with me. She was simply riding, we had stopped with the family to get shaved ice at the Surf Station and everything was good. I was driving my truck and Tara was driving her vehicle. We were coming up to the Bridge of Lions and the part of the road where 2 lane become 1 lane and there was a guy in a little import(a rice burner with the load exhaust and all) with his music blaring and his engine revving. He decided to turn right and race down the side roads to the entrance to the bridge. Apparently the bridge had recently been up so traffic was backed up and the import would have been about 3 cars behind us and now because of racing down the side road he was going to be the one sitting there when I got to the foot of the bridge. Everyone was letting cars in and it was going smoothly I thought. But, my passenger couldn't handle it, "No Jeff! Don't let that guy in, he just raced down the side road to beat us here! I hate when people do that!" Keep in mind with me that we are in absolutely no hurry to get anywhere. And now, because of this guy's tactical driving we are going to be a whole 15-30 seconds later to get to no where. I'm sure you can see the inconvenience he was causing.
Do you see how silly road rage is? Mabye he is running late to work, or school or somewhere else. I wasn't going anywhere if he needed to get there, go ahead and get there. No skin off my back. But we do, we get all worked up. Why? Why do we let things get us all worked up, why do we chose to get raged up while behind the wheel?
I don't have all the answers to this but I can tell you that the beginning of verse 21 is the answer for me. I used to listen to music that I probably shouldn't listen to. It wasn't anything that would cause a red flag to come up, or anything that was really bad. But it was music that didn't have any meaning to it. Sometimes it did talk about fighting, anger or aggression. But it did not lift me up, or put me in a position to be able to worship God. Now, don't get me wrong I don't ride around listening to worship music, but I do listen to Christian Music. I feel like since about 10 years ago when I started listening to Christian music 90% of the time I have seen a change in my driving and my attitude. Because my mind is on God and His things and His will for me and not defending my territory on the road.
So try it out, listen to Christian music on your commute and see that GOd will give you a peaceful ride.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Anger, it's your choice

I often times like to walk into a room full of kids or teenagers and start things off by asking them if they remember the last time they got mad. Maybe, have them share it with the group and see what kinds of things go on. Then, I like to ask them who it was that made them mad. It is always, always blamed on someone else. My sibling did this, or my parents said that, or whatever the case may be. My thing right now is that I want people to start taking responsibility for their actions and their anger. We have a lot of outside forces acting on us at all times. Especially in public places, there are other people and other things going on in our lives that can make or break our days. But, we need to understand that we are in control of our own bodies, and that is all we can control.
People do things that we dislike, maybe even things we hate or dislike very strongly. People constantly do things that I don't like, at softball practice, at work and even at church. The moment it happens I make a choice. Sometimes we are so hot-headed that we don't realize the choice is even made. But it happens, we get mad. WHy? Because we chose to get mad, that is all there is to it.
James 1:19-20 My dear brothers take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry
So we should first listen, listen to the forces outside of our bodies, then quickly listen to our minds. Our conscience should be telling us what to do, and how to react. Then, we need to assess the situation through God's eyes and make sure we don't do anything to ruin our future chances at witnessing to that person or group of people.
So quick to listen and slow to react that is the key to allowing the Holy Spirit to empower you to avoid anger. Remember, you make a choice to get mad. You can just as easily make it a habit to make the choice to not get mad.
Have a great day and thanks for reading!

Finding a leader

So as many of you know I coach girls' softball at St. Augustine High School. I work with the Junior Varsity Girls every day after practice and we have a great bunch of girls to work with. We have a few however, who don't like the position they play in. They came to me last night and they were asking me for advice on how to work their way into one of the positions they really, really want to play. I explained to them that it would take hard work and understanding that they are where the team needs them the most. We put each player where they can help the team the most. Not necessarily, always at their best postion but where they can best contribute. One of the things I ask them to do is to watch varsity and how many of them are completely out of position. They have infielders playing outfield, and catchers in the outfield and even a few outfielders in the infield sometimes. There are only 3 players on the varsity that are even in the position they played in last year. But, I wanted our jv girls to have someone to look up to so I have them look at the varsity girls.
I want them to get the work ethic and the attitude of some of the older girls and apply that to themselves, I want them to work hard at the position where they help the team the most. And most importantly I want them to grow into great ballplayers.
Now be honest, as adults we do that in life don't we? We put our trust and look up to people who are doing the things we want to do. As young adults we look up to the adults who are making the kind of money we want, have the kind of job, house or family we want. As we get a little bit older, we look up to the people who are doing better in the field we are in than we are. And as we get more seasoned, we start to look up to those who were wise with their money and are able to retire the way we want to. It's a vicious cycle that never seems to end. You can always find someone who you would seemingly trade places with financially, career wise or other. But one thing will always stay the same. God.
Isaiah 26:4 Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord is the Rock eternal.
There you have it, no matter what you aspire to be, to do or accomplish in this life you should be looking to God. He is the Rock eternal. I have chosen a lot of adults to look up to in life as a teenager, young adult and even now. BUt, time and time again they have let me down in some way, but God never will. He was, is and always be the Rock eternal. I think that is probably one of the coolest descriptions of God found in the Bible. No matter who you are, you go through changes, you backslide and even stumble. But God is your Rock Eternal.
So put you trust in God, and let all the other things take care of themselves.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

wisdom shown

So have you ever met someone who is so wise, and well learned that you can hardly have a conversation with them? Those people who use words and terminology that are the same reason you hate talking to your doctor? I know a lot of them, and many of them are wise and learned in the scriptures. THey are so scripturally wise that they can talk about any subject, share scripture references and make it sound really good. Usually, however, these people don't put much of it into practice. They tell you how it should be, they even give you advice, but when you watch them you see very little action behind it. ANd when they do act upon it, they seek your approval in doing so, the same approval they seek in sharing their wisdom and knowledge with you.
James 3:13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.
So having read this verse, where does humility come from? From wisdom and how do you exemplify humility and wisdom, by humbly putting them into practice.
It's the people who do things every day for others without thinking about it, without drawing any attention to themselves for it, and without needing anyone's approval. They just get up in the morning and wisely, and humbly automatically share whatever resource they can with others. Maybe they sit in a hospital room with someone who is sick, that isn't a big attention getting action but it makes a huge difference to those who are sick and their families. Maybe they visit a shut-in, or go to a nursing home, or maybe they call people who haven't been at church in a while and offer to pray with them. Whatever the case is, they do it for God and God alone, and not for the approval of anyone on earth.
That is what true humility and wisdom is about, seeking GOd with all you have and seeking to bring glory to Him and Him alone.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!