Bush-Whackers

A few years ago I had an addition put onto my house. At the same time as that addition was being done, my neighbor moved and someone else bought her home. The former tenant was elderly and was the original owner of the home since the 60's. Her husband had passed several years earlier. I mention these personal details only because they are relevant to the state of her home, you see it had become an overgrown jungle of bushes! You could barely see the front door of her home and the mulberry and thorn bushes had grow half way up her house and about four feet into her yard. There were more bushes then grass in her yard. It had become a sore thumb in our middle class neighborhood.
Well the new owner did great things, the first of which was tear out all of the bushes! Wow what a difference! The house looked great now that you could see it! They were not finished there as they basically replaced everything inside and out of the house a la Extreme Makeover: Home Addition. But it is the bushes I want to talk about, because they are the most relevent to me. You see much like urban sprawl drives out wildlife from its home, much had been driven out of these bushes. Not only a multitude of trash and refuse, but lots of rodents and other animals. What do these things do when they lose a home? Why they try to find a new one! Needless to say for the next year or so I set off many rodent and bug traps in and around my home which were largely due to the open access (my own construction) and to the survival need of these creatures. I am proud to say I think I have won the battle!

So what's in your bushes? What kind of trash do you need to get rid of that is so tightly wound around your life that even the strong wind that is the Holy Spirit is struggling to blow it out? What is living in your bushes? What undesireable things are crawling around in your life that need to find a new home? Secrets that no one knows exist except when they peek out to get a little taste of your life. Creatures that are perfectly willing to stick with you where it is comfortable but will be forced to leave if you rip out there surroundings. That is the hard part. You see that is alot of work. I watched the men who tore out those bushes sweat and bleed for days chopping down the bushes, it was hard work I was glad I didn't have to do.
But in reality, we should be pruning our lifes bushes every day. They need to be clean of trash and animal lairs so there are no secret places. If it means we have to tear out the bushes from the roots and start over, then do it! Do it for yourself! Whatever you have living in your bushes, from trash to wild life, set it free. Chances are your neighbor and friend will be better equipped to kill it then you, but as long as you let it live with you, they can never help you. WHAT IF we all commited to cleaning out the bushes of our own personal lives, what a difference we could make.

How's your Ninevah?

Jonah was a great man for all of us to study in today's world. Many lessons can be learned by his simple act of disobedience. Not that we are ever disobedient. I'm sure we all pick up the phone everytime the Lord calls our name, right? Yeah RIGHT! Jonah is like us all. Unwilling to comply unless threatened! Why do we do that? I believe sometimes He just wants to see if we will be obediant. Sometimes it is only about that. WHAT IF we were always obedient? We expect it from our children don't we? When our child is disobedient we scold or punish them. So why is it we get angry with God when he does the same to us? We sometimes ask our children to do things that we probably could do ourselves, partly just because we can and also to see if they will obediently comply. Surely I'm not alone on this one am I? So why should God not do the same?

I believe God had a heart to see the people of Ninevah saved. I believe He wanted Jonah to do it. I also believe he asked Jonah because He was testing him to see just how serious a man of God he was. To see if he would comply to his Father's directions. Jonah did not. The Father in heaven went ballistic! He sends a huge storm after Jonah all because he did not listen, He sent a whale to swallow him because he would not listen, He broke Jonah down inside of the whale until he unhappily complied.
I believe God does this to us as well. I think He has well made plans for us that He wants us to comply to, but we sometimes ignore. Sometimes there are intermissionary steps that He asks us to take to get to the major goal, just to see if we are really being obedient or if we are going through the motions. I believe He tests our obedience so we can have the best plan that He has for us not a substandard secondary plan that we often accept due to our unwillingness to go the extra mile out of obedience. What IF we all acted obediently no matter what the cost or the action? No matter how we would look to others or who would not be our friend anymore. WHAT IF we showed a little more trust through obedient service? Jonah reached the entire community of Ninevah once he complied to God's request and did it willingly. Could we all reach our personal Ninevah's if we just acted as we wish our children did, with obedience. WHAT IF?

Broken Buildings

There is a great Christian song by the band Seventh Day Slumber with the above title. It has spoken to me richly over the past few months. The crux of the message is this line of the chorus: "what did you see in me?, you found beauty in these broken buildings!"

I love that! I think about not only the ghetto of broken down buildings that represented my life before I met Jesus, but about the dilapidated state that a find my life in at times even now, but yet He looks at the broken buildings and sees the wonderful mansion he is preparing. It is simply marvelous to think that anyone can have vision like His. We cannot. I must challenge myself to look at "the projects" of my life and figure out what wonderful house he is going to construct in the neighborhood that is my life. But not only mine but others. We love to look at the messy rundown areas of others lives and wipe our brow and say "Thank God I don't live there!", but in reality we should be reaching out our hands and saying, "how can I help you fix your broken building?" WHAT IF we all worked on building mansions instead of throwing another rock through an already broken window?

What's your leaf pile?

The other day I was out walking with my two sons on the property of their elementary school when we came upon a huge pile of leaves. My younger son was walking behind me so I started kicking the leaves toward him. His somber mood immediately lightened and he began to laugh! Not wanting to miss a teachable moment I started an all out leaf assault! Kicking with both feet, and enlisting the help of my other son to start the piling on of leaves. As the onslaught continued my younger son simply sat down and allowed us to bury him up to his neck, ever so gleeful. We took numerous pictures together and played the burying game several times with both boys. What a great time we had! The thing was, this wasn't the plan. I wanted to take them to the school playground and we were only about 50 yards away when these leafy adventure began.

So my question to you today is; what's your leaf pile? Or moreover do you allow yourself to be set free by spontaneity? Is your plan to plan so there is no room to fail? You see, we need to step out of our tunnel visioned lives and look for a few more leaf piles. Places that are special to us, that we can share with those in our lives. Places that we need to show those we love because they are of great importance. Not the bad wet pile of leaves that sidetrack our lives and bring us off course from God's plan, but the crispy, crunchy freshly fallen leaves that invoke great feelings of joy in us. In other words, things we have a passion for that we may not have yet freed ourselves to do or share because we are worried what those who know us might think. You will never be able to unleash your whole heart into your passion areas until you decide to jump into that pile of leaves, and allow others to heap the leaves onto you. Set yourself free today by sharing your passions with the world.

The Key to Greatness

A spritiual hero of mine defined the key to greatness as humility. That is easy to say but very hard to live. Last night I was priviledge to see some conflictual issues worked out with great humility from all sides. It was life changing for me as a minister of Christ. As Pastors we are trained to be humble and to lay down personal feelings for the good of the congregation. But to see the laity live this out was inspiring to me. It has deepened my level of trust in my coworkers, friends and family (church). It was truly a watershed moment for me and for our church I believe. So people I say to you today, WHAT IF we all lived out being humble first and thinking of ourselves second? Could we make a difference in our spheres of influence more effectively? I believe we could. My prayer for everyone today is, be humble. That is the true key to greatness as demonstrated by Jesus, who was perfect and had every right to shout out and say "I am blameless you dopes! You got the wrong guy!" but he didn't. He knew the mission was bigger then the ME. WHAT IF we all pursued the mission over the me?

What IF unpacked and unplugged

The question that permeates the mind of all young up and coming Christian thinkers should be: What IF? Whatever your IF is, that is the heart of beyond the box thinking. Craig Groessel and Bill Hybels, two of todays most creative church growth leaders, both put large stock in this question. What if we all acted out the most creative thoughts we have at reaching the lost and building the church? What would happen? Examine your IF.
Groessel has said "if you want to reach those who have never been reached, you have to do something no one else has ever done to reach them". That is beyond the box thinking. Its a radical, uncompromising pursuit of God's will for the church and our role in it. What if we did whatever it took to reach our neighborhood? What would that look like? What if we were not afraid to share Christ's love with our coworkers or family? Actually we can still be afraid, but we come to grips with the fear and look it in the eye and do what God is calling us to do anyway! What if churches did not care about membership? If baptism was really about life change and not just about padding the denominational statistics? What if we invested in the people who we baptized as much AFTER they were saved as we did trying to win them for Jesus? What if we shared our information with other churches? Imagine the impact the worldwide church of God would have if we all agreed to share the best resources out there without worrying about credit or career. That would be too hard you say...its a pride thing. I want everyone to know how good I am at something, so it is mine, and I won't share. Sounds juvenile but that is what happens in reality.
What if we all feared God? Sin would not be something we blow off with a quick prayer or a fake promise to do better. Well you say, that would be easier if God showed up in the flesh like the Father and the Son did, but we have the Holy Spirit. YES we have the Living God living in US! Is that not enough! We have the whole Bible to reflect on and we know who wins the battle between good and evil eternally! But we want more of God before we can fear Him. Wow, how arrogant can we be!? What if...well you get the point. Its a call to be radical. Think beyond the box. Do something no one expects. When we come up against a wall we can lay down and hide or we can do something beyond the box to climb that wall. What if we all climbed over the wall when we came up against it? What IF?

What IF: You had no fear of failure?

In my last blog I set up your what IF...in my continuing series on this issue I tackle the what if question in a positive way...what if you could do whatever you wanted to do without any fear of failure? Dr. Dan Erickson hits on this point and others like it in his book Finding Your Greater Yes! Check out his ministry called people matter ministries today!

If we had no fear of failure could we then succeed at our wildest dreams? Fear of failure lies behind so many things we have done and will do in life. When we were young it was in our mind when we thought about jumping in the deep end or riding a bike, as a teen it was there when we looked at that gorgeous boy or girl but were to afraid to engage in a conversation with them let alone ask them on a date, as young adults it was in the back of the brain as we tried to stroll confidently into that first big job interview or that first day at work once we landed the job. So what if we as adults were not afraid to fail? If we could dream big for God and for self and not worry about what the Joneses, Smiths or Browns would say. We would not fret about what our families would think, we would not worry about losing street cred with our friends. But you see Jesus Christ the living God once us to think big!!! To think without IF's to go beyond the box. To chase our dreams not look at them longingly in the distant sunset. God has given us all we need to fulfill the great plans He has for us! Will we tap into Him or run away afraid of the rejection and fear of failure that surely comes for all of us who fear failing. If God has a plan for each of us as Scripture clearly states then we should run it down, jump up and down on top of it and yell and scream at the top of our lungs until we accomplish it, finding it comes first, then the pursuit then the glorious goal line charge that equals arriving at His purpose for our lives. To often we spend our whole life looking and never get a chance to live in our purpose. Don't be another victim of the fear of failure.