Bumper Bowling

Today I realized that my life is a lot like bumper bowling. I am the bowling ball. I am a highly driven, passionate person with a goal in mind. I want the strike. The strike is all that God has intended for me. I move with great speed and generate a lot of force as I barrel down the lane. There is just one obstacle; the gutter. People are imperfect we where born with a tendency toward sin, this is the imperfect throw, the one that sends a passionate highly driven bowling ball towards the gutter and ultimately missing his Strike. That’s why I am thankful for the bumpers. That’s right God was wise enough to put people in my life that act as inflatable tubes that keep me out of the gutter and headed toward strike I so desperately seek. I just wanted to take a moment to thank my bumpers. I wanted to thank my wife, my pastor, and my friends both at the well and abroad for being my bumpers. Thanks. A note to all out there in blog land if you don’t have bumpers get them, bowling with out them could be a disaster. Live the Adventure.

The most favored (part 2)

The most favored Part 2. I must apologize as I re-read yesterdays post I realize that I made no mention of this being a two part series. So yesterdays post may seem to leave you hanging a bit. The reason I wanted to talk about discipline as necessary and not always punishment is because as I contemplated Hebrews 12 yesterday I had an interesting thought. If God Disciplines those he loves does the more discipline or more hardship one suffer mean that one is loved more. Let me digress for a moment and say that I do believe that God plays favorites, that some people are more loved or more favored than others. I also want to take a moment and say that even the smallest most minute amount of Gods love is far greater than anything a person could ever give you, remember that Christ gave up his life for the those he loved even just a little.

Back to the question does more discipline mean more favored. Does it mean the more hardship you suffer the more you are favored? I think so. Think about it, if there is some really nasty task one which requires much hard work, or perhaps getting really dirty and stinky, or will make you uncomfortable or is a bit humiliating and you needed help doing it who do you call, the guy you met last week or your best friend that has been with you through thick or thin? Who does a general call with his most difficult missions the officer he knows and trusts or the one he doesn't. Read your bible, read the stories of Joseph, Moses, David, Peter, Paul, the Johns. They all had lives full of hardship, yet these men are the biblical greates and there is not a Christian on earth who considers these men not favored of God.

So back to the question are the more disciplined the most favored? Absolutely. So treat hardship as discipline God is treating you as sons, dearly loved and trusted sons. Rejoice when things get harder and things seem difficult more often it just means that God is giving the more difficult missions. The ones he only gives to best friends, those he trusts. Live the adventure.

The Most Favored

Today I found myself contemplating Hebrews 12. It speaks of discipline. It says to treat hardship as discipline and that God disciplines those he loves. I want to speak a moment on discipline. Discipline is often thought of as punishment for wrong. I was in the military for 4 years, one thing I remember was P.T. Its full name is physical training. It happens everyday. Its one our daily "disciplines". I hadn't done anything wrong yet everyday at 6 a.m. everyday I would be in formation waiting for the order to do the push up.

It wasn't a punishment, it was a discipline. A discipline we had to endure not because we were bad soldiers but because it was vital that we remain in good physical condition in order to be ready for combat. We see this through out the scripture. Look at Moses he spent 40 years in the desert. Why because he killed an Egyptian, I don't think so. We must remember that when Moses killed the Egyptian it was out of defense of a fellow Hebrew. Moses was not exiled for forty years as punishment, he was out in the in the desert for 40 years because he was the one chosen to lead Israel thru the desert over the next 40 years. It was a necessary discipline to keep him alive in spiritual combat. Its important that we see that Because if we see discipline merely as punishment than we are always trying to figure out what we did wrong in order to receive when in fact you didn't necessarily do anything. It just may be a discipline necessary to keep you alive in future spiritual combat. Live the adventure

The Chance to Be a Hero.

So I was watching Law and Order yesterday and on this particular episode a 7 year old had shot a 6 year old. Now in this instance the 7 year old was shooting at some drug dealers whom he had witnessed murder some one the day before and the six year old just happen to get in the way. The police knew it there was just no evidence to prove it, the DA was charging the boy. The prosecutor and the police where particularly torn up on this case as they didn't want to send a 7 year old to jail on murder charges. The police scrambled to find anybody else they could charge with the crime, they couldn't find anyone. The attorney assigned to the case pleaded with the Chief District Attorney to find another option, he gave her none. So this prosecutor is given the most difficult of her life. The media is watching. Her boss is watching. The Fate of a 7 year old boy is on the line.

So the show comes to a scene where the prosecutor is asking the counsel of another lawyer friend of her's. She is telling her friend of all the woes she is facing, how her career and political future are doomed and she doesn't know what to do and wishes she had never gotten the case. Her friend looked at her and said "I don't know why you're complaining you should be glad you got this case and not someone who doesn't care, it's a tough case, but you have the chance to be a hero".

The line gave me chills. It's a tough case but you have the chance to be a hero. How many of us wish we had the chance to be a hero. Yet how many of us fail to recognize that our present adversity is the chance for us to become a hero. We spend our whole lives cursing our every adversity and then wonder at the end why we achieved nothing. Heroes are born out adversity. Want to be a hero? Live the Adventure.

True Love.

So another marriage building Blog. Yesterday we got on the topic love and respect. The most essential need for a man is respect while the most essential need for a woman is love. The general concensus of the men in the room is that it is easier to respect than to love, while for the women much easier to love than respect. I had another observation yesterday, the topic of love languages has come up on a regular basis. Love languages are the the ways you communicate love. You feel loved when some one touches you, or when some one gives you a gift, or maybe with kind words, sometimes when they do nice things and other times when people just spend quality time with you. Everybody has a different combination, what I have noticed over the past few weeks is that every couple in that room has a love language that is very difficult for their spouse to speak. In other words if one likes to be touched the other hates touching. If one likes to spend quality time the other could not consider that a bigger waste of time. Why does God do that. Why does he put people together who have to stretch in order to serve and show love and appreciation. Why does he give women a need for love and men have such a hard time giving it and why do men have a need for respect that women have such a hard time giving. I was pondering this last night. My thoughts came to me and my wife, I am an advid cuddler she hates it. I wondered what life would be like if she were also an avid cuddler. I realized that life may not be as good as one would think. I may have all the cuddeling I could possibly want but I don't think it would mean as much. Love is sacrifice. The fact that my wife has to stretch her self to make me feel loved makes every touch and cuddle more worth it. The respect of my wife can mean more to me than the respect of one hundred men, it is easy to get the respect of men, it is not near as easy to get the respect of the women you care about, it makes it all that much more valuable and worth it. I think Jesus is sending us a message, love is sacrifice. The best love we can give God, our spouse, our friends and our family is that which we had to sacrifice to do so. Live the adventure.

Like Christ.

To be like christ. It is the mission of the modern Christian to be more christ like. The ardent Christians pray a lot, reads a lot, worships a lot, spends a lot of time with God so they can figure out who he is so they can be more like him. I had a revelation that may help. What is God like? God is like a man its his focal point that is different. Let me explain. Jesus was a perfect reflection of God. If you read John chapeter 14 verses 5-9 You'll see that Jesus tries to repeatedly explain to the disiciples that if you have seen me you have seen the father. So to figure out who God is let us look no farther than Jesus. Jesus acted like a man, Jesus was a man and he related to men. The twelve disciples loved him, not because he acted like this ominpotent all powerful being, but because he acted so human. The gospels are full of emotional texts about jesus; "The lord wept", "and he had compassion on them". He cried, he laughed, he joked, he gave hugs, people came up to him and talked to him and he talked back. Regular people had regular conversations with God. God was no more than a spritually perfect regular joe. This is cause for pause for me as I see him hanging on the cross, in his final moments in the most pain of his life he does 3 three things that astonish me, he prays for those who persecute him, He comforts his mother and his friend, and he preached to the criminals beside him. How does one so human do something so amazing, so anti human. People often take the easy route saying he was God. It seems we dismiss it as it was easy for him. I don't think it was so easy for him. It says he genesis we are made in his image, meaning with his personality traits, when we add this to the fact the God is so relateable and so human it tells me that at my core me and God are not all that different. If our personalitys are similar and it is not easy for me I can not assume it was easy for him. So how did he do it. How can we be so similar yet act so differently? This us being like in personality is esstiential because it is out of our personality in which we react. Jesus reacted on the cross, the things he did where not well thought out actions, they were reactions that stemed from who he was by default, they stemed from his personality. This tells me that I could act like Jesus like Jesus acted, I could be like him in default. The personality is there. So why don't I, what is different? What is different is the focal point, were do the persoanlitys focus. Jesus thought only of others, often I think only of myself. Like Jesus at my core I am loving and compassionate, I wish to serve and protect but to often the personality is focused on me. I am loving and compassionate towards me, I wish to serve and protect me. How do we become more like Christ? We don't need to change who we are,we need to change what we are focused on. Focus on others, be like Christ, Live the adventure.

Wax on, Wax Off:

The classic line of the 20th century; "Wax 0n, wax off". It comes from the movie Karate Kid. In the movie young Daniel son wants to learn karate. Mr. Meeogie agrees to teach him. His first lesson; wax on wax off. His first lesson was polishing cars, his second lesson was sanding the floors, his third was paint the fence, fourth paint the house. Mr. Meeogie ends up with a completely re-done house and young Daniel son ends up exhausted and frustrated. He was supposed to learn karate not become some one's personal slave. As Daniel begins to walk out, to quite Mr. Meeogie say's show me "paint the fence" as Daniel mimicks painting the fence Mr. Meeogie takes a swing at him, its blocked by Daniels "Paint the Fence". I, along with so many out there feel called to do great and awesome things for God yet sometimes it seems like one problem after another. Sometimes I feel like I am Daniel I wake up early in the morning and head over to Mr. Meeogie's house, I have excited smile on my face, I think I am about to learn karate and I get there and I get handed a bucket and a brush and told to "paint the fence". Mr. Meeogie was a wise teacher, so is God and God like Meeogie sometimes has us do things that seem completely unrelated to our great callings in life, their difficult, tedious, not fun. sometimes they are down right disappointing. Let me lift your spirits by saying Daniel became a karate champion. We will become spiritual champions but it all comes from "paint the fence". To waxing on and off, to painting that spiritual fence. Live the Adventure.

Live the Adventure

You know about 2 and half weeks ago, I went prayer walking. Thats a long walk I go on and prayer the whole time. It helps keep me focused. On that particular prayer walk I was seeking the lords direction. I was an Independent Agent working for an insurance company, I got paid soley on commission. I had done okay for myself for the first few months and then all of the sudden my sales stopped. I would have days full of appointments and everyone would cancel, I had a 63% closing ratio on my sales yet it seemed impossible to make one. I would try and try it seemed as if I was spining my wheels. I finally came to a point where I hadn't made a sale in 3 weeks, that means I hadn't got paid in that long either. To make matters even better my wife had recently lost her job.I had been fasting for about 21 one days and had a sense that it was time to leave my job. After much prayer and wise counsel with 25 dollars in my checking account I decided to quit. I did. What has consipired over the last few weeks and especially today is a glorious testemant to God. About a week and a half ago neither my wife nor I had any money in our pockets, in fact our checking account was 383 dollars over drawn and our house was out of toilet paper. I decided to take another prayer walk shortly into the walk I begin crying out to God, on and abondened road yelling at the top of my voice I screamed God I need money, I need money. I tell you no lie when at that moment a friend called to ask me how I was doing he later wired me 500 dollars. But wait it gets better, today at 8:30 in the morning the door bell rang and there was a knock at the door. I opened the door to find a ups package sitting on the porch. Inside I found a money order made out to me for a thousand dollars. I do not know the woman who sent it nor does my wife. If the person exist (if its not some angel) than it was only through the holy spirit that she could have recieved my name and addresse. I must say this, that if you take anything from this realize that amazing stories are not confined to the pages of the bible that they happen here and now. God has destined all of us to live lives of the miraclous and the amazing. It takes guts, its dangerous, and its hard, these last few weeks have been difficult, but its worth it. Forget the fact I just got a thousand dollars that I didn't work for, I just saw a miracle. I just saw the boundaries of the possible penetrated and the boundless possiblitys of an almighty God. I love living the Adventure.

In Theory and In Practice

I was humbled this last tuesday. I have recently been attending a marriage building small group. Its been great and is definitely making my marriage better. But on to the humbling part. Before my wife and I got married we went to this same class but only went to a couple of sessions. The session that we had last week I remembered from before. I also remember that when I had went through the last time I had a lot of theorys of how marriage should work, the situations that would come up, and how I should and would respond. I had read the scriptures and I thought I was ready and that I would make a great husband. I found myself wondering what had happened last tuesday. All the things I thought that I would do right I did wrong, the situations that I was so prepared for blind sided me. With all my book smarts about marriage I thought I was prepared but in reality I was the same as everyone else, making the same mistakes, and getting into the same stupid arguments. So what had happened. Things are different in theory than they are in practice. The same thing is true with the last two years of my life. In planting this church I have run into situations that until I had encountered them I had only read of them. Once again I had lots of theorys but I have not done these last two years gracefully. In fact they have been quite dogged and clumsy. It reminds me of combat. When I was on my way to Iraq there was a lot of talk about the situations we would encounter and how bravely or not bravely we would handel them. While I was there I saw veteran Sgt. Majors cower in fear and timid privates act bravely. Things are different in theory than in practice. There are a couple lessons one can learn from this. First is the lesson that nobody does it perfect no matter how much they know, to steal once again from the Matrix "nobody makes the first Jump" everybody screws up and every one acts less admirably than had hoped when the right situation occurs. The second and most important is you don't know as much as you think, youre not as great as you think, youre not going to do as well as you think. Everybody can use more practice. Thats why God sends us through so much stuff and through such long seasons. We all need lots of pratice. So here's to lots of practice. Live the adventure.

You're Being Watched

Somebody always has their eye's on you. Somebody is always watching. They may never hear your conversation, never speak with you but their watching. Today I had a job interview. It was at a place I had worked at previously, after the inital screening I was called into the interview. I was hoping that it would be someone that I knew to make the process easy. It wasn't. The next part is amazing, the man I had never met, nor spoken to, reconized me immediately. He told me he remembered me from when I had worked there before, he said he remembered me as an upstanding person and good salesman. He then went on to say that at this point the interview was really informal he was going to make the recommendation that I get hired. Amazing isn't, live your life carefully someone is always watching. Live the adventure.

Seasons.

I was astonished yesterday by listening to the sermon by the pastor’s wife Sola, as she read the facts and figures of the life of Paul. My Jaw dropped when I heard there where seven years between the Damascus experience and his public testimony and another 4 years until he was in ministry, totaling 11 years between him having an encounter with God and full time ministry. 7 Years after Paul see's the light and hears the audible voice of God he finally speaks out. I think we as Christians need to revamp our vocabulary. For those of us who have been saved long enough to know the lingo "seasons" is a word we tend to throw around a lot. For those of you who don't know about seasons this is the term we used to define the different time periods God sends us through. There are many season's, we have seasons of learning where the lord teaches a lot, then there are seasons of blessing where your on top of the world and nothing can seem to go wrong, then there are seasons of trial where everything seems to go wrong, there are seasons of greatness where you're doing big things and there are seasons of obscurity where nobody knows who you are or what you are doing. Every season has its purpose in taking you to your destiny. I have a problem with the word season, in my mind it’s not an adequate measure of time. When I think of a season I think of summer, winter, spring, and fall. Each of these seasons is a few months long, so because of the relationship of the word seasons to the actual climate seasons I think of the seasons of God being rather short. To add to this mental illusion the 7 years that Paul lives in a season of obscurity is covered in just a page or two in the bible. So once again I am seeing seasons as being short. This does not seem to be the case. When I look at many of the greatest of the bible they all had seasons, long seasons where they weren't living their lives of greatness, these seasons lasted years and not months. The greater the calling it would seem the longer your season of obscurity would be. This is a cause for pause for me because over the last few days I have been putting a lot of thought into the youth ministry program here at the Well. I am just a few weeks away from getting this up and running so my mind is often on what am I going to teaching what are the pillars of this ministry going to be. I often am trying to find ways to teach students how to be great how to stretch themselves and become more than they are right now, while this is important I am starting to believe that teaching how to live life through extended periods of obscurity is even more so. The small details of character, what you do when no one knows who you are or what you are doing is paramount. While I don't like seasons as a measure of time I do like the fact that they adequately describe life’s transitions. It is not one day 102 degrees and 90 percent humidity, the grass is green and the tree's full of life, and then the next all the leaves are orange, the grass is dead and the temperature is a cold 50 degrees. The changes of seasons of the year are gradual so are the seasons of life, typically they don't happen over night. So often I compartmentalize my life I see this vast difference between living in obscurity and living in greatness. I see it as differently as the dead of winter and the peak of summer. While the circumstance will be vastly different this won't happen over night, the change will be gradual in fact I think I will hardly notice it. I say this because I don't think the greatest of the bible really noticed when they were moving from obscurity to greatness, I think they did so gradually living their godly habits day to day. Regardless of their outcome, they had determined that these things were good to do and they were going to do them. By going about their godly routines focusing on their fundamentals they suddenly looked up and saw that they had done much but this was not their focus in the beginning. So it will be with me, my students, and with you. Focus on living godly day to day and then one day you'll look up and find your self amongst greatness. Live the adventure.

Cypher and Judas

Yes I am still in the Matrix. I have watched the movie so many times and have always recognized some Christian parallels, however, never have has God spoken so clearly. I actually tivoed it and have been watching it as part of my devotion. (I know, the things I suffer to learn more about God ) Today I wanted to talk about Judas and Cypher, both of them notorious traitors. They both betrayed their friends, they both gave up the truth to to go back and live the lie. We can probably learn alot about Judas from Cypher. It is probably safe to assume that Judas felt much like Cypher, he was tired. He was tired of walking everywhere, continually moving from town to town, tired of never having a place to call his own, or money to call his own, or time to call his own. He was tired of the pursuit of truth. The life more abundant was harder than he had expected and required more than he wanted to give. He gave up Jesus to regain his life of ignorance of the truth, the life that contained comfort and ease.
There are so many Cyphers out there and so many like Judas. They are ready to defect. They are thinking that they wish they had taken the blue pill. Its our job as the church as the body of Christ to reach out to those who are Cypher and Judas. We need to make sure we grab our buddy and make sure they understand the rest of the story. We can read the story of Judas and watch the story of Cypher and see that both had negative outcomes. Judas lived the short remainder of his life in misery and then hung himself, Cypher was killed, they both ended up dead remembered only as traitors. You can’t but help to feel sorry for both these characters. They both gave up to easily and to early. If they had stuck it out a little longer who knows what they may have found out and what they may have become, what they may have been remembered for. We all love to watch the rest of the story we love to see the helicopter scene where neo saves trinity, where Morpheus escapes, where they eventually beat the agents. We love it and it never gets old. That’s the story we want, nobody wants to be like Cypher and nobody wants to be like Judas. Never regret taking the red pill and never let your buddy regret it either. I know its not easy but in the end our story will be awesome. So lets grab each other, encourage each other, lets make sure we all Live The Adventure.

Take The Red Pill

So today I was watching the Matrix. The story has several parallels with christianity and the story of Christ. Today I was particular attentive to the intial meeting between Morpheus and Neo. Morpheus says to Neo. "let me tell you why you're here. Your here because you know something, what you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You felt it your entire life that there is something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is but its there. Like a splinter in your mind driving you mad." This quote can apply to so many of us out there. There is something wrong with the world, you just can't put your finger on it. You have a feeling there is something more. Something bigger, youre not buying the 9 to 5 save for retirment, have a wife a suv and 2.5 kids routine. You are destined to be more than the average american, more than the average person. You want to do something with your life something more. I invite all of you to take the red pill. It says in John 10:10 that Christ came that we may have life and life to full. Life of the adventure. That something more. Follow Christ to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. If you live central florida area I invite you to come to the Well. Its info is on the side of the screen. If not attend you're local church, crack your bible, follow Christ and see how deep the rabbit hole goes. If you are a christian and still have this apetite for more let me invite you to truly follow Christ, through what is easy and through what is not. It is on the other side of the difficulty that we find the more. To the end of rabbit hole, I am glad I took the red pill. Live the adventure

What Are We Saving For Anyway?

What are we saving for anyway? What are you waiting on? Today I am not taking about savings accounts. Savings accounts are good things I have been saved by them on more than one occasion. I am not talking about money period. Today I am talking about us. What do we wait on, what are we saving ourselves for (I am not talking about sex just in case you where going there.). I am talking about our beings, the essence of who we are. The currency that makes up our daily lives. Its where we apply our efforts. It seems we can often hold back. We sometimes don’t give 100 percent because we’re afraid of failure, sometimes we’re afraid of rejection, and other times we’re afraid of the sacrifice. Ever not do something because you thought it would be too hard, we’re afraid of the effort we might have to put into it. I had the privilege last night about talking to my nephew about the Super bowl we some how got on the subject of if we had the chance to play in it at our current skill level, like if we had one a contest that allowed us to run one play in the actual game, would we do it. I said yes, he said no. When I asked him why, he said " what if I screw up in front of all those people.” Fear of failure. I told him I know for a fact that I would screw up, even if I didn’t I would be lucky if I made it a yard before I became flattened like a pancake but I would have still gotten to play in the super bowl. Who knows I could get lucky and make a touch down (ha! ). You never know unless you try. The bottom line is no matter how poorly I did I would have had experience that probably everyone who reads this blog would have never had. Here’s a quote “when it comes to setting goals always shoot for the moon even if you miss you still land in the stars”. This brings me back to my point. What are you saving for? What do you hold back on, where do not give 100 percent, where are you afraid to try and why? I was reading in Philippians chapter 2 verse 17: “But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you.” He is saying that if his life is poured out like a drink offering it was worth it. To see what he had seen it was worth it. If I am looking at the last hours of my life I want to be as a Paul was, rejoicing. He had lived his life to fullest. He had been beaten, imprisoned, shipwrecked, had spent nights with out food and shelter. Had been rejected by close friends and had his share of failures. He died spent, his life poured out like a drink offering with nothing left in the cup. That is how you live the adventure dying spent, with nothing saved or left. If you have anything left you’ll never know what you could have got with it. Here is to dying spent. Live life to fullest, live the adventure.

Doors That No Man Can Open

Acts 16:6-7 Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.

Today I wanted to talk about trusting God. Specifically trusting God in failure. Failure is a naughty word, especially here in america. We hate to fail. You can see it in our ever busying life styles as we cram in a few more hours of work, or study, or practice so we can be the best that we can be. Nobody wants to be on the bottom rung of the ladder, nobody wants to be considered a failure. Yet no matter how hard we try we all fail at one thing or another. Many times its our fault, many times we could have tried harder, practiced more, made better decisions along the way. Then there are the times when no matter what you do you still can't win. You do everything right yet everything tends to go wrong. I posted the verse above for a reason. Its little quoted but maybe it should be. We often quote of the victorys of the lord. We quote the verses of the Isrealites crossing into the promised land, we quote how the walls of jericho fell, and how Lazerus rose from the dead after four days. We often quote the success against impossible odds, we rarely quote how the disciples tried to enter two diffferent provinces yet FAILED to do so because they were stopped by the holy spirit. We often give God glory for his ability to to enable we often fail to give him glory when he disables. When he stops our every attempt to achieve something. Twice we read ,in Isaiah 22:22 and in revelation 3:7 , Jesus being described as the one "who shuts doors no man can open". In Job 1:20 Job says the Lord "gives and takes away". We need to give God the Glory when he enables and when disables,whether he shows us a open path or closes one we would try to take in both instances he is in control and in both instances he is leading us to our destiny. Wether successe or failure trust the lord and LIVE THE ADVENTURE.