Okay, for some of you this will be new insight in to me and my world and for anyone who has helped me moved or lived in the same place with me, you know this all too much. But alas, I must confess.......I Love LOveLOVe LOVE Books. I love just the thought of books. Old books are the best, and hard backs are my favorite. When my family would force to go antique shopping I would see all of these books that I desperately wanted so I could fill a library with them. I didn't care what the books were about at 7 years old, all I knew is that they would have looked perfect on a bookshelf . So I have collected quite a few books, and even though I did scale it back before the trip from Nashville to Dallas, there still seems to be quite a number here and they continue to grow.
A couple months ago I shared about my experience at the Downtown Dallas Library and the wonder that awaits in the 8 floors of books and research materials there. It was wonderful.One of my selections was an amazing book by Elizabeth Gilbert "eat, pray, love". While a secular author and with some non-traditional views she writes some of the beautiful things that I have ever read. I encourage everyone to read it and especially women since it is about her personal and spiritual journey through different situations.
Over the next few blogs I am going to pull out gems to share and talk about them a little and get your thoughts as well......hopefully you will enjoy it.
There is an old Italian joke told about a poor man who goes to church every day and prays before the statue of a great saint. The man sits begging, "Dear saint-please, please,please...give me the grace to win the lottery. " This lament goes on for months. Finally the exasperated statue comes to life, looks down at the begging man and says in weary disgust, "My son - please, please, please....buy a lottery ticket."
How many times have I sat in this very room or in rooms all over this country listing off prayers, with complete sincerity and deepest yearning for an answer just to feel like in the end I was as effective as talking to a frozen statue. The years pass, locations may change and yet a good number of the desires and requests stay the same. What is the reason for that. Do those questions, problems, desires not matter to God?
No, they matter just as much as anything else to him but there are times when we need to "stand up and buy a lottery ticket." Not that God needs our help but we have to keep walking forward and take every opportunity that he gives us not standing aside waiting for him to magically bring everything directly to us. Our desires and dreams don't just fall in to our lap. Sometimes we have to get out of our normal comfort zone, take the chance and see what happens next.
James 2:14-17 - Dear friends, do you think you'll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, "Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!" and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn't it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense? (MSG)
“Great Commission” Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 16:15; Luke 24:47; Acts 1:8
John 20:21 - Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you."
We have been given the same calling as Jesus had to reach out and serve the world.(NIV)
We are no longer in the world but have now become of the world. It is impossible to change a world that you are not in. We have to be living out our life in front of them before they will follow us.
But too often the church and ministry community has become homo-sectual: we only like people who are just like us, or those who live inside the same community that we do.
Psalm 96:4 - Great is the Lord! He is most worthy of praise! He is to be feared above all gods.
Our ultimate motivation for everything we do is exactly that, Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised! He is why we reach out to others, not because of their need, but because of his greatness.
All too often when we talk about VOLunteering or about missions the topic seems really heavy because it feels like there is a lot of work or more things being added to your schedule. But if you are really focusing on the reason that you are serving it doesn’t become a chore or duty. Think about how it is at the beginning of a romantic relationship. All you can think about it being with that person and it really doesn't matter how late you stay up when you are together, how many miles you have to drive to make it happen.
Most of the time we see God as a means rather then the end.We serve God day after day looking for some sort of reward for our efforts.The truth is that the reward is that we were allowed to be a part of it at all.God lowered himself to our level to honor us with his presence.It is an honor and not a burden.
Have you ever had a young child help you with a project? Maybe it was making dinner or cleaning up. We all know that we could do it so much better on our own and probably ten times faster, but we love that child and it sweet to have them help. It also helps them grow to have them help. So we struggle through the process. It is the same with God. He comes down to our level and has us help us accomplish his work. Whether it is ministering to the person next door to us who doesn't believe or helping out in an area that has been hit by a natural disaster or going to the other side of the world to care for people that are the polar opposite from us.
The thing is God is going to accomplish his work with or without us (Rev. 22), but he honors us by allowing us to be a part of it.
If you truly want to know if you love God, and you want to see him reigning in your life you will see it reflected when you engage the world around you, not how well you can sing in praise and worship or can talk about him. You will see what happens when you serve.
We need to find ways to engage in what’s going on around the city and around the world.Not only is a good discipline for us as a staff but it is also a good lesson and example for the coaches and students we are leading.We need to find groups and individual organizations for us to contribute our time and treasure to.
We should wake up every day not going through our list of agenda items for the day, but asking God what he has for us to do with the day.
John 17:4 - I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.
That should be our goal at the end of everything, to be able to say those worlds to God. We usually focus on what we want to hear God say to us. That he is proud of us and that we have been faithful. But Jesus faced the end of his time earth with confidence. He knew that each day he had responsibilities given to him by God and in those last moments he felt a sense of release.
From a personal level, If this week was all there was, do you believe you have a race you should be running?Do you have things God has called you to that you have yet to complete? If this YEAR was all there was?
References from: Christine Caine, Francis Chan and Jeff Lewis
As part of our work here at FCA each of the staff is assigned a devotion to share in our staff meeting. Well this is my second time around and both times I have been really lucky. You see we are also assigned the topic so depending on how the cards fall you could end up with a topic that you really don't like or maybe just are indifferent to. In my case the first one was exactly about something that I had been going through over the past several months and so I was able to share very candidly and honestly with a group of people that were still pretty much strangers at that point. With this new devotion that I have been assigned for this upcoming week, the topic is Volunteerism. Coming from the great state of Tennessee the first thing I think of is the sports team (and the school) which should make my employer and co-workers proud. But the real theme is something that I am again very passionate about. Being born in to a pastor's family I have been taught that volunteering is not something you do, it's something you are. It's just a natural part of your life and you don't just do the things that are convenient but you make your life work around the things that you are committed to. Thinking back I guess I can pinpoint times when I did it simply out of obligation or duty, but honestly I really do love it.
Back to the devotion....So I have known about the topic and date for this devotion for about 3 weeks and have been excited about it and started doing some extra reading, listening to podcasts, etc. Just didn't want to re-circulate the same information to a room full of people most of whom went to seminary so have more technical bible schooling then I do. Yet with all of the work, all the notes here I sit....1am on the Friday before the devotion and just the starting verse on the final draft. Isn't that odd?
It can't really be writers block as I have to write quite a bit for work and so I am getting used to spending a good portion of each day coming up with copy. It makes me sad because I have some great notes and if I pull them together well it could end up being a really good devotion and I would have to cut about half of the notes. So somehow getting the great topic, that I am so passionate about has caused me to flounder around searching for the answer. Maybe I should have prayed for one of the other choices that at first glance didn't make me excited to talk about (Spiritual Formation, Care or Reproduction).
Here's hoping that before the beginning of the week God and I figure out a way to get these thoughts down on paper.
