Living Beyond Wishful Thinking

Living on wishful thinking is so darn unsatisfying!  Hope deferred makes the heart sick.  True hope is confident of it's fulfillment when it intersects with faith.

“God also bound himself with an oath, so that those who received the promised could be perfectly sure that he would never change his mind. So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. This is hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary.” Hebrews 6:17-19


• Faith is confidence that God is who He says He is and that He will do what He says He will do.

• Hope lies before us, not behind us. Keep looking forward! Navel-gazing and digging through the past sets us adrift, makes us wobbly, and insecure.

• Our hope is an anchor for our souls, and Christ is that hope. When we are anchored in Him, we have faith (see above definition), when our hope is Him, we have faith.

• Hope without faith in Christ is just wishful thinking. False hope.

When I have faith in God and what He has promised, then I can lean forward in hope, lean forward in life, knowing that my hope is securely fastened to One who does not lie, who is unchangeable. Faith produces a hope that will not be disappointed! This gives me a massive boldness to continue, to press forward, to persevere, to not grow weary.

So, I read His promises; I find out what He has to say for my life; I believe; I apply them; I keep applying them. One thing I’ve learned: the practice of applying His promises grows my faith and confidence like nothing else. You can start with one promise – find one that speaks into your life right now and give it a go!

Lean forward today, press into the hope you have in Christ – have faith – and start living your best life!

"Christians Hate Obama"

I was recently on a plane ride, sandwiched between two lovely people, and fully expected to doze my way home (4 AM is an early wake up call for me!), when a conversation began between myself and Paul, one of my seatmates.  I am so glad I didn't sleep!  (shout out to Paul if you're out there!).

Paul is a freelance writer, and has ventured into recording peoples personal histories, so he is good at interviewing, listening and drawing people out, and he is intelligent and kind, so we had all the makings of a great conversation. 

We discussed life, culture, interviewing, San Francisco, his work, and then he asked me about my work.  I told him I was a pastor, and this is where we both began to learn more about the other.  Let me say, before I continue, that it was entirely refreshing to dialogue with Paul without the emotional heat differences of opinion usually brings.  We both walked away having gained some knowledge, perspective, new understanding of things.

What I learned from Paul:

• Paul is a liberal, a Jew, and hangs and works with the University crowd.  His only knowledge of Christians is Pat Robertson.  Seriously.  His view of Christians:  they are angry, they hate, they are illogical, greedy, etc.  Oh yeah, television preachers with large lifestyles was another frame of reference.  Media-driven frame of reference.
• "Do the people in your church hate Obama?".  This is a question he asked me.  Read it again.  Do the people in your church HATE? 
• "Why are conservatives so angry"?  
• People may have good hearts in general, yet their hearts be hard towards the gospel.  Paul's limited, if not non-existent, interaction with Christians gave him a narrow and skewed perspective that understandably hardened his heart towards the message of the gospel.  I can't say I blame him.
• Perhaps we have lost our ability to be heard mainstream because all they hear/see is anger and hate.  I know that's not where we want to come from, but can we not see the fruit we are growing on our tree?

I have a family member who recently went to a rally regarding a possible repeal of special-rights legislation for gay/lesbian couples.  She was listening to a speech that became angry in tone, and looked around wondering about the over 51% of them that were divorced (yet up in arms about protecting marriage); what percentage were caught in sexual sin; why was it so easy to angrily cast stones?  She personally may not agree with the repeal, but she did question the emotional quotient that seemed to be driving the crowd.  When had it become so easy to point the finger when our own households are not in order?

Back to Paul.  Paul and I disagree on a lot of the things we talked about.  I believe in absolutes, yet struggle with the tensions we live in.  I believe in good and evil, heaven and hell (we both thought the idea of heaven as floating in the clouds forever sounded incredibly boring.  People have the funniest ideas about heaven - if you are a Christian, learn the doctrine of heaven!).  Though we disagreed, we were able to talk and learn from each other. 

• You can't plant seed in hard ground.  It has to be softened.  Let's not be so quick to angrily throw our seed out there hoping it will penetrate.  (Consider the soil).
• Emotions get in the way of true dialogue. 
• Affirming our "rightness" shuts doors to hearing and receiving.
• People have different perspectives.  Their frames of reference are not the same.  They may have no personal experience with Christians, the Bible, faith....Using our frames of reference, our perspective and experience to convince them of something doesn't compute. 
• Be open to having conversation, to learn from others.  It will go both ways!
• You can share the gospel without quoting chapter and verse (which is outside their frame of reference).
• Don't be afraid to share your own humanity with others.  No one is perfect, and it's nice when we admit that!

Paul is in San Diego for a conference, and I hope he has a great time in our beautiful city.  I also hope our conversation continues in his heart and it does in mine.

Meditation: Fear is Overcome by Love

"Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear.  If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced His perfect love" 1 John 4:18 (NLT).

Sometimes we experience fear for the future, and often this is fear of failing at life.  We are on a journey to succeed with our families, our work, our vision, our health...and we are afraid that it's going to come to nothing, or worse yet, we will somehow experience a hammer blow for failing.  This fear reveals that we have room to grow in understanding God's love for us.  God loves us perfectly.  We are not perfect to earn that love.  He loves us whether we succeed or fail, so live fearlessly!  Give life all you've got, knowing that God loves you, and don't let fear sideline you.

Feeling fearful?  Remind yourself of God's love and let it transform your thinking - your emotions will follow!

The Gospel for Dummies

"He is jealous for me...."

It's 2:30am and I am awake.  I have a David Crowder Band song running through my head, intertwined with analogies.  Why does my brain work like this? Don't know.  But I do know God has made me this way for a reason.  So, I am up and typing on my I-phone. It's slower than the computer, but that helps me to develop my thoughts as I type.  So, enjoy the song lyrics in quotations, and I hope you'll enjoy the analogies as well.

Proverbs says a woman's hair is her crowning glory.   I have a lot of hair, and when my hair leaves my head , it clogs my drain.  (Or litters my floor, aaaargh).  If unity starts at the head and runs down, if it crowns the Body, then it's like my hair.  When we're all together, it's beautiful.  A head full of glorious hair.  When we are separated from the head, it just clogs the drain.  And leaves the head balding.

"love is a hurricane, I am the tree...."

The song that's playing is His song.  Music is made of notes.  Melodies and harmonies.  Themes (I'm thinking classical music).  If we are all on board, playing the song He wrote, it is a masterpiece of salvation for the world, a magnum opus.   It's a Gospel song.  A deliverance song.  A healing song.  A song that draws others into His embrace.  I played the clarinet in a band for years.  There's nothing like the tension of that moment when the conductor raises his baton, the quiet, taut with the expectation of the first notes.  Where will the music take us?
And there's nothing as horrendous as the clashing cacophony of discord if each musician plays the wrong note.  Sometimes in life we don't like the notes on our page and we want to play something else.  The tempo is not to our liking.  The key is difficult to play, requiring too much practice. Darn if I shouldn't be in first chair!  What song has The Composer written?  Songs are a journey of sound, of movement, of emotion.  What song am I playing for others to hear?

"if grace is an ocean, we're all sinking."

It's the greatest story ever told.  We are the words, perfectly crafted to sit on the page and express Him to all who will read.  If we move from our place, the story gets garbled, confused.  Have you ever read a book with a typo in it?  Such lengths went to publish the book, to edit it, and there's a typo.  If you're a person who loves to read, you get how distracting that can be.  My eye keeps going back to it, wondering why it's there, editing it in my mind.  Irritated that I paid good money for a book where someone didn't care enough to edit carefully.  Letters and words out of place can distract from the storyline, at best.  Or they bring confusion to the reader.  At worst, the reader walks away, not willing to wade through the words to make sense of them.  The story our lives are writing should be simple, clear, and easy to read.  "The Gospel For Dummies".

So there you go.  What story is your life telling?

Now go have a great hair day.  :)

How to Make it to the Finish Line as a Disciple

"....The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, 'See here!' or 'See there!  For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you".  Luke 17: 20-21

The key to longevity as a disciple of Christ is your personal relationship with Him - it must be the center point for you.  Not public work, activity, charity...nothing else.  All these good things will naturally flow from a disciples life, but they aren't the main thing.

2 Kings 2:19-22 tells an interesting story which helps illustrate this point.

"Then the men of the city (Jericho) said to Elisha, "Please notice, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord sees; but the water is bad, and the ground is barren."

And He said, "Bring me a new bowl and put salt in it.  So they brought it to him.

Then he went out tot he source of the water, and cast in the salt there, and said, "Thus says the Lord: 'I have healed this water; from it there shall be no more death or barrenness.'"  So the water remains healed to this day, according to the word Elisha which he spoke."

• From the outside, the external appearance, the city looked great, it's "situation was pleasant".  It's what was inside that was dead and barren.  We can't be content to hide behind a pleasant exterior when we are needing to be healed back to a place of life and fruitfulness again.  
• A new bowl is needed.  God is always doing a new work, and Christ came to do the ultimate new thing in making us over into new creations (2 Cor. 5:17)  Just as Jericho was a cursed city and is being made into a new and blessed city, God has provided for us through His Son to go from death to life, from barrenness to fruitfulness by reconciling all things to Himself through Christ.
• Salt is mentioned early in the Bible.  Leviticus 2:13 says "And every offering of your grain offering you shall season with salt, you shall not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your grain offering.  With all your offerings you shall offer salt".  God is a covenant God.  In Genesis 17:7 He promises Abraham (our father in faith) "...this is the everlasting covenant:  I will always be your God and the God of your descendants after you".  God has made an unbreakable covenant to be in relationship with us.  When we choose to be in relationship with God, we are agreeing to join in that covenant relationship and be His people.  
• Being in relationship with God throws salt into the waters of your life, brings healing to what is dead and barren.  

Are you struggling internally?  Struggling with death and barrenness in your life?  This could be in any area of life.  How is your relationship with God?  The word says that God will ALWAYS be your God. He is Jehovah, our Lord

  The Lord who heals you

  The Lord, your provider

  The Lord, your righteousness

  The Lord, your deliverer

  The Lord who leads you in battle

  The Lord who leads you in victory

  The Lord, your peace 

  The Lord, the banner over your

Pursue your relationship with God through Christ Jesus, and you will make it to the finish line.  Go past external appearances, uncover your internal situations to the healing power of Jesus' finished work on the cross.  Continue in covenant relationship - God will never quit on it, it is an everlasting covenant!

Divine Discontent Brings Change

Disconent can be the signal or motivator needed to bring change into our lives.  I call it "divine discontent" because I believe the Holy Spirit is truly our helper, working to help us see and make necessary changes in our lives, and those niggling discontents are often Him trying to get our attention. 

When I feel discontent, I tend to want to blame someone else for it.  It often manifests itself as discontent towards another person or situation, when in reality, I am the one who is being spurred to change.

We might feel discontent with a relationship that has gone stale, or a situation that has not changed.  Perhaps our spouse hasn't made changes that we think he/she should.  Perhaps we see a need in our community that we think should have been met by "so and so".  Such disconent is a signal that the change we are looking for probably lies within ourselves.

I remember feeling discontent with the level of romance in my marriage.  I mentioned things to my husband, dropped hints, etc., but nothing changed.  When was the last time I got flowers for no reason at all?  Then I decided that I would do the changing.  After making some adjustments and making the effort to speak more of my husband's "love language", he began to bring more romance into our relationship.  My change opened the door for him to change.  Discontent resolved!

It is a waste of our time, energy and love to wait and expect change to come from someone else when we have the power to bring change when we choose to.

Parents can feel discontent when they see a child consistently make choices that they disapprove of.  Years can go by with no change, and often parents will begin to focus on that discontent, placing pressures of expectation upon the child.  Children, even grown ones, want to please their parents, and the weight of a parent's discontent can be a binding burden, making it even more difficult for the child to change.  What may be helpful is for the parent to change.  If you've been saying the same thing over and over and it hasn't worked, quit saying it!  Find something new to say or do that will speak to the heart of your child, releasing them to change.  Acceptance and affirmation are tremendous motivators for change to occur in someones life.

Fabulously, when we make the change, we are happier.  Happier with ourselves, happier with the ones we were discontent with.  The atmosphere of our relationships begin to change.  Love begins to flow again.  What a great perk!

Where are you feeling that "divine discontent" in your life?  Take a close look and ask yourself, "What can I do, where can I change?".  You really can't force change on others, but you can certainly make changes in your own life. So, embrace the discontent as a signal that change is needed and go on, make the change.  You'll be glad you did!

...and that's how the fight started.

Sometimes we just need to laugh.....


I heard my wife crying in the bathroom. "Honey? What's wrong" I asked.
"Oh, George! Just look at me: I'm getting so old! I have more gray in my hair than blonde, I have varicose veins on both of my legs, and I'm just fat and wrinkled all over! I really need someone to say something positive about me right now!"
I looked deeply into her eyes and said softly: "Your vision's real good, honey. That's something, isn't it?"
And that's when the fight started....
---
When I got home last night, my wife demanded that I take her someplace expensive.
So I took her to a gas station.
And that's when the fight started....
- - -
My wife and I were sitting at a table at my high school reunion, and I kept staring at a drunken lady swigging her drink as she sat alone at a nearby table.
My wife asked, "Do you know her?"
"Yes," I sighed, "She was my senior year girlfriend. I understand she took to drinking right after we split up those many years ago, and I hear she hasn't been sober since."

"My God!" says my wife. "Who would think a person could go on celebrating that long?"
And that's when the fight started....
- - -
I asked my wife, "Where do you want to go for our anniversary?"
It warmed my heart to see her face melt in sweet appreciation. "Somewhere I haven't been in a long time!" she said.
So I suggested, "How about the kitchen?"
And that's when the fight started....
- - -
One year, a husband decided to buy his mother-in-law a cemetery plot
as a Christmas gift.
The next year, he didn't buy her a gift.
When she asked him why, he replied, "Well, you still haven't used the
gift I bought you last year!"
And that's how the fight started.....
---
My wife was hinting about what she wanted for our upcoming
anniversary. She said, 'I want something shiny that goes from 0 to 200
in about 3 seconds.
I bought her a scale.
And that's how the fight started.....
- - -

Hope you didn't take that too seriously and laughed!
Have a great day and treat each other well!  :)