doubt

I visited a couple of good friends in the hospital this week who were there with their babies.  One couple has yet to bring their month old home and the other is back in the hospital AGAIN, with their 3 month old.  Both of these little ones have been through more, medically speaking, in their 3 months then most will go through in their entire lives. My buddy, and the father of little 3 mo old, questioned “why?” I have the same question, but we can rest knowing that the greatest human (not the God-Man, aka, Jesus) who ever lived had doubts too.

leadership pressure cooker (part deux)

I wrote a post on Thursday about the “leadership pressure cooker.” Um, well, that was easy to write when I wasn’t actually IN the pressure cooker.  God has quite the sense of humor because on Friday at 2:30 we learned that we could not meet in our facility due to us exceeding the occupancy for the building. So, we were limited to 49 people inside this weekend, which was just enough to take care of the kids and the kid’s volunteers. The rest of us…

leadership pressure cooker

When I was young, my mom would use a pressure cooker to cook meals for my dad, brothers and me.  The pressure cooker is somewhat of a cross between a crock pot and microwave … cooks fast yet keeps all the good stuff in the veggies and meat that you are cooking. I thought of that cooker today as I sat in the Leadership Summit, listening to some of the world’s best leaders.  Tons of valuable information coming at me so quickly, yet God slowed it down enough to allow many nuggets to take root in my heart.

voices

The people in Israel had a choice to make.  They could listen to the voice of God and two men who reinforced what God had told them about the Promised Land, or they could listen the voices to the contrary.  Unfortunately for that generation, they chose to listen to those who doubted that God would come through on His promises and instead of entering the Land on the 11th day, they wandered for more than 14,000 days while the unbelieving generation faded away. (Deut. 1:26)

God vs. man

Last week a friend of mine, Scott Rodgers, wrote a great post on Swerve, the blog for LifeChurch.tv.  In this post, Scott reminds us that we should be about building the kingdom of God and not our own “kingdom.” That post jumped into my mind as I read Deuteronomy 9 a few days ago. 

God was reminding the Israelites that it wasn’t really their giftedness or righteousness that earned the promised land, but rather His grace. (Deut. 9:6) From the beginning of time there seems to be this tension between what is accomplished by God and what is built by human effort.  I think we can go too far either way. There are people who put themselves down to the point that they dishonor the fact that they are made in the image of God and that through Christ they are a “new creation.”  And, there are others who confuse God’s blessing for their talent.  Both miss the mark.  At the end of the day, God wants to “give us the desires of our hearts” but only when we “delight in Him.” (Psalm 37:4) That’s always the key: dying to ourselves, taking up our cross and following Him.  When we TRULY do that our passions become His and the dreams we have for our lives are His dreams for our lives.  Ultimately, we will never have the life we dream of having if it is about us.  It must always be about His fame.  As we like to say here…”what’s life all about?…..not.U!

moments

“Time is a tyrant; it consumes choices left unmade.” – Erwin McManus, Chasing Daylight

 

On Saturday we took our oldest daughter Faith, along with my mom, to the airport. For the next two weeks Faith is going to be in Missouri spending time with my family and then will head to Denver to spend time with Gina’s family. It is just two weeks, but for her mom and dad it seems like an eternity.  In just the few days that Faith has been gone it has helped me appreciate more the time I have with her. Yes, I know she’s just entering the 1^st grade, but I also know in the blink of an eye she’ll be clutching her high school diploma.  I’m thankful that God has burned that vision in my mind because it ignites a passion to seize every moment I have with her and our other children. There’s something very powerful about living a life of purpose, embracing every moment and pressing into what God has for us every day. As we’ve been discovering together, God had a specific plan for the Israelites when He gave them the promised land: It is time to break camp and move on. …I am giving all this land to you! Go in and occupy it! (Duet. 1) God clearly was saying to His people that it is time to seize the moment. Go and do what I’ve told you to do. Yet, they slept on the opportunity and missed it. In a blink, it was gone. So, today, what moments do you need to embrace? Step into them!  Remember, time consumes choices left unmade…

eleven days…and counting

So, how’d the Israelites get from 11 days to 14,600 days?  Great question and one that probably can’t be answered completely in a paragraph, but simply put the Israelites didn’t trust God. They lacked faith. (It is amazing how little things have changed in a few thousand years.)  Even though these same people had seen God part the Red Sea through the hand of Moses (Ex. 14), provide water from a rock (Ex. 17) and manna from heaven (Ex. 16), they still doubted that God would or could do what He said He would do. God promised an amazing piece of the world and told them it was His gift to them: “I am giving all this land to you! Go in and occupy it, for it’s the land the Lord swore to give to your ancestors and all of their decedents.” (Deut. 1:8)  Doesn’t get much simpler than that. But, of course, to occupy the land they would have to trust that God would once again deliver on His promise.

As we read the story we see that they got to the edge of the land in exactly the time they should of….then…..they stopped. They doubted. And, that generation never entered the promise. They made it to the promise but never embraced it because they thought it would cost them too much and they doubted God would deliver.  They stood right there at the precipice of the promise and STOPPED!  Is the promise of God in your sight? Why have you stopped?

eleven days

As I sat down to read the Scriptures this morning, I ventured back to Deuteronomy (I have to admit I’ve skipped some Old Testament reading in my yearly Bible reading plan this year. ) I wasn’t quite sure what God would have for me there but after reading just a few lines I read something that I can’t ever recall reading before: “Normally, it takes only eleven days to travel of Mount Sinai to Kadesh-barnea…” (Deut. 1:2, NLT) Eleven days? So, what’s the big deal? Well, what should have taken the Israelites ELEVEN DAYS took them FOURTY YEARS…or, by simple calculation: 14,600 DAYS!  You see, God wanted to give the Promised Land to the Israelites and they were a short eleven day journey away from receiving this amazing gift from the Lord but instead they bickered, doubted and rebelled their way to a journey that would last 14,600 days. That absolutely blows my mind.  There’s so much more to this story but the question for now is “what is taking us years that God could do in days?”  What issue has handcuffed you for years that you could be on the way to defeating in a few weeks if you faced it head on and seriously dealt with it?  Eleven days or forty years? It is up to us.

no limits

 

Lots of thoughts went through my head as I watched a hobbled Tiger Woods hit a putt on Sunday to push the US Open into a playoff…wow, amazing, clutch, focus, determination, will…the list goes on. Love him or hate him, there’s no denying that Tiger Woods is the standard by which other golfers today are measured.  My favorite story about Tiger comes earlier in his career when, already ranked No.1 in the world, he totally reconstructed his golf swing because he knew he could get better. For Tiger, nothing is off limits; everything can be challenged and questioned in an effort to become the standard. 

When I read the story of the rich young ruler, I see some similarities and one vast difference. This rich young guy who seemingly had it all and had lived a good religious life asked Jesus if there was anything else he needed to do to enter the Kingdom of God. Jesus said simply, “one thing you lack, sell everything, give to the poor … and then come and follow me.” (Luke 18:22) We don’t really get to see the rest of this guy’s story because it ends right there. For the rich guy, his money was off limits. You can have it all Jesus…but just not this. Not my money; not my safety; not my position; not my __________. 

one

We all know the saying that two heads are better than one, but the ironic thing is that the saying implies that the two heads are actually one. That is, when two people are working together toward a common goal and challenging and encouraging and loving each other through the process then two heads are better than one.  But, when two heads are consumed with their own desires, speak negatively of each other and generally just tear one another apart, well, then two heads aren’t better.  There is nothing quite like a unified team where each has the other’s back and each is giving everything toward a common goal. Whether in sports, business, politics, the church or family, unity on a team wins. That is why I’m so excited about this current series, One Prayer (www.oneprayer.com). The vision is so simple and so pure. One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, One God. (Eph. 4:5) The church coming together as one has powerful implications. Even on an individual our lives either bring unity or our lives divide. I pray that our motives, words and actions unify.