Tag: Love

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To Infinity…and Beyond!

Proverbs 22:29, “Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men.”

This week I find myself in Toknok, Kyrgyzstan, helping teach a class in micro-business development. I am here with two other men to teach local Kyrgy’s how to create and operate Kingdom Impact businesses. I love being here because it is all about chasing your passion for Christ. The first thing we discuss with them is that God has to be the leader of your vision. Without the Holy Spirits’ direction, their new business will be another business; it might create wealth, but it will not fundamentally change the world. If God is driving the vision, then the business will have an eternal impact; it will drive changed lives and brighter futures.

1 Peter 4:10,” Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”

KINGDOM IMPACT BUSINESS

A Kingdom Impact business is a business that applies Christian principles to the way the owner interacts with employees, customers, suppliers, and the community. It impacts the way they manage their finances, their wages, and their prices. Most of all, it drives their need to share the joy of the gospel with the community in which they live and do business.

2 Kings 12:15, “They did not require an accounting from those to whom they gave the money to pay the workers, because they acted with complete honesty.”

I learned to appreciate how God works; it is best to visit third-world countries. These people have not been jaded by first-world expectations. They haven’t been told what they can accomplish and what they can’t. They are both teachable and passionate. God has opened them up to possibilities beyond their expectations. There is a fearful excitement about the future.

I learned how to be brave. In many cases, the hardship these people face daily would break most of us. Some of the places I have been to don’t have electricity or clean water; they live in a hut with a dirt floor. They don’t go home at night to TV and the internet, but only darkness. What they have is a hope in Christ that overshadows their environment. Most of the people I deal with are filled with joy and hope. They are hungry for God’s direction and confident that no matter how difficult life is, heaven awaits.

When we talk about being an example for the community, they get it. These people understand that they are the light in the darkness around them. They know from their experience how tough life is without hope. They want to share that hope with others.

Philippians 4:11-13, “Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”

They want their business to be successful in supporting their families and lifting the community, and drawing others to Christ.

Acts 20:35, “In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ “

BACK HOME

Is that the way we live? When we go to work, do we see the blessing of work as an opportunity to build up our peers and draw them to Christ? Do we operate from a Kingdom Perspective? I know that question isn’t fair. When you have nothing, everything is important. But when you have everything, nothing is important.

Our lives are consumed with keeping all of our stuff straight. We have careers and college education funds and retirement funds about which to worry. We have homes with mortgages or rent, taxes, and insurance. For many of us, it is the condo association or the homeowners association that we must appease to maintain peace . Our kids not only have to have a good education, but they must also grow up to be well-rounded. We are busy chasing the American Dream.

1 Timothy 6:17-19, “Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed.”

This is all to say we get lost in our stuff and forget our purpose. We forget that everything we have or will ever have come from the creator of the universe that loves us unconditionally, and we should show it more often. We should take a lesson for our less fortunate brothers and sisters in Christ. We should use all that God has given us to lift the community we live in and draw others to Christ.

I don’t mean to shame anyone; really, I don’t. It is to say we live complex, busy lives. It is extremely easy to become so busy living that we never realize we are not living; we are marking time. We find ourselves devoting way too much time reaping the harvest of the blessings that we forget the source of those blessings. It’s not intentional; it just happens. Periodically we catch our breath and whisper out thanks.

FINAL THOUGHT

Maybe we should think about putting a task on our calendar every day to remind us to take a moment to remember our purpose.

Well, I’m going to enjoy this week. I’m going to enjoy the country, love the people and reset my perspective. Then I will come back home with a healthier understanding of what God has done, is doing, and will continue to do for and through me.

Proverbs 13:22, “A good person leaves an inheritance for their children’s children, but a sinner’s wealth is stored up for the righteous.”

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When Humbleness Turns to Insecurity

The title should have been “How to Lift Yourself up Out of the Mud to Stand on Dry Ground,” but it was too long.

We all go through times when life sucks. For some of us, it means complete alienations; for others, it is loneliness, a hollow feeling that hangs over us.  There are times when insecurity engulfs us like a dense cold fog rolling in from the ocean on a moonless night. We all struggle with this at times. For me, it is not a perpetual state of being but a season of unworthiness.

I think of John 11 when Lazarus has died, and Jesus comes several days later. Martha meets Him and asks why He didn’t come earlier when He could have healed Him. Martha knows Lazarus will be raised in the last days but thinks it is too late to save him now. There are times when we should know salvation is ours, but question what about today? There will eventually be joy in Heaven, but what do we do until we get there? Will there be relief this side of Heaven?

WHEN HUMBLENESS TURNS TO INSECURITY

What happens when our humbleness turns to insecurity? How do we cope when we pass over that tipping point and start to believe our trash talk when we start buying into the sin-is-greater-than-love scenario. As humans, we all do this at times. We let our regret and guilt override our knowledge of who we are in Christ.

1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

God forgives, but do we? I know that I am saved by grace and not by works so that no man may boast. But is that enough for me today? Do I find peace in the fact that I have grieved God and others and been forgiven? I don’t know about you, but some days it is not enough to be forgiven; I need repatriation. I need an act of restoration. I need to somehow show my worthiness for forgiveness.

Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you were saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is a gift of God, not a results of works, so that no man may boast.”

I can’t change the past, but I do manage to relive it. I mull it over and over in my mind wishing it had never happened. I punish myself even when God has forgiven me. Why? Because I separate the eternal from the worldly. I accept that I have been given eternal life through Christ’s death on the cross, but I still want earthly peace through some final act of attrition. There are days when I am Martha. God, I get that you love me unconditionally; I get that through your sacrifice on the cross, I will live with you forever in Heaven, but what about the guilt I feel today? Have you arrived in my life too late to heal me of my past?

WHEN DO WE GET TO THE FEEL-GOOD PART?

First of all, try to keep things in perspective. This feeling is an in-the-moment issue; it is not an eternal issue. For Christians, this is not a desperate need for salvation that is already assured. It can seem like a desperate need for acceptance. I made a horrible decision over 40 years ago that was a correction decision to a previous atrocious decision. Unfortunately, that is what happens with sin; sin begets further sin. I have lived with the guilt of these decisions. I see the parties involved from time to time. Each time I see them, it reminds me of my weakness. Had I made the first decision correctly, I would not have hurt so many people afterward.

It has all been forgiven, both by God and the offended parties, but not by me. I know that there was a domino effect from my decisions that eventually made other people better off. I would never want to reverse their future happiness by erasing my wrong decision. This story is part of the “God works in strange ways “discussion, but my guilt remains. It is one of the echoes of the past that makes me question my worthiness. If we are honest with ourselves, we recognize that we have them. They are barriers to living a life worth living.

THE GOOD PART

Spoiler alert: Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. He was not too late.

Most self-doubt is created by a historical focus overriding our eternal focus. We forget that God put us here for good works prepared for us in advance. (Get the first part in the verse below; We are God’s handiwork.) There is no need to continue to dredge up the past, we will, but it is a waste of time.

Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

Here is what is essential for those who believe in Christ

2 Corinthians 5:10, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”

For Christians, it is not The Great White Throne Judgment, described in Revelation 20. God will not judge us for our past sins; they are already forgiven. God will hold us accountable for what we have done for Christ since we knew Him. This judgment is not to determine our worthiness to spend eternity with Christ; we have already been accepted to Heaven; it is a review of our fruit derived from that relationship. 

Romans 14:12, “So then everyone of us shall give account of himself to God.”

Back many years ago, I was given a cassette tape, you read that right, of a one-person play performed by  Pete Briscoe, “The Judgement Seat of Christ.” This is a link to the video for those of you that no longer have a cassette player. The original book was written by Tim Stevenson, with no relationship. It talks about The BEMA, the judgment seat of Christ that we must all stand before. It changed my view of Christianity. It moved me from a self-view to an others-view. It shifted my focus away from me being a better person to serving others just as I am.

I don’t know that I will ever get over my past sin. I know there will be times when it comes back to haunt me. But if I can check my self-incrimination and turn my focus to why I am here, I can get past it. Life here on earth can be joyful and peaceful. God does not want us to live a life of regret and guilt. He wants us to enjoy the fullness of His presence.

As hard as it is to believe, our past is forgiven and gone. If we waste our time fretting over the past rather than doing the good works prepared for us to do now; well, we build up more regret and guilt.

James 1:22 “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.”

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Living Large(r)

Isaiah 43:1, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine!”

God has created you for great things, things you can’t even imagine; many of those things will not be revealed to you this side of Heaven.

Job 37:5, “God thunders wondrously with his voice; he does great things that we cannot comprehend.”

MY STORY

I want to tell a story; it involves my life but isn’t about me. It is about what God has done that demonstrates the beauty, mystery, and elegance of his plan for each of us. Back in the early 1980’s I had a perplexing heart problem. I had no heart damage; it just stops beating every once in a while. It was a partial heart block that morphed into a complete heart block. My cardiologist was Doctor Charles Wickliffe. One night in the Emergency Room, Charles saved my life. I was joking with him one minute and waking up in surgery the next. I love this man, not only because he saved my life, but he has become a great friend. He retired from his practice a few months ago. I’ve never really connected the dot for him concerning the impact he has had. Here is what I will tell him the next time we meet.

HIS STORY

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

At three o’clock in the morning, you got out of bed to come to see me in the Emergency Room when you could have passed it on to the on-call resident. In doing so, you were the man that God created you to be, skilled, compassionate and caring. Neither of us knows the eternal impact of that evening. You see, I went on to spread the Gospel into over 50 prisons through the Champions for Life prison ministry. I spent over 20 years serving in the High Tech Ministry in Atlanta. I was on the board that created Roswell Day of Hope to reach the underserved in Roswell, GA. I now work with International Mission Connection in Honduras and International Micro-Business Development in Kenya, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, and Honduras. All of this was made possible by your act of obedience. All of this, and more, is to your credit. God rejoiced that night not for what happened that night but for what was still to come.

Zephaniah 3:17 “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”

YOUR STORY

“How you live your life is a testimony of what you believe about God.” – Henry Blackaby

All of us have a story, but more importantly, someone out there has unknown stories about us. Your greatness and your true impact are yet to be revealed. I don’t know a thing about your life. I don’t know what you have done, what you have avoided doing, or the darkness you hide (we all do). I know as certain as I know there is a God in Heaven; God created you for greatness. Quietly, through everyday actions, you have encouraged others and you have shown the Gospel through your character. Some of those people who came in contact with you have, or will, go on to have a major impact for God’s kingdom here on Earth.

Matthew 23:10-12, “Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

Greatness isn’t always an act of courage or sacrifice; it starts with a small act of kindness that blossoms through eternity to create a garden, each plant propagating more plants. Life is not easy, but it has meaning. If God answered every pray precisely as we prayed it, would we need faith? If our lives were perfect; we were well educated, best job, best spouse, and best everything, would we seek God?

We spend a great deal of time punishing ourselves for the person we are rather than rejoicing over who we could be. Today be that new person. Know that there are acts of kindness that will not show fruit this side of Heaven. But that act, the one you do today, maybe the seed that grows a garden.

Matthew 13:31-32, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is smaller than all other seeds, but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”

Charles is known as a great Cardiovascular Surgeon; he has saved many lives, some were important people. God knows him not for all of those physically healed, but for the ones who went on to spiritually saved others, which saved others, that saved others.

We are His. We should start living our lives like we believe it.

1 Corinthians 1:27-31 “But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”

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Peter Went Fishing

John 21:3, “Simon Peter said, “I’m going fishing.” “We’ll come, too,” they all said. So they went out in the boat, but caught nothing that night.”

I was listening to Crawford Loritts’ sermon on Easter, and this verse stood out. I thought, how human of Peter. It is interesting what we do to clarify our thinking; we gravitate to our comfort zone.

After Christ’s Crucifixion, Christ appeared to the disciples where they received the holy spirit. Even though the disciples, Peter included, saw Jesus alive and touched the scars, it didn’t seem real. The disciples were heartbroken and disillusioned. They thought they had followed the savior of the world only to see Him crucified. How was this sacrificial lamb, resurrected or not, going to free them from Roman rule? They didn’t know what was next. They knew Christ was the beginning of something great, but they didn’t understand what that was.

John 6:15, “Then Jesus, realizing that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, withdrew again to the hillside by himself.”

Peter did what we all do, gravitate back to what we know. We find busy work to occupy our time until we figure out what’s next.

HOW DOES GOD USE THESE MOMENTS

Interestingly, the following passages brought back two memories for Peter; one good and one not so good (John 21:6-9). First, the good; Peter first met Jesus when he was fishing. He had fished all night, not caught anything, and Jesus asked him to throw his net one more time (Luke 5). Jesus’ request is precisely what happened the second time when Peter went fishing after the Crucifixion. The second memory was when Jesus was cooking fish over a charcoal fire on the beach. Peter might have remembered the last time he smelled a charcoal fire; he denied Christ three times (John 18:18).

God from his infinite wisdom, cannot err or be deceived and does not waste energy; everything has a purpose. When Peter was at his lowest point, God brought back to him two essential images. The first was the joy of first meeting Jesus and his immediate dedication to Him. This image had to lift his spirits. The second was the image of his weakness. It was a backward glimpse of what the world would be like if Peter didn’t believe. It brought back all of the pain he felt when that rooster crowed.

I can’t speak for Peter, but for me, it would have reinforced why I have to hold on to the goodness of Christ’s promise and run from my weaknesses. It would be both a push and a pull; push away from doubt, pull closer to faith.

WHAT TO DO WHEN LIFE DOESN’T SEEM FAIR

James 1:3, “knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.”

We tend to go fishing. We want to break away from the uncertainty and draw close to something we know and understand. That is OK for a time, but just like Peter, it doesn’t produce results. It is nothing more than a temporary holding place to regroup.

Like Peter, we need to be reminded of the past. We need to remind ourselves of the great things God has done for us and through us. The glory of the past leads us toward the future. We also need to be reminded of what it is like to deny Christ. As dark as the world can seem at times, it is nothing compared to separation from Christ. To live without hope has to be the darkness within darkness.

Romans 8:35, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?”

HAPPY ENDINGS

On the way to doing something, you become something.

Christ built His church on the rock named Peter. If you are willing, He will raise you out of the malaise of your life. He will use all you have gone through to create an even brighter future than you could have imagined.

Matthew 16:18, “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”

God may not create a worldwide revival through you, but what He will build through you, the gates of Hades, will not overcome it.  The power you have at your disposal is incredible; we lose that sometimes. Always remember that you were created for a purpose. When things don’t go the way we think they should, we forget the redeeming power of Christ’s resurrection. When we become internally focused, we forget God’s purpose. We forget the why.

I’ve heard it said that if a person can understand the why, they can get to the how. When we understand why Christ died for our sin, we can create movement toward living out the vision. And in doing, we become the person of God created us to be. Whenever you feel the darkness closing in, remember Peter. You and Peter have a lot in common.

John 16:33, “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

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The Redemption of Naomi

I went to Kenya as a member of the IMED team. We fund micro-businesses in impoverished third-world nations to raise them out of poverty; this assignment was the Riff Valley, about 90 km out of Nairobi. They were part of the Narok City community, where 85% of the homes have dirt floors and no water or electricity. It is the home of the Maasai. 

There are no security nets or entitlement programs; life is hard, to the very end.

MEET NAOMI

Naomi was one of our students and now the proud owner of her own business. She is a widow with six grown children; she is illiterate but brilliant. Naomi always wore a smile. At first, she seemed shy, not wanting to talk or make eye contact; most of our students, about half male and half female, interacted spontaneously. As time wore on, I got the sense that Naomi had an undefeatable steel core that would not be denied. There were moments when she made direct eye contact and, with a smile, seemed to say, “test me, I dare you.” She wanted to start a grain store, selling maze in the local market. We spent several weeks together getting to know the culture, the market, and the students. We taught them business principles, help them create business plans, and ultimately, if viable, funded their business.

THE TESTIMONY OF NAOMI 

During a lull in the activity, I asked Naomi how she came to know Christ. What she told me was a heartwarming story of redemption. Kenya, especially the Riff Valley, is a hard land. It has about 40% unemployment. Government support is almost non-existent. The average monthly expenditure for a family of six is twenty-five dollars. Naomi was married to a cattle driver; a cattle driver drives cattle to market in Nairobi by herding them on foot; it would be insanely difficult by American standards. For reasons that Naomi did not divulge, her husband started to exhibit signs of mental illness. Some of these signs were fits of violence and wild ranting. He has since passed.

Two weeks after giving birth to her sixth child, she reached a critical point of hopelessness in the midst of one of her husband’s fits. That crucial point is when we feel we must give up; life has hit us so hard that getting back up doesn’t make sense. scared, tired, and depressed; she had a newborn to take care of, children to feed, a husband unfit to provide, and no help in sight;

Two weeks after giving birth to her sixth child, she reached a critical point of hopelessness in the midst of one of her husband’s fits. That crucial point is when we feel we must give up; life has hit us so hard that getting back up doesn’t make sense. Naomi was scared, tired, and depressed; she had a newborn to take care of, children to feed, a husband unfit to provide, and no help in sight; she was overwhelmed

She went into the bedroom to cry, she laid on the dirt floor, entirely enveloped in despair. Then she recalled people in the marketplace speaking of this “Christ”; she prayed for the first time in her life. Her simple prayer was, “Christ, if you exist, save me from my situation.” What she said happened next is a fantastic description of God’s love.

REDEMPTION

Her testimony was, “And God painted a new picture of my life.”

The situation did not change, but her view of it did. She experienced hope. There was a calmness and clarity concerning the road ahead. It wasn’t about immediate answers as it was about knowing it would be alright. Christ would walk with her through this trial. Answers would come later. 

Victor Frankl, a holocaust survivor, believed that there is always one last vestige of freedom even under intolerable circumstances: it is the freedom to choose with how you view your circumstances. He said, “We who lived in the concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last human freedom – to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstances” Naomi chose wisely; she chose to hope in Christ. 

THE CHASE

When you start chasing your passion, you soon realize it has always been chasing you. You will meet the Naomi’s of the world, which will confirm that you are where God planned. As much as God wants us to change the world around us, He knows chasing our passion will inevitably change us too. 

Philippians 4:8-9, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”

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Created for this Moment

Esther 4:14, “Perhaps this is the moment for which you have been created.”

I have always found this comment my Mordecai enlightening. It is one of those hand slap to forehead kind of things.

GOD’S PLAN

The story of Ester is fascinating because it shows the length God will go to prepare people. Ester’s journey from the exile of the Jews under Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, to Mordecai’s adoption after her family’s death, to the disposition of Queen Vashti, to Ester’s selection and favor under Hagia, to her acceptance by King Xerxes was planned by God so that he could save His people and eventually rebuild Jerusalem.

Talk about God having a long view of things. Ester is precisely where God wanted her; at the exact moment the Jews needed someone in her position. But God also made an important pronouncement about this opportunity. “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place.”

Two things we need to take from this; you are where God wants you, and if you don’t act, God will use someone else.

MODERN DAY ESTER

I love the story of Ester. I can relate to so many aspects of her journey. You see, I like nice clean, well-thought-out, concisely articulated plans. No, I’m good with the reality that plans change; but you can’t change a plan you never had. That’s my thinking anyway. Life, on the other hand, is the story of Ester.

A modern-day correlation to Ester would be; parents move out of state before your senior year of high school, you have to go to an in-state college in a state you don’t like, you end up in a job after college you don’t like, you get passed over for promotion time, and time again, you finally land your dream promotion after being mentored by one of the big guns at work, and you are given a career crushing assignment. Then God says, “You were created for just this moment.”

All you hear is the sound of a toilet flush as your future does a swirly down the drain.

I love Ester; she sucks it up, puts her life on the line, and charges ahead. Carpe Diem. I guess I am a sucker for heroes and heroines, not the too dumb to know I’m in over my head type, but the “boy that’s going to leave a mark” type. Ester understood what her decision meant to her and what it meant to God and chose God.

RECOGNIZING OUR MOMENT

Most of us spend a lifetime preparing for moments that never come. We gain knowledge and skills, we save and invest, and we acquire worldly things that we will ultimately leave to others. For the most part, I don’t think we do this as an act of self-reliance or greed; I don’t think we know any better. The future is this big unknown.

Do you think Ester was focused on God’s plan for her life when her parents died; did she believe that exile seemed like the expressway to God’s purpose? Do you think it might have been a little scary being chosen as part of the King’s court, knowing his reputation? I don’t know, but I would guess that Ester felt either abandoned or at least shuttled off on a spur somewhere.

Philip. 1:6, “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

KNOWING GOD

God does not waste effort. God does not play games to see what we can bear. We all have times when we can only shake our heads and say, “what was that all about?”. God is true to His promise. He will not forsake you or abandon you. Pay attention to everything that happens in your life; there will be a test. He will use the people, places, and experience of your life to advance His Kingdom.

For most of us, it will not be rebuilding Jerusalem; it will be saving a life; performing some innocuous, simple, mundane act of overwhelming kindness.  Saving one life for eternity outweighs the building of an entire city of gold. The city will fade, its splendor conquered by time, but an eternity in the presence of God never fades.

Part of knowing your purpose is to be ready to execute when the time comes. Do not spend a lifetime preparing for something that may never happened. Remember, Mordecai, warned, “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place.”

Luke 19:26, “to those who use well what they are given, even more, will be given. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away.”

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Traveling Partners

When we think about the concept that God has known us before we came into existence and that he created us for a specific purpose, it should give us pause. There is nothing we will face that will catch Him off guard. There are surprises in our life for us, but not Him. We were created for His purpose, not ours. Living our lives within His purpose brings us greater joy then living for ourselves. It is why we were created.

Psalm 139:16, “You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.”

If we are to become the person God created us to be, we must understand who that is. It is not a difficult question at the macro level but surprisingly tricky at the micro-level. At the big picture, blue sky level, we understand that God created all things for His pleasure.

MACRO LEVEL

God made us wonderfully complex and beautiful people. He has gifted us with all kinds of aptitude, resources, skills, ambition, and opportunity. All of this is for a straightforward reason; He wants us to glorify Him in all that we do. We are to do this from generation to generation. That implies we need to pass the word along to others to help propagate His Kingdom.

Colossians 1:16, “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.”

We know that we were explicitly created for good works.

Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

Those good works are to glorify God.

Matthew 5:16, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

Easy peasy, not hard to understand; execution is a little tricky.

MICRO LEVEL

Executing God’s plan is where I, and many others, get wrapped around the axle. There are two specific ideas that I need to keep in focus: influence and opportunity. God has given me a sphere of influence that changes over time. When I was younger, it was my playmates and schoolmates; as I grew, it became my place of employment, my children, and my community. But in each case, I was given a particular sphere of influence. I have come to think that my mission field is where God has me today. Opportunity is what I do within my sphere of influence.

Philippians 2:1-3, “Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves.”

Life is filled with opportunity. From an entrepreneurial perspective, the main difference between a successful person and a less successful person is not the idea but the execution. We lament that ideas are a dime-a-dozen, but a person with follow-through was as rare as hen’s teeth.  If your spirit is open, there is no shortage of opportunity within your sphere of influence. The key is both identifying these opportunities and then taking action.

Once I started praying that God would open my eyes to the opportunities around me, I was dumbfounded. It was like walking in a forest. It wasn’t like people were walking up to me asking to hear about Christ; it was people reaching out for compassion and understanding. As a high D, type A, personality, this was unsettling.  I didn’t want to engage people at a personal level. I didn’t want to get sucked down into their everyday issues. I wanted a fly-by. I wanted to drop goodwill packages from an airplane.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”

I found that I should take one moment to listen; no platitudes, no suggestions. I found that I did care, sometimes helplessly, but still caring. People don’t expect solutions; they want someone to travel their journey with them. They don’t want to seem alone. Sometimes that traveling partner has to be someone outside of their sphere; it provides a security level.

As a boss, one of my biggest burdens was not having someone to talk to when things got dicey. You can’t go to your employees and say, “I’m really worried about the company.” Sometimes inside our sphere of influence, we have the same issue; we can’t say, “I’m not sure this is going to turn out the way we want.” Our role, many times, is to be the cheerleader. When the cheerleader has lost their cheer, you can be the person to whom they can go to let off steam. You can be the pressure value that allows them to decompress.

As my career advanced, it no longer seemed strange that one of my employees would come into my office, sit down in a chair and unburden themselves. Sometimes they were people I never had anything more significant than a superficial relationship; it was just work. In some cases, my only contribution to the conversation was that Christ gave me hope in my life, and that was enough. I often told them to come back any time, let me know how it was progressing, keep me in the loop. They needed a traveling partner. My job was to take one more fear off of their plate, the fear of facing this alone.

We have a traveling partner; He is always with us. He will never abandon us. Not everyone has this. For those that do not, we become the surrogate. We are the bridge between now and eternity. In time we can help them become the bridge for someone else.

2 Peter 1:19, “And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”

Folks, becoming the person God made you to be is, on the one hand, extremely simple and, on the other hand, so complex and fearful. Remember, God has equipped you for this. There is nothing you will encounter that He has not already seen and prepared you for. We are aliens in the world. We were made for greater things to come. Don’t get stuck in neutral.

Pray for an opportunity, then enjoy a walk in the woods.

A wise man will walk across a bridge but does not build his home on it.

Ephesians 5:8, “For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.”

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Let Me Get Home Before Dark

Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

Joy and fulfillment come from being who God made you to be. It does not come from things you own, titles you achieve, political causes you support, children you raise, friends you have, or any worldly desire.

Paul tells Timothy, “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom. I give you this charge” Think of this charge to Timothy and know it also applies to each one of us. The good works prepared for us in advance are a direct command from God before we came into existence. That is a critical thought. We are to chase His purpose in our lives, not get His buy-in to what we think it should be, based on our experiences, learning, desires, or self-actualization.

LOVE

I cannot emphasize enough that all that we do should be covered in love. The fundamental building block to being the person God made us to be is that we do it in love. We can have passion, but in that passion, it should not lead to sin. We should not put ourselves above others, even when we know we are right with God in doing so.

1 Corinthians 13:13, “The three most important things to have are faith, hope and love. But the greatest of them is love.”

If what you pursue is not cloaked in love, then put a big question mark after it. You might be going in the right direction with the wrong motive or the wrong direction; something is not correct. There needs to be peace about your daily walk. You should be more content with what you do than what you achieve by doing it. Being the person God made you to be is about obedience, not results. Western culture has driven us to believe that you can only gauge success by results; this is not true in God’s economy. God has His measure. Trust me, and I say this from experience, God will motivate you to stay on the right track. God will continue to reinforce your efforts if you are striving to be His person, not yours.

GRACE

Today, more than ever, we spend much too much time judging people by their worldly beliefs. Are they Liberals, Socialist, Conservatives, or Christian nationalists; are they pro or anti-maskers, or are they pro or anti-vaccine?  We all have quirks that distinguish us from those around us; some beliefs can separate us from others or minimize our Christian impact on the world. Grace is not just making allowance for others; it is also not letting our worldly beliefs stand in the way of our mission for God.

2 Timothy 2:23, “But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels.”

The world is watching us. We cannot be held responsible for others’ conclusions, but we are held accountable for our actions. If our efforts cast a shadow of God’s love for all of humanity, we need to back off. People of disparate backgrounds and worldly beliefs should all be attracted to the Gospel. We are to model to the world what the world needs to become. Please read all of Romans 14, where Paul cautions us about letting superficial worldly issues stand in the way of our mission and purpose.

Romans 14: 12-13, “So we will all have to explain to God the things we have done. Let us stop judging one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put anything in your brother’s way that would make him trip and fall.”

It is not enough to correct people with your mouth, but to compel them with your holiness.

HOPE

To be the person God made us to be, we need to change our focus. We need to stop believing that worldly events are the source of our hope. If you start thinking that your peace will come from the world aligning with your expectations, you will spend your life disappointed. I don’t care how noble or righteous your expectations are; the world will always disappoint. Your life will still be shrouded in fear, anxiety, and anger.

Our focus, yours and mine, need to be on advancing the Gospel while we have breath in our lungs to do it. Advancing the Gospel does not mean you need to take up a placard and stand on a street corner proclaiming the Gospel. It means being the person God made you be. For most of us, it means being the person who is not moved by current events. The Gospel has not changed. God has not changed His intent for humanity. Things will go well for the Christian community, and it will go poorly for the Christian community, but the end game has never changed.

The reason we can show love and grace is that the temporal environment has changed nothing. As an American, the capital riots shook my world. I had lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis when a nuclear war was minutes away. I lived through the assassination of President Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy. I lived through the Mississippi Burning murders, which lit the race riots of the ’60s; nothing questioned my resolve for this country more than the storming of our Capitol Building over the basic tenants of democracy. But, my hope was not in the political system or law enforcement, but my knowledge that God is and always has been in control.

In being the person God made me to be, my hope can only be in Him. I cannot divide my hope between God and man.

Matthew 12:25, “And knowing their thoughts he said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.”

For too long, we have hitched our wagon to the principle, insights, and philosophies of man. To be the person God made us to be, we need to get back to God. Crawford Loritts uses the the poem below in the introduction to his book, “Make it Home Before the Dark.” Our time is limited here on earth; we need to use it wisely.  The link below will take you to the poem that inspired Crawford’s book, it is well worth your time to read it.

Dr. Robertson McQuilkin – Let Me Get Home Before Dark

2 Timothy 2:15, “Do your best to present yourself to God as an approved worker who has nothing to be ashamed of, handling the word of truth with precision.”

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Lessons in Love

“Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.” – Robert Frost

I was thinking about the essence of love. If I expected that being loved is the salve that heals all wounds, my life has been disappointing. I know what it is to love, and I know what it is to not be loved. Here is what I have learned:

LOVE

Love is the grandest experience God gave humankind. It is a drug so powerful that it can drive us to ecstasy or total despair. Love can make your brain forget to breathe.  Poets and musicians have tried to capture that feeling in words and verse since we first learned to communicate.  Zelda Fitzgerald  said “Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.” There is a reason we fall in love; it is a sense of weightlessness, a sense of being out of control.  The most confident man can feel inadequate; the most accomplished woman feels insecure. 

You, or I, can’t make someone love us; they must choose to love us. We can make that easy, or we can make that hard; that is our choice. If we genuinely love them, their happiness comes before ours; we would sacrifice ours so that they might have theirs. That’s the paradox of true love; to truly love is to let go. I know that from experience. I’ve had to make that choice.

John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

CAMELIA TOLSON

Accepting that we can only control ourselves and not others present us with another choice: taking the risk to love again. As we mature, we go through many cycles of love and loss. Some of those cycles teach us tough lessons about choices; others teach us lessons about life. Each of those lessons leaves a scar on our hearts. I have a special scar; Camelia (Isky) Tolsen. The Isky nickname comes from Iskenderian Camshafts – Camshaft – Cam. Guy thing. She had a twin sister, Pam, who shared a made-up language that they talked to each other when the comments were private. It was fun to watch them do it, even when it was about me. Her parents had the audacity to pack up and moved to Texas around 1966. I remember the year because it was the year of my first heartbreak. It has been over a half-century, and my heart still remembers. Love leaves that type of indentation. It is one of those scratches you can’t buff out; it’s crazy the sadness that my heart can conjure up just thinking about it.

Trust me, that wasn’t the worst; it was just the first. The nasty ones came later in life when I should have known better. I spent most of my life thinking that love was a transaction; you give, you get. It was a commodity you traded on the open market. As I matured, it started to look more like an investment with an expected return. My heart became scared and disfigured, each blemish with its own story.

Proverbs 10:12, “Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.”

THE LESSON

Leo Buscaglia stated it this way “Love is always bestowed as a gift – freely, willingly and without expectation. We don’t love to be loved; we love to love. “

Here’s what I know today; the way I have lived my life has left scars on God’s heart. All the times I have been unfaithful, chasing other idols, thinking there was someone or something better, left scars.  I now understand that I have caused God great pain. But I still receive unconditional love in return. God does not live in the past; that is forgiven, He looks to the future. He loved me even when I didn’t want to love Him. He loves me because He understands why I shy away at times. My goal is to love as God loves; that’s a tall order.

When we live our lives trying to avoid pain by not fully committing to love, we rob God of one of His most precious gifts, not to mention what we do to ourselves. We have a choice to look at our scars and remember the pain we went through to get them, or we can remember the relationships that made them possible; they‘re the ribbons and medals of past skirmishes that show we have lived a life worth living.

1 John 4:8, “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

Choose to love; choose not to look for or expect a return. Revel in the euphoria of love.  Choose not to avoid the joy of loving to avoid the pain of loss. Accept that the greater the passion, the greater the pain. When your heart retches in despair over a lost love, it remembers the great joy that proceeded that pain. Don’t look at it as a transaction or a commodity, but a gift you give yourself.

Erich Fromm said it this way, “Immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’ Mature love says ‘I need you because I love you.

1 Peter 4:8, “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.”

God leaps with joy when we connect the dots. He beams with pride to know we figured out that love is not about getting but giving. And in that giving, we get a gift far beyond our expectations; we get a glimpse of heaven.

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Forgiveness

Psalm 25:6-7, “Lord, remember your great mercy and love. You have shown them to your people for a long time. Don’t remember the sins I committed when I was young. Don’t remember how often I refused to obey you. Remember me because you love me.”

WE HAVE ALL BEEN WOUNDED

When you run into people who create negativity in your life, you can take direct action; you can unfriend them, cancel them, block them, and ignore them. However, you can not run away from yourself; that voice in your head goes everywhere you go. If you allow it, the negativity they created hangs around long after they are gone.

Matthew 18:21-22, “Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”

As hard as it is for me to forgive others for their transgression, it is almost impossible for me to forgive my transgression. Somehow I think mine is worse. I can walk away from others, but I can’t walk away from myself.

Why do I stress this? I let other people’s transgression highjack my life. There comes this tipping point where their offense becomes my obsession. Long after the event, I play it over and over in my mind. I try to figure out why it happened, what was my role? I try to understand where it will lead, how do I handle the next interaction?  And the big one, how do I get it across to them how they made me feel? When I am anxious or angry I can not bear God’s fruit in my life.

HEALING STARTS AT HOME

Before I can truly forgive others, I have to understand and accept my forgiveness. I may not have started the transgression; I may not have contributed in any way, but I have my sin. Offenses happen, and they cause real pain that sometimes takes a long time to go away, sometimes a lifetime.  Although I am not a proponent of today’s victim culture, I do understand that we are all victims at one point or another. Forgiveness isn’t about pretending bad things never happened; it is not about forgetting. It is how do we get through the things that do occur.

Colossians 3:13, “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

“What consumes your mind is what controls your life.” Anonymous

I wish I knew who said this. It is one of those pearls of wisdom that echo over and over throughout my life. It is one of the go-to thoughts that creep into my head when I let others take control of my thoughts. What consumes your mind controls your life. The more you play that record of transgression over and over, the more control it exercises over your life. We need to find a way of playing a different song. I believe the start of that transition is to understand who I am and what God did for me. A friend of mine refers to himself as a scoundrel; that is the perfect description of myself.

Ephesians 4:31-32, “Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as Christ God forgave you.

When I first start absorbing the incredible gift God gave me through His forgiveness of my sin, and I take the time to acknowledge the scoundrel in me, it makes it easier to have compassion for the scoundrel in others. I can’t imagine what my life would look like if God held me accountable for all of my sins. I need God’s forgiveness.

EXTENDING GRACE

Matthew 6: 14-15, “Forgive other people when they sin against you. If you do, your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive the sins of other people, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

Forgiveness is not just something that happens to us; forgiveness flows through us. We forgive so that we may be forgiven. I know this is extremely hard at times. Remember, forgiveness is not forgetting; it is not accepting, it is not acquiescing; it releases us to feel compassion and love again. Forgiveness is putting transgressions behind us and moving forward.

Mark 11:25, “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

Forgiveness is not about them; it is about us. It is about us showing God how much His forgiveness means to us; it means so much we will put other people’s transgressions behind us. What consumes our mind will be the love of Christ; what controls our life will be the love of Christ. 

Ephesians 1:7, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.”

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