As a hawk soars...

2011-08-11T09:43:00.001-04:00

The Cross
Bill Shorey brought a message a few years ago at Christ Community and man oh man, it was powerful. Bill was "on" like I've never seen him. He is an evangelist at heart and today he pulled no punches. The message was on the Cross.

The modern church seems to shy away from the brutal honesty of the Cross. The church avoids the brutality of Christ's death on the Cross and unfortunately, we seem to shy away from the finality of the Cross. The Cross is the one and only and final way to God. God cannot be accessed except through Jesus and the Cross. Period.

As an aside, I was speaking with a lady this week about a retired Pastor here in town. She was saying that he preached the "we're all going to heaven" message his entire life. His funerals were always, "Pete's going to heaven, we all are going." The message of the modern church is more and more politically correct. "God doesn't exclude anyone, the Bible is a pathway to personal prosperity, you too can be successful, you're a winner in God", etc. Hogwash.

God is good and graceful and merciful but there is only one way to Him. Yes, God is love but God hates sin. Over and over in the Bible are stories of God dealing with sin. Adam expelled from the garden. Cain and Abel. Noah and the flood. Sodom. Pharaoh and the wrath of God. God hates sin.

All through the Old Testament, God sets up a system of sacrifices. Lambs, sheep, doves, goats, etc. were given as sacrificial offerings to pay for the sins of the people. God hates sin and He ALWAYS required blood to be shed to pay for sin. Always.

Yet, the church seems to shy away from that. It seems to exclude. It seems to paint the picture of God not loving us. So, we gloss it over and we shy away from it. There is but one way to God and it is through the incarnation and death on the Cross of His one and only Son.

Bill gave an example of a church in New England. The architect built the church and right up front there is a huge Cross. Right down front. A big, huge, very rough, heavy timber Cross. Right there in the middle of the church. Right in the way. When the preacher preaches, the Cross is right in front of him. It is in the way. To listen to the sermon, you have the Cross in between you and the preacher and you have to move your head to see the preacher and he is moving all around to see the people around the Cross. It is in the way. When there are funerals, there is barely any room up front for the casket. The Cross is in the way. There are stories of brides tearing their wedding gowns against the rough hewn timbers of the Cross.

Outside on the lawn of the church there is a large metal Cross. In the winter, the rust runs down the Cross and it quite literally looks like blood. It isn't pretty. It isn't esthetically pleasing. It isn't politically correct. It is the Cross.

See, here's the thing - God isn't trying to win a popularity contest. He isn't trying to please the world. God is just. He has His way. What happened on the Cross was brutal. There is but one way to get to God and it is only by way of the Cross. It isn't by charity. It isn't by being a good person. It isn't by good deeds. One way. The Cross.

Unfortunately, the Cross seems to be in the way for the world. We'd really rather not deal with it -surely, we don't have to talk about sacrifice, blood, torture, separation from God, pain and death. That is just so messy. Surely God is so good and I am good that He won't require me to deal with the Cross.

No my friend just like the Cross in that chapel up north, the Cross is in the way. You can't avoid it. You must deal with it, face it and embrace it.

Soar!

2011-07-05T10:10:00.003-04:00

Why I "shut down" my facebook page...
I have effectively closed my facebook page. I didn't close it entirely - I remain friends with my family and a few pastors I am close with. I enjoy using facebook as a family photo album more than anything else. We can put up pictures of our life and those memories are easily accessible to me via my computer or ipad. So I didn't want to close the account completely but today, I deleted about 350 friends.

I have enjoyed facebook because it enabled me to reconnect with hundreds of people from high school and college that I otherwise probably would never have seen again. That's been very cool and, if managed properly, is very good and valid. Its been neat to see how we've all grown up, caught up on lives and seen their children.

My decision to "privatize" my facebook is a personal choice. In no way, shape or form do I seek to judge anyone else and how they use their facebook.

My first nagging came about a year ago...I just found myself getting tired of it. I began to "manage" my friends - hiding posts from some where I grew tired of their comments (OK - red flag here...that's not good) but not wanting to "de-friend" them less they think I was a jerk (another red flag). But I just kept thinking, "I'm tired of this..."

I have tried to teach my daughters that this cyber world is not "real". Texting and facebook are not "community". Yet for most teenagers, they have come to believe that they simply cannot do without their connection to their world. Their phones are glued to their hands and texts and facebook posts are constantly being checked. Teenagers live their lives through their cell phones. That's not good. That's not healthy. They are addicted to being connected to their world. They begin to think they won't survive this world unless they are totally plugged into it.

I'm not a teenager but that is one protest I personally have with facebook and texting.

But my real issue has been this feeling of creeping into other people's lives. Peering. We open up our homes, our vacations, our events and our lives for the whole world to see. Others peer into our lives. We welcome them in to look at our lives and our families and they can begin to think "they've got life pretty good". Or...we can peer into our friend's lives and see their successes and their beach trips or Italy trips or lake homes and we can begin to think..."They've got life pretty good". Some of that is good. It is right to celebrate other's success and happiness but there is something here that just nags at me. I really can't put my finger on it but it is a new paradigm - this ability to look into our friends daily lives and their daily postings of their trials and success - and for me (and please don't take this in ANY way personally)...but for me, it just has started to trouble me.

It is a well documented fact that facebook has enabled many a marriage to break apart. It provides yet another vehicle to reconnect with former loves or to establish new electronic relationships. Sadly, it is being frequently cited in divorces as a major contributor.

So my nagging feelings have some justification. There are valid reasons to be very careful with this electronic world we live in.

And then there is time. I rarely look at facebook during the day but I'd fallen into the trap of checking it at night. I have an ipad and usually most nights, I have it with me while watching TV and I'll spend 10-15 minutes scrolling through facebook. Most Saturday mornings drinking coffee, I'll scroll through it. Time. I'm devoting a couple of hours a week...peering, looking and wandering through 350 people's lives. That is -- for me -- a lot of wasted time.

So I've rebooted. Cleared the decks. I'm sure I've offended some people with this. That certainly is not my intention. It's just personal. It's a God-thing for me. He very clearly gave me this direction (God does not particularly like our devotion to our worldly gods). I woke up Sunday morning knowing what I needed to do and I followed.

2011-05-26T14:24:00.003-04:00

Brookstone School Baccalaureate address May 22, 2011
I offer these to you as a father – advice I’d want my daughter to hear if I couldn’t be here to give it. Fortunately, I am here and so is she. So I give this advice to Hannah but also to you – many of you I love like my own sons and daughters…

1. The book on you is already being written.
If I was from Chicago and came down here, I could find out a lot about you. I could talk to your teachers, your coaches, your friends and I could look at your facebook page and figure out what kind of person you are. Are you trustworthy? Are you willing to work hard? Are your priorities in the right place? Will you put others ahead of yourself?

So don’t kid yourselves – people that matter are already forming their opinions of you. What you do does matter. All of this will start to matter even more as you get into college and start thinking about the job market.

Frame your story for where you want to be in five years. Take control of your story and how you want it to look. Don’t let others. Know your road map. Know where you are going. Know what you stand for.

2. Path principle
So how do you frame your story? It is the Path Principle. The Path Principle is simply this – Direction, not intention, determines your destination. The direction you are heading, not your intentions, will determine where you end up. It isn’t what you dream for or hope for or even pray for – it is the path you choose that will determine your destination. You can dream, hope, plan and pray for your trip to the beach but if you get on the highway and go north, you won’t get to the beach.

So as you enter college, know where you’re going. Know your objective. Write down where you want to be in five years. Develop your business plan and sharpen your focus on that goal. If you are intently focused on where you want to be at the end of college it will help you stay out of a whole lot of trouble along the way. And you will be tempted. Many things will come along to try to pull you off your path. It is sort of like trying to get into shape or training to run in a marathon. If you know what your path is and what you goals are, you can say “no” to a lot of temptations.

3. 4 years is going to go by in the blink of an eye.
You’ve waited and waited for college to arrive so you can go away and “be free”. As long as you’ve waited, you’re going to be amazed at how quickly it will pass. Five years from now many of you will be working in full-time jobs and a few of you will be married. College will be over and you will think “Wait…what just happened?”

4. Resist the temptation to take short-cuts
There is no human invention quite as beneficial as hard work. Don’t make compromises in your integrity to advance. Do the hard work to get ahead. The desire to work hard, the ability to work hard and willingness to do hard things are all incredibly valuable assets. Hard work will take you a lot farther in life than a 4.0 GPA.

5. Your competition is about to ramp up significantly
For some of you the work at Brookstone has been a fairly low bar to get over…you’re just that smart. College will not be a low bar. I see where some of you are going – Davidson, North Carolina, Tulane, the Georgia honors program, Furman, Georgia Tech and Wake Forest – but for all of you regardless of the school you’re attending, you are jumping into the pool with the best of the best, some of the very brightest kids in our nation and in the world. Your competition this fall will be awake, alert and razor focused. They are also very driven and very hungry. Your incoming competition won’t view college as a country club or a frat party. They view it as a catapult to launch them into high paying, successful careers. They are going to hit the ground running. Will you?

6. You’ll never quit learning
Learning doesn’t end four years from now when you graduate from college. Learning is a lifelong process. 25 years after graduating from college, I am learning every single day. I am reading, studying and talking to others to gain knowledge and insights. You’ll never quit learning. Embrace it. Welcome it. College is the training ground to equip you for a lifetime of learning.

If you will allow me, I’d like to share three truths with you…

1. You are a Masterpiece
First of all, I want to tell you that you are a Masterpiece…a work of art. I know almost each and every one of you. As much as some of you have tried to blend into the crowd and look and be like your peers, each one of you is different. God has blessed each of you with unique talents and abilities. Your parents have nurtured those gifts along. You have worked hard in many cases to develop and build on your talents. When I see where many of you are going to college, as I’ve watched you excel in athletics, when I marveled at your talents in The Music Man, when I heard all of your accomplishments at Senior awards the other day – it is just crystal clear to me….this is a class of superstars, this is a class full of priceless works of art.

I personally believe God dreamed each one of you up like a painting. He started with a blank canvas and crafted you out of nothingness. I also personally believe that a God that would craft each of you like a work of art…cares. He isn’t distant, far off and removed. He is present and he cares. He dreams great dreams for you. To the creator, you truly are a priceless work of art.

And so…you matter. You are very important. Protect yourself. Don’t let the world tear you down and convince you that you don’t matter. You do.

2. You have been blessed
You are incredibly blessed. You are healthy, smart and talented. You were born in America. You don’t lack for food, clean water, medical care or clothing. Right there, you have a leg up on about 98% of the world’s population.

Brookstone….I know you can’t wait to get out of here but let me tell you, you have been incredibly blessed by this place. You’ll go to college with kids from Montgomery Academy, Savannah Country Day, Stratford Academy, Athens Academy, Pace Academy, etc. and none of them hold a candle to Brookstone. I think we take a lot for granted. The new Upper School, the Quadrangle, the ball fields and athletic facilities, the creek, the 40 acres of woods surrounding the school, the Chapel, the Sam Pate outdoor classroom – this is a special, special place. In today’s dollars, more than $75 million has been invested to make Brookstone the physical beauty it is.

When I went to Brookstone 30+ years ago, almost none of this was here. Bradley Park Drive was mostly woods. The only other structure on this road was the bowling alley. There was no Chick-Fil-a, Starbucks, Target or Panera Bread just right down the road from here for us to enjoy. There was no soccer field, no Turner Center, no softball field, no Quadrangle, there were no mini-buses, technology, smart boards or snack bar and y’all remember what the old Upper School looked like.

And your teachers…you’ve had some incredible teachers. You’ve had teachers that have poured their lives into you. Almost every one of you have had a transformational teacher – a teacher who was there working with you when the light bulb came on and you “got it”. It may have been Mrs. Pate or Dr. Byrd or Dr. East or Mrs. Jarrell or Mrs. Flournoy but it also may have been Mrs. Krause in 4-K or Mrs. Kennedy in 3rd grade or Mrs. Yancey in Middle School. But somewhere along the way each one of you’ve have had a teacher that has blessed you.

Your parents – if you’ve been here all 12+ years – they’ve invested more than $125,000 to get you a Brookstone education. $125,000 is a lot of money. There are thousands of families in Columbus where $125,000 given to them would absolutely change their lives. That much money could help a family buy a home or pay their home off. It could send a kid to college that otherwise would have no chance to go. It’s a lot of money and it has been poured into you.

And stuff – you all have ipods, ipads, iphones, itouches. You have nice clothes and drive really nice cars. You live in nice homes and take nice vacations.

You should not be ashamed of this but you should realize you are incredibly blessed.

For those of you that attended the FCA this spring where Coach McGee from Carver spoke to us you will remember that he said 90% of the kids at Carver are on the food program – they eat breakfast and lunch at the school and for most of them, lunch is their last meal of the day. He has football players who eat lunch, finish school, lift weights and practice and go home to no dinner. Their families cannot afford to feed them. That isn’t some far off, distant third world country – that is right here in Columbus, Georgia.

There are many things that you and I take for granted.

1 billion people on this planet live on less than $1 a day. 2 billion live on less than $2 a day. For the cost of an order of fries down Bradley Park Drive at Chick-Fil-a or a Starbucks coffee…you could feed a person for a day.

So I want you to see that you are incredibly blessed. I want you to acknowledge that teacher that made an impact on your life. Go find them tonight at Graduation and look them in the eye and just thank them. Find that coach that worked hard teaching you how to succeed at your position and was there to listen to you when you needed to talk. Find them and thank them.

Thank your parents or in some cases, grandparents. They have made huge sacrifices to get you here and are about to embark on another enormous sacrifice to send you to college.

Many have poured much sacrifice into helping you succeed. Realize you are blessed. Don’t take any of this for granted.

So you have all of this blessing – what are you going to do with it? The Bible teaches that “To whom much is given, much will be required.” There are 2 billion people on this earth living on $2 a day. Will you hoard this blessing you’ve been given and keep it to only advance yourself –- or -- will you take this blessing and leverage it to improve the lives of others?

Said another way – as a father to his children – I want you to wake up to the “bigger picture” … that life isn’t all about what we can take from it but rather what we can give back to others.

So my charge to you today is a question …
What are you going to do with this blessing?

God has dreamed you up with unique talents and abilities. The community has sacrificed to build you and equip this great school. Teachers and coaches have poured their talent and hearts into you. Your parents have made great sacrifices to give you the Brookstone education. You’re about to go off to world class universities. You are in the top 1-2% of all people on this planet. You’ve been equipped. What now? What are you doing to do with this blessing?

I will leave you with this last truth – and that is -- that optimism is a great asset to possess. I want you to be optimistic.
I want you to be…

So strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.

To see the glass as being ½ full and never ½ empty.

Be the one that sees the opportunity rather than the one that points out the problem.

Think only of the best.
Work only for the best.
Expect only the best.

Be just as enthusiastic about the success of others and you are about your own success.

Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.

Spend so much time reaching to improve that you have no time to criticize others.

Be too large for worry.
Be too noble for anger.
Be too strong for fear.

This is my favorite -- The pessimist sees things as they are and asks “why?” while…

The optimist dreams things that never were and asks “why not?”

We want you to be the kind of people that dream things that never were and asks “why not?”

You’ve been equipped.
You’ve been blessed.
You’re ready.
Now go and seize the day.

Thank you very much for giving me this one last chance to speak to each of you.

2011-02-23T14:07:00.006-05:00

The Path Principle
Andy Stanley teaches this principle and I want to share it with you. It is so incredibly valuable and is valid for believers and non-believers alike but is particularly powerful for believers. It is common sense and yet, it trips up so many of us. It is the Path Principle - "Direction, not intention, determines destination." Say it again...Direction, not intention, determines our destination.

If you want to go to Destin this weekend, you can pack your swim suit, suntan lotion, load up your car, fill it up and pray for travel mercies. But if you cross over into Alabama on the North Bypass and come to US 280 and go right instead of left, you will NEVER get to Florida. You'll get to Birmingham. As nice as Birmingham is, it isn't the beach. You intended to go to the beach, you planned to go and you even prayed about going but your direction took you north instead of south.

We make this mistake in life. We say we want to marry a nice Christian girl. We'll date her, go to church with her and pray with her and it'll be great. That's my intention but that isn't the kind of girl I am spending my time with. No, I'm partying at the Frat house with the wild party girls and my actual screening mechanism for choosing girls is "If she is hot, I'm going after her...". Or - shoe on the other foot - girls who go off to college seeking "nice, Christian boys" probably aren't going to find them partying at the Sigma Chi house on Friday night. And so then you say, "How did I end up here?" when the boy you are dating is out partying with his friends or hooking up with random girls behind your back. Well, I know how that happened...

Direction - not intention - determines our destination. What you said you wanted is different from the path you chose.

Some will say "I want to get into a real good school so I can have lots of opportunities" but their actual path is vastly different when it comes to the hard work and studying that it takes to get there. You're not going to Vanderbilt if you're not willing to work very hard to get there. You can intend it and pray about it but it won't happen unless you get on the right path.

What of the kid that wants to be a great athlete? Will he make the choices that get him there - working out, practicing, practicing, practicing - or will he choose to just sit back and not do the hard work and hope the coach puts him in?

Gary Player was one of the great golfers of all time. At a tournament, he hit his shot off the first tee and heard a spectator say, "Man, I'd give anything to hit a golf ball like that." On the next hole, the same thing happened. After a few more holes of hearing this, Player turned on his toes following a great shot and that same comment and approached the spectator. He looked him in the eye and said, "You wouldn't give anything to hit the ball like me because if you would, you would have gotten up every morning at 5:30am to go to the range. And you would have hit 1,000 balls until your hands started to swell and bleed. You would have left the range and gone into the clubhouse to soak your hands in ice and to wipe off the blood and you would have bandaged your hands and headed back out to hit 1,000 more. And you would have done this day after day...every day. But you didn't do this. I did and that is why I hit the ball this way and why you won't "give anything" to be able to hit the ball like me."

It is not what you dream for...
It is not what you hope for...
It is not even what you pray for...

It is the path that you choose.

We do this with our money. We think God is calling us to be debt free and we say we are going to down size and learn to do without so we can be free of debt and yet month after month, we spend more than we bring in. Saying "God is leading us to be debt free" sounds good but for many of us, we are not on the debt-free path. We're not willing to do the hard things now to get to the freedom down the road. We just talk about it, wish for it but we're not willing to do the work to get there.

The path always wins...100% of the time.

So why do we choose the wrong path? If you can understand this, it will save you a whole lot of pain in the years to come.

Things will come along in life that will capture our attention - some of them good, some of them really bad.

Have you ever had a girl come along and your head turns? You know you're not supposed to look...but you look. As a teenager in this situation your Dad says, "Son...she's trouble" and you said... "I know she is...I'm going to prove it." Or for teenage girls, that guy grabs her attention and her Mama says, "You don't need to be going out with boys like that..." Captured. The emails start flying. The text messages. We get consumed with this person. We spend crazy money and crazy time pursuing them. We disconnect from everything else. Parents wonder what on earth you could be doing spending all of your time obsessing over this boy or girl. School work falls off, etc.

Or for us men - another woman comes along. We know we shouldn't cross some lines and we know we should stay on our path but she just turns our head and changes our direction. Alcohol does this. Porn does this. Drugs. Possessions - i.e. I know we need to get out of debt but I sure do want that new boat or Plasma TV.

You know. You've been there. You know what it is like to be "captured" with something that you know will pull you off the path you are on.

How many of us would admit now that some of the people or things or vices we've turned our entire lives towards are now - in hindsight - obviously mistakes? How many teenage girls have given it all to a boy that she just knew was never going to do her wrong only to find out a short while later...he did? How many married men have turned away to another women lured by the short-term and now see the huge long-term implications and wreckage?

We know that when our attention is captured that it completely steers our entire lives in a completely different direction.

Proverbs 7 is a great picture of this. Solomon sits in a window and sees a young man walking up the street. A woman comes out and calls to him. He turns up her street and heads towards her. Her husband is away and she seductively lures him into her bed. He thinks it is all about him. "She wants me." He hears the song Born to be wild playing in his head as he struts towards her. Solomon hears the soundtrack to Jaws playing. He's toast and he hasn't a clue.

Or what of David? Great King David - "a man after God's own heart" - a man who sought God's direction. God prospered David, expanded his kingdom and honored his faithfulness. And then...he saw Bathsheba. He knew the path to stay on...but he just wanted her. He knew it was wrong and tried to cover it up. But he "just wanted that". And as a result, God brought death upon his house.

It is a great picture of allowing things to capture our attention and turn us off the path we know we are supposed to be on.

If a good athlete wants to be a great one, he's going to have to bust his butt and pass on some "opportunities" offered up by his buddies. Drinking beer and stuffing pizza will not reap the rewards that running sprints and lifting weights will bring him. He can say he wants it but if he's on the wrong path, he will never get there.

Girls (I have teenage daughters) aren't going to stay pure hanging out and partying with the wild crowd. I can just about guarantee it. If they want to be pure, if they want to stay on God's path, they are going to have to stay away from some of their peers.

I cannot sit and wish that I was debt free and still keep spending money the way I do. The math just does not work.

If I am overweight and out of shape I can talk all I want about desiring to get healthy but it won't happen unless I exercise 5-6 days a week and eat right. Period. It just won't happen by talking about it. I've got to do it and stay focused on the end goal and avoid the distractions that come along to my goal.

What path are you on?
What have you been saying you want to do but your present actions offer you almost no way to get there?
Where do you want to be in 5 years? Write it down.
What kind of life do you aspire to? Where is God leading you?

Get on that path and focus your attentions on God and His direction and be careful - very careful - about the things that will come along to try to capture your attention.

The direction you are heading - not your intentions - will determine where you end up.

Soar!

2011-02-08T17:09:00.005-05:00

The wake of your life

We all have a wake that follows us through life. Oftentimes, we cannot see the wake but it is there. You'll see it in this picture of a 737 on approach. The conditions have to be just right in order to see these wakes and in this picture the temperature and humidity was just right in order to capture the swirling vortex that is a jet wash.

Air traffic controllers know this wake is very dangerous. If you will remember the movie Top Gun, Tom Cruise looses control of his F-14 Tomcat because he got too close to another F-14 and crossed through his wash. The blast from the jet engine when it blows into the intake of a jet trailing it can shut down that jet's engine. All that air blasting into the intake will literally blow that engine out. So controllers keep a very safe distance between jetliners on approach to an airport so as to keep the planes out of each other's wake. Sometimes this safe distance is as much as 7-8 nautical miles.

We too have wakes trailing us in this life. Often they are not visible. Sometimes they are strong, good wakes. Other times, they are a wake of destruction. My brothers were 5 and 6 years older than me and when I was in middle school, I remember their struggles with peer pressure in high school particularly around athletics. There was a senior who was a good football and basketball player and a leader on both teams. He was also a leader in the school. George Flowers had a great reputation. Parents knew it. He stayed clear of the drinking and partying and stayed true to his beliefs. It was not easy. I can remember George facing some tough struggles from his peers. But as a 6th grader literally looking up to George, he became a role model for me. A road map if you will. I can remember family talks around the dinner table about the issues and about George and how strong he was being. I remember my parents telling my brothers, "Stick with GG (as he was called back then). GG is being strong. People respect him. If you stick with him, you'll be fine."

GG had a wake behind him. A wake of good. He was a trailblazer and a pioneer and he got a few arrows in his butt because he was willing to say "No, I'm not going to do that." But he also made things a LOT easier for my brothers and 5-6 years later...for me. When it was my turn in high school, I could ski in GG's wake. He had proven to me it could be done and I respected him.

Some wakes are not so good. We had a very unfortunate incident last week here. A guy I grew up with and knew pretty well killed another man and ended up taking the police on an 8 hour manhunt through the woods. He eventually turned the gun on himself. He was exceptionally bright and a gifted trial lawyer but he also had some very bad personal problems and unfortunately they got the best of him. His marriage fell apart and his wife left him.

Tragically, he killed another man -- the father of a 14 year old girl. He left behind three sons. All of these kids now are left wondering what happened to their fathers. He left behind a huge wake of destruction.

I have another friend of mine that I attended high school with. He got mixed up into too much drinking and drugs in high school. He was cool back then. When there was a party, he was always there. To some, it was funny back then. It was cool. But he never grew out of that phase and kept partying through college and into adulthood. Very sadly, he became an addict and ended up taking his own life a few years ago leaving behind a child.

That's the thing about addiction...for some of us, it gets its teeth into us and we can't simply choose to stop. Look at Charlie Sheen or Lindsey Lohan. What started out as cool teenage partying and ramped up into even cooler heavy drug use became a toxic addiction and master of their lives. Charlie Sheen is the highest paid TV sitcom actor playing a drunken sex addict. It is a true picture of his real life.

That's the thing about Satan. He doesn't play fair. He lies to us and tells us the partying and booze and pot and cocaine and sex is all just about having fun and blowing off a little steam. There is nothing permanent about it. There is no cost it is just a bunch of high school buddies blowing it out on a Friday night. Sex is the same way...there is no cost, it just feels good and no one is getting hurt. Just do it because everyone else is...but there is no "permanent" cost to it.

These are lies straight out of the gates of hell.

The Bible says Satan is the father of all lies. He is a seductress tempting us with these things and telling us we can stop whenever we want. And yet, addiction recovery is a multi-billion industry in America. For many of us...we simply cannot stop.

And so we have this choice, what kind of wake do I want to leave behind me as a 10th grader or senior in high school? We have kids in the 2nd grade looking at us. Little girls who tell their Moms that they want to be a cheerleader just like _____ or the 5th grader who looks at the running back and says, "I'm going to be just like him when I'm in high school."

If those kids could see what we do on Friday nights after the game.....would you be proud of it? And that's just the thing, they are watching us. They are looking for the kind of wake we leave behind. Like it or not, you're a role model.
God offers us relief from the crushing assualt from Satan. There is a better way. Jesus came (John 10:10) that we might have life and an abundant life at that. My role model George had an abundant life in high school. He was a great football player and basketball player. He had a lot of fun and he was a leader but he didn't sink into the muck and crap. He stayed above it and cleared a path for a lot of us to follow.

Jesus didn't come to condemn you. He came to liberate you. He came to free you from the bondage of sin and that lifestyle. While that lifestyle looks fun and promising it is really death. Jesus offers life. He died for us that we might be willing to die to self. That we might want to give up that way of life and die to that and stand the ridicule that might follow. He was willing to die for you to take that sin and bury it on the Cross. All you have to do is invite Him into your heart and ask Him to takeover and be the Lord of your life. Acknowledge your weakness, acknowledge your temptations, admit your failings (we all have them)...surrender your pride and ego and let Jesus in to Quarterback your life.

What kind of wake do you want to leave behind?

Soar!

2011-01-05T19:43:00.002-05:00

John 3:16
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

For God (The greatest lover)

So loved (The greatest degree)

The world (The greatest number)

That he gave (The greatest possible act)

His only begotten son (The greatest gift)

That whosoever (The greatest invitation)

Believeth (The greatest simplicity)

In Him (The greatest person)

Shall not perish (The greatest deliverance)

But (The greatest difference)

Have (The greatest certainty)

Everlasting life (The greatest possession)

It is that simple. Soar!

2010-12-04T01:22:00.003-05:00

Radical
I have just finished reading the book Radical by David Platt, pastor of Brook Hills Church in Birmingham. I had breakfast Friday morning with my pastor and we shared our hearts - he shared why he's been in a bit of a funk over the past few months and what God was stirring in him. He was sort of struggling with how to even articulate his thoughts with me. Much of what stirs Keith has been stirring in me for some time and I too haven't been able to put my arms around all I feel God is doing. So I shared a lot of what I got out of this book and it was exactly the things that were stirring in Keith. He's called a meeting of the Board of the church for a day of retreat to dig into this. God is calling Christ Community to "Break through". Break through to the other side and to "more". A deeper, more passionate, more devoted walk with God. To get there, we're going to have to tear down some walls. Some strongholds (personally and corporately) need to be broken. Families need to be fixed. Finances need to be fixed. Freedom from bondage needs to take place.

I can't sleep and it is 1:30 on Saturday morning (now its 2:45). I need the sleep but this is moving me and I need to get it down. These are some of the things I am wrestling with and then some comments from the book....

The church is under attack. I've been able to share a few times with the men in our church and we've talked about some of this. Marriages in our church are in trouble. Marriage all over America is under attack. Satan's attempted "death blow" to the church is taking place in our homes. If Christian marriages fail or are full of contempt or seething anger, our witnesses fall apart.

Money is a huge issue. We are a nation of consumers and consumerism has invaded God's church. Joel Osteen tells us that God wants to prosper us financially - that Jesus' death was about lifting you and I out of mediocrity - that "because of the price He paid, we have a right to live in total victory not just a good family, good job and good health but victory over our finances as well. He has paid the price that we may be totally free...free from poverty and lack..." God's church is consumed with consumerism. The "American dream" is "God's dream". Really? Is that really why God gave up his Son to suffer a horrific death...so I can be wealthy?

Manhood is under attack in the church. I've written about this numerous times but we have a generation of men in their 30's and 40's that are ill-equipped to lead their homes as a Christian. In many cases, their wives have stepped up into that void and not only do these women work in corporate jobs, they serve on local boards, lead the PTA, attend three bible studies a week and "know" the bible a lot better than their husbands. And so what does the man do? Shrink back.

This isn't politically correct but it has been on my heart for years - we have a generation of young black men in America and especially in the South who have no future. They are aimless. They don't stand a chance. They have no hope. The church has done a poor job of making our own backyard a mission field.

Lastly, this notion of "fully alive" or in John 10:10 that "He came to give us abundant life". It is one thing to accept Christ but something quite different to be radically alive in our walk with Christ. To be completely "sold out" on Jesus. To not fear the condemnation from our father or brother or wife or co-worker if we just totally throw ourselves into Jesus. To be willing to spend 5 hours on a Friday night in prayer and the Word. To be willing to sell everything we have and give up the "American dream" to pursue and follow God wherever He may lead us. A guy told me one time that instead of practicing a lucrative medical practice, he chose to give away his medical talents. He opened a free medical practice in Augusta. People told him he was crazy. His father is a successful real estate developer. He was raised in a "money" family. His uncle is a local physician. He could have just fallen into line and had the big house, beach place and boat. People told him "you'll be poor" and his answer always has been "Yeah, only for about 80 years and in the framework of eternity, that's nothing."

As David Platt says, "Am I willing to hear the Word...even if it convicts me. Am I willing to obey the Word...even if it costs me?"

So these things have been stirring in me - some of them connected and some of them not and I picked up the book Radical. Wow. Oh my.

"It is entirely possible that he will tell us to sell everything we have and give it to the poor. But we don't want to believe it. We are afraid of what it might mean for our lives. So we rationalize these passages away. "Jesus wouldn't really tell us to not bury our father or say good-bye to our family (Abraham). Jesus didn't literally mean to sell all we have and give it to the poor. What Jesus really meant was....And this is where we need to pause. Because we are starting to redefine Christianity. We are giving in to the dangerous temptation to take the Jesus of the Bible and twist him into a version of Jesus we are more comfortable with. A nice, middle-class, American Jesus. A Jesus who doesn't mind materialism and who would never call us to give away all that we have. A Jesus who is fine with nominal devotion that does not infringe on our comforts, because, after all, he loves us just the way we are."

Oh my.

He then talks about a trip he took to Hyderabad, India. He says that Bonhoeffer said "the first call every Christian experiences is the call to abandon the attachments of this world" and that as we spend our time pursuing the American dream, literally billions of people will remain in the dark to the Gospel. On a hill in Hyderabad, "God gripped my heart and flooded my mind with two resounding words, "Wake up". Wake up and realize that there are infinitely more important things in your life than football and your 401(k). Wake up and realize there are real battles to be fought, so different from the superficial, meaningless battles you focus on. Wake up to the countless multitudes who are destined for a Christ-less eternity."

Yes.

He goes on and talks about his experiences with the underground churches in China and in Muslim controlled nations -- people that sneak out together early in the morning to worship God in secret. 60 people crammed in a room with a light and their Bibles. No plasma TV's on the wall, no cushioned seats, no praise band, no cool video clips to sell the point of the message, no time limit so we can get to the club by 12:30 for lunch -- just people starving for God's Word. People so hungry, they will meet for 3-4 hours to just read the Bible and pray. "I want to know him. I want to experience him. I want to be a part of a people who delight in him like the Asians who have nothing but him. And I want to be a part of a people who are risking it all for him."

That taste. Oh, to have a taste of that in America where we care more about how comfortable the chairs are in church -- or -- we complain that the nursery workers who tend to our kids for an hour aren't organized like we think they should be. I too hunger for that passion. I crave an abundant, abandoning faith. I crave being in places where God has to show up. I'm sick of the prosperity/comfort Christianity. I want to be uncomfortable. I want risk in my faith.

I'll end this long post with this last image he talked about. I used this Friday with the FCA kids. We all stand alone on a beach with a wall of water 1,000 feet high coming at us 100 miles per hour. That water is our sin. We own it. No one helped us get it. It's ours. And we can't run from it. We stand alone on that beach with no one to turn to. As we stand there that crushing wall of sin comes at us like a freight train. We can't outrun it. Our time is up. We must face and own our sin. In that moment, we don't just "accept" Jesus. Jesus doesn't need me to accept him. He isn't a facebook friend I decide to add after an emotional weekend retreat and then I go back to my nice, comfortable, American consumerism life. No, in that moment, I BEG for a Savior. I cry out. I fall to my needs at the horror of my life's work and the depravity of my soul. Without a Savior, I'm doomed.

And Jesus takes that wall of water and we are lifted up presented to God in Christ's glory -- none of our own doing. In that, we praise him, "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty. The one that is and is to come. With all creation I sing, praise to the King of Kings, you are my everything and I will adore you."

How on earth we've taken that picture of salvation and turned that into a "Jesus wants to make me rich" theology is beyond me. In the context of that wall of water crushing down on me and my salvation through Christ, my 401(k) no longer matters. 1 billion people on this earth have not heard the name of Jesus. That matters. The Gospel needs to be shared and Jesus doesn't do it by himself. We came to Christ through others who shared their faith with us. So too for us...we are to go. Go share the Gospel to all corners of this earth. And if that means we "give up" all that is the American dream...so be it. Go. He commands...Go.

Soar!

2010-12-01T17:03:00.004-05:00

How good is good enough?
(from a sermon by Andy Stanley)
Surely there is more than one way to get to Heaven. Jesus said the only way to the Father was through the Son. But surely, there must be more than one way.

Oprah says there is. She says that in our goodness we can all “get there” and while one might call it “God” the next might call it “the light” but either way, we can all get there in any way we choose through our “loving, kindness and generosity”

What idea supports this belief that “good” people go to heaven?
Good Buddhists, good Muslims, good Jews – the common denominator is not our belief system or how we pray or worship…it is that we are good people.

Good dad, good person doing good deeds.

We like this way of thinking. Why? Because we’re all good.
1. It is a fair system – good things happen to good people
2. You’ll make the cut – because after all, you’re good.
3. This system motivates you to be good
4. It is a very consistent view of a good God – good God, good Heaven filled with good people. It is logical, practical and makes common sense.

But there some major problems with this system

1. There is no clear standard of good and bad so we can check our progress.
No scale. No test scores. Doesn’t God owe us a clear hurdle to get over? So we pull the bible out “Love your neighbor as yourself, love the Lord, be kind, be obedient..” It’s all in there…I’m living according to the Good book. Good God, good Heaven, good people.

The problem is even if we were all living by our own internal scale and gauge – there is no consensus. We have no earthly idea of what “good” is.

2. We don’t know where the cut is
50% 70% 85% what do I have to score to get in?
When does the counting start? At age 6, 16 or 40?
Do some sins count more against me than others?

Many people think Christianity is unfair because some people won’t hear the Gospel

You know what….so is the “good people system”.

It is like a teacher starting the school year saying, “There is one test at the end of the year and it is pass/fail. You’re dismissed.” And you say, “Wait…are there no notes to take?” Nope. “Is there anything we can read?” Nope. “Is there anyone who has gone before us that we can talk to?” Nope.

“You mean you are going to test us on material you’ve never covered, never explained to us, never taught us and we’re supposed to figure out what it takes to pass?”
Yep. Class dismissed.

The same is true of the “good” system – you have made up the rules. You’ve decided what is good. After all, you are good.

Here is what the Bible says…
“All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Rom 3:23
“There is not one righteous. Not even one.” Rom 3:10
“Therefore no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the Law – rather through the Law, we have become conscious of sin.” Rom 3:20

Oh, OK …”I’ll keep the 10 commandments…that’s good and if I do, I’ll get into Heaven.”
Did you know that in that whole part of the Bible when God gives Moses the 10 Commandments and Moses brings them down to the people…there is not one mention of the word “Heaven” or “Eternal Life”?

Oh, OK….”I’ll just do my best to do what is right. I have this innate sense of what is right. That’s what God will look at.”

Major wars have been fought over what two sides thought was “right”

150 years ago, many Americans thought slavery was “right” and they even would quote scripture to back their argument.

The Nazis thought what they were doing to the Jews was “right”

We chased the Indians off their land because we came here to pursue religious freedom and we thought we were “right”

3. It makes a liar of Jesus
Jesus taught that “bad” people go to Heaven and “good” people don’t. The good people washed a certain way, ate certain foods, kept all the rules. Jesus walked around forgiving the people who didn’t keep the rules.

Jesus taught that “good” people don’t go to Heaven. Forgiven ones do. Go read Luke 23:32-43 -- read how Jesus dealt with the criminal on the cross next to him.

Jesus taught – everyone is welcome, everyone gets in the same way and everyone can meet the requirement. The requirement is John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son and whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Whoever “really tries hard”?
Whoever is “really good”?
Whoever “keeps the 10 commandments”?

NO. Whoever believes in Christ.

Being a Christian is all about placing all my trust in what Christ has already done. He said on the Cross… “It is finished”. It’s done. I can’t add to it. It’s not about me being good.

ALL that is needed has already been done on my behalf.

Christianity isn’t about being good. It is about understanding I am forgiven.

2010-12-01T15:51:00.002-05:00

FCA Talk 6 – Why we need a coach
What if the football coach showed up the first day of summer practice and said "Y'all are talented - you figure it out. We'll be back for the first game and see how you do."

What if the basketball coach took 5 very talented players and just turned them loose? Let them run and gun. What if the coach never came to practice...just gave them what they wanted, let them just play, let them just have fun? No conditioning. No position coaching. No free-throw practices. Just "run and gun boys...you're talented...figure it out"

Would that work? Does it work in life? Is that mindset working in America where we just want to do what makes us feel good. We don't want the consequences...we just want to do things and buy things that make us feel good.

At the start of the movie, Coach Carter takes a part-time, low-paying job coaching the basketball team at his old high school. Of course, the boys are wild, cocky and unruly. Plus, they had a dismal 4 and 22 record!

80% of the boys in that high school wind up in jail. Only 50% graduate and 6% go to college.

Isn’t this a picture of the world and man? Isn’t this a picture of our culture today? We are cocky, wild and unruly. We want what we want. Life is all about what we can grab and our record of success is abysmal. Marriages ending in divorce, addition to cocaine or booze or meth, addiction to sex, a culture drenched in pornography and reckless living. We are a people who know the rules, know what is right/wrong and yet, we still chase after what makes us feel good despite the cost.

Coach Carter sets out to coach the boys = the fundamentals, the plays, the discipline, getting them into shape and he sets strict rules for the team:
• 2.3 GPA minimum (higher than the required 2.0 GPA)
• No skipping of classes
• Must sit in the front row in class
• Must wear jackets and ties on game days.

The natural reaction? Three players walk out of practice.

Isn’t that our reaction to God? He sets some rules for us. He gives us some guidelines for life, i.e. don’t be drunk with wine, don’t cheat on your wife with another woman, don’t covet what your neighbor has. And isn’t our reaction to just walk out on that?

God gives us the Bible (the Word) it is our playbook for life – plays for offense and defense. James 1-2

So Coach Carter puts in these rules, focuses on discipline, focuses on respect and the team starts winning games.

Cruz, who had walked out in the first session, fights like crazy to get back onto the team. And after impressing the Coach, he's allowed back on.

It soon becomes apparent that all that has changed is the boys' ability to win. They taunt opponents, skip class, and get bad grades.

So, the boys start to win because they follow their coach – God starts to bless us. And as soon as we get some blessings, we turn our backs on God and want to Quarterback our lives…we’re in control now God, thanks for getting us here….

So Carter goes crazy himself.
• He locks them out of the gym (in the midst of an undefeated season!)
• He forfeits some games
• He makes the players get tutoring, instead of basketball practice

This leads to Cruz quitting (again). He goes back to dealing drugs full-time. But the untimely death of Cruz' drug-dealing cousin shakes some sense into him. He focuses on basketball full-time, leaving the life of crime behind.

Just like Cruz, we rebel. If we can’t have life the way we want life, we rebel. Depsite all God has done for us in the past, we still take control of the wheel and it takes a brush with death to wake Cruz and us up!

The players' parents want the basketball to continue, and get the school board to approve it!

But the boys prove that they've learned something - they’ve been coached --, by going to basketball practice, AND GETTING TUTORED ON THE BASKETBALL COURT!
A good number of the players ended up going to college - a rarity for kids from their school.

Coach Carter is a great picture of why we need Christ. We cannot do this life alone. If left to our own devices, we'll train-wreck life every single time. We need a coach. We need to surrender our "I know what I'm doing" rebellious attitude and we need to come under His guidance. We need a coach.

2010-12-01T15:47:00.003-05:00

TIME
How much time do you have left?
At 15-17 years old, you don’t think about your death and you shouldn’t.
But at 46, the end starts to be more of a thought.

It seems like just yesterday that I was sitting right where you were and in a flash, 30 years has gone by. In another flash, I’ll be my father’s age – 76 years old with the end very near.

For some of you, you are seniors.
High school never seemed like it would end and in a flash, it has.
Some of you are now thinking about college and you’re scared. But trust me, those 4 years will be gone quickly and in just a few years, you’ll be working.

In a flash = you will be going to work 5 days a week. High school will be a distant memory and college will be over.

Even now as you reflect, doesn’t kindergarten seem a long time ago but yet also something you wish you could go back to? Wasn’t life a heck of a lot easier as a 5 year old?

So we’re going to talk about time and where your story fits into the timeline of life

Moses – born a Hebrew was adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter. He became the Prince of Egypt. He discovered his heritage and killed an Egyptian while defending a Jewish slave. He flees Egypt and goes to the middle of nowhere. He becomes a shepherd. He spends 40 years essentially doing nothing. All day long every day, over and over, tending sheep.

But God has a plan for him and sends him to Egypt to free the Hebrew slaves.

Moses wrote Psalm 90. It gives us a great picture of how we are to view time. We are to view our lives in the context of God.

As a teenager, you think life is all about you. And for the most part, it is. Your whole world tends to revolve around you. You are focused on you. When you walk into a room, you immediately think “What does everyone think of me”.

But at some point in the natural progression of your life, you’ll begin to learn life isn’t all about you and you’ll start to ask “So then, what’s the point?”

As Moses says in this Psalm, “From everlasting to everlasting – it is God”.
God turns people back into dust saying, “Return to dust you mortals”. No matter how cool, how popular, how rich, how famous you are…at the end God will say to you, “Return to dust”

“A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by – or like a watch (3 hour shift) in the night.”

If we think in 3 hour terms while God thinks in 1,000 year terms, how long is your life in God’s perspective.

It’s like the government debt clock showing how fast money is spent.

You work your entire life and save money and when you die, you’re estate owes the government $400,000 in taxes – before your family can even write the check, the government has spent the $400,000

All you’ve worked to accumulate – your whole life’s work – spent in 5 seconds.

That is you life….PFFFHT….gone….in an instant, your life is gone. “Like grass – new in the morning, withered at night.”

The point of all this isn’t “Your life doesn’t matter”, the point is that our life is so common, so quick, snap of a finger and over – that it is futile to try to create something meaningful on your own.

Our only hope for purpose and meaning is to inject what time we do have into something much larger than “my” story – to inject it into what God is doing, his grand scheme.

‎"Seek and you shall find". All other things can be sought and NOT found --money, pleasure, power, fame, health, peace, security or worldly success. Only God is guaranteed.

Man chases after pleasure and money and power and fame and no matter how hard we chase after it, we never reach it. You can never reach pleasure. You can taste it but you can never own it, possess it. Fame and power are always short-lived. Money – you can spend you whole life accumulating money but there is always going to be someone else who has more than you do. You can’t ever “win” the money game. No amount of money ever truly satisfies man.

Have you ever thought, “If only I get that new iPad or that new BMW – if I get that, I’ll be totally happy” How long does that last?

You can chase these things all you want but you will never find happiness in them.

So if we realize that our time is limited and that in reality, we are quite small, it changes the focus of our life.

Look at President Obama – he was elected with this huge mandate. He was hip and cool. He was young and vibrant. He spoke passionately about hope and change. America got drunk on his charisma.

The power of America was shifted to him and he made a fatal error we are all so prone to make, he began to think all of this was about him. His legacy. His mandate to re-arrange society and fix all of our problems. He started to focus not on the economy or on jobs but on passing a piece of landmark legislation – something that he would go down in history for having done. And so they passed healthcare reform.

The American people didn’t like it. 60% of the voters didn’t trust it but he pushed it through. He thought he knew best and knew what we needed and he failed to listen to the people that put in office.

He was handed power and the people trusted him. He took that power for granted and assumed it was all about him and he just suffered the worst Congressional defeat in more than 60 years. He no longer possesses the power he did.

When we make it all about us – what we can accomplish, what awards we can win, what promotions we can get, what attention we gather…it never turns out well. 2 things will always happen – 1) we’ll run out of time before we “get there” and 2) history will never speak highly of us.

This is what happens to most dictators – Kim Jung Ill in Korea, Hitler, Hugo Chavez in Columbia – when it shifts from being about the people to being about their legacy, their place in history, it always goes off course.

Moses – of all people given his role in history – could have turned this thing and made it all about him. After all he parted the Red Sea. But Moses knew…

“Our days may come to be 70-80 years if our strength endures; yet the best of them are trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away. If only we knew the power of your anger! Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.” PS 90:10-11
In other words, if we could truly see the power of God, we’d give him all the honor he is due. Moses got closer to God than anyone ever has and it turned his hair white.

If we could be in God’s presence for just 1 second, we’d drop all this crap of “It’s all about me” and we’d gladly give him our 70-80 years to serve him however he saw fit.

When Moses asked God what the people were to call him, God said, “I am”. When they came to arrest Jesus, they asked him if he was Jesus and he said, “I am” and the Bible says those standing there fell down - overpowered by God’s word.

“Teach us to number our days” PS 90:12
How many days until your birthday? Until Christmas? Until you get to go on that trip or attend that concert? If you have ever counted days, this is what this verse is saying.
We should realize that our days in this life are numbered. There is a beginning and an end.

Embrace these days and know God gave them to you and they aren’t about you. We live to reflect God’s glory….not ours.

There is a grander story at work
I have a small but important role
The story isn’t about me
My glory is quickly going away.
I want to maximize my days in God’s story
It is about you Lord….not me.
Use me.
Show me where to live beyond self – to put down my desires so I can love and help others.

2010-09-30T14:16:00.006-04:00

FCA Talk 4 Sexuality
Remember, we need guardrails around us to protect us from more serious damage. If we ignore the need for guardrails in our lives, odds are we are going to get hurt.

We have a cat that sometimes wanders down to the end of our driveway hunting early in the morning. When I see her down there, I will text my daughter to warn her to drive slower than normal and to be on the lookout for the cat. I do that 1) for the sake of the cat and really more importantly, 2) for my daughter’s protection. I know that if she ran over the cat, it would be significantly impact her. That is a guardrail of sorts – guidance for her protection. Parents put up guardrails up for a reason – they tend to know more than you do. They’ve seen all the tricks and lies. The same is true for God and the Bible.

The Bible is a love letter written to God’s elect. It is a playbook of sorts – some offensive plays (reaching out to others) and defensive plays (things for our protection) – because God knows us and knows what is best for us.

Last week we briefly discussed deer hunting and how big bucks are hard to kill until the rut begins. I read this today on Buckmaster’s website, “Bucks, especially big bucks, are mostly nocturnal; they don’t travel the heavy doe trails; they don’t move around more than they have to; and they stay close to escape routes.” Guardrails.

Today we are going to talk about sex and our need for guardrails.

Sex is beautiful and powerful inside the confines of marriage. God knew what he was doing when he created Eve for Adam. Sex feels good and is, in reality, very much an act of worship. But very, very clearly God created and intended sex to held within the sanctity of marriage.

Sex outside of marriage is outside of God’s design. He knows best. He knows that two virgins uniting together on their wedding night, both inexperienced, both made for one another is the perfect design. They’ll learn together and they’ll bring no baggage nor comparisons to their marriage bed.

Unfortunately, our culture lives, eats and breathes a far different plan for sex and most of us have been seduced by that dark plan.

We talked about this a few sessions ago but our culture is absolutely drenched and saturated in sex. You are being baited and tempted every single day to the edge of the guardrail with sex.

I remind you that Americans spend $12 billion a year, $4,000 a second on pornography. The number one user of porn are boys age 12-17. If the goal is to enter marriage having never been with another woman and to learn sex with our wives, then tell me what porn is going to do a boy? What is he being exposed to? Is it “real”? Is that how sex really is supposed to be? Are women just objects to service men and fulfill the man’s lusts?

Porn is a lie. It isn’t real and every bit of it you watch and participate in stays with you like a cancer. There is a great saying in terms of computers – “Junk in, junk out”. If you program in junk to the computer, it is going to produce junk. The same is true of porn. You are ingesting junk and it will produce junk inside you.

If you are watching porn and think, “It does not matter” – you are kidding yourself and buying the lie.

Remember the Proverbs 7 story of the young man walking down the street and turning up the street toward the married woman waiting for him to seduce him.

That seems fun at the time. Surely it felt good. But it was wrong. She was married and her husband was away. The young man got lured into a trap by pursuing what felt good and soon was in a trap.

The young man was no different than Tiger Woods or Senator John Edwards or Governor Mark Sanford – they pursued what made them feel good and reaped the destruction that followed.

These men needed a guardrail. They needed a brick wall to prevent them from going anywhere near those women.

When it comes to sex, given the culture we live in, we need guardrails and we need those guardrails to be made of the strongest steel on earth.

The Bible is very clear on the topic of sex

Here's an easy verse to remember... "Flee sexual immorality" 1 Corinthians 6:8. Notice it doesn't say "walk away" or "be careful of", it says "Flee" i.e. run, escape, do not go near.

1 Thessalonians 4:3 - "You should avoid sexual immorality. Control your body in a way that is holy and honorable not in passionate lust like the heathens."

Lastly, Matthew 5:1 - "Do not commit adultery. If you look at another woman lustfully you have committed adultery in your heart."

Sex is a huge issue in the Bible and a huge issue in our culture. In 1960, 82% of Americans between the ages of 25-34 were married. Today that number is 44%. Rather than getting married the "culture" teaches us to just live together, have lots of sex and if it doesn't work out at least you haven't wasted getting time married. That is a lie. Remember, Satan is the father of all lies.

The culture is drenched in sex and if you engage now, it will never escape you. You'll never forget these hookups but odds are you might come to really regret them. Therein lies Satan's strategy -- lure you in with "everyone's doing this, it feels good" and then as soon as you do it, he'll pound you for the rest of your life with regret and guilt.

Here are some quotes from kids in the youth ministry I shared with you at our first 5th quarter on sex. If you think there is no pain, no hurt, no hooks in sex, listen to these…

I love him and I like sex but that is not the path I’m supposed to be on with God.

Dealing with pornography is so hard. It is like trying to break out of a cement box with no tools.

I feel like the loss of my virginity was a huge mistake. I am a Christian and I got caught up in the moment. I want to redeem myself and start over.

It’s just a normal thing for someone to ask you to go out and drink/smoke/have sex on the weekends. It is hard to resist the temptation.

I struggle with the loss of my virginity. I feel horrible, angry and disappointed.

I feel all guys see in me is the physical aspect. It makes me as a person feel worthless. I feel used and insignificant.

I feel trapped in sexual sin with my boyfriend. The guilt is overwhelming and I have no idea what to do. I’ve tried to stop but don’t have the courage to tell him no.

Do you see Satan’s strategy in all of this? You go in because you love him or it feels good and as soon as you’re in….you are stuck in a cement box with no tools to get out. You feel like you’ve made a huge mistake and want to start over. You feel horrible and angry. You feel trapped.

There it is….trapped.

What are some guardrails?

1) No porn ever. Period.
Porn is, quite simply, a complete and total LIE. Satan is the "father of all lies" and he is driving the business of porn. Porn is an emotional drug more powerful and more destructive than cocaine. If you are tempted, put a filter on your computer or turn the computer off. Go outside. Go look at the clear blue sky or a night, go look at the stars. There is something about the bigness of the world that kills the smallness of porn. If tempted just walk away.

2) No sleep overs ever. Period.
Never, ever sleep over. This isn’t as much of an issue today but it will be at college. Never put yourself in a situation where you are sleeping in an apartment or dorm room with a member of the opposite sex – even if you are just friends. And don’t say, “You don’t understand our culture, this is what we do”. Nope. That doesn’t make it work.

3) Hands off/no skin.
If you are dating, no touching. Foreplay is designed as the on ramp to sex. God gave us sex and He gave us foreplay. If you think you can start the foreplay without it leading to some form of sex, you’re kidding yourself. Don’t play with fire. Don’t light the match. You’ve got your whole life to enjoy sex with your spouse, don’t start it now.

4) No "soul mates".
If you are a girl, don’t make a boy your soul mate confidante and vice versa. Your confidante should be your parents or a friend not your boyfriend. What we crave in life is intimacy not sex. Opening our heart and our inner most hopes and fears to a member of the other sex opens the door to sex.

You may think these are too extreme. If so, I have three questions for you….

1) What do you want for the person you will eventually marry? Do you want him to have been hooking up with dozens of girls in high school in college? Is your deepest dream that he’d be sexually educated and experienced? Probably not. And so if you don’t want that for your husband, why are you pursuing it?

2) What do you want for your little sister? If you think this is bunk, is all this hooking up what you are eager to see your little sister doing in a few years?

3) Let’s say you think all of this is dumb and you just keep on going. In two years you wake up and think your girlfriend is pregnant or you are totally addicted to porn – that you are in a sexual disaster because you decided to step over the guardrails and foolishly decided to pursue feeling good – what then? Where will you be then? Will you cry out to God? Will you pray, “Lord, if you let her not be pregnant, I promise I’ll never do this again?” Probably. Save yourself that future anguish but putting up the guardrails now. A pastor who has counseled hundreds of people trapped in sexual disasters told me, "I've never had one person - not one person - say to me, "You know, I am so glad I got into sex at an early age, so glad I got hooked on porn, so glad I slept around with all those guys. Never once have I heard someone rejoice in those decisions."

If you establish these guardrails, I can guarantee you that you will not regret it. These really aren’t that extreme in a culture consumed and drunk with sex. The culture is trying to rip you to shreds and tear you apart. These guardrails should be a given for you to protect you from what is on the other side.

Lastly, what if you’ve already crossed over? Is it too late?

No! You can never get your virginity back but you also never have to do any of that again until you are married. We all make mistakes – some are more costly than others. But if you are convicted that this behavior is wrong for you and you are committed to turning a corner, God will forgive you.

In turning away from this past lifestyle, you can actually become a strong witness for the Lord. You can say, “I’ve made huge mistakes – don’t go there” to the younger kids around you.

No matter how bad your sin is, God will forgive if you break and give up and give it over to Him.

2010-09-29T13:39:00.002-04:00

FCA Talk 3
If you’ve been with us – this is the context in which I share this message from the Lord

1. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. You are a masterpiece. God created you and God delights in you. The enemy hates you. He despises you. He is the father of lies. He seeks to steal, kill and destroy you…the masterpiece God created. There is a battle underway for your soul.
2. Because you are God’s masterpiece and He is your father – He has written you this book as a love letter. Its primary message is not damnation and this book is not a rule book. It is a love letter written to His children. It is a playbook like the football players have to play football. There are plays in here for offense and plays in here for defense. This is a living breathing document written to you for a full, abundant life.

At some point in your life you will be around friends moving in a different direction. Your friends can ultimately determine the direction of your life

In Proverbs 13:20 – “Walk with the wise and become wise but the companion of fools suffers harm.” The companion of fools suffers harm.

 Your greatest regrets in life don’t revolve around your enemies but rather your friends

 It is the foolish friend that gets us in a whole lot of trouble. A fool is someone who knows what the truth is…and doesn’t care.

 I can prove this – it isn’t you that your parents lay in bed worrying about….it is the fools you hang out with – whose car you are riding in, whose house you are going to

This verse says that if you hang out with wise people you will become wise – hang out with people making good decisions and you’ll end up making good decisions

The verse does not say “if you hang with a fool you will become a fool” – it says you will be impacted by them

“But I’ll never do the things they do so it won’t impact me.” The Bible says you are wrong.

If you think you are too cool, too connected, too rich that this won’t impact you…you’re wrong

If you have friends who don’t care about their life, don’t care about their reputation…they are not going to care about your life, your reputation

The companion of fools suffers harm.
So we need some guardrails to protect us from the cliffs.

Once you experience going over the guardrail and over the cliff – you’d give anything to go back and do it over again. THAT is what we are trying to avoid.

Here is a critical principle – NO ONE ever sees the accident coming. Accidents just happen. You can’t predict when it will happen. But if you drive 80 mph on a winding road, you greatly increase the odds you’re going to have an accident.

Here are some red warning flags to look out for…

 If you get in a car with a bunch of girls and the driver is texting or singing/dancing and not paying attention….

 If you have never gone to the drinking/drug parties and you go and say “I’ll go but I won’t participate…”

 If you hang out with bad folks with bad reputations and you think, “But I like them and it won’t harm me to be their friend”

 When you start hanging out with people and cannot be yourself – you start to act how you think they expect you to act. They are playing on your insecurity.

 If you feel pressure to compromise a core belief – drinking, sex, drugs, cheating, sneaking out of your house – when these things have never been a temptation and you are suddenly considering them

 Here’s a big one – When you hope the people you care most about….don’t find out where you’ve been. When you start to create an excuse just in case you get caught…

These are warning flags of impending danger and why you need to put some guardrails up.

2010-09-10T09:14:00.003-04:00

FCA Talk 2 - Who are you matters
We had a Son rise service this morning at the Chapel on campus and had about 35 kids there. We talked about how important your internal boundaries are in life. Who you are on the inside will ultimately determine what you'll be.

If you don't think that matters - look no further than this past year with Tiger Woods, Mark Sanford and John Edwards. Here are three attractive, very talented, very powerful men that led dark double lives. As an observer we look at them and say, "If I had all that power or all that money or that beautiful wife and family there is NO way I'd be so reckless with my private life. These guys had it made." They did.

But evidently they didn't have a good grasp on who they were on the inside and where their boundaries were.

The irony with all three of these is that they were incredibly visible, public figures. John Edwards was running for President. Running. Out there campaigning. Visible. The media was all around him 24/7. And he thought he could pull off an affair with a staffer while all this was going on? And oh yeah, by the way, his wife was in the middle of a very public battle with cancer. And you want to say, "Really? Did you really think you could pull that off and keep this thing a secret? He really thought he was that special that the media wouldn't turn on him and crucify him?"

Mark Sanford was the sitting Governor of South Carolina and left his office for 4 days to supposedly hike the Appalachian Trail. He thought he could just walk out of his office and not tell anyone and in reality, he was in Argentina with his girlfriend. Mark Sanford's wife is this very attractive, polished, smart woman and he has three beautiful sons and he walked out on them for what he calls his "soul mate" and he was so blind that he thought he could disappear and no one would discover his secret. And you want to say... "Really? Did you really think that would work?"

And Tiger. Oh Tiger. I lose track of the women - 13...15...18 - how he kept track of them all, no one knows. But here is the best golfer in the history of the game, the most marketed sports figure ever, followed by the media 24/7 and he really thought he could lead this double life and no one would ever know? He really thought he was that "good" to pull this off? Did he really think any of these women were attracted to him? They weren't...it was his money that attracted every single one of them. In using all these women, Tiger was the one really being used. Look at this life Tiger had -- look at his wife! And you want to say, "What are you thinking?" He wasn't.

Here's the thing - the world/culture is baiting us with temptation right up to the edge of the abyss. We are saturated as a culture with sex. Look at the clothes the 12-13 year old girls are being marketed...short, short skirts, low cut tops. Andy Stanley says that 50 years ago, given what the women wore then, that these girls dressed like this would have looked like hookers. And they are our little girls!

They are being baited right up to the line. Look at Victoria's Secret. Look at the movies and TV shows we watch. We're being baited and tempted right up to the line and then when we step over that line and fall, the world throws its hands up and won't touch you. You are suddenly alone. A creep. A pervert. You took the bait and did what the world wanted you to do and yet, you fall all alone. You become toxic. The TV show that tries to catch child molesters...I'm all for that show because it exposes those that prey on young girls. These guys are absolutely tourqued up by pornography and chat room sex and our culture has now created a TV show to bait them into a home to meet a 15 year old girl for wild sex. Hidden cameras capture every moment of the destruction of these men's lives and then the TV guy steps out and says "You are busted". Everything they've hidden is permanently exposed to the world in a flash.

Look at Tiger. He's toxic right now. The companies that fawned all over him and paid him millions to hawk their goods have all abandoned him. When we think of Tiger now we remember his great golf skills but we also can never forget the shame. John Edwards will forever be known as the politician that cheated on his wife while she was battling cancer. Mark Sanford was a rising star in the Republican party and a likely Presidential candidate. Not any more.

The enemy is just trying to trip you up. And 13-14-15-16 year old kids would have the tendency to think "Not me, I'm young, I'm supposed to have fun, none of this stuff has hooks in it." Really?

Americans spend $12 billion a year on pornography. That is $4,000 every second. The number 1 consumer of porn is boys ages 12-17. It matters. You've got to make some choices about who you are on the inside before you can determine what you'll be on the outside. You've got to know your boundaries, what you will do and what you won't do. You've got to know what your non-negotiables are...where your line in the sand is.

This stuff matters. The world is coming at you hard and you are kidding yourself to play dumb and think you don't have to worry about it. You all are so incredibly blessed. You go to this great school. You have this great Chapel. You have world class athletic facilities, parents who give you just about anything you want and many of you drive nicer cars than I do. You are so blessed and if you don't think this stuff matters and you don't have anything to lose, you are kidding yourself.

Some of you have already stumbled and made huge mistakes. There has already been sex and drinking and drugs. Some of you have already decided you hate your body or that you have no friends. You are bound up in guilt over your past failings.

The good news is that in John 10:10 Jesus said "the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy but I have come that they may have abundant life." Life. Life. Freedom. No matter how much you've already screwed up -- and I've screwed up too -- there is freedom, great freedom in Jesus. He'll wipe away every sin, forgive every screw up, wipe away every tear and heal your broken heart.

All you've got to do is ask. Ask Him into your heart to be the Lord of your life. Admit you've made a mess of your life trying to run it yourself. Admit you cannot navigate and negotiate life anymore alone. Admit your weakness. Admit your desire for HIS strength and invite HIM into your life as your Lord.

A grand new chapter begins. Your past is past. The Son has risen!

Soar!

2010-09-07T13:24:00.004-04:00

FCA Talk 1 September 3, 2010
I’ve been praying about this night and asking God what he wants me to tell you.
Over and over the answer is very clear – “Tell them I love them”

“I am not a task master with a bunch of rules of don’t do this, don’t do that
I am not an angry God – I’m not always looking to catch them doing something wrong
I am not a far off, distant, removed “being” who doesn’t care

Tell them I love them. Over and over….I love them.”

The Bible tells us that you were fearfully and wonderfully made (PS 139:14)

I call it a Masterpiece. God took a blank canvas and a palette of colors and dreamed you into being.

He had a vision for each of you. He dreamed you into being. You are different from every other person on earth. 6 billion people and every one of us are unique. You each have your own talents and abilities and your own path.

Each one of you is a work of art…a treasure.

God dreamed you up just like He dreams up each sunrise and sunset. Each one is different than all the others.

You are a dream come true.

But many of you don’t believe it. You life doesn’t feel like a dream, it feels like a nightmare.

You feel like the whole world is against you. You feel alone. You feel betrayed. You feel orphaned. You’ve joined in with the crowd to be accepted and yet, you still feel alone. You’ve done things that you were told would make you feel better and for a time, it does feel better but then you wake up and things don’t feel so good.

So God dreamed you up and considers you a Masterpiece and after all this activity, you feel a piece of trash. There’s a reason…

We have an enemy. Satan is called the “father of lies” in the Bible. John 10:10 says he comes to “steal, kill and destroy but Jesus came that we might have abundant life”.

Satan takes this masterpiece that is your life and whispers into your ear lie upon lie…

Cheat on the test…everyone does this
Lie to your parents….they’ll never know
Sneak out at night….you’ll never get caught
Sleep with this boy…he really does love you and it won’t hurt anything
Watch porn…it can’t hurt anything to watch it
Spread gossip about a friend…after all everyone’s out to get you
When you walk into a room…everyone is looking at you. You are vulnerable.
Don’t be an individual….you’ll stand out too much and people will notice
When you see a wrong, don’t say anything….you don’t want people to think you’re a traitor
Smoke pot…it’s cool to be stoned out of your mind
See just how drunk you can get….it’s a blast to be trashed
Conform to the world….or you’ll be cast out and alone

Another lie of his… “I’m not here…this pain you feel is just life. Life just sucks”
Or even more diabolical… “There is a God and he’s turned his back on you. He’s angry with you.”

What about atheism? We are so smart that we decide there is no God.
Or Deism? We decide there is a God but he isn’t the God of Bible, he’s this being out there that wants me feeling good about myself.

So here we have this Masterpiece, this divine work of art being torn to shreds by Satan’s lies.

The power of sin, the nature of sin is that it entraps you. It starts small and it feels good and then it grows. Before you know it, its hooks are deep inside you. Porn is a classic example. But so is pride, envy, ambition, lust.

Satan pulls all these tricks to separate you from God.

But here’s the good news, Jesus loves you. God isn’t angry with you.

How can God be mad at a Masterpiece he dreamed up? He isn’t.

God wants relationship with you. If you’ve turned away from God in pursuit of the things that make you feel good, God wants you back.

God is pursuing you. He sent His only son here to die for our sins. Jesus was a man – he felt pain, he hurt, he was desperately lonely, he was betrayed by those closest to him, he was humiliated, he was tempted and he was hungry. Anything you feel, Jesus, the Son of God felt.

Through Jesus if you accept him as your Lord, your sin has been dealt with. Psalm 103 says “The Lord has removed it from you as far as the east is from the west”.

As a believer and follower of Jesus, I know I have been bought with a price.
His blood was shed for me.
He came to pay the ransom for me.

So God dreamed you up from nothing.
He has this great life planned for you.
He desires relationship with you.
He is, after all, your creator.

God created this Masterpiece that is you. You were fearfully and wonderfully made.
Satan is trying to destroy you
Jesus comes and is willing to take the bullet destined for you.
God loves you THAT much.

All you have to do is believe. All you have to do is admit you can no longer do life all on your own and confess your need for Jesus to take control of your life.

Let me end with the story of Anna...

Anna and the teenagers
We just came back from a weekend camp at YoungLife's Sharptop Cove in North Georgia.
A lot of families from Columbus were up there to witness the camp.

I love kids - especially small ones - so it was fun for me to engage with these kids during the weekend. One family had three beautiful daughters ages 4-7. The middle child, Anna was especially captivating. I know both sets of grandparents and she has the eyes of one of her grandmothers. She has a sparkling personality and a great smile. I had fun goofing around with Anna during the meals and later ran into her in the YL store. She smiled at me and said "Hey, what are you doing here?" I think she thought I only existed in the dining hall! I told her I was looking for stuff and she said, "I am getting a harmonica" and she showed me her blue harmonica. "Wow" I exclaimed, "That is the coolest harmonica ever" and she smiled and went on her merry little way.

That harmonica never left Anna's side the rest of the weekend. She was always playing it, always smiling. At dinner Saturday night, she was sitting at the table with all the chaos of a YoungLife dinner (300 kids in one very loud room), minding her own business, playing her harmonica. I looked over at her and she saw me, smiled (she always smiles) and kept on playing. I told her that she was so good at the harmonica and she said, "I know my Mommy and Daddy think I should take lessons" and she kept right on playing. The next day at breakfast she was doing the same thing. Her Dad told me that she spent all day Saturday playing the harmonica and that the teenagers were always circled around her. As Anna played, the teenagers followed. When I was talking to her Sunday, I again commented on her harmonica and again told her that she was very good and she replied, "Some people think it is my talent". Big smile followed.

So here is Anna - beautiful, sweet, happy and very much in love with life and her harmonica. Anna is extraordinary. Anna knows she has a "talent" and she is looking for it. Anna knows she has something special to contribute to the world. Contrasting that are the lives of 300 teenagers. They too are extraordinary but very few of them believe it any more. They very much now believe they are just ordinary. Life comes at the teenagers very hard these days - MUCH harder than I think many of us even realize.

There very much is a battle underway for the souls of our children. Anna, at this point is safe and happy but we know what is coming - we can see it in these teenagers. Don't get me wrong - I love teenagers too but you can very visibly see the scars of battle on them already. Many of these kids have already lost their sexual purity. The vast majority has already started drinking and it is shocking how many are already using drugs. Many of them have bought the world's lies. Religion is simply whatever is relevant to them at that moment - "God just wants me to be happy" or "God is seen through my boyfriend or my friends - and I have a lot of friends so God is happy with me". They live their lives in the pursuit of happiness and for many of them, it has taken them into some very dark places.

It was striking to witness the vast gulf between Anna and many of these teenage girls. Anna is free. They are in bondage. Anna pursues happiness in her own little world and it is innocent...as innocent as happiness found in her harmonica. Anna doesn't understand peer pressure. Anna is happy in her own skin. Teenagers pursue happiness by trying to fit in and by doing whatever the crowd tells them is "right". We witnessed a dozen or so girls all showing up on Saturday morning all dressed just alike. It was freezing cold but they all had on shorts and Ugg boots. Someone in that group decided this is what they were going to wear and like robots, the rest followed. Teenagers have very little tolerance for extraordinary. They crave ordinary. They want to all look alike, act alike, dress alike so they can all blend in and numb the pain that can come from standing apart from the crowd. Many will seemingly sell their soul just to fit in - just to be a part of the "in" crowd. And so...they all become ordinary...just like all the rest of the group. When the group starts having sex, you have sex. When the group moves beyond beer to pot, you start smoking pot. You conform or you are cast-out.

The lie is that if you become ordinary that you will fit in. What you find as you become ordinary is that you have stripped away all that God made you to be. You have given up what an Extraordinary Creator used to make you unique so that the other ordinaries will find you pleasing.

I don't write this to judge any of them. I understand. I was there not long ago. But I write this because it stands in such stark contrast to Anna. She is happy being Anna. She thinks she can play the harmonica and she plays her heart out. She doesn't obsess over dressing like her friends or wearing too much make-up or straightening her hair like "everyone else" does. She has no concept of text messaging, cell phones or Facebook. She is just Anna. She is just one very happy kid. It simply breaks your heart to see the damage the world does when it strips the kid out of a young person and makes them look like every other ordinary young person.

Christ came that we might have life and have it to the full (abundantly). He wants us to be extraordinary not ordinary. He wants us to stand apart from the crowd and to be independent of the world. He wants us leaning on Him. He offers us freedom - great freedom - in the extraordinary life while it is just so obvious the bondage - the terrible bondage - of the ordinary life.

Anna and her harmonica have life to the full. It is no wonder Christ said we must come to him as a child. Eyes wide open, trusting, dependent, every day another great adventure to live and a new audience for our harmonica.

God wants that for you. You ARE extraordinary. You ARE a Masterpiece. He does not call you to be ordinary or like the crowd. He made you fearfully and wonderfully. He loves you. He sees you every day. YOU matter to Him. All you have to do is ask Him into your heart to be the Lord of your life.

2010-03-31T11:37:00.003-04:00

God Pursues
I read this yesterday and it just blew me away. I don’t think I’ve ever read this passage but it spoke to me deeply yesterday. The words are just so powerful.

God wrote these words about Moses. When you read them listen for God’s pursuit. Listen to how He describes the love of His people through the actions He took to rescue them. We are on the brink of celebrating God’s most wonderful pursuit of man. Jesus came in as the Great Liberator and the final blow was dealt to Satan two thousand years ago this week on the Cross at Calvary. Death has lost its sting forever over those that believe. For God so loved us He gave His only Son as a ransom.

Read these words very slowly. Let them soak in. Hear God saying these words to you.

Just ask whether such a great thing as this has ever happened or was ever heard of…..

Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and still live?

Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD is God; there is no other besides him.

Out of heaven he let you hear his voice, that he might discipline you. And on earth he let you see his great fire, and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire.

And because he loved your fathers and chose their offspring after them and brought you out of Egypt with his own presence, by his great power, driving out before you nations greater and mightier than yourselves, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is this day, know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.

(Deuteronomy 4:32—39, paragraphing added, bold are my emphasis)

You can hear God telling His children the very lengths and depths He will go to in order that we may see His love and provision for us. No other “god” has fought for his people -- except our God. No other “god” showed up and commanded Pharaoh to “Let MY people go” -- except our God. No other “god” in the desert provided them food and water -- except our God. No other “god” gave a people a land flowing with milk and honey and enabled a victory over much stronger foes – except our God.

When this world beats you down -- when the bills stack up and the pressures of work mount -- when issues arise at home and stress appears in your marriage -- when you begin to think “I’m not sure I can make it” remember these words. Remember that God so loved you He chose you and bought you with His Son’s blood. You are worthy. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. God dreams great dreams for your life. And remember when this world seems to be going to hell (which it is) that God is indeed a mighty warrior. He is going to show back up one day and right all the wrongs, destroy the enemy and rejoice with the Saints. Remember – you are a Saint.

Soar!

2010-03-18T10:32:00.002-04:00

Busyness
The busyness of this life has prevented me from sending you and email for almost two months. That is horrible. I have several things to share but I just have not had the time to sit down and concentrate long enough to get it done.

We have to be so careful with this. This age we live in is all consuming. I think one of Satan’s great tricks is to keep the treadmill of life on earth spinning as fast as he can. He knows that if we are consumed with being busy that we have very little time for silence. Busyness can be a weapon of the enemy – to keep us so busy, so distracted that we cannot see what is truly going on around us nor have time to commune with God.

But as much as busyness can be a tool of the enemy, silence is often a great tool of the Lord. God wants us alone and silent so we can hear him. Do you know just how hard it is to find silence? Even if you go off in the woods, odds are you’ll hear a far off dog barking or be distracted with distant road noise or the chirping of some blue jay. Silence is golden and, therefore, very hard to come by.

I wake up everyday to a clock radio. Once I exit the fog of sleep, my next action is to turn on the TV to see the latest business news (hey, it’s my job is the reasoning here). Shower, shave and get dressed and go eat breakfast with the kids. My first action in the kitchen every morning is to check my phone for overnight emails. Most mornings, the kitchen is filled with the sounds of Fox News. I get in my truck to go to work….XM radio is on. I come to work and I turn on the computers and log in to Bloomberg TV. The phones ring and I am surrounded by noise for the next 10 hours. I come home, visit with Shannon and the girls. We eat dinner, talk and usually watch TV. In the interim and all during the day, my cell phone is at my side and I am frequently texting answers back to clients. The next morning, the cycle starts all over. I go hard from 7am Monday until about 6pm on Friday – that is almost 55 hours a week in motion, on the move, responding to the world, email at my side, taking phone calls, meeting with clients being just….well...busy. 55 hours a week, 51 weeks out of the year. Please don’t hear me boasting in this. There is no manliness in this kind of life. This isn’t a testosterone-laced, type-A, Rambo talking here….this kind of life is sickening and a whole bunch of us are doing it.

It is exhausting just thinking about – just typing it.

In all of this, it is very hard to find silence. I crave it. But I know that silence won’t find me. I have to make time for it and for God. Don’t get me wrong, I talk to God all the time – all during the day – brief little snippets here and there. But what God craves and what I so desperately need is quality, alone time.

We have to be deliberate and purposeful to find the time to be silent. A few years ago I set out to retrench a bit. I gave up the lie that in order to be successful, we had to be really involved in the community… “to give back” is what they all say - almost to try to capture you in some sort of duty... obligation... guilt. And so, I exited all the boards and committees I served on. Just a few weeks ago, I quit the Rotary Club after a decade of “having” to attend something every Wednesday at lunch. My Wednesdays are still too busy but I have removed at least one obstacle in my path towards silence. I now have that hour free of obligation. I’m not sure it will lead to an hour of prayer time with God, but I know I had no chance of silence sitting in the Trade Center every Wednesday at noon with 350 other Rotarians.

The lie of the world is that we have to be successful and that in order to be successful, we have to be busy. The busier we are…the more successful we’ll be. As a pastor once told me, "If you win the rat race, you’re still a rat". Many Christians quote the Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you…plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” and take that verse as a sort of prosperity gospel. In today’s paper there was a story about a local author featuring her new book, Will Jesus buy me a double wide (‘Cause I need more room for my plasma TV). I just bought the book. She made a great point about the prosperity gospel and Jeremiah 29:11. She was asked, “Don’t you believe God wants to bless you?” She replied, “Yes, just not in U.S. currency.”

So we run ourselves to death chasing this prosperity lie – that God wants to bless us in US dollars and we don’t even see that in so doing, we have lost the sound of silence and time alone with the Creator.

May you take this and find some silence. May we be deliberate in prioritizing our lives not around things and status and currency but in the one true thing that lasts – our relationship with God.

Soar!

2010-01-05T11:12:00.002-05:00

The world groans
Romans 8:18-23 - “The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.”

You can feel the tension in his writing – the sufferings of this present time…anxious longing…waiting eagerly…futility…set free from slavery…creation groans…pains of childbirth…adoption…redemption, etc. You can feel the suffering and you can feel the longing for rescue, the pleas to be adopted, redeemed – the desire of a hostage to be set free by the Great Liberator.

I can feel the tension in this present world. The stress of work, money issues, raising children, health concerns are always there but today, we get this sense that the entire world is simply….groaning. Radicals chant in the street “Death to America” and try to blow up planes on Christmas day, Hollywood has lost its freaking mind, the global economy still shudders from last year’s financial earthquake, our culture is obsessed with not offending anyone at the expense of not standing for anything, the Tiger Woods’ debacle – you just feel the whole world is about to come apart. It is.

The entire creation is in bondage to sin and has been for the whole of history. No place on earth escapes this. One day, creation will be set free – no more depression, heartaches, tumors – but for now and until Christ returns, the world will remain in this bondage.

And the thing about it is -- it is fair. John Piper says of this, “God judicially sentenced the world to this suffering for man’s sin. Adam & Eve did it their way – they shook their fist at God and said, 'We’re going to eat what we want to eat and you can just get out of here with all your rules.' We do the same thing only we are more subtle, more sophisticated. This world seethes with rebellion in nice clean suburban form.”

That’s a good description – the world seethes with rebellion. I surround myself with every comfort I can muster. I’ll get the flat panel TV’s, iPod’s, nice cars, nice clothes and I’ll watch what I want to watch on TV and bunker down in entertainment. I’ll save for retirement and sock away money for later years because…I deserve it. We live in the rampant pursuit of “more” out of a sense of deserving it and it is rebellion against God. The stronger I pursue this, the deeper in bondage I sink. I’m guilty of this. Are you?

So it not an overreaction on God’s part for the world to stay this way until Jesus returns. We experience pain and suffering and bondage because that is just how serious sin is.

But there are great promises in this passage as well. After all of this, we will see the end. Glory will be revealed in us. Why do we desire great things? Why are we captivated by canyons, mountains, skyscrapers and huge stadiums, The Lord of the Rings, Gladiator and Braveheart? Why do we aspire to greatness? That drive to great things is glory and it is in us because we are made in the image of God. That inner greatness will be revealed in each of us one day. Glory will come and we will be like bright shining lights. We’re going to be revealed. We will be titans.

We are here in hope. When life feels futile, remember, we are here in hope. Christ became a curse for us and our death and suffering in this life is no longer God punishing us. God has no wrath for me – He is just purifying me. Preparing me. These pains I feel aren’t pains of death – they are birth pains. Those that believe will be born into a new body, new life and new pleasures. Death has no sting. We have nothing to fear.

There is a saying, “He is so heavenly minded, he is no earthly good.” I’m not so sure about that. Given this truth, given this redemption, adoption and transformation…given the glory about to be revealed in each of us shining brighter than the sun….if we really believe this, how can we not be heavenly minded? If we really believe we’ve been bought, we’ve been redeemed, we’ve been adopted into His family and that one day, we’re going to be glorious and healed….how can we NOT be passionate about spreading His gospel?

So as you start this New Year may you do so with a new passion for the lost and a new gratitude for the salvation that is yours only by the Grace of God, the Great Liberator who came to set the hostages free. Freedom! (Thanks to John Piper for much of the material for this note)

Soar!

2009-12-23T14:01:00.001-05:00

The Battle at Christmas
The great, eternal battle was won on the Cross at Calvary. In that moment, the final “outcome” of Earth and Mankind was determined. Death holds no power over any of us who believe and trust in Jesus. But before Calvary, the initial strategic assault was dealt to Satan with the arrival of Jesus as a newborn infant. I like to think of Jesus as the Great Liberator who came into the battle field, fought and liberated those trapped in prisons by the enemy. He parachuted in on Christmas day.

Jesus’ arrival was epic and strategic and it shook the enemy. Be it no surprise to you that Satan likes to show back up this time of year to wreak a little havoc on your life. Sort of like a terrorist attack on the 4th of July – when better to rattle your cage than the week of Christmas?

A pastor once told me, “There is no hard ball like family hard ball”. Christmas brings out the best in us and the worst. The in-laws show up. Our wives go into a complete frenzy cooking, cleaning, shopping and wrapping. Crazy uncles appear and so do rambunctious nephews. Our homes can turn into war zones. Money…oh money…it moves to front and center. Stress levels rise. Noise. Chaos. Confusion. Deep-seated angers can emerge. We are slap worn out. Our defenses are down and we are being assaulted on all sides. You’ve been there. You know.

So this message is focused on being alert to what is going on around you and in your homes. We celebrate the arrival of the Great Liberator this Friday but be forewarned, the enemy is probably going to show up sometime (multiple times?) this week. Be alert.

Pray for your wife. She probably has done or does 90% of the work of Christmas. The burden mostly falls on her. She is beaten down and very vulnerable right now. Pray for her right now – lift her up, do something nice for her. Take the kids out of the house for a few hours. Give her some peace and quiet. You can probably best show her Christ’s love by stepping up right now and taking some of the burden off of her. As an aside, I firmly believe that our wives are very vulnerable. Satan – to get to Adam – went after Eve first. They are under constant assault – to always be “on”, to be skinny, to have good friends, cute clothes, nice things, being a Mom, being a wife – and they need our constant prayers of protection.

Pray for your home. Pray and call down the Angels of Heaven to guard all four corners of your home. Pray for your own heart as you welcome in family. Pray that God would keep you focused on Him and the glorious wonder of what He did two thousand years ago. Pray for your children that they would not get caught up in the “gimme” of worldly Christmas but somehow, in all of this chaos, that they could see Jesus.

Just be alert. You are going into battle in a season that is supposed to be one of great, immeasurable joy.

May God’s grace and mercy be upon each of you.

Soar!

2009-09-07T10:55:00.010-04:00

Going outside
The loud voice intrigued me. It was a booming, hearty voice. Both happy and strong. He was laughing and talking and carrying on a good conversation with someone. I couldn't hear another voice so I decided to venture out of the cabin to see who this mysterious voice belonged to.

I stepped out onto the porch of this wonderful cabin and into the majesty of this farm. It was a cool morning with a gentle breeze and a crystal clear blue sky. It felt like an October morning back home in Georgia but it also had a feeling of spring. I couldn't quite put my finger on it as it seemed like it was the best of both seasons in that one moment. As I had said, the cabin was surrounded by a manicured garden framed by a massive pecan grove. I had only seen it through the windows of the cabin but once I stepped outside into the garden, I was amazed at the depth and breadth of its beauty. I could have spent an entire day right here on this hilltop in this garden. As I was taking in the beauty of this place, the man whose voice I must have heard came around the corner of cabin.

"Mornin'. How'd you sleep?" He was a big black man. He looked a bit like James Earl Jones in the face. He must have been in his 60's but he also had a very youthful face. He was fit and muscular - much more so than most any man I'd ever seen this age. His smile covered his entire face and he walked up and gave me a big hug. "I must have startled you with all my talking and laughing out here. I was talking with God and just enjoying him this morning. I hope I didn't wake you." My mind - for some reason - wasn't full of hundreds of questions which struck me as curious. I didn't need to ask anything of this man rather I was just content to be in this moment. All of this was very surreal to me. The place was perfect, this complete stranger felt like a life-long friend, I had no fear, no hesitation, no doubts...I just was in the moment and was perfectly content to go wherever this story took me.

"Come 'round the corner with me. Let's sit and enjoy the majesty of his day." I followed him around the corner and on the side porch we both slid into big rocking chairs to soak in the west side of the farm. From this side of the cabin, you looked down a hill towards a big lake. The lake was 30-40 acres in size and was framed by some small hills on the other side. I would guess the cabin sat a couple of hundred feet above the lake. Once you got beyond the edge of the pecan grove, there was a huge pasture leading down to the lake. A few hundred feet from the edge of the lake sat a pristine old wooden chapel. The white wood seemed to glow in the morning sun light like a lighthouse beacon guiding the lost home. The pasture was bordered on one side by a huge field of wildflowers and on the other by a tree-lined dirt road leading from the cabin, down past the lake and around the foothills on the other side of the lake. The trees that lined the road were huge, stately maples that canopied the road. I can only imagine the colors they would display in the fall.

"Pretty stunning isn't it?" my new friend said with a hearty laugh and a shake of his head. "This is one of my favorite places around these parts" he continued. "Lots of folks have worked mighty hard to make this place what it is and everyone that works here is ministered to by this land. This is holy ground to all of us. You will be blessed to spend your time here."

He went on to talk to me about the farm. It was a huge place spanning thousands of acres. He couldn't really tell me just how big and that actual size didn't seem to matter to him. It was a working farm with cotton, corn, soybeans and wheat. It also had several small farms within it dedicated to vegetables. "The sisters from town work those vegetable gardens" he explained. "There are a series of vegetable gardens all along these farms surrounding the town. The sisters tend to these gardens as a service to the community. Everything in this community is share and share alike. They'll come out just about every day to tend to your gardens and when it is time for the harvest, the men from round these parts will come help them take in the bounty. There's a farmers market in town and during the harvest, everyone loads up the bounty and wagons it into town to the market. Everyone pitches in to help and usually takes a good many days to get all the crops in, clean them up, get them to market and store up the rest for the off season. It is an amazing them to watch happen and you're going to love seeing it come to pass. It is incredible what folks can do together when they don't care who gets the credit and when they's all servin' and takin' care rather than thinkin' of themselves. Its a hoot. You're going to love it."

He kept on describing the farm to me. I was captivated by him and his words. It was like I was with my father or grandfather and they were telling me this great story from their childhood. I was hanging on every word. "That fish you had for breakfast came out of that pond down there. The farm has a half-dozen of those ponds spread all across it. Streams come down out of the hills to feed the ponds or else they are spring fed. You and the other men will harvest out an amazing crop of fish from those ponds and that is part of the process too. Every few weeks, they harvest up fish and take them into market. Everyone pitches in to help and they clean them up and get them ready to eat or ready to be stored up. The same process works with the deer and turkey around these parts...with the cheese you had for breakfast, with the wine you'll enjoy with dinner tonight. God gave us the land to work and nuture and enjoy. He gives us the incredible bounty and when we all work together and no one is selfish the bounty grows exponentially. Every single soul in these parts are fed by these series of farms that circle the town. No one wants for anything. Everyone works to meet everyone else's needs. You'll be building a barn for a neighbor one week, hanging a fence for a friend the next, shooting quail in the afternoons or a turkey in the morning and whatever you harvest, goes into the community at large. It is amazing how it works and you will blessed in ways you've never experienced."

more to come....(Soar!)

2009-07-05T20:21:00.004-04:00

Chapter 1
I heard a voice call my name. It sounded like my wife. She wasn't in a panic but she clearly called out to me. But my mind was distracted from her voice for some reason. A calm came over me. I was still asleep but it the most peaceful, deep, relaxing, calming sleep I'd ever experienced. My mind bounced back to my wife wondering if it really was her and if it was, why I wasn't worried. At other times, if she called me out of a deep sleep, there would be something to worry about - a sick child, a fire or a raging thunderstorm. But this time was different and as perplexed as I was about it, I also was drifting off to another realm. I started to wonder if I was in surgery and under the effects of the anesthesia as my mind drifted from the reality of her voice to the call of the path I was on.

For some reason, I felt no worry, I felt no pain rather I had this strong sense of adventure. I wasn't sure what was happening but it was captivating. It was a ride of sorts and the anticipation of the next step was compelling. A short while later, I awoke. I wasn't at home and thankfully wasn't in a hospital room either. I was totally rested and relaxed and found myself in a very nice cabin. The bedroom was simple with wood walls, ceiling and floors. The bed was the most comfortable bed I'd ever slept in. I stretched and sat up on the edge of the bed and looked outside. It was the prettiest day I'd ever experienced. The sky was crystal blue like on a cold fall morning when the sky is dominated by high pressure but the blues were the strongest I'd ever seen. The air was mixed with brilliant white clouds that looked like whisks of an artist's brush. My eyes shifted their focus out onto the landscape surrounding this cabin. The grounds were immaculate but also very simple, very modest.

The cabin was on a hill surrounded by a pecan grove. The trees were huge and spread out like mighty warriors guarding the cabin. In the area immediately surrounding the cabin was a lush garden fenced in with a picket fence that ran about 100 yards from the cabin. My mind raced to measure the size of the garden and I figured it to be 200 feet long by 200 feet wide with the cabin as it's centerpiece atop this lush hill of over sized pecan trees. Out my window was an alley of crepe myrtle trees that ran from the side porch out to the gate of the picket fence. These trees were 30-40 feet tall and had bright pink and white blooms dancing against the bright blue sky. To the right of the alley was a perfect English garden ringed by boxwood's and centered with a perfect green lawn. Four full shade trees defined the garden and benches underneath provided spots to enjoy the garden under the cool of the shade. Overflowing flower beds lined gravel paths that chris-crossed the garden. The garden called out to me as a place to come and rest in its beauty.

To the left of the crepe myrtle walkway lay a huge vegetable garden full of ripe tomatoes, corn, melons, cucumbers, okra and squash. Huge blueberry trees lined the back wall of the vegetable garden and I could tell whoever tended this garden reaped great rewards from all their hard work. It was obvious whoever owned this cabin had created a very special place and by this point, I hadn't even left the bedroom.

I ventured out into the main room and like the bedroom, it was simple and rustic. The cabin had a two story main room with a large stack stoned fire place on one wall. Comfortable leather chairs and sofa formed a seating area around the fireplace. To the right was a simple kitchen and to the left, a seating area with a large window overlooking the English garden. Like the bedroom, the walls, ceiling and floor were made of old heart pine. The tables and lamps were simple but extremely well made. Large bucks hung on the walls. In one corner there was a gun cabinet with some pristine, antique rifles and in the other corner were some hand made fly fishing rods. The cabin had a warm worn feel to it. It was a very simple, very modest, very welcoming home. I was stuck by how such a simple place could feel so complete. Everything I would need for life was inside this cabin and it made me consider some of the choices I had made back home.

I found some fresh bread in the kitchen and I sliced a peach and some strawberries to eat with my bread. There was a box that was like a refrigerator but more simple. It wasn't cold per se when you opened it but it was cooler than the outside air. It didn't have a light or make noise and I wondered how it worked but quickly shifted my thinking to the fresh squeezed orange juice and plate of cheese I found. I drank a big glass of orange juice and ate a slice of cheese. Like the cabin, the food was simple, healthy and complete. The food satisfied me fully without making me feel full. I went back into the bedroom and found a simple bathroom off to the side. There was a pump over the sink and I pushed down on it a few times and the sink bowl filled up with cool well water. I washed my face and ran the crystal clear water over my head. The water felt so good and so refreshing, I pumped the handle some more and filled up a glass and drank it quickly. The water was the best tasting water I'd ever had. I went back into the room and found some clothes in a pine chest of drawers. They fit me perfectly - tan work pants and a simple shirt. I found some sandals in the corner that were leather and worn and extremely comfortable. I was called to head out and explore the rest of the grounds when I heard a loud voice.

more to come.....

Soar!

2009-05-18T16:12:00.005-04:00

Alone with God
Last week, we decided to sit on the far side wall of the church facing the side of the audience. During the praise songs, we were singing this song...

You are holy
You are mighty
You are worthy
Worthy of praise
I will follow
I will love you
All of my days...

As we sang this sound, I looked out over the audience and watched people worship God. It was powerful and I had a revelation. God spoke to me watching these people worship. Many had both of their hands stretched up like a baby wanting to be picked up by their Daddy. Others had their eyes closed as they sang. A few smiled brightly with their eyes closed. A few others were crying.

I focused on a friend on the front row. Her husband was beside her, her young son and daughter on the other side. I know this girl very well - we grew up together. She and her husband have a totally souled out relationship with God. They are not "pretty" people. They don't play society's games. They are intently focused on their walk with God.

But in this moment, I focused on Nancy. A wife, mother, daughter, sister and friend to many, in that 3-4 minutes, she was totally alone with God. Eyes closed, arms stretched upward and focused on every word she sang to the Lord....

You are holy
You are mighty
You are worthy
Worthy of praise
I will follow
I will love you
All of my days...

Nothing else mattered in that moment for Nancy. She and God were millions of miles away from her earthly responsibilities. She wasn't a Mama, she wasn't a wife - she was totally alone with her Father. And there, in that moment, I was stuck with a word from God - my walk with God is ALL that matters. Compared to God, my wife and daughters don't "matter". To say they also matter greatly diminishes the enormity of God. One day all will be stripped away. My job won't matter. Taxes won't matter. Investments won't matter. Houses will be torn down. Our spouses and kids won't have the role they have on this earth. In that final and eternal moment, it will be me and God. It will all be about God and my walk with Him. It is God and God alone.

Now, I am not saying literally that nothing on this earth matters - that I should just focus on God and no one else. God gave me a wife and kids and a job and areas of service and He expects me to provide and care for those entrusted to my care.

But that worship experience drove home the real point - that ultimately and in the final analysis...what matters is God in the sense that to compare him to my wife or my daughters or my career is to just so greatly diminish who God is. He is worthy of no comparison.

And yet, I have find myself compartmentalizing God. I pull Him off the shelf for a short while and quickly put Him back away when I am done needing him. What God showed me was He craves full-time relationship with me. God doesn't want a part-time relationship with us. He desires constant, loving fathering of His children. Constant communication, constant asking "What about this Lord?", constant seeking... "Who is it You want me to reach out to?", constant studying "Lord, what does Your Word want to show me today?" and constant thanksgiving for the marvel of His grace and love.

I was liberated (here again, the Great Liberator has yet again opened another jail cell and set a part of me free...) last Sunday. God showed me. I get it!

Soar!

2009-05-16T13:32:00.004-04:00

Social observations...
Just a few social observations. Be aware of what goes on around you. This age we live in is very dangerous.

Oakland California is opening to debate a measure to legalize marijuana because the city is broke and needs the tax revenues. California is an interesting observation in and of itself. It is a pretty liberal place and always has been on the cutting edge of evolutionary thinking. It is an incredibly rich state - Stanford University, Silicon Valley, Google, Cisco Systems, Intel, vast lush farm fields, huge offshore oil reserves and yet the state is also teetering on bankruptcy. Miles of farmland is restricted from farming to protect a small animal that isn't even on the endangered species list - it seems the environmentalists crave the protection of this small animal over the jobs and tax revenues the farms would produce. They have huge oil reserves but the environmentalists won't touch it. And yet the state is going broke. Vast social programs to help the less fortunate have outstripped the vast revenues from the huge industries operating there. And now, they toy with legalizing pot to help balance the budget. What of the unintended consequences of this action? What of the oppressed that the very liberal seemed focused on protecting who already struggle with poverty and drug addiction? What will come for this group if pot is legalized? How easy will it be for the unemployed to get a job if their boss knows they can smoke pot on their break? What will happen to crime rates? It is shaky ground they sit on...quite literally.

Here is another observation -- The Rev. Katherine Ragsdale has been elected the President of Episcopal Divinity School - a major seminary near Harvard founded in 1974 after the merger of two divinity schools founded in the 1850's. She is an openly gay woman and has decided to take an aggressive stance on abortion. For her (and her teachings and the students coming through her Divinity school), it is not enough to be pro-choice but rather to be fanatically pro-abortion. She says abortion is a "blessing". (A blessing!) She goes on to say, "When a woman becomes pregnant within a loving and supportive relationship she has every option open to her. If she decides not to bear a child and has access to a safe abortion - there is not a tragedy in sight - only blessing. (a blessing!) The ability to enjoy God's good gift of sexuality without compromising one's education, life's work, or ability to put to use God's gifts and call is simply a blessing."

She goes to say that the workers who make abortions possible should be thanked --- now get this -- because they "are doing holy work."

In 2003, she said the Resurrection may never have happened. That the suffering and death of Jesus is "an interesting theory, but not one I find compelling."

This woman is running a school of Divinity. She is responsible for the education of future Episcopalian's who seek to enter to field of ministry.

So not only is our nation now running away from God but so are some of the leaders of our denominations. She hits the nail on the head that which plagues our nation - the ability to do whatever we want without having to compromise. No responsibilities - just being able to do what we want with no consequences.

It is a very dangerous age we live in. As we go about our daily lives, we ignore the creeping cancer that is eating our nation's soul. It is eating into our major denominations. Preachers are routinely embracing gay rights, abortion and saying you cannot believe the Bible literally.

God warns us that the days are dangerous. We have to be on alert because our enemy prowls around like a lion looking for someone to devour. I'm afraid America is the next meal.

Where do we go with this? Where is the hope? The hope is in Christ. The final battle is already won. We know how this story ends - it ends in Christ's return as a mighty warrior who will destroy the foul one and send him to his death. We may be living in the worst of days. We'll see terrible things continue to happen. Let us be light in this very dark world. There is a battle being waged. We are troops serving a mighty General.

Soar!

2009-04-20T16:05:00.003-04:00

God's plans
John Eldredge was in town this weekend and gave a great talk on God's Fathering. So often when hard times hit us, we think "God, why have you abandoned me?" when in reality, it is God fathering us. We cannot get stronger and learn how to cope unless we are tested by some fire along the way. So when hard times hit, ask God, "Lord, what are your plans for me in this? What is it that you want me to learn?" It will radically change the way you cope with the hard times when you take your focus off of "me" and onto what our father is trying to teach us. Good stuff.

That brings me to this that a friend had put on his blog that is perfect for this...

Dreams I dream for you

You taste the tears
You're lost in sorrow
You see your yesterdays
I see tomorrow

You see the darkness
I see the spark
You know the failures
But I know your heart

The dreams I dream for you
Are deeper than the ones you're clinging to
More precious than the finest things you knew
And truer than the treasures you pursue

You see your shame
But I see your glory
You've read one page
I know the whole story

I hold a vision
Of what you'll become
As you grow into the truth
As you learn to walk in love

Let the old dreams die
Like stars that fade from view
Then take the cup I offer
And drink deeply of
The dreams I have for you

By Avalon

God dreams great dreams for us. He has a wondeful path laid out. We just need to let go of ours so we can...

Soar!

2009-03-24T19:40:00.006-04:00

The importance of failure
I read an interesting commentary in an investment magazine that is incredibly applicable to faith, our life, raising kids and our nation.

"So I just it's incredibly important to note that when you don't allow failure, you get more failure. When you take away the price of personal risk in your personal decisions, you get much more risk taking. So we are harvesting what we've sown."

I have had a series of conversations with folks about this issue with kids. From a school standpoint - allowing reckless behavior on school grounds - drinking on campus, cheating on tests, etc. If the punishment is a slap on the wrist, kids will be emboldened to push the limits even farther. Children push limits for a reason. They want to know there are some. They might protest but the protecting limits provides them with a subtle level of comfort they deep down crave. They instinctively are scared of the wide-open range - they know they cannot handle life with no rules, no boundaries and their instincts are right. They'll never thank us but you can almost see it in their eyes once they understand the rules.

I didn't drink in high school because my Dad made it perfectly clear - if you drink and I catch you, I will sell your car and you'll not drive again. I had saved my money to buy a portion of my car so this was a real threat. He also made it clear to not fool myself into thinking he didn't mean it. I knew he meant it. I knew there were boundaries and to this day, I am so grateful for his loving boundaries. He made me fully understand that there was a price to my decisions and understanding that, I didn't take the risks. Without the risk of loss, I would have tested the limits.

Oftentimes schools will fall back on honor codes as preventive measures to stop this kind of behavior. While I understand why we have honor codes -- that doesn't mean the teachers/administrators/parents shouldn't watch kids like hawks. We have speed limits in America and we are supposed to follow the honor code and not speed but we also have a police force to make sure we don't...to protect us from our own nature.

The Bible is full of God's loving boundaries on man. God knows. He knows our nature and he knows the enemy. He knows we will push the boundaries to see what we can get away with and in so doing, we ignore the possible cost.

Proverbs 7. If you haven't read this passage - I suggest you do. It is a powerful passage.

A wise man looks out his window down on the street below. He sees a younger man walking down the street and farther down the street, he sees a woman waiting on him. The lamb headed for the slaughter. The young man is walking down the street and sees the seductive woman looking at him, waiting for him. He thinks, 'Man, she digs me'. In his head he is hearing the song "Born to be wild". In the wise man's head watching all this transpire, he is hearing the soundtrack to "Jaws" playing.

The wise man knows what is about to happen. The young man, blind to his lust and ego, just sees the bounty -- he doesn't see the cost or the consequences of what is about to transpire. The woman seduces him and says "my husband is away for a long journey and I have prepared my bed. We can make love all night long and enjoy ourselves." All of this plays to the young man's sense of self - this is all about "me", she wants "me", "I'm" the only one, she'll cheat on her husband just to be with "me".

This young man was headed down the wrong path. Death and destruction lay in wait for him along this path. The wise man, having seen this over and over shouts "go the other way, avoid her at all cost!" The lamb is led to the slaughter. Read the passage.

God allows us to have failures for a reason - they show us our weakness, we learn valuable lessons and we see our utter dependence on Him. With no "cost" to our sin, we would be emboldened to reach for even more and in so doing, pull ourselves even farther from God. Thankfully, God knows us intimately. He knows the sin we are prone to fall into and if we seek His guidance and direction, He will steer us on a path away from the lusts of our heart.

This will make no sense until you have tried it...there is freedom - great magnificent freedom - in obedience to God. Thankfully He has rescued the slaves and set us free.

Soar!

2009-03-18T09:43:00.003-04:00

Ignore that noise over there in the tall brush...
One of Satan's most devious tricks is to convince us he isn't lurking around. He isn't here. He isn't a threat...go on, live your life the way "you" want...there are no consequences, there are no traps.

We see this in nature. The ONLY reason a lion captures a gazelle is stealth. If the lion stayed out in the open, he'd never eat. The reason he eats is that he hides. He stays in the tall grass waiting...just waiting for one gazelle to get lazy, one gazelle to ignore his instincts, one gazelle to get just a little too close to the tall grass.

The Message has a great summary of Ephesians 5:14-16 - "So watch your step. Use your head. Make the most of every chance you get. These are dangerous times!"

In 1 Peter, Satan is compared to a lion - "Be on guard, you enemy - Satan - prowls around like a lion looking for someone to devour."

We are at war. And yet, so many of us go about our daily lives ignoring the enemy. We send our kids off to school and simply ignore the warfare they face. There was a story last week about kids in England being faced with "education" on alternative lifestyles. They had a gay/lesbian week and read stories and watched videos on alternative lifestyles. These were young kids. Some parents were rightly concerned and took their kids out of school. The school system penalized the kids and even said they would seek to prosecute parents for taking their kids out of school. One report even said the parents could face jail time. Jail time for guarding their kids from material the parents found offensive!

We are at war. There is an enemy and he is coming after our kids very hard, very fast. It is a full-out assault and we are seemingly numb to it.

I talk to parents a lot about kids and the problems the kids face and it just amazes me how easily we dismiss behavior with, "Well, we all did that kind of stuff back when we were kids..." Don't get me wrong, I say/think that too. But then I also think, "What a minute, just because I screwed up when I was young...is that the life I want for my kids? Does it make it right?" I fear we just too easily rationalize it without the context of an enemy and warfare.

We send our kids off to hell every day in schools. That is dramatic but think about it - they go into hostile environments - teachers with agendas, curriculum that pushes themes far removed from God's word, sex, drugs, drinking, peer pressure, back-biting "friends", cliques, pressures to conform. Our kids face an all-out assault every single day. Even the little ones.

John Eldredge said in Waking the Dead - "Christianity isn't a religion about going to Sunday school, potluck suppers, being nice, holding car washes, sending our second-hand clothes off to Mexico. This is a world at war. Something large and immensely dangerous is unfolding all around us, we are caught up in it and we have been given a key role to play."

I read this today on a blog. I don't know this person or where they are spiritually but I have some hunches. It appears they are talking about walking away from a relationship and perhaps even a commitment. I share this not to beat on this person but to use it as an example of how far off the path we have traveled.

"Sometimes we need to part from this to have a fresh start. Sometimes we need to separate from the past so we can grow, transform and bloom into our highest expression of self in this lifetime. Sometimes we need to re-create an entire new life. Sometimes we have to say goodbye when things no longer fulfill a need, or make us unhappy. Life is short, why should we waste it on anything but happiness?"

Is that what life is about...my transformation into the highest expression of "self"? I was made in "self's" image not God's? Life for many of us has become simply the pursuit of happiness. "God loves me because I am happy." This person is saying sometimes it is necessary to just walk away from relationships/commitments if they no longer fulfill us or make us happy. They hauntingly end it with "Why should we waste life on anything but happiness?"

The pursuit of happiness would be just fine if there was no enemy. In Eden, happiness was freely abounding. But in this life, there is an enemy and we are at war. A pursuit of finding/doing whatever makes us happy will lead us into a trap. If the gazelle just pursued what made it happy, it would eat whatever grass looked appealing. It would stray from the pack. It wouldn't fear the tall grass - that grass would look tasty. And the gazelle would quickly become someone else's lunch.

We cannot ignore the presence of the enemy and just simply pursue the happy life. It is incredibly naive and very dangerous. To do so gives Satan open field to take us out.

God doesn't want us leading lives of misery - I'm not saying that. He came and liberated us so that we might have abundant life. God gets the last word. We know how the battle will end. God will be victorious. He defeated death at Calvary. "It IS finished"...the battle is won. My pleading is that we pay attention to the war going on around us. Pray for your children. Wrap them in prayer as they go off to school. Pay attention to what they are doing. Watch the cell phones, texting and email. Kids can so easily fall prey to the predator -- we need to be on guard.

Thankfully and gracefully however the war HAS been won!

Soar!

2009-03-10T15:45:00.003-04:00

Who can explain?
My debates with old friends continue around the theme of "can you really believe the Bible?" I have not shied away - I have pressed boldly into the void.

But something pretty simple struck me today - "who can explain"...

Who can explain exactly how "life" works?

Who can explain the beauty of spring?

Who can explain the majesty of the mountains?

Who can explain the warmth of the spring sun and just how good that makes you feel?

Who can explain the perfect v-formation of a flock of geese?

Who can explain the miracle of a young child's giggle?

Who can explain why the earth is in exactly the right place, so the temperature is exactly right to sustain life?

Who can explain why our planet stays in its perfect rotation?

Who can explain why there is just enough of a balance of warmth/cold, spring/fall, sun/darkness, light/rain, wind/humidity, deserts/ice and how all that stays in place?

Who can explain the seasons - the youth of spring, the maturity of summer, the harvest of fall and death of winter and how that exactly mimmics human life?

Who can explain why love feels so good and can hurt so bad?

Who can explain why we even have emotions? I mean if we "evolved", why do we have emotions? Surely, emotions would have been "evolved" out by now. What scientific good do they serve?

Who can explain why humans have the emotional need for a mate, for the completeness of sex (beyond the act itself), for family? Animals simply reproduce - they aren't driven by the need for relationship, completeness that comes from family. Why does man have these desires?

Who can explain why the sunsets are so pretty?

Who can explain why spring is so magical - lush green lawns, daylillies, azaleas, etc?

Who can explain and why does man obsess with trying?

Ronald Reagan said of his atheist son, "There was one thing he had long yearned to do for his atheist son. He wanted to serve his son the perfect gourmet dinner, to have him enjoy the meal, and then to ask him if he believed there was a cook."

Why do we so enjoy this world and all its blessings - our intelligence, our looks, our family, the miracle of children and all that is listed above...and insist on giving the credit to something other than the Creator?

There is a cook and He has prepared a glorious meal for all who will accept.

Soar!

2009-02-09T07:57:00.009-05:00

Anna and the teenagers
We just came back from a weekend camp at YoungLife's Sharptop Cove in North Georgia. It is an incredible place. YoungLife does camp the right way - the facilities, activities and food are world class. It is a great get away for teenagers where they are waited on and served by volunteer staff and the Gospel is presented to them in a powerful way. There is tons of fun and goofy skits to get the kids laughing and to get them to lower their walls.

A lot of families from Columbus were up there to witness the camp. YL has a family dorm where the families with small kids can stay. It was packed with Columbus folks and about two dozen kids under 10. Thankfully, we stayed at the adult guest lodge on the other side of the camp!

But I love kids - especially small ones - so it was fun for me to engage with these kids during the weekend. One family had three beautiful daughters ages 4-7. The middle child, Anna was especially captivating. I know both sets of grandparents and she has the eyes of one of her grandmothers. She has a sparkling personality and a great smile. I had fun goofing around with Anna during the meals and later ran into her in the YL store. She smiled at me and said "Hey, what are you doing here?" I think she thought I only existed in the dining hall! I told her I was looking for stuff and she said, "I am getting a harmonica" and she showed me her blue harmonica. "Wow" I exclaimed, "That is the coolest harmonica ever" and she smiled and went on her merry little way.

That harmonica never left Anna's side the rest of the weekend. She was always playing it, always smiling. At dinner Saturday night, she was sitting at the table with all the chaos of a YoungLife dinner (300 kids in one very loud room), minding her own business, playing her harmonica. I looked over at her and she saw me, smiled (she always smiles) and kept on playing. I told her that she was so good at the harmonica and she said, "I know my Mommy and Daddy think I should take lessons" and she kept right on playing. The next day at breakfast she was doing the same thing. Her Dad told me that she spent all day Saturday playing the harmonica and that the teenagers were always circled around her. As Anna played, the teenagers followed. When I was talking to her Sunday, I again commented on her harmonica and again told her that she was very good and she replied, "Some people think it is my talent". Big smile followed.

So here is Anna - beautiful, sweet, happy and very much in love with life and her harmonica. Anna is extraordinary. Anna knows she has a "talent" and she is looking for it. Anna knows she has something special to contribute to the world. Contrasting that are the lives of 300 teenagers. They too are extraordinary but very few of them believe it any more. They very much now believe they are just ordinary. Life comes at the teenagers very hard these days - MUCH harder than I think many of us even realize.

There very much is a battle underway for the souls of our children. Anna, at this point is safe and happy but we know what is coming - we can see it in these teenagers. Don't get me wrong - I love teenagers too but you can very visibly see the scars of battle on them already. Many of these kids have already lost their sexual purity. The vast majority has already started drinking and it is shocking how many are already using drugs. Many of them have bought the world's lies. Religion is simply whatever is relevant to them at that moment - "God just wants me to be happy" or "God is seen through my boyfriend or my friends - and I have a lot of friends so God is happy with me". They live their lives in the pursuit of happiness and for many of them, it has taken them into some very dark places.

It was striking to witness the vast gulf between Anna and many of these teenage girls. Anna is free. They are in bondage. Anna pursues happiness in her own little world and it is innocent...as innocent as happiness found in her harmonica. Anna doesn't understand peer pressure. Anna is happy in her own skin. Teenagers pursue happiness by trying to fit in and by doing whatever the crowd tells them is "right". We witnessed a dozen or so girls all showing up on Saturday morning all dressed just alike. It was freezing cold but they all had on shorts and Ugg boots. Someone in that group decided this is what they were going to wear and like robots, the rest followed. Teenagers have very little tolerance for extraordinary. They crave ordinary. They want to all look alike, act alike, dress alike so they can all blend in and numb the pain that can come from standing apart from the crowd. Many will seemingly sell their soul just to fit in - just to be a part of the "in" crowd. And so...they all become ordinary...just like all the rest of the group. When the group starts having sex, you have sex. When the group moves beyond beer to pot, you start smoking pot. You conform or you are cast-out.

The lie is that if you become ordinary that you will fit in. What you find as you become ordinary is that you have stripped away all that God made you to be. You have given up what an Extraordinary Creator used to make you unique so that the other ordinaries will find you pleasing.

I don't write this to judge any of them. I understand. I was there not long ago. But I write this because it stands in such stark contrast to Anna. She is happy being Anna. She thinks she can play the harmonica and she plays her heart out. She doesn't obsess over dressing like her friends or wearing too much make-up or straightening her hair like "everyone else" does. She has no concept of text messaging, cell phones or Facebook. She is just Anna. She is just one very happy kid. It simply breaks your heart to see the damage the world does when it strips the kid out of a young person and makes them look like every other ordinary young person.

Christ came that we might have life and have it to the full (abundantly). He wants us to be extraordinary not ordinary. He wants us to stand apart from the crowd and to be independent of the world. He wants us leaning on Him. He offers us freedom - great freedom - in the extraordinary life while it is just so obvious the bondage - the terrible bondage - of the ordinary life.

Anna and her harmonica have life to the full. It is no wonder Christ said we must come to him as a child. Eyes wide open, trusting, dependent, every day another great adventure to live, a new audience for our harmonica, another day to...

Soar!

2009-01-31T09:41:00.004-05:00

Abortion
I've written on this before and referenced Peggy Noonan's great summary of the bottom line on "choice" -- that those who crave choice in abortion fail to realize that their "choice" was made in the back seat of the car. Personal liberty was choosing who they'd sleep with - not in the murder of the "mistake". The mistake was sex outside of marriage...not the fetus. As Noonan says, "Anyone who has gone to drugstore on Friday night to buy condoms knows when life begins - it begins at conception..."

John Piper has a great talk on his website on abortion www.desiringgod.org. It is very strong especially towards Barack Obama. He says in the talk, "On the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, President Obama said, “We are reminded that this decision not only protects women’s health and reproductive freedom, but stands for a broader principle: that government should not intrude on our most private family matters.”

NO Mr President. You aren't "protecting" women. He is authorizing the destruction of 500,000 little women every year. He isn't protecting "reproductive freedom", he is authorizing the destruction of freedom for more than 1 million babies in the US every year. Killing our children is killing our children no matter how many times you say over and over that this is "a private family matter"...it isn't a private family matter. It is murder. It is ugly. It is painful.

Obama said on the campaign trail that if one of his daughters got pregnant - he "would not them punished because of an unwanted pregnancy". Piper drives home hard at this point.

That isn't really what Obama wants. He doesn't really want his daughters having "reproductive freedom". He wants them chaste, holy, married, healthy, bearing children not carrying around with condoms in their purse. He doesn't really want them to be sexually free.

Be courageous Mr. Obama. You don't have to be the lap-dog of those around you. You can stand for your daughters. You can fight for them. God can change your heart.

Let us as believers commit to prayer for a change of heart in Mr. Obama. His daughters are beautiful, bright, optimistic children. They are safe...at this point. But if Daddy equips them with condoms and sets them out the door at 15 to find their sexual freedom, you and I know what will happen - they will reap what they sow.

Sexual freedom is a lie. IT IS A LIE. Satan lures us down that path to chase what feels good, explore our sexuality, etc. but we know that this path is chock full of destruction and pain. 1 million babies are aborted in the US every year. 50 million have been aborted since Roe v. Wade was passed. That is 50 million babies gone but even more painful is the untold price that act has on the millions of mothers. They never escape the pain of abortion. The act stays with them as a curse for life.

The path of life is narrow but obeying God and walking with God down the path of life will protect us. John 10:10 - The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy but I have come that they may have LIFE and have it abundantly.

LIFE. LIFE. Not abortion. Not death but LIFE. The path of this world is death and destruction. But the path of the Great Liberator is freedom. Freedom.

Soar!

2009-01-27T19:24:00.002-05:00

Believe
I have had a series of debates recently with folks with a common theme - whether or not we can believe the Bible as a word-for-word, literal message from God. In the past few months, I have had a number of passionate debates with people from all walks of life around this topic. It is interesting that so many people believe so strongly that you cannot believe the Bible. Why is that?

The folks I have debated this issue with tend to focus on the Old Testament and some of the practices and beliefs that were practiced thousands of years ago..."How could God who is love condone the stoning of a woman who is divorced" (from an old college friend that, as it turns out, went through a bitter and painful divorce)..."How is it that God could condemn homosexuals?" asked another old college friend. He went on to say that Jesus was simply all about loving one another...He later told me that he respected my beliefs because while I was completely intolerant, I was at least consistent.

I had a debate a few years ago with a former co-worker. He is bright and well-educated. He is "evolved". He was captivated by The DaVinci Code and even taught a Sunday night class at his church on the book. That's right - a "bible" study on the DaVinci Code. He told me one time that "You cannot possibly believe the Bible word for word as a literal translation. You cannot ignore the writings of DaVinci...he was brilliant. You cannot be so closed minded." And yet, he believed the writings of DaVinci over the Word of God. I told him that he was playing with fire and that when the end of time comes, I'd rather not sit down with God and explain to Him on High that I found DaVinci captivating and brilliant.

For thousands of years, man has taken the Word of God and twisted it to make it fit his needs. It started with Adam & Eve - take what God says and justify doing what you want to do. For thousands of years learned, evolved, brilliant people have tried to justify their beliefs in opposition to the Word of God. Scientists have tried to disprove many of the events of the Bible from Noah's Ark to the parting of the Red Sea and even to the crucifixion of our Lord. As far as I know, they've come up empty.

If man takes the Bible apart and accepts portions of it but rejects other parts because they are too offensive or not agreeable -- Man becomes God. Man is saying he knows best. Our sin nature pulls away from the Truth. We simply cannot accept the Word. We have to rationalize it, tweak it, delete parts of it, etc. We'll peel it down to the few sections that we can make agree with our choices and call ourselves religious.

This mindset is everywhere in the modern church and it is extremely dangerous. Be careful. Trust the Word of God. Believe.

Soar!

2008-12-26T10:08:00.004-05:00

It is finished...
No, this isn't a Christmas message though the focus on Christ and His finished work upon the Cross is very appropriate in late December. No, this message is about the buck.

As you may know from my earlier post, I killed my first buck in mid-November. It was a great thrill and so many people were so supportive of me in this process. I cannot tell you how touched I was by their support. The night I killed him I brought him home to show Shannon and the girls. Word spread that I had killed a big buck and friends started showing up to see the deer. We had a small celebration in my garage with close friends. Kind of crazy but very special.

As the days went on, I received a number of phone calls and emails of folks offering their congratulations. There is a neat community of hunters in Columbus and we rally around to celebrate each other's success. My hunting mentor - Ken Evans - was especially encouraging and supportive. Thank you Ken.

Blake Voltz - my neighbor and hunting club member - gave me the name of a taxidermist, Harrell Favors. I called Harrell and he couldn't have been nicer. He wanted to hear the whole story of how I killed the buck. I gave him the complete history, blow by blow, and he was truly, genuinely excited for me. He said, "Don't you worry, I'll go get the deer and I'll take really good care of him and do it just right."

At one point a few weeks ago, I sent Harrell an email from my blog of the story about the deer. His wife Jan wrote me back an incredibly nice and supportive email. She too is a hunter and completely understands the "sanctuary experience" of hunting.

She wrote this...A few years ago, at a family reunion, a male relative asked me, "Why do you hunt?" And for a moment, (just a moment) I was at a loss for words.....but when I haltingly answered, "There's no place I'd rather be a daybreak than in the woods...when the sun comes up, and rays of light filter through the trees, and the woods start to come alive with small animals scurrying about, and the birds greeting the new day and each other.....and as I look around, I see God in everything. I can almost hear his voice audibly as I talk to him." Before I could go any further, he smiled and said, "Same reason I hunt."

So time goes on and I've put the deer out of my mind. I trust Harrell and know he'll get it to me just as soon as he can.

Well, Santa came yesterday. My sweet wife became an elf and went to work to get me that deer on Christmas morning. She contacted Blake and told him what she wanted to accomplish. He - being the hunter he is - immediately grabbed it and said, "Let me take care of it, I'll call Harrell and arrange for it." Harrell, knowing the special circumstances immediately agreed to speed up the mounting. Something magical was about to happen in my life.

Shannon was so careful to conceal her elfish activities. Covert text messages, secret phone calls, etc. She had it all arranged. Blake picked up the deer last week and stored it at his house. On Christmas Eve, when we were at church, Blake was going to put the deer in the back of Shannon's car in the garage. When we were leaving to go to church, Shannon said, "Let's take your truck, my car is on empty." She feared I'd be suspicious - I wasn't. I'm proud to drive my truck anywhere - mud an all - especially to church! So we leave for church. Blake comes by and finds that her car doors are locked. He texts her and when we are riding home she is over there texting. Now I am getting suspicious. But she passes this off as some planning she is doing for a friend of hers. She goes in the house, unlocks the car and calls Blake. He is at his folks house eating Christmas dinner and gladly runs back to our house to try it again. I'm touched by his willingness to help.

So now it is Christmas morning and Shannon has kept this secret for a month conspiring with my neighbor and my taxidermist. About 10am, she says, "Richard I left something for the girls in the back of my car...go get it..."

Wow! You can imagine (or maybe see in my picture) just how special this was. I am touched beyond words by my wife's love for me and the effort she placed into making this happen. I am touched by Harrell & Jan Favors - folks I've never met but that I know will become good friends of ours. I am touched by Blake Voltz - for his love of hunting and his genuine excitement for his next door neighbor's good fortune.

We built a house a few years ago and I have a small study that is "my" space. A man's room. It is wood paneled with a pheasant on the wall, a print of a red-tail hawk (my blog is HawkSoars) and a Bucky Bowles print of quails lifting through south Georgia pines. My coffee table is a pair of benches pushed together that we used to have at our lake cabin (when we had it). These were made out of thick Mississippi heart pine from a 100+ year old barn from the farm of a friend. Over the mantle hung Robert E. Lee from my KA days at Mercer. Lee has hung in my house ever since I left college but I knew when I built this room that one day, I'd hang a big buck there. I even told Shannon that and she said, "You don't hunt Honey..." Well, the room is now finished. It is finished and I am blessed beyond words.

Soar!

2008-12-11T05:18:00.003-05:00

More thwarting
OK so I told you there would be more on the thwarting thing. Why then would I wake up at 4am this morning and not be able to go back to sleep? Hmmmm....I wonder. Try as I may, my mind raced and I kept saying "What is it Lord? What are you trying to tell me?" Very clearly, I felt the answer was "Get up and get in Me." So, here I am.

My desire for sleep is thwarted! God wants time alone with me and sometimes posting on this blog is the best way I can articulate my thoughts to God. So I will ramble a bit again this morning...bear with me.

The "big" story and the "small" story - John Eldredge does such a good job of laying out that our lives are part of a much bigger story. Much goes on around us and we are characters in the great play of life. I struggle with this issue with our children. Very often we will explain to them that life isn't about them. As teenage girls, they have a hard time grasping that at times - they are conditioned by TV, friends and this world that life very much is all about them. Our world conditions all of us to this point. Look at ads in any magazine or on any TV channel...its all about you. "You too can possess the American dream..."

Our sin nature drives us to self-centeredness. Our children struggle with that - all children do. From very early on in their lives we teach them it is all about them. And as teenagers, we try to undo that by telling them "Life isn't about you!" (is it any wonder we all wind up in therapy?) As young babies and toddlers, we fawn all over them desiring to meet their every need and every desire. That plays right into the sin nature they are born with. That is perpetuated through their teenage years and on into college - it is all about pursuing their dreams and goals and ambitions.

As adults, we struggle with it. As Christians, we struggle with it. No matter how hard we try, we seem to always make the story circle back to ourselves. I do it all the time. I give a talk at church and immediately I want to ask my wife or someone else, "How did I do?" I prepare a presentation for work and labor to make it as good as I possibly can so that it will set me apart. I argue points in a conversation with family or friends or business associates and deep down, it is about me trying to win my points. Do you see?

I have had a glimmer of liberation in this just this week. I had to give a talk this week for business. I labored hard in preparing my remarks and Power Point and was ready to go. It was going to be another "See how good I can make Richard look in front of other people" talk. And then, I changed course. I really think God laid all these teachings on thwarting to culminate around this talk this week. He hit me with the same message 3-4 times in the past three weeks as a lead into this talk. I see that now.

I was asked to make a presentation and for the first time I can remember, I shifted my focus from being on me to being on the audience. I believe strongly and passionately about what it is I wanted to say. I laid out my points like a lawyer ready to argue his case. But what God nudged me toward was putting myself into the lives of the recipient. They asked me for my opinion and I had it to give but God wanted me to make this talk about the folks in the audience - not me.

I had something to share. It was well prepared, well thought out but my acclaim ended right there. I did what I was asked to do - "Come and tell us what you think". I put myself in mode of God saying, "Go tell them what you think - they need it, they've asked for it...fill their need".

It was incredibly freeing and liberating to just give the talk, lay out what it was I felt led to say and then leave the room. I didn't need to stand around and subtly encourage the "Great talk" comments. Frankly and very truthfully, I didn't want them. This talk simply wasn't about me. It was about them. Their goals, their dreams, their desires. When I shifted my focus from me and my small story, I immediately entered into the big story.

Again, from the last post, there is nothing wrong with dreams, goals or desires but when they play themselves out in "our" story and not as a part of the "big' story, we digress from God and He will thwart us to pull us back toward Him. The small story is our story. We can live our whole life in that small story - providing for our family, building our business, paying off our mortgage, constructing our retirement and accomplishing our life goals. We can do all of that and lead a pretty good life but if we do all that ignoring the big story, we are missing out on the "more".

God promises so much more. "The glory of God is man fully alive". Fully alive means living in the big story - His story.

Its all about you Lord. Its all about you.

Soar!

2008-12-10T19:48:00.003-05:00

Thwarting
I have a series of posts to come on the topics of thwarting and idols. It seems that I can't escape these themes over the past 3-4 weeks.

Why would God thwart us? We have our desires and our dreams - why does it seem that these are nearly impossible to reach? So often, our dreams become our idols. We long for the perfect house, the perfect job, the chance to see the West, a completely healed family, investments that multiply, the peaceful life, etc. Many of these are worthy desires but if misplaced, they can become idols. Sometimes we long for family - family that fulfills our needs, understands us, moves towards us. Sometimes we long to "be somebody" - to be noticed, desired, viewed with respect or even honor. Again, these are worthy aspirations and again, if misplaced, can become idols.

We all have that "ache" in us for something. Oftentimes, it sets us out on a quest, a mission to fulfill that desire and satisfy that ache. They become our way of life.

Here is where the problems appear. When we have that ache, that longing as our priority in life...it is very likely that God is nowhere around. If our focus is on that desire - it cannot be on God. The quest itself can pull us away from God as can actually accomplishing our desire. If we won the lottery, we'd have it "made". Life would be complete. So how does God feel about that? See my point is that if "my" goals are fulfilled, "my" dreams realized -- where would I have room for God? It would be about "me", not "Him".

God is a jealous lover. The things we chase after and dream of and pursue are very often far removed from God. And so, in that, He thwarts. If we find our "salvation" in the lottery - we don't need God.

Man is an adulterer. We seek others. We pursue our wants and our desires and turn our back on the One who can fulfill all our needs. God operates in the "big" story. He sees the entire picture. Whereas I tend to focus on the "small" story...me. My goals, my dreams, my desires, my longing for acclaim, my vision, etc. My story is all about me.

And so...God thwarts. He knocks me off my horse as a gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) reminder that the things I rabidly pursue are serving to pull me farther and farther away from Him. God is a jealous lover. He wants all of us. Our idols take up a lot of the shelf space in our life - space designed God the One who loves us completely.

Much, much more to come on this. This post was a bit fractured - I'm gathering many thoughts. Stay patient with me as I work through these thoughts.

Soar!

2008-11-17T14:15:00.007-05:00

Chasing the Adventure
I've been hunting for three years. My father wasn't/isn't a hunter. I didn't grow up around hunting but a few years ago, I decided that I wanted to pursue this. I feel most alive when I am outdoors and so I set out to take up deer hunting. A good friend and mentor is an avid hunter and he took me under his wing and helped me buy my deer rifle. He showed me which scope to buy and even mounted the scope and got my gun ready. A neighbor is an avid hunter and I mentioned to him my desire to hunt and he let me join a great hunting lease. We lease 1,100 acres in Harris County - a beautiful tract of land with ridges, creek bottoms, planted pines and hardwood drains. I've seen some amazing things hunting - bobcats, raccoons, owls, hawks. I've seen a buck track a doe in heat like a hound dog. He ran by my stand with his nose to the ground and my yelling didn't distract him. I've seen another buck come in and watch a doe feed. He was so captivated by her that he lay down and watched her not knowing that death was looking right at him. I moved my stand to a hardwood area in between a food plot and a creek bottom. I've seen great activity in this stand including a huge buck last year that I hesitated before shooting. I wanted a better shot and waited for him to emerge from behind a tree. He never emerged, he turned and went away from me keeping the tree between him and me.

My friends have helped me and taught me along the way. When I let this big buck go, my mentor said, "Richard you have been watching too much TV where these guys watch deer for a minute or two before shooting - you usually get about 3 seconds to take your shot". Others have taught me about keeping both eyes open when scoping a deer, breathing slowly when shooting and squeezing the trigger slowly. I've learned a lot by listening - learning about the Rut, learning how deer move, learning about Trail cameras, scrapes and rubs. I've learned the importance of White Oaks. It has been an adventure.

This year has been frustrating. I bought two trail cameras and caught some really nice dear on the cameras but in the stand, I was being skunked. So most mornings this fall, I'd get down out of my stand about 9am and start to scout. I have walked miles and miles up and down creek drains. I've found deer paths, scrapes and rubs all over the place. I've found shed antlers from last year. I've savored my times in the woods on foot. I feel most alive hunting when I am on foot crossing streams, looking for signs and scouting new hunting locations. Think about it - Indians didn't hunt deer from a tree stand! They did it on foot! I make sure I stay alive by wearing orange when I do this and knowing where my buddies are at all times!

Last Saturday, I got down and found a great "bowl" in the creek behind me where it curves around a huge white oak. In fact, there are 5 big white oaks around there. I set up a ground blind and hunted it last weekend. I heard a big buck grunt (never heard that before) down in the creek. A small 4 point came out and the big buck passed back up in the woods so I couldn't see him.

This Saturday, I hunted my stand in the morning and got down to scout behind the White Oak bowl. I found a new deer trail and there were three huge deer rubs along this trail. Here is a picture of one...

This was a big tree and the deer flat out tore it up. The rub was very fresh. My blood started pumping. Just when I was about to give up (not really), God throws me a softball with these rubs..."He is there...stay patient."

So Sunday afternoon, I hunted the White Oak Bowl....nothing. I got frustrated and cold and about 5:15, I got down and headed back by my stand. I contemplated going home but something in me said, "What the heck, stay in the stand for another 30 minutes and just see..." I left my gear on the ground and climbed up with my gun and antlers.

I sat down and started rattling the horns. Immediately (about 2 minutes after I got in the stand), a 4 point emerged from my left. I scoped him and realized he wasn't a shooter and then I heard rustling to my right. I am left eye dominant so shooting left handed to my right is ideal. I swung the gun around and caught a monster coming out of the thick scrub. I knew immediately, this was THE one. I scoped him immediately and grunted at him (My mentor taught me this too - you make a MMMMMMMARK sound and deer will typically stop to figure out where the sound is coming from). He didn't stop. So, I grunted again. He didn't stop. There is a good chance this is the same deer I let go last year and I wasn't about to hesitate again. I slowly squeezed the trigger and he jumped and took off down toward the creek. He ran about 50-75 yards and stopped to look around. I thought I had missed him. Then he fell over, got up, ran to the left another 25 yards or so and fell again.

When I walked up on him, I could not believe my eyes. I had waited three years and never fired a shot. I had let a number of smaller bucks go. I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever get a deer. The enemy was beginning to whisper, "You see, you are a hack...you'll never match up..." and God was gently telling me all along, "Be patient, you are learning, you have done this..."

The deer scored 142 inches and weighed 237 pounds. For a first deer - he is amazing. Forgive the next pictures, they are kind of messy.

It has been quite an adventure and I am blessed beyond words by being so fortunate to have this as my first deer. So many things went into making this possible. The generosity of the land owner, the time my mentors put into educating me, the patience of my hunting buddies, my sweet wife's support as I left before sunup on many a Saturday, Rich for having a 4-Wheeler and being willing to help me bring the deer out of the woods, being in the right place at the exact right time and patience...lots of patience.

God met me in the woods these past three years. If you can't hear God around the noise and busyness of this life, get alone with Him. The woods are a great place for me to feel God. Crystal clear blue skies, golden leaves, the majesty of His nature, quiet and cool breezes. In this sanctuary, I've had great time alone with God and (And this will offend someone) - God was sweet to me yesterday afternoon. He kept telling me "Be patient" and then conspired events to collide this beast with me in a perfect setting.

Soar!

2008-11-12T20:14:00.004-05:00

Savior?
I have a good friend and mentor. He is a very successful real estate developer. His brother is a successful surgeon. His other brother retired as a successful investment manager. It is a family of success. My friend has two sons - one is full-time staff with Young Life. The other son went to medical school and is practicing in Augusta, GA. His name is Grant. Grant could have written his own check but instead he chose to give up lucrative medical practice in exchange for a life of service. He started an inner city clinic in Augusta. His patients aren't glamorous - there is no insurance, there is very little commerce at all with this practice. It is a life of service. Grant told me one time that a man questioned him on this choice and told him, "Grant, you will poor..." and Grant said, "Yep, for the next forty years but I am thinking eternity and when you think eternity, forty years is a blink of an eye." Grant has it figured out and God is using him in a mighty way.

Read this below from his website...
Patient 2 – A kind inner city man with just your basic medical problems of high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol. He says everything is fine except…then he points to his head. "I don't trust nobody doctor." He tells a tale of sitting in his chair all night long and looking out his blinds every time he hears a noise. He stands alone at the bus stop. He walks alone and turns around if anyone is behind him to make sure he is not being followed. He is big and intimidating but has become imprisoned mentally. His wife passed away over 20 years ago and his son is in Iraq. "I don't trust nobody doctor," he repeats again and again.

We pray for his tormented paranoid mind that has imprisoned him. After prayer, the man gets ready to leave and then nervously speaks "Doctor…. one more thing…" I don't have time for ‘one more things.’ "There was an old lady out front who couldn't pay her co-pay. What's going to happen to her?" I inform him that people have to pay a little bit to be seen. It teaches them responsibility or something. "Well she said she could pay in a couple of weeks, but I don't know how she will be able to – Do you mind ….. I mean ….. Can I pay her co-pay?"

I have never seen a borderline paranoid schizophrenic reach out and care for a stranger like this man. I walked back in a closed exam room and wept. Is a president really going to change the world or will it be you and me and my paranoid friend. Has Christ not called us to this time and place to build His Kingdom and love His people? Are we going to change the world in the ballot box and then go home and wait for it to happen? We are his ambassadors, to build his kingdom, love a neighbor, serve the poor, and die to self.

Wow. What a story. What a shame...that more of us don't think this way. I fear America has lost this spirit and we have become a nation of people who expect the government to fix all of our problems. I fear we have become Christians who'd rather write a check to the church or to the Christian relief organization than we would roll up our own sleeves and do get dirty helping folks that are hurting. I'm convicted.

Our nation is about to be sadly disappointed when President Obama doesn't fix all their problems. When he doesn't pay off their debts. When he doesn't make everything "fair" or "right". He can't. There is only one, "The One" and it isn't Obama. It is Christ. Only in Him will the crooked be made straight. Only in Him can we be complete. Only in Him can wrongs be truly righted.

I'm thankful for my friend Grant. He is an inspiration to us all. Earthly poor - Eternally rich.

Soar!

2008-11-02T17:31:00.002-05:00

Choice
A friend relayed this story to me last night. He attended college with a girl and was good friends with her. She was raised in a Christian home and attended church regularly. As he said, "She knew the Truth - she knew right from wrong." She began to date a muslin boy from Egypt. My friend had a long talk with her and warned her against dating him because he feared she would be pulled away from her faith. The boy treated her well but she was warned that eventually his true self and true religion would emerge.

She ended up dating him more seriously and marrying him. A few years later, his true self emerged and the rules of Islam were forced upon her. In rebellion she got hooked up with a group following witchcraft and lesbianism. She hit rock bottom. Her world came apart.

In a moment of desperation, she turned back to God and prayed. In her prayers she anguished over how her life had turned out and she shook her fist at God and said, "How could you have let all this happen to me? Why didn't you warn me?"

With that she had a sudden flashback to her college days. She hadn't thought about my friend in years but suddenly he was there again. She remembered their entire conversation, remembered what he was wearing and remembered his warnings about choosing to turn away from God.

God said to her - "You see, I tried to warn you but you chose to ignore my warnings". Now God didn't say, "I told you so..." rather, He lovingly showed her His mercy in that conversation. She came back to God and restored her faith in Him.

It is so easy for us to blame God for our problems. We choose to ignore Him. We choose to do things our own way and when we make a wreck of our lives, we turn back to God and say "Why did you let this happen?"

Our nation has turned its back on God. We've removed Him from our schools. We don't allow prayer before football games. We've removed His values from our entertainment and replaced it with TV shows promoting alternative lifestyles, affairs, drug use, teenage sex, violence and greed. As we have seen, this opening of Pandora's box hasn't made us any safer or more complete. Alcoholism, drug use, addition to pornography, teenage sex and street violence are at all time highs and we wonder why God would let such bad things happen.

God didn't let these terrible things happen - they are consequences our decision to turn our backs on Him. God didn't "let" Adam and Eve get cast out of the Garden - they chose to disobey His command and then they were exposed to their own nakedness, their own sin.

There is still time for our nation. There is time to turn back to God. There is time to repent of our selfish ways. While we cannot individually change the course of this nation's path, we can change the path of our individual homes and lives. We can turn back to God. We can stop living for self and live for Him.

I love the words from this song...
Give me one pure and holy passion, give me one magnificent obsession
Give me one glorious ambition for my life
To know and follow hard after You.

The ambition of our lives should be to know and follow hard after Him. It isn't to become CEO or to become rich or famous -- the ambition of our lives should be Him.

Soar!

2008-10-17T09:43:00.002-04:00

But remember—he gave us free will.

He gave us a choice. This is a frequent question, "Why does such a good God let bad things happen?" My wife had this conversation today with a friend. Man will say he doesn't believe in God and yet, man is so quick to ultimately blame God for his problems. Why is that?

We want our freedom. We want choice. Good news - He gave us free will. "You want choice, here you go..." Think of it terms of abortion. You'll correctly guess that I am against abortion. Always have been. As the father of adopted children, I am more so now than ever. But I digress. Abortion. "I want a woman's right to choose...." OK, you want it...here you go. I'm not a woman and I've never had or known someone who has an abortion so this may seem harsh but wasn't "choice" made in the back seat of the car? Don't the young women who decide to have sex with their high school boyfriends make "choice" when they give over their bodies to them? Isn't there a reason the Bible says that sex should be saved for marriage? Why is that? Don't you think God knows the devastating consequences of sex before marriage and, God forbid, an abortion?

The woman's right to choose crowd wants freedom of choice. The right to choose is made when a couple climbs into bed. The conception of the child is the consequence of that choice. Peggy Noonan captured this better than I've ever heard stated when she said, "Anyone who buys a pack of condoms late on a Friday night knows when life begins - it begins at conception - because that is what they are trying to prevent." The conception is the consequence of an earlier choice.

In an other example - teenagers drinking on a Friday night. They know it is against the law. They know that it is dangerous and yet, they make the choice to drink. The DUI is the consequence of that choice. The kids have the freedom to choose - sex, drugs, rock and roll - and they have to live with the consequences.

And when the consequences come - and they always do - why does man (even those who don't believe) always ask, "Why would a good God let this happen?"

The ultimate consequence is being alone. You've been there. You know that feeling - when you were caught cheating on a test in high school, the first time your parents caught you sneaking out or sneaking in, being caught in a lie...once the music stops there is that sudden, haunting of "I am alone in this."

This is from Eldredge's book Epic...

"We seem to forget—perhaps more truthfully, we refuse to remember—that we are the ones who betrayed him, not vice versa. We are the ones who listened to the lies of the Evil One in the Garden; we chose to mistrust the heart of God. In breaking the one command he gave us, we set in motion a life of breaking his commands.

The final act of self-centeredness is seen in those who refuse to come to the wedding banquet of God (Matthew 22:2–3). They do not want God. They reject his offer of forgiveness and reconciliation through Jesus. What is he to do? The universe has only two options. If they insist, God will grant to them what they have wanted—to be left to themselves."

Remember He gives us free will. Remember there are consequences. The greatest consequence of all is separation from God. The only thing that bridges that gap is the freedom that comes from trusting in Jesus. "My life is a wreck. I wanted freedom, I got it and it isn't working out so well for me. I cannot do life on my own. I need to trust in Jesus. I need to finally lay down my life, my goals, my greed, my ambition and my desire to be my own Lord and the Lord of Lords take control." In that one act of faith, you bridge the gap from an eternity of aloneness and separation and come into an eternity of glory.

Soar!

2008-10-16T20:45:00.007-04:00

Be careful. Be still.

"Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." Ephesians 5:15-17

Be careful. Be careful of how you walk, of where you go, of who you associate with, of what you put into your mind. Make the most of your time for there are many "busy" things that compete for your 24 hours.

Satan has two strong tactics he employs to trip us up - the first is being busy. The busier we are, the less time we have to listen for the heart of God. Meetings, emails, blackberry's, little league, work, trips, charitable work, yard work, etc. Rush, rush. Go, go. Type-A. Power broker. Deal maker. Big producer. Important.

God wants you silent. God wants you slowed down so you can listen. Have you ever done this with your kids? "Please slow down a minute and be quiet so you can hear what I am trying to tell you!!" Don't you wonder if God isn't thinking the same thing about you and me? PLEASE get away from the noise. PLEASE get alone in the woods or in your closet so you can hear Me. PLEASE turn off the radio in your car and just communicate with Me. God longs for relationship with you. He craves time alone with you so He can nurture and guide you. Get quiet and listen.

Is it any wonder He says...."Be still and know that I am God"? (Ps 46:10). If you are still...you will know.

Satan's other tactic - if he can't drown you in the busy work of this world, he'll go silent and convince you he doesn't exist. If you think about Oprah or the other "peace" guru's, they never talk about evil. They talk about evolving - about becoming the complete "you". They talk about inner peace. They talk about finding your center. They talk about being in the "now". Do you ever hear them talk about evil? Do they ever address the fact that Satan does exist, that evil is real and that it prowls around looking for someone to devour? They don't because they have bought one of Satan's great lies..."I'm not here."

The days are evil. Yes they are. I watch our debates and shake my head. Our nation stands on the brink. Where is the leadership? Where is the depth of character in the men and women that lead our nation? Where are the straight arrows - folks that mean what they say and say what they mean? Even more sad is why most Americans don't crave such leadership. Sadly, it appears we have become a nation of people who want someone else to fix our problems. We are a nation that turns away from responsibility and always thinks "someone else is to blame for my problems". We are a nation that has turned our backs on God and now wants a handout.

This verse is powerful. The days are evil. Don't be foolish. Understand the will of the Lord. Be careful. Be still.

Soar!

2008-10-09T12:33:00.003-04:00

Consider this in the context of our world today...
This was written years ago by Rev. William Rogers of Denver, Colorado.

"Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock." Matthew 7:24

Our forefathers founded this nation on the rock of God's Word. Today people buy more Bibles and know less about the Bible's teaching than ever before. The result is a spiritual depression more serious than the economic one. By neglecting the religious principles once reverenced, our nation has slipped from the rock to shifting sand.

Daniel Webster left this warning: "If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instructions and authority no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury our glory in profound obscurity." The only way back to real stability is by restoring the Bible to its rightful place.

If prosperity should return under present low moral standards it would mean more drinking, more deaths on the highway, more gambling frenzy, more divorces and suicides. First we must have a moral and spiritual recovery. "Except the Lord build the house, the labor in vain that built it." Our citizens must turn again to the Bible, to the Church, and to God.

Undergird your character with Bible truth. Teach your children from the Word of God. Gather every Lord's day in God's House to study the way of life. Say with Joshua: "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." When we become a Bible-revering people our nation shall again stand on a rock where no storm can shake it.
----
Powerful, powerful words indeed - especially in 2008 when our nation has completely turned its back on God to pursue materialism and personal desires. Especially today when we consider who will be our next set of leaders. Especially today when our financial markets are rocked as a house built upon sand.

We need to be on our needs praying that God will show His mercy to our nation in this time of need.

Soar!

2008-10-05T13:13:00.002-04:00

Fireproof
Go see this movie. It is fantastic. My wife wanted to go last weekend and i talked her out of it. She mentioned it early this Saturday morning as a longing. I told her the TV football schedule and then proceeded out to the yard. As I was working in the yard I decided to come in and offer her the movie. She took me up on the offer. I'm glad she encouraged this.

This movie is anointed. God is all over it. You could feel it. Watching this movie, you knew God's people had followed their hearts in making this movie. They took a huge risk and you could feel God's blessing on their work. Our audience was vocal in their approval. Many a person shouted out "Amen" at appropriate moments and "Praise God" during the key points in the movie. We were in a movie theatre full of believers watching a clean movie made by believers proclaiming the love of God. It was powerful beyond words.

I don't cry. My wife has only seen me cry 1-2 times in nearly 20 years of marriage but yesterday I could not contain a flood of tears. This movie simply blew me away. I have never seen the Gospel so easily and beautifully proclaimed. Time after time, the writers infused the movie with the Gospel -- a young black girl is trapped by a fire and Kirk Cameron goes in to save her. He refuses to leave her. During the fires of our lives, God sends in our Rescuer and He will not leave us. In a car wreck scene, a terrified young woman is told over and over, "I am here. I will not leave you". Exactly what God tells us when we wreck our lives. "I am here. I will not leave you." As I type this, I choke up with tears. God does not leave us. He sent His Son in to rescue us from the wreckage of our lives.

The man in this movie has his marriage in ruins. He and his wife lead separate lives. They've grown apart. They are selfish. They annoy one another. As he is trying to save his marriage and working with his father, he tells his father, "How can I continue to love her and move toward her when she continues to turn her back on me?" As the son is saying this the father is walking up under a cross at a beautiful outdoor sanctuary. Right as Kirk Cameron is saying this, the father winds up right under the cross. How can Jesus continue to move towards us and pursue love with us when we continue to completely turn our backs on him and lead our own broken lives? It is a powerful visual.

This movie will change your marriage. If you've ever struggled with your spouse - he/she is selfish, unstable, needy, greedy, passive, aggressive, demanding, nagging, etc., you need to see this movie. It captures the typical marriage with stunning clarity and brutal honesty. "All fall short of the glory of God".

Please, please invest the time and money and take your wife/husband to this movie. You won't regret it but I'll bet you'll come out with a new perspective on your marriage and life.

This brings me to another point. This movie cost $650,000 to make and has already grossed more than $10 million. A small church in Albany, Georgia went way out on a limb to make this movie and God is rewarding their faithfulness. As an aside, it warms this Georgia boy's heart to see Albany in this film. The pine trees, Phoebe Putney hospital, downtown Albany, etc. It feels like home. But to the point - here is a film made by Christians that is thoroughly entertaining and powerfully moving. It is clean. It is safe. It is quality entertainment and watching it, you could feel God's hand all over it. I was drawn to tears just by the power of God in this movie. He ordained it. All I can continue to say is "You can feel God" in this movie.

But again back to the point - what we watch. I am so sick of this election and the media. I am sick of Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric and MSNBC. I am sick of the spin. I am sick of The View and Oprah. I am sick of the poison they are spewing.

The media opposes the Cross. They hate it. Let me say this again - they HATE the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. They oppose him. They attack him. They are against anything that brings glory to God. The hate the Word -- you and I know it -- and yet, we watch them.

We let them into our homes. In effect....we embrace them. We listen to Oprah and it seeps into our minds, "Maybe she has a point...." She doesn't have a point. She is lost. She stands in direct opposition to the Word of God. And yet.....we watch them.

WHY? Ask yourself, "Why do I even bother to listen?" I know these people are Godless. I know that they have an agenda that opposes my Lord. So why then do we listen?

John 10:10 says very clearly, "The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it to the full." The thief is out there. He uses countless resources to come into our homes and tell us "God isn't real. God doesn't really care about you. You can make your own decisions and you can overcome the consequences...."

You know the lies and you know the liar. I just want to encourage you to see this movie as soon as possible and to pay attention to the sources of information you rely upon. We are in a world at war. America stands on the brink of financial ruin. Millions of Americans are addicted to alcohol, drugs, pornography, food and the love of money. The enemy - one by one - is looking for ways to trip you up and take you out; Don't kid yourselves. You are under attack. Your children are under attack. The liar is sneaky. He comes as you sideways. Be on guard.

Fireproof your life. Fireproof your marriage. Fireproof your kids. We are at war and praise be to God that He has already won the victory.

Soar!

2008-09-28T13:15:00.003-04:00

Struggles
Dear ________ -
I just read your most recent blog post and was struck by the similarities to our earlier email conversations about this same topic.

I have been weighed heavy with this same issue for years. I am an investment advisor for goodness sakes and I still struggle personally with my own faults and shortcomings managing the resources entrusted to me. I am exactly where you are in this. But I've had some breakthrough on this.

You (and I) may never have a $7 million retirement account. Others surely will do "better" than we will financially. The lie is that a $7 million retirement would "complete" us. I deal with people with millions and they know no more peace than you or I do. So the first lie is that money somehow completes us. It doesn't.

The second lie is that any failures or shortcomings you and I have had in this regard have tainted us for life. It hangs over us as an accusation we cannot escape and _______, it is a lie of the foul one.

"Who will rescue me from this body of death?"
"By His stripes we are healed"
"He came to preach deliverance to the captives..."

"Captives". We are captive. Trapped. In bondage. Satan doesn't play fair. His goal is to lock you into that experience and even give you an identity in those mistakes so that he can put you in bondage over those events.

You remain in bondage over this and only the Great Liberator can free you and me of this bondage. He already has!

Here's the thing ______, rich or poor, skinny or fat...God has you and I exactly where He wants us - for reasons we may not understand but that He understands completely. I try every day to make money and grow my net worth. I try to be smart. I try to do the right thing and my money isn't multiplying itself exponentially. For years I have beaten the ever living crap out of myself over this and only very recently have I come to the place where I see that God has me where he wants me. I will be a good steward and will try to do the right thing but I may never reach "success" as the world defines it.

What has been release for me in this is the realization that God knows best. In His stripes I am healed. He has delivered me. I am free. I may never know why my efforts never "worked" and I don't need to. God has me exactly where he wants me. That is freeing.

The things of this earth will all burn up - 401(k)'s, pension plans, Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual -- it will all burn up. I know men with $10 million , $30 million and $100 million net worths and it NEVER is enough. It NEVER brings peace. It is why men build $10 million homes. It is why we buy 72 inch plasma TV's. It is why we trade cars every 2 years. We are constantly searching for that one thing that will finally bring us satisfaction and, therefore, peace.

Peace only comes from the One that has already set ________ free. You are free. Take the bondage and chains of money off. Quit dragging them around. You are complete. You are accepted. You are whole.

In Christ

Your friend Richard

2008-06-21T08:26:00.003-04:00

Stress
John Eldredge has a post on his blog today about stress and returning from vacation back into the matrix. While we are away, life changes. We make plans. We say "I'm going to change this" - less TV, more family time, more games, more exercise, etc. And then - in just a few days back in the world - we revert back to our old ways.

I can relate. This life is a killer. The stress is all consuming. I hate it and fear we cannot truly escape it in this life. A good friend and mentor of mine is a CPA here in town. He told me one time that God revealed something to him about how his life was consuming him. He was very active in Young Life. Kids were at their house every week. Their home was a sanctuary for kids and he built relationships with them. Many a night, he'd get a call from a kid in distress and would go to the jail or to their home to help them work out issues with parents or friends. He taught (still teaches) Sunday School. He was very active for the Kingdom. And then, January came along. The calendar rolled over into a new year and it began to be "tax season". For 4-5 months, he shut down. No Young Life - or if he was there, he was checked out. Sunday school was an after-thought.

And then God spoke. He revealed to him this - "When I die and get to heaven, God is going to sit me down and review my life. He'll say - 'I am so proud of you - you led Young Life and taught Sunday school faithfully. You ministered to so many and were so selfless....for 8 months. Where were you those other 4 months?" My friend would say, "Lord, I had a job to do. I wanted to be a good steward of the career you gave me and the people you entrusted to me. I had to help them with their taxes."

And God replies..."Taxes. What are taxes?"

Hmmm. All these things that consume us on this earth have absolutely no value in heaven. Taxes - we all know what they are. Entire industries are built around taxes. Millions of Americans - in some capacity - spend their careers working on taxes. And yet the Lord will say, "Taxes...What are taxes?"

It blew my friend away. No, he didn't quit his job but he went right back to Thursday night Young Life. He went right back into the mode of being available 24/7 for kids. Sunday school went back to being a passion rather than a duty.

I work in the market. It is a killer. I wear the responsibility of my client's life savings on my shoulders each and every day. The market stinks right now. It consumes the airways. CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox News everywhere you look there is "the market crumbles, oil surges, inflation is everywhere, crash is coming"...doom, doom, doom. Then we'll get into the season of greed when it is going up and the airways will be filled with greed. It is consuming. We all are touched by the market. I bet you have thought about it in the past 30 days. "Wonder how bad my 401k has been hit?" It simply consumes us.

I came home yesterday after a very tough week and went out on the porch with the dogs. I love my black lab. He is a happy dog. He loves unconditionally. All he wants to do is spend time with me. He savors those hour long play times we have each night. I was petting him last night and thought "You don't worry about (or even know what they are) the market, Iran, mortgages, gas prices, taxes - all you want to do is love me".

In many ways my dumb old black lab showed me the face of God. All these things we humans get consumed with are not even in His vocabulary. All He wants to do is love us and spend time with us.

Soar!

2008-06-01T14:29:00.002-04:00

I found it ...
Here it is, the best definition of "servant leadership" or "servanthood" (as I've been calling it) that I have read. I've you've read my previous 3-4 posts, you will know that I have been hearing "humility" on a consistent basis and in this, I've been trying to articulate what that means in a leadership capacity. I haven't done a very good job of it but today, I have THE answer. Here it is...

(Now imagine if you heard your CEO say "this is how we are going to do business going forward"...)

If you've gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care - then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don't push your way to the front; don't sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.

Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then he died a self-less, obedient death - and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion.
Philippians 2 The Message

Imagine if that is how business was run - putting the needs of others ahead of ourselves - not fighting for promotion but celebrating the promotion of others - no jealousy - humility - dying to our own self and helping others succeed. Just imagine how this would transform a business! Think of how this would transform the church! No agendas, no "I need to be heard", the attitude of a servant.

Soar!

2008-05-30T10:10:00.003-04:00

The Heart
I just read John Mackey's (CEO of Whole Foods) commencement address to Bentley College. He speaks in one place about the heart. See if this doesn't sound strangely familiar to all that I have written about the heart quoting Eldredge, McManus and others....

We need to develop our self-awareness skills so that we can know when we are truly following our hearts and when we've lost our way. It is actually easier than it sounds because when we are truly following our hearts we are tapped into our deepest passions in life. We are doing what we most love and we find our lives full of increased energy, greater creativity, purpose, joy, and happiness. We simply feel more alive and we are moving within the flow of life. How do you know when you've stopped following your heart? When the opposite occurs—decreased energy, lack of creativity, no real sense of purpose and you aren't particularly happy. You have stepped out of the flow of life and are just drifting along. When this happens the solution is simple: Choose again. Reconnect again with your heart. As long as you are alive, it is never too late. You are free in each moment to choose the path of your heart and it never stops whispering to you, urging you to follow it.

He speaks of losing our heart - a life of drifting along, decreased energy, lack of creativity, no real sense of purpose and a lack of happiness. A person who has "stepped out of life and is just drifting along."

I have a friend that is right there. He is simply "taken out" by life. He is listless, passionless and plods along day to day. He has walled off his heart and silenced it. Getting him to even engage in a thoughtful and reflective talk is very hard. He won't go there. He feels safe in his walled-off world yet those around him are dying on the vine. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy - he won't open his heart out of fear of hurt. This walls himself off to those most capable of loving him and helping him along. Rejection tends to drive those people away only fulfilling the lie he has bought, "you see, people will hurt you."

I believe God speaks to us from the heart. Jesus came that our hearts of stone would become hearts of flesh. Dead, cold hearts would be awakened to the fullness of living in Christ. My friend is a believer but his heart is cold. He's not a mean person or a bad man...he just fears turning on his heart afraid of where that might take him. The lie from Satan is that relying on the heart of stone to keep us safe actually robs us of the life we were meant to live in worship of the Lord. "The glory of God is man fully alive".

Mackey profoundly describes (I don't think he is a Christian but he nails it) a heart fully alive..."We are doing what we most love and we find our lives full of increased energy, greater creativity, purpose, joy, and happiness. We simply feel more alive and we are moving within the flow of life."

Passion and creativity and purpose - a heart fully alive!

Soar!

2008-05-29T20:59:00.002-04:00

Asaph - Psalm 73
I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong.
They are free from the burdens common to man; they are not plagued by human ills.
Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth.
Therefore their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance
This is what the wicked are like - always carefree, they increase in wealth.
Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain I have washed my hands in innocence.
All day long I have been plagued; I have been punished every morning.

I share in Asaph's laments. I think (by comparison) I am of pure heart. I think I am innocent. I've given my life over to God and it seems all day long I am plagued. It seems I am punished every morning.

Ever felt that way? Why is it that the other guy seems to have life figured out? They succeed in so many ways. They take the great trips to Italy with their family. Their kids make 4.0's and quarterback the football team. They look like triathletes (many of them are!). Money flows their way with ease. LIFE ISN'T FAIR!

Asaph goes on to say, "I tried to understand all this and it was oppressive to me." Then he entered the sanctuary of God and it is revealed to him...

"When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you. Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory...earth has nothing I desire besides you."

There it is - he realizes he was senseless and ignorant apart from the Lord - a brute beast. There it is. None of us is deserving. All of us fall short of the glory of God. Our works and "pure" heart will win us no favors with God. Only faith in Christ gets us there.

We are so focused on life not being fair. We are Christians and at times it feels like we are the ones getting the shaft in this life. Exactly! We weren't made for "this" life. This life was broken in Eden. Asaph says earlier before he is enlightened that he was pure of heart and innocent. No he wasn't. Our sin nature separates us from God. Even if we have accepted Jesus we are still separated by our sin in this life. Even for the strongest believer, the flesh pulls hard against the will of God. God will forgive the sin of those who believe and turn their lives over to God but while we are here, we will still sin. We will never reach the place of "innocent and pure" in this life. Innocence and purity will come to those that accept Christ and enter into the Kingdom. Only then will the wrongs be made right and we will be made whole.

The things Asaph laments over are just that..."things". He sees others that are rich, pretty, successful, have the nice house, have the kids with the 4.0 and the full ride to UVA, the BMW, the beach house, having lots of friends, large parties, the successful career...you know the drill. But everything he sees will burn up. All that we desire to possess in this life will not pass with us into eternity. Cars, houses, titles, GPAs, status, health, etc. will all burn up at some point in this life. Temporal vs. Eternal.

Back to 2 posts ago - this changes the way we view the "things" of this life. They are temporary. The treasure of heaven is lasting. We are deserving of a one-way ticket to hell. Only by God's grace are we able to escape "this" life and enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Praise be to the Lord!

Soar!

2008-05-29T20:22:00.002-04:00

Quick addition on servant leadership
Then point I was driving at in the prior post was on getting away from the label "servant leader". It is being overused in business, the church and society. The presumption with the phrase "servant leader" is "I am a leader". I am going at this saying even to say "I am a leader" is putting the focus on "me". The best servant leaders are those that simply, quietly serve. Serve is the key -- not labeling it as "I am leading you by serving you".

I just put down the Wall Street Journal and something struck me. There was an ad for an upcoming symposium on the "deal makers" and the CEO of Bank of America is featured. He is coming to NYC to speak on his accomplishments in the area of buying other companies. I'm not really throwing stones at Ken Lewis (He is from Columbus) but rather I am asking "why?" Why would he take a day off from running the country's biggest bank to go to NY to speak to other executives on the "art of the deal"? What is in it for him? What does this have to do with taking care of employees, customers and shareholders?

I guess I am saying why don't these CEO's take the more humble approach. Run the company, do the right thing for the employees, customers and shareholders vs. going on the lecture circuit to boast about their deal-making prowess.

I'm just wondering where the humility is? Sorry to beat this horse...

Soar!

2008-05-28T14:58:00.004-04:00

Humility
Isn't humility rare these days? God has been speaking to me this week and what I hear over and over again is "humility". Don't boast. Don't defend your position. Listen instead of talk. Look at the other guy and ask, "what is it I can do for him ... what does he need". Servanthood. Not servant leadership but rather servanthood. Servant leadership means "I'm a leader and I'm going to put on the hat of a servant" -- nothing wrong with this but you're still the leader (just a unique type of leader). No, servanthood. Serve.

Indeed humility is rare these days. Donald Trump. Tiger Woods. CEO's in glossy $50 million jets dashing off to exotic resorts for corporate retreats while folks in their company are hurting. Skyscrapers being lifted up to mark a company's "status" or importance. George Bush. I like "W". I think he is a good and decent man but I'll agree his swagger has cost us something on the world stage. The old saying is true of W, CEO's, rock stars, you and me ... "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

We crave power and status. We want to be noticed. And in that desire comes a lack of humility. Things go our way, God blesses us and suddenly, we start to take credit for it. Our ability got us to this point and we are going to do whatever we can to lift our status and get us even more opportunities. It seems it winds up being all about "me". My power. My desire to be noticed. My talents and abilities that get "me" the success "I" deserve...

Charles Spurgeon, defined humility as, "Making a right estimate of one’s self." Another noted speaker stated that, "Humility is not denying the power or gifting you have, but admitting that the gifting is from God and the power comes through you and not from you." After World War II, Winston Churchill humbly commented that, "I was not the lion, but it fell to me to give the lion’s roar."

It just seems to me that we need more leaders like Churchill. Those that push the spotlight off of themselves and their accomplishments and more humbly serve. What if our President acted this way - running America is a sacred trust. It isn't a bully pulpit for his glory. What if our CEO's were this way? Pushing away power. Downplaying their role. Taking their glossy photo out of the annual reports and replacing it with customers and employees.

What if you and I came into meetings not fighting to be heard but rather quietly soaking in what was going on and prayerfully seeking God's will? What if we came up with a great idea, passed it on and then forgot about it? In other words, we didn't push that idea, make sure it happened and then were sure to let everyone know it was our idea. What if we let go of the relentless pursuit of things to make us happy and we took on the role of a servant just glad for a roof over our heads and a soft bed to sleep in?

What if we took the focus off of "our" works, "our" accomplishments, "our" talents, "our" abilities and put them on the One who gives all? To God be the glory. Not man.

Soar!

2008-05-13T20:56:00.006-04:00

The Problem of Liberalism - a talk about Capitalism, Obama and Whole Foods Markets
OK, now I'm probably going to offend someone with this. I have had a raging debate with a friend about money, capitalism, charity and the government's role in fixing the problems of America. He is a very successful businessman who created a company out of nothing and it has already made him wealthy at a young age. He is quite "evolved" in his thinking. He has recently said that he will gladly pay more in income taxes to help redistribute wealth and income to help the plight of the poor in America.

I don't believe that redistributing wealth or income fixes any problems. First of all it assumes an efficient government will take a bigger bite of higher income earners and quickly, fairly and efficiently redistribute that money into the hands of those who are in greater need. Given the lifetime politicians who control our national budget, that is a big assumption. It is a leap. Big government is not the solution.

But even deeper, what does redistribution really accomplish? If all the doctors in town had to each pay $25,000 a year more in income taxes and $5,000 of that went to five lower income families -- what would that accomplish? Even in the most ideal sense, that would certainly help those families in the short run but after a while wouldn't someone say, "Hey, why $5,000, why not $10,000?" Would a hand out really "fix" the problem? Is that really what the government wants to do anyway? Do they really want to flow through higher income earnings efficiently to lower income earners? No. The government wants a large chunk of that money and very little of it will truly flow through to those who really need it.

Now don't get me wrong, the "model" does sound appealing. Some are incredibly blessed and talented and surely they can pay even more in taxes to help others get out of poverty. It sounds noble. It sounds lofty. Obama talks about "shared national sacrifice" and when he says it, it seems appealing. When Hillary talks about "universal healthcare" and getting every American insured, it sounds noble. She really can't articulate how it will work (other than saying she'll raise taxes) but she and Obama offer up these lofty ambitions to move us.

But there is a real problem with it - it won't work. Never has, never will. Taken to the extremes, this rapidly becomes socialism and eventually communism. Raising taxes and redistributing wealth has the stunning effect of disincentive. Eventually the strong earners will see no benefit in squeezing in that one last surgery or inventing that next product because they know "what good is it, the government is going to take all the excess income it produces." In every case, the government itself explodes in size and soon begins to exist for itself not the people. Don't believe me? Look at pictures of Korea at night from space - the South is lit up like a Christmas tree while North Korea is pitch black dark. Kim has his fancy cars, expensive wines and western sunglasses but his people are in the dark and starving.

I am a big fan of Whole Foods Markets. Whole Foods was started by a very liberal guy that dreamed up this idealistic company that would sell organic food, give to charity and change the world. As he matured in his dream, he quickly realized he was really a communist and was way off base. He's a Libertarian now and has embraced capitalism - but - he also runs a very unique company. They give away 5% of their after tax income to charity and they have embraced "green" culture. He was a hippie, he's still a vegetarian and he practices yoga. He's "earthy", a "tree hugger" and very "un-business" He still wants to change the world but he has realized that corporations and capitalism aren't evil. They are necessary to achieving freedom. He started Whole Foods with $40,000 and it now has a market value of $8 billion. They give away more than $15 million a year, employ more than 40,000 people and he caps his salary at a low multiple of his lowest paid employee.

Listen to what he has recently said...
"I migrated to the Left when I was a young man for my value system. Why did I do that? Because the Left provided an idealistic vision of the way the world could be. However, the reality of the Left's vision proved to be terribly flawed. Its socialist economic system not only didn't work very well, but in it's communist manifestation it justified monstrous governments directly responsible for the murders of over 100 million people in the 20th century. Despite the unbelievable horrible track record of the leftist ideology, millions of young Americans continue to migrate to an intellectual bankrupt Left because the Left still seems to be idealistic, and that idealism is magnetic to the young. Idealism will always be magnetic to the intelligent and sensitive young people of the world."

He's right. Obama is young and dynamic and offers up bold visions of shared sacrifice and dreams. He is like a magnet to the nation's young. Even my 14 year old daughter likes him and says "I can relate to him". Obama is intelligent and idealistic. He reminds me of Bobby Kennedy who captured this same, "We can do better" mentality for America. Crowds swoon and energy flows but it is around a philosophy that cannot work. "We'll make the oil companies pay, we'll make the rich pay, we'll share in the sacrifice, etc." If you buy the logic of making the oil companies pay, you are buying into socialism. Free markets will fix the price of oil. It may be painful but eventually what goes up will come down. We'll either quit splurging on oil or we'll invent more efficient cars or build solar power plants but eventually, the free markets will fix the price of oil. The problem is, we don't want to wait. We get drawn into the message of the Left of big government, redistribution of wealth and universal healthcare. "I don't like pain at the pump, I need the government to fix this..."

Well, if you take this logic to the next step (where does it stop by the way?), we'll be slapping an excise tax on Wal-Mart because they make a lot of money and that "isn't fair to the average American" and then we'll move on to Georgia Power, Bank of America, surgeons, lawyers, etc. "No one should make extra profits, we'll tax the extra profits so we can make everything fair."

Taken to the next step and then the next, we rapidly arrive at full blown socialism. Wal-Mart and BofA and Chevron start laying folks off to help offset their rising taxes. Pfizer cuts way back on their research budget because of their excise tax on drug profits. With R&D cut way back, the drug companies stop finding the new drugs the AARP demands (but is unwilling to pay for). Georgia Power can't build a new nuclear power plant because of their excise taxes so those construction jobs aren't created and we retain our dependence on Mideast oil.

You get the picture....

This has nothing to do with my typical posts but the Whole Foods comments tied a lot of this together. Take your shots at me but I think he is right.

Soar!

2008-05-01T21:51:00.003-04:00

Naaman
Naaman was a commander in the army of the king of Aram (Syria). He was a great man in the sight of his master, highly regarded and victorious on the battle field. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy.

He was a great man but he was also a dead man. Leprosy would eventually eat him alive and he knew it. The story reminds me of a modern day CEO or business owner or mega-church pastor who is suddenly stricken with cancer. Suddenly your status doesn't really matter. Your income or net worth don't really matter. Your importance and status don't matter. Cancer doesn't care "who" you are. It just kills.

Naaman had "cancer" but God sent him hope. A servant girl that worked for his wife told her, "send my master to see the prophet who is in Samaria. He would cure him of his leprosy." Naaman asks the king for permission to go and it is granted. Naaman heads off with silver and gold to seek his cure.

When Naaman approaches Elisha's home, Elisha sends a messenger out to greet him. Now remember, Naaman was a powerful general and a renowned warrior. Suddenly, a flunkie is being sent out to tell him what to do. The messenger says, "Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed."

Naaman was angry - "Surely he would have come out and waved his hand over my leprosy and called out the name of his God and cure me. The rivers in Damascus are better than any waters of Israel. Couldn't I wash in them and be cleansed?"

Modern day - the status as the CEO doesn't matter any more. You show up at the clinic and rather than the leading oncologist consulting with you, an intern greets you and tells you in detail how you will be treated - "we will wash you seven times in chemo..." Cold. Impersonal. Lonely. Your status doesn't matter. You're just a number.

Naaman's servants plead with him to follow the instructions and finally, he consents and dips himself in the Jordan seven times. He finally lets go of his "status" and follows the pleading of his lowly servants and he strips and enters the waters of Israel to be healed.

This is a great picture of God's grace. Naaman had a problem. He was sick but he was also prideful. God used the illness and the subsequent treatment to go after Naaman's sin and pride. The picture of Naaman submitting to God's grace and entering the redemptive, healing waters is a remarkable picture of Christ's liberation. Naaman came as a general with all the trappings of that position but he had to be humbled before he could see his sin. Once he realized that in order to be healed, he would first have to submit, he was saved.

The same is true for us. Once we realize it really isn't all "about me" and once we realize we can't fake it anymore and "do life" on our own...once we realize we have to submit to Him, we are saved. We strip ourselves of all our status and prestige, we strip ourselves of our title and possessions and we enter into the river of life and we are saved!

Soar!

2008-04-23T10:19:00.005-04:00

Fully Alive
Spring is in full bloom in the deep south and it just moves my soul. I love fresh green zoysia grass, azaleas in bloom, daylillies springing up, warm days and cool evenings. My routine this time of year is to come home from work, change into shorts and move out to our back patio to enjoy the evening with my wife and kids. We talk, catch up on the day, play fetch with the dogs and just experience the beauty of God's kingdom. Even the dogs feel "fully alive" these days. Our indoor dog can't wait for me to come home. He jumps me when I walk in and goes with me to change clothes. All the while, he is eagerly wagging his tail and on the ready for my break to the back door and "dog time". There, the black lab is also on ready. He sees me come in the house and sits at the back door waiting. As soon as I step out into the yard, they spring into action, tails wagging and tennis ball in mouth ready to go.

Fully alive. Do you ever feel it? Isn't it a precious time? It is so fleeting. We feel it for an hour or so on a Saturday afternoon after the chores are done, the yard looks good and the day is cooling off. In that time, we can almost feel God walking with us "in the garden in the cool of the day". Fully alive.

When do you feel most fully alive? Think back to your days as a kid - what are the memories of fully alive back then? For me, it was wiffle ball. I had about 10 boys that were my close friends and we fell in love with wiffle ball. We'd rotate "home fields" - my house one week, George's house the next and occasionally, Lakebottom park. We perfected the game. On Friday afternoons we'd cut the grass tight and water the lawn. Some of the crew would spend Friday night together and work on our uniforms, tape up our bats and tape up a few extra balls. On Saturday the other 1/2 would show up and we'd spend 3-4 hours playing very competitive baseball. This was 4th, 5th, 6th grade stuff and we loved it. We'd watch the Braves and Joe Morgan and Johnny Bench of the Big Red Machine or Willie Stargell of the Pittsburgh Pirates and we'd learn their swings and copy them on wiffle ball field. We were fully alive.

Saturday while I was working in the yard I heard some boys walking down in my creek. I edged over to the fence and watched them as they passed by my house. These guys were about 10 years old and two of them didn't have shirts on and all three were barefooted. They had set out for an adventure, found this creek and explored it. They were a long way from home but that just added to the fun. I heard them talking, "next time we do this, we need to bring our air rifles". I saw their mom Sunday at church and she said they spent all afternoon recounting their adventure in the creek. Fully alive.

Find it. Pursue it. God came and liberated us that we may live life to the full. Find it. It is out there for you. He wants you to experience it and stay in it.

Fully alive.

Soar!

2008-04-16T14:05:00.002-04:00

Chasing the adventure...
That is the name of my blog. Here is a video clip of a young man who chased his adventure and found it. J Mac is an autistic kid who loved sports and was the manager of his high school basketball team. In the last game of his senior year, with 4 minutes to go, the coach put him in so he could live out his dream. Oh my what he did in that 4 minutes will bring tears to your eyes...

We all want our shot in life...J Mac took his...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngzyhnkT_jY

clip and paste that into your browser

Soar!

2008-04-04T09:33:00.003-04:00

Tough Times

How do we handle tough times? Why do we avoid them? Wouldn't life be easier if we could run downhill all the time? Why do hills exist anyway?

My career is volatile. I'm in the markets. Markets are naturally driven by greed or fear. It is really quite manic. The glass is either 1/2 full or 1/2 empty day to day. I'm changing the way I run my business and moving away from being glued to the minute by minute fluctuations of a ticker. Long-term investing, buying very high quality companies with strong fundamentals has the effect of killing the beast of greed/fear. I really don't care what the market does day in day out. If I have a bad day/month/quarter -- it really doesn't matter. I'm focused on the long-term. My eyes are on the prize - the long-term prize not the short-term gratification. We all "run the race" but only one will collect the prize. The goal is the prize.

There is an analogy to our faith. Our eyes should be on the prize not the day to day trials of life. "Life" is broken. It will lift you up one day and slap you down the next. There is an enemy. He is at work. His demons are real and they do pursue us. Life was broken in Eden. It isn't as God intended it. He came that we might have life and have it to the full. The only way I've found to have life to the full is to keep my eyes focused on the prize. The long-run. Not the short-term victories or painful defeats. They are all apart of the race I run.

I read a quote the other day from Abigail Adams that struck me. She was writing to her son about his second trip to France. The first trip nearly killed him and he didn't want to return. She writes....

"It is not the still calm of life that great characters are formed. Formation of character and the habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with great difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised and animated by scenes that engage the heart then those qualities that otherwise lay dormant waken to life and form the character that define the hero and statesman."

God shakes us from time to time for a reason. At times we have to run up some hills. Yet it is the hills that strengthen our legs far more than the flat plains. As I look back on my life, the times my character has been strengthened has always been during the times of greatest stress and strain. We strain forward and run the race for the prize.

Soar!

2008-03-31T11:07:00.002-04:00

Obituary -- Death of Common Sense

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as knowing when to come in out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm, life isn't always fair, and maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn) and reliable parenting strategies (adults, not children are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well intended but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a six-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using a mouthwash after lunch; a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student; and a librarian fired for reporting to the police of a patron viewing child pornography on the libraries computer, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job they themselves failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer Aspirin, sun lotion or a Band-Aid to a student, but could not inform the parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Commons Sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your home and the burglar can sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little on her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason. He is survived by three stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, Someone Else is to Blame, and I'm a Victim.

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone, apparently assuming that the persistent deterioration of the American way was just fine.

"Author unknown"

2008-03-20T19:52:00.003-04:00

Eliot Spitzer
When news first hit the floor of the New York Stock Exchange that a scandal was brewing involving Eliot Spitzer and a high priced call girl -- a cheer went up. Trading stopped for a second or two and the floor erupting in cheering. Eliot Spitzer who had zealously pursued justice at the cost of many Wall Street firms had fallen. His sin had been exposed. A lot of people were elated.

Why is that?

When someone falls, why do we rejoice? I'm no Spitzer fan - he took his role as Attorney General of New York to an extreme. He viewed himself as a modern day Eliot Ness and went from company to company, industry to industry threatening corporate death unless Boards of Directors gave in, wrote huge checks and fired their CEO's. Spitzer threatened many a man with total humiliation including threatening to arrest a corporate executive in front of his wife and small child unless he gave in to Spitzer's demands.

In hindsight, it is very clear that the power went to his head. He became invincible, untouchable and as we now know, above the law himself. So I am no fan, but why is it that some of us rejoice in his fall? Take him out of this ... why do you rejoice when your enemy falls?

Why aren't we on our knees praying for that enemy or Spitzer and shuddering, "My God, that could so easily be me. If the world saw what lurked in my own dark heart, I'd be taken out too."

We are hypocrites. It is so easy to make Spitzer or Bill Clinton or that guy in your office who fools the bosses year after year and finally gets exposed, out to be the bad guy. We love to say, "what goes around, comes around". But what about that which is due to come around to us? How quick we are to judge others and slow to see our own sin.

I'll admit, I was glad the "SOB" Spitzer got exposed. He was cocky, he was a super ego, he thought the rules didn't apply to him, he thrashed others to build his own stock to help fulfill his ultimate ambitions. I was glad until I put this back on me. On my knees, I proclaim, "My God how easily that could have been me!"

Every time I see Chuck Bradshaw and say "How are you doing?", he always (I mean every single time) says, "Better than I deserve." How true.

Soar!

2008-03-20T19:44:00.002-04:00

The Good Life
The good life - the one that truly satisfies exists only when we stop wanting a better one. It is the condition of savoring what is rather than longing for what can be. The itch for things, the lust for more - so brilliantly injected by those who peddle them - is a virus draining our souls of self contentment.

Have you noticed?

A man never earns enough. A woman is never beautiful enough. Clothes are never fashionable enough. Cars are never nice enough. Houses are never furnished enough. Gadgets are never modern enough. Food is never fancy enough. Relationships are never romantic enough. Life is never full enough.

Satisfaction comes when we step off the escalator of desire and say, "This is enough. What I have will do. What I make of it is up to me and my vital union with the Living Lord."

Are you satisfied? What are you reaching for? Can you reasonably hope that this world can fulfill you?

No. It is only in the Lord. In the Lord.

Soar!

2008-02-24T15:43:00.004-05:00

Wild at Heart - second time around...it is still about freedom
I have just returned from 5 days in Colorado attending my second Wild at Heart boot camp. 10 men from Columbus went and it was a very powerful time for our group. Let me be clear, John Eldredge isn't "It". Wild at Heart isn't "the" solution. Jesus is "it". He is "the" solution. John Eldredge doesn't lead some cult of men. He isn't out to get men away from the church. He hasn't invented a better solution. No, John just does a great job of capturing the essence of what scripture is saying to men.

To me, the underlying take away of Ransomed Heart ministries is freedom. Christ came to give man freedom. It is pretty simple and yet the Church has moved men away from freedom into a life of duty. As a result, men are bound up in duty, rules and "I shouldn't". Psalm 119 says "I run in the path of your commands because you have set my heart free". Luke 19:10 says "The Son of Man came to seek and save what was lost." Not "the lost" but the "what was" lost. What was lost? Our hearts. John 10:10 says, "The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it to the full."

"set my heart free"..."save what was lost"..."Live and life to the full"...

Freedom. A full life. No boundaries. Fullness. Richness.

And yet, that isn't what we hear from the church. It surely isn't what we hear from society. We hear conform. Don't rock the boat. Play fair. Be political. Hedge yourself. Have a back up plan. Don't drink. Don't smoke. Don't look at another woman. Don't watch an "R" rated movie. Never cuss.

Works. The path of Christianity of many is a path of perfection. Like the Lexus commercial, "The relentless pursuit of perfection". That I am most like Christ when I have so purged myself of all that is any way sinful... Works. Duty.

Is it any wonder that so many of us are bound up? We are so rigid because we are so afraid of what others in society (or even worse in Christianity) think of us. Christ came that we may have freedom. Freedom. That doesn't mean free to sin, free to booze it up -- no, true freedom means the relentless pursuit of Him. So in love, so passionate about my faith that I am free to pursue Him wherever he takes me.

I'm not doing a good job of articulating this but let me try it this way. On my trip, I was with a man that went to medical school and is now running a community health clinic in downtown Augusta. Charitable work. His dad is a very successful businessman. His uncle retired as a world-class investment manager. His other uncle is a highly paid surgeon. All three, very wealthy. But this guy has taken his medical degree and is giving it away to the poor in Augusta, Georgia. Someone was talking to him one day and said, "sounds great but you are going to be poor". His reply? "Yep, poor for the next 40 years." Wow. That puts it in its proper place. Yes, he will be poor by the world's standards but his eyes are on eternity. He'll be earthly poor for 40 more years but he'll be heavenly rich for eternity. Freedom. He has found freedom.

More to come. In the meanwhile, please -- Soar!

2008-02-03T20:21:00.001-05:00

Bill
He won't let it rest. I've read the posts on his blog and he has a local who is also from Boston and she is affirming him in this assault on the South. Bill says my ramblings are just sour grapes over us losing the war. I've fired back and said, "If y'all are so proud of winning the war, why are folks from the north moving to the South by the hundreds of thousands?" Makes you wonder doesn't it?

And I left this tune on his blog ...

She grew up in the city in a little subdivision,
Her daddy wore a tie, Momma never fried a chicken,
Ballet, Straight A’s, Most likely to succeed

They bought her a car after graduation
Sent her down south for some higher education
Put her on the fast track to a law degree

Now she’s comin home to visit
holdin the hand
Of a wild-eyed boy
with a farmer’s tan

And shes ridin in the middle of his pickup truck
Blarin Charlie Daniels yellin, “Turn it up!”
They raised her up a lady
but there’s one thing they couldn’t avoid
Ladies love country boys

Yeah, you know momma’s and daddy’s want better for their daughters
Hope they’ll settle down with a doctor or a lawyer
In their uptown, ball gown, hand-me-down royalty

They never understand
why their princess falls
For some camouflage britches
and a southern boy drawl

Or why she’s ridin in the middle of a pickup truck
Blarin Hank Jr. yellin, “Turn it up!”
They raised her up a lady
but there’s one thing they couldn’t avoid
Ladies love country boys

You can train ‘em
You can try to teach ‘em right from wrong
But it’s still gonna turn ‘em on

When they go ridin in the middle of a pickup truck
Blarin Lynyrd Skynyrd yellin, “Turn it up!”
You can raise her up a lady
but there’s one thing you jus can’t avoid
Ladies love country boys

They love us country boys

Soar!

2008-02-03T19:29:00.001-05:00

Throw of the hindrances
"Throw off the hindrances and the sin which so easily entangles us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us..." Hebrews 12:1

First of all, the race is set out before us. Life is a race. There is a start and there is a finish. We can crawl, walk, skip, jog or sprint but it is a race. Not a race against mankind but rather a race toward the grand finish. God built us, created us and breathed life into us for a reason. It isn't 9-5, pay your taxes, raise your kids, do a few good works, retire and die. No, there is so much more. He calls us to a race. Race implies so much here - endurance, training, excellence, reaching for more than we thought we could possibly achieve - all for a life that is fully lived.

The message is pretty simple and pretty direct - there is a race to be run and we must throw off the hindrances that entangle us and prevent us from the full life. Throw off the hindrances.

What hinders you?

As I type this, I am watching the Super Bowl. That is entertainment and many of us are addicted to being entertained. Some advertisements tonight will cost $2 million. Can you imagine spending $2 million for 30 seconds of air time? Think what good $2 million would do for 50 families living in poverty. Think how many kids this money could send to college. Think of those with living under the bridges of the Chattahoochee and how this money could help them. But no, we Americans are addicted to entertainment and pleasure and corporate America knows it. They'll spend what it takes to make you and I act. And act we will.

We have come to worship entertainment. It robs us of life and pulls us away from interaction with others. 4-5 hours a day in front of the TV or internet and kids in front of electronic games. These things rob us of life. Go spend one hour in the woods totally alone. Take a chair and sit down with nothing to do. See how it challenges you. Does the silence bother you? Are you addicted to noise and activity? Recreation is OK - we need it but too much recreation can be a problem. Excess recreation leads to addiction which leads to gluttony.

We all know of people who have taken this addiction to the next step of gluttony. New cars every year, flat screens in every room, every latest gadget, fine wines and foods, every possible comfort -- all seeking that one last final thing that completes them. We know people like that and we know we are like this. We know in many ways that our addiction for comfort and things is a hinderance to our walk with God.

Hebrews is telling us how to handle whatever it is that hinders us from running the race as efficiently as we should - we should throw them off. If our love of things possesses us, we need to stop. Simply put...just stop. Stop the rapid acquisition of everything we can get our hands on. Be the opposite of what drives us - start giving things away rather than buying more new things. Think counter-intuitively. The world tells you (yells at you) more, more, more it is all about more stuff. That is the wrong kind of more.

The more we need is more of the Lord. More quiet time. Less hindrances and more of Him. It is pretty simple but it is hard to do but remember, we are running a race. We are born to run. Born to be free.

Soar!

2008-02-02T15:29:00.000-05:00

Bill Shorey .... get a life
Bill Shorey is a wonderful friend. I read an article on Bill a few years ago in the Columbus paper and knew immediately he was a kindred spirit, a rebel and a passionate follower of Christ. The very next week, I ran into him at Panera Bread with Cary Jones, introduced myself and invited him to lunch. Our friendship took off at that point. We've shared some great times over the past few years, have spent time in Colorado and now worship together.

Bill has a blog that is excellent. It was totally the inspiration for my blog and I even copied the theme of his site - enjoying the adventure - for mine "chasing the adventure". his is www.enjoyingtheadventure.blogspot.com. Read it. Bill's writing is God inspired. He is a poet. His writing is incredibly talented.

But...

Bill has a problem. As you'll read on his blog from today, he is challenging me. Bill is from Maine. He is a yankee through and through. He carries a thick new england accent. I love him for it. But he is waaaay too attached to his beloved Boston Red Sox. Last fall he was crowing about the Sox and how they were a team of destiny. Yeh, yeh, yeh, blah, blah, blah. Dumb me, I decided to rile him with a challenge that the Colorado Rockies would beat the Sox. This set him off like a roman candle. Needless to say, he won the bet and he has never let me forget it -- in fact, he addresses this on his blog today. Now, with his (all of a sudden?) beloved Boston Patriots at 17-0 and a day away from the super bowl, my man Bill is crowing again. As if I care! My wife just asked me who I wanted to win the Super Bowl and I said, "I really don't care but now, I want the Giants to win just to aggravate Bill".

Now he is already moving on past football to basketball and his "beloved" Celtics have the best record in the NBA and he is challenging me on the basketball. I don't know about you but I could give a rat's ___ about the NBA. Thug vs. Thug. Whoever wins the thing is still a Thug.

Christ came as the Great Liberator to set the captives free. Bill, by God's great Grace, you have been set free. You live in the South now my friend ... God's country. You've been set free of the land of your icy captivity. No more Soda Pop, no more "Yous guys", no more Kennedy-liberal NE politics ... no Bill, you have been liberated. God picked you out of that icy, bleak world and has dropped you into the land of lush lawns, tall pines, sweet tea, Auburn football, "yes ma'am", "y'all", fried chicken, country music and the Augusta azaleas of the Masters. You are free Bill. Embrace the South. Put a big AU sticker on the back of the Explorer and a Braves hat on your head and bow down and thank God that you are free.

Free at last! Long live the South.
p.s. Go giants!

Soar!

2008-01-31T19:53:00.001-05:00

Fruit of the Spirit
I am in a Bible study on Thursday mornings at Trinity. We've had 3-4 years of great study and I've learned more details of the Bible - Moses, Jacob, Abraham, etc. - than I have in any other study i've been in. We are now going through the book The Fruit of the Spirit by John Sanderson. It is powerful.

In today's chapter, Sanderson says, "Satan's tactic is to give some people so light a case of Christianity that they will never get the real thing." That is what I want - I want the real thing. I want to go deep and stay there. I have only scratched the surface of a walk of faith and I am hungry for more.

Sanderson talks of weeds, artificial fruit and The Fruit of the Spirit and it nailed me...

The Weeds ---- hatred, sorrow, anxiety, strife, impatience, pride, evil, infidelity, self-seeking, lack of control

Artificial Fruit -- limited love, temporary joy, numbness, carelessness, laziness, insensitivity, manipulation by kindness, hypocrisy, half-heartedness, false modesty, choosing lesser gods

The Fruit of the Spirit --- love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control

We all have weeds and they choke out growth but I'm OK with the weeds and think I've got them fairly well under control. At times I struggle with hatred, anxiety, pride, etc. but for the most part, this area is OK. But man, when I get to the artificial fruit, I am in trouble. I love but I limit it. I have joy - real, tangible, God-given joy but it is fleeting. I have peace at times but I spend a lot of time being numb. You get the picture.

I can't manufacture the Fruit of the Spirit - they are only God-given. If you ever know one to be at peace, joyful, patient, kind, good, etc. you'll know they are of God. When I do experience the Fruit, I am reminded it is only through God's grace that this fruit appears. My vine cannot produce good fruit. My sin would only produce bitter fruit but when some sweet, healthy fruit appears, praise the Lord, I know it came from the Master Gardener.

Some of my friends lead with "I'm just a rotten sinner saved by grace" - true. That is true. No matter how long we've been a Christian, that sin nature is in us and isn't leaving. We are rotten. And yet, Jesus talks about turning our heart from a heart of stone to one of flesh. Through Christ, real fruit can be produced. We are not doomed to weeds. Yes, we will stumble but that good heart is in us - that Good heart is Jesus and the Spirit. Seek Him, desire Him, look for Him and Live in Him. Truly Live. Live like you've never lived. Free. Free.

Soar!

2008-01-21T17:09:00.001-05:00

Lesson from history
I was watching a new special on the Kennedy assassination and an important revelation appeared. The story talked about how paranoid Lyndon Johnson was after the assassination. Johnson had been told by the CIA that if the Russians were going to launch a nuclear attack, they would likely first assassinate the president and other key leaders of the country. So he was pretty shaky right off the bat. After he settled into office, he became concerned that the rise of communism across the globe was the real risk to America. Post the Kennedy killing (which he suspected was put in place by the Russians or Cubans), Johnson became convinced that America needed to strike out against communism somewhere to make a statement about Americas military might.

So the story said Johnson settled on Vietnam as the place to make a statement to the world in retaliation against the murder of Kennedy. The world had to know that the US wasn't going to accept the murder of their President and that the US was serious about containing communism. Of all the places on the map that would be the easiest place for a quick victory, Vietnam was the place. Or so he thought.

The similarities to today are striking.

Bush wakes up post 9/11 and realizes the greatest threat to America was the spread of radical Islam. In order to send a message to the world that the US wouldn't just take the 9/11 attacks, he felt compelled to strike somewhere. To make a statement to the world, the US needed a quick victory. Iraq was the easiest (so he thought) place on the map to win a quick war to show the world that the US was serious.

We'll see what the history books right about Bush but I suspect they will discover many similarities between the paranoid fear of Johnson and Bush. Both Texans led us into a war that they thought would be quickly won only to be bogged down in a political, military and economic quagmire that neither could escape.

Soar!

2008-01-07T20:09:00.001-05:00

God's shaking
God is shaking the modern church. I've written about this for the past year. You can sense it - people are rapidly growing tired of "religion" - but they are dying of thirst for God. Hebrews 12 talks about God shaking the earth and the heavens. His shaking will come and perhaps it has already begun. From the Message - "If those who ignored earthly warnings didn't get away with it, what will happen to us if we turn our backs on heavenly warnings? His voice that shook the earth to its foundations; this time - he's told us this quite plainly - he'll also rock the heavens: 'One last shaking, from top to bottom, stem to stern.' The phrase 'last one shaking' means a thorough housecleaning, getting rid of all the historical and religious junk so that the unshakable essentials stand clear and uncluttered."

The passage goes on to say, "Do you see how thankful we must be? Not only thankful, but brimming with worship, deeply reverent before God. For God is not an indifferent bystander. He's actively cleaning house, torching all that needs to burn, and he won't quit until it's all cleansed. God himself is fire!"

Yikes! God is going to torch all that needs to burn. God is going to shake the earth, the church and each of us to knock off all that isn't of God.

Too many of us want just enough of God. Just enough to make us better people. That is all. We stop there. We then turn to the church to meet the other needs - nice, clean sanctuary, nurseries brimming with qualified care givers, AWANA for the little kids, summer camps, youth groups, nice choirs, etc. etc. Some mega-churches have taken this to an extreme with gyms, health classes, social events, networking plans, etc. so that the "consumer" will spend their free time (and money) in the institutional church.

Many have said, "I'd rather have all that - all that comfort and convenience - than I would a passionate relationship with God. All that radical church stuff is dangerous, it is unsettling, it is unconventional." EXACTLY - God isn't "safe". God isn't comfort and convenience. He wants all of us totally sold out.

If we refuse Him, the shaking will hurt. He warns against those relying on their own craftiness, own plans, own creativity -- "Go light you own fires, trust your own light to guide you. But this is what you'll receive from me - you'll lie down in a place of pain," Isaiah 50:11

God's shaking is happening. Big changes are coming in His church. He wants all of us. Are you willing to let go and let God take you where He will?

Soar!

2008-01-02T20:55:00.001-05:00

Relationships
As I begin 2008, I am seeking what God wants from me this year. I have a life story. God has a purpose for my life. There is a plot. There is a reason. I exist for reasons - many of them. As I start this year out, I am seeking what God wants from me for this year.

I thought it was going to be The Spirit. This would be the year of focusing on the Holy Spirit. Now, just 2 days into the year, I am feeling this year is going to be about relationships.

I have relationships in my life. My wife, my daughters, my co-workers, my friends, my hunting buddies, my fellow Rotary members, the folks I worship with at church, even my dog (OK that is a joke - but not really).

Life churns on and it is very easy to overlook these relationships. We easily take them for granted. My goal for 2008 is to be satisfied with the relationships I have and to do whatever I can daily to cultivate those relationships. God puts a lot of people into my path every single day. He gives me opportunities daily to love those in my circle. It is so easy to talk to someone and already be thinking of the next call. This year, I want to dig deep into each call, each visit, each lunch. To truly listen to what the other person is saying. In that, I will find opportunities to minister.

Over the holidays, I watched some of the Mel Gibson movie where he can suddenly know what every woman is thinking. He has a lot of fun with it for a while and then he begins to realize what is really going on the lives of the people around him. At one point, he sees a woman in his office and hears her thinking to herself, "I wonder if anyone will notice when I don't show up for work. At some point, they'll be saying 'I wonder where Alice is? Do you think someone should go to her house and check on her?' They'll all wonder why I did it." She was going to kill herself and she wondered if anyone would even notice she was gone.

Everyone we cross paths with has a story. A life story. Something makes these people tick. Something soothes them. Something scares them. Something haunts them from their childhood. They all have dreams. A lot of them are hurting. This year, I want to get to know their stories.

Stay tuned, I will keep you posted. Life is short and our relationships are gifts from God. He wants to see what we are going to do with the relationships He has given to us.

Soar!

2007-12-11T19:44:00.000-05:00

It is about love
John Eldredge's December letter addressed Christmas and it made a great point. When you walk around the mall wondering what on earth you'll get your wife and you hear Christmas music playing, say to yourself, "It is about love".

Whenever you see a Christmas tree, say to yourself, "It is about love."

When someone surprises you with a visit or an unexpected gift - say to yourself, "It is all about love."

A client came into our office on Monday with a gift of goodies. She recently lost her husband and has been really struggling yet through her pain she thought of us.

It is about love.

A good friend of mine from YoungLife came by my office today. I missed him. He left a little gift.

It is about love.

This season is way too commercialized and society has ruined the message of Christmas. Drown that out. Say to yourself - "It is about love".

Even though we are rotten in places. Even though we have good intentions and fall way short. Even though we think evil thoughts about those who oppose us. Even though we lust and crave and hate. Even though when times are good we turn our backs on Him. Even though...

He loved.

Even though we fall short...He cared enough to love and suffer and die on our behalf.

Even though we constantly forget - He never forgot.

It is all about love.

Soar!

2007-12-09T11:19:00.000-05:00

Hating Christmas
Do you hate Christmas? Does any part of you hate it? Here I go with more anti-religion talk but I think deep down a lot of us hate Christmas or parts of it at least. I do. Stay with me, there is a good part of this message to come.

I have grown to hate parts of Christmas. It is too commercial and too chaotic for me. I like peace and Christmas has come to be anything but peaceful for me. I love how my wife transforms our home during Christmas and I love how she cooks treats for others. Our home feels warmer during Christmas and I love that. I don't love how it wears her out. I don't love the endless "to do" lists. I hate - really hate - getting out into the shopping areas. It overwhelms me. I don't like how Christmas makes us all so tired - the travel, the shopping, the parties, etc. It just seems to wear us out.

But in reality, I guess I have figured out that the entire season has really very little to do with Jesus and that is why I don't like it. We get all freaked out and spend gobs of money and we wind up worn out and it really has very little to do with Jesus.

I don't hate Christmas. I hate the commercialization of Christmas. It is supposed to be about love but it isn't. The world has let it become about something else altogether. It is about a new Lexus with a big bow sitting in the driveway. It is about way too expensive jewelry and "this year, show her you really love her". It is about commercialized magic. It plays on our distorted memories of magical childhood Christmas'. "Make this year magical..." (by spending way more money than you should).

The magic of Christmas happened 2,000 years ago. Christ came to earth as a baby. The warrior came to liberate his people. He took human form knowing it would lead to murder. Max Lucado's book An Angel's Story reflects on this as he wonders what the angels must have been thinking looking at Jesus as a baby, "I exist to serve my King and I must watch Him be tortured? How will we sit silent as you suffer?" I've never thought of that but I wonder what it was like for the angels to see Jesus leave their realm and enter the world as a baby knowing full well it would lead to His painful physical death. Why would He endure that?

He came because He loved.

Christmas is about love. It isn't about Lexus', diamonds, playstations, Wii's or magical ski trips. It is about love. Remember and say to yourself over and over these next few weeks - "It is about love".

Soar!

2007-12-06T09:05:00.000-05:00

Ism's, 'Ians, 'Ists...
Ferris Bueller said, "Not that I condone fascism. Or any "isms" for that matter. "Isms", in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an "ism"." Ferris Bueller, you're my hero.

Espiscopalian's have female pastors yet they don't call them pastors, they call them Rectors. They think they have it right.
Presbyterians have female elders. They sprinkle for baptisms and think they have it right.
PCA Presbyterians embrace "reformed" theology and unless it is "reformed", they won't support it. They think they have it right.
Methodists baptize babies. They think they have it right.
Baptists don't baptize babies and don't let ladies serve in leadership roles. When they baptize adults, they dunk them under the water and they think they have it right.
But then again, First Baptist here in Columbus has had a female deacon. So they must think they have it right.

How does all of this come about? The "Ians" (Episcopalians, Presbyterians) and the "Ists" (Methodists and Baptists) all think they have it right. They all read the same Bible and they all came up with their own interpretations, traditions and beliefs.

This sounds anti-church and it isn't meant to be but in some ways, aren't the major denominations kind of like cults? Their membership is brought in, taught "the way" and trained to defend/argue their beliefs to other denominations. In many cases, members feel their "way" is the only way. "The Episcopalians have it all wrong because _______". "If it isn't 'reformed', I'm not going to read it." "Baptizing babies is wrong". "Having ladies in any leadership capacity isn't Biblical." "Communion is only for those that have accepted Jesus as their Savior." "Communion is only for those that are members". "Anyone can walk down the aisle and join this church...all are welcome." "We don't allow anyone to join until they have met with the leadership of the church and we have heard their testimony of faith." I have heard it and seen it my entire adult life - denominations fighting each other over who has it "right".

You see where I am going. Who really has it right?

A lot of friends of ours have left Wynnbrook and are looking for a church home. They've been to Christ Community or CrossPointe and they really like the service and the passion but it isn't "church" to them. After 20 years in the Baptist church, they "need" Awana and Sunday School and Wednesday night supper, etc. We feel their struggle. They are conditioned that they "need" these things to have "church", to have "religion".

I wonder why we can't seem to dig beneath organized religion to the passion of a walk with Christ. Or better yet, can't you see how organzied religion tends to cover up The Truth? Jesus is in there somewhere but at times, He is hard to find underneath all the business of church. All those rules - we do this, we don't do that, you need to be in church 3 times a week, the way we baptize, the role of women - seem to bind people up into duty. I had a pastor one time tell me, "I don't read John Eldredge because he isn't reformed." What? You are so bound up in the "rightness" of reformed theology that you won't even pick up and read a leading Christian author?

Folks will say, "I love CrossPointe/Chris Community, I felt alive, I felt the Holy Spirit, I loved the music, God is present in that place but I miss the Awana and the traditional Sunday School and the Wednesday supper and I need all that for 'church'". So they will likely leave and go to a traditional church. I guess my fear is they will trade a passionate walk with Christ for the tradition of the church. They are hungry, you can see it in their eyes, but I suspect they'll trade that hunger back in for the "normalcy" of traditional religion.

All of this may offend readers that are in traditional churches and that isn't my intention. No one has it "right". What is right is what is in scripture. What is right is that Jesus was a rebel who challenged the organized religion of His day. He threw out many of the religous customs because they were man's rules and they were off base. Jesus was a rebel. He was passion. He was love - He healed on the sabboth even though that was against mans' rules because it was the right thing to do.

So today as people search for the Holy Spirit and they search for a newborn passion in their relationship with Jesus they need not seek Him in organized religion. He isn't there. Please don't misunderstand - I am not saying there isn't any faith or passion among those in the traditional church - far from it. I'm not saying the non-traditional church is "it". What I am trying to focus on is how we have come to value "organized" religion (our rules, the way we baptize, 3 services a week, Awana) more than we value the passionate experience of following Jesus. We fall into the routines of church but Jesus was anything but routine.

It seems to me that in many cases, man has taken passionate faith and made it organized religion and in so doing has driven the Holy Spirit out. This isn't anything new - it was the same 2,000 years ago when Jesus came as a rebel to tear down organized religion and set the captives free.

'Tis the season of the Great Liberator!

Soar!

2007-11-27T09:25:00.000-05:00

Tough people
John Eldredge said "Be kind to every single person you encounter because every one you come in contact with is under some kind of attack."

It is a good point. We so often think, "What does he have against me? Why is he being such a jerk?" When we have no idea what battles he struggling with. We all struggle. Each of us has a wound (some have more than one) that has haunted us our entire life. Each of us carries around a chain of bondage to some person we struggle with or some past mistake we can't seem to shake.

Haunting - but true.

My brother in law attends a dynamic church in Birmingham and he had this posted from his church on his refrigerator. It ties in with this theme:

Seven words of Passion
1) Forgive everyone who is trying to ruin your life.
2) Help others who are experiencing your same struggle.
3) Be sure you've taken care of those near you.
4) Aim your hard questions at God, not man.
5) Be human enough to acknowledge your need.
6) Be assured, there is a purpose and there is an end.
7) Finally, surrender your life to God and let it go.

I struggle a great deal with a broken relationship. I can't seem to let it go but I have to. I cannot reconcile with the other party because the other party doesn't want to reconcile with me. God doesn't command reconciliation - He commands forgiveness. I need to forgive them so I can move on and they need to forgive me so they can move on. While I can't do anything about their forgiveness of me -- I can forgive them.

These seven words of passion help me in this struggle. When I think they are trying to ruin my life (they aren't - that is the enemy), I just need to forgive them.

When I run into others who struggle with this same issue, I need to open up and share my struggle so that I might be able to help them with the same issue.

I need to focus my attention not on them but rather on those closest to me and to be sure I am taking care of them. We waste so much time worrying about those that truly don't care about us that we ignore those around us who love us and need our attention. To spend time fretting about the struggle, talking about it, worrying about just gives more and more power to it. The enemy loves this. He wants us to wallow in it and to stay trapped in bondage. He hates forgiveness because that takes him out of the equation entirely.

When the tough times resurface, I need to aim my tough questions at God not the person I am struggling with. I'm not going to resolve anything by backing the other party into the corner with my well-articulated summary of the battle. I need to spend my time talking to God and giving Him the hard questions. He can deal with it.

I need to be human enough to acknowledge my need. I need this person. I need a relationship with them. It is OK to admit that I need it and that it hurts that we can't have a relationship.

I need to rest on the assurance that in all things, God has a purpose and I can focus on the end. There is an end to this in Glory. One day, the pain and suffering of broken relationships will end.

Lastly, I need to surrender to God. Quit fighting, quit keeping score and quit looking for yet another snub. Let it go. Quit giving power to it. Give it all over to God. Let the Healer heal it.

Soar!

2007-11-18T18:14:00.000-05:00

Freedom
Brad Evangelista gave the message at Otis' farm last Thursday night. In Brad's usual fashion, it was passionate and energetic. What struck me was the point of freedom. Galatians 5:1 "It is for freedom that Christ has set you free, therefore do not be entangled again by the yoke of slavery."

It is for freedom that Christ set you free. That is an interesting comment...freedom so I could be free. Free so i can be free. Why would Christ say something like this?

How many of us are still trapped by religion? How many of us are Christians yet are still bound up by a whole bunch of rules. How many of us live our lives like prisoners? How many of us are entangled by the yoke of slavery?

Christ came to set us free but He also came to give us freedom. The cross is "free". The battle was won at the cross. If you accept Christ as your savior, you are forgiven and you are free. But He came to give us freedom -- "it is for freedom that Christ has set you free.." It is for freedom (the goal) that Christ has set you free (the act). The goal is freedom - that is the resurrection. The power in what Christ did wasn't so much in dying on the cross. The power came in the resurrection.

Too often, the church focuses on the "free" part and ignores the freedom. He came to give us freedom. He came to give us freedom from the chains and yoke of slavery that tie us down. Unfortunately, we live within fences of "religion" that tell us what we can/can't do and a bunch of rules. We don't live passionately or dangerously because we fear what others will think of us. We are free - we'll go to heaven - but we don't enjoy the freedom Christ came to give us.

Brad pictured this with a great story. When he was a young kid, he had a paper route. Everyday, he'd mount his Schwin and head off to deliver papers. A block away from his house lived a huge dog that was half wolf, half bear. The dog was huge and the dog hated Brad. Everyday, the dog would see him coming and everyday, he'd sit up on his porch and start barking as Brad approached. As Brad got closer, the dog would explode off the porch and tear towards Brad with blood dripping from his mouth. Right as Brad got to the house the dog would be in full sprint ready to take Brad apart running as fast as his four paws would deliver him toward his lunch. As Brad got to the dog, he'd pull out a paper. Right as the dog was about to eat Brad, he'd screech to halt at the fence that separated him from his meal. As Brad rolled by, he'd take his paper and drag it against the fence all the way down to the corner. This aggravated his adversary and gave Brad a daily victory against the beast.

One day Brad came rolling by and the daily ritual played itself out again -- this time with a shocking turn. As Brad approached, the beast leapt from the porch and charged him. Brad pulled his paper out to aggravate the dog and grinned in anticipation. Right as he approached the fence, his discovered in terror that the fence that separated him from the dog was gone! There was nothing to stop the dog from eating him for lunch. The dog approached faster than ever and Brad knew he was dead meat. He stood up on the seat of the bike and was prepared to kick the dog and swat him with the paper. But right as the dog was about to leave the yard and knock Brad off the bike...he slammed to a stop right where the fence used to be. The dog didn't know the fence was gone and out of habit, he stopped short.

The dog had freedom but he didn't know it. He remained trapped in the prison of his own making. In his mind, he was forever tied to that yard. Someone came along and removed the barrier that entrapped him but he didn't know freedom was his for the taking (or that Brad was his lunch for the taking!).

It is a great picture for us. Christ has taken down the fences that trap us in the ordinary life. He came that we might have life and have it abundantly. Seize the day!

Soar!

2007-11-15T10:19:00.000-05:00

Servant
We all want to be thought of as a servant. Servant leadership is a management buzz word - especially in Columbus. Jimmy Blanchard and Bill Turner "wrote the book" on Servant leadership. It is a noble cause. It is worthy.

We all aspire to being a servant - to put other's needs ahead of ours, to quietly serve others not really caring if our work is ever noticed. But how do we react when we are treated like a servant? What happens to us when folks take us at our word and "use" us as servants. What happens if others step on our servanthood as a step in their ladder to the top? Can servant leadership really work in a competitive work environment?

I think about it in a management role. Sandy Weill built Citigroup starting from zero. His ego was the size of Manhattan but he built a huge company and made a fortune. Jamie Dimon was his understudy all those years. When Sandy got fired from American Express, Jamie quit with him and the two set up shop with no business to run. Slowly, they began to buy businesses and cobble together what would become the largest financial services company in the world. When Sandy was at his pinnacle, he turned his back on Jamie and fired him. Jamie had crossed Sandy's daughter (who ran a division that reported to Jamie) and he wouldn't promote her. Sandy wanted her promoted so he fired his understudy and most loyal sidekick. Jamie left and became the CEO of BankOne which was bought by JPMorgan Chase (Citigroup's across town rival) and now Jamie is CEO of JPMorgan Chase. Citigroup has imploded and the press is now saying, "If only Sandy hadn't fired Jamie, Jamie would be running Citi today and Citi would likely have avoided this blow up in mortgage lending." Jamie is now widely regarded as the best CEO in banking and his JPMorgan has dodged much of the current crisis. Sandy forgot what brought him to the dance and rather than take on a servant leader role and cede authority when the time was right to Jamie, he fired him so he could have more time in the spotlight.

I think about it in the church. One of the largest churches in Columbus has recently been in turmoil. Their youth ministry program was, by far, the largest and most successful in town. Kids from all over the city were attending their ministry. Yet the pastor clashed with the youth pastor and didn't want to give him any of the spotlight in the church including forbidding him from ever speaking in a church service. The youth pastor left and that began the long and painful period of turmoil in the church. Down from more than 100 kids each week at youth functions, last week just a dozen came. Hundreds of people have left the church and they are stuggling to figure out the church's future. It is a crying shame that in trying to hold onto power, the pastor lost sight of the church's mission. Hundreds of kids passed through that church to get fed spiritually and now it looks like a ghost town and the kids are gone. He won the battle but is losing the war.

John the baptiser came to pave the way for Jesus. That was his role. He had disciples and his disciples came to him and said "This man Jesus is baptising people, what will you do?" The crowd was telling John - your role is being "taken" by Jesus, he is getting the spotlight, you'd better alter your marketing plan, you'd better step up your activities or else all the glory is going to go to Jesus.

What did John do? He quietly stepped aside and let Jesus do His thing. John was imprisoned and later beheaded. He died a servant. He knew his role and when his prominence was threatened by Jesus - he welcomed it. He knew he had done what he was called to do and now it was time to pass it all on to Jesus. John was the fullback that cleared the lane for the running back to score the touchdown. Fullbacks don't typically get much press but without them, the running back doesn't stand much of a chance. Now Jesus doesn't need anyone's help to clear the lane but He called John to a role and John fulfilled his role and then disappeared out of the spotlight.

I want to be thought of as a servant leader but truth be told, when others step on me, I get my back up and defend myself. I try to shine the light on my accomplishments, my works which flies in the face of servant leadership. The servant serves. Period. Serve!

Soar!

2007-11-07T10:45:00.000-05:00

Brokenhearted
I just hung up the phone with a former co-worker and in his parting comment, he took a shot at me about a mutual client, "Listen, they are saying they will stay with you ... for now ... but they might look to do something different soon." Like a knife in the gut.

The client has told me, "I am with you" and I have to take him at his word. But the words of my former co-worker stung. I know what it is - his attempt to let me know he is in control of the situation and that I am just lucky to be hanging on. The enemy jumped all over that and started to tear at me.

Then I opened my daily email from John Eldredge...

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
He leads me beside quiet waters,
He restores my soul.

He heals up the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. (PS 147:3)

"For some reason this has been lost in the recent offerings of the church. Perhaps it has been our pride, which has kept us from admitting we are broken. Perhaps its been the church's almost total focus on sin and the cross. But the Scripture is abundant and clear: Christ came not only to pardon us, but to heal us. He wants the glory restored. Jesus can and wants to heal your heart."

I read that within 15 seconds of hanging up the phone. The issue isn't my coworker or his insecurity or his jab at me. The issue is my heart. It is broken. I need healing and restoration and that ONLY comes from Christ. He wants me fully restored and living the abundant life - not trapped by "I'm just a lowly sinner saved by grace," or, "This is a tough life, full of hardships and trials and stress". NO, NO, NO! If we focus on our pity, we remain in pity. If we focus on our pain, we remain in pain. If we focus on the jabs of others, we remain on defense.

He came to set us FREE of all that. Free. Free and fully restored - fully restored to where we don't even have to "rise above all that pettiness" - we don't have to rise above it because we don't ever have to get down in it. We are restored!

Soar!

2007-10-28T13:06:00.000-04:00

Man Fully Alive
The glory of God is man fully alive! I have posted in the past about my hunting adventures. I took up deer hunting last year. My dad wasn't a hunter and i've never had an "elder" show me the ropes of hunting. Masculinity is bestowed - it is taught, it is handed down - and in some sense, hunting is a part of the masculine adventure. Unfortunately for me, I've had to teach it to myself. I have two good hunting buddies and they are showing me a good deal and I do have an older man that is extremely experienced in all types of hunting. He helps me learn from my mistakes but I am, for the most part, doing this myself and that is OK. Not ideal, but OK.

Saturday was a grand day. The weather was incredible - crystal clear blue skies and very fall-like temperatures. I hit the stand at 6:30 am and enjoyed some quiet time with God. I saw a few deer early and then about 8:30, 6 doe walked into my stand area. I set my stand up at the end of a food plot down into a hardwood forest that falls down into a creek bottom. These doe came off the food plot and were heading down into the woods. They walked right up to my stand and hung around for a few minutes munching on acorns. A spike came up out of the woods to check the girls out and then a 4 point came along. With 8 deer now under my stand, I was frozen waiting and hoping for a large buck to come along. I heard something coming up behind me and as I slowly turned my head to the right, a very nice, mature buck came up. He was perfect - almost. One side of his rack was thick and mature with 4 good points and a smaller 5th point. The problem is, his other side was mangled and broken. He had been fighting and lost some of this side. Hard as it was, I let him go but needless to say, it was thrilling. He was almost perfect, almost on my wall.

I went again this morning. I only saw 1 doe and she had a nice 6 point following her up out of the creek bottom. At this point in the cycle, the younger bucks are "pushing" the does. The does aren't in heat yet and the rut hasn't begun...but it is close. The younger bucks are driving the does and the big boys are holding back. Once the rut kicks in, the chase will be on. My hope is that my stand is in the right place to catch the right buck at the right time. So far, I am encouraged by the traffic flow around my stand.

What was trilling beyond words this morning was my first encounter with a bobcat. I've had 2 bobcats in my driveway before but this was the first time I've seen one in the woods. About 10am, I heard a scream way off in the woods. I had no idea what it was - at first, I thought it may be a goose honking and the echos of the woods were playing tricks on me. The screaming continued non-stop and was getting closer and closer. I noticed the squirrels started running up the treees and that tipped me off (that and the hair standing up on the back of my neck). This wasn't a goose. It was a bobcat and he was moving in on me. The screams got louder and louder and then he went totally silent. About the time he went silent, he appeared on my left cruising up right in front of me. About 30 yards ahead of me he stopped and I had a full side look at him. He then disappeared like a ghost into the thick brush. What a thrill!

Now this doesn't ring everyone's bell but I am telling you, you feel fully alive at 8am on a cold fall morning watching the miracle of God's woods. It is thrilling beyond words.

Soar!

2007-10-26T13:25:00.000-04:00

Lonely
Why are we lonely? Why do - sometimes - we feel like it is us vs. the world? Why do we crave intimacy with our spouse? Not sex so much as deep intimacy. Why do we long for a few friends that really "get" us? As men, why do we want our father's affection and attention? Why do we need him to take a real interest in us a his son?

It is a fallen world. Broken. This isn't heaven. Those longings we feel are in some strange ways - normal. They are the normal consequences of living in a broken world. People don't meet our needs because deep down, they hurt and long as much as we do. Someone recently said, "Be patient with everyone for everyone you come in contact with is fighting a battle." Everyone that ticks you off today, everyone that is rude to you in a store, everyone that forgets you, everyone...is fighting a deep battle of their own.

We all battle. We all hurt. This is a scary place this world of ours. It is easy to mourn this life because it isn't right. The world and mankind cannot fulfill that deep seated, soul-planted desire we all have for relationship. God put that desire in man and it won't be totally satisfied until we are with Him in His realm. That sense of mourning reflects the longing we have for M-O-R-E -- there has to be more than this life offers. Praise the Lord, there is.

Those twinges you feel are normal. It truly is you vs. the world. The world is out for itself because the world is broken. The hurt, anger, loneliness, lack of intimacy, sadness are all just symptoms of the fall. But there is hope. There is M-O-R-E.

He craves intimacy with us. He is restorative. He is healing. He is power. Lean on Him during the times of mourning this broken world.

Soar!

2007-10-17T10:59:00.000-04:00

Time
How much time do we have left? How precious is time? Consider this analogy ...
A long lost Aunt passes away and you get a call from a lawyer - "You have been awarded a modest payout from your Aunt's estate. She conditioned this payout to be spread out over time so it wouldn't burden you all at once. You are going to be paid $100,000 a year for the next 18 years. At the end of that time, there is no more."

How would you feel? $100,000 a year just landed in your lap. How blessed you would feel! You would likely savor those first few years - cherish them. The cash would bless you beyond your dreams. You would start planning to pay off student loans, pay off cars, add a room onto your home -- get your immediate affairs in order. When that first check arrived, you'd likely run it to the bank and hold it to be sure that it wasn't some mistake and the gift would be reversed. But over time, you'd ease into the fact that the money was indeed yours and you'd proceed with your plan. Debt would start being knocked out and you'd hold onto some of the excess.

The next year would roll around and you'd wonder if the hoax would vanish or was it indeed real. Would another check arrive? Indeed, the check does arrive and gift keeps on giving and you'd proceed with your plan.

Fast forward 5-6 years. You've accomplished what you wanted to with that money and it has blessed you beyond words. By this time, you don't have any angst over the anniversary date of the gift because you know the check is coming. You start to take it for granted -- it's a given.

This story can go on and on but let's move to year 14 or 15. How would you feel at this point about the money? Wouldn't we take it for granted? Wouldn't $100,000 seem like no big deal at all? "Gee, that seemed like a lot of money 14 years ago but today, I can't do all that much with it." Wouldn't we be right there? Or, would we all of sudden realize, "Holy smokes, this thing is about to run out, it is about to leave me...I had better really enjoy and savor these last few years."

Where am I going with this crazy analogy?

Kids.

We have them and they seem like such a blessing. We hold them a lot those first few years. We cherish them and marvel at how they bless us. 4-5 years later, a routine sets in and they meld into the flow of the family. At 14-15, there are times we want to throttle them, tape their mouths shut and bar the door so the world can't get near them.

But here is where I am going with this - at 14-15, we have about 3 more years of that $100,000 check coming in and then it walks out the door. Don't you think after 14-15 years of getting that check that we'd kind of wake up and say "Man, I've only got 3 more years of this cash flow, I'd better cherish every moment"?

Time is short. Very short. They grow up so fast that it seems like just yesterday they were crawling around and trying to learn to talk. They won't be around much longer and rather than focusing on how hard it is to raise them, we need to be holding them, laughing with them, making memories with them because in a flash, they'll be gone and we'll be sending them checks to pay for college.

In just 6 years, we'll have a home with no kids. We've had 14 years of kids and we've only got 6 more years to go. With our oldest, we've only got 3+ years. She'll be driving in 18 months so really, we've only got 18 months. Once she gets wheels, we'll rarely see her.

Cherish every moment with your kids. I know they wear you out. I know they can be maddening beyond words but in ways that are 100x greater than the $100,000 check that fell into your lap - they are a blessing beyond our wildest imaginations. Cherish. Cherish.

Soar!

2007-10-09T16:07:00.000-04:00

Where the battle comes from...
I am in the midst of battle. Things have gone really well for the first six weeks of the new business. Now, a battle is coming after me - professionally and personally. I am - no easier way to say this - under assault.

The assault is going after my wife as well. Why is that? Why my wife? Satan came after Eve in the garden - not Adam. What is the best way to cripple a man? Take out his wife.

I had breakfast this morning with my band of brothers and Chuck joined our group. He attended Wild at Heart in Colorado in August. He is a pastor of a mainline protestant old-money downtown church. In a few words he said, "that weekend changed my life." Amen. It changed mine too. "For the first time," he continued, "I see the enemy. We don't talk about the enemy in my denomination. We don't talk about battle. I see now very clearly the 'big picture' and the battle all around me." Amen to that as well - that was clearly my #1 take away from Wild at Heart.

He then zeroed in on a key point that struck me right where I am today - "I realized that what I battle is coming IN on me - NOT from WITHIN me."

The enemy's great lie is "see, you really are a failure". "See Richard, this business won't work - your former co-workers will destroy you. You'll be seen for what you are - a failure."

NO. NO. NO. That is just wrong and when we hear that, we need to claim it for what it is - a foul lie hissed by the evil one.

The foul one makes us think it is our problem - that we are far less than pleasing to God. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The battle is coming IN on me. It is coming from the outside. It isn't inside me. Deep down, I am not rotten. Deep down, I have a new heart in Jesus and I have been wiped clean. He fought for me. He rescued me.

He liberated me - He set me FREE. I am FREE of that and Satan has no hold on me. Yes, tough times will come and yes there will be hardships in launching a new business but we shaped this business around God and we sought Him in every step along the way. Like Elijah, God just asks us to trust Him and He will take care of us. Yes there will be some hunger along the way but the Liberator will make every provision we need.

Never forget - the attack comes IN on you - not from WITHIN you. Also never forget (as Brad Evangelista said recently) - Jesus isn't some meek, kind, tame man - Jesus is THE King. THE Lord of lords. He is a warrior and He doesn't save the game by coming from behind to beat the devil with a last second hail mary. No Jesus fights for us and wins for us ALL THE TIME!

Soar!

2007-10-06T13:36:00.000-04:00

God's Process
God delivered Elijah. He sent him to the safety of a brook with fresh water and the ravens brought him meat and bread daily. Then God moved Elijah and sent him to a widow and once again, God provided. Later in the story, God has Elijah test the people's faith in Baal. Baal didn't show up at the test. God did. God then had Elijah destroy the prophets of Baal.

Hearing this story, Jezebel puts out a death warrant on Elijah.

After all God had done for Elijah, what would you expect him to do at the threat of a crazy woman? Well, what he did was run. He ran and hid and tells the Lord, "I am no better than my ancestors. I have had enough Lord, take my life." Elijah all of sudden has shifted from obediently following God into the mode of being results oriented. "I'm no better than my ancestors!" God never asked for performance from Elijah - He just asked for faithful obedience and Elijah delivered - until this point in the story.

But God doesn't kill Elijah. Instead He provides a warm fire, fresh bread and water. What a good God we have.

The question for us is, "Am I doing what God requires me to do - or - am I doing what I want to do? Am I chasing my results for my glory or His glory?" That is a haunting question.

In my business - I am performance oriented. Why? Well, clients expect it but it is a dangerous trap. Very quickly, we can forget our purpose. Is my purpose totally performance oriented? Or, is my performance oriented toward ministry? Do I go to work every day trying to "perform" for man or minister to him?

When we shape our daily lives around this perspective - and God's process, our entire outlook changes. God's process for Elijah wasn't for "performance" it was for obedience..."Just follow me Elijah and I WILL take care of you" (my words). Going to work each day, God says the same thing to us..."Just follow Me _________ and I WILL take care of you."

Soar!

2007-09-25T21:06:00.000-04:00

Community
Men need community. A man alone is not a pretty picture. When we go it alone, we are wide open for hard times. I was struck by this just today. I had breakfast with my "band of brothers" and it was good to fellowship with them but I came away empty. in the noise and distraction of iHop, there was no connection. We each had our busy lives on our minds - three of the five got calls or vibrating emails on their Treo's. We had a hard time getting much done. It was a very "surface" time. We didn't go "deep" - we couldn't - the environment was not conducive to going deeep. "How is your new job going?"...15-20 seconds into the response, the question went somewhere else, "Tell me about Maine this summer". I came away empty and part of me feels selfish for feeling this way - but - we crave community. We crave it. We need other men to "go deep" into our lives. We don't need accountability, we need "deep".

Bill Shorey put this up on his blog a long time ago and it was a foundational message for me. I came home tonight and pulled out Eldredge's "Waking the Dead" and I found Bill's blog stuffed into the book. Consider this....

The purposes of a man's heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out. Many a man claims to have unfailing love, but a faithful man who can find? Proverbs 20:5-6

"There are many men who live shallow live, but deep beneath their surfaces lie grand purposes -- buried. I believe every man struggles with this -- a sort of self-dummying down. Day-to-day life becomes the pursuit of the insignificant, but these men are haunted by a desire to search out and find grand purposes. Those purposes are not absent -- just buried.

The Proverb reminds us of two actions that must take place. First, every redeemed man must come to understand that he possesses a glory that has been buried. He needs to recognize that silt has settled into the deep channels of his soul, turning depths into shallows. He needs a settled belief that he is not meant to remain shallow.

Secondly, shallow men need other men -- understanding men -- who persevere with unfailing love to draw out the hidden glory from the depths of a murky soul. Men of understanding are rare; few are willing to engage in the tedious and dirty job of dredging.

Deep treasures of the soul lie buried in deep waters."

That is what I am saying - I need dredging and it will take other men to help dredge out my channels that have been silted over. I've had a real taste of this and it is so powerful. Real growth, real depth, brutal honesty, challenging questions, strong encouragement come from men who know your story and know when you are off track. That is why today left me so flat - it has been too long since our band of brothers were together and in our first gathering it was too shallow. We've all got silt in our channels and we have real treasure buried beneath the silt -- but we also need our brothers to help dredge it out. We are all haunted by grand purposes - they are in us all, we know it, we want to pull them out but there is so much silt.

This is why we need our band of brothers and our community. It is how Christ designed us.

Soar!

2007-09-22T09:55:00.000-04:00

Our Daily Bread
Why is it that God doesn't back up the bread truck for us? Why is it that life seems to come so easy for some and for those that try to walk with the Lord, there seems to be times of want? For my new business, these are appropriate questions. I am three weeks into the transition. I am blessed beyond words. God has been the driver on this business from day one.

My new business partner is a man of strong faith and deep integrity. Our paths first crossed 14 years ago. My children are adopted. When we married, I knew then that there was a strong possibility that I would never be able to biologically father children. Shannon knew this going into our marriage. A few years into marriage, we realized that the doctors were right and so we tried invitro one time to see if God could use man to manipulate our bodies into producing a child. After one try, we knew and we started the adoption process. A short while later, our precious first born daughter came into our lives and three years later, our second daughter came home. God knew before the beginning of creation their stories and knew He would place them in our care as their parents. God knows best!

14 years ago, our daughter was about 6 months old and we were eating out on Valentines night. We got there early and had to sit in the bar area. The line was out the door while we were waiting on our food and I spotted my future business partner and his wife waiting in the hour-long line. We coaxed them into joining us. During our meal, we shared our story about our daughter and the miracle and blessing of adoption. They teared up and said they had just that day learned they would not be able to have biological children of their own. That was no accident. We walked with them through the adoption process and today they have two wonderful sons.

I tell you all that to say that I see God's hand in my new business back from 14 years ago. Sometimes in life (and especially in America) we want God's answers right now. As Americans, we think we are entitiled to it. We're not entitiled to anything. There will be more on the business in later posts but the set up is around our "daily bread".

I have just started a new study on Thursday mornings on Elijah. Ahab was a pagan, corrupt, immoral king. He married Jezebel for political purposes and she was worse than he was. God spoke to Elijah and told him to go to Ahab and tell him that because he was so corrupt, God would send drought for 3+ years on the land. God then gave Elijah very specific instrucitons on where he was to go to get bread, meat and water.

God settled Elijah by a brook and every day, ravens brought him bread and meat. God kept him there for a long while but slowly, the brook began to dry up to a trickle and then it went dry. Now, why would God do that? Next, God sent Elijah into Jezebel's own pagan homeland and instructed him to find a widow who would feed him. Elijah packed up and went and just as God promised, the widow cared for him. She had just a little flour and a little oil but she made him bread. Each day she would empty her flour jar and oil jug and each day, God would put just enough flour and oil back to provide for the next meal.

Why would God do this? Elijah was a good man and did exactly what God told him to do. He followed God each step along the way. Why then would God do this? Why not back up the bread truck for 'ol Elijah? Why not position him in such a way that he never had to worry about his daily bread?

He did position him. God had Elijah in His hand and all Elijah had to do was wait on God. God was going to provide for Elijah but He wasn't going to hand deliver him a bread truck.

What is the application for us? in my new business, I have to depend on God daily. He isn't going to hand deliver to me every single thing I need right away. By putting it in such a way that I -- HAVE -- to depend on Him, I -- CAN -- depend on Him. If He backs the bread truck up for us, how soon will we forget who is driving the truck?

This is a real problem in America. Our wealth is a curse because we have focused on the blessings of wealth vs. the provider of the wealth. It is a problem in the church. We build "campuses" and 5,000 seat worship centers so our CEO pastors can strut across the stage and lead "their" teaching ministries --- we forget who provides the blessings. The recent meltdown at Wynnbrook is symptomatic of this problem.

God gives us our daily bread for a reason. He craves a daily communion with us. Rather than fill our shelves with more than we need, He'd really rather prefer to show up at our door with the day's meal so we can sit down together and commune. What a good God He is!

Soar!

2007-09-16T13:56:00.000-04:00

A New Course
I haven't posted in about 3 weeks. If you read back over my posts, you will understand why. Much of what I have written about over the past months have been a set up for a new course in my life. God has been moving in my life for quite some time and part of that move has been a set up for a new career. On Labor Day weekend, I left Smith Barney after 13+ years and bought 50% of a local investment management firm. This has been in the works for a while and I am thrilled that we are now up and running. My partner is a man with a deep faith and great integrity. It is our desire to build a firm around our beliefs and to passionately pursue the opportunities God opens for us.

I will post more but I wanted to get this up so you could be praying for this new adventure.

Soar!

2007-08-18T08:48:00.000-04:00

The Quest
The quest for honor is a passionate pursuit of a different kind of greatness.
Though its path runs counter to selfish ambition, it is no less ambitious.
It inspires those who long to live heroic lives.
It calls us to a new kind of courage.
It demands so much of us.
Integrity not only harnesses our passions, but focuses our intentions.
There are some paths, some options and some directions that we simply will not choose.
From Ken Blanchard's Book, The Servant Leader

Soar!

2007-08-12T15:58:00.000-04:00

Wrath of God
Keith Cowart gave a fantastic message this morning on the wrath of God from Hosea. Many believe that the old testament God is a god of wrath and the new testament God is a god of grace. God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. He had wrath in the OT and he has wrath today. Wrath means "passionate anger". God's passionate anger comes out of His passionate love for us. When God speaks anger, it is always to draw Israel back to Him.

God is holy. God is 100% pure. Sin is sin because it is contrary to the very nature of God. It is anti-God, anti-life. He knows it will kill us. And it isn't just sex, drugs and rock and roll....it is pride, it is envy, it is selfishness, it is gossip, it is lust. Satan dresses it up and makes it pretty but it always has a hook and it clutches our soul and kills our life.

God hates this because He knows the cost. He sees us pulled toward the sin and He knows the outcome. God gave himself totally to us knowing we would turn on him.

We can see this in our relationship with our children. We see the decisions they are making and we know the outcome of those decisions. When we counsel them to not make a certain decision and they defy us and do it anyway, it angers us. It angers us because we know best, we know the outcome and we know the ultimate cost of the poor decision. It angers us because our children, like sheep, have gone astray -- they turn their backs on us and the love we offer them in our advice.

So it is with God.

Sin steals, kills and destroys.
God sees it - He sees what it does to us, He sees that it pulls us away from Him, He knows that it makes us deaf and blind.
He is jealous lover of my soul.
He passionately loves me and only wants fullness for my life.
Sin makes my life less than full - less than the design God has for my life.
He stands firm, He is my rock and He alone breaks the bondage.
Freedom! Freedom!
He breaks and destroys the bondage that snares me so I can be free to worship Him fully!
F R E E D O M !!!!

Go to www.youtube.com and type in "Lifetime Everything Skit" - and watch this 5 minute skit.
It is an incredibly powerful picture of God loving us, showing us all the good He created. Then, it shows all sorts of temptations coming against man, pulling man away from Him. It shows the depravity of mankind. In desperation, man turns back to God and God is there to pull man out of the fire and fully restore him.

There was not a dry eye in the service this morning following this message and this powerful illustration.

Soar!

2007-08-06T20:22:00.000-04:00

Dangerous Men
I've written a good bit about how the church has dulled men down into compliant, dutiful and nice creatures - and then wonders at some point, "Where are all the men?" The men get enough of this and either check out emotionally from the church or just decide to hunt or play golf on Sundays. Men weren't created to be women. We aren't designed to sit around and share our feelings and have a large circle of other men that we call to check in on every few days. We aren't homemakers and generally aren't cooks. We change the channel a lot. We don't talk very much and most men don't enjoy a nice phone conversation. Men are different animals and thank the Lord for that. God made men and women very different for a reason - it is a beautiful design that only He could have dreamed up.

So why is it that the church has seemingly dulled men down into complacent, tame creatures? What would the church have to gain from telling men that they are supposed to be nice, dutiful creatures? Control. The church wants to control "the situation" at all times. Oftentimes, that means that even the Holy Spirit isn't even welcome. Where the Spirit is working, there is naturally a lack of control and a lot of Pastors don't want to risk losing control. Consider this from Eldredge's daily email;

"That strength so essential to men is also what makes them heros. If a neighborhood is safe, it's because of the strength of men. Slavery was stopped by the strength of men, at a terrible price to them and their families. The Nazis were stopped by men. Apartheid wasn't defeated by women...this is simply to remind us that God made men the way they are because we desperately need men to be the way they are designed. Yes, a man is a dangerous thing. So is a scalpel. It can wound or it can save your life. You don't make it safe by making it dull; you put it in the hands of someone who knows what he's doing.

If you have spent anytime around horses, you know a stallion can be a major problem. They're strong, very strong, and they've got a mind of their own. Stallions typically don't like to be bridled, and they can get downright aggressive - especially if there are mares around. A stallion is hard to tame. If you want a safer, quieter animal, there's an easy solution: castrate him. A gelding is much more compliant. You can lead him around by the nose; he'll do what he's told without putting up a fuss. There's only one problem: Geldings don't give life. They can't come through for you the way a stallion can. A stallion is dangerous all right, but if want the life he offers, you have to have the danger too. They go together."

Wow. This hit me right where I am. I have been in two management situations recently that speak to this. One is in business (and I've written about it) and the other is in the church. In the church case, it is a situation where the men/leadership of the church have not been led. The men have been castrated. Those that dared to be a stallion and say "Wait a minute, I don't agree with this" have been taken out and belittled. Anything that challenged the Pastor's authority hasn't been welcome. Total and absolute control is the number one priority of the ministry. The Pastor hasn't trusted his leadership and as a result has turned the men into geldings. They are good men. Really good men. But, the Pastor hasn't adopted a servant leadership model - he hasn't made it his mission to raise up and train the men of the church. He hasn't helped the wild young stallions grow up into the fully mature, fully useful stallions they were designed to be --- bold and wild and powerful tools for God's kingdom.

Imagine a church where the Pastor set out to build his men into the stallions God intended. Imagine if he made leadership and specifically, servant leadership, one of the key foundations of the ministry. Imagine a church that made it it's business to raise up, train, equip and then empower men to lead. Imagine a church that had programs for 6th grade boys, high school boys, young single men, newly married men, 40-something men, etc. that tought the men at each step what it means to be a stallion - a man of God. Think of what this would mean. Imagine what that church could do in the community. Think about how many men would be at that church to grab this message. Think of what it would do for the women. Don't they crave this? Don't women crave real, strong, powerful, visionary men of God? Don't women want to led? Don't they admire men that are bold in their manhood? Imagine what this would do for families? Men of God trained up all along the way in God - what kind of Dad's are these guys going to be? What kind of husbands? It would shake the foundation of the church.

This is possible. The road map is right in front of it. Imagine. Just imagine.

Soar!

2007-08-04T18:20:00.000-04:00

The Passion of following Christ
I've written much lately about Aslan being on the move. He is! Much is happening in Columbus and I can see God setting up the steps for a lot of big things to come. The initial steps are falling into place. What God can do is earth shaking and it is cool to see the steps starting to unfold.

Much is happening in my life as well. This has been the best 18 months of my spiritual life. God has taken me through a second awakening. Like what He is doing in Columbus, I see that He is shaping me for ... more. So much more. So much more than a 9 to 5 stockbroker, paying my taxes, raising my kids, loving my wife and being dutiful. So much more.

Time is short for all of us. We were coming home from the beach today and we hit a bug (or rather a bug hit our windshield at 75mph) on I-10. My daughter saw it and heard the loud plunk as he hit the windshield. She said, "Oh well, I guess he died." I used that to make a point for her..."Today was his day, every bug has a windshield out there with his name on it - it is coming for us all."

The point of this is one of take aways from this awakening in me is that God has shown me over and over again that life is precious and time is short. It is oh so short. We all have a bullet out there with our name on it. Our day is coming. What we make of this life is oh so important.

Erwin McManus said in his book Chasing Daylight, "There are few things more inspiring that a life lived with passionate clarity...Those men and women you admire, who somehow seem to live life to the fullest, would probably be the first to tell you that they are no different from you and me. It's not about talent or giftedness or intelligence; it's about moving out of passivity into activity. It is about a refusal to live a life in neutral and to value the irreplacable nuture of every moment. For these individuals, time is a precious commodity. It is about treating each day as a gift from God and recognizing that every moment lost can never be regained."

We all make mistakes in life but each day the sun drops, the sky turns dark and night fall comes. The day ends and so do those mistakes. They are over and done with. God gives us night to rest and erase the blackboard of our life. Then as the sun rises in the dawn, we are given light and an entirely new day of fresh dreams, fresh hope and fresh opportunities to serve others and love others through Christ. Each day is a new opportunity, a new start and a new adventure.

This awakening in me has been about putting first things first and about seizing the moment of each day God gives me. Any day (and some day) a windshield is coming with my name on it (and your name too). Time is short. Seize the moment.

Soar!

2007-07-22T07:56:00.001-04:00

A New Reformation?
We had dinner with Chuck & Deb Wood and their sharp son, Wes friday night. Chuck is with Navigators and ministers to the troops at Fort Benning. We first met them about a month ago on a friday night at Atlanta Bread Co. They were there with about 20 troops holding a bible study fellowship. We met most of these troops (here for airborne training). The men were bright and alive and you could tell something special was happening in that group.

This friday, we heard Chuck & Deb's life story and heard how they minister to the troops. They bought a house in Russell Co. across from the back entrance to the base. From their back yard, they can watch the troops jump from the C-130's in the landing zone in Alabama. Their home is large on design because they typically house 2-3 of the troops and on weekends, their home becomes a "safe zone" for the troops and their friends.

These good people live their faith, morning, noon and night. They (like my YL friends) have souled out to the Great Commission. Their life isn't about their 401k balances, the next promotion or saving for a beach house - their entire life work is about serving the Lord.

That as a way of introducing a new theme ... I sense there may well be a new reformation beginning in Christ's church. Chuck & I discussed this friday night. He is seeing it all across the military. Navigators, which was on the decline on military bases, is now exploding. Seven new chapters have opened on bases across America and men are coming to the Lord. He senses something very different is happening in the Church.

He senses much of what I have been writing about in the community churches. Men are hungry for more. More. There is so much more. He sees that in the troops - there is a need, a desire, a hunger to go deeper - much deeper - than previously before. He senses Aslan on the move. Seeing 20 very bright, eager young troops spending their friday nights at Atlanta Bread Co. eating dinner and studying God's word confirms this to me. God is moving in the lives of our troops.

I think there is a new reformation starting in Christ's church. Jesus came as a revolutionary. Man had taken religion and twisted it into a bunch of rules that were not of God. Christ came and tore the curtain. Christ was a revolutionary. Man was using religion to hold other men as captives. Christ came to set the captive free.

1500 years later, Martin Luther nailed the reformation to the wood door of the church and started a new revolution in the church. Man had taken Christianity and twisted it with a bunch of rules to serve man's needs. The leaders of the Catholic Church were corrupt and abusing the power God had given to them. Luther came in as a revolutionary to set the captive free. God used Luther to launch a period of great growth and freedom in the Christian faith.

I think a new reformation/revolution is beginning. More to come...

Soar!

2007-07-21T09:25:00.001-04:00

First Baptist Opelika
Last Sunday, we drove to Opelika to attend First Baptist Church. A great friend of mine is the YoungLife leader in Auburn. He was in my wedding and we worked together for about 8 years. I've written about Jim before - how he left the "world" and followed Christ into ministry. We went to Opelika to worship with Jim and see his home.

I've written about FBC Opelika before but that was only heresay - we've now seen it firsthand and I want to put a post up to honor what God is doing in that town. FBC anchors downtown Opelika. It's steeple is the tallest structure on the "Skyline". In a lot of ways, it is a traditional downtown, Southern baptist church but in a very real way, it is vastly different.

FBC has acquired about 4 blocks of Opelika. The old AmSouth Bank across the street is now part of FBC. They are doubling the size of this 2 story structure and it will contain their administrative offices and youth ministry. On another side of the block there is a singles ministry building and a high school ministry building. It is obvious that the ministry to youth, to college kids, to singles is more than just a token effort. FBC is putting money where the ministry is - there are dedicated buildings to each ministry and you can see the buzz and energy around each ministry. The sanctuary is undergoing a big renovation and expansion that will increase seating by 50%. FBC's budget is nearly $4 million. $4 million is a lot of money especially in a smaller town like Opelika. It is obvious that God is moving physically in a big way in Opelika.

But He is also moving in the Spirit.

We attended their contemporary service. All services (3 of them) are in the fellowship hall which seats I'd guess 6-700 folks. The contemporary service was full. As we walked in, a man greeted us and we told him we were friends of Jim's and he welcomed us and spoke to all 4 of us. We took our seats and I watched this man move around the aisles helping people find their seat, welcoming them and praying. I'm not sure he was praying but I sensed he was. You got the feeling that he was milling around the aisles up and down and from left to right speaking to whoever he could but also praying over all in the building. He was unassuming and modest and serving.

He was the senior pastor.

He stayed in the aisles during the praise music. Only when it became time for the sermon did it become obvious he was the preacher. When he stood up, he made a few brief announcements and welcomed everyone. He was talking about something and there was some confusion and he looked down at one of the associates and said, "You run this place, help me!".

Now, contrast all that with what we sometimes see in our "mega-churches". It all becomes about the senior pastor - his teaching ministry, his stage, his program, he runs the church, the associates all work for him ... it all is about him. This guy at FBC is serving. You can see it. He gives the stage over to his worship team to do what they do best. He gives over the administration to the associates that know how to administer. He is a servant leader in the truest sense.

Is it working? You bet. That contemporary service had upwards of 600 folks in there and 1/2 were young adults 20-30 years old. We were blown away by how many young men and women were there. Sure it is a college town but it was July and most of these young people we were seeing were young professionals, singles, newly married - not college students. The church is busting out at the seams and the Holy Spirit is tangibly present.

The leader is humble and serving those that work with him and those that worship with him and the result is a church with a $4 million budget and tons of fresh, excited, energized folks engaged in the bigger story.

Soar!

2007-07-14T02:09:00.000-04:00

Desire
It has been 2 weeks since my last post. Much is happening. in Narnia when it was dark and bleak, hope first appeared when this line was muttered by a beaver, "They say ASLAN is on the move." Aslan, the Christ figure - the very menion of his name made the children both excited and scared. Sometimes following God is scary.

My good friend has "landed" in his new post with Young LIfe in a small town far from home. He gave up the "world" and moved his wife and three young children to a strange town so he could minister to teenagers. Teenagers! Tough group to sell everything and move for but he has a passion for working with kids. He loves ministering to high school kids and he is excellent at it. Yet, he has landed in Narnia and it is cold and dreary and there is a budget to meet and the White Witch is running near him. The enemy (foul one to quote Bill Shorey) is trying his best to plant fear into my friend's heart but there, it will find no place to dig in. My friend is sold out to the Lord.

But is it always safe to follow God? Does He promise us a "good" ilfe if we follow him? No. Yes to the eternal question but no, it isn't promised to us on this earth. Abraham was called out by God. "Follow Me Abraham, leave your family, leave your job, leave your town, leave all that you hold dear, all that you know and are comfortable with ... leave that and follow me. I'm not even going to tell you where I am sending you - just go and I will tell you when you get there." Sound safe?

David. Called out by God and he spent 20 years of his life ... running for it. Sound safe?

Is it safe to follow God? A ship in a harbor is safe but that isn't what ships are made for. (its a great quote) A man isn't made to be safe. God isn't safe. He calls us out.

I sit here on friday night at 2:30 in the morning and I cannot sleep. God is calling me out and I am scared. The enemy/foul one is trying to get in but I feel the Holy Spirit. Even at the darkest of what the enemy has hinted at, whispered to me - i feel the Holy One. I feel his hand on this I am about to do.

My journey is a journey of desire. Why would a man decide to climb Everest? Think about that. Why on earth would anyone set out to do this? Eldredge says "There are many fine reasons not to do it. Climbing Everest is an intrinsically irrational act - it is a triumph of desire over sensibility. A feat of only accomplished through desire."

That desire in me comes from God. He put those creative abilities in me for a reason. He wants me to use them. I am that ship in the harbor and He wants me to sail. He didn't build me to stay docked in the safe harbor. He built me for battle.

The same is true for my YL friend(s). They were built for battle - the battle over the souls of those teenagers. They didn't come out of the womb saying "I think I'll minister to youth some day" - but that desire was installed in them in the factory. Praise the Lord they are following His call - they are being called out into Narnia, called out of their homes, jobs and all they know that is comfortable....called out to follow Him.

Soar!

2007-06-30T10:05:00.000-04:00

What path are you on?
Andy Stanley has a 3 part sermon series on his website www.northpoint.org that revolves around the "Path Principle". The basis of the sermon is Proverbs 7. If you haven't read this passage - I suggest you do. It is a powerful passage.

A wise man looks out his window down on the street below. He sees a younger man walking down the street and farther down the street, he sees a woman waiting on him. The lamb headed for the slaughter. As Andy said, "The young man is walking down the street and sees the seductive woman looking at him, waiting for him. He thinks, 'Man, she digs me'. In his head he is hearing the song "Born to be wild". In the wise man's head watching all this transpire, he is hearing the soundtrack to "Jaws" playing."

The wise man knows what is about to happen. The young man, blind to his lust and ego, just sees the bounty -- he doesn't see the cost or the consequences of what is about to transpire. The woman seduces him and says "my husband is away for a long journey and I have prepared my bed. We can make love all night long and enjoy ourselves." All of this plays to the young man's sense of self - this is all about "me", she wants "me", "I'm" the only one, she'll cheat on her husband just to be with "me".

The lamb is led to the slaughter. Read the passage.

What path are you on? In you get on the interstate intending to head to beach, hoping to go to the beach, dreaming of a beach trip but get on the northbound lane, you will not go to the beach. You are heading in the wrong direction, you've chosen the wrong path. It isn't our hopes, our intentions or our dreams that determine our destination -- it is the path we are on.

This young man was headed down the wrong path. Death and destruction lay in wait for him along this path. The wise man, having seen this over and over shouts "go the other way, avoid her at all cost!" How many men in the office setting have fallen into this trap? "It is just a dinner out of town with _______, it is innocent." Or, "I'll watch this pornography on the hotel TV but I won't get trapped by it."

Andy talks about this in the context of premarital sex. Why is that young folks think they want deep sexual intimacy in marriage and decide to spend their dating years practicing sex so much? They sleep around with everyone they date and then later in life, in their marriage, wonder why they have no desire for sexual intimacy. They got on the wrong path. Their path of intention was to stay pure and have an intimate marriage - that was the intention. But the reality was a path of something else and the destination was a far different outcome than they intended.

How many times have we seen younger men make basic business mistakes - take on too much debt, reach too far, buy too much? We see the train-wreck coming and want to shout, "Stop! you are making a mistake". Sometimes we have to learn lessons the hard way but there is real value in the counsel of wiser men around you. Seek them out. Build a network of wiser men that you can lean on so they can look out for you and make sure you are staying on the right path.

This isn't "accountability", this is a band of brothers that Eldredge talks about. No man needs to go through the tough battles of life alone. No man. Surround yourselves with wise counsel. There is incredible value in a band of brothers.

Soar!

2007-06-28T19:21:00.000-04:00

Aslan is on the move
In CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, there is a line in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardorbe that captures some of the excitement we feel when we experience the Holy Spirit moving. The land is dark and it is always winter. There is no hope. The children stumble into this cold, dreary land that is under the spell of the White Witch. The beavers take them in to protect them. The father beaver at one point says there is hope because, "they say Aslan is on the move."

Aslan is the lion and the Christ figure and very mention of his name invokes both fear and excitement in the children. They'd never heard his name before but immediately, they knew. They knew.

Where there was darkness and cold, the very mention of his name gave all hope. Aslan is on the move.

Just like Aslan, the Holy Spirit is on the move in Columbus. Much is happening. People are hungry. Very hungry --- starving is more like it --- for MORE. Deep down, many are saying, "there has to more than what I have been hearing and feeling in my church...there has to be more...surely, there has to be more."

There is.

There is more...so much MORE. Christ is moving through the community. People are hungry and the Great Liberator is about to set a lot of people free.

Freedom!

Soar!

2007-06-24T21:48:00.000-04:00

Sick of the status quo
Tonight we attended a concert at Christ Community featuring a band from Australia called Five Star Streets. Most of the band is from Australia but the lead singer is from Montana. He left home at 18 - left behind his girlfriend and his Mom and Dad at the airport to board a plane to Australia. He got the call. He signed up for a 6 month study course down under on how to be an effective missionary. As he left all that was comfortable to him in tears and headed out to the plane, something extraordinary happened to him. He put one foot on the ramp up to the plane and froze. He couldn't take another step. He thought, "I don't want to go." Then he heard God say, "There is so much more..." and he took the next step and never looked back.

There is so much more.

He is 22 years old and wise beyond his years. He talked tonight and said, "There is a generation of young folks that are tired of the status quo - tired of not seeing things change. There is so much more and this generation is hungry for that 'more' that he speaks of (and Eldredge speaks of)."

Yes, friend...there is so much more.

We are called to shine like bright stars among a crooked and perverse world.

We are not called to an average faith. We are called to something extraordinary - something mystical - something far deeper than is easily understandable.

Yet our religion tells us to comply, to conform, to avoid tough questions, to be tame, to be "nice". Jesus was anything but a conformist. He turned Judaism upside down by challenging the status quo. He came to set the captive free.

It might take a rebellion to free the church. I am encouraged to hear this 22 year old say that his generation is hungry for more and tired of the status quo, tired of not seeing things change.

Something extraordiary is about to happen in Christ's church.

Soar!

2007-06-24T09:07:00.000-04:00

Follow On
Let me follow on to the post yesterday contrasting what Christ Community is doing to what I have experienced in other churches. It is truly unique. But as I re-read what I wrote this morning it struck me as a bit critical of the other church and that was not my intention.

My intention was to focus on the contrast between the two. It is striking. When I was a young believer, we often attended Charles Stanley's First Baptist in Atlanta. My parents became believers and pulled out of the "family" church to try to find "God's" church. We looked in a lot of places and very often, drove to Atlanta to First Baptist. Back then, Stanley's church was growing like gangbusters and they were in a battle to buy property around their Midtown campus. The foul one was working hard to stop them. Roadblocks were often encountered and last minute deadlines were often faced to buy this tract of land or this adjoining building. Once that property came and went, it was too late - some office tower or hotel would be constructed and there was no turning back. First Baptist was landlocked and growing like a weed and they had to act.

But, they waited on God.

I was in a service where they had to raise $________ by Monday or else they would loose the right to buy _____ property. There was no pressure. No one blocked the doors and no one made everyone come up front (I've been in a church where I've seen that happen). Stanley made the call and then, sat back and waited on God. Members had time to prepare. They had time to pray as a family. God moved.

Women came forward with wedding diamonds. Couples came forward with car titles and stock certificates. People deeded other land in the City so FBC could sell it and use the money to buy the adjoining property.

Debt was never mentioned. "Either we raised this money and God moves here - or - we pass and ask God 'what next?'" There was none of the "Oh we raised $4mm and we have our bank to make up the next $8mm..."

They raised every penny God needed to do this work. They sat back and let God move. He did.

Soar!

2007-06-23T11:44:00.000-04:00

Christ Community
There is a good piece in today's Columbus paper on Christ Community. Keith Cowart, the pastor, and I attended John Eldredge's wild at heart in Colorado last October. It was a life changing event for me and Keith was also moved by the experience. Ever since, Keith and I have become dear friends. We've been attending his church over the past few months and I feel the Holy Spirit in that place like i've never experienced in a church. They meet in an abandoned Volkswagen dealership - so it isn't the majesty of the building. It is the Holy Spirit. Erwin McManus started Mosaic in LA and they met in a bar. God moved in powerful ways in Mosaic in a hedonistic building and God is moving in powerful ways at Christ Community among the ghosts of Volkswagens. At CC, it isn't about the package. These are not "pretty" Christians. It isn't the country club set. There are CEO's but there are also mechanics, soilders, tattoos, pony tails and a lot of very "average" people. It is a picture of what Christ intended for his church. He didn't draw the kings and CEO's - He pulled together a "Mosaic" of real people with real problems and a real passion for change. This is the picture of Christ Community - it truly is a community of Christ.

I've never seen a church follow the path CC is following. Every church i've ever been associated with follows the "we build it and pay for it later" model. Most major churches (the established, main line churches) have buildings long paid for but they insist on building campaigns every 5-7 years to keep their membership "indebted" to the church. It seems it is a way to keep members from drifting away. New campaigns seems to stir up a slumbering congregation but then in a few years, the money comes in and the new buildings are collecting dust and the members drift back off into the routine of church.

CC is a different kind of animal. They don't seek to build a mega church but instead plan to give themselves away - to seed other new churches (here and in other parts of the country). The more they give themselves away, the more God will bless them. It is a model for all of us. I've written a great deal about Servant Leadership - they are practicing it in a mighty way.

They were ready to launch construction on their new campus and suddenly, they stopped. They decided to wait on God to wait for Him to tell them when to proceed. They are more interested on equipping their members for ministry than they are in brick and mortar. I've been in a church that tried to raise $12 million for yet another phase of their mega church and they raised just $4 million. Yet, they are going ahead anyway and borrowing the rest depending on God to pay back that loan. CC is doing just the opposite. They are putting pride and ego aside and saying "we are not ready - we don't have enough money raised, our ministry teams are not ready, we don't have enough small group leaders trained up and ready...if we proceed, we'll have more debt than we are comfortable with and we will be swamped with new people (new folks always show up at new buildings) and the ministry foundation will not be ready to support this." So, they stopped.

Keith was quoted today saying, "I think we are at a crossroads, are we going to become a church about meeting our own needs (i.e. nice comfortable space) or we going to be a church about reaching others?" Christ Community isn't about religion. It is about a group of people with a passion for following the Lord. He says, "We are a safe place to hear a dangerous message." They don't try to impress people with their spirituality. They are real. They are vulnerable. They leave their ego at the door and are open to whatever God tells them to do.

It is very refreshing. I'll put more on this topic soon...

Soar!

2007-06-17T15:43:00.000-04:00

Saved
We went to the pool yesterday afternoon. A young couple was there with their small kids. I know them well. She is from a very wealthy, Southern family - a true founding family of Columbus. As "blue-blood" as they come in the deep South - the truly priviledged - private planes, beach homes, regular trips to Europe, etc. For some reason, this issue of "status" has been nagging at me over the past few months and I have touched on it in many of my posts.

We in the South make a big deal of status. Who granddaddy was seems very "important" to us. Being a "5th generation" Georgian is "important". Being a debutant is "important". We make a big deal of family money in the South. Status seems to be very defining here in the South.

A friend of mine is a pastor here and after he had been in town, two of the most "prominent" members of the church (among the largest donors) commented to the associate pastor that the new pastor "Hasn't been to see us yet - doesn't he know who we are?"

What does that say? "Who we are?" You expect that around the Country Club - you expect that in the business world - but in the church? "My" status is important. "My" seat on the same pew. "My" role in the church as a pillar. I am a big donor, you had better pay your respects to me. Oh sure, that is Biblical - I am wealthy, I am successful - you'd better pay attention to me.

Whose church is it? Ours? Or, is it Christ's church? We've come to value "our" place above His mission. How'd we get wealthy? Who gave us the talents, gifts and abilities? Is everything we do just of our own hard work or is there a larger story at play?

But I digress from my story about this couple. My wife was asking about them and their faith. It is very strong. Both of them are very grounded and they have pulled out of the "family" church where 4-5-6 generations of the family have "pillared" and they have joined a new, progressive, emerging church with a passion for the Lord. My wife asked, "They don't play the society game do they? In that family, how have they managed to pull away and have such a strong faith" It made me think.

They have been "saved".

Truly, I understand being saved better now today than I did before she asked this question. This was a couple destined for "status"...destined for their "role" in society. Junior league, Country Club Board, debutant parties, Heritage Ball, Mardi Gras, serving on the St. Francis volunteer board, etc. They may still do all these things if they make that choice - the difference is, they are making the choice. They are not bound to it. They are not imprisoned by the family's expectations.

You really get the picture of imprisonment. Without the Lord, they were likely to be trapped by all the luxuries of the priviledged life and eventually, would have forgotten where the blessings came from to start with.

This couple has been saved by our Lord. Saved from the "status" life. Saved from the tyranny of having to attend a church because all the family has always attended that church. Saved from the prison of this life. The great Liberator has come to set the captive free.

Soar!

2007-06-13T21:29:00.000-04:00

Buying the Lie
We've bought the lie. We have come to believe that "this is as good as it gets" - that to sit in the pew week after week, do good works, faking humility with "I'm just a lowly sinner saved by grace"...being dutiful...nice -- that is what this "saved" life is supposed to be. The lie tells us this is all we can do and that is what Christianity is all about. That is part of the lie.

The second part of the lie is telling us "there is no warfare" - that the battle is over and it ended on the Cross when Jesus died. In dying, Jesus won the war - it's over, finished. Not so.

The church tells us "You don't need to fight the enemy. Let Jesus do that." Eldredge says that is nonsense and it is unbiblical and he compares it to a private in the army saying "I don't have to fight, my general will do all the fighting."

Yet Jesus commands us "resist the devil, and he will flee from you." We are told, "Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him." Further in 1 Timothy He says, "Fight the good fight" and in Proverbs it is written, we are to "Rescue those being led away to death."

There is a battle my friend. Should we (as nice, dutiful, mild, compliant Christians) just roll over in our society and let evil and the pornographers and the child molestors and the rapists win? Does Jesus call us to be doormats? Or, does He call us to fight for what is good, for what is right, for what is noble and honorable? Does He call us to stand up for the oppressed and to defend the weak? Does He charge us with being men of integrity and of deep character? Yes, He does and folks, that means there will be a fight. Make no mistake, if you won't stand for it (the crap of this world) then there will be a fight.

There is an enemy that does not want you to be a man of integrity or deep character. He wants you possessed by that young women in your office that isn't your wife, he wants you possessed by greed or power or status. He wants you to cheat, to cut corners, to fudge, to lie. He wants to drive a wedge between you and your wife. He wants you cold and distant to your kids - "checked out" and uninvolved in their lives. I just can't say it enough - he will use any trick, any tactic, and strategy to "take you out".

Jesus calls us to fight the good fight. He calls us to resist. He calls us to constantly - not sometimes, not most of the times but to constantly - do the right thing. There will be a fight to oppose you.

Jesus came not as a meek, mild man to be nice and dutiful and to die on the Cross. He came as a warrior to set us free. He had to die to accomplish his mission but the real beauty wasn't so much in His death but his resurrection and ascention into Heaven. The church seems to forget this "freedom". It preaches compliance. It wants men to be meek and mild and nice and in so doing, makes Jesus a warden. That isn't what God designed. He designed us to be bold and creative and willing to fight for what is right. Jesus isn't a warden - He is the great Liberator. He came to set us free. Freedom.

Braveheart William Wallace said "You've come to fight as free men and free men you are. Fight and you may die and run and you may live - at least a while. And dying in your beds many years from now would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance - just one chance - to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives but they will never take our freedom."

The lie is that we ignore there is a battle. We choose not to fight and we think that is the solution. It isn't. The liar wants us to roll over and give up without a fight. Wallace is a great Christ figure in Braveheart - Scotland's men had been beaten into submission by the British and were dead in spirit. Wallace comes to free them ... he liberates them. Christ is the great liberator. He came to break us out of the rut, out of the compliant behavior, out of the nice/dutiful lives we lead - He came to set us free!

Soar!