Once! Only one time have I posted in this blog this year. Shame on me. Something I set out to be diligent about and here we are concluding 2016 and I have simply 1 post. I am looking back and this year and am truly confused on how it went so fast! The end of any year is always a great time to take stock of things and begin to plan out the path for the upcoming year; and for me, this year is no different. It is hard for me to sum up 2016 in a word much less a sentence. Heck, I don’t think I could write a book explaining this year. From difficult closures of one season to the new beginnings of another 2016 has been scattered with so many different experiences. When you sum them all up together, this has been one crazy year. One thing that …
Tag: Plan
Don’t blink. You will miss it. Honestly, that is how I feel right now. Time has a sneaky way of moving so fast that it is not until you pause to look back that you realize just how much of it has passed. Looking back could be filled with regret over lost time, or filled with excitement over what has been accomplished. Today it is hitting me differently. Today we celebrate my first born’s 3rd Birthday, but four years ago…he was simply a prayer (and quite frankly, a prayer that we felt was never going to be answered). Four years ago, we were finalizing our final round of torture (otherwise known as fertility treatments) and we had began our shift to adoption. Just a few months later…but God… Then, I blinked and here we are celebrating this little man’s 3rd Birthday with a little 7 month old brother at his side. …
Each year on December 31st, people from every corner of the Earth gather together to watch the clock strike midnight as we roll into a new year. We awake the next morning with freshly made goals, vows and promises. We are determined and we are resolute. We resolve to lose weight, get organized, get on a budget and on and on and on. There is nothing wrong with this. I believe it is all well and good to make resolutions. Nothing bad comes from outlining your goals in life. In fact, a recent study at University of Scranton showed that people who make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t explicitly make resolutions. If you are easily discouraged, don’t read too much into their study, because you will also see that they found only 8% of people are successful in reaching their …
So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. (John 19:30 NKJV) Those are three of the most powerful words ever spoken in the history of the World. “It is finished”. At the time, the disciples watched in horror as their teacher took His final breath on that fateful Friday. Everything they had been taught over the previous years was now being put to the test. Little did they know that this was just the beginning. Some followers fled, and some even denied ever knowing Jesus. To many of them, those final words meant exactly that – “it is finished”. What we had hoped for, dreamed of and desired are gone. Everything was shattered. But Jesus meant something completely different. Those three words were not a statement, but a proclamation. A deceleration of Freedom, Forgiveness, Grace and …
“Not me Lord” or “I am not able Lord.” How many times do we see that in the Bible when God calls forth His people for a purpose or cause? I spoke about this last year in my post “No More Excuses“, but this morning I was reading in 1st Kings 18 and couldn’t help but pause and reflect on a few points in that chapter. I will give you the back story in one sentence: Elijah is a man of God, who told Ahab ( the King of Israel, evil in the sight of God) there would be a famine and Elijah has been gone for 3 years now returning. As Elijah begins his journey back in encounters Obadiah. The Bible tells us that Obadiah feared the Lord greatly and even hid and saved 150 prophets of God from Jezebel. Obadiah knows that Elijah is a man of God …
Before we jump in, it is important to note there have been 2 parts to our topic already posted last week. I encourage you to read them first if you have not done so: Part 1 and Part 2. Numbers 14 starts off in a very interesting way: 1So all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night. 2And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness! 3Why has the Lord brought us to this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?” 4So they said to one another, “Let us select a leader and return to Egypt.” Wow. …
There has been one verse that has been running in my mind all week: Then Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready.” (John 7:6 NKJV) This statement comes on the tail of one of Jesus’ largest public miracle – the feeding of the 5,000. Following that miracle, you can see a chain of events in John 6. I recommend reading it in its entirety – but I will provide the readers digest version here. We see Jesus make some very bold statements throughout John 6 that He is the bread of life and whoever seeks after Him will be redeemed. These statements perplexed many and offended others resulting in somewhat of a dissension in the ranks. John 6 tells us that many of His disciples turned away and stopped following Him. His own people rejected Him. This statement in John 7 is …
It is so refreshing to know that we have a God who desires to do something new. Not something ordinary and mundane – but something new, unique and astounding. Read Isaiah 43 verses 16-21, I have it here in The Message translation – but read it in a few different versions: This is what God says, the God who builds a road right through the ocean, who carves a path through pounding waves, The God who summons horses and chariots and armies— they lie down and then can’t get up; they’re snuffed out like so many candles: “Forget about what’s happened; don’t keep going over old history. Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new. It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it? There it is! I’m making a road through the desert, rivers in the badlands. Wild animals will say ‘Thank you!’ —the coyotes and the buzzards— Because …
2012 is now something of the past and 2013 is already in full gear. There is something refreshing about a new beginning, a clean start and that is exactly what the New Year represents. A time to re-chart the course. For me, 2012 started with obstacles and challenges and finished with victory and breakthrough. For my wife and me, I know our single most amazing breakthrough of the year is that we are finally expecting our first baby! Our son will be arriving in a few short months and the journey that God brought us through to arrive at this point is nothing short of miraculous. I know I wrote briefly in a previous post about our struggle, and I will write the full testimony shortly and post it here – but the years of trying, the struggles and the sadness are now behind us and God has truly shown …
I recently saw this tweet by Dominic Russo: “The next generation of Christian leaders are largely invisible right now. They are being prepared in ‘caves’ and ‘dungeons’ like David and Joseph.” There is so much good truth in that statement; And not just pertaining to our future Christian leaders. I believe there is something even deeper to this statement. It seems to me that the large majority of “influencers” for the kingdom experienced some type of desert experience. Even Jesus himself spent 40 days in obscurity and solitude in the desert before His mission was activated. But even beyond that, there are countless others that had to develop their calling in what many would call less than ideal circumstances. David was told he would be king…but then he spent many years hiding in caves. Joseph saw his future, but was then forced into slavery and even prison. If you know …
There is something impressive about big buildings. The great feat of architecture and the amazing end result. It is fun to watch from the beginning when it is just bare dirt and then bit by bit, piece by piece, a great structure is formed. And then, to think about all the various jobs that are involved in making it all happen. Each person has their own task. Their craft or talent. Each one is needed to make the final product. There are some jobs in the process of constructing a building that I personally would rather not participate in. Some of those jobs are just downright hard. Only through sweat, blood and pain are some tasks completed. And then there are others that can’t be fun. Like plumbing for example – I am SO thankful for plumbers…but personally, I don’t know that I can stomach the smell. But each one …
