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: Seasons
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 …
Thanksgiving has come and gone. All that remains are the leftovers sitting in the fridge (and the added weight from all the desserts). I am sure that many of you spent time reflecting over the weekend about what you are thankful for. My list is extensive. I am thankful for my amazing family. I am thankful for my wife who constantly supports and encourages me. I am thankful for our beautiful Son – a proof that God does do miracles! And, I am particularly grateful for all of the hard seasons in my life that have led me to where I am. That last statement might sound absurd to some. Why on earth would I be thankful for hardships? Simply put, they have developed my faith and strengthened my resolve allowing me to constantly focus on the fact that God is in control – my life, after all, is His story, …
“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 …
Anticipation is an interesting state to live in. We have all experienced it in varying levels during various stages in our lives; As a child on Christmas Eve, or a young groom/bride on their wedding night, or someone just awaiting an answer on a long awaited wish. Anticipation can be a tricky path to walk. Sometimes, I believe, anticipation can cloud our “present”. We operate in a constant state of anticipation. We can live in it, exist in it, and in a sense, today passes us by unnoticed and untouched. Jesus talked so much about sowing and reaping, about seasons. Each season we exist in is a building block toward tomorrow. What we can gleam from today, will propel us into tomorrow. The Israelites never should have been wondering the desert as long as they did. They failed to exist and recognize what God was providing them today. They constantly …
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 …
Earlier this week we started with the first two truths we can take away from the story of Joseph: 1. It doesn’t matter where you find yourself, God will show you favor! 2. When you are favored, everyone around you will be benefit! This brings us to the next stage in Joseph’s journey and another promise. During Joseph’s time as a slave in Potiphar’s house, he was falsely accused of a crime and thrown into prison. I would think it in a public vote, prison would not be a place that many would chose to go. Yet, Joseph knew that God was with him and favor yet again followed him (see Genesis 40). We see in Genesis chapter 40 that while in prison, Joseph interprets the dream of Pharaoh’s cup bearer. When the cup bearer was released, Joseph asked him, this man of power, to remember him. He didn’t and …
A few months ago I wrote a post entitled “Preparing From Where You Are” and in it we spoke about the idea of seeing your season as a time of preparation. I briefly mentioned Joseph in there, but this week I spoke to a group specifically about his story and the items we can take from it. Sometimes it is easy to brush over this familiar story, but I believe there are four very important truths that we can pull from it. Today, I will share the first two and I will post the other two on Sunday. The story starts in Genesis 37 where we see Joseph sold into slavery by his brothers following his proclamation of the dream he had. No one can disagree, this is not an ideal place to be. However, immediately we see the first truth come to life: 1. It does not matter where you …
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 …
