“Give Me Today”

I hate that I’m always ready for the next thing.  I hardly get settled into one season of life and I’m already chomping at the bit to move on to the next.  I so often work myself into a tizzy thinking that life and the world is going to pass me by if I don’t do something about it.  It’s true we need to be proactive and strive to move forward, but not at the cost of becoming discontent with where we’re at.

The world tells us if you’re uncomfortable do something about it.  Change it.  I agree to some extent that we have to do our part, using the gifts an abilities He has given us but I also believe that God often times lets us linger in those uncomfortable seasons, no matter how much we try to escape them, for our growth and refinement. READ MORE

Poor Visibility

I’m a fan of analogies and since I’m on a walk by faith kick right now, I’ll use another one I thought of the other day as my flight landed in Cleveland Ohio.  I was on a red eye headed to North Carolina and needless to say, very tired.

As the pilot notified us of our initial decent, I could see the lights on the ground several miles below.  I closed my eyes again for the remaining 30 minutes of the flight, opening them periodically to judge how soon we would be landing by how close we were to the ground.  Funny thing, for the final fifteen or twenty minutes of the flight I could see almost nothing as the plane was completely engulfed in thick fog.

Then out of nowhere the ground appeared and couldn’t have been more than a few hundred feet away.  It took me by surprise because almost as quickly as we regained visibility, we were on the ground taxiing down the runway.

The pilot did an exceptional job landing the aircraft despite severely limited visibility and that’s what got me thinking about walking by faith.  No doubt the pilot’s vision was limited but he had three contributing factors helping guide him in and we have similar outside sources helping us along as we walk by faith in times or poor visibility. READ MORE

Childlike Faith

Faith is hard sometimes.  It shouldn’t be.  But it is.  Trusting in the unknown.  Relying on someone we can’t see and hoping to make some sense out of a seemingly impossible situation.  God doesn’t fault us for wondering.  He just asks us to trust.  He commands us not to worry.

I say it shouldn’t be hard because if God really is who He claims to be in the Bible, then we truly have nothing to worry about.  One who “knew us before He formed us in the womb”  who knows the number of hairs on our head and who’s monthly calendar spans not 30 days but 30,000 years.

Its safe to say if we truly believe that, why is faith so hard? READ MORE

Entitled to Know

“I don’t care what it is, I just want to know what God wants me to do with my life.”  That thought is echoed by countless people, young and old around the world as we seek to discern the call that God has placed on our lives.  I understand that all to well because that was me during my four years of college.  While I had my own plans and dreams of working in the action sports world, I thought for sure God had other plans when he called me to abandon those dreams and attend a liberal arts school in southern Illinois.

My plea then became, “Ok God, now what?  I don’t care what it is, just show me what, where and when.”  And for the better part of four years, He was silent. READ MORE

What is Love?

What is Love anyway?  The dictionary offers it as “a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another.”  I would agree with that statement.  In fact it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside just thinking about it.  I don’t think anyone would disagree but it leads me to wonder, how is love measured?

Ask any Jr high or high school student if they’ve ever been in love and I bet 99% of them will answer with a resounding yes.  I would have.  I tagged every conversation with my Jr High sweetheart with, “I Love you!”  I’m 25 now and I’m confident I’ve never been in love and I’m certain I don’t even have a real understanding of what love is.  When two people are attracted and have that “tender, passionate affection” for one another, when do they decide that it’s love?  I venture to argue that more often than not it’s lust rather than love, especially at younger ages. READ MORE

Just a Glimpse

Have you ever asked God for just a glimpse?  Somewhere between the agony of waiting and the bewilderment of just not knowing what He has in store, have you found yourself asking Him to give you a little sneak peak of what lies ahead?

I have.  I do every day.  In fact I try to reason with Him.  “God I could be so much more purposeful about the call you have on my life if you would just reveal it to me.  I’m not asking for all of it.  Just a glimpse.” READ MORE

Sexually Liberated…Are they Serious?!

So the other day as I was flipping through the channels I caught the tail end of a program in which a panel of doctors were discussing the affects that losing ones virginity has on image.

I only caught the tail end of the discussion before they moved on to whether or not reality TV shows are making us dumber, but I did catch three main points from various members of the panel.  In their defense, I didn’t hear the entire conversation so I don’t know the entire position they are coming from, but below are the three phrases I heard and my thoughts on them.

“Women today are feeling sexually liberated.”
My question is, have women been in sexual bondage in recent years and in need of liberating?  I hardly think so.  If anything, I think women are in bondage to sex and the men that use and abuse them now more than ever. READ MORE

Prone to Wander

“Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Is there any limit to my power?’”

The Israelite’s were getting ready for a BBQ.  After complaining for the umpteenth time that they had it SO good while they were slaves in Egypt, they began complaining that they wanted meat to eat.  God had provided an infinite supply of manna but, as is the case so often with us, they wanted more.  So they started crying out for meat.  God in his goodness answered their cry by telling Moses they would have meat to eat, so much in fact that they would become sick of it.

Moses, always taking the logical approach questioned, “But there are 600,000 soldiers here with me and you promise them meat for a whole month?  Even if we butchered all of our flocks and herds would that satisfy them?” Numbers 11:21-2

God responds, as I feel He so often does in our lives, “Is there any limit to my power?”  Verse 11:23

So often we define Gods might by our circumstance.  So many times in my life I’ve questioned what God is doing or why he’s allowed a certain situation into my life.  I’ve thought, “I’m on track, I’m doing the right things, why this?  Why now?” READ MORE