In Sickness and in Health

Leslie and I loved our honeymoon. We recently uncovered some pictures from the trip and were remembering just how calm, peaceful, and spoiling that trip was. The view from the private pool in our cabana overlooked the bay directly in front of the sunset. So, every night we would order room service (and split the meals... they were Big!) while we watched the sun set.

We have often talked about going back. But, there is one thing (besides finances and kids) that always makes us hesitate; the way the trip ended. The day we were leaving Leslie started feeling a little... sick. By the time we were on the airplane she was a lot sick. She probably spent more time in the bathroom than in her seat. By the time we landed in Phoenix she was so sick that she could not walk, and the customs officials would not let us back into the country. That was one of the few times that we believe God sent us an angel (human or spirit who knows). Leslie had just collapsed on the floor when a woman came up and just happened to have a bottle of Pedialyte in her purse. Leslie started getting some vital fluids as customs called a local hospital. So, instead of making our way to our connecting flight I got into a cab with our bags and followed an ambulance to St. Luke's Hospital.

I remember a few times that night thinking, "I think I am going to lose my wife". I have to admit that was the first time I had ever experienced sickness that sever. After the doctors had stabilized her with fluids and some medication I had different thoughts. A phrase I had repeated just days earlier came to mind, "In sickness and in health". I suppose I got to prove those words that day. And, it was a good thing, because in the last 11 years Leslie has spent many more days caring of my sorry, sick self than I can remember. She, on the other hand, seems to have some super-woman syndrome ever since Mexico.

So, thanks honey for all the years of loving me in sickness and in health :).

Personal Time

I have a friend and mentor who is currently spending his time in a Texas State prison. The main reason he has been there for 9 years is that he continues to maintain his innocence. And, for what it is worth I both believe him and admire his willingness to hold onto his character. Beyond that he truly believes he is called to be in such a place at such a time and that God's deliverance is only a matter of time. Nine years... only a matter of time. I think everyone needs a mentor in prison. When I get letters from him I really feel like I am a little closer to what the first-century church must have felt like when they got letters from Paul. I know my friend is not writing new parts of the Bible, but I treasure the wisdom, passion, and faith that comes from those pages.

I have been in jury duty this week, and my personal experience definitely has shaped my perspective on our legal process. I am much more likely to actually believe "innocent until proven guilty" now then I was 10 years ago. But, the fact is sometimes the evidence just leads to a conviction. I am fairly sure I met one such man Monday of this week. The evidence staked against him just seemed to lead to a "guilty"... and I found myself praying for this guilty man. I did not pray for his freedom; I believe he should pay for his crime. I prayed for his soul and for strength to endure these coming years. He needs God as much (or more) now than ever. And, God loves him now as much as ever.

I am glad of that, because God came to me in my guilt as well. He did not offer me salvation just in case I might need it, but because I was guilty and the punishment for my crime was more than I could pay. When he paid the price for my sin and offered me a way out it totally changed not just my life but my eternity. I don't understand how anyone could see that gift and refuse it... but people do.

More on that tomorrow. For today, make sure you take time to thank the one who saw you in your guilty state and took the punishment in your place!

Banks Close, and its Ok

This will be quick as I have an appointment with some Richland County judges this morning (jury duty!). But, I wanted to toss out a couple of thoughts on why it is "OK" even when banks fail and the market dives.

1. Truth is better than a lie. The fact is our housing market (which includes the banks who made loans for it) has been a huge lie these last couple of decades. People have been living in houses that they could not afford... barely. They have been squeaking by barely making payments. Because of that the demand for higher priced houses increased, but it was a fictional demand presented by people who could not actually afford the houses they were attempting to buy. But, with some tricky financing and the willingness to let the new home owners go into debt in other places (credit cards anyone?) the banks made it happen! (Ironically the same banks often held the credit card debt for their homeowners... how nice of them.) This will be a difficult process, and it may take a few years to work its way out, but in the end it will hopefully make our housing market reflect the truth of the matter. And the truth is you should not be living in a $500,000 house if you make $50,000 a year. That is exactly the kind of thing that was happening in the markets that were hit the worst by the housing crash, and it was only a matter of when, not if.

2. The gospel reaches further in times of hardship than in times of blessing. I don't always like this truth, but it is a truth I cannot deny. History teaches us quite clearly that times of prosperity are some of the hardest times to reach people with the gospel, whereas times of hardship seem to make the harvest bountiful. We (NPCC) have been attempting to get our people ready for this type of economic situation for years now; teaching you to live below your means, set up emergency funds, and give thankfully to God. That allows us to be ready to meet needs during times of difficulty and to share God's love while we do it.

So, even if you are heavily invested in the stock market (like me!), don't worry... the stocks will come back up, and God will take care of us even if the banks fail. (And btw, all of the banks won't fail... some of them have prepared themselves for this day and will actually increase because of it. That is why we encourage people to prepare for difficult days before they arrive!)

Dare to Dream... and Do

I was recently engaged in a discussion about Rick Warren and the Purpose Driven Life. We are about to go through the PDL campaign as a church again this Fall. Things have definitely changed since the last time we went through the study; back in 2003. Now Rick Warren is a household name in America, on the cover of Time magazine and having articles written about him in major periodicals all over the place. My conversation reminded me of some of the things I have heard recently about Rick and his church Saddleback. I had a chance to go to a Small Groups conference hosted by their church back in April, and in that conference we heard quite a bit about Rwanda and what God is doing there.


The short version of this story is that three years ago the President of Rwanda asked Rick and his staff to come and lead his country through the Purpose Driven Life. The results over the last few years have been enough to garner even more national attention as one church and big-hearted pastor are attempting what most feel is quite impossible... to eradicate AIDS and poverty from one of the hardest hit countries in Africa.


And, you know what, it might just be impossible. And, this movement may indeed fail. But in one of the many articles I was reading I saw a quote from Teddy Roosevelt and it is something that I think many Christians today need to hear.


"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."


So many times we take the role of critic or counselor, when what is really needed are partners and co-laborers. I applaud Rick Warren not because he is some special person, but because he has the guts to give away his life. I have to wonder if I would do the same were God to pour out millions of dollars and a national audience on my life?

Nine. Eleven.

I posted this on another site on which I do some writing, and I thought it would be good for this blog as well.

To most Americans those two numbers have a very specific meaning. People say it was the day that the world changed. I am not sure if that is true, but it was a day that my world changed. I remember sitting in a small car repair place that was owned by the Johnson brothers. They were the closest place to my house that worked on Volkswagens... so I was there quite a bit. This particular fix was taking a while and I was sitting in the front room just reading something.Then one of them came up and said that they thought they heard some guy on the radio talking about a building on fire in New York. From there we turned on the small TV they had and watched. What we first thought was some sick prank by a radio shock-jock soon became all too real.

I don't remember driving home that day, but I know I spent most of the rest of it in front of my TV at home and talking with countless people on the phone.I have never lived in New York; only visisted a couple of times, and yet I felt deeply connected to the tragedy that happened that day. It is hard to believe that is has already been 7 years. So much has changed in my life, in our country. And yet, so much is the same.

It is amazing sometimes how life falls back into the norm even after seemingly unforgettable events. That is why we have to take time to remember those things that need to be remembered. I took time to do so today and encourage you to do the same.

Mirrors and Windows - Part 2

Pretty sad that it took me three days to crank out a Part 2! But, I let my "blog time" slip in my schedule and this is what happens.

In the last post I talked about the danger of being a mirror when I should be a window. Just to make life a little more interesting I believe there is also a danger in being a window when you should be a mirror. My reference here comes from 2 Corinthians 3:18 that describes how we reflect God's glory much like Moses did coming down from the mountain. This is something that I don't deal with quite as much now that my position in ministry is mostly "behind the scenes". Back when I led worship and spoke on a weekly basis this was something that I thought about every week.

Worship gives us a good example of this verse, though I think it can apply any time we deal with God's glory. A quick look at Lucifer in the old testament shows that he is described by many jewels. The picture is almost that as God's glory is revealed upon him, he then reflects it to others. That was his design, and it was good for him to shine, because he was shining with God's glory. The trouble came when instead of reflecting the glory he wanted to absorb it. He stopped being a mirror and started being a window. That is the danger that faces us every time we deal with God's glory. We have the choice to reflect the praise back to Him or to absorb it into ourselves.

In this way I believe we were designed to be mirrors, reflecting our God to this world and guiding their eyes to Him. When people look at us they should see God's reflection, not just our own. And, when God works in us we should share that with others, not keep it bottled up inside.

Mirrors and Windows - Part 1

The other night my wife (---> that is her picture to the right) told me that my eyes were like "mirrors to my soul". We laughed as she corrected herself to the usual "windows to the soul" line. But, it got me thinking... how often are my eyes more like mirrors than windows? How often do I show people what I think they want to see instead of what is actually there?

So many times my life acts like a mirror, attempting to recreate my surroundings so that I reflect back an acceptable image to my culture. If I look at the life of Jesus it plays out more like a window; continuously open for others to look into. It had to be discomforting to be around someone so open, so willing to become vulnerable and intimate. I hope that as I grow to become more like Him that my eyes (and the rest of me for that matter) really do become windows into my soul. When that happens people will no longer just be seeing me; they will also be seeing the new soul that Jesus is making inside of me.

Out of Schedule out of Mind

I said it recently in a meeting I was having at the church, and since then it has almost become a mantra with me. What I said was, "If something does not make it into our weekly schedule, then it will not make it into our weekly planning." That may seem simple enough, but when applied it becomes a rather profound truth. The fact is that there are only so many hours during a given week. What I choose to fill those hour with will be what my life becomes filled with in the future. We all know this at some level, but we don't live like it because we still do one of two things that we otherwise would not:

1. We fill our time with things we don't really care about.
2. We don't plan out our time and just let it fill itself.

As a result I started a project (mostly for myself, but I encouraged the rest of the staff to join me) in which we are scheduling out our weeks in 30-minute increments. The idea is similar to the Dave Ramsey "Zero-Budget". Every time slot has to be dedicated to something, even if that something is "Free Time". Then, just like a real budget if things come up that require me to miss a scheduled event, I have to find somewhere else in the Schedule (my time budget) for it to fit.

I really think this is the step that keeps most people from realizing their dreams. If people actually stop long enough to let God speak a dream into their hearts, they rarely continue on to re-schedule their lives to make time for that dream to come to pass. If you feel God calling you to a new career that requires more education, and yet you don't make time for school... how will you ever realize the dream? If you want to be a better parent, but you don't schedule more time with your kids, how will you ever improve? Simple in theory, difficult in practice. The main thing that separates pure dreamers from dream-doers is follow through. And, follow through only happens when I give it time to happen.

Is Everyone Saved?

I suppose this can fit into my "random theological discussions" category... if I did categories. The thought is really a continuation of my last post. As I was looking back on history and how it is that God brings redemption to people I remembered the story of the Exodus. I am not the first person to compare that OT story to our NT salvation. God brought them out of slavery and into the promised land.

The interesting thing is... their salvation had nothing to do with their faith. In fact almost none of them actually believed Moses (or God) could save them, and yet they were all freed. In fact, in order for them to miss out on the Promised land they had to continually reject it. We know that many of them missed out on what God refers to as His "rest" in Hebrews. Their lack of belief led to this. But, they were all saved from slavery.

This mirrors one of the pictures that I have for our salvation today. I see the world in a huge restaurant piling up huge tabs. In fact we are eating and drinking so much that none of us can afford these tabs... they would bankrupt us. Then God walks in and pays for everyone's tab. Some people see Him doing this and are immediately grateful and thank Him for it, gladly accepting. Others see Him do it and criticize Him for the "show off" that He is... thinking He can buy us with His great wealth. Still others don't see him pay the checks (it is a BIG restaurant after all), but when the time comes to pay they are informed that their check has been covered by God. At that time you get the same two responses... some rejoicing and grateful, others mocking and choosing to try to pay their own way.

The truly sad thing is that everyone's bill has been paid. Some just refuse to accept that fact, up until the very end. C.S. Lewis tells a story that explains my point so much better than I could in "The Great Divorce". I heartily recommend reading it if you have not done so already. The link I listed actually lets you read it online! Imagine that, I just found that out heh. Pardon me while I go see what other treasures are there free for the mining!

P.S. - Ok I am back. In the end I don't think this really changes my outlook on how "the end" will be. Some will be with God, others will be apart from God. What it changes is my view of God in the whole matter. I have a hard time with a God who forms people, sticks them in some "godless" remote section of the world where they will never hear the gospel, and then lets them die without any hope of heaven. Honestly I think the Bible speaks very much against such a God, and tells quite a different story indeed. Jesus paid the bill. He finished it upon the cross. I believe every man, woman, and child has the opportunity to humble themselves in acceptance or bow up in defiance. So, is everyone saved? Well, yes. It is just that some people cannot seem to accept that fact, and so they reject the truth for a lie... and God grants them their wish.

P.P.S - You only get the first chapter... but perhaps it will hook you for the rest of the book :).

Can God Lose?

I am gamer by nature, so this is an important question to me. I see almost everything in life as a game of sorts, and so I define what it means to "win" and to "lose". Most people do this to some degree for various things in life; say when you are driving and feel the need to pass other cars instead of letting them pass you. Perhaps you just want to "get there" faster; I want to win. I am not exactly sure what I am winning, but I am winning!

Something that often bothers me is that it seems like God is losing. Let me back up and define the play field and the winning conditions here. I see God's play field as "Creation". Winning means Creation existing as it was meant to, losing means that it exists in some other form. On a more human note, winning means that humanity is restored to its original relationship with God, and losing means that it is not. We are in the middle of a study right now called OnePrayer, and it is very good so far. This last video was full of statistics meant to "Wake Us Up". The relevant ones were that 20 million people die each day, and that 13.9 million of those die not knowing Jesus. I am not sure how these numbers come together. I figure they are pretty much just taking the global statistical averages and applying them to daily numbers, and in general only 33% of the people in the world claim to be Christians.

So, when I look at these numbers my first thought is, "God is... losing." And, that bothers me. It does not bother me in the sense that I feel that I need to "get out there" and tell more people about God, it bothers me in the sense that I have a hard time picturing God as a loser. I don't struggle picturing God as one who sacrifices, as a giver, or as a servant. He was all those things and people called him a loser; but that is only because they were short-sighted and failed to see how all of those things led to His victory.

I have not really searched out my Biblical evidence and position on this topic, but in my gut I just believe God wins. Perhaps my definitions of "win" and "lose" are off, and I just don't know the real goal of this whole game. Or, perhaps God is doing better than we think and our definition of "knowing Jesus" is off to the degree that we see God is losing when in reality He is not. Perhaps God is restoring this world, His Creation, to its original form and we are too blinded by our own rules and definitions to see it. I honestly hope the latter is true. Call me old-fashioned or old-school, but I still like the stories where the good guy wins in the end.

Coming Soon!

It was a good weekend... full of gaming and eating and spending time with friends. I took a few days off (as you have noticed), but I will be starting back with the 5-day updates; beginning tomorrow. I just wanted to give a little preview of what is coming up. Who knows if this will be a regular thing; it really depends on how much time I spend developing ideas before I post them. But, I have a few that I am working on now, and in no particular order they are:

1. Can God lose?
2. Out of Schedule out of Mind
3. Is everyone saved?
4. Mirrors and Windows (This one might be a two-parter!)

Hope you all had a great Labor Day weekend as well, and I will see you tomorrow!