Living Unfiltered for God

We just returned from our annual trip to Florida Family CFO, a Christian family camp that my wife and I have been attending for the past 12 years. I say my wife and I, but there are lots of other family and extended family that are always there, as well. And, as the camp name implies, even a first-timer who has come by themselves becomes family very quickly. It is one of the highlights of my year to go to this place. It was there at camp four years ago when God gave me the idea to write this blog and to generally live, “Unfiltered for God.” Every year there are many stories and situations that occur that we end up talking about throughout the year. When we came back a year ago, I wrote about having Communion at 7:30 every morning on the dock with the Youth of the camp. I was blessed this year to be able to do that again, and it is a story that originated on that very same dock that I am going to share here, now. Unlike last year, I knew that I was going to be spending this ti...

We are almost done with walking through the Peace Prayer of St. Francis and dissecting what it would look like if we truly walked out its message. As we've already seen, each component thus far has been much more easily spoken than lived out. And to live it out, you have to approach life in a much different manner than what the world would accept as typical or appropriate. So... let's look at the next two lines: where there is darkness, (sow) light; where there is sadness, joy.  This may be the easiest of the admonitions we've looked at so far. I say "easy" though, only in comparison to the what we've already looked at and also in the sense that it is easier to be a generally "happy" person than to be one that is quick to forgive, for example.  Many people who have been trying to live the Christian life for any time at all have probably heard the expression, "be a light in a dark place." I think it's interesting tha...

We just got back from our annual trip to Florida Family CFO ... the same place where, three years ago, God inspired me to start this blog. One of the things I got to do this year was lead the Communion service for the Youth. Every morning we would meet at 7:30 AM on the dock extending into beautiful Lake Yale in central Florida.  The service was never fancy. Just me and up to eight teens and pre-teens, sharing some time out in part of God's marvelous creation. We would chat a bit, listen to the birds, watch the alligators, read the Word together and take part in Communion. When I was preparing for camp and getting ready for all the things I knew I had to do, this was nowhere on my radar. I was not thinking at all about participating in this part of each day's events. There were Creative Writing sessions to prepare... Programs and notebooks to put together... Meetings to plan and organize... All sorts of things to fill my mind and plate that were not anything to do with...