Living Unfiltered for God

(This post was partly written several weeks ago. Since then, it has been sitting in it's draft form... waiting for a piece that I was missing. Waiting for something - I didn't know what. This morning in church, I discovered the "what". I am grateful that I have a church, a pastor, and this morning in particular, a pastor's wife, that are obedient to the Spirit's leading and promptings. Thank you Tiffany.) Here we are, still at the beginning of a new year. A new year that no doubt started with lots of promise. If you're like me, you tend to look at the start of a new year with a blank slate... You look at all the wonderful things that God might have in store for you in the next 12 months! But maybe, there have already been trials. Maybe, that beautifully bright future has already begun to be somewhat tainted by events that you would rather have avoided. This isn't meant to be one of those dark and depressing posts about how rough life can be... qui...

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Here we are! The start of a new year! Hopefully you've taken some time to reflect on the last 12 months... What you need to learn from and remember and what you might need to just leave in the past. But now is the time to fix our minds and focus on the future! What do you think God might have in store for you in 2015?  My wife and I enjoy speculating about what the future may bring - we call it "scenario building". Over the years it has been cause for many laughs because we never seem to get things just right. God always finds ways to show up and move in our lives in ways that we never expected. For example, one year ago today, I in no way thought that I would now have this magnet on my car... While I had started running the year before, we never would have thought I would complete a half-marathon in 2014! It took God moving - through one of our daughters and through a good friend - to get me to even consider, let alone train for and compet...

As this year comes to a close, I hope you take a little time to look back and reflect on what the Lord has done in your life these last 12 months. Something I started doing a few years ago was to record in my journal, what I viewed as the "highlights" from the previous year. It serves two purposes... First, it allows me that time to work my way through the year, remembering what took place, and seeing how God was at work in all of the situations and events that stand out. Sometimes, you need the benefit of a little time passing to fully appreciate what took place and how His hand was active. The second thing this exercise does is to create a "permanent" record of what God has done in your life. If you journal on a regular basis, you probably have most of these important events already written down, as they happened. However, the beauty of looking back is that you have that additional time to see what else God may have done and how else He may have used that sit...

Christmas is just about upon us! In fact , as I post this,  if you happen to be reading this in New Zealand it's already Christmas morning! As this will be my final Advent post, I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about something that will probably be a big part of your Christmas Day... giving and receiving. It's important to have our hearts in the right place when it comes to giving. As Paul tells us,  " Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. " ( 2 Cor 9:7 ) This verse is often used in churches when it comes time for offerings and pledges. At Christmas, though, I think it is appropriate to remind ourselves of this as we exchange presents. I remember as a child, we would take turns opening gifts. We would each open one present at a time. It was hard to stay focused when one of my sisters was opening something. I was more concerned with what my next gift ...

Earlier this month my wife and I watched one of those sentimental Christmas movies; this particular one was about Christmas trees. Part of the premise was that each Christmas tree has a story. As I'm sitting here enjoying our tree this morning, it got me thinking - what story would our tree tell? I guess this thought actually started yesterday afternoon when I watched a man, who had just purchased a tree, carry it to his his truck and place it in the back. As I watched him drive off, for some reason I was wondering what kind of fate lay ahead for that tree? Was he bringing it back for his family? Were young children going to be sitting around it in a few days? Or maybe the man lived alone and it was going to be his sole Christmas decoration? Perhaps he was even purchasing it for someone else, who otherwise wouldn't have a tree? Regardless of the scenario, that tree was going to have a story. So back to the tree I'm looking at now. Or, just as importantly, the tree ...

Earlier this month we talked about waiting... Waiting for Christmas to come and waiting to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I wanted to take a little more time though, to talk about how we should wait and what it is we are waiting for... David spoke a lot of waiting. You can find this theme in many of the Psalms.  I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope. I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning. ( Psalm 130:5-6 ) For David, waiting seemed to be almost a physical act. The way he describes the process of waiting, it's almost like it's something palpable. And he waited with hope. Hope is such an important aspect of waiting. Without hope, waiting isn't something positive, it turns to something more related to fear, or dread. With hope, though, there is promise. Something to look forward to; something we are earnestly desiring - much like Christma...

I'd like to focus today's post on what originally motivated me to start this blog in the first place. The concept of living "unfiltered" for God. This idea that we constantly stay in tune with what God is speaking to us through the Holy Spirit and what we are supposed to do with that information. Often, the situation occurs when we feel this prompting to do something - that me be a bit out if our comfort zone - and we have to decide whether to be obedient to that voice, or not. The words of Jesus that have become the guiding verse for all of this to me are recorded in Luke: “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” ( Luke 11:28 ) Jesus says tells us, if we do what God says, we will be blessed. Of course, we have to hear what He is saying first, which implies that we have to be listening. Sometimes we hear Him during times of prayer, other times thoughts just "pop in our heads". Regardless of how He speaks to us, we need to b...