Living Unfiltered for God

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...

Here I am writing... or trying to. It's been a long time. Too long, I know. As with so many things, I seem to always try to wait for the perfect conditions. That's not necessarily a good thing. Even this morning, I stopped at my favorite coffee shop - with the intention of sitting down to write - but I left right away as soon as I saw that it was packed and bustling with activity. "I can't write here!" So I moved on to my second choice. Still not perfect conditions, but I started thinking that the enemy may be trying to stop me from doing this. So here I sit, sipping my coffee, listening to Bethel Music's Synesthesia (drowning out distraction s) and literally putting pen to paper like this for the first time in months. These last few months have been a time of stretching. We had a little illustration in church yesterday that involved rubber bands. "A rubber band is worthless if it's not stretched", our Pastor said. Implication being that fo...

Over the last several years, my wife and I have been using this expression, "Making memories" as an encouragement to each other to live life to the fullest; to take advantage of opportunities to experience things, together and with others, that we might otherwise choose to pass up. Sometimes we get so caught up with our ruts and our routines that we miss chances to share a moment... an hour... a day... or longer with someone, that may turn into a memorable moment for a lifetime. This morning was one of those times when I had to be encouraged to "make the memory".  My alarm went off at 4:50 AM. I had not slept well and had been mostly awake anyway for several hours. The early rising was because this is July 4th - and if you're a runner in Atlanta, that means it's also Peachtree Road Race day! The problem was, it was raining... hard. And according to the radar and the weather forecast, it wasn't going to change much over the next 6-8 hours. Shortly aft...

(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 ...