Practice of Patience

“We need to learn and embrace patience. Patience is a holy key that will unlock the door to a more fulfilling life. Behind the blessed door of patience are found better parents, powerful teachers, great businessmen, wise masters, and a more compassionate world.” 

~Steve Maraboli

Witness and Warfare

In 2^nd Timothy 2, Paul notes that we must be faithful to He who has called us as a soldier.  Paul often uses the imagery of warfare describing the Christian as being at war with the spiritual hosts of wickedness.  Paul goes on to say in 2^nd Timothy 2 that just as a solider should not become entangled with the affairs of civilian life, a Christian should not become entangled in the affairs of the world.  This is a lesson that Christians (including myself) often have learned in a hard way.  A Christian may become very involved in politics, sports, a hobby or even a family situation and in the process lose his or her Christian witness.  Even if the activity is not wrong in and of itself, we can become distracted from giving our full service to God.  We are in this world of course and must give some attention to these things, but often we become of the world by giving priority to temporal things that really should belong to God.  Let us make every effort to keep God foremost in our lives.  If anything we are involved in hinders our walk or our witness, we must be willing to step back and refocus on Christ and His kingdom.  We should never let it be said of us that we cared more for the things of this world than for the things of God.

I firmly believe that once we are in eternity no one will say, "I wish I had only watched one more game."  No one will remark, "I wish I had knocked more doors campaigning for that office."  No one will even say, "I wish I had had one more fishing trip" or "I wish I had bought one more new car."

However I daresay most people will say, "I wish I had prayed more,"  "I wish I had given more to the Lord's work," "I wish I had talked to my friends about the Gospel," and "I wish I had loved my family more."

We ought not wait till then to regret, but we should rather be working to move our lives closer to the example set by Jesus Christ.

When we suffer we should remember...

"The greatest Christians in history seem to say that their suffering ended up bringing them the closest to 

God - so this (suffering) is the best thing that could happen, not the worst."

~Peter Kreeft

"You may not..."

“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” 

-Maya Angelou

On being open...

“If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.” 

~ Virginia Woolf 

"Everyone knows someone who needs to hear the truth about the One."

Of what does life consist?

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

~ Hamlet by William Shakespeare


Sometimes in life we can begin to think that the world is only as big as our ideas about it.  Our perceptions and our learning vary from individual to individual, but it is certainly true that no one knows everything.  We must learn to be willing to admit that there are many things that we do not and perhaps cannot understand.  We must learn to look on the world with wonder.  While we may not understand something or someone that does not make that thing or person evil, backward or wrong.  We need to always be looking to know more and at the same time to be amazed at the breadth and the depth of our universe's unknowable nature.
The universe is vast beyond imagination and, yet, as people of faith, we believe that in that vastness we as individuals have meaning and purpose.  To grow in our faith we must look out as well as in.  When we see the wonder of this life we perhaps will be motivated to seek out the Author of this life.  God has the ability to be both unknowable and yet also very intimate.  As we extend ourselves in faith, God will reveal Himself in a variety of ways.
Our charge is to not limit God to our narrow ideas of Him.  We must approach God as He is and we must approach Him just as we are.


For more along these lines check out Acts 17 and Paul's sermon on Mar's Hill.

Fellow FHU grad Madison Chandler...

“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.” 

~ Edmund Burke

Speak up for Christ

"The Gospel is only good news if it gets there in time." 

— Carl F. H. Henry

Last night at worship, we sang as an invitation hymn "There's a Great Day Coming."  If you are not familiar with the song it progresses along the verses by placing adjectives in front of the word "day" to describe the day of Christ's return.  The day is described as "great" and "bright" and finally as a "sad" day.

Judgment will be a sad day for many who will hear the Lord say, "Depart, I never knew you."  How terrible it would be to hear those words on the Day of Judgment.  The knowledge of what was or what might have been will haunt many people throughout eternity.

Perhaps sadder still will be when those condemned perhaps turn to the Christians they knew in this life and say, "You never mentioned Him to me.  In all the times we went to dinner, at all the ballgames we attended, on all our coffee breaks at work you knew this truth and did not share it."  How will Christians respond?  How would you respond?  We won't be 5 minutes into eternity before every Christian that ever lived will wish they had prayed more for the lost, spoken more about Jesus, given more of their time, money and resources to the cause of Christ.

One day everyone will hear the Gospel, but for the majority of people it will be too late.  Let us make the most of our opportunities to speak up for Christ so that others may enjoy the great day that is soon approaching.  If we fail to speak, it maybe that Christ will have a hard time remembering knowing us as well.

“The righteous are those willing to disadvantage themselves in order to advantage the community.” 

MLK Day 2012

When I was just a child, I began to study the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Like all of us, Dr. King had faults, but unlike so many of us, he also had vision.

A vision of a society where people are judged not on their race, income, or place of birth, but rather on their ethics, compassion, and character.

We still live in a world where this vision has yet to be realized in the lives of countless millions of people, yet because of people like Dr. King that vision is a little closer to reality.

Dare to Dream.

(Dr. King in jail in Birmingham in the 1960s.  His famous letter written during his incarceration stirred the conscience of a nation.)

In our efforts to be right...

I was reading a blog today of another writer who referenced a verse I was familiar with.  It is one of my favorite verses in fact, and I immediately knew that she had given the wrong citation for the passage.  I looked just to make sure and, sure enough, she had inverted the chapter and the verse.  My immediate response was a kind of triumph that I had spotted this error on this famous author's page.  As I thought about it, however, I was soon thinking about all the times I have misspoke, mistyped or misinformed people.  While I did these things by accident, I am sure that some people noticed at the time and simply gave me grace knowing that my intentions were right and that if I had not been careless I would have said the correct thing.

We should never take joy in pointing out the mistakes of others.  It is natural to want to prove that we are right and to take pride in correctness, but it is not the way of Christ.  We should desire truth because it sets people free and not because it makes us look more wise or gives us more authority.  Living in the right ways, if we are not careful, can produced an alienating pride.  We should instead allow the truth of what we practice to produce humility and a godly worldview.

On Thanksgiving...

I really enjoyed this piece from TWLOHA about how for some of us Thanksgiving is a little different.

Hope you will read and realize that many people struggle with being thankful because of the brokenness they feel.

Enjoy.

http://www.twloha.com/blog/thanksgiving-note-to-say-youre

"It is perilously easy to have amazing sympathy with God's truth and remain in sin."

-Oswald Chambers

"Reality is totally indifferent

to our beliefs about it."

"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting.  It has been found difficult; and left untried."

-G.K. Chesterton

Directions for the Way

My Garmin GPS has finally stopped working after months of poor health.  I love a GPS because it can be a guide in unknown territory and give you a sense of course, direction and position no matter where you are.

We all need direction in life.  Many of us were taught certain principles by our parents that guided us into adulthood.  Perhaps coaches, grandparents and teachers further lent direction to our formative years.  We desire and need direction in all areas of life: social, career, family and, of course, spiritual.  It is the search for direction that ultimately finds itself as its own reward.  Jesus spoke of Himself as "the Way."  Notice He did not say He was the destination. In the same passage (John 14), He notes that the Father is Who lies at the end of a journey with Him and no one gets to the destination unless he or she goes in the right Way.

My advice is that we learn to enjoy the Way in life.  As we follow along the path that is laid before us, let us not miss the journey by only looking for the reward of the destination.  God has a great desire that we should learn many things in this life; some from revelation and many through experience.  If you find the Way, finding the destination will surely follow.

I don't know if I'm getting better or just used to the pain.

Humor (and truth) from Keith Green