Living In The Will Of God

I am one of the weirdest people on the face of this earth. Everyone take a quick nod in agreement, "yes". Some people that don't really know me very well see all the crazy things I try and think I'm on my quest to complete some sort of "Bucket List". Well, maybe I am.

A few years back I felt the need to sign up for and complete three complete sailing class modules that took about three years to complete. Then I started on my next item on my list, obtaining my  1st degree "Black Belt" in the martial art of Chun Kuk Do, which consumed another four years to complete. I will never have to worry about being shipwrecked on Gilligan's Island. And I'll be able to handle myself against all my demons and devils that might hitch a ride and follow me there.

Have you ever read the children's book "If  You Give A Moose A Muffin"? Its a really cute story of a little girl who after seeing a moose in her back yard decides to give him one of her mother's freshly baked bran muffins. The moose then follows her into the house because the muffin reminds him of the jam his grandmother use to make. He starts looking in their refrigerator for some jam to put on the muffin. The jam in the fridge reminds him of eating and watching TV so into the living room he goes to turn on the TV. On and on the story winds its tale where the moose finally ends up destroying the entire contents of the house. The moose and the little girl strike up a  friendship and so the moose helps her clean up the mess. Remembering why he was in the little girl's yard in the first place  he heads back out into the wilderness.

Striving to be living in the will of God can kinda be like the moose that destroys the contents of the house before finding what it is he was really looking for. In the course of my ministry I end up rushing here and there, doing this program and that,  always believing that I am on this spiritual quest for God.  As I bumble along in my flesh I unfortunately pass by people who need me. Meanwhile as the church is busy deciding what color of carpet to cover  the floor with they ignore the homeless who are sleeping out in the back parking lot. Or the unfortunate person who has been coming to church alone for weeks but never gets a warm hello, handshake or hug from anyone else. The journey I call life is all about relationships! Relationships are the only thing I will take to heaven with me when I am called home.

Living in the will of God can be allot like going through the four seasons. Where the warm, newness of spring  leads me gracefully into the heat of summer. And as I begin to become exhausted from the extreme heat of summer I am blessed with the coolness the fall season brings, coolness  and a renewing of my circumstances. What I like to call my personal "down time".

Today, As I look outside my living room window, I witness the wind beginning to nudge leaves loose from their perch. Once clinging to little branches which held them so securely to the tree they now  flutter down and down to the damp grass below. Something is different, the new fall season begins  to change aspects of life around me. The air temp is beginning to drop with the leaves. The refreshing coolness begins to color the falling leaves with hues of crimson red, burning orange and bright yellow; colors any master impressionist would embellish.

I love the fall season. It’s a time of change where I can slow down, begin a metamorphosis of life. I begin to slow down, clothe myself in soft flannel, curing up in front of a warm fire to begin a long soothing winter's hibernation. But fall can also remind me of death. Death and dying can be a time where God reminds me and  brings to me a clear focus of how precious life really is. But is death a natural part of life or merely a result of the original sin, God's curse on all the sons of Adam?

Now, in this new season of my life  I find myself preparing for my hibernation of being "put on the used pastor's  shelf", taking some time off, a long deserved rest, down time to regroup and do the next line on my "Bucket List" . So as my eyes move down  my  list of things to do I begin to  ask myself "Is this really the will of God for my life"?

So how do I know  what the will of God is for my life? How did David know to rush out and spit into a giant's face? That God would indeed deliver him and that he would have the ultimate victory standing with the giants bloody head in his hands? Or there is the time when Ruth decided to stay and cleave to Naomi and end up gleaning the corners of Boaz's wheat fields. How did Ruth know where that act of faith would lead and that she was in the exact will of God? Then there is Ester, and how God used her to speak with the King of Persia, who then utterly destroys Haman's evil plan to exterminate the Jews.

Our God is so very good! He is still in control and still on His throne. The heavens flee away from His very presence and He forever continues to hold all things together. All things. As a friend of mine says " All things means all things in the Greek". This means that God holds all aspects of our lives together.

Why then do I so blindly, bumble on through life's twists and turns? As I bump into blank maze walls as I so desperately continue trying to find the opening out into my eternal reward. My entire journey is littered with prayers of  asking God "What is the will for my life" and can I please have this or that?

I believe in these times of introspective rebirth God tries to get my focus back where it belongs-on Him! Sometimes I get too wound up with ministry that I get tunnel vision and pass up on people and relationships along the way. Just as the fall season causes me to slow down, get out of the cold and warm up by the fire these valleys in my life force me to change direction. God, thank you for the seasons of change in my life!
Now its time for me to get a freshly baked bran muffin to eat.

Seasons Of Hope

I am convinced that there is a creator to everything I see around me. As I walk by my wife's rose bushes, in the early morning as the dew still clings to the bottom of each leaf, it’s almost impossible to think that this is all part of a random creation event. The way the sunlight looks right before dawn and just after twilight is so revealing. As the angle of the sun's rays illuminate each fold and bump in creation it’s as if I am looking at the fingerprint of God.

Lately, I find myself falling into episodes of depression. I find that striving to find even a small amount of work each week is very hard on people in general and especially on men. My main source of income comes from being a self employed general contractor in the residential home building and remodeling area. Our local economy here in San Diego, California continues to suffer from the real estate bubble of 2008.  People just are not ready to let go of their funds to make improvements on their houses. So the continual ebb and flow of the self employed person's bank balance really grates and wears on them like the sea grinding and turning discarded shells into sand. This new, present and extremely low life tide I find myself wading through has begun dredging up some really ugly trash.  In addition to being a modern day sort of “tent maker” I also volunteer as an associate pastor which is my true calling. With the continued pounding of unemployment ever before me I am being driven out of the water to walk along the shore for awhile. As I step away from ministry I begin to feel a new season of my life and my foundation shift just like water eroding the sand under my feet as it returns to the sea...

The house where I live, during the day, is usually devoid of all life. Our two young sons, Erik and Luke, attend the local college. Emma is on the verge of becoming a teenager and my wife, Pam, keeps herself extremely busy making sure all the household tasks are completed, keeping our home running like a well oiled machine. In the quiet my mind wanders and I find myself doubting all that I have come to believe in. Fasting, praying and crying out to God for direction, support and employment. This desert valley of my thoughts is so very deep that I only allow the Son’s light to reach in for a couple of hours each day. His love flows over me and bathes me in His radiant goodness. He’s’ so warm and friendly I don't want Him to leave but as quick as the light appeared it is gone leaving behind only a shadow that it was ever there in the first place.

Where do I put my trust during these times? For many others the usual group of old friends might include drugs, tobacco, booze and sex. These all seem to help the pain at first but only lead to deeper pain and a debt we can’t begin to pay. Debts that might include but are not limited to all kinds of disease, broken relationships, illegitimate children and ultimately an untimely death.

Another life preserver I have reached for during hard times is my close friends.  Although some of my "so-called friends" seem to only abandon me in mid-stream. Running for higher ground they leave me behind to tread the dangerous water, struggling for the shore alone. Although these fair weather friends usually do manage to leave something behind for us to remember them by; a blade lodged deep into the flesh of our backs. They leave behind scars that often are never allowed to heal. So we find ourselves sitting alone, scraping at these wounds with the broken shards of yesterdays life.

So where should I put my trust during these times? How do I even begin to rebuild from the ashes of burned down relationships? First off, I refuse to let myself slip into the pool of bitter waters and I run from the shore of self pity. I will not allow myself to lose consciousness and drown in misery bay. I start by picking myself off the ground and stand on my own two feet. As I begin to stand I take a long and deliberate deep breath. I allow myself to look up to God and take my focus off my own circumstances. I look intently at the wonderful detail in God’s creation. The night sky declares His handiwork. Taking off the blinders that have shaded my view I discover God’s mercies are new every day.  I draw and take a drink of cool, clean water from new streams and start walking a different direction.

Where do I draw this new, living water from? I draw from a very ancient and deep well. For me it comes from the same person who put the dew on the bottom of my wife's roses. He makes the sun to rise each morning bringing new hope to my life. He created the wind that two hawks can be seen gliding on and all the stars in the night's sky. He's the One who designed seasons, fuels the tides of life and beckons for me to come to Him. I put my hope and trust in Him and I will never stop believing. I remember the memorial stones He has set up in my life for encouragement. I begin by taking a step or two down a new path, lifting up my eyes to new horizons where my future looks so very bright in the hands of my loving God!

Wolves Guarding The Hen House

It would really be  a sad thing to see a wolf guarding a sheep fold or a hen house. What a funny, but sad word picture that brings to mind.Think of it kinda like giving a drug addict the key to the meds locker and turning, leaving them alone while you turn a blind eye.

We raise chickens at our country ranch house. They have to be kept in a wire cage at all times or else coyotes, raccoons, owls and other predators would swoop in and grab them, it has happened many times in the past. As night falls and twilight gives way to darkness, hawks and owls stalk their prey from high above diving down on their unsuspecting victims with pin point accuracy.

Any parent with young small toddlers knows that they must always keep an eye on their children. Kids can wander off inside a large department store in the time it takes to blink or take a quick glance in an opposite direction. I was once holding my baby daughter in Wal Mart when my wife asked me to hold her purse while she went to the ladies room. My hands were full of baby so after a minute of holding both the purse and the baby I set the purse down maybe 18" away from me.

There was this lady shopping close by where I set the purse down who while I was distracted by the Wal Mart clerk went into my wife's purse and took at least one credit card but left the purse where it was. After finishing shopping we went home where later that night we got a call from a Home Depot up in Los Angeles where the women who took our credit card was trying to purchase $1500 dollars of store goods. It's creepy to think that there are people in the world that are that sleazy. Evil exists and our world is full of  real predators. The woman who stole our credit card did mange to purchase about $ 2500 dollars of goods from other stores before going to the Home Depot. I'm thankful for the store employee who was alert to question this woman. The store clerk sensing something was not quite right asked for another form of ID. The woman then ran out of the store, denied service and our credit card confiscated.

With this knowledge in mind what is the situation  in our churches? We are vulnerable and our guards are usually down in church. When we gather together to  worship the Lord in the sanctuary, are our kids safe in the nursery and other Sunday school classrooms? Do you really know the people who are watching over them? Have the basic questions been asked and background checks been made before promoting people into leadership roles? How do you know for sure that the person sitting next to you is not going to rile through your purse while your eyes are closed and hands raised praising the Lord? It can be very scary to begin to look at our basic family security and our entire social world in this kind of light.

As the church of Christ the bible warns us about false teachers creeping into the flock. They seem very helpful at first but once established they begin to chip away at the basic foundations of Christian teaching until the sheep are following them instead of the pastor who God raised up to keep watch. They preach subtle differences in Christ's teaching,  diluting solid doctrine into something that is tepid and lukewarm. Their doctrine has a legalistic foundation and they show very little grace to others. They stir up drama inflicting injury to the fellowship by causing division in the church family. Brick by brick they begin to dismantle the church, one relationship at a time is compromised.These false teachers usually begin by rallying a clique of friends into a "New Super Group" of believers who are told they have all the "Real Answers". This group will try and recruit others who are weak in their faith and pull them into this "New Group". Others who oppose them are seen as enemies and are ostracized, ridiculed and finally cut off from fellowship in the name of church discipline. Beware the devil stalks his prey, those who he would devour.

Friends! Beware of false teachers who walk around in sheep's clothing! Your pastor should be guarding the flock where you fellowship the sheep should not be in control. If he is not protecting you then leave in haste, take your family away from immanent danger and find a place where you are well fed and will be protected! Your pastor needs to be using the "Rod and Staff" God has given him to watch His flock. He needs to always be on guard and ready to use his authority to stop these special interest groups before they grow and become an all consuming cancer to the church body as a whole!

People everywhere within the sound of my voice you must use your armor and the weapon God has given you for protection. God's word is living, active and sharper than a double edged sword. Remember to Pray! Always pray for God to give you the full picture or discernment in your life and area of influence. Keep your eyes and ears open to what is going on around you. Remember what Jesus said, that we are all like sheep who have  gone astray. If your pastor is a true shepherd than he will be keeping guard over you! Be on watch and be alert so that these false teachers will not creep in and steal your joy.