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Here’s a new definition of boring: working at a dry cleaners at 3:30 on a Saturday afternoon. In a town like ours, where the cleaners on virtually every corner close at noon or 1:00 on Saturdays, and nothing is actually being cleaned, it can be a pretty sleepy time.
Until I show up.
The wedding was scheduled for 5:00, and everything was ready. The church was decorated, the ceremony was prepared and printed, and the wedding party was starting to party (translation: flashbulbs were popping). All I needed to do was go home, freshen up a bit, and change into my suit.
In what part of me remains traditional, I keep a black suit. It goes with anything, is appropriate for funerals or weddings or any other semi-formal something. Problem is, I only wear the thing when there is a semi-formal something.
(You probably know where this is going.) [click to continue…]
Real people, real stories, real living Christ! If you’re in the South Plains (Texas) area, please help us get the word out… no matter what you’re facing, a Risen Lord changes everything. Join us at Turning Point for our Easter 2009 celebration on April 11-12. Saturday service: 5:00 pm. Sunday Services: 9:00 and 10:30 am.
Click here to go to the web site for directions and more information.
If you live elsewhere, please pray for us, and let me know in the comments section below how we can pray for you this Easter season.
Five days of creation. Five days to speak a universe and earth into being. But for the first five days, as God created the stars and planets, the sea and land, and its teeming life, there was no one to speak back.
True, the angels brought Him praise, and creation tacitly spoke of his glory. But a voice was missing. A voice of intimacy, of image reflected. A voice of will – of determined love. A voice of faith and surrendered strength.
Day six. The climax of it all came when God breathed into the man the breath of life, and he became a living soul.
Imagine the Father’s delight as He introduced Adam to a universe of discovery. To show him the bumblebee or the giraffe, the caterpillar or the butterfly, the lion and the lamb. To see the childlike wonder in the grown man’s eyes as he witnessed this living Artist’s canvas for the first time. [click to continue…]
I have a confession to make. I can’t pass a mirror without looking at it. Call me weird, call me vain, just don’t call me when a mirror is close by. I probably won’t hear you.
Sometimes I primp. Sometimes I frown. Sometimes I actually impress myself and sometimes I just sigh. But whatever the reaction, it won’t cure me of wanting to take another look next time.
I have a hunch that I’m not alone. A lot of people spend a lot of time looking at themselves in the looking glass. Mirrors are an important part of our culture. Some people cover their walls at home with them. Michael Jackson once recorded a song about it. And where would we be without that fairy-tale question, “Mirror, Mirror on the wall…?”
Did you know that mirrors can lie? [click to continue…]
I don’t know geology, but I know generally what they’re talking about when they use the word, “fault.” Somewhere deep in the foundations of the earth are places where cracks produce shifts at times in the earth’s foundation. We experience them as earthquakes. Destructive and deadly, they leave scars on lives and landscapes that time alone doesn’t fix. All the result of faults that, may have seemed nonexistent a day earlier.
Faults show up in the Bible, too. “Admit your faults to one another and pray for each other,” James says, “so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous man has great power and wonderful results” (James 5:16, LB). First thing I notice is that even “righteous men” have faults. And who better to pray for our faults than someone who is painfully aware of their own?
Of course, we have other names for faults… character flaws, weaknesses, besetting sins, vices. [click to continue…]
For thus says the high and lofty One — He Who inhabits eternity, Whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, but with him also who is of a thoroughly penitent and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the thoroughly penitent [bruised with sorrow for sin] (Isaiah 57:15, Amplified)
God is a life-giver. A God of revival. He revives the spirit of the contrite (literally “crushed”) and the heart of the broken. He is the God who raises from the dead.
But He can’t raise us if we aren’t dead.
My flesh, on the other hand, is content with half-life measures. [click to continue…]
The apostles came back and told Jesus everything they had done. He took them with him to a city called Bethsaida so that they could be alone. But the crowds found out about this and followed him. He welcomed them, talked to them about the kingdom of God, and cured those who were sick.
Toward the end of the day, the twelve apostles came to him. They said to him, “Send the crowd to the closest villages and farms so that they can find some food and a place to stay. No one lives around here.”
Jesus replied, “You give them something to eat.”
They said to him, “We have five loaves of bread and two fish. Unless we go to buy food for all these people, that’s all we have.” (There were about five thousand men.)
Then he told his disciples, “Have them sit in groups of about fifty.” So they did this.
Then he took the five loaves and the two fish, looked up to heaven, and blessed the food. He broke the loaves apart and kept giving them to the disciples to give to the crowd. All of them ate as much as they wanted. When they picked up the leftover pieces, they filled twelve baskets. (Luke 9:10-17, GW)
How do you feed 5,000 men, plus women and children? That was the assignment. And it wasn’t Jesus’ job.
“Uh, Lord, dismiss the crowd so they can go find somewhere to sleep and eat. We’re out in the middle of nowhere.”
“You feed them,” Jesus said.
Get the scene. [click to continue…]
by Andy Wood on March 17, 2009
in Enlarging Your Capacity,Exploring the Possibilities,Five LV Laws,Insight,Leadership,Life Currency,Love,LV Alter-egos,LV Cycle,LV Stories,Principle of Freedom,Principle of Legacy
Maewyn Succat. Bet you never thought to hang that name on your son. But Maewyn wasn’t from around these parts, and his name apparently suited him as he grew up in his native Wales.
Maewyn had a pretty respectable upbringing. His granddaddy was a preacher, and his dad was a deacon – though rumor had it that Dad’s religious affiliations had more to do with tax deductions than spiritual passion.
In most ways, I suppose, Maewyn was your typical teenager. Times were tough, but youth is a time to dream of something better. No doubt this teenager had dreams, hopes, and plans to get there.
But all of that came crashing down when Maewyn’s family estate was attacked and he was abducted, placed in chains, and hauled off into slavery, far away from his home and his family.
What do you do when all you’ve ever known is ripped away from you? How do you respond when your dreams, your hopes, your family, and your heritage become distant memories or painful reminders of a life that once was?
Some children encounter such things at very early ages, and never remember their heritage or parents. Not Maewyn. He’d seen too much. Known too much. Missed too much. [click to continue…]
April 1 is coming, and with it is the release of Kaye Miller’s new book, Called to Love – Stories of Compassion, Faith, and God’s Amazing Grace. I was privileged to work with Kaye on it, and can tell you, it’s a must-have book. Kaye masterfully gives love a face, a Name, and a set of instruments with which to express it. You can pre-order called to love at Amazon here, or at Barnes & Noble Online here.
The following is a composite description of one of the most profound love-related experiences Kaye walked through. On some level, I think you’ll be able to relate. Enjoy! And order the book!
Most of us will not be required to love to the extent that it costs our physical lives. But we will have to love enough to be willing to give up our own desires, our time, our preferences, our schedules and much more. But that is a small price, knowing that we were loved by someone named Jesus Christ, who thought we were worth dying for.
This came home to me in a particularly poignant way in my responsibilities as an intensive care nurse. I heard God’s call loud and clear as He called me to work with the leprosy of our day. I will never forget the first time I cared for a patient with AIDS. I thought, “God, I can’t so this! I have a family – small children who need me. Please don’t ask me to do this!” I stood outside the door to the room of my first AIDS patient for what seemed like an eternity, just praying: “Lord what do I do?” Then I remembered what Jesus did, and what my father did. They willingly, lovingly, touched the lepers of their day. I could do no less.
I took a deep breath and opened the door – [click to continue…]
Interested in getting a head start on your firewood for next winter? I once heard of a unique way to drop a tree. It seems some villagers in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific have learned how to conquer the really big ones. If a tree is too large to be felled with an ax, the natives cut it down by yelling at it. (I’m not making this up. I read it in a book, so it must be true.) Just at dawn these woodsmen with special powers sneak up on a tree and suddenly scream at it at the top of their lungs. They do this every day for 30 days, and the tree dies and falls over. The theory is that yelling kills the spirit of the tree. According to the villagers, it always works.
Felling by yelling. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Crazy enough to be true.
I’ll have to admit, though, I’ve never seen it happen. I’ve never yelled at a tree (and I wouldn’t tell you if I had). Not for thirty days. Not for one day. Furthermore, I’ve never seen anyone else yell at a tree. So I can’t say by experience that hollering works on trees.
But it does work on kids. I have seen that happen.
Works on spouses, too.
Some people yell at their cars or their washing machine, and it doesn’t seem to do much good. But I’ve seen it drop a few pastors. And I’ve seen it kill the spirit of a friend or two as well. [click to continue…]
