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Okay I need your feedback. Now. Humor me, it’s easy. Scroll down to the comments section. Or click on the article title if you’re reading this on the feed or email, then scroll down to comments.
When you get there, give me your first response to this question.
Think of someone who is in a leadership position over your life – work, church, nonprofit, political. How does that leader most often make you feel?
One word answers are fine. Diatribes are fine. Rants are fine. Gushing is allowed, too. First names are OK. Give your answer, then click “submit” and come back to the top.
I’ll wait right here.
(This is me waiting.)
Okay. Back? Let’s talk. [click to continue…]
Change your nation instead. Or your community. Or your neighborhood. Or in those really desperate cases, change yourself.
Changing the world has become a cliché.
“This generation will change the world.”
“You have the power to change the world.”
“That [insert role of another person] you [insert action you perform] may just change the world someday.”
Maybe they can. Maybe you will. And yes, it is possible.
And no, you probably won’t. [click to continue…]
I know a guy named Garrett who has completely changed my impression of him in a matter of a couple of years. When I first met him, he came across as a slacker – lazy, unmotivated, and a pretty bad student. But the last time I saw him he had rewritten his story – at least the one that played out in my head. Truth is, Garrett is sharp, actually quite brilliant as a communicator, and a potential world changer.
What made the difference?
Time. Perspective. A little experience. In Garrett’s case, he never stopped anything or changed anything. I just had more time to get to know what he was capable of. The one who needed changing was me.
Sarah and Ben were a different case. [click to continue…]
Cohen is an expert crawler.
He can cross a room lickety-split on his hands and knees.
He’s an awful walker.
He’s learning. But why risk injury when he can get there safely on all fours?
His parents don’t treat his crawling ability as a special gift, however.
It’s just a skill that helps him until the greater abilities arrive.
Same goes for you and God. [click to continue…]
Laura Kate getting a kiss from Laverne. Shirley, Mary, and Martha are close by.
When play is a full-time occupation – a sign of health and strength…
When laughter and tears, courage and fears trade places in a matter of seconds…
When growth is expected,
Learning is an hourly occurrence,
Desires are unmasked and transparent,
And trust is as natural as breathing…
When love is the only commodity worth sharing,
And forgiveness is spoken in hugs and pats…
When holding – or resting in those stronger arms – are the universal symbols of peace and oneness…
When wonder and anticipation drive us toward new discoveries with abandon and imagination…
Of such, Jesus said, is the Kingdom.
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…]
“Our behavior, attitudes, and initiatives toward others are an act of sowing. The acts of others toward us, at least in a general sense, are an act of reaping. If others are being critical, judgmental, or hostile to us, before we write them off as uncaring jerks, it may be wise to examine what we’ve been sowing in our own attitudes and relationships. If we aren’t seeing generosity being returned, maybe we haven’t been giving.”
-from my journal, January 10, 2001
Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others – ignoring God! – harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life (Galatians 6:7-8, The Message).
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Sometimes when the Lord wants to tell me something significant, he opens my eyes.
Sometimes he closes them. Literally. And speaks to me through a dream.
A few years ago I was on an airplane, reading about how God reveals himself through dreams, and I decided to see if the Lord had anything to say to me in that manner. That night in the hotel room, I asked him to speak to me through my dreams, and I “instructed” my brain to remember.
Remember I did. Clearly. Vividly. Unforgettably. [click to continue…]
(A Turning Point Story)
About 20 miles east of Denton, Texas a small ridge runs north and south along what people in Dallas know as Preston Road. Visible from 10 miles away, all along the top and slope of that ridge rest the homes, churches, and schools of Prosper – a community of farmers and commuters to Dallas. I had the first of what would be many of these picturesque views in September 1981, when I virtually limped there for a job interview. Little did I know the significance that town would have in my life, family, and ministry to this day. This is about the roads that led into, out of, and back into an unforgettable town nobody had ever heard of.
Four months earlier, I had loaded up all my earthly belongings in a Hertz rental truck, put my gorgeous Irish Setter puppy, Dixie, in the cab, and left Mississippi for Texas. I was to start seminary in the fall, and thought I’d get a head start on a job and hopefully a church to serve. I was so happy, so optimistic, I literally sang my own version of a Swaggert song:
On my way to heaven,
Stoppin’ off by Texas on the way!
I got a sales job representing the prestigious Ft. Worth Chamber of Commerce. Rented a really nice house. Was leaving a wonderfully successful youth ministry. God was good! Life surely would be good, too.
It didn’t turn out that way. [click to continue…]
“The winter is over. The rain and snow have gone. Come away with me, my love, come away.
“I miss our time together. How long has it been since I heard the sound of your voice in the morning? Come away with me, my love, come away.
“I have seen you struggling, and I’ve heard your cries in the night. I have been with you, even when you felt alone. I have been faithful, even when you were losing faith in Me. I have been patient, even when you were impatient with Me. Now the flowers are budding, and the time of singing has come. Come away with me, my love, come away!
[click to continue…]
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