Rebirth

My life feels like it is on the cusp of change, a new season. I feel like I am being prepared for birth, like I am at full term but not yet ready to be born. I have outgrown my womb, there is that uncomfortable pressure of being positioned to be born. Is there anything that is keeping me from being in the right position? Am I breeched? I am almost ready, but it will take intimacy, time in prayer and worship to make me ready to be born, lots of intimacy. Think about birth, and how the infant has to be ready. There is pressure, squeezing. How the birth is painful and bloody, the moment of birth is confusing and the infant is crying.

 This experience is not exclusive to myself, many go through this when God is preparing to do a new thing in their lives. The trick is to violently remove anything that is keeping you from being ready to enter into the next season of our work, life, or ministry. What is holding you back? Find it and rip it out, nothing is worth losing out on God's best for your life. 

Action/Reaction

When we encounter things in life that don't work out for us the way we'd like we should pay attention to how we react to these things. Are we allowing the situation to control our feelings and take over our minds, or are we letting go of our illusions of control? as Christians, we often fall into a false belief that if God loves us, life will be good and easy. We think that if we encounter difficulty, we are being punished or maybe our faith is too weak. What if we are going through this so that we can go through this? The other day i was tring to get home and kept gettign stuck in traffick jams. I was getting pretty pissed off, until I realized that my anger was not helping anything. The traffick jams had nothing to do with me, they would have happened whether I was there or not. They simply existed. Once I realized that, I focused on what I could do with the time I had. I listened to a sermon, called a friend, talked with God. I'm not saying we are not allowed to have human reactions to things, I'm suggesting that we do not allow our reactions to overtake us. Be aware of how you react to life.

Dying

I am dying. Every day I am getting closer to my death. It could be today in a car crash, tomorrow while being robbed, in a few months afte contracting a deadly virus or disease. Or it could be 50 years from now as an old man. An old man. I look in the mirror and see the fruits of working out, knowing that one day it will all fade and it will take all of my strength to lift a gallon of milk if I live long enough. I am going to die, just yesterday I was fantasizing about being 18 years old, now I am 31. If I live to be an old man, what do I want the sum of my existence to be? What will I have attained in my few moments here on earth? Will I leave a legacy, what will my testimony be? What do I value most of what I do? What dreams am I unwilling to reach my grave without having made them a reality? What about you? Do you realize that your life is draining away like sand in an hourglass? Does this fact depress or motivate you? What are you unwilling to leave unfinished on this earth? I would encourage you to sit down and write out what you want to accomplish before you die, and don't over spiritualized this, be honest. If your dream is to watch some sports team play, write it down. Then ask yourself why have you not done them or taken steps to try and accomplish them. Fact is, most of us think that we will live a long life, and are not bothering to prepare for death. Stop kidding yourself, you are going to die. It could be today, or sixty years from today. We need to learn to live fully, but live ready to leave this world at the same time.

Change

Why is it that we read scriptures and sing songs about the fact that God never changes and everything else does, yet we spend our lives complaining about every little change in our lives and trying to get God to do the same thing and give us the same results all the time? Since God himself never changes, and everything else in the world does, let's just roll with it. Remember this truth not just when life is hard and you're going through the valley, but remember it when yu are in the mountain top, living the good life as well. Everything changes, nothing stays the same,not the bad and not the good.

The art of abiding

When I was young I dreamed of a life of success defined by doing. I was going to travel the world and have adventures, own all the outdoor toys and just wander around, doing all type of cool things. As I grew older, my definition of success has changed, but it still involved doing and owning. Having a nice house, nice cars, the latest phone and electronic gadgets. Working in a job that others would find to be reputable, being a person of note in my church, teaching fencing, competing in fencing. I wanted to be important and be seen as important. This mindset causes a lot of stress. I am grasping, always grasping for what I do not have, and trying to appear as though I do have what I do not yet have. My walk with god is defined by what He is doing for me right now, and what I am able to do. Push, strive, achieve, win! In the midst of this scramble I have lost something very precious; myself, and the simple joy of living. I'm becoming angry, bitter, and resentful because I am jealous of the outward accomplishments of others, only happy when I am as good or better than the other people around me from an outward perspective. We must learn to let go of these things. We must look beyond the outward trappings of success, and plumb the depths of our own hearts. Discover what gives you joy, whether anyone approvs or not. For me this is fencing. Not competitive fencing, but the art of swordplay studied as a martial art. I love writing, not to please anyone else, but becaue I love the idea of having my words there to encourage others. The trouble is that these things take discipline, and a not seen by others nor is it praised by anyone. It is hard to have discipline in something that goes unnoticed. We want the reward of money or praise from others. I'm not saying that we should not ever strive, or work hard. Whatever we do should be done to the best of our abilities, to the glory of God. But when we do what we do, it should be done with an understanding that nothing we do in this life will last, nor does it define us. We are defined by something internal, that may manifest on the outside but is not what is on the outside(if that makes any sense). So let yourself go, follow your heart, be the man/woman that God made you to be. For only when we accept who we are, all of who we are will we be free.

Holding on

I know that there are times when thing's just are not going your way. When everything you where reaching for is not working out. It can sem as if God himself is working against you. But there is something that I am learning, just because it seems like your life is falling apart, doesn't mean that it really is. Often this is just Satan using a trial in your life to make you think that God has abandoned you. Often whatver you are despairing about is not the end of the world, or the end of anyone's life. If you honestly look at what you are in a funk about, you will see that it is not anything worthy of panick. Besides, if it was a matter of life and death you woudl need to focus and get it done, rather than wallow in self pity. So dust off your armor, strap on your helmet and get back in the game. Who knows? You may find that the problem is not nearly as big or bad as you think.

A thought on fatherhood

I ran into a friend of mine who is going to be a father. As we were talking I realized what a awesome role it is to be a father. You will pour out your life for something, but only as a parent will you pour out your life to create and sustain life. He mentioned that people had warned him that his life would change, as though it were a negative thing. I told him that yes he would lose a lot of sleep, and no matter go such money he makes he will feel broke. But the cost is worth everything that he has to give.

Bitterness

Bitterness. It is so easy to allow our self pity to digress into bitterness. To blame ourselves, our friends, family,church, even God for whatever state  we find ourselves in. Face it, life sucks, but that is not an excuse to get angry about it. We have such a short time here on this earth, we cannot afford to waste a minute on what did not go the way wanted in the past, where change cannot happen. We must learn to let go. So you got fired, dumped, demoted, your wife/husband left you, a loved one died, you were robbed, you sinned, you have been broken. Maybe something worse happened to you. I don't want to take away from whatever struggle or tragedy may have befallen you , these things can be difficult to get over. But God wants to take these things and ,are something with them.

Purpose

I feel like I cant think much today, kinda foggy. Sifting through feelings of bitterness and betrayal. Purposeless ness is the best way to describe it,  I feel like I am simply working and that is not enough. I want purpose, a reason to be lave. With purpose you can sift through the fog, you can streamline because you eliminate anything that does not support that purpose. Purpose guides us, it drives us, gives our lives meaning, gives us the strength to go on when we have no hope. What is my purpose? I have no idea, I float from one thing to the next, more in love with the idea of having purpose than really being consumed by anything. I watch these movies, and I leave the theater bitter because I do not live with that sense of purpose that these heroes seem to have. I am over the fact that I do not have any sort of cool superpowers, no kick ass costume, I'm good with that. But what really gets me is the lack of singular focus for my life. I feel like I just work to survive, I have little real joy in my work, but isn't that really my fault? If I were to express this to any one, the response would surely be something about my attitude, and that is where the problem truly is. I would be encouraged to focus on God, and that would surely fix everything. That should be true, right? I sit in church and watch people so desperate to be happy, wanting to feel something, experience something so badly the mind often creates the feeling they are after. But what happens Monday morning? For all the "gifts of the spirit", there a so few exceptional people in my life. Somehow I think this is my fault, as I bother to get to now so few people well, or more accurately I allow so few to get to know me well. But I am getting off on an unprofitable track. 

thoughts for us men

I'm watching Mr and Mrs Smith, and I'm thinking about us men. There's that point where after so many years they don't know who the other person is,the only problem for us men is that often we don't know who we are either.  Remember that point in the movie where they are both pointing guns at each other and John is the first one to put his weapon down? That as men is our job, to stay there even when she shoots at us, never taking a shot ourselves. Because even though we don't feel like it, we can take it. We were built to take it. We cannot bow out, or ever give up. We must not only find out who we are, we must find out and live it out. We have no choice, however broken we are the world needs us, flaws and all. God is ripping out everything that keeps us from being who He called us to be. The best we can do is submit to the process, because what lies at the other end is worth everything.

Rain

When the farmer prays for rain, he gets ready for it. When we pray for God to break through, are we preparing for Him to say yes, or are we preparing for a no? It is not enough to pray for rain, we must look to the sky, smell the air, buy an umbrella. Can we have that kind of faith, can I have this kind of faith? I want it, but I so often fail to truly trust in the Lord. It's time to let go of our mistrust in the Lord, to let go of our bitterness. I want to be the idiot that trusts in the Lord again and again, regardless of what God is doing. Being in a desert is not an excuse to not have water, not for the people of God.

Time is no one's friend

We are born dying. There is such a small window for us in the earth, to do anything of consequence. Yet we live as though we are immortal. We waste our live working jobs we hate, doing things of no value, only to realize that this life is all we have when it is almost over. Time is not considerate, it will not wait, it is not your friend. It is your enemy, your mortality draining away every day. The only tme we should delay is when we wait in obedience on the lord's timing.

Preparation

My sons asked to go to the pool. While I'm deliberating if I want to take them, they are busy getting ready. They don't wait until I say yes before they prepare. They ask, and then they prepare for the yes. When we ask the Lord for things, good things like a home or food, yet we prepare for a no, or worse we prepare for nothing, waiting for the yes before we get ready. We need to stop being so pessimistic toward the lord. Let's ask, believing that our father in heaven wants to do good things for us. Let's stop thinking that just because he delays he's saying no. Let's believe in the goodness of the Lord.