A while ago I wrote an article saying that I thought that “dream girls” didn’t exist.  I think about 5 people read it and left some comments, but overall, it was probably just left alone. It was a pretty brutal article, maybe offensive, someone said “cynical and bitter,” but I was really trying to be more funny than I was angry. My lack of writing experience was probably the article’s biggest deterrent to its effectiveness.  That said, sorry if you were the few that read it and were offended and I hurt your sensitive little hearts; I really didn’t mean it.

On November 21st, 2009 I married my best friend.  We didn’t have a perfect engagement (although the wedding was pretty awesome!)  But we worked through a lot of differences through counsel and prayer and God’s grace before we got married. I felt pretty bad after I wrote that first article because I wrote it before we were married and she read it and then I realized she probably thought I thought she wasn’t my ideal  or “perfect” wife to-be.  She thought I detested romantic comedies and we fought over the fact that maybe sometimes she wanted to watch The Notebook with me and why couldn’t I just get over myself for a second and watch the movie with her? So I just deleted that old post because it wasn’t as effective as I was hoping for and my infantile humor more was clearly portrayed through the written word.

I was trying to say that sometimes God uses our spouses or the people we’re in closest relationship with to reveal some of the deepest ugliness in us to purge us and to make us more into the image of his son.  When we look to our spouses as an asset that we can then extract our needs from, we’ve gone astray in our thinking.  Perhaps God puts in in our most intimate relationship to show us what he wishes to extract from us – the ugliness we wish to conceal.  To put it more plainly: God uses marriage to make us more holy than he does to make us happy.  That’s not to say that the two are mutually exclusive, that you can’t be holy and be happy, I was just trying to say that there should be a priority in how we choose our spouse.  Will this person draw me closer to God by speaking truth-in-love to me or will they merely deny my inefficiencies? Will they give me grace when I need it? Is this relationship built on a spiritual foundation or on looks and lust?

Someone very wise once told me that there are a million dream girls out there but not a million right girls. I’ve definitely found the right girl for me.  I can list all the beautiful physical qualities about her, you know, the stuff that guys are usually drawn to first, but I’m growing more in love with the person that reads her bible next to me in the morning and prays through the alphabet with me. I know love isn’t just about spiritual disciplines, but it also isn’t about what you think you can get from that person.  Maybe that’s what I was trying to say all along; let God bring someone to you, let him show you what love is, let him dream of someone for you.  His dreams are a lot bigger than ours. Follow his dreams.

Answer: We live in a physical world with its four known space-time dimensions of length, width, height (or depth) and time. However, God dwells in a different dimension—the spirit realm—beyond the perception of our physical senses. It’s not that God isn’t real; it’s a matter of His not being limited by the physical laws and dimensions that govern our world (Isaiah 57:15). Knowing that “God is spirit” (John 4:24), what is His relationship to time?

In Psalm 90:4, Moses used a simple yet profound analogy in describing the timelessness of God: “For a thousand years in Your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.” The eternity of God is contrasted with the temporality of man. Our lives are but short and frail, but God does not weaken or fail with the passage of time. 

In a sense, the marking of time is irrelevant to God because He transcends it. Peter, in 2 Peter 3:8, cautioned his readers not to let this one critical fact escape their notice—that God’s perspective on time is far different from mankind’s (Psalm 102:12, 24-27). The Lord does not count time as we do. He is above and outside of the sphere of time. God sees all of eternity’s past and eternity’s future. The time that passes on earth is of no consequence from God’s timeless perspective. A second is no different from an eon; a billion years pass like seconds to the eternal God. 

Though we cannot possibly comprehend this idea of eternity or the timelessness of God, we in our finite minds try to confine an infinite God to our time schedule. Those who foolishly demand that God operate according to their time frame ignore the fact that He is the “High and Lofty One . . . who lives forever” (Isaiah 57:15). This description of God is far removed from man’s condition: “The length of our days is seventy years—or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away” (Psalm 90:10).

Again, because of our finite minds, we can only grasp the concept of God’s timeless existence in part. And in so doing, we describe Him as a God without a beginning or end, eternal, infinite, everlasting, etc. Psalm 90:2 declares, “From everlasting to everlasting You are God” (see also Psalm 93:2). He always was and always will be. 

So, what is time? To put it simply, time is duration. Our clocks mark change or, more precisely, our timepieces are benchmarks of change that indicate the passage of time. We could say, then, that time is a necessary precondition for change and change is a sufficient condition to establish the passage of time. In other words, whenever there’s change of any kind we know that time has passed. We see this as we go through life, as we age. And we cannot recover the minutes that have passed by.

Additionally, the science of physics tells us that time is a property resulting from the existence of matter. As such, time exists when matter exists. But God is not matter; God, in fact, created matter. The bottom line is this: time began when God created the universe. Before that, God was simply existing. Since there was no matter, and because God does not change, time had no existence and therefore no meaning, no relation to Him. 

And this brings us to the meaning of the word “eternity.” “Eternity” is a term used to express the concept of something that has no end and/or no beginning. God has no beginning or end. He is outside the realm of time. Eternity is not something that can be absolutely related to God. God is even beyond eternity.

Scripture reveals that God lives outside the bounds of time as we know it (Isaiah 57:15). Our destiny was planned “before the beginning of time” (2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 1:2) and “before the creation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4; 1 Peter 1:20). “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible” (Hebrews 11:3). In other words, the physical universe we see, hear, feel and experience was created not from existing matter, but from a source independent of the physical dimensions we can perceive. 

“God is spirit” (John 4:24), and, correspondingly, God is timeless rather than being eternally in time or being beyond time. Time was simply created by God as a limited part of His creation for accommodating the workings of His purpose in His disposable universe (see 2 Peter 3:10-12).

Upon the completion of His creation activity, including the creation of time, what did God conclude? “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Gen 1:31). Indeed, God is spirit in the realm of timelessness, rather than flesh in the sphere of time.

As believers, we have a deep sense of comfort knowing that God, though timeless and eternal, is in time with us right now; He is not unreachably transcendent, but right here in this moment with us. And because He’s in this moment, He can respond to our needs and prayers.

Recommended Resource: Knowing God by J.I. Packer.

from partner site Gotquestions.org

One nugget of Christian rhetoric I have always had the toughest time understanding is “giving everything to God.”  What was so frustrating about this is that “giving everything to God” sounds like the right thing to do, and here I don’t even know the implications of the statement!  My visceral response is to pack up all my belongings and give them to the church.  Or perhaps to quit my job and say I had given it to God.  The Peace Corps seems to fit the bill for that too, I should enlist (or whatever it is they call it).

No.  That isn’t all there is to it.  Luckily, Jesus shed some light on what it is to “give everything to God.”  In the gospel of Luke, Jesus shared his perspective on giving God complete ownership of one’s self:

Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come,

Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation,

nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is

within you” (Luke 17:20-21).

In Greek, the word Jesus used for ‘kingdom’ was ‘basilea,’ which is better directly translated into ‘kingship.’  I am not one for selecting diction across the bibles deriving spectrum of languages, but I think that there is something to be said about God’s ‘kingship.’  When we hold the phrase “giving everything to God” up to the light of what Jesus said we find that Jesus defined the above virtue as “giving God leadership of our kingdom.”  Since Jesus established that no physical place on earth would ever truly be under God’s kingship, He must be saying that God has different real estate in mind, and it’s within us.

Jesus was saying God should have reign over our spiritual identities; that we should give God the very fibers of our inner-person.  Our “everything” is just that, the very core of us to which all things that are exclusive to us burst forth.  God wants to be located at the epicenter of that which is our “kingdom.”

Tragically enough, how many of us have completely disregarded the wellbeing of our kingdom (our core selves) in the name of unselfishness?  Some people live their lives almost on-call to others in such a way that they omit the possibility of needing to be served at that point in life.  Some people stay involved in unhealthy relationships (romantic and otherwise) out of some sense of “extending grace” when all their doing is hyper-extending their compassion.  Ultimately, they lose more then they could’ve given in the first place.  While the process of learning to say “yes” and “more” takes considerable practice, the gift of “no” requires more temperance and spiritual-awareness.  A fear of saying “no” seems to communicate our own lack of trust that God’s work is independent of our own.  It’s as if we fear that if we don’t shoulder a certain workload, God won’t shoulder His.  However, God’s best work is done in the spirits of His followers even though His followers regularly disregard their spiritual identity.

The problem here isn’t the fear of most believers to give God their spiritual identity; the problem is that most believers are giving God a faulty one.  To fully articulate this I must shoot the fear of sounding cynical to the wind and say that if I stripped the most spiritual people I know of their lofty ideas and disciplines (the things that make them look spiritual), they would have no idea who they are and how they would go about finding that out.  They have no problem giving God their kingdom; they actually prefer it because doing so leaves no responsibility for them to even set foot within it’s walls.  Essentially, if they left God in control of their inner person, they never have to do the ‘work’ necessary to understand it.

This is a cop-out, and this isn’t what God wants.

Naturally, God isn’t interested in the polar opposite as well, where we take full ownership of our spiritual development and wait for it to be complete before we allow God to move in.  That simply will never happen.  As almost everything in life points to balance, so does the grotesquely misunderstood act of “giving everything to God.”

Say we did have this balance where we allow God to be the pivot in the spiritual understanding of our Self, while at the same time never shying away from seeking to understand who we are.  This may seem like a very simple middle ground and that this article is stating the blatantly obvious.  However, if we all truly understood this balance then why do we assume responsibility for other people’s relationships?  As men, we think we ‘know’ when relationships are ‘broken’ and mandate repair to which only we can provide.  If we understand this balance, why do we always catch ourselves saying ‘yes’ to too much?  Better too busy than too lazy right?  Wrong.  We don’t want to stop moving.  We hate to be still, and know that He is God.  We want to ‘fix’ things in our world so we don’t have to deal with them being broken.  We are scared children running around trying to make things fit into our single-dimensioned understanding of ‘right.’  We would rather be the caulk that holds the world together than accept things as they are and trust that God’s work will be completed in time.

If we don’t respond to structural flaws of the kingdoms we give to God, these issues will never be dealt with.  And how can we hear what God is trying to tell us when we won’t shut up?  “Quiet time” is what most Christians call it, but I call it “Ben time.”  Basically, I would sit down and calm their mind for a period of time. By setting aside this time to spend in my own skin, God always shows me something involving my spirit.  I bring my journal, and work through things with God that way. Sometimes I do something I love, but do it alone.  Naturally, this isn’t a formula for spiritual success; it’s just more of a suggestion.  Ultimately, one must pursue a deeper understanding of the spirit God works in, and everyone will do this differently.  The ultimate pursuit is the ability to take scenic walks through the kingdoms God gave to us, which we give Him the reins to.

OK, folks, last time we got you halfway through your resume, so we need to finish up this week and then move on to the other aspects of the job hunt.

Once you’ve gotten your qualifications tweaked, you should list your experience. I prefer the term Career Summary as a header, because it gives the reader the impression you’ve been on course all along, even if it seems you’ve gotten side-tracked from time to time. Don’t worry if some of your jobs haven’t been in your chosen line of work. In this era of downsizing, company reorganizing, corporate bankruptcies, and wage-freezes, most of us have had to take a detour or two.

While these out-of-field jobs may seem like negatives, you can easily turn them into positives by looking at them and highlighting them a little differently. For instance, the fact that you’ve been in roles that don’t necessarily line up with your preferred career path shows that you’re committed to staying employed in a tough economy. It also shows a willingness to be flexible, an ability to learn job duties outside your skill-set, and that you do whatever it takes to meet your financial obligations. These are all attribute employers appreciate.

Let’s use the nurse from the last column as an example. Let’s say she was laid-off for four months and worked as a waitress while she secured another nursing role. She could list that job like this:

6/8/09-present: Joe’s Diner, Waitress

Fast-paced environment to keep me active, motivated, & fresh while securing a permanent position in nursing

Personally, I would much rather see this on someone’s resume than big gaps in employment. Even if the applicant has enough severance to survive for a significant amount of time, the longer a person goes without working, the easier it is for him or her to become complacent. The nurse in our example has shown the hiring person that she recognizes this possibility and is being proactive in overcoming it. Again, for someone who is able to read between the lines, she has made a seemingly negative career detour look like a great move on her part!

For the jobs you’ve had within your chosen profession, you should list enough information to highlight your proficiencies without getting too wordy. Someone within your field will understand the skills necessary to be successful in those roles, so focus on results and achievements versus job responsibilities. If you’re a retail manager looking for a position in a retail environment, you don’t want your resume to say this:

4/14/02-9/26/09: Joe’s Department Store, Store Manager

Responsible for hiring, firing, training, banking….blah, blah, blah!

If I’m looking for a retail store manager, I know what your responsibilities were at your last job. Why not tell me something that will separate you from the pack; something like this:

4/14/02-9/26/09: Joe’s Department Store, Store Manager

Reduced losses to one half of the company goal; trained 3 Store Managers for my District; maintained a sales increase above 6% for my entire tenure at the location

The difference between the first Store Manager and the second one is that the first one is task-oriented and the second one is results-oriented. I’ll take the results-oriented individual any day!

After your career summary, you can list any number of items. Education is important. If your schooling is in your field, the reasons to list it are obvious, but even if you’ve taken unrelated courses, you should put them in. It shows a desire to expand your horizons, a willingness to spend your free time constructively, and an ability to handle additional responsibility and work (trust me, every employer is looking for this skill!)

You can also list volunteer work, additional accomplishments or endeavors, awards, extra-curricular activities, or anything else that will help market you as an exceptional individual. It all comes down to how you present the information.

If you have space, there’s nothing wrong with adding a closing paragraph. Remember, you’re selling yourself and all good sales people close the sale! You could put something like this:

I’m a winner. I think like a winner, I act like a winner, and I find ways to win! We need to meet to discuss how I can bring this attitude and my passion for success to your organization.

If I saw that as the last statement on someone’s resume, I would be hard-pressed not to call him or her! I would want to talk to this person just to see what he or she considers passion for success!

Lastly, construct an appealing layout, and make it consistent! If one of your section headers looks like this:

QUALIFICATIONS

make them all look like that. You must assume the decision-maker is a number-cruncher and/or an “A” personality. This means he or she has an analytical mind and prefers logic, order, and consistency. Don’t use more than two font styles, and only change from your main font style if it really adds to the visual presentation. Less is more when it comes to the layout; otherwise, your resume can come across as cluttered and make you look unorganized!

I’ve seen every kind of resume layout you can imagine. The best ones always help me determine who the person is and what he or she will do on my team. As you construct and edit your resume, keep asking yourself if what you’re putting in or taking out helps to answer one or both of those questions for the reader. If not, it doesn’t belong in your resume. Be wise and selective in what you put in and what you leave out.

Make sure it is no more than two pages. Any more than that and you’ll bore the reader. You will immediately give the impression that every conversation with you will be a long dissertation of non-relevant or unnecessary information. Never end your resume in the middle of a page. Either lengthen or shorten it to fit perfectly on the page(s). This is where font sizes can be really helpful. A one-page resume is superb, and a two-page resume is acceptable, but only if you have too much relevant and necessary information to fit on one page.

That should do it for your resume. If you take your time and follow my suggestions, I am certain yours will stand out from the pack and garner some attention from prospective employers. So next time, we’ll begin looking at researching jobs and making calls, so you can figure out who to send these hot resumes to!

As the world looks in on Christianity today, they are looking for honesty and for sincerity.  Too often, what they have found is hypocrisy in those who profess to be followers of Christ.  As a new generation of bands hits the forefront in Christianity today, we are seeing a transparency that has never been seen before.  MIKESCHAIR is one band who is definitely not afraid to openly discuss who they are, hoping that in their journey with the Lord, others may relate and come to know Him as well.

MIKESCHAIR formed while they were students at Belmont University.  The Lord has opened many doors for them and as they walk through those doors, they sing about their faith and even about the doubts and questions that they have along the way.  We recently caught up with Mike of MIKESCHAIR to talk about where the Lord is taking them and how the Lord is using them.

The Band

Q – Can you tell me how the band came together?

“We all came to Nashville, Tennessee, to go to Belmont University.  It’s a situation where within the first two weeks of our freshman year, MIKESCHAIR kind of formed.  I had written a song with a friend and we decided that we wanted to record it.  So, as we started recording the song, we need the electric guitar, bass, and drums; we needed all these instruments to make the song.  Right across the hall, our violin/keyboard player Jessie walks in one day while we were recording and was like, “Hey guys, I play violin.  Can I play with you?”  We were like, “Yeah, man.  Come on!”  So he kind of got on the track and the next thing you know, Sam, our guitar player, walks by the dorm room and was like, “Hey guys, I play electric guitar.”  We were like, “Dude, we need that.”  So he came in and got in on the song and then we went out and recruited John, our bass player.  At the time, it seemed so random, all these different people walking by the dorm room but we’ve been doing this now for six and a half years, so it’s very evident that God’s hand was very much in the formation of what we did.  Everybody wonders about the name.  The name came during that time where we were starting the band and recording.  All of the rest of the guys in the band lived on the first floor of our dorm.  I was the only one who lived on the third floor.  So, naturally, I spent all my time down with the rest of the guys to the point that I was sleeping on the floor in their room.  They always like to interject that I was eating their food, which I wasn’t (laughing).  One day, I came back from class and the guys had gotten me a chair, so that I would have something that was mine.  So, I wrote my name on it and every time we would play and record, the chair was involved.  For us, it’s just a reminder of where we started and how faithful God is to bring us from that dorm room to what we are doing today.”

The Music

Q – How have you seen god working through the music He’s given you?

“It’s countless stories.  Even early on, when we were starting the band, we played a lot on campus.  We had one story where this girl came up to us after we played.  She goes, “Guys, I don’t know what it is about your music, but every time I hear it, I cry.”  After talking to her a little longer, we found out that she was actually a Buddhist, so it was just an amazing opportunity to be like, “We know why, this is why this music touches you.”  Just being able to share Christ with her in that moment (was amazing).  It’s things like that all the time and even now, since we’ve had the blessing to be on the radio and for people to hear the songs in more ways, we hear stories from people who just found out they had cancer and our song came on the radio, one song in particular “Can’t Take Away”, and in that moment brought this one person hope.  That’s why we do what we do.  That’s why we’re writing music for the Lord.  That’s why we’re in Christian music because there’s so much more to what we do than just music and that’s what we get excited about.”

Q – How do you guys stay grounded in your faith?

“A huge thing for us is that we’re all deeply rooted in local churches here in Nashville.  Whenever we’re in town on a Sunday, we’re usually serving in some way.  A lot of us help with the worship at our church, just constantly being brought back to why we do what we do.  Another cool thing that we do, we call it marriage counseling.  There’s a really cool organization here in town called Porter’s Call.  Porter’s Call is simply a guy who felt called to minister to artists who are on the road full-time.  It’s free; it’s paid for by all the labels here in town.  Basically, it’s just an avenue for us to come as a band and sit down with somebody who asks us tough questions that most people don’t ask.  (Questions like) Are you loving each other well?  What are you doing on the road to stay connected with your church community?  What are you doing to stay connected in prayer and reading the Bible?  That’s been huge for us.”

Q – How has it helped your walk with God by being surrounded by fellow believers?

“It’s an incredible thing.  That’s a huge part of being a believer, being in community.  Being is such close community with guys that you know in and out…we’re like brothers at this point.  Guys who can call you out, guys who see past the surface, it’s something that’s incredible.”

Q – How important is the Word of God when you are writing songs?

“It’s an integral part of what we do.  A lot of songs that we write, maybe not directly from a Scripture verse, they usually always come out of a quiet time of reading the Bible and praying.  That’s our prayer.  Our prayer is always, “God, give us Your words.  What do You want Your people to hear?”  That’s directly rooted in reading the Bible and having that time.”

Q – Can you give us an overview of the album?

“Our hope is that when someone listens to our record, they are left asking questions that maybe they didn’t have before listening to the record.  Our prayer is that, in some way, God will connect with people through the music.  There are themes throughout our record.  I think faithfulness is one of them.  Honesty is one of the themes because whenever we write, we try to be as honest as we can about the joys of being a believer and about the hard times, the doubts, and the fears.  Overall, I would say hope is one of the overall themes as well.”

Advice and Insight

As Mike and I talked, you could hear the sincerity in his voice about what he believes and what the band has been called to do.  I asked him a couple of insight questions to see what God had revealed to him.

Q – Why is honesty so important in Christianity today?

“If it’s not honest, it’s not Christianity in my opinion.  So many people get caught up in the trap that the church is a place to put up the mask, to put up the guard.  One of the things I love about my community here in Nashville and my home church, the theme is that we have to be honest and real with each other for God to be able to make a difference in our lives.  If we’re not honest with ourselves and we’re not honest with each other and the Lord, then there’s so many things that we get caught up in just as fallen human beings that keep us away from our Creator.  As hard as it is to be truly honest with your friends and with your community and the Lord, it’s absolutely essential.”

Q – What is your favorite passage of Scripture and give us some insight as to why you choose that one?

“I’ll give you two.  There’s one verse that MIKESCHAIR has taken as almost a mission statement.  It comes from 1 Corinthians 13, and it’s basically verses 1-3.  It says, “If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, and didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”  Then it goes on to say that we can have all these gifts but if we don’t have love, then it means nothing.  That’s basically what we base everything we do on.  Is this adding to the noise or is it love?”

“Then, another one.  We have a song on our record called “Let The Waters Rise” and it’s actually our latest single that just came out.  There’s a verse in John, John 16:33, that says, “In this world, you’ll have trouble but take heart for I have overcome the world.”  Lately, that’s the verse that’s just been really encouraging me.  This life isn’t perfect and there are things we’re going to have to go through being in a fallen world, but the fact that Jesus has already overcome the world just brings so much hope to me and hopefully others.”

Mike assured me that they will be out on the road in 2010 and will be ministering to people.  Their music is touching lives in ways that they never thought possible when they were sitting in that dorm room at Belmont University, but they found that being honest with people can have a great impact.  Their message is one of hope, a message that we all need each and every day.

As I began to consider this concept, I thought it would be fairly easy. After all, how many fathers are there in the world? There must be many that stand out. How much news has been reported in the last ten years? There must be great fathers among the reports.

Soon after beginning my research, I realized this was going to be a difficult, if not impossible, task.

There are fathers in the news alright.

Recently there was Dr. Umaru Abdulmutallab, the father of Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, otherwise known as the “underpants bomber”, or the “undergarments bomber”, or something like that. He is charged with attempting to blow up a Northwest flight headed for Detroit on Christmas day. Dr. Abdulmutallab showed his concern for his son and all mankind, when he sought out the United States embassy in Nigeria to report his son turned to extreme Islamic jihadism and might be a threat to the United States. Certainly an act of love. Then there was Mr.. David Goldman, who finally won custody of his nine year old son after a five year international battle in a Brazilian court. He was hailed a hero as television cameras captured him shielding his son while whisking him into a waiting car, the beginning of a long journey back to the United States and readjustment with a father he has barely known.

How about Tiger Woods? A man with a beautiful family, a wife and two loving children. After a late night car accident in his own front yard,somehow involving a golf club and a broken car window, his life unraveled squarely in the public eye. Mistress after mistress came forward with stories of infidelity and deception. I can only imagine the impact on his children and his wife.

Perhaps the story of Michael Lohan. The estranged father of celebrity Lindsay Lohan, arrested for violating an order of protection that was requested by his ex-wife.

Most fathers don’t get in the news for being great fathers. On the positive, take the example of the following individuals:

Billy Graham, one of the most recognized names in the world. He is known for his ministry that is credited with immeasurable numbers of people who have come to a relationship with Jesus Christ. He has been the “pastor of presidents”, the author of books, and the voice to the nations. All that being said, his role as a father doesn’t come to mind when his name is uttered in most circles.

Oral Roberts, recently passed and has been recognized as the one who brought Christ to the television. His efforts a televangelism changed the role of the evangelist forever. Many people were healed under the hand of this gentle servant. He was a father and husband, who loved and was loved, but he is not known for his greatness as a father.

Finally, I mention Derek Loux. A musician and spiritual leader who is known for being a champion of adoption. He recently passed, after a tragic automobile accident, leaving behind a wife and ten children. Of his children there were two biological daughters, five daughters adopted from the Marshall Islands, and three sons, adopted from the Ukraine. A man who made fatherhood a priority in his life and ministry.

In my research for the “Father of the Decade”, I found that fathers who take their role to heart; recognize their role as prophet, priest, and king. They emulate the life and example of Jesus Christ and because of that; they are recognized for other accomplishments in their lives.

Fathers are heralded in the eyes and hearts of their wives and children.

When they accept their charge as a father, they make a difference that lasts for generations, but is seldom recognized by the news writers of this world.

Several of the men I mentioned are truly great fathers and the greatest legacy they will leave is their role as a father.

Now as I come to the end of my search. I recognize that the “Father of the Decade” isn’t one father but the generation of men who over the past ten years have realized their call as a father. They have recognized it and placed it in their heart. They have not always been perfect, but they have committed themselves to be the best they could be. They have pledged not to make the mistakes of others and to ask forgiveness when they did. They have sought help and mentors along the way and made their steps straight.

In the end I realize the “Father of the Decade” is you!

En servicio como Padre
Dave

Last night I got back from Mexico.

I went with a bud of mine named Josh. Josh is on staff at the same church I work at and oversees the middle school ministry. Josh will be bringing a group of soon-to-be-ninth-graders there this summer. Yikes. Please pray for him.

We went there and scoped things out. Since I have spent some time in Latin America, I also went with to make sure Josh was not left to be feasted on by the Chupacabra. I also had the opportunity to visit some missionaries that our church supports and to see the ministry they are a part of. It is called Esperanza Viva, it is located in Puebla, Mexico and it is quite amazing.

Puebla is about a two hour bus ride away from Mexico City and is surrounded by mountains, there is even an active volcano right close by… the journey there is amazing as long as you can avoid whatever movie is contaminating the environment. We were treated to “peaceful warrior” … Kind of like the karate kid meets gymnastics.. which starred Nick Nolte as Mr. Miagi.

While Puebla is very beautiful… there is one underlying piece of it that complicates things… nobody drinks the water in Puebla. Not even the Chupacabra. Seriously… nobody can drink the water in Puebla. It is far too contaminated. It is not a matter of adjusting to be able to drink the water… Nobody drinks the water in Puebla.

In Puebla, bottled water is more expensive than Coca cola. When this is the case you can start to see how people are changed because of their surroundings. Given enough Coke and enough time your teeth will rot out of your mouth.

Did you know that you can use a Coke soaked cloth in order to loosen a rusty bolt?

It’s also good for cleaning toilets.

So.. we’ve got a bunch of people pouring a tasty and wretched concoction into their mouths instead of something pure, clean, and rejuvenating. This troubles me.

I know I don’t drink enough water. I have access to it, and maybe after writing this, I’ll start drinking it more often.. but I am free to partake in something that is a basic human need, and although I have access to it, I don’t really care about it, or think about it often, or drink it with the thanks that I should. I can get it for free and it is all around me, so why should I care?

When we remember what it is like to be without water… we begin to appreciate it.

After we have been out in the sun and our mouths are dried out… we care.

When we visit a mission and are allotted our 5 gallons to bathe with for the day… we care

when we are dehydrated from vomiting all day and slowly going insane in our concrete prison of a hostel, as we desperately search for just one little drop of water from the bone dry bottles on the floor… we care.. and we are willing to do nearly anything to get the water we need. We flip into survival mode… and we run out into the night looking for water. (some of you know it as the “both ends” story)

Most people reading this are in the same situation that I am right now. We have water and we often take it for granted. I am actually getting thirsty as I write this, so i am going to get some water right now.

refreshing.

I see some serious crossover with this concept though. I think we can take many things fro granted if we forget what it is like to be without them. This has spiritual implications as well. Maybe this is part of why it is so important for us to share our faith with others and invite them into the salvation that Christ offers. Not only is that something that is life giving for others, but it can remind us of what it is like to be “thirsty”.

Now, I am not talking about “making christians” I am talking about living out what we believe. When we operate in the identity of Sons and Daughters of God we drink deep from the salvation that has been given to us. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control… these things are life giving and when we live these out we are sharing our faith.

We are given a choice in all of this. We can drink deep from the life giving water and share this with others.. or we can allow the acidic sweetness to stain our teeth and destroy our bodies.

We need to be intentional.

We need to remember what it means to be “thirsty”, to be separated from God… and we need to live out our salvation by bringing water to those who thirst. In doing this we are reminded of what it means to thirst and we will desire to drink deep.

Recently I had surgery on my tongue to remove a fibrous growth and the pain and slowness of recovery has reminded me again of the importance of being grateful. I think we all complain too much and this I know about complaining: it’s a killjoy. It makes you and everybody around you unhappy. The big problem with complaining is that is a hard habit to break.

I think our basic human nature is naturally negative so we tend to look at the bad things in life instead of the good.  Also, it seems to me, we are conditioned by our society. Bad news makes the headlines–we are literally bombarded with all that is wrong with everything–it tends to develop in us the habit of complaining.

But we should be different. Here’s what the Apostle Paul said,

“Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe.” Philippians 2:14-15

Jesus help us! This tells me we are supposed to live our lives and do our ministries without complaining! Sometimes we ‘whine’ and says things like: “it’s just not fair”, “people don’t really appreciate me”, “I don’t deserve this”, “I shouldn’t have to put up with this or how come the other guy gets all the breaks?”

The truth is, life is unfair and so is ministry but as long as we complain it only makes us more miserable!  This I know; complaining does not work. I have tried it with my wife!  She will just say, “O shut up!” She has a way with words!

Seriously, complaining brought judgment to Israel and it does the same to us today. We miss out on God’s best. If the Scripture says we are to “do everything without complaining…”then perhaps here are some things that may help:

● We have to admit we are guilty. “A man who refuses to admit his mistakes can never be successful. But if he confesses and forsakes them, he gets another chance.” Prov. 28:13 LB

If our speech was recorded for a week, what would it reveal about our words? Let’s not spend time griping, grumping, complaining, arguing and saying things like “life/ministry stinks.”

● We have to stop blaming others.  Life and ministry is what we make it—plain and simple.  Of course there are trials and people are unreasonable but we are free to make choices, however, we are never free from the consequences of our choices. They may not be immediate but they will be eventual. [Selah]

● We have to realize God uses difficult times to grow us–if we handle them right. Here goes Paul again, “This small and temporary trouble we suffer will bring us a tremendous and eternal glory, much greater than the trouble. So we fix our attention, not on the things that are seen, but on the things that are unseen. What is seen lasts only for a time, but what cannot be seen lasts forever.” 2 Cor. 4:17-18 GN

-Paul is saying that the good we will get out of our problems will be much more long lasting than the problem.  For me, I have noticed the things I complain about the most are often the very things God knows I need the most in order to become all He wants me to be.  It is a warning light of God.  He is saying, “There is something wrong here.  Stop complaining and start changing!”

At a Discipleship Camp years ago, one of speakers shared the following on the results of complaining?

1. It absolutely poisons the air.
2. Deflates morale. People start feeling uncomfortable with each other.
3. Hinders vision. Cuts off what God is trying to do.
4. Shows a lack of trust/faith.
5. Keep you from God’s best–The Promise Land.

Pretty good stuff! One more from Paul–Philippians 2:14-15 needs to be the complainers Rhema Word! “Do everything without complaining or arguing…” then there are 3 results:

1. “…so that you may become blameless…” — nobody can find fault with you! Nobody can point a finger at you.
2. “…and pure…” — Greek word means ‘having integrity.’ Non-complainers are people of integrity. You cannot trust a complainer—they do not tell the full story—facts are they lie.
3. “…children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe.” – you become positive in a negative world! A positive person shine likes a star on a dark night—there are plenty of critical, put-down type people in this ole world—we are to be different.

“Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thess. 5:18 NIV

“…I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” Phil. 4:11 NIV

Being happy and joyful in spite of circumstance is called maturity.

Every year around thanksgiving tables across the country, the children of the family get the chance to tell everyone what their thankful for. Most will mention the toys they have accrued over the years, the upcoming Christmas season, or how the weather is generally pleasant. Don’t get me wrong; it’s cute. However, when the adults get their turn to share what their thankful for, why is there so much overlap?

I’ve noticed that a great deal of most adults end up still being thankful for the recent additions to their toy-chest, an upcoming donation to their name, or how the things they ultimately can’t control going in their favor. Granted, their “toys” are pay-raises, promotions, or the proverbial pat on the back administered by the powers that be. Their “upcoming Christmas season” is better described as an expected change in lifestyle than a hoard of presents under the tinsel clad pine. And their generally pleasant climate has more to do with health in the epidemic and prosperity in the economic ebb.

I don’t mean to say that there is something wrong with appreciating favorable circumstances in our lives; I just think there is something more to be thankful for.

I always used to hear about God reconciling his creation back to Him, and secretly rolled my eyes at the assertion. How can God be reconciling things to Him when things are getting worse? What exactly is God reconciling us to if not a walk off the Southern Col of Everest? I always viewed reconciliation as something blatantly obvious. It had to be a complete one hundred and eighty degree turn-around. The ozone layer has to magically re-appear, cancer cells need to dwindle into oblivion, and my tea doesn’t come out too hot to drink.

However, I am learning that miracles aren’t that simple.

Things were always either strained or disingenuous in my relationship with my father. If I wasn’t feeling excommunicated by his household, I was feeling like a novelty item in his life. A token son, if you will. Though the process was arduous, God’s surgical precision had brought the repair to an apex last spring.

I remember sitting at the table across from my dad ready to deliver the emotionally crushing blow that would justify the pain I had felt over the years by his indifference. I even viewed this experience for him as a cost-benefit analysis: would it be worse for him and suffering for a few hours, or being me and suffering almost all my life? It felt like no matter what I said to him, he was getting off like a bandit.

Fortunately, the God within me wasn’t going to allow that to happen. After a chain of events in our conversation, something larger than myself seemed to be tugging on my persona. God showed me that this time wasn’t about me lowering the boom on my father; it was about both of us experiencing forgiveness. God had shifted my paradigm, and it put the ball back in my court. I had to forgive this man.

Since that talk, the relationship with my dad has changed dramatically. I don’t feel bitterness and “what could have been” towards him. Though I do wish he would show a bit more interest in his life, I am learning to accept the subtle ways he does show care. I always used to think I couldn’t love him before I forgave him; but I have learned that in order to forgive him, I needed to love him. I won’t say I don’t have flickers of anger towards him at times, but I know more today than I did yesterday, and I trust that this process will continue.

God is slowly reconciling me to my father, which in effect will allow me to bring them both honor. I will be able to honor my father in loving him, and God will be brought honor in that I will be slightly more aligned with His vision for my family. Basically, God has been slowly converging my relationship with my dad to the relationship He and I should’ve had from the beginning. Ultimately, God seems to be slowly guiding our characters toward bringing His world back to Him.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the type of stuff people talk about over turkey. It’s not that people aren’t thankful for these processes, which take place in their spirits; some people just aren’t even looking for them. I always catch myself gauging the goodness of something in my life based on my preference. I’m not thankful for the stuff I don’t like, or the projects that don’t seem finished, but I am eternally grateful for health and wealth.

Miracles aren’t easy. They are a process that God takes His time in orchestrating to completion. Though thanksgiving (and more notably, black Friday) has passed, there still needs to be some open dialogue between God and us. Not so much to see the things He is grinding out in lives, but that we trust His involvement regardless of the outcome and how it measures up to what we desire.

God is at work, and He takes his time.

I wish I could be more thankful of that than the weather.