Pray for those......

My grandmother has been in the hospital down in San Diego for several days having some tests done because of some medical problems she has been having. I have been calling her everyday since she has been there and have been able to speak to her every time except one when she was sleeping. When I spoke to her on Sunday, she sounded really weak, but better than previous days. She told me that they would be sending her home in the next couple days and that all of her tests came back with "good" results. I was pleased to hear all this.

Given the events that have occurred over the past several months with my family down in San Diego (see previous posts on the saga explaining this), they are not providing me with any kind of updates on my grandmother's condition. I simply have to try and get a hold of her myself to get a status. My little brother (who would be giving me updates) is dealing with some personal issues with his house and all the rain in San Diego (i.e. flooding, caved in ceiling, etc.), so I have been trying to keep him informed on what I hear just in case he is not in the loop either.

So, today I called the hospital and was told that she was discharged. I assumed that she went back home. I was wrong. I shot my little brother a quick note on the testing my grandma had done and the fact that she had been discharged and was at home now. I tried to call my grandma at her house several times without an answer. About three minutes after I shot off the email to my little brother, he responded. He told be that my grandma had been moved into a nursing home for physical therapy and that she was extremely weak and not eating. He went on to apologize for not sending me this information sooner; he assumed my mother was keeping me informed. So, I got a contact number to get a hold of my grandmother and my little brother assured me that he would let me know if he heard anything moving forward.

After all of this, I am left sitting here with a ton of emotions running through me as to why I was not told of my grandmother's condition. I love her so much and this is clearly the enemy working to keep me from praying for her. I immediately sent out a prayer request to several close friends and folks from my church. I then grabbed my bible and began to flip through the pages looking for some guidance on how to deal with the way my family is treating me. My first thought was that I was being selfish by talking to God about how "I" was being treated. In the big scheme of things that does not matter. But, I am human - and I am not perfect. I clearly see the enemy at work here and persecution from several members of my family. If this were several years ago, I would simply get angry and make a couple of phone calls and give them all a piece of mind. Not tonight though. Instead I found peace in the Word.

I was reading for about an hour or so and a couple of scriptures really resonated with what I was dealing with. Words of Jesus:

"But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you," Matthew 5:44

Now, I would not say that my family is necessarily my enemy, but I would say that they certainly persecute me. So, I included all of them in my prayer request.

I then went on to read Matthew 7:1-2

"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you"

I was finding it so hard not to judge my family for everything that is happening right now. The reality of situation is that this is clearly not my family doing everything they can to get under my skin. This is the enemy at work and we are at war with the enemy. The enemy is working 24/7 to try and wound me, to hurt me, to cause me to be self-centered, to drive his horns through my heart and break me. How can I possibly judge my family in this when it is clearly not them. The best thing I can do is stand firm against the enemy with God by side and pray that my family come to know Jesus and build a relationship with him. This is my prayer tonight.

Friendship

I have been thinking about for friendship for the past couple days. Friendship has become so important to me over past couple of years. As I have passed through the seasons of my life, friends have come and gone. I have maintained contact with a number of friends from my teen years, but because we have gone our seperate ways and literally live all over the country, it is really hard to maintain the closeness. In my mid to late 20's and early 30's I had a lot of friends. As I began to renew my relationship with Jesus Christ, I realized that I could no longer be the person I use to be or do things that I use to do - I did not want to be that person anymore. I made a decision to not put myself in certain circles anymore. Lets just say I spent a lot of time in bars for several years with my "friends". I do still drink on occassion in moderation and do still keep contact with the old crew, I am just a different person now - I am walking with Christ. I have told my old friends this and they are really cool with it and respect my position of not wanting to party 24/7.

Today I face a bit of a challenge. I am trying to build friendships with other christians and I am finding that it is a lot of work. I find that I am always taking the initiative to call or make contact to set something up. I am always making the first move and then the second and then the third and so on. I find myself sitting back and thinking about previous encounters and wondering if I made some kind of mistake or perhaps offended somebody in some way. I find myself playing the time spent together back in my head to figure out what I could have done differently. I guess most guys just don't need what I am looking for. Maybe its like this with everybody? I read a quote today that said something like "Wanting friendship is split second decision, but real friendship takes time". I know friendship is something that needs to be worked on, I simply feel like I am always the one working at it. I was talking to Tammy (my wife) about it the last couple of days and she does see what I describe here as well. I tend to think its a guy thing, but I am sure there are others (men and woman) out there that feel the same way. For now, I will just continue to pray about it and ask Him for guidance when it comes to friendship.

Living Dangerously... Living a life of faith.....

So we have been going through a series at OCC called "The Year of Living Dangerously"... In the series there has been a significant focus on stewardship....

"Stewardship: looking at everything God has entrusted you with, and asking how HE would have you deploy it for His Glory"

We have unpacked multiple scriptures that speak to how our faithfulness to God and good stewardship is met by God's grace and blessing upon us. Living dangerously requires so much faith in God... When you begin to live dangerously, you will know it... There is a different feeling about stepping out on faith and making a significant sacrifice in the eyes of our Father.

I say these things because my wife, Tammy, and I took a significant step today. Without going in to detail, I will say that we held hands and stepped forward into a life of living dangerously for Christ. IT FEELS SO GOOD!!! Our faith has been taken up a notch which is an indication that our walk with God and relationship with Jesus Christ is growing stronger and stronger.

"The reward for trusting Him will be the salvation of your souls." 1 Peter 1:9 NLT

May God bless you as he has continued to bless me and my family.

Love like you have loved me...

I was in worship this morning and was listening to the song "Hosanna" by Hillsong United. I was tearing up as I listend to the last verse of the song, so I hit rewind and listended to it about 4 or 5 times as I prayed these words to Him.

....

Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like you have loved me

Break my heart from what breaks yours
Everything I am for your kingdoms cause
As I go from nothing to
Eternity

....

This is such a wonderful journey.

By now you can tell I love YouTube.... Here you go :)

Why are the Sith so bad?

My wife Tammy was in the kitchen this morning and my daughter Rebecca walked up to her with a Darth Maul Star Wars action figure (one of the really bad guys - a "Sith" - in episode 1).

Rebecca: "Why is this guy so bad, mommy?"

Tammy: "He is a bad guy because he does not have Jesus in his heart, sweety"

Rebecca dropped the action figure and said, "I have Jesus in my heart, can't you see?" and she pulled her dress up over her head and threw her chest out.

I love my little 2 year old!!

p.s. she will be 3 on Feb 27.

The Importance of the Cross

Many times I have wanted to read the Bible all the way through. I have a copy of the One Year Bible and always started with the best of intention, however, I don't think I have made it a week in keeping to the "plan". So I decided that maybe I would break off some chunks - like Psalms as an example or the Old Testament. Still, I did not stick to that. So, now I have chosen to cut it down even more. I have decided to study the last seven days of Christ's life. In the process of doing so, it was important for me to reflect of the significance of these days and the significance of the Cross. So I spent this evening doing that. As I researched, I came across a book called My Utmost For His Highest - a devotional book by Oswald Chambers. In the book, Chambers writes about the need for the sacrifice of Christ. I was so spiritually calibrated (yes, I just made up that term) by the readings that I thought I would blog about them.

On November 20 and 21 Chambers writes:

“Beware of the pleasant view of the Fatherhood of God. God is so kind and loving that of course He will forgive us. That sentiment has no place whatsoever in the New Testament. The only ground on which God can forgive us is the tremendous tragedy of the Cross of Christ. To put forgiveness on any other ground is unconscious blaspheme. The only ground on which God can forgive sin and reinstate us in His favor is through Christ and in no other way. Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to accept, cost the agony of Calvary. It is possible to take the forgiveness of sin and our sanctification with simplicity of faith and to forget at what enormous cost to God that it was all made ours. Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace. It cost God the Cross of Jesus Christ before He could forgive sin and remain a Holy God. When once you realize all that it cost God to forgive you, you will be held as in a vice, constrained by the love of God.”

He goes on to say on November 21:

“Never build your preaching or forgiveness on the fact that God is our Father and that He will forgive us because He loves us. It is untrue to Jesus Christ’s revelation of God. It makes the cross unnecessary and the redemption ‘much ado about nothing.’ If God does forgive sin, it is because of the death of Christ.”

OK, so this calibrated me in a big way. To the point of tearing up a little bit. It really made me step back and think about the importance and necessity of the Cross. Don't get me wrong, as a christian, I understand the significance of the Cross. I have always sort of taken it on faith that as I have accepted Jesus Christ as my one and only Savior and I have asked for my sins to be washed away by the blood of the lamb, that I was free. This is all true. However, what generally goes through my mind is that God loves me and that by his amazing grace he forgives me. It is so much deeper than that though. God loves everybody, but He is not going to save everybody. Love does not save. Sin required a payment, and that payment was in the person of Jesus Christ, the Lamb, the one from among the flock, the Man who died instead of us so that we could have everlasting life, so that we could have life in the age to come.

So anyway, that's where today's study in the word started and that's where it ended. I will spend more time this evening reflecting on the Cross and thanking God for the sacrifice he made for a fallen world.

Thankful in the trenches

Well, it has been a while since I have touched my blog. Not that there has been a lot going on or anything.... I have simply not made the time to sit down and write something down. We finally finished construction on the house. Things are beginning to settle down on that front. Almost back to normal, thank God.

I am in the process of settling things with my family down in San Diego. This is definitely a challenge for me. As the saga continues, they have been fairly predictable. The Enemy has been on the attack throughout this whole ordeal. I do believe I am just about out of the woods on this one. I mailed a check down to San Diego today and expect that they will recieve it in a couple of days. There is a serious sense of FREEDOM that I feel in settling this whole thing. In fact when I was standing there with my wife Tammy after I wrote check, I yelled "FREEDOM" and threw my hands up over my head.

At church yesterday, I really enjoyed the worship part especially. I have always stood during worship with my hands in my pockets or down by sides. I just kind of dance to the music and worship Him. Yesterday as we were singing the "Revelation Song" I lifted my arms to heaven, closed my eyes and let the holy spirit lift me up. If you have not done this, I seriously suggest you try it.... It was so cool. This is another one of my favorite songs by the way - I absolutely love it! "Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven" Lamentations 3:41 NIV

As I worshiped, I found myself giving thanks to God for standing by me and my family here at home throughout this process. I am thankful for the good friends I have made and the friendships that have blossomed as I have continued to focus on living my life in faith and surrender to God's will. I am also thankful for the other family relationships that have begun to bloom as result of Facebook and my blog :) (Aimee and Rodney) - I love you guys. It is so comforting that I can sit in the trenches of spiritual warfare and find so many wonderful things to be thankful for.

God's grace is amazing!

If you have about 7 minutes - "Revelation Song"