belief

Nothing Shall Be Impossible

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I can hardly believe it. The Nashville Predators are headed to the Stanley Cup Finals.

This is like a movie script for one of those inspirational films like Rudy or Remember the Titans. I don’t think you could make up something as unlikely and improbable as this.

I confess. Halfway through the NHL regular season, I had given up on these Preds. I wasn’t sure they’d make the playoffs, much less do anything when they got there.

When I found out their first round opponent was the Chicago Blackhawks, I said we’d be lucky to win one game at the most.

Never have I been happier in all my life to eat my own words. I’m thrilled that I was not only wrong, but way off.

I’m still dreaming of the Press bringing the Stanley Cup back to Music City. That would be awesome for the city of Nashville as well as for professional hockey and the NHL. It might not be realistic, but then again, them being in the finals wasn’t either.

Maybe this is a God-wink for some of you to never stop believing in the impossible. Truly with God all things are possible. Or, like one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite pastors, with God, what seems impossible to us is not even remotely difficult for Him. Not even close.

Keep believing. Keep pursuing that dream. Keep praying for that loved one. Keep pulling yourself up out of bed every morning and making each day a new start.

Above all, keep trusting that God’s promises are truer than your circumstances or your feelings or your gut instinct or anything else or anyone else who tells you differently.

The old saying goes something like this: if it is to be, it is up to me.

I like this version a lot better: if it is to be, He is up to it!

 

 

That’s Country!

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

garth-brooks

Growing up, I had a list of “never”s.

By that I mean I had a list of things I’d just about rather die than be caught doing.

I don’t really recall most of them at this point, but I do remember a few highlights.

I specifically recall that I’d never 1) listen to country music, 2) drink coffee, or 3) put hot sauce on anything.

It’s probably best never to say never.

The hot sauce ban ended shortly after the Wasabi incident (where that Wasabi glob on my plate looked an awful lot like guacamole– but it wasn’t).

The no-coffee rule lasted until I had to be at work super early and I needed the caffeine to pry my eyes open in order to work more effectively.

The country music? It turns out that what I didn’t like was pop music masquerading as country music. I heard George Jones sing “The Grand Tour” and that was that. I’m now a fan of genuine country music– along with folk, jazz, rock, indie, and just about every other genre you can think of (and a few that defy categorization).

Recently, I picked up the Garth Brooks box set, exclusive to Target, called The Ultimate Collection.

There was a time when I would have rather had red hot pokers thrust into my eye sockets than listen to Garth, but times have changed.

I’m about halfway through the 10-CD set and I have to confess that I’m loving it. He’s the real deal.

My point (and I do have one) is to not close yourself off to new experiences because they’re different or outside of your comfort zone.

Take risks and be spontaneous on occasion.

Try to live and be present in every moment instead of always living for the weekend or the next holiday or the next big event in your life.

And that Garth Brooks collection is on sale at Target for $23. It’s a bargain.

http://www.target.com/p/garth-brooks-the-ultimate-collection-target-exclusive/-/A-51666650

My Prayer for You

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

 “It is for this reason that I bow my knees before the Father, after whom all families in heaven above and on earth below receive their names, and pray:

Father, out of Your honorable and glorious riches, strengthen Your people. Fill their souls with the power of Your Spirit so that through faith the Anointed One will reside in their hearts. May love be the rich soil where their lives take root. May it be the bedrock where their lives are founded so that together with all of Your people they will have the power to understand that the love of the Anointed is infinitely long, wide, high, and deep, surpassing everything anyone previously experienced. God, may Your fullness flood through their entire beings” (Ephesians 3:14-19, The Voice).

This is my prayer for all of you tonight, as originally prayed by the Apostle Paul.

Seize That Day

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I found out recently that a friend of the family passed away suddenly. Actually, I’d say he was my friend, even though he was closer to my parents’ age.

It’s been a long time since the last time I saw him, but I remember him as being one of the most positive and encouraging people I’ve ever met. In fact, I’d say that he qualified as jovial.

When I was working on getting my Eagle Scout award, he was one of my biggest encouragers. Every time he saw me, he always made me feel like I could do it. In fact, he helped me keep going in those times when I felt it was too hard and I felt like giving up.

I don’t know that I ever really said thank you. I know I can never adequately express how much his encouragement and enthusiasm meant to me.

Maybe the best way of saying my thanks is to pay it forward and to be as positive and encouraging to those in my life. Maybe it’s to live life the way he did, and do that ol’ Carpe Diem thing– seize every moment and live it to the fullest.

Thanks, Doyle, for being my friend and for believing in me. Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into your reward.

 

Happy New Year’s Adam Again!

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment
Happy New Year Quote - Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Happy New Year Quote – Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Once again, it’s New Year’s Adam, which precedes New Year’s Eve, which itself precedes 2016.

For better or worse, 2015 is coming to an end.

For some of you, it’s a year to remember and you wish it could go on a little longer.

For some, it’s a year to forget and it can end quickly enough.

For most of us, it’s been a mixed bag of blessings and hardships, of joys and sorrow, of good days and bad days.

My boss where I worked previously used to say that any day without a toe tag is a good day. I take it to mean that any day that you wake up is already a good one. Any day you get a chance to be alive is better than all those yet to come that you may or may not get.

As a believer, I do believe that death is only a gateway to greater joy than I can possibly imagine. To be absent from the body, wrote the Apostle Paul, is to be present with Jesus. I believe that.

I also believe that life here and now is too precious to be wasted on fretting about what might have been or what could be. As one of my new favorite movie quotes says, “There’s no present like the time.”

“And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been” (Rainer Maria Rilke).

“Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, ‘It will be happier'” (Alfred Lord Tennyson).

Best of all, with Jesus every moment and every breath is a second chance to start over and be the person you always wanted to be, the person God made you to be.

6a00d8341caebd53ef019b03b1a839970c-500wi (1)

Step by Step

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

You know what generation you are by what song came to mind with the above title. If you are from my generation, it was probably Huey Lewis and the News. If you came a generation later, you probably heard the song by New Kids on the Block.

But that has nothing to do with anything. Just one of those random observances that I am so very good at.

I went to the Opryland Hotel after work to see the Christmas lights. I ate at the food court at Opry Mills and walked over. After I reached the hotel, I probably walked for at least a solid hour.

Today, I logged over 21,000 steps on my Fitbit. That’s a new personal record.

It’s true that every journey begins with a single step.

It’s also true that there will be some days and seasons when you don’t feel at all like making a journey, when you are bone-weary, all you can do is put one foot in front of the other.

True maturity and spirituality isn’t about doing great things. It’s about how you keep taking the next step, no matter what, even if you don’t know where the next step will lead you.

If you’re not in that dark place, maybe what God is calling you to is to walk with somebody who’s there. Maybe you can be the encouragement a friend needs to keep going when all they want to do is quit.

One downside from sitting down after all that walking is that you realize how sore you are. On the upside, I saw the usual amazing lights and decorations, plus I got in a fair amount of people-watching (which is probably one of my favorite sports).

Life is hard, so go easy on yourself and on others. You never know the secret battles many are facing, so be sure to err on the side of grace and forgiveness.

Always.

 

Unspeakable Joy to All You Ebenezers Out There

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

a-christmas-carol-5

“Joy, it’s always a function of gratitude — and gratitude is always a function of perspective. If we are going to change our lives, what we’re going to have to change is the way we see” (Ann Voskamp).

I love the 1951 version of Scrooge, known to us Americans as A Christmas Carol. Most of what I love about the movie is how giddy Ebenezer Scrooge is at the end when he discovers the true spirit of Christmas. That gets to me every single time.

I’m thinking about a Facebook friend who posted about how much she hated Christmas, partly due to the fact that all she saw were the crazy spending, the long lines, the push-and-shove grab-all-you-can mentality.

That’s not Christmas. At least that’s not what Christmas is truly all about.

Joy does come when you shift your perspective from what is seen, i.e. the money exchanging hands, to the unseen, i.e. what can never be bought and can never be earned but only received as a free gift.

I often lose perspective, especially in Nashville traffic. But I always love being reminded that as a believer saved by that amazing grace, I have more reason than anyone to have unspeakable joy.

I hope you never forget who you were when Jesus found you. I hope you never lose the feeling of that moment when your life changed forever and you went from being a nobody set on a dead end street to a child and heir of God bound for something much better than anyone has ever dreamed.

Jesus now and Heaven ahead. Actually, Jesus now and then Jesus AND Heaven ahead. There will always be Jesus.

I love that I discovered Advent later in life because I appreciate it so much more than if I had grown up with it. I also love that I am still coming to understand the full extent of what that unspeakable joy looks and feels like.

I hope and pray that never gets old for any of us who have ever experienced it.

The end.

 

If/Then Vs. No Matter What

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

A lot of people have an if/then kind of faith. It goes something like this:

If God allows me to experience the fullness of the American dream, then I’ll keep believing.

If God grants me a spouse and children, then I’ll keep believing.

If God sees to it that my children follow in my footsteps and my faith and never disappoint me, then I’ll keep believing.

If God blesses me financially and lets me live comfortably, then I’ll keep believing.

That’s probably what most American Christians believe, although few would be brave enough to confess it.

This is biblical faith:

I will keep believing, no matter what.

If I never get married and have children, I’ll keep believing.

If I never get to where I can live comfortably, I’ll keep believing.

Even if I watch as each of my dreams die, even if God never does one solitary thing more for me beside saving me and granting me this life abundant, I’ll keep believing for as long as He grants me life.

The prophet Habakkuk put it this way:

“Though the cherry trees don’t blossom
    and the strawberries don’t ripen,
Though the apples are worm-eaten
    and the wheat fields stunted,
Though the sheep pens are sheepless
    and the cattle barns empty,
I’m singing joyful praise to God.
    I’m turning cartwheels of joy to my Savior God” (Hab. 3:17-18).

If/then faith says that you need more than God, that He isn’t sufficient in and of Himself. It might work for a while, but it eventually falters when the hard times come.

No matter what faith says that God alone is, has been, and will always be enough. It keeps believing, keeps hoping, keeps trusting through any and every circumstance (much like what Paul talked about in 1 Corinthians 13). That kind of faith not only lasts, but it keeps you going.

I choose to believe no matter what.

The end.

 

 

 

A Certainty that Cannot Be Shaken

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“We say, then, to anyone who is under trial, give Him time to steep the soul in His eternal truth. Go into the open air, look up into the depths of the sky, or out upon the wideness of the sea, or on the strength of the hills that is His also; or, if bound in the body, go forth in the spirit; spirit is not bound. Give Him time and, as surely as dawn follows night, there will break upon the heart a sense of certainty that cannot be shaken” (Amy Carmichael).

I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around what happened in Paris.

Granted, I didn’t even hear about it until I’d gotten home from work.

I turned on CNN and saw where at least 153 people had been killed in what looks like ISIS terrorist attacks on innocent civilians.

If it happened there, it could happen here. But still, the fact that it happened anywhere matters. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Attacks on liberty are a threat to liberty anywhere and everywhere.

I still don’t know why things like that happen. I know it’s a fallen and broken world. I know that people are capable of the worst acts, as evidenced by the Holocaust and Slavery and a million other atrocities.

I also know that God is in control.

I know that God can take the worst tragedies and turn them into something beautiful.

I still believe that in the end, Love wins. Jesus wins.

I know and believe with all my heart that, try as it might, darkness can never truly drive out the light. The only failure is a failure of the light when it refuses to shine.

I’m praying for Paris. I’m praying for all those who are burdened by oppression and injustice tonight.

May God have mercy on us all.

 

Why I Love Old Abraham

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“By faith Abraham heard God’s call to travel to a place he would one day receive as an inheritance; and he obeyed, not knowing where God’s call would take him. By faith he journeyed to the land of the promise as a foreigner; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, his fellow heirs to the promise because Abraham looked ahead to a city with foundations, a city laid out and built by God.

By faith Abraham’s wife Sarah became fertile long after menopause because she believed God would be faithful to His promise. So from this man, who was almost at death’s door, God brought forth descendants, as many as the stars in the sky and as impossible to count as the sands of the shore” (Hebrews 11:8-12).

“That’s what Scripture means when it says, ‘Abraham entrusted himself to God, and God credited him with righteousness.’ And living a faithful life earned Abraham the title of ‘God’s friend'” (James 2:23, The Voice).

I like Abraham. I can relate to Abraham.

Sure, he was the father of many nations. Sure, he’s the one through whose line came the Messiah, the Hope of the World.

But he also had clay feet at times.

Remember the time when he lied about his wife, saying she was his sister? Twice?

Remember when he tried to help God out by agreeing to go to bed with Sarah’s servant Hagar to produce the heir God promised?

Remember when Abraham had a hard time believing that God could keep His word in giving him a child?

Yeah, I can relate to all of that. Abraham’s my kind of guy.

The Bible is full of people like that. Not saints in the sense of people who walked through life with halos hanging over their heads who never messed up or got a hair out of place or got their knickers in a bunch. More like saints who stumbled and fell often, but kept getting back up, kept trusting in the next step, kept trusting that God knew where he was leading them through all the deserts and foreign countries.

Sometimes faith is simply showing up and taking the next step, trusting that God knows where He’s leading you. As Corrie Ten Boom said, faith is trusting the conductor of the train when it goes into a pitch black tunnel instead of jumping off the back of the caboose.

I suppose we’re all thankful that even faith the size of a mustard seed can move  mountains and uproot trees. It can change stubborn old hearts like yours and mine.

Best of all, faith leads you to the place where God is, where you were always meant to be, the place where your heart can rest.