choices

Paying It Forward

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

There’s a story by Henry Van Dyke about a fourth wise man who gets a late start in his quest to find the Christ. In his journey to find Jesus, he is constantly delayed by stopping to help people in need. By the end of the story, though he never meets the Christ-child, he finds that he indeed was able to serve Jesus through all the people he touched.

In other words, he payed it forward.

How have you payed it forward today?

Maybe it’s sending someone an encouraging text for no reason at all other than you have been blessed by one.

Maybe it’s paying for your fast-food order and then picking up the tab on the person behind you.

Maybe it’s finding one of the homeless people on the street selling their newsletters and not only buying one, but giving them a cold drink on a hot day as well.

Maybe you make time for someone in your life that you’ve been too busy for lately and sitting down for a cup of coffee and conversation.

It could be any number of things. Whatever it is that God puts on your heart, don’t say, “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

No one is guaranteed tomorrow and that chance may never come again.

Don’t live with the regret of words left unsaid, encouragement not given, visits not made, and the blessings you missed out on because you didn’t act.

I’ve said it before but you will never have the time to be a blessing unless you make the time.

A special note for those who are going into ministry or missions: your calling is not just a future destination, but it’s on the way there. Your calling starts now with the people around you who need to see the Jesus in you.

So pay it forward today.

Taking Every Thought Captive

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 2 Comments

“But the voice of truth tells me a different story
The voice of truth says, “Do not be afraid!”
And the voice of truth says, “This is for My glory”
Out of all the voices calling out to me
I would choose to listen and believe the voice of truth” (Casting Crowns)
Lately, I’ve been really convicted about my sin in not taking every thought captive and submitting it to the Lordship of Christ. Here I am committing to doing just that, with you as my witnesses to hold me accountable.

 I am naming these thoughts for what they are so that they will not only be taken captive, but lose their power over me once and for all:

1)     “My friends can make time for everyone else, but they don’t have time for me.” I renounce that as a lie from the father of lies, because I choose to believe the best about my friends and the God we both serve.

2)     “I’ve blown a friendship and my friend will never again want to hang out with me or see me again.” Nothing is ever as bad as my fears make me think and God is not only able to save me, but take care of me and sustain my friendships.

3)     “I am too weird and messed up to expect my friends to stick around.” I may not be normal (and I’ve never claimed to be), but in my God’s eyes I am exactly who He made me to be and He sees the perfection of Jesus in me.

4)     “Maybe if I try hard enough, people will like me more, and the harder I try, the more they will like me.” It’s not about trying harder or pleasing people, but about being the best me possible and pleasing God. If I seek Him and His reign in my life, everything else will be taken care of.

5)      “My  friend used to comment on my posts on facebook and text me more. Then it got less and less and now they never comment or like or text me anything. That must mean they don’t like me anymore.” It just means that maybe that person is going through a period of extreme busyness or a season of dealing with their own issues. Not everything is about me (thank God for that!)

Maybe you are believing different lies, or maybe you’ve believed the same lies I have. Don’t for one more second let these thoughts have dominion over you. Renounce them and name them as lies and rebuke their author in the name and the blood of Jesus.

I choose to listen to and believe the Voice of Truth. Will you?

5 Minutes

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

I’ve been trying to lose weight and get in shape. Lately, that means putting in an hour on the elliptical. For me, that’s a lot.

Some mornings, I feel there’s no way I can last that long. So I try for the first 5 minutes. After that, I try for 10. And so forth. If I break an hour down into 5-minute segments, it’s not nearly so bad.

Life is like that.

Some days, you think there’s no way you can survive for the next 24-hours. You feel completely and utterly overwhelmed. Don’t try. Just take the next 5 minutes and breathe deeply and slowly and think to yourself, “I can survive the next 5 minutes.”

Sometimes, you are held captive by your fears telling you that you’ve really messed it up this time and that friend is gone for good. It’s tempting to try and fix what really isn’t broken (which never works, by the way). Or you take the next 5 minutes and are able to start seeing the cracks in the fabric of that lie.

You can do anything for 5 minutes. You can pray or be silent or wait. You can breathe slowly and deeply. You can remember one blessing God has given you and dwell on that.

When I’m stressed out and can’t sleep, 5 minutes of meditating on the goodness of God can make all the difference. It can take me from almost falling back into my old approval-addiction, “nobody likes me” trap to remembering that I am still blessed with family and friends who surprise me all the time in unexpected ways with grace at every turn.

So set your stopwatch or your phone for 5 minutes. It may be a small start, but sometimes all Jesus needs in your life is the smallest place to start. Then He can do amazing things in your life.

I am living proof of that.

 

The Kind of Friend I Want to Be

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I get it. I’m an idealist at heart. I have good motives (most of the time), but lousy execution (some of the time). On the way home from Movies in the Park, I got to thinking again what kind of friend I want to be. I apologize in advance if some or all of this is a repeat.

I want to be that friend who never gives up on you. I want to extend forgiveness and second chances to you as many times as God did for me. Which is quite a lot, I can tell you.

I want to be that friend who believes the best in you even when you can’t see it yourself. I’ve had those friends who did that for me. I have a God who does that better than anyone else.

I want you to be better because of me. I want to do everything in my power to help you become every part of who God made you to be. I want to see you realize all of God’s dreams for you. And believe me, His dreams for you are bigger and more amazing than anything you or I could come up with.

Maybe it’s selfish of me, but I do this out of my own need. These are all things I long for in my friends, so maybe the first step is me becoming all of those things to the people I call friends.

Obviously, the most healthy relationships are built out of wholeness and completeness, not neediness. But I do think we help each other to become whole and healthy and complete by friendships based on forgiveness and unconditional sacrificial love.

If I try too hard sometimes and get a bit Steve Urkel on you, I apologize. Like I said, my good motives are sometimes executed poorly. Sometimes, I get carried away with the posts and texts and messages. But it’s from a good place of wanting to encourage and bless you, so just remind me to take a pill and give me grace, ’cause I always stand in need of it.

I’m getting better. I am learning that you can’t fill my needs and validate me as a human being. Only God can do that. Once you learn that, you are free to be the kind of friend you always wanted.

As my friend and fellow blogger always says, “You think about that.”

Signs You’re Finally Growning Up

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I am not the most mature person you’ve ever met. Sometimes, I feel like a 10-year old trapped in a 40-year old body, kinda like Tom Hank’s character in the movie Big. But God has been growing me up a lot in the last few years. Along the way, I’ve come to be able to discern and recognize some of the signs of maturity.

1) For us singles: It’s when that girl or that guy you’ve been interested in and secretly hoped was interested in you is not. They’re not interested in you as anything more than a friend. But you find that you can still cherish that person as a friend and be the best friend in return that you can possibly be.

Best of all, you find you’ve come to the place where you can celebrate and rejoice when that person finally finds true love and be genuinely happy for the two of them.

2) For parents: It’s when you can release your children to be what God is calling them to be, even if it’s not what you wanted or had planned for them. It’s when you do everything in your power to find their purpose, even if that purpose leads them halfway around the globe.

3) For all of us: It’s when you can live with unaswered questions and unfulfilled longings and desires. You are able to trust God and keep holding on in faith, even when everything in you and around you tells you not to. You are able to pray the prayer, “Lord, if all I have from You today is You and the next breath, that will be enough.”

4) It’s when you stop praying so much for blessings and start praying to be a blessing. You begin to see people as hurting and broken and needy and you see yourself as a channel through which God can pour out healing and wholeness and love to those around you.

5) It’s when you’re need to be acknowledged and approved of and commended gets less and less and you can be okay with not getting the credit for something you did. You can echo with the words of John the Baptist about Jesus that “I must decrease, that He may increase.”

6) It’s about being okay with being in the process. Being okay with not knowing the answers or even the next step in life because even though you may not know where you’re being led, you know the One leading you. It’s when you can like yourself for who you are, not who you aren’t but want to be.

These are some of the signs that I recognize as part of God’s work in me. He’s maturing me into the man of God and vessel through which He can transform the world. It’s about Jesus reaching out and touching people through your hands and speaking to them with your voice. It’s a very long process, but as I have found, it is so much more than worth it.

Two Hearts Beat as One

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

I was getting ready to mow the back yard when God brought an image to my mind. I thought of an article I read online a few months back about an elderly couple who died holding hands. This doesn’t happen often, but I literally dropped everything and got to my laptop to get this all down while it’s still fresh in my head.

The couple was Gordon and Norma Yeager, married for 72 years when they were both involved in a car accident. When they got to the ER, they were both more concerned about the other than themselves. Finally, they got moved to a room with side-by-side hospital beds where they could hold hands.

He died first. But that’s where it gets interesting. I’ll quote a bit of the article.

“Someone in there said, ‘Why, then, when we look at the monitor is the heart still beating?'” Sheets recalled. “The nurse said Dad was picking up Mom’s heartbeat through Mom’s hand.”

“And we thought, ‘Oh my gosh, Mom’s heart is beating through him,'” Dennis Yeager said.

That to me is what a Godly marriage looks like. That is also a beautiful picture of fellowship and community in the body of Christ. That’s a perfect picture of divine love shown in it’s fullest and most complete expression.

We should be so connected and intertwined as believers that I cry when you hurt and I suffer when you are in pain. That your sorrows are my sorrows and your joys my joys. I think the Bible calls that carrying each other’s burdens.

Most of all, I want to be that way with Jesus. I want to be so close to Him that people can feel His heart beating through mine. I want to be so intimate with Him that His heartbeat literally becomes mine and I can see people through His eyes and reach out to them with His hands and love them with His heart.

I want my heart to be broken over what breaks the heart of God. No just when I’m serving in missions or when I’m in a church service, but all the time, everywhere I go for everyone I meet.

May that be your heartbeat also. May that be the one desire of your heart.

By the way, if you want to read more about the Yeagers, you can go here. http://abcnews.go.com/US/iowa-couple-married-72-years-dies-holding-hands/story?id=14771029

From one beggar who has found the Bread of Life and is trying to tell everyone else how to find it, too.

Good Conversations

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I had a really good conversation with a good friend I’ve known for a while today. It was at Starbucks, so of course quality beverages were involved. In this case, it was two chai frappachinos with caramel on top. I highly recommend one if you ever get the chance.

It was one of those conversations that makes you a better person. It was one where I realized again just how blessed I am to have friends like this. I truly believe that I will look back 50 years from now and see that I am more like Jesus because of conversations like this one.

What will you remember about your conversations 50 years from now? Will you remember anything worthwhile that you said or heard? Will you be able to point to those times where you changed for the better because of the healing and encouragement and blessing spoken into your life?

I know I am who I am because of God speaking life into me through so many friends and family members. Not all the words were easy to hear, but every word carried the power of God to transform and renew me.

Thank you, friend, for blessing me every time I see you. It’s because of you and others like you that I am finally able to see myself and love myself the way God does and love others the same way.

May you be blessed a thousand times over for your words of comfort and kindness to me. May you never forget how fond your Abba is of you and always feel His smile of approval over you in everything you say and do.

The same goes for all of you reading this right now.

 

Sometimes

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

I really, really hate to admit this after all my talk of how God has healed me in the past. It feels like I’m pulling a fast one on you after I’ve announced to everyone how God has been delivering me from my fears. But here it is.

Sometimes at night when I’m tired, I get overwhelmed for a moment by fears.

I fear that this time I really have said or done the absolute stupid and wrong thing and a particular friend is gone for good. He or she has un-friended me and taped a picture of me to a dartboard for target practice.

I fear that I will always be single because no girl will ever find me attractive or desirable and I will always be left with this unfulfilled longing inside of me.

I fear that I’m really not good at anything and really won’t ever find a career that really makes me come alive to who God created me to be.

I think the difference this time is that I can name these thoughts as lies. It may not completely take away the panic and the pain, but it helps when I see these thoughts for what they are and their true origin from the father of lies.

I know now that most of the time a good night’s sleep will help these fears go away. Sometimes, it’s a glass of warm milk. Sometimes, it’s just practicing deep breathing. Sometimes, it’s saying, “Abba Father” over and over. Sometimes, it’s resting in the eternal Arms of my Abba Father and listening as He sings over me to calm my anxiety.

It’s okay for me to have setbacks and regressions, because they keep me grateful and thankful for the times when I am living out of faith and not fear. And those times are more and more prevalent.

There will always be something to fear. There will always be those moments when you give in to that fear. The question is: Can you name that fear for what it is and claim the promises of Jesus over it? Sometimes, you have to claim them out loud, but even when you don’t have a voice to speak them out, they are still powerful and true and for you.

Perfect love casts out all fear. In my case, perfect Love is casting out all fears, one at a time. I hope you find this to be true for you. Because the freedom is so much more than worth it.

Sticking Around

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

A few days a go, I posted that one of my greatest fears is that in any relationship I have, the other person will see my flaws and hang-ups and issues and decide that I’m really not worth it anymore.

That’s been a fear of mine for many years. No matter how far I’ve come in God’s healing process, that’s a fear that’s been hard to dislodge.

I have admitted that I’m broken. And I’m not alone. We all are. Some are just better at hiding the scars than others.

Well, this is one broken guy who’s telling you it’s okay to admit that you’re broken. It’s okay to confess that you’re not living out of faith but out of fear most of the time.

For me, it’s still a day to day thing. Every time that old fear rears its ugly head, I have to remind myself what fear stands for: False Evidence Appearing Real. This particular fear is based on a lie that I am not good enough and not worthy of my family or friends. That I don’t have what it takes.

I’ve made a promise to you not to give up on you, regardless.  I do this because God made the same promise to me.

I’m telling you what God’s been telling me. You are good enough. You do have what it takes. You are accepted and loveable just for you. Jesus thought you were to die for.

I will keep telling you until you believe it. It may take you as many times as it took me to finally grasp it not just intellectually with my head, but on a deeper emotional level in my heart.

I will never stop telling you that God is for you, on your side, rooting for you, not giving up on you, but working on you until you become everything He created you to be.

As I’ve said before (one of my favorite quotes from any book I’ve ever read): I’m just a nobody trying to tell everybody about Somebody who can save anybody.

That’s me. A nobody in the world’s eyes, but Beloved in my God’s eyes.

FEAR

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I heard something really awesome in a sermon I was listening to a few days ago. It was about fear.

I have lived a lot of my life controlled and dominated by fear. I played it safe and didn’t take risks because of fear.

But the preacher spelled out fear for me in a way that really helped me to understand it.

Fear is False Evidence Appearing Real.

In other words, what I’m so very afraid of isn’t reality. Most of the anticipated futures that keep me up at night never come to pass. Most of the times when I fear I’ve messed up and blown another relationship, it turns out it was all in my head.

The Bible says that perfect Love casts out all fear. I am learning that slowly.

It’s hard to live out of love when you’re so used to living in fear, but it is so much more freeing. It’s how God meant for us to live.

Greater is He that is in me than what I’m afraid of. Greater is He who lives in me that what I’m facing.

Greater is He who calls me Beloved and knows my name than all of sin and hell and the world put together and thrown at me.

Because God is with me and for me and in me, I know that I have nothing to be afraid of anymore. That is freedom.

May you find the freedom of the Love of your Abba Father overcoming all your fears, so that you can step out boldly in faith into the future that God has for you right now.

Amen.