Relationships – Page 2 – No Small Talk

The power of family

The Church can be a very powerful thing, when in balance with God’s heart, word, and spirit amazing things happen; things that can bring the hardest person to a place of falling in love with Christ. This past week I have seen the power of God’s family coming to life, in spite of what could be explosive, hurtful, and misunderstood. Although there are some very hard realities to deal with, God is showing each of us that His good will is here to bring us a full life.

When we take steps to be Disciples of Christ first, in all ways, even when dealing with hardships in the Church, we begin to see the big picture, the miracles, and truly experience the Church for what Christ intended – A healing family, a loving family, and a living family.

2 years, just the beginning

Today Alexis and I are celebrating our 2 years of marriage… Not much of a celebration… but we’ll do something. I think anniversaries and birthdays should be paid holidays. It’s been amazing, hard at times, but worth the pain. Not much else to say. Time to head home!

5 years ago today.

On this day in 2003 Alexis and I began our courtship. In about a week and a half (July 9th) we’ll celebrate two years of marriage. God has been amazing through these years, it has been far from smooth. At times it seemed it would end in disaster, but as long as we hung onto what we knew was true of God we slowly began to realize what God believed in each of us, by using each of us to see our human flesh through another’s eyes. This picture is from that very day.

Also Emma will be three months old on our anniversary! Time is flying so fast.

You want me to what what?

Life (or God, haven’t figure out which yet) seems to keep putting me in the midst of inter-relational unrest lately. For the most part this doesn’t freak me out, but when it happens at work, at home, at church, and amongst friends, than I get a bit fatigued.

It is in these times that I must remind myself and live by God’s prompting that true love is a love that loves through these things. A love that corrects, a love that remains faithful to God’s character, a love that is humble, and a love that has no end. Will everyone accept correction, no, but it is still my responsibility to speak what God puts on my heart, but it is not my responsibility for someone to correct themselves. I will speak truth in love with grace.

I will not continue to throw pearls to the swine, I will not continue to invest in those that can’t accept the loving truth, but I will plant the truth when the soil is fertile. Even when I am fatigued from the energy of it, for relationships are the fabric of life.

The paradox

Sometimes it seems that I have an energy inside me that has no way of being expelled. I know life has its ups and downs, and that joy is a choice much of the time. So with this extra energy I feel inside of me I hope to go forward and direct it at people. I want to be intentional with my life, and I do not want to direct this overflow onto myself, at least not this time. There are very important times when we need to direct energy onto ourselves, but for me, right now, that’s not necessary, but it’s not easy either.

What is love?

“All you need is love”, “Love is just a game”

Well, lately God has been showing me a new side to Love. Now I bet most of you think this is about Emma… well in a way it is, but not really.

Yes Fatherhood has shown me a new side of love, and quite possibly this is where these ideas are stemming from. But as I was talking with Marcus at our devo this morning…

You see, lately as I drive around from client to client, the Lord has been showing me people’s faces, and giving me a glimpse of how he loves them. It’s like I feel in my heart the overwhelming grief, and/or pride he has for particular people. When I think of people I know who have made choices contrary to God’s values I get even more emotional and can’t do anything but pray for clarity in the person’s life.

And now there’s even more, you see, I believe true love, is a love that holds people to God’s values. A love that doesn’t just let our friends, our brothers/sisters slip away into “their own choices”, if the choice is made with loving confrontation and loving correction, and still does not honor God’s values, well then, the choice is theirs…

But way to often than not I see the opposite. I see people too afraid of rejection, too afraid of confrontation, to talk in love and grace to people about red-flags… those red-flags turn into spiritually killing decisions. If we are going to be known for the love we have for each other, we have got to allow God to work through each other, obey your convictions and your heart when God speak to it. Only blessing and honor and glory can be given to Jesus even if a person makes a decision to walk another path, at least they know the loving truth… and believe me it can be done, and God’s name is always given glory, I’ve been there, scared to death, but I’ve done it. I’ve had people still decide, but I’ve seen people make the right choice as well. The choice is yours.

In repsonse to Marcus… let’s go wild.

Marcus got me thinking…
I’m feeling the need to go wild….

Years ago I read John Eldredge’s book “Wild at Heart” and it was, at the time, a great read. However I think I need to read it again. I remember a few of the ideas; being free to adventure and including our loved ones, allowing others to love me and allowing myself to love, while all at the same time taking hold of my inner sense of adventure and stepping out into an unknown world.

Gosh, if only I could hold onto those things each day, and remember that everyday is a step in the adventure God has put us. Every major decision we have made has been with our calling to Poland in mind. From the house we live in, to the job I have, to the ministry’s we volunteer in. Everything is for the great adventure we know we are stepping into.

But on a day to day basis, work in, work out, the adventure is lost. I have small “revivals” in my heart, times where I search far and long across the Internet at houses and apartments to buy in Krak

Our jaded generation

Sometimes I struggle with the general cynical and jaded attitude of my peers. I’m really grieved by other Jesus followers who look at life as if the glass if half empty. But it goes deeper than that, many times my generation hangs onto the seams of life with just the logical, western mind-set that we have to climb the proverbial ladder of success before we even be in authority over anything. Not that we desire authority, but for most authority for some reason is how they view their confidence and relation to the rest of the world.

The truth is, we have been given all authority, to do even greater things than Jesus did. Yet we let the world system tell us we don’t, we need this paper, and that paper, and X years of experience. Bump that, bump it all, we need to realize what we are called to, seek wisdom from those that have gone there before, learn from them and experience it for ourselves!

If you know that you are called (and all followers are called) then step into it. Of course you’ll make mistakes, that’s why we have mentors (Timothy and Paul), that’s why we week wisdom, and that’s why we submit ourselves to grace-filled truth tellers (or as I said the other day, butt holes for Jesus) – people who we have given permission to point out the boogers in our lives and the blind spots so we can have more confidence and authority to speak Jesus’ gospel.

I was called to be a pastor over four years ago, this created a fear in me because I had never thought about it before and I’ve always been afraid of rejection. But now, even though I’m not “ordained” or “licensed”, I am doing pastoral kinds of things, such as mentoring, being relational with others, and allowing God’s voice to be heard and his flock cared for.

PS check out this new blog I found, fits the topic of this post quite well, none the less, I love what he has to say – it’s grace filled truth at its finest!

What freedom and forgiveness ARE NOT

For my generation, especially those that have grown up in the church, or been in it long enough to be jaded by the humanity of it (the imperfect, hypocrites that fill the church) of which they themselves fall into, the idea of

Anouncement!

The news of 2007 is:

Alexis and I are having a baby!!!

Back on our anniversary we thought we may have been pregnant, although we were on the “pill”, Alexis took a few different pregnancy tests, all came out negative. Then on our trip there were a few symptoms that we decided Alexis should see the doctor, so on Tuesday of this past week she did exactly that.

By Wednesday at 9am she found out, she is 12 weeks pregnant! Which means our little one has already been to France and Poland 😛

The baby is due March 11th at this point. It’s crazy, it’s kinda fast, but we were ready to start trying in September anyway! So God’s provision we know is coming!

Love you all! Thanks for your prayers and support!