So Let Us Learn from Our Children

Christmas reminds me how much we can act like kids. Most kids don't understand the importance of the saying, “Care for what you wish for!” Kids of all ages and sizes are wishing for many wonderful gifts. Some that my kids have wished for include: A cow for fresh milk and a horse. Unfortunately they don’t understand the responsibility and work that would go with these gifts, they have only looked at the positives.



Doesn’t that sound like most of the rest of us? We think we know what we want. It sounds like a good idea. As adults we pursue it and get it without thinking through the ramifications and responsibilities. Then, when the reality of what we have gotten hits us, we wonder what happened and complain. Yet we have just received what we asked for.


It is always better for us to slow down, think and most importantly pray before we start stating what we want. When we do this we can avoid asking for silly things. However, when we do this, many times God will say “No” or “Not right now.” He does this because He loves us and knows what will be best. We must be willing to trust Him and wait on His timing. When we do this our Heavenly Father will give us what is good, pleasing and according to His will.


So let us learn from our children and “Care for what we wish for.”

Being a Christian Sponge

Over the past week I have been thinking a lot about a few points from this past Sunday’s sermon. Our study from the last part of Philippians 4 reminded us that we need to be completely saturated with the presence of God. Like a sponge that has been dunked into a bucket of water that can not be moved without spreading a bit of that water everywhere it goes, we also should be so saturated with God that no matter where we are or what is happening we should be spreading the blessing of God’s presence to everyone who comes into contact with us.


Oh, how much would life be different if we lived like this? I believe the early disciples had discovered the key to living like this and that is why they were know as “those who have turned the world upside-down.” One of the things that we learned about that helps us in living like this is to stay focused on God and God alone. If we just keep our eyes on “the author and perfecter of our faith” then we would see Him working in every aspect of our lives.

However, to live with our focus on only God is a commitment we must make every day. After making the commitment we must then work constantly at living it out. This effort is a constant battle because so many things are trying to distract us and steal our attentions. These things can be either good or bad in and of themselves but once they cause us to lose focus of God, then they become bad.

May we daily do our best to stay focused on God and God alone and as we do may we become completely saturated with His wonderful presence. Once saturated we will not be able to do anything but spread that presence to all those around us.

Do You Hear Him Calling?

Have you ever stopped to consider how important our hearing is? Often we take this ability for granted until we try to communicate with someone who is deaf or we temporarily loose part of our hearing. In our spiritual life hearing is also crucial, yet many people go through life voluntarily choosing to be deaf spiritually.


Our spiritual hearing started when we responded to God’s call for us to receive salvation but we must remember that this was just the start of spiritual hearing. We must stay attentive every moment of every day to hear what God is saying. One thing He is always calling us to is to serve Him. We were created to serve by walking in Jesus' footsteps and bringing His life to everything we touch.

Serving God is not reserved for preachers, missionaries, and those in so-called "full-time Christian service." Everyone who claims to be a follower of God is called to live every moment of every day in Christian service right where we are living and working! He has equipped each of us with special gifts that are perfectly suited to His plans for our life and the impact He wants us to have on others.

Just as Jesus' life was characterized by serving others, we must also be servants. Why then, do so many Christians prefer to be served than to serve? Genuine servanthood begins with a heart saying: "God, You own me, and everything I have is Yours. You're my Lord and my God, and worthy of all I can give. Whatever You want me to do, no matter how big or small, the answer is yes. You've promised to equip and anoint me with Your Spirit to enable me to do whatever You've called me to do, so here I am as Your servant."
Do you hear God calling to you today? If you do the next questions must be, How are you going to serve Him in your daily life? Remember to be quick to listen to all that God is saying as you travel on in this New Odyssey we call life with God.

The Keys to Improving Your Journey

Have you ever wanted to find something that would guarentee that your day and week would get better? In Proverbs 3:3-4 God gives us two elements that are crucial to improving our journey. As we look at these we need to realize that we can’t have one without the other. They are like the two sides of the same coin. Love, true love, always entails the strongest kind of faithfulness. Also, real faithfulness inevitably leads to true love. How do you ‘bind them around your neck and write and write them on the tablet of your heart?’ The specifics of how we do this are not as important as doing it on a regular basis. Once we start doing this, it is a continual process and will change us so what will your life look like? How will it change you? For it must surely change you!



We do know some of the outward effects of doing this and they hint at what in us might be affected. The two things mentioned are ‘favor’ and ‘a good name’. Both of these deal with our character and reputation. Realize that it is first God’s perspective of you that will change. This is because He sees the changes as they happen from the inside out. Then as the changes work their way out, people perspectives of us will change.

Traveling Through the Fog

Sometimes as we go through life on our personal Odysseys, things become clouded, like thick fog covering the road when driving. This condition tends to cause stress regardless of how hard we try to prevent it. Unfortunately, the more we focus on the "fog" the more distracted we become until we reach the point that we completely miss and no longer enjoy the scenery we are going through. Life (and work) should be enjoyed, the journey truly counts.

When life starts to become clouded consider some of the following thing that might help you keep focused on enjoying the journey. (1) Look for the beauty in each moment and day. (2) Stay attentive to the little surprises you my come across. (3) Find others traveling the same way you are, who are enjoying the journey and travel with them. Trips are always more enjoyable in the company of friends.

The best thing we can possibly do at this point in our Odysseys it to keep our focus on the one who has planned and prepared the journey we are on. Trusting God and focusing on Him always brings to light the beauty and joy that surrounds us each step of the way. "We must keep our eyes on Jesus, who leads us and makes our faith complete." Hebrews 12:2

Keep enjoying the Odyssey

Waiting on the Lord

All throughout the Scripture we are encouraged to “wait on the Lord”. We are promised that when we do this we will receive strength, wisdom, comfort, help and much more.


But what does it mean to actually “wait on the Lord”? What are we to wait for? And once we have received the reward of waiting, what do we do next? I believe that Lamentations 3:25-26 provides us some of the answers we need. Here the Scripture says, “The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.” The key things we should be waiting on the Lord for are:

• Hope that is rooted in God’s goodness. Can we actually says that we walk into each day with full of hope because of the reality of God’s goodness. The best way to ensure that we do this is to remember all the good that God has provided in the past…and this takes time. However, when we have invested the time in remembering these good things we can face any situation knowing the hope that springs from knowing the fullness of God’s goodness. This actually leads us to the second thing we should be waiting for.
• The ultimate demonstration of God’s goodness in found in the act of salvation. Yet here, salvation is not only referring to the state of our soul, God wants to be the source of salvation—deliverance, recovery, and rescue for every situation we face. If we wait until we understand the goodness of God in a fresh way in each situation we will be able to face each day with a renewed energy and confidence. An energy and confidence that come from God alone.

  
May we all learn to once again wait on the Lord until His goodness floods every part of what we say and do so much that He is all people see and hear.

Behold the Power of the Mouth

I was reading the Bible and came across Proverbs 10:11 which says, "The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but violence overtakes the mouth of the wicked."

Behold the power of the mouth! Well, it's not really the power of the mouth, but the character of the person behind it. You see, who we truly are will be heard in how we speak…and how we speak is evaluated by it's effect on others. Our character is shown in how our words change the lives of those around us.

When we are in right standing with God (righteous), then those we meet will be encouraged, inspired, enabled and revived. Or as this verse put it, they will receive life from what we say.

Now, on the other hand, if we are not in right standing with God, our speech will have the opposite result on people. The listeners will be frustrated, spiteful, ambivalent, and angry…which isn't much of a life.

So… what kind of person are you? Righteous or wicked – the way your words change others will tell you.