Monthly Archives: January 2015
Love’s Not For Sissys
I was listening to this song in my afternoon devotion. It reminded me that love is not the sweet mushy thing that our culture has sometimes made it out to be. Love is tough as nails, tenacious, ferocious. It toughens our heart while never hardening it. It calls us to hang on even as we let go. It calls us to release control even while continuing to urge others to become their best selves. It can drive us until our backs are against the wall and at last set us free from our worst prisons. Love is not for sissys. It’s a call to arms for the world’s greatest warriors!
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Two Right Feet In Prayer
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Two Right Feet.”
The Daily Post has asked us, What are the things you need to do within 30 minutes of waking up to ensure your day gets off on the right foot? What happened the last time you didn’t do one of these things?
For me this is all about prayer and Bible Study. I am finding the older I get the more regimented I get, particularly in the spiritual disciplines. As a young guy I thought the lifestyle of discipline was stodgy. There was a part of me that thought if it wasn’t unscripted or spontaneous then it wasn’t real, but the older I become the more I see that intentionality particularly with the spiritual life is the pathway to the longevity of success.
Beginning the day with prayer and study allows me to tune my spiritual senses to the voice of God. It allows His conviction and direction to come in. When I miss my time in prayer I feel like I am in a ship with neither rudder nor paddle being driven along by every whim the river of life brings my way. So most mornings now I make the time to pray.
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Where?
“Where shall the world be found, where will the world resound? Not here there is not enough silence.” T.S. Elliot
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Share Your World 2015 Week #3
It is time once again to share our world with Cee and this week Chris has helped her to pick some really good if really tough questions!
This ought to be an absolute blast and really revealing!
Here are the questions:
Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?
I suppose the obvious answer for me would be, Jesus, but I figure HE is already a guest at every dinner I host so I won’t be saying Jesus today. I was just listening to some music by Celtic Thunder singer, Ryan Kelly the other day and I would really like to take him to dinner sometime to pick his brain and to hear about his faith story.
When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?
Since I lead worship pretty regularly, singing to other people is something I do just about every week. As far as singing to myself I do that constantly. Today I had the song “The Love of God” burning through my brain all day, that and “Broken Things”.
If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?
If I could wake up tomorrow glorified in my body (that is made supernaturally complete and perfect) that would be a great boon!
What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?
Ooh this is a really hard one. I joke about a lot of things. Sometimes I even joke about and with God (He jokes back by the way God does have a sense of humor). Sometimes I feel like I am a bit irreverent with God and have to tone it down.
I would say that one thing I never joke about is sex. It is perhaps the most personal and sacred thing on the planet and dirty jokes really have no place anywhere in my life or in anyone else’s for that matter.
Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?
I am really grateful that my lead pastor’s mother made a miraculous recovery and came home from the hospital! This week I am looking forward to editing more chapters of my book and sending them off to the editor!
Find out how others have responded to these probing questions at
http://ceenphotography.com/2015/01/19/share-your-world-2015-week-3/
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It’s Not About Getting It All Done It’s All About Finishing
My mother has this question she asks almost every night on my return home from work, “Did you Get all you work done son?”
Almost every night my answer is the same, “No Mom I never get all my work done, but I got enough done.”
Do you ever feel like your life is bigger than you? Do you feel like there is more life to live than there is energy to live it? I do, all the time. As Jesus said “The harvest truly is plenteous but the laborers are few…” Mat 9: 37. I feel that way. The need is great. It is certainly greater than my ability to fill it. I think sometimes I am trying to empty the ocean with a Dixie cup.
I am sure that I would long ago have gone mad if God had not taught me a few truths that I have to repeat as a mantra over my life almost daily. Those truths are:
I AM JUST A SERVANT NOT THE SAVIOR.
JESUS SAVES. I TESTIFY.
I DON’T HAVE TO GET IT ALL DONE. I JUST HAVE TO GET SOMETHING DONE.
WHEN I RUN OUT OF TIME I AM FINISHED WHETHER OR NOT I AM DONE.
AND
GOD WILL REWARD ME IF HE FINDS ME WORKING WHEN HE COMES NOT IF HE FINDS EVERYTHING DONE WHEN HE COMES.
Over time I have learned that my life will always be busy and if I choose to insist that all my work gets done before I stop working then I will never stop working. I have also learned that if I hold on to that attitude long enough eventually it will burn me out and then I will be tempted to leave off the race I began so long ago. Folks we are not called to get everything done. We are called to finish the race, and sometimes finishing means leaving something undone.
I hope that helps.
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A Place To Stand
GIVE ME A PLACE TO STAND AND I WILL MOVE THE EARTH.- ARCHIMEDES
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Broken But Wanted
I did some listening in my afternoon devotions today. This song came across my desk and it really touched my heart.
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They practice evil because they can.
This is a really good post about choices we can make.
To me, one of the most haunting images of the Bible comes from Micah 2:1; What sorrow awaits you who lie awake at night, thinking up evil plans. You rise at dawn and hurry to carry them out, simply because you have the power to do so.
According to J. Stephen Land, one of Christianity’s darkest moments began in 1692, when several adolescent girls in Salem, Massachusetts, began to accuse individuals of being witches. The girls included the daughter and niece of the town’s minister. They started by accusing the minister’s black housekeeper. Then they accused two of the older women in town. By the summer of 1692, the jails were filled with people the girls had accused of witchcraft. The evidence? The girls supposedly went into convulsions in their presence, or they said they had seen an apparition of the accused person. If the accused admitted to being a…
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Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than one’s fear.
Really really true!
«Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than one’s fear.»
— Ambrose Redmoon
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