A fun video of my girls

We had some fun the other night shooting some video, I think that it came out pretty good for just using the video function on my camera. Hope you enjoy!

On Him I will stand!

It has been a month since my mothers accident, I had hoped that she would be recovered more than she has at this point and time. People have been asking me how I have been doing, the best description that I can give is that I am up to my neck in deep waters. David wrote some feelings that I have been also dealing with.

Psalm 69 "Save me, o God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink into the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come to the deep waters; the floods engulf me. I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God."

I would not say that I am drowning, but I am up to neck. I realize that God is my Rock, on whom I should stand. My prayer, is to trust Him, so that I can rest in Him.
To be able to fully put all of the painful circumstances that are facing my family into His hands. To know and to trust in a God who can do more than me.

So if you are like me, keep pressing in, even when it hurts. May God be glorified, and may we take the hand of the Father who is leading us to quiet waters!

Be Still.....

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and mountains quake with their surging.
There is a river whose streams are made glad the city of God, the Holy place where the most high dwells.
God is with her, she will not fall; God will help her at the break of day.....
Be still and know that I am God....

It is hard to be still when all you want to do is fix someone. I want my mom to be healed. I want her to not suffer. I want to talk with her and have her smile and talk with me. I miss that.

Please pray with me for complete healing for my mom.

Streams

As I sit by this stream it shouts out the Glory of God! I want to be one of those rocks. To be covered by the Living Water. I want to feel the power of the current! Holy Spirit, fill me once again. May your presence overwhelm me.

“Belay On”

One of my favorite things to do when I went to summer camp was to do rappelling. If you have not done it before, you have to try it at least once. You will get strapped into a harness that you put together with a nylon strap and a carabineer, and then you slide a climbing rope through it and down you go over the edge. The hardest part is the first few steps. You have to get yourself in a sitting position and then go over the edge. It will not work if you are hesitant to trust the rope or the harness or the person who is there belaying down the rope. You start with the command “On Belay?”, then wait for them to say “Belay on!” That is your cue to get in that imaginary chair and take that dreaded step over the edge of the cliff. It is so much fun to walk, hop, and even leap down the edge of a cliff, once you get the hang of it. But, it can be really scary if you are not trusting in your equipment and your partner.

As I have been thinking a lot about my attitude going into this sabbatical and how I have been a bit over zealous in my plans and goals that I have made. I have a series of books that I am going to read, to both develop me as a staff and to sharpen my leadership skills, I have a peer visit in my plans to meet with a successful community college staff. I have a men’s ministry at my church that I am launching, as well as meeting with several ministry leaders who are going to help me on this journey that I am on. As I met with one of the ministry leaders, she has helped me think about how I need to let Christ be the one leading my time. I think I was letting my plans be the thing that was dictating my progress and how successful my sabbatical was going. I need to let the Holy Spirit guide my steps and my spiritual growth.

One of the more difficult steps for me was having my sabbatical go over the fall quarter. I love the beginning of the school year. I love doing New Student Outreach. I love meeting new students, casting vision to a new flock of freshmen. I love putting together a plan with my students and seeing it executed. This takes a lot out of me and I knew if I really wanted to have a restful sabbatical I should do it in the fall. The hardest part of all of this is that I have no control over what will happen with the different campuses that I oversee. I need to trust God! I need to trust the people he has appointed to do the work I was doing when I am gone from campus. I feel like both schools are in capable hands, its just weird to let go and have no control, no say, no input in what will happen. I know this is an area that God wants to work on with me. He wants me to learn what true dependence is.

As I think about my daughter Leah and her battle with Cystic Fibrosis. I realize that what I am learning is that I have no control over finding a cure, or on how long she will live. I need to be dependent upon God, dependent upon the doctor’s care, dependent upon the scientists that are researching new medications to help her.

Just as my daughters were dependent upon Kathy and I to feed them and change their diapers when they were babies, I need to learn what it means to be dependent on Christ. So often I am acting out of my own capabilities that I cheat God out of what He want to do in me and through me. Most of the times I would rather have people depend upon me, then me to be dependant upon God. I want to live as one that is dependent upon the Holy Spirit’s guidance in my thoughts and in my actions. So please pray with me as I get in that sitting position. As I call out to God “On Belay?” I know He will say “Belay on!”

Uncle Philadelphia

We are having a great time visiting Eric and his family, got some cheese steak, saw the liberty bell, ran up the steps like Rocky, and saw this guy!

Rocky! Rocky! Rocky!

Getting excited about our trek across the country to see Matt & Shawna tie the knot. It will also be so fun to see my brother and his family. If anyone out there is looking for a great deal on hotels, you should use hotwire.com we are staying in a Hilton in Philly for only $75 a night. So should I be like Rocky and run up the steps? You betcha!

the growing seed

The Kingdom of God is described as a growing seed in the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Mark. Jesus gives us a description of the stages of growth. The leaf blade pushes through the earth, the plant forms into a wheat stalk, it ripens, and then it is time to harvest. As I thinking about this and how it relates to our struggle of knowing what it means to be like Christ, it helps me to know how important it is to have the seed planted in good soil. As a disciple of Christ, we know it is our hope and goal to be Christ-like. It just sounds like a lot of work to do it.

Have you ever tried to bake bread? I have tried to do this so many times and I have come to the conclusion that I do not have the patience for it. One of the most important ingredients for making bread is yeast. It is an active ingredient that works its way through a ball of dough to get it ready to be a fluffy piece of bread. I get so impatient and don’t let the yeast do its job. So when I make bread, it is too dense, and it becomes rock hard.

We can try to put all of the right ingredients together, set the temperature at the right degree, and hope for the best, but if we don’t let the Holy Spirit, do His thing, if we don’t take the time to let HIM BE ACTIVE! We will be too hard, it won’t turn out like we hope, in the time we hope. Just as a plant goes through stages we need to let the Holy Spirit work with us through the years.

In Stott’s second chapter he talks about the three perspectives that help us understand that we will be with Christ and like Christ.
1. God’s eternal purpose (we have been predestined)
2. God’s historical purpose (we are being changed, transformed by the Holy Spirit)
3. God’s final eschatological purpose (we will be like him.)

Let’s plant our selves in good soil, lets not try to pull the plant out of the ground before its done growing. The Holy Spirit does know what He is doing. I am gratefully for this journey of being Christ-like.

Radical Discipleship

John Stott’s Radical Discipleship

In the preface Stott talks about the need to be called disciples over being called Christians. I like this train of thought. As a Christian it is more like an assumption of who you might be, a disciple is active. A disciple is one that has a purpose and lets us have an attitude of always growing, always needing to be connected to the vine. I think if you are titled a Christian, then it is a stagnant position. It is almost like you are a bus boy at a restaurant. We all know what a bus boy does. He cleans up the dishes after you eat. He cleans up around the restaurant. If the bus boy has a title by his name, say as a intern, we know that the person is looking for this experience to be building into something more. I want to be an intern of Christ. I do not want to be labeled as the world sees a Christian. I want to be a student of Jesus. The second part of this statement is to be radical. To be radical is to be a reformist. To be radical is to let your roots run deep and to let want to see change happen. To not let the status quo go on any longer.

The first chapter is about being a non-conformist. I think the quote that will stick with me the most from this chapter is when Stott quotes Malcom Muggeridge

“only dead fish swim with the current,”

thus why i chose the name of this blog I will use for my thoughts from what I am learning during my sabbatical

The world all around us wants to dumb us down. We get bogged down by sexual images, materialism, the idea that we are all our own gods. We all act as lemmings doing what the world expects of us. We are constantly looking at the next person, wanting to be in the know. We read peoples facebook and twitter messages and get emotionally over charged, looking for acceptance, looking for love, we are trying to connect ourselves with so many things to fill this emptiness in us that we don’t realize that we are neglecting the one thing that we really need. We need the Spirit of the living God to come and fill us. We are all like the woman at the well looking for fulfillment, and Jesus is right there letting us know that He has water that we can drink that will satisfy us. I want to be that fish going against the stream. I hope you will join me.