One Thing

I think if you could only ask God for one thing in your prayers the one that would be most effective would be that you and others would fall in love with Him and His Word. I believe that is one of the most life-changing prayers, both for you and for others.

I've always been drawn to the idea of changing the world. Not so much because I believe that I can, but I love the idea of doing something bigger with my life than just the everyday routine. The incredible part of prayer is that it allows us the opportunity to approach the Creator, the One Who is able to affect change. What a great gift!

I have often thought how hard it would be to have the ear of a high official. To not only have them listen to your requests and ideas, but also to be willing and able to act upon them. We have something much greater than a high official's ear. We are able to go to the One who created us, Who calls the stars by name, and Who notices when even a sparrow falls. He is in the big picture, and at the same time in all of the details, and He allows us to come to Him in prayer, seek His wisdom, and give Him glory.

The thing about praying that we and others will fall in love with Him is that it encompasses so much. It is the first and greatest command, and if we learn to live it out the others will surely follow. Love is a multitude of things. It is obedience. (John 14:15) It is patient, and kind, It doesn't envy, or boast. It is not proud or self-seeking. It does not take offense. It is not easily angered. It doesn't delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, trusts, hopes, and perseveres. Love never fails. (See 1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

It is easy to look around and see all the evil in this world and get discouraged, but I believe if we would make this a daily prayer we could see that the world at least to an extent can be changed, because we serve a mighty God who is able to do great works. Often He is simply waiting for us to ask.

people of impact

"Are you a daily Bible reader? It will change your life." ~Jack Carter.

People of impact. I believe we all have them in our lives. They come in all forms. Even books and characters in movies have the ability to be these people of impact. The impact can be on different levels some for a moment, others for a lifetime, and still others for an eternity. Parents I believe have the opportunity for the greatest level of impact on their children on each of those levels, either by their presence or their absence, so those who impact the parents are of vital importance.

I guess it stands to reason using that logic that my grandparents had a major effect on my parents, but if I could pick a person after them that made the greatest impact on their spiritual lives, and in turn mine also, it would be Jack Carter. The reasons are simple, but go so deep. Jack had a love for God, for His Word and for people. In his time with my parents, and with many others, he encouraged them to become daily Bible readers.

I think it was my dad who picked up on this first, and really made an effort to become a daily Bible reader. In turn my mom did also and they encouraged my brother and sister and me to do the same. And just as Jack said, it changed our lives. I'm sure he wasn't the first to say it, and know he won't be the last, but his encouragement as well as his example in that area and in so many others has helped to change our lives.

It's the simple things done over and over that accumulate and make a life and in Jack's case a life lived well that helped countless people. So don't give up on the seemingly little things that don't always seem to make a difference. So often people of impact are made in those little moments and we don't always know ahead of time which moments those will be, but they are sure to come if we will strive in the little moments and the big to be the servant for God, He put us here to be.

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." ~Galatians 6:9

a book of days

For You created my inmost being; 

You knit me together in my mother’s womb.

 I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; 

Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

 My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 

Your eyes saw my unformed body. 

All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.

I love these verses in Psalm 139. The love of God for each of us shines so clearly in the words of the text, and with just a few short verses meaning for each person's life is found in them. 

I kept thinking about the days written in the book. I can just picture a book filled with life and all the things that make up that life, birthdays, graduation, a wedding, and even the thousands of ordinary days that create a lifetime. Maybe for some a cure for cancer, or the next president of the United States, or someone's future spouse, or a little league coach are written on those pages. The picture it paints is just beautiful. Not because every day is flawless, but because every day is like a brushstroke in a painting. By itself it might not seem to matter, but put them all together and you can find yourself with a masterpiece. 

Picture this book once again with all the days ordained beforehand by the Creator. Now start to erase it, every little mark back to the time of the womb. Let it stop there. Put this image in your mind, because it's important.

This is what happens when a baby's life is taken from them, when a mom or a dad decide this baby just wasn't in their plans, there isn't enough money to take care of them, they might be a burden, they might be "defective", they just don't want them. They choose to pay someone to stop a heartbeat, and then their troubles are over.

But the world loses out on something great. They lose out on an individual as unique as a snowflake. Nobody else can replace what they would have done with their life had they had the chance, and while its true most would not become the president of the United States or discover a cure for cancer and some would commit crimes or simply not live up to their God given potential, do they not deserve the chance each of us has been given? A chance to do something great with their life, or is their life just a woman's right to choose and their only hope is that their mother will just to let them live and not die? 

It has to be more than that. It is more than that. "I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made."

moments of impact

I watched a youtube video today on the butterfly effect by Andy Andrews. It was really interesting about the way one person can make such an impact literally on generations sometimes in a single moment. I put the link   (the first of 3 each under 10 min) below for those interested in watching it.

In life we seem to have those moments of impact. Maybe not to quite the extreme of the billions of people that Andy talks about in one of the videos, but I think we've all had them. I've had several of those moments where I'm not exactly sure why they are significant in the moment but I believe that they are. Maybe it has something to do with this "butterfly effect". I once had a thought about fireworks and how our lives are often like them. Sometimes people know who set them off, other times people just seem them from a distance having no idea who set them off, but even if just for a moment get a glimpse of beauty and are filled with joy.

I can think of 3 instances off the top of my head that I have felt that. One was in a gym with someone asking me some questions about my faith that I had no idea how to answer, but I went home that night and starting studying looking for the answers to those questions. That day I saw this incredible potential in this person who asked me the questions that I couldn't explain, and still can't, but I am confident that it is there. That day too, I made a decision to do something that scared me to death but did it anyway because I believed it was what I needed to do. I wrote down what I learned and dropped it in his pickup, just hoping he wouldn't find it til I was gone. haha I wasn't so brave back in those days, but I've wondered since, if I had let that fear win out would I have continued that pattern over the years?

Another was in a classroom with someone asking if I had ever read the Bible all the way through. I don't remember if I had or not, but I made a decision then to do so either for the first time or once again. It spurred me on to continuing to do what I thought was important. And once again I saw potential in someone, that just maybe they were hungering for something more, something important, something that lasts.

The last was after a big rainstorm sitting in the stands at a football game. Someone was walking past and we made eye contact and then sat in the stands behind me and talked to my friend, they were former classmates. We started talking some here and there after that... you know those easy conversations not the forced ones, and from that I was able to move on from something that wasn't meant to be, but that I had clung to for almost two years. And that potential and hope for that person's future to be blessed and to find those good things came once again.

Since these moments I have started praying for each one off and on through the years, I don't always understand it or even see it, but I believe that God works in our lives in amazing ways. Maybe I didn't have the same impact on them that they had on me, but I am certain that God can do incredible things when we ask Him. And maybe that is what my part is meant to be in their lives. Maybe that is why those moments impacted me the way that they did, because maybe they are meant to do incredible things in their lives, and my role is to call upon the One who can bring out that potential and mold and shape their lives into something amazing.

  "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose." Romans 8: 28 (ESV)



 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnrz9HGjj_U&feature=related

sweet innocence

Upon finishing a book in the Anne of Green Gables series I find myself wishing for that world of sweet innocence. I hear people talk a lot about wanting to live in those older days where things were simpler. Personally, I enjoy the technologies of today, but I wish for that innocence and the decorum people used to display. That idea that certain things are sacred, that some things should be left unsaid in keeping with good taste.

We live in a world that is growing increasingly unashamed of things that we should not be unashamed of. I get on facebook and have to hide so many of the posts because of the lack of propriety shown. I see girls posting pictures of themselves in bikinis and wonder were is their self-respect? I see all the bad language that is used. Maybe it doesn't seem like a big deal, but even the little things can cause cracks in our self-control.

But I love reading books like I did tonight, where God is still held in reverence, the marriage bed is kept pure, and decency is what is expected not something rare. It holds a life that is simpler, not necessarily because of technology or lack of it, but because of the character of people. 

"For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly."

Psalms 84:8-9 (ESV)

change

I have never been a huge fan of change, but I love the idea of potential. Ironic because I don't know how you reach potential without doing things at least a little different than you have been. And maybe that is why potential is rarely reached, because it demands change. Potential is a beautiful thing though. It allows you to look past your fears and focus on something bigger, something with meaning, with purpose.

Maybe the hard part with change is that there are parts of life at present that we love, and we become unwilling to let that part go even if something better could be waiting. From a purely business stand point, I can see why staying the same would be a bad thing. If I kept the money I made, and never invested in the future I would have that money only as long as I didn't spend it on something different that wouldn't allow me to grow, and then I would be done. The benefits of change are apparent in business, but often allusive in life because we often sit there looking at the risk and forgetting that there could be a payoff.

The point of all of this is not to take bigger risks and expect great payoffs because there is also that other side  that the bigger the risk the higher the rate of failure. The point is that change is one of those things that comes with risks, and you don't have to just throw everything that is working out the window in order to get that greener grass. And maybe the change is not to get the greener grass on the other side. Maybe it is to make the grass we already have greener, to reach or at least come closer to reaching that potential that we each have inside of us, to do those great things God put each of us here to do. Maybe the change is the catalyst to becoming who we are meant to be.


"The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord." Proverbs 16:3 (ESV)

a suitable helper

A couple years ago I was sitting out on the deck at a cabin in Ruidoso with a good friend of mine catching up. It was spring break and a group of us decided to spend at least part of it in New Mexico. As we were talking he started telling me that one of his goals in life was to eventually become an elder, but he was single, and part of the command in Scripture for elders is to be the husband of one wife and that his children be believers. So much of his future goal hinged on finding a woman to spend the rest of his life with, but not just any woman, one who would be faithful to him, who would help him raise their future children to be faithful.

This past weekend I got to see him get married to such a woman. It took me back to that time in Ruidoso as we were sitting and talking, both knowing that God is faithful in His answers to our prayers and the success of the plans committed to Him, but also knowing that our ways are not always His, and the uncertainties that go along with that. It's easy to look back in hindsight and see God's faithfulness in our lives; it's another thing to wait patiently for that faithfulness, but if we do wait on God, He answers in incredible ways. It's amazing to see His answers in action. I'm excited to see what God has planned for these two. I expect nothing less than incredible as they continue to grow in the Lord and together for the rest of their lives.

"Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed." ~Proverbs 16:3