Needed prayer...

My brother has been diagnosed with a very serious disease. It's called Retinitis Pigmentosa. If you would like to know more, you can check out this website:
http://www.blindness.org/content.asp?id=45

I'm asking if anyone that reads this blog, if you would consider adding David Strickland to your prayer list. Feel free to spread the word of this need for prayer to others as well.

This is a very difficult disease to handle, physically and mentally. When you consider all his future has to offer and the potential that he may not be able to physically see it take place...it can be quite disheartening. I know that my family and others in our marriage class and at church have committed to praying for his healing.

If you'd like to know more about him or his family personally, his wife, Monique, keeps a blog as well: http://moniquestrickland.wordpress.com/

Life Cycle

I live my life on a cycle...not a bicycle...a life cycle. I call it the innovation cycle because I am and always will be a continual learner. I think I started out life pretty dumb and have been watching and learning ever since...now that I think about it, I guess everyone started out that way! I think some get to the point where they stop enjoying learning and so they do just that. I've never gotten to that place, and even though I've not been in formal schooling for about 15 years, I feel like I have never left "school".

I often label myself an observer, because that's where the innovation cycle starts; observation. The cycle looks like this:

It's a continuing cycle...once you prototype, you start observing again. It works for any aspect of life. You have to be willing to continue learning and never decide to stop. Start looking at life like a school yard, and begin observing how you can be more effective in everything you do!

VBS...

My wife and I have been running VBS all this week at church. We have had record numbers of kids, well over 400 last night. For the last 5 years, we've been overseeing the offering competitions and recreation. For the first time ever, I think, the offering is nearly neck-and-neck. We do a fear factor type thing for the looser - boys against girls. I usually end up eating every night, but this year has been different:

MON - Boys lost, I ate meal worms
TUE - Boys lost, I ate chocolate covered ants
WED - Girls lost, Diane drank snake blood
THU - Girls lost, Diane ate crickets

Tonight is the finale and the children's pastor and his wife will get slimed based on which gender wins. Kids are fun...

Love God with your energy...

There is another saying I can't recall who to attribute to:

You need to pray like everything depends on God, then work like everything depends on you!

We definitely use energy to do things for God. Serve others, evangelism, ministry, etc. That's biblical and appropriate. In your haste to "do stuff", don't forget to use your energy to develop your relationship with God and get to know Him. As with any relationship, that requires effort and energy.

Along with hard work and effort comes the need for rest. One of the most ignored of the 10 commandments is #4: the Sabbath commandment (Exodus 20:8-11). If we were to weigh the 10 commandments by the number of words used to define them, this one (93 words) would be the most important. Rest was so important that God did it, don't you think you should too?

Make sure there are allotments in your schedule for rest...but make sure you don't get too comfortable resting!

Love God with your intelligence...

People don't get stupid when they get saved, but too many choose to turn off their common sense when it comes to spiritual things.

We all need to use your brain when developing a relationship with God! After all, God is the one that gave you that brain to begin with! If you’re not a morning person…don’t try to spend time with God in the morning, cause you're just going to fall asleep. If you fall asleep easily at night, don't get in bed and then try to spend time with God, cause you know what is going to happen!

Be smart about developing the most important relationship there is...

Love God with your prayer...

Do you know what prayer is? Have you every wondered if you even understand it? I think in America, we have really mangled what prayer is supposed to be by making it about what we want it to be. Here's a quick question:

If you throw out a boat hook from a boat and catch hold of the shore, then start pulling; are you pulling the shore toward you, or are you pulling yourself to the shore?

The answer is simple, but when it comes to prayer, a lot of people think they are pulling the shore to them. They believe prayer is a way to get God involved in their life. More to the point, they think prayer is the way to get what they want from God. It's a means to convince God of what he should do on your behalf. Help me on this test (even though I didn't study)...hook me up with this girl (even though she's hot, but doesn't love God)...help me not to get audited (even though I didn't fill out my tax forms honestly).

Prayer is surrender...surrender to the will of God and cooperation with it. Prayer is not pulling God into my will, but rather aligning of my will to the will of God. When you look at loving God with that kind of prayer, you can see how beneficial and effective it would be.

Love God with your passion...

What is passion? What does that mean? There's an old idiom my pastor uses that says:

The proof of your passion is in your pursuit

Being truly passionate about something means you will pursue it. It takes a place of importance. It gets elevated as a priority above other things. People are passionate about a lot of things. Some are passionate about sports, some about family and some about their job. Some are passionate about a hobby, some about working out and others about reading. Not one of those things is wrong, in and of itself. The things we must be willing to do is compare the level of passion for any of those things to our passion for God.

Be willing to check passion level of your heart about relationship with God. Make sure you work at keeping the most important thing, the most important thing.

It all starts here...

There has to be a single verse of scripture that servers as a foundation for a relationship with God. I think I found it...

Mark 12:29-30 – “Jesus said, "The first in importance is, 'Listen, Israel: The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.'” (the message)

Jesus was making it clear that this was the most important thing you could do. These 4 things are paramount to helping us understand how to love God. This translation seems to brings the ancient text to life. The KJV tells us we should love God with all our "heart, soul, mind and strength", but what does that really mean?

For the next few days, I want to explore what these 4 ways of loving God really mean...

Some more answers

I was chewing on what I wrote yesterday myself, when I thought I should write some more. I believe God still speaks to us today. I believe that there are many ways we can receive instruction and direction from God. Having said that...combined with what I wrote yesterday...I don't want to be accused of using my "not hearing" to be an excuse for being lazy.

Paul experienced God's silence...related to his "thorn in the flesh". He did not answer him during 3 separate "seasons" of his life when Paul really put his attention toward getting God's attention. The answer was finally "no". Of course, that's never the answer we want! God didn't stop there, he did promise to give Paul the grace to accept his situation. This is where we live. We all have something, someone or some aspect of life that we want God to change!

Just the other day someone prophetically spoke into my life. Here is what they said:

God is pleased with you. He has heard your prayer and is going to answer you, but you must remain humble.

That's much like what God's response to Paul was. God wanted him to maintain his humility so that God could receive the glory. Remember to always keep God in proper perspective...but more importantly, keep yourself in proper perspective as well.

Answers

I need some answers. You ever been there? I have been praying and pursuing God about some very specific stuff for over 5 years now...and I've gotten nothing. I've blamed myself, I've questioned my salvation, I've done it all. I know better than to blame God, so it seems there is only one other option. In these times of frustration I recently discussed it with a very wise person that I have the utmost respect for. It was during that conversation that they gave me a simple sentence that I wanted to share with you. If you find yourself struggling to make a decision or you are weighing several things and there appears to be no specific inkling or direction from God...remember this simple phrase:

When God is silent, it may be because he trusts you to make the right decision

Chew on that for a while...

I'm back

Wow...vacation was great. Kind of just what the doctor ordered. Relax, skim board, do some fishing and spend time with family - especially my wife! I love the beach. I took books to read, but got no where!

As promised, I'll post one picture. Not a great shot, but there weren't many to choose from. I've got to check with my sister-in-law to see if she got any video footage... I spent most of THU morning skim boarding since the wind wasn't that strong and the waves were lining up really nice. I quit early...not because I wanted to, but because I knew I would get hurt if I didn't. Last years hamstring popping experience was not only painful, but was debilitating! I couldn't walk right for nearly 2 weeks. So, I only put my body on the line for about 2 hours. I guess I'm getting wiser with age. I ran into 4-5 teenagers that all came down by the pier to skim...they were pretty good. They were amazed by my board (which was older than most of them...custom made in 1987), and my skills! Good times had by all...

new stuff

I'm working on my next book...and I wanted to give all of you a preview from the introduction...

God loves you. How many times have you heard that statement? Think about the magnitude of those three little words. Close your eyes and mediate on the concept of God loving you. Let them permeate your thoughts and transcend your limited understanding. Consider each of them individually for a minute. God; the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the universe. Loves; adores, feels affection for, finds irresistible. You; that combination of feelings, thoughts, attitudes and actions that make up a period of time. Put those together and you have an all-mighty creator of all things that finds everything about you irresistible.

the noise is back

Well...my "tomorrow" went a little longer than anticipated. It was nice having the peace and quiet of an empty house for a week. The kids are back and so, things are back to "normal" - whatever that is!

Sunday evening services continue to be a blast! Our pastor is really nailing it as he gets to the heart of apathy and mediocrity that defines the 21st century "christian". I again recommend you get the CD's, or the podcasts (if they are filming the evening services). They are a great resource to re-vitalize our zeal.

Things personally are pretty good. Work is crazy, but we have some vacation later this week to the beach - really looking forward to some skimboarding! Maybe I'll include some video clips and pics when we get back. Everyone I encounter along the beach is always impressed by the 40-something guy letting it rip out there.

The quiet has begun...

All four of our kids left for camp today. It's been about 18 hours of quiet...I can still hear the crickets - and I'm up way too late. The quiet will all come crashing down way before my kids get home on FRI. We have visitors on the way - will actually be here in about 20 hours or so. I'm enjoying the quiet while I can! Diane and I went out to dinner, ALONE! I almost didn't know how to act when the bill was less than $30! My clan usually runs me about $70 when we go out to eat...so we don't very often!

I'll have a more spiritual update tomorrow! I promise!