Quick: Who Am I Now?
It all happens in a flash. Our youngest turns 8 and counts the minutes until his friends arrive for backyard maniac birthday party. My eldest turns 21 and heads to Prague with his collegiate basketball team to inspire high school students to strive for an uplifted life. Then, of course, he’s taking the dozens of dollars he’ll have left to tour Germany and Austria for an extra week. (Ah, yes. No “SendMoney” phone calls coming from that one, right?) In the middle of our home-tribe, is a beautiful and high-integrity 15 year old part-young-woman and part-little-girl who is trying figure out how she thinks about smut on instagram. Lots of parents who have a long span of years between kids’ Birth Days need to operate with a form of parental schizophrenia,...
Read MoreWhat might we see if we stop to look outward?
Not by accident and not by coincidence, our family encountered an extraordinary person this week. He is someone who dedicates a part of his life to living without a plan at all. But rather he joyfully steps out and intentionally responds to the opportunities God places before him to help others. On a given day, he grabs some cash and a snow shovel, or maybe a set of jumper cables, or a grocery bag full of food, and he hits the streets. Then he asks God to show him who needs his help today. He is literally hunting, eyes and heart wide open, for a chance to help another person. A unique and particular connection only God can make — no filters, no expectations. He’s a channel. Not by accident or coincidence, pastor-rockstar Dr. Jim Samra taught us this...
Read MoreDon’t Miss The Miracle
If you miss the impossible power of the miracle, you won’t see God. Yes, that’s it. This is where I must stay today. I’m now beginning the wonderful new book by our wise pastor Jim Samra. God Told Me is new jam-packed teaching on listening for guidance from God. “He is a better guide for our life than we are.” I know: lots of folks don’t want to give quite that much power to God. They wince when they hear that God controls all things because it feels like humans are insignificant or puppet-like. We’d rather be The Power. It’s much more comfortable to assume control. We’d rather hold fast to the idea that we are all little gods in control of the energy around us and cling to karmic truth alone and live in harmony with nature. Right....
Read MoreHow Fashionable Are Your Scales?
We all have ‘em. We have lots of them and they are blocking our view. They block a clear view of our parents, our business situations, our finances, our children, our miraculous spouses and ourselves. We have scales on our eyes. Important aspects of understanding and knowledge; grace and compassion, even intelligence. All distorted because we have scales. Some people have scales large enough to block other people’s view, too. (Those are the scariest.) Saul’s scales must have cracked the pavement. Some of the scales I had on my 30 year old eyes were so solidly fixed that they made their own room with lounge chairs and recliners. I made fashionable window dressings for them. They looked great! And I was so right… about everything. Now, daily, I...
Read MoreLike Dew for Life
Pastor Jim Cymbala uses a wonderful metaphor of the Holy Spirit of God settling on us like dew settles on the earth during those secret hours when nighttime brings it’s calm and cool. God’s Holy Spirit, coats us with a gentle presence, almost invisible to the eye, but nourishing and surprising. It happens while we sleep and then first light breaks above the horizon and ignites the reflections. We look twice, concentrate our eyes on the droplets and then, back up… their whole presence becomes magnificent. Coating every surface, bringing a mysterious food. While we are still. We don’t know it’s there until we trudge through it, and then we realize our feet are soaked. If we allow it. Today I want to trudge through it. Absorb it and feel that...
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