The Fog

Some days I feel like I am maneuvering through the fog. I don't know where I am going, the road may seem familiar, but I cannot be certain for sure if it is. Though I may have been down the road before I still move apprehensively not knowing if something new will be in my path. I travel uncertain of what lies in the whiteness that is in front of me, separating me from my destination. The blessing in moving through the fog is that I am moving at all. That I still get up and move through the fog without having to fight myself is a miracle in itself. That is progress in my discipleship walk, I think. Discipleship is allowing yourself to be led blindly to someone else's purpose for your life, at least the faith part is. Thank God for foggy days and the revelation that comes with them.

Be Blessed and Be a Blessing!

Mike

Right Now..

I have been accused of being childish on more than one occasion. It was probably well deserved as I have often wished I had some of my childhood and childlike instincts back. It was good to be a kid. I didn't have to deal with all this yucky adult stuff that I am facing right now. Paying bills, finding the faith to hold on to the dreams and calling God has given. Finding the faith to believe that what seems impossible is indeed possible. At least when I was a kid I knew what I was going to be when I grew up. I find myself now at 31 asking myself what I am going to do with the rest of my life. Rather I find myself asking God what He is going to do with the rest of my life. When He speaks is usually when I need that childlike faith to believe that it will all come to pass. Being a kid was great. I knew I was going to eat but didn't have to worry about where the groceries were going to come from. I knew I had a place to sleep but didn't have to worry about the mortgage that had to be paid to make sure I could have that place to sleep. I flipped on the light switch and the lights came on, I didn't think about the light bill being paid. I had new clothes to wear but didn't have to wonder what was going to be sacrificed in the budget that month to be able to have the money to buy the clothes. I want that kind of faith and trust again. In a way this is a testament to my mother, the single woman that raised three kids alone in a middle class neighborhood and kept us in the lifestyle we were always accustomed to. We knew money was tight at times but I don't think we ever really knew just how tight it was or the sacrifices she made for us to have what we had. I want to be a child again. I need that faith. I know it will all be OK because it always is. But this time I want to feel it.

"Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of Heaven." Matthew 18:3

Steve Harvey In A New Light...

I used to listen to Steve Harvey when he had his morning show on the Beat in LA on the way to work. I was always impressed when he started his show with praise to God for the day and an encouraging word to those who were locked up. I found this video of him and it just brought back those memories. How amazing would it be if Jesus got this kind of ovation everywhere He was talked about?




Be Blessed and Be a Blessing!
Mike

Chameleon Christianity?

In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul describes how he became "all things to all men." This has become a passage that has stirred up some controversy in the church. Controversy because some use it as a right to make the church look more like the world in an attempt to "by all means save some." I have no doubt that the Paul was trying to make a point about ministry in these verses. I have not cleared up my own personal theology as to what that point is however. I can understand that it might mean that he adapted to the culture of the people he was ministering to. Maybe taking up their habits of dress, study, speech. But if we are to reach the current culture does that mean taking things like rap music and putting words like Jesus and God in it and calling it christian? Is there a line that should not be crossed when "becoming all things to all men?" This is just something that is going through my head right now. I found this video last night; it is pretty straight forward and it is most likely what started my thought process along these lines this morning. Enjoy.





Be Blessed and Be a Blessing!
Mike

Midweek Video Distraction

There are a lot of things I would like to have over a hundred of....cars, computers, cameras, casas (had to keep the "c" thing going). But cats is not one of them. I think that anyone who has or even wants that many cats is a little out of this world (not in the good way). I happen to think that cats are gross, little blobs of fur who are way to emotional and temperamental. Here is a video of one of those out of the world people. Just the way they are fed makes me nauseous.






I don't know what else to say except never be this person if you have neighbors.

Be Blessed and Be a Blessing!
Mike

Death...

I have been doing a lot of pondering on death lately. One of my friends asked me to do a memorial service for someone special to her. I have never done one before. So that's where the death thinking comes in. I have come to the conclusion that death is actually a good thing (if you are a believer in Christ). I mean it is the finish line to the race that we are running. It is the doorway to our home in heaven. When God calls you home it is even more exciting than hearing your number called at the Italian deli where you have been waiting forever to get the best cold cuts. OK maybe I went a little far on that last one, but if you had the deli I have by me you would understand. I have had trouble working the phrase "A christian is better off dead" into my remarks without having it sound offensive. (Is it possible?) I know what I am trying to say but it doesn't just come across that way.

Be Blessed and Be a Blessing,
Mike

Aquafina = Tap Water In A Bottle

=

I saw this while browsing the news and a sense of justification came over me! I have been saying for a very long time that bottled water from the big soda companies was a scam. The whole selling ice to eskimos thing comes to mind. According to new reports Pepsi is now going to put the fact that Aquafina water comes from a public source. Meaning it is tap water. The only place I would feel safe drinking tap water is in San Francisco where the majority of their water comes from Yosemite and needs very little processing to make it drinkable.

Be Blessed and Be a Blessing!

Mike

Tomorrow Never Comes

Driving home from an appointment today I had a random thought about tomorrow. It never comes. Yesterdays always happen. Another one is added every time we go to sleep and wake up again. It is always today. I am sitting in Starbucks right now waiting for my truck to get its new tires on--today. I am not in Starbucks tomorrow. I may plan to go to Starbucks and write tomorrow, but if I do make it there I will be doing it today again. I never get to work in tomorrow. Every time I am doing something I was going to do tomorrow, it is always today. Maybe that is why the bible says not to worry about tomorrow. Its pointless...it never comes.

Be Blessed and Be a Blessing TODAY!
Mike

A Walk to Remember

Tonight I took a walk. This may not seem like a big deal to most folks, but I have a hard time walking and use a cane to help balance myself. Tonight's walk was something of an eye opener for me. I realize just how great is. I live in a great neighborhood, that is partially undeveloped so I was able to enjoy a lot of nature tonight. The sky, the stars, the sounds--it was just beautiful. It made me almost sad because I do live in such a good neighborhood. I realized that I am part of the fortunate few--not everyone gets to enjoy the luxury of walking around their neighborhood alone at night. Even if they did, very few have the time to walk around their neighborhood just for the sake of taking a walk. You never know what you take for granted until you almost can't do it anymore. Sometimes we just need to slow down in our lives and see the things we miss when we are going full speed ahead.

Be Blessed and Be a Blessing!
Mike

A Rare Breed...

I take my mom to dialysis at 4:45 three times a week. I drop her off then I head to the Starbucks that is in the same shopping center. I was noticing today (maybe because I actually slept last night and am more lucid than normal) that the barristas are a rare breed. Not all of them but just the ones that open the store in the morning. They are definite morning people. They have energy, they have senses of humor and they have personality. I was shocked this morning, because a couple of them actually made me smile before 9am--a feat almost unheard of. I walked in to the store this morning hearing one of them say he grew up a "poor black child." Of course it was funny because he is a white guy. When I was a manager for the largest retailer in the world my associates knew not to talk to me about anything that was not a pressing matter until at least 9am or 2 cups of coffee whatever came first. I take my hat off to the people that decide to make people their morning coffee and try to make them smile first thing in the morning. I take my hat off to my Starbucks barristas in Fullerton that make me smile 3 times a week.

Be Blessed and Be a Blessing!
Mike

Random Starbucks Thought...

I have been sitting here in Starbucks since about 5:10 this morning. I dropped my mom off at dialysis and will go pick her up in about 3 hours. As I sit here I am just thinking how good God is. It is amazing how much He loves us and How much mercy He has extended to us. If we allow Him to He will speak to us all day long if only we can be quiet enough to listen. He turns even the plainest events in my daily routine into lessons for me. He truly meets me exactly where I am at each day. He is amazing!

Be Blessesd and Be a Blessing!
Mike

Discipleship Rant

I am learning more and more that discipleship is far deeper than I could ever have imagined. Upon the discovery of that I have decided that I feel robbed of all the good that the search for true discipleship has provided me. Robbed not in the sense that it is unattainable, but in the sense that it was never shown to me or taught to me earlier in life. We were always taught that the basis of a significant discipleship relationship with God was based in scripture reading and prayer. If that was all that it took for a person to be a disciple of Christ then there are more disciples of Christ than we know. But that is not it. Simply reading scripture cant get me any closer to being a disciple of Christ than reading a history text book. We have all these daily reading plans that help us read the bible through completely in a given amount of time, and they do really nothing for us spiritually. We may earn a gold star from ourselves and be able to say in conversation that we have read the entire Bible x amount of times, but how much closer to Christ and the way of life He taught His original disciples did we become in the process. I think a person would be better off spending time reading a verse of scripture and meditating on it for a long period time, committing it to memory and then finding ways to apply it to their life and actually becoming the living version of that scripture. Could you imagine what our homes, churches, and world would look like if we had people that truly embodied passages of scripture like the Beatitudes? How amazing would that be? I am not saying the scripture reading is pointless, because we need to be filled with the Word all time; I just believe that we should be looking for quality and not quantity. We should be looking to have a means of calling scripture to our minds at any given instant so we can keep the word of God constantly at the forefront of our minds. If I read the bible through in an entire year what have I retained as compared to me picking a passage of scripture to memorize and meditate on for a week or a month? How likely am I to be able to apply a scripture to my life and become a living embodiment of it if I read it once in a period of a year. I would definitely argue that the discipleship process is a process that requires discipline, but I would also argue that those disciplines that we have been taught in terms of discipleship need to be reevaluated in terms of the benefit they are providing to the disciple and the actual success they have had in terms of helping a person reach a closer relationship with Christ.

Lost Connection

Sometime in the last week I have lost the connection between my mind and my hands. I have had a lot of thoughts that I thought I would like to write down here on my blog but I just couldn't muster up the energy or motivation to crack open my computer. I write here not because I care about a readership or "link love"; I write here because I have always enjoyed going back and reading what I was thinking about or feeling on a particular day. It is kind of a measurement of growth (or sometimes non growth) for me. I wanted to have something that I could go back and measure my life with. There has just been something holding me back lately and I quite frankly it is a little irritating now. I have found myself becoming short with people and allowing my thoughts to run from me and get into a whole lot of trouble before I can reign them back into the submission of Christ. I would like to attribute it to a breakthrough that I am gonna experience soon and the enemy is trying to discourage me from pressing into it. I am not really sure. There is a lot going on in my life, but not too much that should have me feeling nasty. I am most definitely not the only one that goes through something like this, I would love to know what people do themselves to get out of slumps. You never know what people go through unless you ask and most of the time you would never even imagine half of the stuff they are going through.

President's Prayer

Today in history was the landing on the beaches of Normandie, June 6, 1944. This was FDR's address to the people of the United States. He led the nation in a prayer for the troops. Here is a video with the prayer as a soundtrack.



This is a president that had the heart of the nation and focused his heart on speaking to God. From what it appears he doesn't use his religion as a publicity or approval ratings attracter. He is not also afraid of his religion and not afraid to practice it in front of the country. There is so much that the president now could learn from this man. I don't want to be political at all, but I could not help but draw the comparison between the two and the tempestuous times they both served in.

Be a Blessed and Be a Blessing.
Mike

Sad Songs...

Spinner.com just put out a list of the 25 saddest songs ever. I knew some of them, but only a couple would I say are sad enough to move a stoic rock like myself.

Number 9--Martina McBride's Concrete Angel


Number 8--Luther Vandross' Dance With My Father



And my pick for the saddest song-Wynonna's Is It Over Yet

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Be Blessed and Be a Blessing!
Mike