New Car Smell of Faith

I have always believed that there was more to being a follower of Christ than just saying a cute little prayer. It has been an annoying presence in my life to think that the church has failed new Christians in huge ways by not telling them of sacrifice and service. We promise them that their lives will be changed, but often times it is not the immediate change that they were expecting. They get through the honeymoon period of salvation where they tell all their friends and family that they are saved and how their lives are changed and then that feeling ends. The salvation buzz wears off and they realize that the changes they were expecting to see haven't happened yet and the miracles they were waiting on haven't manifested themselves yet. Brian Jones in his book Second Guessing God says that for him when he started having doubts it was like the new car smell wore off on his faith.

By the third page of his book I knew I had found a new favorite author. The first of the best passages in the book (and there are many) comes from a conversation between him and one of his mentors.

Brian: "My faith in God right now is like a walk on the beach. Ive taken off my shoes, and as i stand at the water's edge, the tide has started to roll across my feet. It feels wonderful. Up to this point my spiritual journey had been incredible, but in the last six months doubt has begun to paralyze me. It's like when the water goes back out to the ocean. It is washing away the sand underneath me, and my feet keep sinking lower and lower and lower. If this keeps up, there wont be anything left to stand on."

Mentor: "Brian, I have stood where you're standing. Ive felt the water cascade across my feet. I know how wonderful it feels. But Ive also had the water go back out to sea. I've felt the sand get washed out from underneath my feet...When the last grain of sand is finally gone, you're going to discover that you're standing on a rock."

That is awesome. First to know that we don't go through things that others around us haven't been through. Second to know that as deep as the sand around us might seem, we have a foundation that we have built our house and our faith on. When it seems like we are sinking and have no hope left we will hit our rock and that will keep us from sinking any further. Sometimes I think those rough times hit our lives because we need to get back to the basics of our faith and our walk with Christ. those times usually help us get closer to Him and reinforce the faith that helped us start our walk with Him to begin with.

Be Blessed and Be a Blessing

Traveling Light and Second Guessing God

I have one go to book that I have read over and over again, and with each time I complete it it ministers something new to my heart. That book is Traveling Light by Max Lucado. This book seems to have something encouraging to say on just about every issue of life I have encountered. Lucado spills biblical truths in a true storyteller's fashion. I absoultely, whole heartedly recommend this book to anyone who needs a little encouragement and a some relief from the baggage of life.

I have asked myself to read much more than I have in the past and one of the books I picked up was Second Guessing God by Brian Jones. I have been through the low places in my walk with God, where He seems so far away and so quiet. It is almost as if I am walking alone and have been forgotten by the One who said He would never leave me or forsake me. But to say that or to confess that to anyone let alone myself seems to be admitting that my faith is not solid and I am not the big spritual giant I want to be. While I don't think anyone except God could ever answer why we go through the things we go through here on this earth, Brian Jones takes a great stab at it, joining personal anecdotes with quotes from spiritual giants and of course the Bible. His writing is easy to follow and after looking at my copy of the book I can see he leaves a lot to be reconsidered after you read through it the first time (as my copy is all marked up). I reccommend this book to anyone who is going through those low times yourself. Not becaause it has all of the answers but because it humanizes and normalizes what you are going through, therefore making it easier to understand and to deal with.

Be Blessed and Be a Blessing!

Mike

Books, Their Covers, Photoshop and a Spiritual Application

I don’t use Photoshop or any of the other big photo editors. I have always thought that a photo should look exactly the way the original subject looked when you shot it. I saw something on YouTube yesterday that kind of freaked me out. It showed a photo from the beginning of the shoot to the end where the model ended up on the billboard. They changed her facial structure, eye color and all sorts of things about her. It was truly interesting to see that a person can make somebody look pretty much any way they want to. I have always heard that you should not judge a book by its cover—but I still do. I mean if the publisher can’t get you interested in the cover how can they intrigue you enough to picking up the book to read it? People are another story. There are some people who attract you because of the way that they look and when you start to talk to them you realize that is the extent of the attraction. Others don’t attract you at all through the eyes yet they captivate you with what is pouring out of them in terms of words and personality. I think the second group of people has been the ones that have drawn me in the most. They have been the ones that have the most into my life. As I took some more time and thought about the whole Photoshop video I saw, I began to think about how we all do this to a certain extent with ourselves in our daily lives. We try and change the way that we look or the way that we seem to those who are around us. We try to fix ourselves to be more appealing or we alter ourselves in ways in hopes of hiding our flaws. We try to represent ourselves in ways that are not true to who we really are. If we are not happy with who we really then I think we need to look inside of ourselves to see how we can reconcile who we are and how we feel about ourselves. If we are looking to change ourselves to be more appealing to others around us then I think we need to ask ourselves why these other people are so important to us that we would want to be something we are not for them. This has been something that I have struggled with my entire life. Never feeling good enough. Never feeling cool enough. Always looking for the next trend I could adopt as my own. I am working on this and have been for quite some time. I am thankful and remind myself that no matter how much I try to Photoshop my image, God isn’t fooled. He looks on the inside. He sees my heart. There is no using Photoshop there, that is constant and is only changed by filling with the Love of Christ or the lack of doing so.

Thriller...The Prison Remake

I have nothing against a person being punished for crime. I won't mention my views on capital punishment or anything of the like. I do however believe there is such a thing a s cruel and unusual punishment. I don't think it has anything to do with Arizona's Tent City, or revived chain gangs. I don't think that it has anything to do with making the inmates wearing pink jumpsuits or pink underwear. I found the definition of cruel and unusual punishment abroad in the Philippines. There is a prison in Cebu that has taken cruel and unusual to the cruelest and most unusual levels. They have made their inmates learn the dance moves to Michael Jackson's Thriller. I think the UN or Red Cross should step in immediately. Take a look:




The problem isn't the Thriller video by itself, they also made them choreograph routines to the music from Sister Act--now that is a crime against humanity!

Be Blessed and Be a Blessing!
Mike

Quotable Quotes--Seth Godin , The Dip

"Persistent people are able to visualize the idea of light at the end of the tunnel when others can't see it. At the same time, the smartest people are realistic about not imagining light when there isn't any."--Seth Godin, The Dip

There have been times in my life when I wanted to make a name for myself and thought that I had the perfect idea or project that would help me do just that. I focused most of my time and my energy on the creation and implementation of that idea. Not only that I would invest the time and energies of the people that I had working for me on my pet project. When it became even possible that the idea wasn't going to be successful, I focused more of my energy and time and more of my resources (human and otherwise) on the success of my great idea. I had Wizard of Oz syndrome--Pay no mind to what's behind the curtain. I tried to force myself and those who were working on the project to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Putting a spin on a slowly or rapidly failing idea was a lot easier than admitting that it was a failure. In the process I wasted (squandered really) my time and energy, and that of the people I had working on the project, on a project that would have been better being sent out to pasture with the other well intentioned but unsuccessful ideas. It would have been better to accept the idea as a failure and move on to the next one. How can I apply this to the spiritual life?

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

Quotable Quotes--Seth Godin , The Dip

"Just about everything you learned in school about life is wrong, but the wrongest thing might very well be this: Being well rounded is the secret to success." --Seth Godin, The Dip

One of the biggest points that I have taken away from this book is mediocrity is not okay. Yet that is what most of us choose when we make the decision to know something about everything or at least a lot of things. We never perfect our knowledge in one area and become an expert on the subject. Experts are scarce. We need to focus on greatness and narrow our scope of knowledge and skill a little. Well roundedness is not as good when you have the opportunity to have expertise.

Be Blessed and Be a Blessing.
Mike

Love and Hate

I have heard over and over again the phrase of "Love the sinner and hate the sin." Most of the time it is used in the context of a group that the church has done its best to keep at its periphery for years and is now realizing that that mode of action has been wrong and now want to incorporate that group. Again most of the time I have seen it used specifically when a writer has been talking about the gay sector of society. For so long this group has been the outcasts of the church and not made to feel very welcome in the sanctuaries of God's House. Now many churches are "turning a blind eye" to the very the things that kept these people segregated from the fellowship of the house of God with the covering of saying that we need to love the sinner and hate the sin. I have looked and looked but I cannot find that approach or method of evangelizing in the Bible anywhere. Maybe I am not seeing it or am reading something out of context, but I cannot find that anywhere in the Bible. I do see the first part of that though. Love. Love was at the very foundation of what Jesus spent His time in ministry teaching. He actively loved the people in society that society itself had deemed unworthy of love. In fact the fact that Jesus was even here on earth walking with men is a sign of just how much He loved us. Nowhere can I find where He told someone I love you but hate what you do or hate the sin that has you tripped up. He went from town to town teaching and being moved by the love He felt for people and the compassion that He had on their condition of life (spiritual ans physical). Love. Its that simple. Its what He taught and its how He lived. Love the sinner, they don't have to know that you hate their actions. What they do is a part of them. You can't tell someone you love them, pass judgement on their actions and then expect them to believe you love them. Love, the real kind of love that we are shown in Jesus' teachings and actions will speak louder than any word we can ever speak and will show the ones we are loving the truth faster than any sermon we could ever preach.

Be Blessed and Be a Blessing!
Mike

Quotable Quotes

I am reading The Dip by Seth Godin. This has come highly recommended to me and has gotten some great reviews. It is also very, very easy reading. Here's a great quote from the book:

"The problem with infinity is that there's too much of it." --Seth Godin

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