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FIGHT FORWARD

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Have you ever been in a fight and felt like giving up? I’m not talking about a literal fight, but a fight for your peace of mind, or an inner struggle that challenged you?  The saying, “You don’t get what you want, you get what you fight for” was all I could think of as I made the decision to flip over on my back and start swimming toward my goal. I was halfway through my first half Ironman swim, and I was determined to not make the mistake of stopping and treading water when I got tired. No matter what happened, I would fight forward! It’s amazing the things we can accomplish when we are properly motivated. For me, my motivation was a shirt—the Ironman shirt that I would wear only if I completed the event. When I needed motivation to keep going, I just had to think about that shirt, unwearable forbidden fruit, unless I finished! I would get a surge of adrenaline every time I remembered what I was fighting for. By making the choice to fight forward, continually moving in the di
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PICK YOUR PAIN

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Pick your pain” is something I say to myself every day. On this side of eternity, we all suffer from some form of pain, exercise induced or non-exercise induced. For me, the aching feet and sore muscles after a long run are a small price to pay for the health benefits gained from exercising.
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He Waits for You

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The King waits for you. He holds His plans for you in His hands. He tenderly speaks to you, but He will not push you out of complacency. Your God, the lover of your soul, waits for you to want Him. We will not find our souls panting feverishly for anything other than ourselves in a rushed fifteen-minute “quiet time,” in a frantic completion of our group studies, or in a prayer life consisting of our own concerns and the concerns of the ones we cherish. The glorious enlightenment experienced by those whose souls pant for God (the kind that illuminated the very face of Moses) resulted from the discovery that God does not have to conform to our fractured understandings resulting from our limited engagement. In the movie  Galaxy Quest , Tim Allen plays an actor in a TV series mimicking our  Star Trek . Allen portrays a character similar to Captain Kirk. The movie opens with Allen and his co-stars attending a Galaxy Quest convention crowded with people dressed in costumes associated
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Is God Ever Going to Act?

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While Jeroboam heard God’s plan for his life, he seemed to want to help Him accomplish the plan  right then , putting his cart before his horse. I know someone else who does that too:  me . I know all too well how this works: I think I have received a specific word…so I begin working all the angles to bring it to pass. Loving God with our whole hearts requires having patience to wait for God to move. We submit to His timing. Scripture contains the memo in 2 Peter 3:9 I always miss: Although it feels like He’s late, God is always on time. The choice to rebel against God’s timing is a heart issue. We want God’s promise now. We fear that if we wait we might miss the blessing, or maybe this great thing will never happen. We think,  I’d better act now, before it’s too late . The truth is, just as for Barak, our fear of forfeiting our blessing while we wait on God’s timing is misplaced. God will not give your hero-making moment to another unless you refuse to believe Him. Even then
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The Light in the Dark Times

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Did Jesus suffer? Was he sometimes lonely? Was he tempted to be discouraged? Was he misunderstood, maligned, and criticized unjustly?  Of course! None of us are exempt from suffering, loneliness, discouragement, or unjust criticism, because God is developing within us the character of Christ, and, in order to do this, he must take us through all of the circumstances in life through which he took Christ.  Does this mean God causes tragedies? No. God is good, and he will not cause evil or do evil. But God can use dark and stressful times for good. He'll use them to teach us to trust him, to show us how to help others, and to draw us closer to other believers. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 4:8b-9, “We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead” (NLT).  So, what should you do when you’re go
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Prepare Your Heart for Good Reception

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Let’s say you’re a gardener. You’ve learned that you can take the exact same seed and plant it in three different locations and get three different results. In one spot, you’ll get giant tomatoes. In another, you’ll get small tomatoes. And in a third, you’ll get nothing. What’s the difference? It’s not the seed; it’s the soil. The soil must be prepared for the seed.  The same is true when you hear God’s Word. It’s why you can take two people to church, set them side-by-side, and one will walk out thinking God really spoke to him and the other won’t get anything out of the service. The heart of one person was prepared; the other’s heart wasn’t. Your heart has to be prepared for the Word. If you get up late, have trouble finding a parking spot, and are irritated as you rush into church, you’re probably not going to hear God’s voice! You’re not in a receptive mood.  The Bible says, “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not
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How can I know God and his will for my life?

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How do we know God? How do we understand and see the world we live in? How do we grasp where we came from and why we are here? How do we know where this story is ultimately heading? The answer is profound—God reveals himself and his grand plan to us. Our Role is to listen and believe. The Bible repeatedly records that God communicated to his people at specific times with specific messages. In some cases, such as with Moses at the burning bush, he spoke audibly. In other instances he spoke through dreams or visions or less direct impressions. But the words of the Lord were always given to his people to reveal his plan for them and for all humanity. God revealed his story because he loves us. The Lord spoke mostly through prophets in the Old Testament and through Jesus and the apostles in the New Testament. Throughout the Bible the writers warned readers that they should not add or take away from God’s Word. God has given and preserved his Word for us so we can rely on it to gu
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