Guidance

When I meditated on the word Guidance,
I kept seeing "dance" at the end of the word.
I remember reading that doing God's will is a lot like dancing.
When two people try to lead, nothing feels right.
The movement doesn't flow with the music,
and everything is quite uncomfortable and jerky.
When one person realizes that, and lets the other lead,
both bodies begin to flow with the music.
One gives gentle cues, perhaps with a nudge to the back
or by pressing lightly in one direction or another.
It's as if two become one body, moving beautifully.
The dance takes surrender, willingness,
and attentiveness from one person
and gentle guidance and skill from the other.
My eyes drew back to the word Guidance.
When I saw "G": I thought of God, followed by "u" and "i".
"God, "u" and "i" dance."
God, you, and I dance.
As I lowered my head, I became willing to trust
that I would get guidance about my life.
Once again, I became willing to let God lead.
My prayer for you today is that God's blessings
and mercies are upon you on this day and everyday.
May you abide in God, as God abides in you.
Dance together with God, trusting God to lead
and to guide you through each season of your life.
and I hope you DANCE.
(Anonymous Email)

What God is teaching me through Pastor Tim Shull

One of the books of the Old Testament that I have not spent much time reading is the book of Ezekiel. This past Sunday's message (click here to listen) was taken from Ezekiel 47:1-12.

• Water is a powerful symbol of the Blessings of God.
• In verses 3-5, the writer uses different water levels to symbolize our different levels of trust in God: ankle deep (mostly self showing), knee deep (prayer, but little else), waist deep (feeling the current now, but stll standing on our own two feet), and finally, too deep to stand (total trust in God to take us where He wants us to go).
• The symbol of the trees: the closer our proximity to the River the more we grow and the more fruit we bear. There is nothing but wilderness and desert away from the River.

Thank you Pastor Tim for another great message!

Love Them Anyway

People are unreasonable, illogical, & self-centered.
Love them anyway!

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Do good anyway!

If you are successful, you will win false friends & true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway!

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway!

The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest people with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway!

People favor underdogs, but follow only the top dogs.
Fight for the underdog anyway!

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway!

People really need help, but may attack you if you help them.
Help people anyway!

Give the world the best you've got, and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you've got anyway!

The above poem was taken from Victory Over the Darkness by Neil T. Anderson so I couldn't change the wording, but I would have substituted God for the world in the last verse like this:

Give God the best you've got, and you'll get kicked in the teeth by the world.
Give God the best you've got anyway!!

Fingerprints

Ok, I will admit it...I have never blogged before. As a matter of fact, I've never even had the slightest inclination to even think about blogging. But I have thought, "Dude, I'd really like to share with others what God is sharing with me, without coming across as an anoying Bible thumper that talks too much." So here we are. This way if you want to read it you can, and if you don't you don't...and either way you go on thinking I'm a Bible fanatic who talks to much, which I am. And I love it!

As Scott listens to his pod I do my Bible studies and try to fill the insatiable thirst for God's Word (and anything about it) that He has blessed me with. This thirst has become an incredible catalyst behind my realtionship with Jesus that made the relationship grow to levels that I never thought possible. I think it's incredible that He can give us a desire or a hunger for something that He knows will only bring us closer to Him. And He does all this on purpose. So cool.

So today I want to share what I thought was one (of many) highlight of this weeks Jesus the One and Only study by Beth Moore: Fingerprints. God sends signs to us, and He has done it all throughout history. The one our study focuses on is the sign given to the shepherds so that they would know Jesus was here. The Greek word for sign is semeion which means finger-marks of God.

A sign is a Fingerprint of God, given not so that we will be consumed by the sign itself but by the invisible hand that left the visible print.

That makes so many beautiful pictures in my mind, hope it will do the same for you.

What God is teaching me through Rob Bell

Gnats & Camels: In Matthew 23, Jesus spends an entire chapter blasting the religious leaders (Pharisees) about their fanatical attention to detail on the smallest of matters in the Levitical laws of cleanliness, tithing, etc. and their subsequent lack of attention to the things that matter. In verse 23, He talks about their tithing from the "harvest" in their herb gardens. If anyone has seen a garden of this type, even large ones will produce a very small amount. Then, Jesus points out that they have "neglected the more important matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness". Rob goes into the Hebrew and Greek meanings of these three words, and then gives some excellent scriptural examples of each. Jesus goes on to tell them that they "should have practiced the former without neglecting the latter".

Here is where it gets funny. First, some background: these Pharisees are so anal about the law that they actually strain their wine into their cups to prevent flying insects (gnats) from accidentally getting eaten (see Leviticus 11:20), which would make them unclean. Camels also fall into the category of unclean animals (v.26). So... Jesus accuses the Pharisees of "straining the gnat while swallowing a camel." In other words, they are so careful not commit a sin violating the law, they commit sins of omission by ignoring the injustices around them like the orphan, the widow, and all the other things they walk by without ever noticing (See the Parable of the Good Samaritan). Here's where the funny part comes in. Jesus would have been speaking in Aramaic to these Pharisees. The Aramaic word for gnat is pronounced "lamla", and the Aramaic word for camel is pronounced "gamla". So Jesus used a play on words and a rhyme to insult them. When I heard that, I thought it was encouraging that even Jesus can make a point with a joke.

In each of the messages I have listened to by Rob Bell, he uses the original words and their in-depth meanings to draw out more than I could ever get studying the Bible in english alone.

Podcasts, & why I love them

As you can see from the list of recommended podcasts to the left, I listen to a lot of them. For those who don't know, I spend hours upon hours in a car as part of my job in sales, so that is what I choose to do with my driving time. I used to listen to books on tape/CD from the library, which was and is a great way to drive. Then my beautiful wife gave me XM Radio as another option, which also excellent, with all the music genres, news & sports radio, etc.

Then we got each other iPods for our anniversary. Shortly after that I discovered "podcasts". The fact that they are free and easy to subsribe to makes it even more awesome. Then I found all of my favorite Pastors' messages were available for me to listen to. God is good!!