This morning after my morning run, I sat down and read Isaiah 58 in the Message Bible. What a smack between the eyes!

God was telling the people quite a few things about the way they had been fasting. I could totally take this scripture to mean in any area of our life as well. Here is the gyst in a condensed version. I had really nothing to add to it, the chapter spoke SO LOUDLY all by itself!

——

*We’re so busy, busy, busy with worship and studying about God, and we look right on the outside, but at the same time we complain.
*We ask God why He doesn’t notice all the good we ARE doing

God says:

The point of your fasting days is totally off. You appear to do right, but then you fight and bicker. You show off your “humility.” I’m not interested in that kind of fasting.

Why don’t you:

*Break the chains of injustice
*Get rid of exploitation in the workplace
*Free the oppressed
*Cancel debts
*Share your food with the hungry
*Invite homeless into your homes
*Clothe the ones who are cold
*BEING AVAILABLE TO YOUR OWN FAMILIES

Do this, and your lives will turn around, your righteousness will pave the way.

When you pray, God WILL answer.

You ask for help, and I’ll say ‘Here I am.’

*Stop with unfair practices
*Stop blaming victims
*Quit gossiping about OTHER PEOPLE’S SINS

Start giving yourselves down and out, and your life will begin to glow in darkness. I will always show you where to go.

You’ll use the old rubble of your past to build anew. New Foundations will be built from your past.

If you live the Sabbath, and REST (honor it by refusing ‘business as usual’, making money, running here and there), then you can truly enjoy God.

Steven Furtick sure isn’t afraid to Talk About It

This is 40 minutes worth your time.

http://www.elevationchurch.org/mediaPlayer.php?sermon=170

Okay this positioning thing is going through my mind quite a bit. On the tail of the last blog post - positioning yourself somewhere positive….I think that we need to position ourselves small.

If you are anything like me, you want your words to be heard by many. You see others that you aspire to be like….who are in fronts of hundreds, maybe even thousands and people listening to the words that God gives them. You look at them and think, wow….if I could be there.

We try to position ourselves in the right places….to network, meet the right people, say the right things to get where we think we need to go. We are trying to position ourselves big.

Back in my younger days, my insight wasn’t always so clear. I remember getting to go away to a big Bible college where I got the opportunity to play piano for the choir…and go on to play at a few big conferences which had around 10,000 people. I thought I had arrived….I had positioned myself BIG. I came home to my local home church and marched right up to my pastor’s wife and blurted out, “Hey guess what I got to do…” and proceeded to announce all the BIG things I had landed. I sure sounded like a fool.

She said, “Oh wow, well I get to stay here and play” basically meaning that where she was, was just fine with her and that was her place.

I felt SO stupid. Those words echo in my ear to this day. Where we might think is small, could be right where God wants us. It doesn’t matter how MANY are influenced by us or what God does through us, it’s WHO and at WHAT time.

Another example more recent is a dear friend of mine who led an exercising small group (yes you heard right) here at our church. The exercise group turned into way more than ladies exercising together, but times of bonding, crying, spilling their guts, etc. She said sometimes there would be a lot, and sometimes there would be one. But she didn’t focus on the 1-person days as a flop…and she wasn’t getting the numbers she wanted, but that God meant on that particular day, that one person was the RIGHT person to be there at that time.

Start positioning yourself small. This blog might only get read by two people. But if God should let it, it will be the right two people…who then can influence ten, then a hundred, then a thousand.

God calls some to what appears to be greatness in our eyes, and God calls some to what may appear to be smallness in our eyes. The thing is, we are NOT God….so what looks small to us is very God-sized and large in God’s mind.

So position yourself small…and who knows….”Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” Matthew 25:23 KJV

I just had a huge “pump-you-up” weekend. I mean Arnold Schwarzenegger pump you up…..I am still flying high. We just had Jeremy Foster come in and give our leaders some inspiration to motivate us to do something great.

That same weekend, I had someone say, “I didn’t realize how dry I had become until this weekend. It’s kind of like the frog that gets boiled because he doesn’t know how hot the water is becoming…it happened so gradually.”

I myself had realized how excited I was about my ministry now that I had positioned myself in the place of learning from someone so enthusiastic and encouraging me to become better. What had happened? How had I become so cold? I believe it’s all in the positioning.

We try our best to be positive, but no man is an island. If we don’t put ourselves around others who will uplift us, then the negative ones will surely drain us dry. Jeremy even told us that we needed to surround ourselves with the right people.

Our human nature wants to be lazy. It wants to be around people who are complaining, because we want to complain. It’s easier to be around the loathers….because there are so many of them.

The complainers want to approach us giddy, happy, positive people…because maybe they think we’ll give them what they want…or we can be an earth mover and shaker. But it drains us dry. And the crazy part is it happens so gradually, we never even know it.

Clear your life out for a week or so. Get into God’s word, pump yourself up….position yourself around positive people. Then when the negative comes, it becomes so clear. That same weekend, someone was like “blah blah blah, complain complain complain….” and I was like (in my mind) ARE YOU SERIOUS?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! It was such a shock to hear it - because I had been positioned so positive for the entire weekend, the negative was such a shock to my system.

Don’t become like the frog and let negativity become your demise.

Position yourself positive.

Many times, I have these strong ideas for blog posts, but then get busy and forget. This one just won’t go away, however.

I think sometimes in life, we come across things that seem like a roadblock in our way. Something we have a passion for, a desire for, something we would give our right arm to do. But either something or someone stops us. This is so disheartening…and this is where most of us completely fail. We give up, and we get BITTER. Or, some of us run away and try to do our great passion in another place - some of us succeed, and some of us fail.

No matter which you are, there is a great lesson to be learned in the place of the roadblock….and that is what we do with it. I am close to many people, and if I spoke of the exact situation in my life, I am afraid too many would know what it is, so I have to mask what I say in a way. But know, I know this just as well as anyone else. The feeling of frustration, anger, “WHY,” when you hit this wall and feel like you cannot do what you were born to do.

God knows what He is doing. My greatest lesson was not in the fact I was able to live out this passion or not, but how I responded when I wasn’t able to do what it is that I wanted to do at the very moment I wanted to do it.

Just recently, things have come full circle. The place in my life where I lacked opportunity, received rejection, and became wounded is the exact place that has now come to me for direction. Say what?! Talk about humbling. I chuckle here as I write. Had I responded in a wrong way at the time, would have totally shut the door of opportunity that is now being created to bridge a very large gap which is full of things I’d rather forget.

God is using this particular place to not only heal my own regrets, but to essentially do more in that previous place then I could have ever done myself. It can only be God!

So the point of this post is that you can never see the forest for the trees. You will NEVER completely understand the hold up in your life at the present moment. There IS a reason….there IS a lesson to be learned. Stop looking at what you cannot do, or what you cannot reach, and ask the reverberating question, “WHY?!” Look at you, look at your character, your motive, your RESPONSE. That is the key.

And it probably will come full circle to you too.

Way of Life is totally facelifting it’s Community Groups coming this summer 09. With that, we are putting out a catalog, but we have a small problem. We don’t have a name for it.

That’s where you come in!

We are looking for help in naming this catalog, and the winner will be mentioned in the first publication printed! (you will be a superstar).

Comment below….or find the Way of Life Community group on Facebook and comment there!!

Examples:

Atlas (National Community Church)
Waypoint
Compass
Threads

We would love our catalog theme to go hand in hand with our core values at WOL (Live. Love. Be)….visit us at www.mywayoflife.org

Okay so look….I’ve NEVER been to an Episcopal church, a Catholic church, or even a Lutheran church. I think the farthest away from my own denomination I’ve traveled has been Methodist. Today knocked my socks off.

Our worship team at Way of Life had the rare but awesome opportunity to go be a part of an ordination of a priest at St Martins in the Field Episcopal Church. How did we get this “gig?” A friend of ours actually works there, and the priest being ordained had requested a modern praise and worship band to come in.

What an experience! I even find it hard to come up with words to describe what happened today, but it was the oddest pair you’d ever put together, but the greatest time of worship! My first and only experience of Episcopalians was that of a people of reverence and tradition. I felt kind of in awe as I sat in the pew and listened as the massive pipe organ sounded out across the sanctuary and the choir sang in perfect unison. One of the men had a long pole that must have been 12-15 feet long with all these streamers and ribbons of red on it. As the people sang the hymns, he waved the pole over the crowd and all these ribbons swished and waved all over the people. It was AMAZING….the red ribbons represented the spirit of God sweeping over the people.

Everyone there was dressed in red, which red was symbolic of the spirit…..we all even had red on!

As we went through the program, each denomination sang songs from their genre, and it was amazing to see the response of worship. I have to say I would have never expected to have modern worship in an Episcopal ordination, but the people really seemed to enjoy it and responded. God was definitely there….which shows He knows no denomination boundaries!! I saw many people with tears on their faces and they felt God in that place.

I know sometimes we just think we are the ones with all the answers and we are the ones who know how it’s to be done, what a wrong attitude. I learned many things today from my Episcopal brothers and sisters….a family atmosphere where everyone knew everyone, and were VERY accepting even of others who were very different from them (us!!). Also these people are desperate for the presence of God as well as are we. These people had such a reverence for the word of God in how they recite it, and even sing it. The symbolism is quite interesting to as everything has significant meaning and is done with such thoughtfulness.

I love it when people don’t even see the differences that may go between them, as vast and big as it may seem….but we are focused on the things that we have that are the SAME - our love for God and our desire to live for Him and have His presence in our lives.

I am changed after today

Thanks Russ Cripps for inspiring me to share our story of hope from just a week ago….

What brought us to the homeless shelter originally stemmed from our small group series where we’ve been discussing the story of Job and suffering. Through the last 7 weeks we’ve talked about suffering and as we ended we decided to step outside our own lives and stories and get into the lives and stories of others who are suffering at a difficult time of the year in the hopes we could have our minds put into perspective.

We arrived at the FFCAU Emergency One Shelter just as the residents were eating their dinner. I was the first to arrive and as I lugged in my guitar and my nervousness in interacting with these people, I saw they kind of sized me up to see what I was there to do. Perhaps some of them thought, ‘great another church group here….what are they going to do to help me?’ As they finished their meal that another church in the area had prepared for them, the rest of our group arrived ready to hopefully be a blessing to these people. We didn’t come with much of a game plan other than to play some games, talk with them, and end the evening with some worship choruses with an acoustic guitar.

It was a tough room at first. I got the feeling they probably were thinking what were we there to do? They shyed away from us, and many of them very strongly chose to not participate in the games. One lady said she’d been walking all day and she was exhausted. I felt kind of shallow and kind of just wanted to move on to something more comfortable. We kind of ditched the other plans we had and just put the chairs in a circle, got the guitar out, and passed out some of the words of the songs we were singing.

Those on the couches sat back and read the words as we sang. We sang songs that spoke about God being a defender of the weak, and comforting those in need. We sang about God being our shelter, our fortress….and we ended singing about how MUCH God loves us and that his grace being like an ocean…deeper than us. One by one I saw every person in that room moved to tears as God’s presence ushered in a glimmer of hope into their lives. One lady in tears spoke about how she has been nobody her entire life, and just now she can say she’s been clean for 2 months, and she’s feeling that there is hope. One man said he could feel the love of God in the room, and another said every word was like a prayer he would pray to God. Another lady who had refused to participate begged us to keep the words with her so she could read them again and again, and one by one they all asked if they could please keep the words to the songs. You would think you had handed them an item of gold as they were so happy when we said, “Of course you can keep them!” The one lady then told us all she loved us and was so thankful we came and sang these songs to them.

Just singing to them about the hope in Christ cracked through the dry deserts of their souls and touched a place that nothing else could. We walked away from there feeling like we didn’t have to bring food, gifts, money, clothes….it wasn’t what they wanted. I think if we had showed up with those things, they probably would have though we were like every other charity, just handing them what we think they needed and then walking back to our own lives. In reality, we walked in there with nothing but hope afraid it wasn’t enough, but it was the very thing that they wanted the most. Hope is something that can keep them warm on a cold night, hope is something that can comfort them when they are all alone, hope is something very tangible - because without it they are they are one minute away from mental breakdown, one needle prick away from an overdose, they are one gunshot away from suicide.

Thanks for letting me share our story. I’m afraid it’s not over though. I feel drawn to go back to that place…and now I feel like I don’t have to have an agenda, schedule, or load of giveaways, I can just take the one thing that God has already given me, the thing I am meant to give to others to point them back to Him - HOPE.

“God loves you….”

How often have we heard that in our lifetime? God is love, God loves you….Jesus loves you….probably more than we can count.

When does His love actually become real to us? I invite you to watch this video, and then continue this thought with me afterwards…

I have found something on this journey of mine. God’s love never became real to me until I realized how much I did not deserve it. It wasn’t until I was at my lowest point of brokeness and emptiness that His love swept over me and I truly understand what the “love of God” really was.

I felt that as I continue on in life, there comes points of emptiness and brokeness over and over and over again in my life. Why do these keep happening? Maybe you ask yourself the same question? Why are these tragedies happening to me? Why am I at rock bottom? Why is my back up against the wall, and the pressure is so thick on me I feel like I am going to lose my mind. Where do I go? What do I do?

Do you feel lost? Like you just have nothing anymore? Have you messed up one too many times? Feel like a failure?

It’s time to experience the love of God like never before. Just like Kim says in the video….God wants to encounter YOU. I love the line where she says “my afflictions eclipsed by glory….” God’s love is SOOOO deep, much deeper than you realize. So instead of getting caught up in your emptiness and loneliness, look up (usually the only place you can look) and totally experience His love.

Every valley you experience, use it as a time to get lost in the love of God. It’s time to believe it…experience it. Stop running from it. Let God capture you….in His love….

This past Sunday at church we all had a little card on our seats at church. On it said the words “Daniel Fast.” I flipped it over and on it was a call to participate for all the members of our community.

After much thought and consideration this week, I’ve decided my Daniel Fast is going to be from technology (as much as I can). I sat down and prayerfully considered a list of what this would mean to me. I’ve decided to fast the following for the next 21 days starting this Sunday, September 28…..

Personal Email
Text Messaging
TV
iPod
Blogging (this site!)
Social Network Sites like Myspace, Twitter, FaceBook, etc.
IMing or chatting

Soda
Desserts or anything sweet
2nd helpings

This is going to be extremely difficult for me. Most of you know how much I am on the computer every day, texting….and the like.

I hope to emerge from this a much different person, especially one more desperate for God. I think that we get addicted to this “noise” and by eliminating it hopefully I can hear the voice of God more clearly.

So friends…..I’ll see you on the other side!

Daniel 10:2-3
“In those days I, Daniel, was mourning three full weeks. I ate no pleasant food, no meat or wine came into my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks were fulfilled.”