Thoughts

The Mission Field... Here and Now

Andrew — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 16:39:55 +0000

I woke up early the other morning and whenever that happens, I hear God speak something so simple to me. That morning the thought of why many people choose to reject God popped into my head. This came out of nowhere... weird. And my half-awake brain immediately knew the answer: a relationship with God, when seen from a distance, is just about a bunch of hypocritical, sanctimonious do-gooders. They see the Church as a group of judgmental people who project their own insecurities onto others. But if we could only get these people, who do not know God, into a church, they would see this isn't the case. Anything seen from a distance does not accurately illustrate the depth and reality of what you are seeing. Put simply, if I did not feel God's Holy Spirit inside of me, I would have walked away a long time ago. What I have is so real. And I have such an awakened passion to reach these people "on the outside".

The mission field is now,
the mission field is here.

- Andrew

God, Me and the Bear

Andrew — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 20:59:17 +0000

I was hiking the other day down a mountain and heard some loud leaves rustling to my right. By the weight of what was walking on the leaves, I knew what it was. I looked over out of the corner of my eye to see a giant black bear approximately 50 feet away. He saw me about the time that I saw him. I'll never forget that face -- the look in his deep black eyes. I heard another bear behind him. Only once before have I seen a bear and that was driving down the interstate. I proceeded to freak out. I had walked one mile down the two mile trail and hadn't seen anyone in the past hour. I was alone, in the middle of nowhere and very, very vulnerable. I walked past the bear, staying on the trail and just kept walking. Never run, bears will chase you out of curiosity if nothing else. I didn't turn around because I knew I could do nothing. If the bear attacked me, I would rather not know in advance. I began praying. I have rarely prayed so intensely in my life before. Questions of destiny and fate popped into my head. I even asked myself "is God real?".

The answer was unequivocally, yes. I prayed God protect me, keep me safe, keep me safe. I remembered when God shut the mouths of the lions when Daniel was with them. I remembered the strong feeling that God has plans for my life -- a purpose that I have yet to complete. The scariest part was the first time I turned around a few hundred feet down the trail. I didn't know if he was 10 feet behind me or 100 feet. But thankfully, he didn't follow me... that I knew of. I kept praying. Through this praying, I began to feel a sense of peace. Not full-on, I'm going to waltz out of here, peace, but more of a I'm not going to die today peace. I tried to tell myself that these bears see hikers all the time and wouldn't attack, but that didn't give me peace. Only God's grace gave me peace.

I kept walking... the longest walk of my life. A half-mile down the road I look down and see fresh bear tracks in the mud. I'm not out of here yet! I started a new cycle of praying my heart out. I kept walking and heard someone talking far behind me. It was a couple who was walking a ways behind me the entire time, but I didn't realize it. They saw the bear too and said it was easily 7' tall. They didn't know if anything happened to me, hiking by myself (like an idiot) since they didn't hear me for a while. Walking the last little bit of the trail with them put my heart at ease. At least I wasn't alone anymore. Before I knew it we were at the end of the trail and I was still alive.

Below is a blurry picture I snapped when I walked by the bear. You can see him in the bottom left. All I could think of was, if I live or die today, this is going to be an important picture.

God delivered me, plain and simple. Sure, I wouldn't want to experience that again, but seeing God come through for me and protecting me from a bear that was easily 3-5 times my size and weight, I feel like I can trust Him much more. I have no doubt He heard my prayers that day and kept that bear away from me.

Andrew

A Weird Way of Managing Your Time

Andrew — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 19:29:26 +0000

I'm reading Craig Groeschel's Weird: Because Normal Isn't Working and usually wait until I've finished the book to write anything about it. But woah, this section on time management slapped me in the face. Craig talks about all the ways Christians are called to be weird and different from everyone else. One section of his book deals exclusively with time management. What an odd thing to talk about, right?

Having Enough

When you kill time, remember that it has no resurrection.

- A.W. Tozer

We have the bad habit of over scheduling ourselves. We think that we can be everything to everyone. But this over-scheduling takes time away from completing the things hat God has called us. I love Craig's statement that you have enough time to do everything that God wants you to do. In 2 Peter 1:3, Peter tells us that God has given us all things to live a godly life... and that includes time. What God has called you to complete, He has given you enough time to complete it. What an incredible way of looking at it! So take a survey of what is important to God (I would venture to stay that this includes building His Kingdom, building our families, and investing in others) and allocate enough time for it. All the other stuff can get done when it gets done. What's most important is often not what seems most urgent. And don't get me started on how our culture tends to look down on people who don't produce visible results by being busy. We equate busyness with importance and that couldn't be further from the truth. When we follow God, we're about His business and not our busyness.

Being Present

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.
- Henry David Thoreau

This one hit home for me: being present. How many conversations have you had when your mind was millions of miles away? How many dinners have you eaten with friends and family, trying to carry a conversation while playing on your phone? Multitasking is killing the depth of our life's moments. I am the guiltiest of all on this subject. Always taking my iPhone or iPad with me in case I get bored with the conversation, I can exit the conversation and enter back into my world. I'm still there and that's good enough, right? But when I do this, I don't focus on the people I'm living with. I don't have the courtesy or notion to show (and genuinely have) interest in them. Wherever you are, be all there. Invest more energy into building deeper relationships instead of staying connected with shallow relationships online. And talking of being present in our relationships, ensure that you spend quality time with the Creator of the universe, the author and perfecter of your faith, so that all other things fall into place.

The Balance

You will never find time for anything. If you want time you must make it.
- Charles Buxton

The following is an excerpt from the book when Craig goes to see a therapist at the behest of his church's leadership. They were worried about him facing burnout; here is what his therapist said: The biggest reason that people live a "normal", overwhelmed, overly driven, unsustainable pace is because we don't have faith. We don't honestly believe that God is on His throne and that he can, and will, handle the details of our lives, that He wants what is best for us, and that His way of doing life is truly better. We're afraid that if we don't run nonstop and try everything this world has to offer, that we're going to miss out on something. We're afraid that we're going to miss that one thing that turns out to be the elusive piece of our puzzle that fills the void we feel so deeply. But nothing will. That sent chills down my spine -- I am guilty of this too. I'm impatient and have to spend each and every moment doing something to make me feel like I am living my life to the fullest. It's an addiction and I need to rest peacefully in God's grace that He is in control and has given me all the time that I need to do His Will.

Too many of us don't truly rest or enjoy the Sabbath. Knowing when and how to rest is knowing when and how to acknowledge our dependence on God. If I didn't take Sundays to go to church, to spend time with family, to read the Word, to listen to the Holy Spirit teach me as I write this blog, etc., then I would quickly find myself sucked into the black hole of me. Being caught up in what is going on in my world, my schedule, me, me, me. But when I take the Sabbath to enjoy who God is, I find myself focused on Him throughout the week. Just like my body needs sleep to keep moving, my soul needs time with God.

Conclusion

When we run around at a break-neck pace like everyone else, when we are too distracted to build deep relationships with the people we love, when we are too busy to spend time with our God, then something needs to change. We (I, more than anyone) need to realign our priorities so that they line up with God's. We need to say no to the urgent and yes to the important. We need to manage our time better and be present in all situations. This book is a wakeup call for me to live differently and since reading it, I have made more of an effort to build deeper relationships with friends and family, being present and not distracted, resting in God's presence as often as I can, and learning to say no. Doing this, I have begun to find a richer quality of life -- a more God-centric quality of life.

Andrew

In The Middle

Andrew — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 12:42:50 +0000

I was listening to Judah Smith preach a while back online and he hit on a topic that I don't think a lot of people like to focus on. We love to hear about the victories in struggles and the excitement of beginning a new journey; however, we never like to focus on the part in the middle, when nothing is happening.

In Mark 4:35-41, 5:1, and Mark 6:45-53 the disciples struggle crossing the Sea of Galilee. After much despair, Jesus calms the storm and they make it to the other side. This begs to question, how do you deal with being in the middle -- in the meantime? It can be as stressful as a storm or a as boring as a lull, but either way you're not where you want to be. We don't talk much about the meantime, because that doesn't make the headlines.

God is calling you (me too) to do something great -- your heart is pounding and your palms are sweating. But here to there can be years. There is value and significance in the meantime. We have the misconception that only the spiritually elite get through situations. We look to people who have had a breakthrough spiritually, relationally, or financially and compare ourselves to them. They must do more than I do, pray more than I do, fast more than I do, give more than I do. And after much frustration, we turn it into whoever knows the secret password. What combination of efforts must I do for God to break me through this leg of my journey? We treat God like a vending machine and this creates a shallow relationship with Him. We feel like we'll never be able to make it to where God has called us. But in Mark 6:52 we see that the disciples' hearts were hardened. Jesus took the hard hearted all the way across -- the disciples weren't praying, meditating, or at peace that they would make it to the other side. They were freaking out. So where does that leave you and me, the "not so super-spiritual"?

The key is staying in the boat. God wants to see the desire of your heart that He planted there in the first place. There will be days where behind you seems bright and before you seems dark, but stay on course. The longer you stay around Jesus, the more significant just staying around Him becomes. In Galations 6:9, Paul tells us not to grow weary because we'll reap a harvest in due season. But when is due season? I honestly don't know. But we know that God is in our boat and will never leave us nor forsake us.

I can't tell you how important this message is to me right now. I'm in the middle. One day I will start my own non-profit business to help people. I don't know who and I don't know how, but it will happen. And as of present, nothing has happened. I feel like I'm wasting time waiting and settling for a life short of my dreams. I needed to hear this message because I need to remember that God doesn't need me to hurry up His plan for my life and that I'm not in jeopardy of missing it because I'm not spiritual enough. I've found a new peace that God will lead me to where He has called and I will draw close to Him in the meantime.

- Andrew

Word Tree

Andrew — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 10:56:06 +0000

I created this piece in Photoshop after seeing the cover for Jon Foreman's Limbs and Branches album. It's a cool concept, that words take the place of leaves on a tree. The leaves that I chose are the 23rd Psalm.

Enjoy.

- Andrew

Black, White, and Shades of Grey

Andrew — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 12:32:27 +0000

I have to say one of the defining moments of reaching adulthood was realizing that things are often not black or white, but shades of grey. In terms of God, my childhood and teen years were filled with understanding God as predictable. Perhaps that's why I limited His power in my life to what could fit inside a shoebox. He had to fit boundaries that I had established in my mind with regards to how He should act in given situations and when He didn't, my faith crumbled. This misunderstanding of who God is has kept my faith in an immature state. When a baby fighting for its life succumbed to death. When missionaries are killed serving others. When a gunman killed 32 of my fellow classmates. Whenever these things happened, my faith hadn't quite prepared me with answers. A black and white God wouldn't let bad things happen to good people and wouldn't let evil prevail. This post isn't about "why do bad things happen to good people"; I hold steadfastly to Romans 8:28 with regards to this. This post is more of a diversion on how I've learned that you simply cannot predict God's actions.

@brittmerrick
Britt Merrick

God is faithful... Believe that. But He is not predictable... Know that.

Does that frighten you? Well, for a recovering control-freak like myself... yes! Have you ever noticed that predicting something and it occurring as you predicted doesn't really require faith? There is a level of certainty that it will occur. But when you can't predict events or how God intercedes in situations, you really must develop a deep trust in Him. You must know him. Predicting God limits how He can move in situations, in your eyes, and results in a paper-thin faith with no substance or weight. You restrict God to enacting His will in a situation to the boundaries that you define. And when God does not stay within those boundaries, you question if He is all-powerful or if your prayers are even heard. I can count multiple times where I have prayed intensely for God to resolve a situation and He didn't. Some of those situations, I've later seen His resolution and realized His will was better than mine. He knew best. Other times I've never seen a resolution and am still left with questions. God doesn't owe this to me. But what I've learned, in situations like these, is to draw near to God. Pray constantly and read the Word daily. God will reveal to you, in due time, a peace that comes knowing that no matter what the outcome, He is with you. You can't predict how God will move in situations, but you can have faith that He will keep you and strengthen you through it.

Reaching adulthood has forced me to either keep a paper-thin faith of who God is or give Him authority in my life as the author and finisher of my faith. I don't have the convenience anymore of accepting His invitation to salvation, but stripping Him of all His heavenly power and awe in my life. I don't have the answers. I can't predict God's will in each situation. But He is faithful and I know that I can trust Him to keep me to the end.

- Andrew

The Hole In Our Gospel

Andrew — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:29:57 +0000

I recently re-read The Hole In Our Gospel by Richard Stearns, president of World Vision. I originally listened to the book as an audiobook last summer, then our church started a series based on the book and I read it again. Rich lived a good life. He had a family, a successful career, and a firm foundation on Christ. But when God called him to give up his luxury and security to lead World Vision, it opened his eyes to a world of hurt. Wrapping up the series at church, we brought Rich in to speak to the congregation and to all the volunteers. It was amazing to hear him speak.

The title The Hole In Our Gospel comes from the idea that if you cut out every verse of scripture from the 66 books of the Bible that deals with poverty, wealth, justice, and oppression, then you would have a gospel full of holes. There are almost 2,000 verses in scripture that deal with these topics. This is our gospel, not The Gospel. Our gospel is born of ignorance and indifference.

Rich spoke of Jonah 2:8, Those who worship false gods turn their backs on all God's mercies. He had a nice home and company car and lived in a great community. But God called him to leave all of that, take a considerable pay cut, and uproot his family to the other side of the United States. Rich had worked for Lenox, a fine china company, before leaving to lead World Vision. He met with his friends that still worked there 10 years after he left to see how they were doing. Since he left, they had gone through 5 CEOs, closed 5 of their 6 manufacturing facilities, and saw their revenue cut in half. This is the future he would have had if he clung to worthless idols. Two weeks after meeting them, Lenox filed for bankruptcy.

Are you pursuing a career or a calling? You can use a career as a calling to build God's Kingdom. Let it be a means to an end.

God's heart is broken when He sees war, trafficking, ethnic tensions, disease, exploitation, etc.... and then sees us doing nothing. At the same time we pray for those afflicted, we must pray that God will sear our hearts that we never forget. We are too easily distracted. In America, we live in a bubble. Bob Pierce, the founder of World Vision back in 1950, prayed Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God. He prayed this prayer to reignite his passion after leading World Vision for 20 years. It's the passion that puts you on that next plane to Ethiopia. Rich says that if he can't shed a tear over the world's poverty and depravity, then it's time to hand the reigns to someone else.

How do you become mindful of needs here and around the world? Get plugged into a group of people that challenges you with what God expects of you. Intentionality is important. Tithing is intentional -- it doesn't just happen. Be intentional about what is going on in the world. Make yourself read, watch, listen, follow, and become educated of need in the world. And don't assume you have to leave the country to help the poor. There are Americans who are not necessarily poor because of their own choice. Don't assume that everyone is poor in Kenya because of circumstance and everyone is poor in America because of choice. You don't know their story. They could have had generations of poverty in their family and they were raised up in that way.

Be ignited and make a difference for one person this day.

- Andrew

How God Moved When We Moved

Andrew — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 02:33:20 +0000

Back in September Amy and I started talking again about what the odds were of moving back to Virginia. I told her that I would look for jobs in Roanoke, but ended up not finding anything. Amy had the genius idea of asking my employer if we could move to Virginia. My job as a consultant affords me the ability to work from home a lot and work at customer sites the rest of the time. I never really had an office except for my office at home. I asked my boss and, after checking with the higher ups, he approved my request! This is huge as there isn't a very strong IT job market in southwest Virginia. We listed our house in October and waited...

In the end of February, we received an offer on our home, but for about $12,000 less than we listed it. We wrestled with if we should take such a low offer. That blew away all of our equity. But we knew that we wouldn't get any better offers given the decline in comparable sales in our neighborhood. A few weeks earlier I had estimated our tax returns and closing costs and found that we would be broke, but not in the hole. We fought, thought, and prayed about it and finally... we felt peace. We countered and waited. Amy had been applying for part-time jobs for 7 months and hadn't heard a word back from anyone until a few weeks earlier. She had interviewed at one place a few times and it looked like she would actually get the job. She had continued with the interviews because we didn't know if the negotiations would fall through. We received a counter offer from the buyer while driving down the road, but it was still lower than we could take. About 15 minutes after that, the company called to offer Amy the job! Weird timing... Do we stay and wait for a better offer or do we take this one? We knew we needed to be honest with the company making the offer and told them how we had our house for sale and after little to no interest for 4 months, it looked like we would have a contract. The company thanked Amy for her honesty and rescinded the offer. We had nothing holding us back. After another counter offer from us, we came to an agreement with the buyer and we had a contract on our house!

But we're not out of the woods yet. Our house still had to appraise and given the comparable sales and foreclosures in our neighborhood, it wasn't going to be easy. We prayed like crazy that week. I asked everyone I knew to pray for us. The appraisal came and went and we never heard a word. Our realtor said that if we didn't hear anything, everything must've been ok. Next up was our home inspection. I was worried we'd have to spend $500 - $1,000 in repairs after hearing what typical inspections cost the sellers. The home inspector was so polite that he even removed a loose nail on our roof for free. He found only two things, which cost us about $40 to repair! Amazing...

We went to Virginia and started looking at places to rent. Amy found a nice house for rent in our price range, so we met the landlord and took a look. The landlord knew both of our parents and told us the place was ours if we wanted it. And he dropped $100 off of the rent! We gave him the security deposit and he gave us the key. He even let us repaint the house before moving in. While all this was going on, the buyer of our house wanted to move the closing up a week. Most closings get delayed for lending issues or other issues, but ours was going smoothly.

With just less than a week before our closing, we weren't sure if we had to pay our mortgage and rent. We still hadn't received all of our tax refunds and didn't have all of the money. Our realtor checked and thankfully we didn't have to pay our mortgage this last month. We received our finalized closing costs a few days before closing and were surprised since it was higher than we expected. Plain and simple -- we didn't have the money. But we trusted God and God provided. I asked the ladies at work processing expenses to expedite my expense check. They did everything they could and had the check out the door that same day. We asked our landlord if he could wait to cash our rent check until after we closed. Much to our surprise, he said that would be no problem at all. And finally, both of our parents offered to loan us the funds we needed. God opened the floodgates.

Our closing came and went perfectly. The buyer was very polite and the closing was smooth. We were broke, but we had sold our house!!! We found out that our house praised for exactly what we sold it for. That means it didn't really appraise for that value, but that the appraiser stretched it to make it work. Things couldn't have gone more smoothly. We never get a huge tax return and the year that we do is the one we needed it. We considered it a gift from God. Throughout this process, I learned that when your will and God's will line up, nothing will stop you. Nothing.

Die to Your Dream

Andrew — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 13:00:58 +0000

Sometimes you have to die to the dream God has given you so God can resurrect the dream in its glorified form. And by glorified form, I simply mean doing it for God's glory.

- Mark Batterson, Neue Magazine Article

Chase the Lion

Andrew — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 03:06:20 +0000

I finished reading Mark Batterson's In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day last year and have meant to write about it for quite some time. Long title, good book. Really good book. The title of the book stems from a seemingly forgettable verse of scripture:

Another time, on a snowy day, (Benaiah) chased a lion down into a pit and killed it.

2 Samuel 23:20

I first learned of this book, and really this author, in a sermon by Craig Groeschel. He talked about having unstoppable courage like this guy who chased after a lion and killed it. This same guy later went on to be one of the bodyguards of King David. What if your faith had the same audacity as Benaiah? What lion do you need to chase down?

Too often our prayers revolve around asking God to reduce the odds in our lives. We want everything in our favor. But maybe God wants to stack the odds against us so we can experience a miracle of divine proportions. Maybe faith is trusting God no matter how impossible the odds are. Maybe our situations are opportunities to experience a new dimension of God's glory.

Most of our problems are not circumstantial. Most of our problems are perceptual. Our biggest problems can be traced back to an inadequate understanding of who God is. Our problems seem really big because our God seems really small. In fact, we reduce God to the size of our biggest problem.

Half of spiritual growth is learning what we don't know. The other half is unlearning what we do know. And it is the failure to unlearn irrational fears and misconceptions that keeps us from becoming who God wants us to be.

I love this book! Even re-reading my highlights in the book makes me want to read the entire thing over again. This book will encourage you to face your darkest fears and pursue them. I would recommend it to anyone facing fear, uncertainty, or a new chapter in their life. I think we all fall into that category at one time or another.

- Andrew