The Seed of Hope

A Prayer for Death and A Prayer for Life

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 13:43:29 GMT

Some memories are so painful that we try our best to “bury them” in the farthest recesses of our memory banks. Still, every once in a while, an event triggers the memory and we relive the pain again. It’s almost like ripping the scab off of an almost healed wound, but only worse. That being said, there are those rare occasions when reliving a painful memory ultimately proves to be a blessing. This phenomenon happened to me a year ago, and I’m sitting here trying to figure out why it has taken me this long to share it…

For the past two years I have had the privilege and honor of leading or co-leading a group of young men through an eleven-week curriculum in our church called LIFE (Living in Freedom Everyday). My group is only one of more than one hundred other LIFE groups that meet on different days and in various locations throughout our church community each semester. The LIFE semester culminates with a two-day retreat that’s ingeniously designed to “seal the deal” of removing barriers between people and God.

I’ve had the blessing of serving as an Anointer at three of these retreats. An Anointer’s role is to pray for an individual to be freed from a burden that he’s been carrying for years, such as addictions, forgiving others, shame, and self-condemnation for mistakes in the past.

I love to witness the transformation of people being released from bondage. I don’t know if I can adequately describe what it’s like, but I’m going to press on and see what comes out…

Sometimes it’s a gradual process, and as I pray I both feel and see the weight coming off. When the person walks away, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they’re on the way to freedom and a new relationship with God.

At other times, the reaction is immediate. The moment that I begin to pray, there are tears and slumped shoulders and a palpable release of the burden. I promise you that it’s almost miraculous as a metamorphosis unfolds before me. Amazing…humbling…at times overwhelming. Sometimes I find myself on the verge of forgetting to pray as I get caught up in the moment of watching God work.

Then there are those times when I don’t know that the individual has been touched at all. Their demeanor remains the same, and when they walk away I don’t know if they’re any better off than before we prayed. When that happens, I can only hope that a seed has been planted that will eventually bear fruit in the life of that person.

In any case, I pour everything that I have into praying for those people, as I’m sure do all of the individuals serving as Anointers. There’s a dynamic going on here that’s hard to explain. I’m saying the prayers, but the Holy Spirit is giving me the words. God is doing the healing, and I’m blessed enough to witness it. Jesus won the forgiveness, and I’m there to serve as a reminder of that forgiveness for those who have forgotten it or have never known it at all.

What I’m trying to say here is that it’s all God, and not me, that is transforming the lives of these people. My role in the entire process is to be a vessel, or a conductor, if you will, of what God wants to give to the person in my path. The pressure is off of me, or at least it should be, right? The answer is yes.

So why do I feel as if an individual’s life hangs in the balance of my prayers? Perhaps it’s the burden, imagined or real, that I feel because I know just how life-altering LIFE can be.

Wiped Out.

That’s exactly how I felt after praying for other men for a day and a half. My voice was nothing more than a whisper, and my brain felt as if it were pulp. As I sat in one of the chairs in the back of the Sanctuary, I realized that I was exhausted, both mentally and physically. I was ready to go home and crash.

There was just one problem.

One session remained, and it had nothing to do with baggage, or bondage, or forgiveness, or freedom. This one was about receiving the Holy Spirit. In fact, it’s referred to as the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, and unlike the Baptism that most often first comes to mind, this one has nothing to do with water. It’s all about prayer.

I’ve said on more than one occasion that one day I was going to broach the subject of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, not because of the gifts themselves, but because of the controversy and questions that surrounds them, and especially one in particular, the gift of Tongues. Relax. I’m not going down that trail today, but I will before too very long.

Because of that apprehension, not every Anointer is expected to take part in the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. In fact, it’s optional. You can pray if you want to, or remain seated if you don’t.

When the cue came for Anointers to take their places around the Sanctuary, I told myself that I was gonna pass on it because I was so tired. After all, it looked as if there were plenty of other Anointers taking their places to pray. I would just sit this one out. Or at least that’s what I thought, as I closed my eyes and began to drift off into La-la Land.

“You need to go up there.” I sat up as straight as a board and looked around for the person who had told me to “go up there.” Seeing no one anywhere near me, I settled back into my seat and once again closed my eyes. Once again I heard a voice saying, “You need to go up there.” And once again I searched for the source of the instruction that I’d been given, only to find no one. I closed my eyes yet again, but this time I didn’t settle in because, well because I was a bit unsettled.

“You need to go up there.” When I heard it the third time I bolted right out of my chair and headed for the front. This time I realized that the voice was inside my head, and I didn’t know if God was telling me to get up there or if it was my own conviction, but it didn’t matter cause I was on my way to the front of the Sanctuary to pray!

I took my place in the front and waited for the first man to step forward. I didn’t have to wait long. Samuel, one of the young men that had been in my Life group, was approaching, and he was being escorted by two of his friends who had also been in the group. Actually, the guys were almost dragging Samuel to the front. As they did, my friend Samuel had the look of absolute fear on his face.

A brief word about Samuel… He came from a Jewish background and had accepted Jesus as his Savior as a teenager. While his parents didn’t agree with Samuel’s beliefs, they nonetheless supported his decision to attend a Christian school of ministry, which I found to be quite remarkable. That being said, Samuel enrolled in Highlands College with an eagerness to learn and to grow spiritually. That eagerness, though, was tempered and tested by stepping into a culture completely foreign to what he was accustomed to, and by a fear of the unknown. Throughout the course of the semester, whenever the subject of the Holy Spirit came up, Samuel’s fear was so strong that it was palpable.

And so it was on that Saturday evening, when a kind-of-willing yet terrified young man stood before me in church, battling his fears to receive what God had in store for him.

At first we just talked. I told Samuel that all I wanted him to do was to invite the Holy Spirit in. Nothing more. And I asked Samuel if he would allow me to pray for him to the end, to which he reluctantly, yet willingly agreed.

I placed my hands on Samuel’s shoulders, closed my eyes, and began to pray for him. Initially, I just began to pray for him to calm down. His heart was pounding so hard that I could feel it through his shoulders! I prayed for his fears to be gone and for him to release everything that he’d ever heard about the Holy Spirit that was negative. As I prayed, I became aware of other voices praying, and of hands on my shoulders. Opening my eyes, I saw that we had been surrounded by at least a dozen other students who were lifting Samuel up in prayer.

With a renewed sense of vigor, I closed my eyes and prayed even harder than I had before. I was praying for Samuel to let go, and for the Holy Spirit to fill him, and for God to take control of the moment and to give me just the right words for this young man to let go and let God. I don’t know how long this went on. It could’ve been a couple of minutes or it could have been fifteen. I was totally caught up in the moment, and caught up in prayer. Everything else faded away.

At some point I became aware of the fact that the other voices had died down, and that Samuel had actually relaxed a bit. Opening my eyes, I realized that during my prayers I had placed my hands on Samuel’s chest, and that I had been crying. A lot.

As Samuel walked away, it was one of those instances where I didn’t know if the individual had actually received anything, but I was certain that a seed had been planted. I was also certain that for some reason, I had been impacted greatly.

The Last Supper

The next day, all of the guys in my group gathered at my house for what I jokingly refer to as “The Last Supper.” It’s an opportunity for us to gather one last time as a group to eat, to share, to review our semester together, and to “unpack” the Life Retreat. No curriculum. No agenda. Just the overflow of the heart.

After dinner, the eighteen of us gathered in a large circle in our den, and a few shared some things that were on their hearts. I went last, because I knew that what I had to say was gonna “mess me up.” I’d had an epiphany in the twenty-four hours since the retreat had ended, and I wanted to share it with them.

And especially with Samuel. Turning to him, I told him of my reluctance to step forward for the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, and jokingly informed him of the one-way conversation that I’d had with either God or myself. Everyone laughed.

I then I told Samuel of the blessing that I’d received by praying for him, a blessing that caught me totally by surprise. I thanked him for allowing me to pray for him, and I told him the story of why it was so important to me…

Ron

The last time that I had my hands on a man’s chest and was praying so hard that I’d lost all sense of time and space was over twenty years ago when I had been praying for my younger brother, Ron.

Ron had a brain tumor that was inoperable. The tumor’s location was interrupting the signals that his brain was sending to his body to function and he was slowly but surely wasting away to nothing. In the course of a six-month period, we watched my brother’s motor skills and muscle control diminish to the point that he was a quadriplegic, completely paralyzed and dependent on my Dad and Mom for everything. The heartbreaking and inhumane part was that while Ron’s body was dying, his mind was totally alert. Ron knew that he was going to die, but was just afraid to let go. He fought it with all that was in him to stay alive.

At the moment of his death, my hands were on Ron’s chest, and I was praying with all that was in me for Ron to get past his fears and to let go. I didn’t know that he had drawn his last breath until someone in the room put a hand on my shoulder and informed me that he was gone. I didn’t even know that he had stopped breathing. It was the hardest that I’d ever prayed.

As I finished telling the story of my brother to the young men gathered in my den, I thanked Samuel once again for the blessing of praying for him. And I was reminded of my Dad’s saying that “God works in mysterious ways.” In 1991 I had placed my hands on my brother’s chest and prayed for life to leave him. Over twenty years later, I placed those very same hands on the chest of one of my brothers and prayed for him to be filled by a Spirit-filled life. A prayer for death, and a prayer for life. Only God could have arranged that. A life-giving moment for that Samuel. A healing moment for this one.

Today…

Samuel is indeed Spirit-filled. He’s passionate for God, for people, and for living, and he impacts the life of most every person that he meets.

And because of a few minutes of prayer, he’ll hold a special place in my heart and mind forever.

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Faith of Our Fathers

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 20:23:52 GMT

I guess that this could just as easily have been titled Faith of Our Mothers, or Faith of Our Grandmothers. I believe that I was inclined to go with “Fathers” because my Dad was indeed a man of faith, and also because boys and young men have a natural tendency to see their dads as being the strongest, the bravest, and the best. Apparently, even all these years later, my Dad was the first person that came to mind when I got the idea to write this post…

Growing up as a child, and even through my adolescent and adult years, I always knew that someone was praying for me. How did I know this? Well, because they told me!

My maternal great-grandmother lived to be over 100 years old, and she spent most days in prayer saying “Novenas” for a particular person or intention. A Novena is a Catholic form of devotion consisting of offering a special prayer or petition for nine successive days. Whenever I’d visit, “Mama” would inform me in her broken English (thick with her Italian accent) that she’d said a Novena for me since I’d last seen her.

My maternal grandmother, Mama Rosie, lived to be ninety, and just like her mother, spent the majority of her later years in prayer for others. Mama Rosie loved to say the Rosary, another Catholic form of devotion offering a specific series of prayers for an intention, keeping count of the prayers using a string of beads that were quite fittingly called Rosary Beads. Mama Rosie was always saying the Rosary, especially for her family and friends. Through the years Mama Rosie said Rosaries for my education, my career, my marriage, my health, and anything else for which I need prayer.

My Dad, Paul, spent the majority of his later years, not only in prayer, but also in church. Around the age of sixty, Dad began going to church just about every morning, and did so until he died at the age of seventy-four. My Dad would always ensure anyone in need of prayer that he was “storming the gates of heaven” with prayers for them. I know that my Dad was always praying for me because he told me, and even if he hadn’t, I knew that he was praying for me.

What I’m saying here is that someone was always covering me in prayer for my every need most all the time, which was an absolute blessing. I mean, who wouldn’t want to have a litany of prayers being said for them, right?

But wait…

There was one thing wrong with this scenario: I got complacent. You see, I never really learned how to pray, because I didn’t need to. Well, I did pray, but at the time I believed that they were desperate pleas for help that God may or may not have heard. I really didn’t know, and I didn’t have to. I mean, everyone else (including my Mom, who still prays for me) was sending up Novenas and Rosaries and prayers for me. Why should I have to pray? My great-grandmother, and my grandmother, and my Dad, and my Mom were praying for me, and they obviously had a better relationship with God than I did because I never knew the God that they talked about all the time. Somehow I must’ve missed something along the way, because I just didn’t know this “amazing God” that they did. Of course, that never kept me up at night. I figured that was okay. I didn’t have a connection with him, but they did, and they were praying for me, so it was all good.

Then the inevitable happened: One by one, the people who were covering me in prayer died. And with the passing of each one of them, I felt a little more “uncovered.”

My great-grandmother died when I was in my late teens. My grandmother left us when I was thirty-seven. My Dad died quite unexpectedly at seventy-four in April of 2002, five months before my fiftieth birthday. We were all devastated, and especially my Mom. They had been married for over fifty-years, and the death of my Dad shifted her world off its axis.

Suddenly, there was no one praying for me, or at least not someone that had a hot line to heaven. And you know what? I felt vulnerable, almost childlike. I’d never had to really pray for myself, because someone had always done it for me. I had convinced my self that I’d never pursued having a real relationship with God because I didn’t need to. (I came to realize years later that the real reason was that I didn’t believe that I was worthy of having one with Him.)

Someone had to pray, and I figured that I was that someone. Consequently, I found myself offering seemingly hollow prayers for my wife Jackie, our sons, our families, our business, and myself to a God that I neither knew nor understood.

November 5, 2006

It was my Mom’s seventy-fifth birthday. It was the day of my “epiphany,” and it’s documented in an earlier post on this site. It was the day that I began reaching out to God, not only for His help, but more importantly, to know Him. I wanted to know that God that I’d always heard about, the God that my Dad and my grandmother and my great-grandmother turned to for everything. The God upon whom they were able to cast all their cares and concerns, the God that they raved about all the time. That God. I wanted that.

I didn’t just want the faith of my father. I wanted my own immovable, unshakeable, unwavering faith. I wanted to know how to pray. I wanted to know Him. I wanted. I wanted. I wanted.

And every morning at four o’clock, for the next seven months, I’d sit in a chair, in my chair, in our still-dark kitchen and ask God to show me what I needed to see, to teach me what I needed to learn, and to fill me with more of Him. Every morning. Back then I didn’t read the Bible, and I didn’t know what worship music was, and I really didn’t know how to pray, and it really didn’t matter because I was hungry for the God that I never knew.

We often hear of people “finding God” in church, or in a life or death situation, or in the midst of a crisis. Strangely enough, I found God at a time when my life had never been better, when everything was on the upswing, and when I seemingly had all the trappings and surroundings of a full and happy life.

I did, but there was still one thing missing:

The Faith of Our Fathers.

And now it’s mine.

It is my prayer that you have it too.

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A footnote to "We have an enemy."

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:52:22 GMT

My last post ended with the statement, The battle was over, but not the war.

Actually, that wasn’t the end of the post. For some “mysterious” reason, the software program that I use wouldn’t accept the last few paragraphs. After several unsuccessful attempts to include the post in its entirety, I decided to give up and settled for where it ended. The battle was indeed over, and I figured that at least it closed on a positive note.

My frustrations were only beginning. It took me five tries to get the server to post on my home page, and when it finally did, it had mysteriously omitted the last paragraph that I’d “settled” for, abruptly ending in the middle of a sentence.

Undaunted, but growing evermore impatient, I pressed on until I finally got it to work, only to find out that the link the subscribers to The Seed receive announcing a new post led to a blank page! Aaagghhh!!!!

I have to share two of the several responses that I received from readers.

The first said, “And he stole your post! Sorry, but sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying! Love you, Sam. Linda”

The second said, “How interesting. I clicked on the link to ‘We have an enemy’ and the post message came up ‘the blog post we have an enemy was not found.’

I guess we have no enemy. ‘Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.’ Love you, Annie”

Okay, since I have the tenacity of a bulldog, I’m trying this one more time…

Now, in the words of legendary radio personality Paul Harvey, here’s “The rest of the story.”

The battle was over, but not the war.

Today I’m still standing, still smiling, and still asking God for those opportunities each day, with a renewed sense of anticipation and determination. Most importantly, I’m filled with God’s peace. Funny, when I’m filled with that peace I sometimes take it for granted, but I miss it the moment that it’s gone.

With God’s help, I’m still waging war against the enemy every day. Every day. And I suspect that there’ll be another battle, and another, and another. That’s okay. You see, I know that the enemy isn’t gonna back down. But he knows that I’m not going to either.

There’s one more thing that I know. God already dropkicked the devil’s rear end when he cast him out of heaven! That battle lasted no longer than a nanosecond. BAM! It was over.

When God thinks that I’ve battled long enough, and am worn out, and am literally on my knees from fighting the good fight, all He has to do is think it. And my battle is over.

You think that I’m gonna quit fighting?

Not a chance.

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We have an enemy.

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 21:18:45 GMT

My last post was on October 31. A month ago. I can’t believe that it’s been that long; not since I last wrote, but since the battle began.

This post was supposed to be a follow-up to the previous one, which was titled …about visions. My plan was to pick up where I’d left off and share with you the visions that I had for my life when I was younger, and why they never materialized. I was so excited about sharing this. So much so that I already pretty much knew what Part II was going to be about before I’d finished the first part, which doesn’t happen very often.

That was one day before it began.

On the very next day, November 1, 2012, the fifteen-year old daughter of some long-time friends tragically took her own life. This beautiful girl knew the Lord. Take note of what I just said. She didn’t merely know about God. She knew God, and had a relationship with Him. Huge difference. She was active in church, attended a Christian school, and was loved by all who knew her.

She was, quite simply, the least likely of candidates who would choose to end her own life. What happened?

We have an enemy.

Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8 NLT

We dohave an enemy, and he is relentless. No one is above reproach. No one gets a free pass. No one slides though unnoticed. Not Presidents, or Pastors, or doctors, or lawyers, or husbands, or wives. And obviously, not even the young.

And here’s the kicker: The closer you get to God, and the more you live your life “walking it out” as a Christian, and the greater your sphere of influence in leading others to Christ, or leading a nation, or leading a family, the more the enemy is gonna come at you with a vengeance.

Do you really think it was a coincidence that this young lady’s life “just happened” to end in the manner that it did? Neither do I.

Monday, November 5^th

My wife Jackie and I attended the funeral service that day, and while driving to church I realized that I was consumed with anger. I was livid that the enemy had succeeded in claiming another victim with his lies.

Let me add something here. We’re all victims to some degree at some point in our lives. All of us have fallen victim to the enemy’s ways, by way of fear, anger, jealousy, lust, addiction, lying, or any other act or emotion that is not of God. Quite often it’s his manipulation of others that wreaks havoc in our lives, either through their words or actions. He’s always at work. In this instance it involved a tragic loss of life, and quite honestly, my anger was intensified because I knew this family.

As we walked into church, I realized that I was being consumed by what I like to call “justified anger.” Would you agree that when we’ve been offended by someone unjustly, we believe that we have the right to be angry? Well we do, but not if that angerconsumes us. When that happens we lose control of our emotions and rage takes over, and we put our Godly ways on the shelf. And when that happens the enemy wins the day.

During the service I was praying for our friends, their three daughters, and curiously enough, for myself. I was asking God to quell the rage that was boiling up inside of me.

LIFE

That night I was co-leading a LIFE (Living in Freedom Everyday) group involving a handful full of young men who are attending Highlands College, a ministry program at Church of The Highlands here in Birmingham, where Jackie and I are members.

We had just finished singing a worship song and were getting ready to dive into the curriculum when I interrupted the flow of things and told the guys that I needed to share something that was on my heart.

I recounted the events of the day, including the incomprehensible grief that I felt, not only in the hearts of the parents, but also in the hearts of everyone in the church. I told them of the war that was raging in me, and of my struggle to control the anger that was threatening to consume me.

And then I did something that many would consider to be foolish, if not insane. I waged war against the devil. I openly proclaimed that one of my purposes in life from that day forward would be to be an enemy of the enemy. I would stand against him whenever I saw oppression, or depression, or hopelessness, or anguish, or anything else that he used against an individual. I was sick and tired of his crap. I’d had it with people being robbed of their joy because of him. I called him out, and even as I was doing so I heard this little voice in the back of my mind screaming, “What are you doing? You know that you’re asking for trouble! Shut up!” Then there was another voice screaming just as loudly, “You shut up. I’m over this. I cannot just sit back and do nothing. God will protect me.” I had thrown down the gauntlet, and I wasn’t backing up.

The battle.

The last month has been a bit of a blur. To be honest with you, it’s been really hard. Oh, I’ve been blessed with so many opportunities to listen to people’s hearts, and to pray with them. Of course, I ask God for those opportunities every day. It’s as if Satan said, “Okay, you want to stand in the gap for people who are hurting? Here you go. Have at it.”

In the past few weeks, in ways that I really can’t explain, I’ve come to truly realize just how many people are suffering in the world today. Economic issues, relationship problems, self-image distortions, baggage from the past, worry, fear, oppression, anger management, depression, guilt and unworthiness abounds in the minds and hearts of so many people. There have been days when the prayer room in our salon has virtually been a revolving door. The opportunities have been a bit overwhelming at times, and left me in a bit of a weakened state; so much so that there have been a couple of days when I just really didn’t want to talk to anyone at all.

To make matters worse, we had been having some computer issues and hot water problems in the hair salon that Jackie and I own. And if that wasn’t enough, I had a breakout of a rash that was preventing me from sleeping at night.

When you add all of the above to the responsibilities of being a husband, boss, mentor, small groups coach, and the challenge of walking it out as a Christian each day, you end up with a man completely drained. That was me. The tank was almost empty.

That’s exactly what the enemy was waiting for. When a lion is on the prowl, he seeks out the smallest, or the lame, or the weakest in a herd because it’s the easiest to take down. I was weak because I was drained, mentally, emotionally, and physically. I became the prey.

Oppression

One definition of oppression is “a sense of being weighed down in body or mind.” I was wearing oppression like a custom fitted suit, and despite my best efforts, through prayer, and listening to worship music, and talking to my best friend, and laying around the house doing nothing to find some energy, nothing was working. I had no desire at all to write, which strangely enough, served in adding guilt to my ever-growing list of things that added to the weight that I was carrying. I recognized the oppression because I’ve been there before.

During this entire process I came to realize that my periods of oppression are marked by a very short temper. Curiously enough my biggest challenge before my spiritual awakening six years ago was anger management. I had no patience for anyone or anything, and my “fuse” was as long as the tiniest crack that you can create when bringing your index finger and thumb together.

That’s exactly what my disposition had been for the last few weeks. I had apologized to Jackie more times during that period than I had the six months preceding it. What’s worse was that I knew when I was being short-tempered and couldn’t do a thing about it. I was praying it off of me and casting of the enemy, and I was still being a hot head.

The end.

This past Monday night we were having LIFE again, and wouldn’t you just know that the curriculum topic was “Oppression and Possession.” (I love God’s sense of timing!) I wasn’t scheduled to teach that night, so I asked one of my co-leaders if I could share something that was on my heart before he began. Not really waiting for an answer, I began to speak.

Actually, it was more of a blow-up, a rant, a come-apart. I told them about what I’d been through since I had called out the devil one month earlier. I told them to take a good look at me, and they’d know exactly what oppression looked and sounded like. And I cautioned them that no one, no one, NO ONE, is exempt from the attacks of the enemy.

And I asked them to pray for me, because there are some things that we simply cannot do alone, regardless of the level of our faith. God wants us to reach out to others for help, to draw strength from one another. It’s one of the reasons that we have “church.” And then fourteen men put me in the middle of a small circle they had formed and prayed for me. As they did, I could feel the weight being lifted. And it was broken. Just like that.

The battle was over, but not the war.

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...about visions.

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 20:57:32 GMT

In the past few months I’ve been given several opportunities to give presentations to individuals from various walks in the salon industry. I guess that technically, what I’m doing is teaching a class, because everyone is given a handout that they fill out either during our time together, or afterwards when they’ve had some time to think about what they heard. I don’t know that I’m comfortable with using the term “teaching,” because what I really do is share.

That being said, I’ve titled this class/teaching/sharing opportunity,

Vision Casting.

Remembering and reclaiming the visions you once had for your life…

If you’re thinking that what I’m talking about is dreaming, you’re right, or at least kind of…

I associate dreams with states of unconsciousness, such as sleeping or daydreaming. When you’re sleeping, you have no control (or at least I don’t) over the subject of your dreams. They just happen. When you daydream, you just kind of drift off into Lala Land, and your imagination runs wild. There’s no specificity in what you’re dreaming of.

Conversely, I believe that when we cast a vision for something, it is done with definition and intentionality. Out thoughts aren’t scattered, but clearly focused on the subject of that vision.

Let me offer you an example of what I’m talking about.

Would you agree that most, if not all of us, are encouraged to cast visions at a very young age? Not sure about that? Check this out…

Think back as far as you can to recall the very first time that you were asked,

“What do you want Santa Claus to bring you for Christmas this year?”

So what did you do? You thought about what you wanted! You cast a vision, with definition, about that bicycle, or that doll, or that BB gun. You could see it, and feel it, and if you weren’t careful, be filled with the excitement of having it even though you didn’t have it yet!

This “vision casting” was repeated every year for Christmas, and perhaps even for birthdays, wasn’t it? You thought about, wished for, and dreamed of that thing, whatever it was, that you really wanted.

The beginning…

Casting those visions as a child “set the table,” so to speak, for years to come. At some point, you were asked, “So, what are you going to be when you grow up?” And you began to cast a vision for what you were going to be.

That was the beginning, wasn’t it?

You began to cast visions for everything in your life, and especially the big things. In addition to your career, you may have cast a vision for what your spouse would look like, what kind of home you’d live in, what kind of car you’d drive, how many kids you'd have, and even how you’d look when you reached a certain age.

In essence, you cast a vision for your life, didn’t you? I know that I did, and I remember that with each passing year, I was giving up on, letting go of, or trying to bury the memories of all the visions that I’d had when I was younger, because it hurt too much to accept that for a variety or reasons they weren’t coming to fruition, which only served in making me feel worse.

WAIT.

Today is October 31, 2012. Today marks the Fourth Anniversary of The Seed of Hope, and on this day I’m going to do something that I’ve rarely, if ever done, in the one hundred and eighty-three posts that preceded today's:

I’m going to stop in the middle of this one.

I want to give you some time to think. Between now and the time that I make another post, which hopefully will be no more than one week, I’m going to ask you to do something for me…

I’d like for you to set aside an hour or so in your schedule to find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed (if that is at all possible). I’d like for you to think about the visions that you cast for your life years ago. Then I’d like for you to take a real look at your life today, at the way that your life turned out. Do the two align with one another? If not, would you like to do something about it? Really? Even if it took a bit of effort and hurt a little to do so?

Next week I’ll share the visions that I cast for my life with you, tell you which ones (almost all) never became a reality, why they didn’t, and what I did to do something about it.

Hopefully, my humble offerings will help you to remember and reclaim the visions you once had for your life, and you’ll be willing to take some steps to make them a reality.

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ONE thing.

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 15:29:08 GMT

Ever feel as if you’re being crushed by the weight of your world, by the responsibilities that you have, and by issues pressing on your mind so heavily that if you added one more thing you’d be completely overwhelmed, because you already feel like you’re one step away from dropping everything and being flat on your face? Perhaps you’re there right now…

Years ago, when I was a teenager, I was at a neighbor’s house lifting weights. Actually we were on the second floor of a two story wooden garage. My friend’s parents had finished out the space for their sons to have a room of their own. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was theirs. It was like the Cadillac of clubhouses!

I had just successfully completed a set of presses (where one stands and “presses” the bar holding the weights above his head) when my friend suggested that I do another set with a little more weight. Actually, he dared me to try, and back then I’d never been one to walk away from a dare. Realizing that I was already close to my weight limit, I consented, but under the condition that we only add a one-pound weight to each end of the bar.

I lifted the bar up to chest level, and readied myself to press the weights above my head. With a sudden burst, I exhaled, pushing the air from my lungs and tightening my stomach muscles as I called on whatever strength I had to thrust the bar above my head, “locking out” my arms to keep the bar there.

I did it!

I stood there in triumph, with a huge grin on my face, as I my now trembling arms held the weights above my head!

For about five seconds. What happened next was a blur. I couldn’t hold the bar up for another second, and somehow I had gone a bit past vertical with it, and it was falling and pulling me with it, not in front of me but behind me. Feeling as if I were about to snap, I let go of the weights, flushed with embarrassment even before they crashed to the floor.

To my utter dismay and horror, when I spun around to pick up the weights I discovered that one end of the bar had actually punctured the wooden floor, which only served to make me feel even worse.

Adding a seemingly insignificant two pounds to that bar was more than I could handle. Two pounds. Thirty-two ounces. I can lift that with one finger. Two pounds. I was completely overwhelmed. I couldn’t take the load.

What’s the point?

Why did I go through the trouble of telling you something that happened to me years ago? Well, it ties in neatly with what’s on my heart today…

Last week my friend Whitney stopped by to hang out with me in the prayer room that my wife Jackie and I have in our hair salon. The moment that Whit walked in the door I knew that something was wrong. She looked as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulders, and the heaviness that was on her heart was palpable.

Knowing that I was going to ask what was going on, Whit matter-of-factly said, “I’m tired and I’m frustrated. I don’t seem to have any time for me anymore. I’m just not happy. I’m miserable, and I don’t know what to do about it. Prayer isn’t even working. Nothing is.”

We spent a few minutes reflecting on Whit’s life. She has a job that she really doesn’t like, a shallow relationship with her dad, a relationship with a man that’s on slippery footing at best, a commitment that requires her to spend all of every Sunday serving at church, some hurts from the past that she’s still carrying around on her heart, and she’s enrolled in an evening ministry program, where she is leading a small group of other students!

Tears spilling from her eyes, Whit looked at me, and in what seemed to be more of a plea than a question, blurted out “What’s wrong with me? Why do I feel this way? Why am I always on the bottom? What can I do about this?”

“Take one thing off your plate,” was my reply to Whit. Not missing a beat, I continued, “Take a look at your life Whitney. You have an obligation, or a source of hurt, or strife, or disappointment, or strained relationships for every day of the week. You stopped at seven and there’s probably more. You don’t feel like you have enough time for you because you don’t. Truth be told, you don’t want to slow down because if you did, you’d have time to take a good look at the sources of hurt in your life, past and present, and you don’t want to do that either. You’ve reaching the tipping point, and consequently, everything in your life is out of balance. Your plate is too full, and the remedy for that is to take something off of it. Just one thing.”

We talked for a bit longer, finished up in prayer, and I encouraged Whit to stay in touch, assuring her that I’d be praying for her to let go of at least one thing.

I never cease to be amazed by the power of prayer.

I talked to Whit yesterday afternoon. Since we met last week she has begun looking for a new job, had a conversation with some people at church to share some things that have been on her heart, changed the dynamics of the relationship, and has had some major revelations from her past. She sounded like a new woman. She also confided that she’s been walking with a confidence and boldness that’s been missing for some time. All of this change in one week. I couldn’t be more proud for her and of her.

So what do my childhood memories and a friend’s full plate have to do with you?

Well, take a look at your own life. Can you relate to the overflow of Whitney’s heart, not necessarily in the particulars but in the sum of all the parts? I’ll be honest with you in telling you that there have been times when I was right where Whitney was, and not necessarily years ago. In fact, the most recent time was just over a year ago.

And here’s the funny thing: My marriage to Jackie was rock solid, my family was healthy, our business was prospering, and God was giving me more and more opportunities to connect with people and to serve Him. My life had, in fact, never been better.

So what happened? Quite simply, I had too much on my plate. I hadn’t learned that it’s okay to say “no” to some invitations, even if they were to do worthwhile things. I was “yessing” myself to the point of exhaustion. That sad thing was that being stretched so thin robbed me of the joy of doing things that I loved to do, both in my life and in my ministry. Everything suffered.

I backed away from a couple of things and created some “space,” and the difference was amazing.

Change one thing.

I once heard that the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing the same way every day and expecting different results.” What a simple and yet profound statement. It’s so easy to fall into that trap, isn’t it? You wake up one morning and much like Whitney, you feel like you’re on the bottom of everything gasping for air.

What’s the solution? Change one thing. Take something off your plate. Take a step in a different direction. Do something that will lighten your load.

What’s that? You say that you can’t take anything away? Then add something. Find a window of time to spend with God every day. Carve out some time somewhere, some way, somehow, to be still and reflect, not on the things that you can’t change, but on the things that you can. Pray for doors of change, in your world and in your heart, to be opened. And be ready to move when they do.

Perhaps, as in Whit’s case, the simple of act of stepping back to take a look at your life to find one thing that you can change in it will cause a chain reaction that will change not only your walk in life, but your heart as well.

Perhaps…

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Character and Greatness

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 16:23:31 GMT

Yesterday morning I was thumbing through my Bible when a small piece of paper that had been tucked away somewhere near the back dislodged itself and fluttered towards the floor. It came to rest under our kitchen table, and just out of my reach.

A bit irritated because I had to get down on my knees to retrieve the runaway, I picked it up and quickly scanned it for anything that might have been of importance before I tossed it in the wastebasket. On the small piece of paper was one short sentence that I’d printed containing a quote that I’d heard in a church service a year or two ago…

Greatness is born in difficulty.

Curiously enough, that’s the only thing that I’d written on the paper. Nothing else. Not the date, or the name of the Pastor, or any notes pertaining to his message. Greatness is born in difficulty. I think that the impact of the title of the message was in and of itself enough to set my “wheels” in motion…

As is often the case when I write, I’m not really sure where this is going, but as always, I’ll press on.

Character is defined as, among other things, “moral excellence and firmness” and “one of the attributes or features that make up an distinguish an individual.”

Greatness is a noun that, when used to describe the attributes of an individual, equate with “excellency, impeccability, value, goodness, and distinction.”

So what to the two have to do with one another? Well, I believe that for the most part, you won’t find one without the other. Come to think of it, I feel that the two are inextricably linked.

History.

The Bible is littered with examples of individuals who have been called to greatness. Think about it for a moment. In the Old Testament, we have Moses, Abraham, Daniel, Joseph, and David, to name a few. All of these men were called by God to serve, all answered yes, and all rose to greatness.In the New Testament, we need look no further than Paul to see a man who let nothing stand between him and what God called him to do.

Of course, calls to greatness didn’t end with the book of Revelation. Humanitarians would include Abraham Lincoln, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Mother Teresa of Calcutta. History is scattered with leaders of countries who have altered the course of history, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.

Here’s the thing: All of those people endured some type of difficulty along the path to greatness. It may have been because of what God asked them to do, or the color of their skin, or situations created by other people, or a physical handicap. Perhaps it was just the sheer weight of the burden that comes with being a leader of people, or a trailblazer, or a difference maker.

I don’t know about you, but I consider all of those people to be of “character.” In my eyes, each of them possessed “moral excellence and firmness.” I believe that they already had character or developed it in order to get over, under, around, and through the challenges and obstacles that each of them faced.

Look around,

and it won’t take you long to find people of character who are great. They’re all around us, and aren’t categorized by career, social status, or lifetime accomplishments. They don’t have to be history makers; perhaps they’re history teachers. They don’t have to lead people to the Promised Land; perhaps they lead people to Christ. They don’t have to feed the poor and take care of the sick on a global scale; perhaps they feed children, and change diapers, and wipe runny noses in their own homes. They don’t have to be leaders of countries; perhaps they’re spiritual leaders in their families. Perhaps they put out fires, or drive school busses, or run companies, or dig ditches.

What I’m trying to say here is that what’s important is not necessarily what you do, but the manner in which you do it. It’s not the title or the position that you hold, but the person that you are. It’s your moral excellence and firmness and determination and commitment to what is right that makes you great.

Greatness.

I’ll tell you here and now without an ounce of hesitation, reservation, or timidity that I want to be a man of character and greatness. Not in the eyes of man, but in the eyes of God. That “Well done my good and faithful servant” that we read in Matthew 25:21? I don’t wait until I cross the finish line of my life here on earth to hear those words. I want to hear them, or at least imagine hearing them, or knowing that I did my very best to deserve them, each and every day of my life.

When I lay my head on my pillow each night I want to reflect on my day and picture God having a conversation with one of His angels, or perhaps Peter or Paul, saying “You know that Sam Maniscalco? He has overcome every obstacle that has blocked his path. Well of course I helped him along the way, but he was willing to reach out to me for help. Even when he didn’t really know Me, he looked to Me for help. He’s not afraid to come to Me say he’s sorry when he has taken a wrong turn or done the wrong thing. He’s grateful for each day and for what he has, and he shares his heart and his love for Me with everyone he meets. He looks at all the challenges that he faces as life lessons to draw closer to Me. He never gives up, never quits trying, and never loses hope. He seeks to walk with the mind and heart of My Son.Through all of his trials and tribulations he has grown to be a man of character, and in the process he has risen to greatness.Above all else, he loves Me. I love that guy!”

Crazy?

Perhaps. I mean, who would the audacity to share his version of what an imaginary conversation that God is having in heaven with one of the long-time residents about him? Well, apparently me.

You may indeed think that I’m crazy, and I’m perfectly fine with that.I quit worrying about what others think of me a few years ago. All I know is that above all else, I love having God at the center of my universe. I love the feeling that I get when I’m sharing what’s inside of me with someone else. I love it when I’m sharing God’s Word with someone who has never heard it, not verbatim from the Bible, but from my heart. I love “witnessing” for Jesus. I love the relationship that we have. I love walking with His Son, and I love being filled with His Spirit.

I love God with all that’s in me because that’s the way the He loves me. His love for me is absolute, unmatched, unwavering, unending, and unconditional. He’s always there for me. Always. And you know what? He’d love just that much even if I did none of the things that I do: no Seed of Hope, no prayer room in our business, and no sharing my heart with others. He’d stilllove me that much. After all, He sent His only Son to die for me before I was born!I mean, come on. How can you not be totally in love with and grateful for a Daddy like God?

I know that I am.

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The Twenty Year Wait

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 14:14:16 GMT

I’ve wanted to write about this for some time now, but I’ve been hesitant to do so because I’ve doubted my ability to come up with just the right words to convey my thoughts, and for fear of sounding as if I was condemning the classic definition of "religion." Be that as it may, I know that now is the time to share what’s in my heart.

I’m going to flashback to the fall of 1989. Better yet, I want to focus on the eighteen months or so leading up to that fall…

During that window of time, I had gotten a divorce from my first wife of fifteen years, accepted the fact that I would only see my two sons every other weekend, come off of a year and a half addiction to cocaine, gotten married to my current (twenty-three years now and counting) wife Jackie, become the co-owner of a hair salon that was bleeding out money in every direction, changed residences, and changed careers. Essentially, my life was anything but stable.

To make matters worse, I wasn’t even going to the same church (denomination) that I’d grown up in, because of the condemnation, real or imagined, that comes with having been divorced and remarried. Oh, we were going to church every Sunday, but even that was different. I didn’t even feel the comfort of taking refuge in a house of God, and quite honestly, I didn’t feel any better walking out of church than I did walking in.

I was confused, missing my sons, wondering what the future held for Jackie and me, and miserably happy, if that makes any sense. I guess I would liken what I felt to the promise of a new day that’s accompanied by a beautiful sunrise, but in this case the sun was almost completely obscured by several dark and somewhat ominous clouds. I wanted to be happy and excited with the promise of a new day, of a new life with my new wife, but there were just too many mental obstacles standing in the way.

The Room.

There was small room, an office, located in the back of our hair salon. I hesitate calling it an office, because I feel that doing so would be a bit of an in justice. You see, for me it was more of an asylum, or better yet a safe haven. I’d retreat to this small room because it was an escape from a business that I neither knew nor understood, and in reality, from a world in which I was very confused.

One morning I was sitting in my little room, trying to make some sense of my life. The door was closed and the only source of light was a small white candle in the corner of the room, the flicker of its flame dancing on the opposing walls.

I remember closing my eyes to pray. My prayers back then didn’t bear any resemblance to what my prayers look like today. They were reverent, quite reserved, and very impersonal. Come to think of it, at the time my relationship with God was exactly like my prayers: reverent, quite reserved, and very impersonal. I didn’t understand then, as I do now, that quite often, conversation with God is prayer.

So I began to pray. And somehow, some way, something that I’d read in a book about inhaling good, positive thoughts and exhaling bad, negative ones got mixed in with my prayers to God. I sat there with my back as straight as a board, my eyes closed, and my palms-up hands resting on my legs, while breathing in goodness and exhaling every negative emotion that I could identify, all the while praying for all of the bad to go away. I don’t know how long I sat in that room in the dark, breathing in the good and exhaling the bad. Must’ve been at least fifteen or twenty minutes before a knock on the door brought me back to reality. Walking back into the salon I realized that I felt better: much better.

The next morning I actually looked forward to getting to work, not actually for work, but for a few minutes in "the room." Thinking that I had to replicate everything from the day before, I lit the candle, closed the door, took a seat, struck the same posture, closed my eyes, and began to pray and to breathe. To my surprise, the same thing happened as the day before! And again, when I walked out of the room, I felt better than I had in a long, long time.

Of course I couldn’t wait to get to what was now "my room" the next morning, and the next morning, and the next. By the end of the first week I was inhaling not only good thoughts, but also strength and confidence and light and a renewed sense of self. Wow! This was awesome!

Strangely enough, I didn’t even try the prayer or the breathing techniques that weekend at home. For some reason, I just didn’t think that it would work. Hmm…

This went on for weeks, and with each passing one I became stronger and stronger. Looking back on it now, I believe that I may have even developed a bit of a swagger, because I felt so good and so confident. My life and everything around me was the same. I had changed. It was incredible.

STOP!!!!

After I don’t know, maybe a month or so, I developed this nagging thought in the corner of my mind. I tried to ignore it, but it just wouldn’t go away. It wouldn’t leave me alone.

It was fear.

You see, in my mind, I was afraid that I’d crossed some invisible line and had wandered into an area where God wasn’t. I was thirty-seven years old and had been going to church all my life and had taken religion class for twelve years and had been praying to the Lord year after year after year and had never felt the way that I did then. This, that I had stumbled upon was not of God because God had never made me felt that way. No, this was something dark and sinister and not of the Lord, and I was filled with shame and guilt, and I had to distance myself from it as quickly as possible.

So I stopped praying and breathing and filling myself with goodness each day. And the feelings of euphoria left me almost as quickly as they had come, and as they did, I felt myself slipping back into a hopeless, depressing, state of confusion. "That’s okay," I told myself. "At least I’m walking with God."

For the next twenty years, I often thought about my times in that little room during that brief season of hope and promise and confidence. I never went back, but I’ll unashamedly tell you here and now that many times I wondered if I’d ever find that with God. Oh, I was tempted to more times than I can count, but I made a promise on that day back in 1989 that I’d never again dance with the devil, cause I felt like that’s what I was doing.

March 2009

I had gotten hungry for more of God. My spiritual awakening had actually begun a few years earlier, in August of 2006, and during that three-year span I had an unbelievable period of spiritual growth. I was talking about God, and writing about God, and living for God, and yet something was missing. It was driving me crazy, and I was on a quest to find out what "it" was.

And on one Sunday in March of 2009 I found myself tightly squeezing Jackie’s hand as I nervously stepped into a different church in Birmingham, one that classified itself as a "non-denominational Christian church." The name was, and is, Church of The Highlands.

One week later I found myself at Catalyst, a weekend retreat for men sponsored by Highlands at a remote site several miles outside of Birmingham. That Saturday night there was an altar call for a Baptism in The Holy Spirit, and I tentatively stepped forward, because I just knew that I was supposed to.

And as I stood there among some 300+ men, I prayed to be filled by the Holy Spirit. I invited Him in and as I did I breathed deep and long, attempting to draw

in every bit of what God had for me at that moment, not knowing what it was, but wanting it.

August 31, 2012

It has been just over three years since that life-altering moment at Catalyst in 2009, and I’m still praying to be filled by the Holy Spirit. And you know what? He always shows up and fills me with His presence. And I’m filled with confidence and strength and goodness and light and hope and promise and all those things that I was filled with way back in 1989 when I was being filled with God’s Spirit but had no idea that it was Him because no one ever told me that God is real, and that He’s in us and not just around us, and that all we have to do is invite Him in, and that when we do the world doesn’t change around us but we change in the world, and we are the conquerors, not the conquered, and I could spend the rest of my life trying to tell you what it feels like to be Spirit-filled but I can’t because you have to feel Him in you to know what it’s like…

What gets me is this…

Way back in 1989 I was being filled by the Holy Spirit and didn’t know it! I’m not blaming it on any one or on any church. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. The twenty-year wait was part of God’s plan for me. Everything is in His time, even being filled with His Spirit.

I can’t undo those twenty years. I can’t get a replay on my life. As much as I would like to have been filled with the Holy Spirit all those years, and as much as it would have changed my life, changed our lives, I wouldn’t have it any other way. It just wasn’t time for me then. It is now.

What I can do is urge you, beg you, encourage you to invite the Holy Spirit, not just into your life, but also into you. Don’t let what others have told you, or your fears, or the enemy trick you into waiting another day.

Go ahead. Invite Him in. Ask to be filled by the Holy Spirit every day. It will be the best decision that you’ve ever made.

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Suiting Up

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 19:15:05 GMT

Several weeks ago I was having a conversation with a young man that I’d met this summer while attending a small group for men at our church. This young man, recently "born again," is on fire for the Lord, and has visions of a ministry that God has put on his heart. This young man (Charlie) is also an active member of our country’s military.

Charlie had reached out to me because he felt…make that, he knew that he was under spiritual attack on all fronts, and needed someone to talk to. In his words, "I don’t know what happened. Everything was going fine, and then all hell seemed to break loose; at work, at home, and wherever I happen to be. What do I do?"

We talked for a while, and of course, we prayed. Nothing breaks spiritual attacks like prayer and proclaiming in Jesus’ name that Satan must flee! The secret lies in believing in what you’re praying for and the power of proclaiming Jesus’ name.

I warned Charlie that unlike an enemy of war, who once shot and killed will live to fight no more, Satan will never cease in his attacks. You vanquish him today, and you can rest assured that he’ll be back tomorrow. He is relentless. He’s always on the prowl. Always looking to steal, kill, and destroy.

I suggested that Charlie recite Ephesians 6:10-18 each and every day, putting on the armor that God has given us to protect ourselves from Satan’s attacks. I cautioned that when it comes to the enemy, there are no days off, no furloughs, and no time off for good behavior. "Charlie, you have to suit up every day for this battle. Every day."

Minnesota

Early the next morning my wife Jackie and I caught an early flight to Minneapolis, Minnesota. We were going there to attend the wedding of a young ministry student who had spent the better part of the last two years living with us here in Birmingham. Brooke had become like a member of our family, and we were eagerly anticipating not only her wedding, but also meeting members of her family that we’d heard so much about but had never actually met!

The next several days were what I can only describe as a "whirlwind tour of blessings."

The outdoors wedding that evening was held at an orchard an hour or so north of Minneapolis. The setting was beautiful. Rows of chairs were neatly arranged facing the area where Brooke and her fiancé Cam would exchange their promises

to one another, in what Brooke dubbed as a "church with no walls." Two glass windows were hanging from the limbs of a huge oak tree and gently swaying in the breeze, and a few partition screens served as a backdrop. So simple, and yet so perfect. God’s presence was everywhere, and we were grateful to have been among those in attendance.

Saturday included spending the day with another set of friends, and dinner that evening with Brooke and Cam’s families at the home of one of Brooke’s aunts and uncles, Jodie and Darnell. Again, God’s presence was so strong that it was almost palpable.I remember thanking God for the day time and time again as it unfolded, and when I lay my head on the pillow that night, thinking, "This was really a great day. Thank You!"

Early Sunday morning found us following Brooke’s mom and several members of her family to Winona, a city of 27,000 located two hours southeast of Minneapolis. After attending church, we went to the home of yet another of Brooke’s aunt and uncles, Becky and Sonny, where we had lunch and spent the balance of the day talking about God, life, and "callings." Brooke’s parents, Dan and Mary were there, along with her brother and sister, and Becky and Sonny’s children. What a great afternoon and evening! Again, God’s presence, and more specifically, that of the Holy Spirit, abounded everywhere and were so palpable that I could feel it.

The plans were for us to spend the night at Becky and Sonny’s, and as I lay my head on my pillow that night I reflected on the previous three days, and how perfectly anointed each of them had been, and how fortunate and blessed Jackie and I were to have been surrounded by an amazing family and friends. The weekend had already surpassed any expectations that we may have had for a "weekend getaway" and was proving to be an unexpected windfall of grace and blessings.

Monday was our day to return to Birmingham, and the plan was for all of us to go out on Sonny and Becky’s boat for a short day on the Mississippi river, before Jackie and I had to drive back to the airport in Minnesota in our rental car. That day marked a "first" for me: it was the first time in my fifty-nine years that I’d swam in the Mississippi, and while it was a ton of fun, I can tell you that the water in Minnesota is cold, even in July!

At any rate, we had a blast on the water, and at the appointed time, Jackie and I said our goodbyes and hopped in the car to make our way back to Minneapolis. Jackie slept for much of the way, and I listened to worship music and reflected on our amazing weekend. God had blessed us with an unbelievable weekend surrounded by one incredible family!

BAM!

We were 10 minutes away from the airport when "it" hit. Jackie was asking me a question and I was fighting five o’clock traffic and looking for my exit which I couldn’t afford to miss because we were gonna be cutting it close on time anyway, and I was just aggravated in general because I just don’t do well in traffic in an area that I’m not familiar with.

So she asks me a question, and in what I’m sure was anything but a civil tone of voice I responded, "I don’t have time to be looking around or answering your questions! I’m trying to get us to the airport!" Which led to her making a remark, which led to me making a remark, which led to a barrage of verbal bantering, which led to stone cold silence. By then I had apologized, but the damage was done.

The flight home was marked by that same silence, as well as during the drive from the airport to our home. We went to bed that night without saying goodnight, and the next day, a day that we had taken off from work, was just about as uncomfortable as you can imagine. We spoke to each other only when we had to, and dinner was punctuated by an eerie and most uncomfortable silence. Again, we went to bed without saying goodnight.

I hate the silence of "cold war." Hate it. I went to sleep that night wondering what had happened? How did it start, and when would it end?

Wednesday

The next day, day three of the cold war, began just like the previous one. We had coffee at the kitchen table, marked by the maddening silence. You could feel the iciness between the two of us. I wasn’t budging, and neither was Jackie.

We went to work and I had decided that we were gonna put an end to this when we took our lunch break. Something had to give. I even had two of my good friends praying for a resolution to our differences.

I was wrong. My initial question of "Can we try to figure out what happened and get past this?" quickly escalated to verbal shots worse than all of the others. We were both mad as hell and out of control and returned to our business without even having eaten, much less having resolved our issue.

Jackie went to the back of our hair salon, and I went to have a seat in my prayer room. Yes, we have a prayer room in a hair salon.

In prayer, I said, "Lord, please help us to resolve this. Give me clarity to see what went wrong, or better yet, how to fix it. Please help us to get past this. Please tell me what to do."

In an instant,

I knew what had gone wrong, and I knew what I needed to do about it. I found Jackie sitting at her styling station, grabbed her by the hand, and drug her into the prayer room. Once there, I closed the door, held Jackie close and began to pray, not for me, or for her, but for us! I prayed for God to stand in the middle of our circle, and I prayed, in Jesus’ name that the spirit of divisiveness and pride and anger that had engulfed us for three days be broken!

And you know what? "It" ended, right then and there. It was done. Peace was restored. I’d love to tell you that the hurt totally went away at that moment, but it took a couple of days for us to get back to where we usually are. Still, the healing process had begun.

So what happened?

The answer is quite simple. You see, I didn’t follow the advice that I’d given my friend Charlie before we left on our trip. We had gotten busy, and we were around amazing people, and our days were filled with fellowship, and fun, and food, and good times, and prayer. And I hadn’t taken the few minutes that I take every day to "suit up," to put on the armor of God to guard against the attacks of the enemy. I had gotten comfortable and complacent. And I had left the door open for the enemy to sneak in.

I’m not saying that reciting this passage from scripture is a magic shield of protection. I do believe that by reciting it each day, I remind myself that God has indeed given us weapons for spiritual warfare. And I believe that it’s the awareness that I need to cover myself each day that helps to protect me indeed.

You could call it "coincidence" that Jackie and I just happened to get into a huge argument when I wasn’t covering us in God’s armor. For the record, I don’t believe in coincidences.

A Fight to The Finish

And that about wraps it up. God is strong, and he wants you strong. So take everything the Master has set out for you, well-made weapons of the best materials. And put them to use so you will be able to stand up to everything the Devil throws your way. This is no afternoon athletic contest that we'll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels.

Be prepared. You're up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the

help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it's all over but the shouting you'll still be on your feet. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You'll need them throughout your life. God's Word is an indispensable weapon. In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each other's spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out.

Ephesians 6:10-18 The Message

Suit up.

Every day. Without fail. You can’t afford not to.

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You vs. The World

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 15:19:29 GMT

Have there been days when you felt as if the world and everyone in it was against you? Days when you believed that one individual was singlehandedly attempting to tarnish your reputation, or even wreck your life? Days when seemingly everything that you said and done was wrong? Days when a situation seemed hopeless?

Come on, you’ve had at least one of those days, haven’t you? I’ve had more of them that I can recall, and to be honest with you, I don’t know that I want to. I mean, who wants to spend time reflecting on the bad times when it’s a whole lot more fun thinking about the good ones?

Consider David.

Yeah, I’m well aware of the fact that I’ve written about David before, but that’s because David has such a remarkable story…

David was a young boy who was in God’s favor; God loved him. David had been anointed with oil by Samuel, and was filled with the power of the Spirit. David was chosen to live and serve as an armor bearer in the house of Saul, the king of Israel. Yes, this was the same David who would slay Goliath, the Philistines mightiest warrior, with a slingshot and a rock! David would become one of Saul’s greatest commanders, and would lead Saul’s armies to many victories. He would, in fact, eventually become Saul’s son-in-law. David was indeed in God’s favor.

It was just after David’s slaying of Goliath that Saul became extremely jealous of David’s favor with God, of his power, and of his ever-growing popularity among the people. After several failed attempts to place David in a place where he would surely die in battle, Saul decided to murder David with his own hands.

It was during his flight from Saul that David was captured by the Philistines in Gath. Weary from fleeing Saul, and fearful for his life, David cried out to God in Psalm 56, for His mercy and protection.

1 Be merciful to me, O God, for men hotly pursue me; all day long they press on their attack.

5 All day long they twist my words; they are always plotting to harm me. 6They conspire, they lurk, they watch my steps, eager to take my life.

9 Then my enemies will turn back when I call for help. By this I will know that God is for me.

11 in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?

Still believe that David was in God’s favor? He was, to be sure. God rescued him from the Philistines and protected him from Saul’s obsession to kill him, and used David to serve Him and His people for many years.

So how does David’s plight apply to you today? You probably haven’t slain a goliath recently, it’s doubtful that a jealous king wants to kill you, and odds are that you haven’t been imprisoned for being an Israelite. So what’s the connection?

We face people every day who are jealous of what we have, or of the favor that we may have with God and with other people. These people will slander us, threaten us, and seemingly go to any extremes to ruin our lives. More often than not, their actions aren’t the result of what we do have, but of what they don’t have.

I believe that jealousy is often born of the fear of not have enough of something, like money, material possessions, good looks, and notoriety. In the case of David, and as is frequently the case with hungry-for-God Christians, this jealousy wasn’t only about the favor of God, but God’s love.

“Mom loves YOU more!”

I wonder how many times this statement has been spoken by one sibling to another throughout the annals of history. I’ll unashamedly admit that it was my favorite “war-cry” when I was a child. I was convinced that my Mom loved my younger brother Ronny more than she loved me, and because of that I just knew that he was her favorite! And because of that, I was always ready to take it out on him.

You see, Saul fell into the trap of thinking that God loved David more, thereby making David his favorite. And because of that, Saul wanted to kill David.

So what did David do? He cried out to God. He prayed harder. He pressed-in even closer, knowing that his cover, and indeed his very life, was in God’s hands.

You vs. the world…

When it feels as if it’s you against the world and the enemy is closing in, always seek refuge in the Lord. You already know that you don’t have to have a jealous king trying to take your life to feel like it’s in peril, don’t you? Some days it just feels as if there’s no hope, that God has forgotten all about you and has left you to the wolves.

Pray harder. Press in closer. Take shelter under His wing. He’s our protector, our strength, and our conqueror. Our love for Him, and more importantly, His love for us, will protect us from our accusers, our pursuers, and anything else that comes against us.

Anything.

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The measure of a man...

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 15:11:34 GMT

Our society tends to take the measure of a man by what he’s accomplished, the titles that he holds, the size of his paycheck, and the material possessions that he’s accumulated. While there is certainly nothing wrong with any of these things, we have to question if they are, independently or collectively the true measure of a man. Do they really define who he is, what he is, or what he’s done in life?

Another way of measuring a man is the smile on his face and the manner in which he greets people. Genuine smiles, warms hellos, and signs of affection (hugs and handshakes) are more often than not the trademarks of a man who is happy with himself. Still, even this method leaves room for error. Many people wear smiles, offer warm hellos, and greet others with signs of affection as a means of acquiring the things listed in the first category. Then too, many who wear smiles are masking their true feelings, which are anything but happy. I remember this one far too well.

The most accurate yardstick is the one used to see what is in a man’s heart. For obvious reasons, it’s also the most difficult to apply. You see, only the proprietor of a heart and God knows what’s truly in it.

Psalm 49 is very clear in cautioning us about those things which we hold in highest esteem.

Do not be overawed when a man grows rich, when the splendor of his house increases; for he will take nothing with him when he dies….16-17 NIV A man who has riches without understanding is like the beasts that perish. 29 NIV

THE MESSAGE version of Psalm 49:29 is even blunter in referring to our fate:

We aren’t immortal. We don’t last long. Like our dogs, we age and weaken. And die.

We die, and we don’t take anything with us when we go. Not the titles. Not the money. Not the material possessions. Not a thing. The adage “You can’t take it with you” is based on fact.

So what are we saying here? That it’s a bad thing to have the finer things in life, like money, a nice house, or a fancy car? Of course not! What’s of most importance is having God, first and foremost, in your heart. And even more than that, it’s having His wisdom and understanding in your mind.

Where do we find this understanding?

The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and power, the Spirit of knowledge and of fear of the Lord—Isaiah 11:2

True understanding is given to us when we receive the Holy Spirit. We cannot fully understand or comprehend the depth of God’s love for us until we’re filled by the Holy Spirit. We cannot know the love of Jesus and feel the pain of his sacrifice for us until we walk with the Holy Spirit. We can never protect ourselves from the relentless attacks of Satan without the armor of God that is given to us by the Holy Spirit.

We can never fully be what God intended us to be, or discover and live out our true purpose for being here, or “walk the walk” that God intended for us unless we walk with His Spirit in our minds and in our hearts. Only then will we know the true measure of ourselves.

How will people take a measure of you today? Do you think it would be based on what you have, or the smile on your face, or what’s in your heart?

How do you measure yourself?

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A smaller filter...

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 12:21:31 GMT

One morning last week I was reading that particular day’s scripture passages from the One Year Bible. I’ll admit that while I always look forward to my time in God’s Word, there are mornings when I’m not filled with anticipation and great expectations for revelations. This was one of those mornings.

I read through the Old Testament passages, which included David’s plans for the Temple, a prayer that he offered to God, and Solomon becoming king. Ho-hum. Next was a passage from Romans with Paul talking about life, death, law, and freedom. Yeah, yeah. Whatever.

Look, I’m just being truthful. Some mornings I just don’t feel like reading scripture, but I do anyway. Not out of obligation or fear, but because I know that my life is better when I stay in the Word. Period. Again, this was one of those mornings.

Then I read Psalm 15, a Psalm of David.

¹Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary?
Who may live on your holy hill?

²He whose walk is blameless
    and who does what is righteous,
who speaks the truth from his heart
³    and has no slander on his tongue,
who does his neighbor no wrong
    and casts no slur on his fellowman,
⁴who despises a vile man
    but honors those who fear the Lord,
who keeps his oath
    even when it hurts,
⁵who lends his money without usury
    and does not accept a bribe against the innocent.

He who does these things
will never be shaken.

As I read through the Psalm I had a bit of an epiphany.

The Ten Commandments, God’s Commandments, are my yardstick for measuring the way I live my life, or more specifically, my walk as a Christian.

Let me add something here. I do my best to follow God’s commands, not out of obligation or fear, but because it’s my choice to do so, just like reading the Bible each morning. I choose to, because my life is better when I do, and because I feel better about myself too.

Look, I love the relationship that I have with God today. I love walking it out with Jesus every day. And I love being filled with the Holy Spirit. If I’m not following the life-suggestions that God laid out for us, my connection, my relationship, my love affair with all three suffers. It’s that simple. I refuse to be separated in my mind and heart from God’s grace and His love because of something that I’ve done. I refuse to go back to where I was just a few years ago.

That wasn’t the epiphany. This was:

As I read I realized that the manner in which I live my life is so much more than the Ten Commandments. It’s means taking a closer look at myself and using an even smaller filter to determine what is acceptable in my life and what is not.

…whose walk is blameless…does what is righteous…speaks truth from his heart…no slander on his tongue…no wrong…no slur…

The Psalm calls for a higher standard indeed. Certainly more than just rolling out of bed in the morning and trying to do “what is right.”

And I realized that my desire to “dwell in your sanctuary and live on your holy hill” has nothing to do with heaven, although that’s where I want to go when my time clock here is punched.

You see, I want be in God’s sanctuary and stand on His holy hill now! And you know what? I don’t have to wait to die to do it! It’s during those special moments when I’m filled with God’s Spirit, and I know that my mind, thoughts, and heart are clean and pure, and I’m seeking Him with an intensity that consumes me that I feel His presence and know that He’s not only with me and all around me, but in me, and I feel His goodness and love, and I could just burst with joy, that I’m in that sanctuary and on that hill.

I’d love to tell you that I feel that every day, but I don’t, or at least not to the degree that I just feebly attempted to describe to you. But when it does happen, it’s what I consider to be my definition of euphoria: heaven on earth.

That’s exactly what happened as I was reading the Psalm. BAM! Out of nowhere. I was overwhelmed by God’s presence, so much so that I had to pause several times to reflect on a sentence that I’d just read. God’s Word came alive and I saw it through a different set of eyes and I saw that while I try to live my life according to the passage, there are those days when I fall short of my ambitions. The realization didn’t dampen my spirits at all, but actually emboldened me to live my life to an even higher standard. You see, it’s my belief that if I make a commitment to be the man that David spoke of in the Psalm, God will help me to be that man. That’s exactly what happened when I committed my life to God several years ago.

A few thoughts on making a commitment to life change, especially as it pertains to your walk with God. I liken it to pushing a steamroller from the top of a hill. Initially it takes a tremendous amount of effort just to get that thing to budge. In fact, there are times when you feel as if you’re not making any progress at all. But you have to stay at it, regardless of how seemingly impossible the task may seem. It’ll happen.

Once you get that huge machine rolling down the hill (and you will) it picks up momentum, and as it does it becomes an unstoppable force, with you in the driver’s seat. Unmovable, unwavering, unshakable faith.

Such revelations…

And to think that I received all of that insight and God’s touch, on a morning when I didn’t even want to open the Bible. Go figure.

One last thought before I close, and it has to do with the last line of the Psalm.

He who does these things will never be shaken.

Think about that one for a moment, would you?

…will never be shaken.

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Making History

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 17:59:17 GMT

Have you ever heard someone say something and immediately thought, “Wow! That was profound! I wish that I’d thought of that.”

Come on, be truthful. That’s never happened to you? Well, it has to me, and the most recent occurrence is what I want to share with you today.

A few months ago my best friend (other than my wife Jackie) Rusty and I attended an ARC (Association of Related Churches) Conference in Dallas, Texas. The conference is attended by Pastors, church planters, and ministry students from various parts of the country. What draws me there is two and a half days of on-fire worship sessions and messages from the pastors who have been invited to speak.

During my first ARC Conference last year, I received several “nuggets” that opened my eyes and my heart, and I got some clarity on a decision that Jackie and I had been wrestling with for months. As a result of last year’s experience, I awaited this year’s conference with great expectations.

I wasn’t disappointed.

I was lifted to unbelievable heights by the worship sessions and blown away by the messages given by some clearly anointed men and women. The last message, on the last hour of the last day, delivered by Pastor Craig Groeschel of Life Church in Edmund, Oklahoma, was the one that “hit me in the mouth” and left me a bit awestruck. And of course, that’s the one that I want to share with you today.

I’m going to offer you my version of Pastor Craig’s message, because I couldn’t give it to you verbatim, and because I wouldn’t do him or his message justice if I tried to! Besides, I’ve taken the gist of his message and made it a part of my fabric, a part of me. His message has taken what was on my heart and elevated it to a “nutha-whole-level!”

Making a difference.

My intention, my aim, my purpose in life since I declared myself to be a soldier of Christ in 2006 has been to make a difference, regardless of how large or small, in the world. My “difference” has nothing to do with material possessions, business achievements, or personal accomplishments. In fact, it’s quite the contrary.

At the core of my “making a difference” is helping people in whatever way possible to improve their walk in life, to grow their careers, and of course, to strengthen their relationship with God.

There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that much of what has happened in my life during the past several years is a direct result of several individuals who tried to make a difference in my life. A couple of these people were long-time acquaintances, but many were people that I’d just met!

For reasons that I just didn’t “get” back then, they took the time to invest in me. From my perspective, it’s a perfect example of the “paying it forward” principle that we always hear about, but seldom take the time to do. I believe that at times our reluctance to pay it forward is because quite often, doing so is an inconvenience. You see, sometimes you have to go out of your way, or give up your time or your resources to make a difference.

At any rate, as best I could remember, I’d never been a recipient of this act of selflessness, and to be quite honest with you, it kind of rocked my world. I just couldn’t figure out why a stranger would take the time to invest in me, but to this day I remain grateful that they did. And I guess that has been and continues to be my motivation for paying it forward.

History

After hearing Pastor Groeschel’s message and turning in over and over in my mind to view it from every perspective, and to get the “fit and feel” of it, much like a new suit, I decided to raise the bar for my daily expectations.

Now, it’s just not enough for me to want to make a difference in the world each day. I’m aiming higher.

If God will help me (I can do nothing without Him), I want to make history every day.

Okay, before you jump to the conclusion that I’m really cocky or full of myself, check this out…

Those people that invested in me several years ago changed the course my life. One of them instilled in me a confidence that I’d never had. One awakened business skills that I never knew that I possessed. One of them led me to the Bible. One of them…

I could go on and on. The point here is that those people changed the course of my life, and of my wife Jackie’s, and of all the people that work in our hair salon, and God–only-knows how many others. Those people made history, because they changed my life. Make sense now?

One and the same.

Okay, I’ll concede that “making a difference” and “making history” mean essentially the same thing. In essence, both translate to paying it forward in the lives of others, so what’s the big deal?

To be quite honest with you, the answer has nothing to do with what others may or may not receive from me. I like to think that I’m going to share what I have with others with the same passion and intensity, regardless of whatever “label” that I may put on what I’m trying to do.

The answer has to do with me, or more specifically, with my mind.

I don’t know about you, but I have a tendency to put more effort into doing the things that I perceive to be more important. It’s my own perception of what I’m trying to do that raises the bar for me.

In my mind, God gives me opportunities to share my testimony about my life before Him and now with Him in it because that what He wants me to do. And I want to approach every one of those opportunities, not from the aspect of just talking to someone, but with the expectations of improving their lives; of changing their lives. Making history.

The prospect of “making a difference” fills me with anticipation. The notion of God allowing me to “make history,” to changing the course of someone’s life the way that others did for me, puts a fire in me that cannot be extinguished. In the words of a credit card ad, the internal and spiritual rewards of making history are, quite simply put, priceless.

You.

If you find yourself in a position to pay it forward, to invest in someone, to lift them up, to speak truth into their lives, or to share what God has done in your life, do both of us a favor and try it.

It may be an inconvenience, and it may take up some of your time, and it may put you out of your comfort zone, but believe me when I tell you that God will bless you for it in ways that you can’t begin to imagine.

So go on. Ask God to give you the opportunity to be a history maker.

He will.

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A rush to judgment...

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:44:59 GMT

Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent-

the Lord detests them both. Proverbs 17:15

There’s a bad tendency that many of us have, and it’s addressed in no uncertain terms in this passage from Proverbs. In fact, it lets us know that there are two things that God cannot stand. Let’s take acloser look at both of them, but in the reverse order in which they were written.

Condemning the innocent…

Quite often, far too many of us make a rush to judgment. We jump to conclusions before we know all the facts. In our eagerness to be right, or perhaps just to get our voices heard, we voice our opinions or cast a negative vote.

We don’t take the time to take a second look at a situation, or to really consider the consequences of the charges that we’re leveling, or the individual that we’re leveling them at.

Sometimes, the wrongness of our actions is escalated to a “nutha-whole-level.” On occasion, our condemnation of an individual has nothing to do with issue itself. Sometimes, it’s emotions such as jealousy, envy, or prejudice that serves as a catalyst for our judgments. When that happens, we don’t really want to know the truth, because if we did, we’d be the guilty ones after all was said and done. Just ask the Jewish nation, who unjustly condemned Jesus, and then in a bizarre twist, were unjustly condemned at the hands of the Nazis centuries later.

Acquitting the guilty…

Several years ago, National Football League veteran and Hall of Fame member O.J. Simpson was found “not guilty” on charges that he had viciously and ruthlessly murdered his ex-wife and her boyfriend outside of her home.

The evidence against Simpson was so overwhelming that the majority of the American public, including several so-called “experts,” considered the case to be a slam-dunk for the prosecution. It was a no-brainer. The guy was guilty, and he was gonna pay the price for what he’d done wrong! Or at least that’s what a lot of people thought.

Guess what? A jury of his peers found him to be innocent.

Our country was immediately divided, predominantly upon racial lines. One side felt as if O.J. had gotten away with murder, while the other side considered it to be a travesty that he had been charged at all. What should have been an issue about right and wrong became an issue about black and white.

The real problem was that both sides made a rush to judgment. One side was ready to convict O.J. for what he did, and the other was going to defend him, regardless.

As unfair as this seems, we, unfortunately do the same thing all the time. We’re quick to condemn when we’re ready to, but just as quickly we’ll defend someone or turn a blind eye to their actions if they happen to be on our list of favorite people.

Is that fair? Not hardly. But at the end of the day, it’s not for us to truly judge the heart or actions of any man.

We have to leave that up to God.

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Opposing ForceS

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 18:33:28 GMT

One morning a couple of weeks ago I was reading that day’s suggested passages from the One Year Bible, which is a plan that takes you from Genesis to Revelation, from cover to cover, in a twelve month period (hence the name). My wife Jackie and I began following the One Year Bible just over three years ago for several reasons:

· We begin each day with God’s Word, as husband and wife, as best friends, as partners in life, and above all else, as Christians. For many years our day began with coffee and conversation, which was good, but we’ve found that sharing Scripture together is even better!

· We “grow” in God’s Word. With all the negative sights, sounds, and news in the world today, the Bible has been in the past, is today, and will be in the future a source of truth and hope.

· I conclude our readings each morning by “covering us” in God’s Armor, as found in Ephesians 6:10-20. I’ve done a bit of reflecting on this morning ritual, and I think that it’s not so much the reciting of the passage as it is the willful, conscious, asking to be protected from the attacks of the enemy and to be Spirit-filled every day.

· This marks the fourth time that we’ve done the One Year Bible, and each time I’ve “seen” something that I’ve never seen before. I believe that this insight is a result of being at a different spiritual level each time, and from asking God to reveal more of His Word to me…

On this particular day the passage was from Acts 7 and 8, and we read about two men so completely different that the only thing they seemingly had in common was that their names begin with an “S.” Oh yeah, there also just happened to be two more S’s mentioned in the passage…

The first of these men, Stephen, was a Disciple of Christ. Perhaps even more important was the fact that Stephen was filled by the Spirit, and as a result, walked with a boldness that matched his passion for and love of the Lord.

We get a glimpse of that boldness as Stephen “calls out” the Jewish leaders for their offenses against God and His people, and especially for murdering Jesus, the Messiah.

Infuriated, the Jewish leaders raised their fists at Stephen, expecting him to recant his words. Undaunted, unafraid, and Spirit-filled, Stephen continued with his accusations. Pushed to the breaking point by Stephen’s words, the leaders dragged Stephen out of the city and began to stone him. Even as he was being stoned to death, Stephen offered a prayer to God asking that his murderers not be held accountable for their sin.

Among the gathering of people witnessing the unfolding of events was the second “S”, a young man named Saul. Saul’s hatred for the followers of Christ was as intense as Stephen’s love for them, so much so that his sole purpose in life was to seek out and persecute the believers, and to destroy the church.

It was the final “S” that fueled Saul’s hatred and passion, and his name was Satan, whose purpose is to “steal, kill, and destroy.” John 10:10

By nature, Saul was a good man with a heart as good as Stephen’s. This became evident when God called on Saul to serve Him. Saul’s name was changed to Paul, and he went on to write a good portion of the New Testament and can probably be credited with spreading the Gospel as much if not more than the chosen Twelve.

I cannot pass up this opportunity to say for probably the umpteenth time, that Paul is my favorite person in the Bible. Paul was called by Jesus, was radically saved, and devoted his life to sharing the Word and growing God’s Kingdom; all things that I can associate with. Perhaps even more important is that fact the God will use the least likely and seemingly least worthy of us to serve Him.

Heart

We’re all born with a good heart, you know? We all have God’s heart in us at birth, because He loves us all the same. He doesn’t play favorites. What happened to Saul is exactly what happens to many of us: we fall victim to Satan’s vast array of weapons and tricks, and in the process we fall farther and farther away from God.

What can we do to avoid this? Ask God for help. Pray, not only for yourself, but also for others, as did Stephen. Ask for the Mind of Christ. Seek to be filled by the Holy Spirit. Draw a line in the sand…take a stand…make a commitment to you and to God to walk with Him and not with Satan.

Walk in freedom. Walk with boldness. Walk, as we are all created to walk, being filled with the Holy Spirit.

In and through Jesus we are victors. We don’t have to be victims.

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