Living

On the last day of the school year in 2010 I survived what could easily have been a fatal automobile accident.   The engine of my vehicle was suddenly in the seat beside me throwing gasoline everywhere including on me.  I had to turn the engine off with the ignition key.  The vehicle I was driving was totaled.  I received minor injuries from the seat belt as well as a fairly severe knee injury from broken blood vessels.  There is no good reason the vehicle did not explode killing me in a fiery conflagration.  I was covered with fuel.  If the engine had ignited I would not be here today writing this blog. 

I’ve spent the time since there coming to grips with what happened.  I have been healing both physically but more spiritually and psychologically.  I do not pretend to have any clue as to why I was spared.  But, I am determined to use the time God has given me well. 

I have been forced to confront so much that has helped me grow in my faith.  This was a gift. 

I am thankful that I am alive to write this blog.

I am thankful that things seem to be working out financially.

I am thankful for everyday I have had since the accident.

I am thankful for, of all things, Facebook that has become both a ministry and a support group for me. God works in mysterious ways.

I am thankful for the kindness of so many friends and family.

I am thankful for the kindness of strangers.

I am thankful that people cared enough to make room for me in their hearts.

I am thankful that the things about which I worried and about which I was frightened did not come to pass.

I was thankful for the first few breaths of air standing soaked with fuel when I stepped out of a crumpled piece of metal with a hot engine on the front seat.

I am thankful that for some reason I was spared what could have been my fate on that day.

I am thankful for the year of teaching I spent last year with incredible teachers, administrators and kids. 

I am thankful that after a long period of being unable to write words are coming back to me.

I am thankful for the mystery that is the Lord Jesus Christ.

I am thankful for a young man who is named Aiden McGeough in Ireland who may be a relative.  He discovered me on Twitter.  His friendship lifts me up everyday.

I am thankful for Jim Lewis, the Men’s Ministry at Lakewood Church and how much they have done for me that will never know. 

I am thankful to the beautiful people of Cathedral of Praise Assembly of God and their loving acceptance.

I am thankful to the young people in my youth ministry’s who have given me a reason to go on.

I am thankful that I am here now and ready to write. 

Blessings to all….

On Forgiveness

He, our Living God, looks down at our despair.  He sees our true nature, our inmost hidden thoughts and he cries….

He cries for our innocence lost.  He cries for our disobedience.  He cries for our betrayal.  But, His love for us is eternal and beyond comprehension.  

His love for us is that of the father who welcomed the Prodigal Son with a glorious feast upon his return.   For this was the son who was lost but now returns…. who was given up but has turned around willing to do the most menial work on his father’s land. 

This Earthly father greeted his son with open arms….singing praises to God for his safe return.  

If an Earthly father will do this…how much more will our Father in Heaven do this for us.  How much more will he forgive us, remake us and remold us. 

I am so thankful for mistakes that teach….

I am thankful for the rock at the bottom that hurts savagely when we fall there…

I am thankful for the depression that follows for it brings us close to him, we turn to him for comfort…

I am thankful for the humiliation and the opportunity to humble one’s self before Him…. to tell him how wrong we have been…to tell Him how terrible we have been.

And to ask his forgiveness yet again….

I am thankful for the sinners prayer that allows us to rejoin with Him… the creator of all things.

I am thankful that he knows how fallen we are… how weak we are… how much help we need…

I am thankful that he loves me just as an Earthly father loved the prodigal son… for I have surely been that prodigal son….

I am thankful for his enduring grace that he always allows us when we turn back to him…

I am thankful for the experiences that frighten us back to him…

I am thankful that there are men who are willing to help others in spite of their sin…

I am thankful for good men who will lift you up, helping you regain your feet…

I am thankful that honor, honesty and truth are rewarded…

I am thankful for a good God who knows when we can’t do it ourselves.

I am so thankful for a Heavenly Father who disciplines with love. 

I am thankful that the Father gave me ears with which to listen…

I am thankful that the Father gave me a heart that can break…

I am thankful that the Father gave me a soul that wants to be with him….

I am so thankful for the things in life that sometimes pull us up short and humiliate us so we can be healed. 

I am thankful for people who will stand with you in fairness and respect…

I am thankful for good men who do not judge. 

Amen

not sure how this goes…..

Are we ever sure how this goes…. as I listen to Calling all Angels…I am so moved by the line “Are we ever sure how this goes”….

Walk me through this ….  Don’t leave me Lord….

They are leaves in a powerful stream…. kids…. just as I was….

What saved me … a mother who loved me beyond all reason… a father who had to leave far too early…  powerful men who led me when I needed a strong lead to follow….

  How do I help save them…. lost kids…. who have no idea they are lost…. or how lost they are…..

How do I communicate love to someone who hasn’t known love…. the true love that builds strong walls against the tide of darkness coming in so fast…. How can I know when I am right…. is it peace?   Is it logic?  Is it my own human reason…

Their youth is slipping away like a flower fading… the time when they might be malleable…. when change can happen… before habits are to hardened…. to much of their “person”…..

How do I tell them that the right choices will solve their problems when they don’t want to hear about the right choices…..

How do you learn to make the right choices about the small things…. and the eternal things when you have no real home…. no one who can really show you how to live? 

How do you instil vision?  How do you instil beauty?  How to you show what honor is? 

The greatest desire of my heart right now it to find the ways…..

So I think, and I pray and I listen…

I look to His example, how would He have done this?   What words would He have said to the kids in my classes…. and in my ministry….. Lord I need your guidance, your example and your wisdom… I cannot do this myself….

 

What He did was to courageously step into the teeth of the storm…. which is what I will do tomorrow…. and the next day….

To teach as best I can…. by example….. by love…. by building impenitrable walls when I have to… 

But, to follow his example I must…. because all these kids need Him….. Let him fill me…. 

Because I’m not sure how this goes…..

I’m not sure how this gods…..

Listen quietly for the Holy…

Sometimes when you just stop…. you hear the almost silent whisperings of the Holy Spirit…

Jesus Christ doesn’t speak loudly, or brazenly…. He speaks softly, lovingly…. He isn’t forceful with us..

If he made us love him our love would be meaningless… our love for him would be false… He desires our real, honest love.  

And when we do turn to him, accepting him, bringing him into our lives… he speaks to us softly still….

He is always there… all we need do is listen…

Christian leadership and Monday Thankfulness

Christian leadership… how different from what most people think of as leadership…

Christian leadership picks up the heaviest weight before the followers begin to lift… A Christian leader forgives before the forgiven thinks to ask… A Christian leader does instead of asking, shows instead of telling, runs to the fight before others can gather their minds… is honest with himself before others know his secrets…

Jesus Christ fasted before others… he was the one who walked into the desert without fear… he went where his enemies were waiting… he simply did … and other followed…

His followers walked his path because they wanted to be like him… though they could never hope to be like him…. they looked at him and saw what they wanted to be and so they tried… they looked at him and saw a person they could love because they were sure he loved them…

A Christian leader walks the walk… others follow because he shows them they can…

a Christian leader lives a life that shines a light on greatness…. it is a life that others want to live… as many have said “I would rather see a sermon then hear one any day”.  His very life is a sermon… wordless, but full of truth…

A Christian leader goes where the sheep are… and they follow… he does not condemn… nor is he placed here to rebuke…  as multitudes followed Christ because his very life was miracle… multitudes will follow those who imitate Christ…

I am thankful for all Christian leaders…

I am thankful for family…

I am thankful for lives well lived…

I am thankful for men who inspire sincere tribute upon their passing…

I am thankful for sons who say goodbye to their brothers with a heart of Christ…

I am thankful for simple uncomplicated faith…

I am thankful for men who come together to worship and discuss what the Bible says to men….

I am thankful for praise…

I am thankful for forgiveness

I am thankful for small expressions of kindness

I am thankful for kids who bump hands with you out of respect…

I am thankful for inspired teachers….

I am thankful for spirit filled preachers…

I am thankful for the brave who go to where the disasters are and where everything is dangerous…

I am thankful for those who spend hours in prayer for people thousands of miles away…

I am thankful for those who honestly read and understand the message of the Bible then teach it to others…

I am thankful for Grace…

I am thankful for bagpipers who play Amazing Grace beautifully…

I am thankful for family tradition…

I am thankful for the dreamers who make dreams come true…

I am thankful for memory…

I am thankful for Christian men who are not passive…

I am thankful for Christian men who accept responsibility…

I am thankful for Christian men who accept leadership…

I am thankful for Christian men who wait on the reward of the Lord…

I am thankful for the long road trips when I can think…

I am thankful for quiet moments when my heart can listen…

I am thankful for thousands who will protest the death of the unborn…

I am thankful for men who are transparent to their brothers…

And finally may the people of Haiti and the Dominican Republic find peace, safety, food, shelter and water coming their way in time.  May the leaders who have the power feel the movement of God within their hearts to offer every possible help to those who have been effected by this devastation.  Let us not forget our brothers and sisters in times of trouble.  Amen..

 

 

 

Weekends are for small miracles….

In a short while I’m giving a presentation to a youth ministry on giving blessings to others….  

Last night I watched the beautiful movie “Pay it Forward” which I will use as one of the illustrations.  I was stretching for the right words as I wrote the small sermon… It just wasn’t coming easily…. So I decided to let it rest to see what would happen….

This morning as I went to church I went through a Starbucks drive through for coffee… When I got to the window I tried to hand a gift card I had received for Christmas to the young lady…

She said… the guy in front of you paid for your coffee…  he said to either just enjoy your coffee or pay for the guy behind you… I paid for the guy behind me… There was a line of cars.. I would love to know how long it went on… I believe it continued at least through that line.

There are small miracles everywhere is you look for them… this one more obvious than most… I don’t believe in coincidence…  

The words are flowing now…. small miracles… great grace…  

Thank you Father for listening, caring and loving… and for small miracles you give us as shining gifts to let us know you are there… 

 

The debt of time allowed…into a new decade…

Tonight I look to the future and wonder…

What will be my mission in the new decade… what is He going to ask of me… what do I need to do to be ready…

In this that could be the last decade of my life on Earth…  help me make it count… help me fight the good fight…help me to have the courage to do that which is right… and good… and true…

I have been given so much… but have I given back enough… have I lifted up as many as I was given to lift up… and I wonder… what is this mystery that we live… a life for something… Oh God, how much time have I given to nothing?… How much time have I failed to use…

I remember a time when life seemed to stretch on forever… there was time for everything… there was time to accomplish all that you asked… and everything that I wanted… now that I am older I understand

the debt of time…

as we will be asked as were the men to who talents were given…. what have you done… and I despair a bit…

I am one of that fortunate generation who saw the passage of a decade that was also a century that was also a millenneum… the passage of a thousand years… 

But what of my 58…  and what of the next decade if I am allowed it…

I greatly fear making a vow… for I am human… 

I owe a great debt… a debt of time given… 

did I repay it in full…

did I bring the time back with nothing to give my Lord…  wasted time… lost life…

did I bring the time back exactly as it was given… saying Lord I took this greatest of gifts and I hid it and here it is as you gave it to me…

Or did i bring the time back with the debt paid, and with interest… with the Masters plan fulfilled… his mission accomplished… to hand him his incomparable gift of the time he has given me with a good report…

Can I not enter the next decade devoted to the idea of turning all my talents, all my wisdom, all my experience to his use… 

Can I not enter the next decade clean as the new snow… unblemished as drifts of the brilliant whiteness of the driven snow… as shimmering as ice….

Can I not live my live ecclesiastical…. worshipful…  thankful… as an example…

Can I not live my life in such a way that all around me will say I want that life… 

Father, I have to tell you that I am afraid… I feel weak… I fear being unable to do your incomparable will and the mission you give me for the debt of time I owe you…

It weighs heavily on my Father… Oh God…

I am thankful for many, many friends who stood with me in the last year….

I am thankful for the time I was given to minister to youth…

Thank you Father for the time I have been able to pray with people in church and in life…

Thank you Father for friends who seem to be finding their way…

Thank you Father for kids gaining new independence…

Thank you Father for kids who were stopped…

Thank you Father for 13 kids I was blessed to baptise in the new decade…

Thank you Father for sending people to me who could answer the needs of kids I could not answer…

Thank you Father for Charlie… who ministered to the broken kids… who held them up but told them how it was..who has always been there in ministry when I needed him… for so much… for his shoulder that I have made wet with tears…

Thank you Father for Diane who trusted her children to the ministry you gave me and who stood with me as a fellow minister… helping the girls so much… and the boys…. who loves with a love as pure as anyone can imagine…  

 Thank you Father for Cody who worked beside me in the baptistery… who was able to get to kids who were rational, kids of technology… who held me up at many, many times…

Thank you Father for Teresa…wife of Cody… a couple  I married… who was always there with that special insight…that wisdom that saw what needed to be said to a hurting kid…

Thank you Father for John and Lynda… who also entrusted their children to me… who helped in so many ways… and are now carrying on….

Thank you for KASE and Opportunity Academy and all the kids in them… even on the difficult days….

thanks so much for JoEtta Darby who leads with example… and whose friendship gives me strength…

thanks for the team of teachers with whom I work…

thank you for the school district that took me  back to work with kids who I love…. the ones who really need.

Thank you Father for giving me a band of brothers in the Quest Ministry who are real men of God…thank you father for true change that we have seen….

thank you father for Jim Lewis…my mentor in so many ways…

thank you Father for Joel Osteen another mentor and true servant of God

And for my wonderful friend Ronald Jordan and true servant of God

And for Pat my best friend in life, in ministry, in the service of God\

And thank you father for bringing Kenn back into my life, my best friend also…

Father I thank you that the ideas are going to come to pass in the new decade…

I thank you for the new kids who are in the ministry….

I don’t know what you will have for me in the coming decade… I just want to be able to accomplish it… I just want to serve you… and to bring

the debt of time allowed back to you with good interest….

 

O Magnum Mysterium—O Great Mystery

O magnum mysterium
et admirabile sacramentum,
ut animalia viderent Dominum natum,
jacentem in præsepio.

Beata virgo, cujus viscera meruerunt
portare Dominum Christum, Alleluia!

Translation:

O great mystery
and wondrous sacrament,
that animals should see the newborn Lord
lying in their manger.

Blessed is the Virgin whose womb was worthy
to bear the Lord Jesus Christ. Alleluia!

I am so thankful that the same God who created every mystery of the universe chose to come to Earth in the form of an innocent, pure, totally helpless human babe…

O Great Mystery… why should I be considered?  What love you must have Father to come for us. 

And wondrous sacrament…  The sacred nature of that moment thousands of years ago under the star leaves me breathless at the birth of my forgiveness..love for us… and grace to save us…  the Divine Power of that moment when you entered this world… the same God who created everything without beginning and without end…

That animals should see the newborn Lord… When I look at the stars in the Milky Way I get just a glimpse through a glass darkly of your magnificence…and you chose to be born in a manger… your birth attended by blessed animals… That the God of the Universe should choose to be born in the most humble of places… where animals sleep…

Lying in their manger… the most humble of places… in a cave really… my Father you were homeless, poor, without any help, any resource… looked upon by the animals you chose to be around you… from the mystery of what Heaven must be to the lowest of places on Earth…

Blessed is the Virgin whose womb was worthy to bear the Lord Jesus Christ… and you chose an innocent to bear you… one whose humility… one whose virtue… one whose faith… must have been as great as any human before or after… the one you deemed suitable to bring you from the eternal to the mortal… to grow your mortal body… capable of pain… capable of death… capable of bringing us back to God through your death… and then the body resurrected … O Magnum Mysterium… as we will someday be resurrected…

Oh Father… who are we… no, who am I that I deserve this… that the God of the Universe… eternal and forever… would come into this world of pain, this world of trouble to give all for me… for us…

Alleluia… 10,000 praises… not enough to even begin to touch the praise we owe to you…

That is the true miracle of Christmas… that you came from what Heaven must be to what we are…

So that we could live eternally with you…

O Magnum Mysterium…

The birth of forgiveness, love and grace…

Unto us a child was born…  a child who breathed the universe into existence, who breathed life into everything that lives… who saved me from myself…

Incomparable, inconceivable love….Christmas means nothing less….  That the One who shed Heaven’s glory to become one of us made such a choice… So I could find a way back to God… a way back to grace…salvation…

And that he knew what would happen…what must happen to bridge the gulf we created between ourselves and God… that he knew he would be reviled by some unto his very death… no less a death then that which many suffered in those days… that he would endure pain beyond any I can ever begin to imagine…

On that day thousands of years ago forgiveness, purest love and unimaginable grace was born in the form of a human child…

A human child containing the Eternal God… The alpha and omega… the reason for all things…

And because of the birth of forgiveness, purest love and unimaginable grace we must adopt and hold those qualities close to our hearts….

In imitation of our God who became man…  in obedience to one of the two greatest commandments that we love our neighbor as ourselves…

For Christmas is a time to give the purest love…

a time to offer the purity of forgiveness…

a time to give the gift of grace…

a time to love our neighbor as we love ourselves…

to visit the old, the sick, the poor…

for the gifts under the tree are really there to remind us of the greatest undeserved gift… salvation… communion with God…

the greatest gift we can give is the one He gave… ourselves… as he gave himself…

We can give our hands to lift up those without strength… to repair homes that need repair… to feed mouths in place of hands grown to weak to lift a spoon… reaching down to a young person who has been felled by life… to those who have been caught in the traps set by the enemy… just as we have been caught… and rescued…

We can give our hearts to offer love to those who receive no love… to those who are imprisoned… to those who are living without a roof… to offer love to those who seem unlovable…

We can give our minds to find solutions to hunger… to resolve the problems that keep people apart… to discover ways to help build homes… provide ways for children to have an education… discover the things that God has placed for us to discover that will solve the problems we have created or inherited in this world…

Let us remind our children as they open their wonderful gifts that those very gifts symbolize the gifts given to us by Jesus Christ…  that the tree has come to symbolize eternal life… and that Christmas is really about the giving… not the receiving…

Christmas is the celebration of our forgiveness… the love that gave birth to the forgiveness… and the grace that allowed our nature to be forgotten when we choose to turn and follow Him… Jesus Christ… He who sheds forth Universes… who lit the stars… who formed us in our mothers wombs… and

who chose to become one of us so we could once again…

Know Him…

Christmas… the birth of forgiveness, love and grace…

 

I remember now… why I became a teacher…there is greatness there

Last week …. horrible and beautiful at the same time…. it was a time of death and of new lives begun….times of struggle and high drama… times when you fight for the mind and soul of a kid…. One more young man dies in an automobile…. 12 graduate into new lives….

There is a time to live and a time to die….   but my dear Lord too young… Dear God.. he’s sixteen… just beginning ot taste life…and having lived more harshly than many adults can imagine…Dear God there is not a mark anywhere, as his stricken parent tries to look at his face, tries to form the word “yes” then “that is him”.   

in life so grown…in death so child-like…as if he is becoming the little child you told us all we must become to enter in…. My deepest soul tells me he is resting in you… the next loving face he will see will be yours….

times to struggle and times to savor triumph… magnificent people surround me….  a team made up of people who were born to do this job….though some wonder if they were….if they are  helping kids grow….  but they are… every moment they spend with the kids….

Gleaming faces as they walk…. diplomas…. tassels…. folders with fake diplomas…. they will pick up the real ones later….

There is a time for sadness, then a time for great joy… and they are separated by only a few miles.

There can be no great sadness but for the presence of great joy.  Great happiness and great sadness are so close… they are so closely related. 

The truth is I didn’t know the boy who died.  But his death moved me nonetheless.  We share in any death because we will all taste physical death.   We know…..  We understand that we will all go that way someday… we will walk that path…

But the death of a young person seems to have such a deeper meaning…. In death a young life that would have been part of the greater story of mankind is removed to early.  We lose their humanity, their love…. We lose the greatness that could have been…  the graduation that was not to be… the life that was not led… then children who were not born… the mountain top moments that were not experienced.  

So this is what I tell young people and what I would tell the graduates. 

Live as if you had 6 weeks…. how would it change your life… what would you do to raise your life to the highest levels in the time you had left.   And to teachers what would you say to classes if it were your last time to speak with them alive… what would you tell them… what part of your heart would you reveal… how would you treat them… how would you love them….

If you had 6 weeks to make your mark on the world, what would you do… what would you say…

And you may have 6 weeks, you may have less… what would you want to get done… but most important what would you say to your children in that six weeks.  What are the things you would teach them… What are the things you would want them to accomplish….

In the eyes of every child is greatness…  In the heart of every child is love… In the soul of every child is eternity…

Please God let me live my life as if my days were severely numbered… as if I had only a few weeks to save a soul or to fulfil my life to you Lord.  Please God let me understand my mortality so I can know what i have left to accomplish so i don’t waste my life on the small things… but on making a profound difference in lives around me. 

Please God let me live my life as if the children you have given me have only a few weeks…. as if I have only a few weeks to give them every kindness, all my love… all my teaching.

Please Lord let me live as if I have no life of my own…that it will one day go back to you….. Let me remember that the last words I say to someone may be the last words they hear… let my words be your words, righteous, just, loving, protecting.