Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Lower your head and run: Part 2
As I listened to Charles Stanley talk about obeying God and leaving the consequences to Him, I realized that I had heard him say the very same thing way back in the late 80's. I've also heard his son Andy say the very same thing. Obviously this has been a continuing theme in his life for many years and he sought to instill it in his son. This has led me to ask myself a few questions many times lately. Is there a particular truth or encouragement that my kids will one day use to sum up my life? If I could pass on one sentence to my kids, knowing that it would change their lives and they would pass it on to their kids in some form, what would that sentence be?
Monday, November 20, 2006
Lower your head and run!
A couple of weeks ago I went to the Drive 2006 Conference at North Point Community Church. I thought I would do a few posts about some of the amazing messages I heard. I took a ton of notes, so I'll have to pare them down a whole lot.
Charles Stanley spoke on the last morning of the conference. He told the story of getting on a bus as a kid and going to visit his grandfather. His grandfather was an evangelist and Charles felt the need to go and just listen to him. One thing his grandfather told him was, "If God tells you to run through a brick wall, just lower your head and run and God will make a hole in the wall for your head." Charles said that on the way home he realized what his grandfather was telling him: 'Obey God and leave the consequences to Him.' I was very challenged and encouraged as he told us that God assumes full responsibility for my obedience and He works on behalf of those who wait for him (Isaiah 64:4). "Omnipotence is on the side of obedience."
Stanley went on to tie this in to conflict, specifically to pastors and conflict in the church. The tendency is to run and hide from conflict, to allow it to distract us and destroy our focus. But Stanley encouraged us to run towards conflict while allowing God to take care of the consequences. "If I run from conflict, when will I stop? Runners never make an impact. There is not enough conflict in the world to defeat the power of God!"
Charles Stanley spoke on the last morning of the conference. He told the story of getting on a bus as a kid and going to visit his grandfather. His grandfather was an evangelist and Charles felt the need to go and just listen to him. One thing his grandfather told him was, "If God tells you to run through a brick wall, just lower your head and run and God will make a hole in the wall for your head." Charles said that on the way home he realized what his grandfather was telling him: 'Obey God and leave the consequences to Him.' I was very challenged and encouraged as he told us that God assumes full responsibility for my obedience and He works on behalf of those who wait for him (Isaiah 64:4). "Omnipotence is on the side of obedience."
Stanley went on to tie this in to conflict, specifically to pastors and conflict in the church. The tendency is to run and hide from conflict, to allow it to distract us and destroy our focus. But Stanley encouraged us to run towards conflict while allowing God to take care of the consequences. "If I run from conflict, when will I stop? Runners never make an impact. There is not enough conflict in the world to defeat the power of God!"
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Why am I doing this?
That's the question I've been asking for a couple of weeks now, since Byron kind of convinced me that a blog would be a neat idea. I don't remember why he said it would be, but it sounded close enough to a good idea then. Now I'm asking myself again why I should do/have a blog. (I don't even know the correct verbs for blogging!) I looked around for just a few minutes and found there's a blog for almost everything. There's at least one blog by a Martian and blogs in a bunch of languages. There are blogs about art of every sort, from music to mosaic to photography to watercolor painting. There are blogs for birdwatchers, horse riders ('horsists'?), dog lovers and cat lovers. There are blogs for food lovers, including but not limited to, ice cream recipes for vegans. There are blogs devoted to sports, from surfing to fishing to hockey (soccer on ice with sticks). There are blogs devoted to bicycles, shoes, karaoke, the FBI's most wanted, poetry, movies, fitness and on and on and on and... I saw blogs that were profound, and some that tried to be but weren't. I saw some that were full of awful untruth, and the author didn't know it or didn't care. I saw some that were rather goofy, and I'm not sure if they meant to or not.
Most of all, I saw lots of blogs that haven't been updated in months. And lots of blogs with entries that are entirely too long, much like this one. So, I'm asking myself lots of questions. Who is going to read this? Do I even have an audience that cares about my ruminations? Could it be used for evangelism? For sharing ideas about church stuff? Could it be specifically for people at the church I pastor, sort of a "What's the pastor thinking about today and what's on the church calendar?" kind of thing? I honestly do not know the potential. For now, I'm just going to drop whatever's my brain's been chewing on and hope that someone will read and chew and drop some ruminations and so on.
Most of all, I saw lots of blogs that haven't been updated in months. And lots of blogs with entries that are entirely too long, much like this one. So, I'm asking myself lots of questions. Who is going to read this? Do I even have an audience that cares about my ruminations? Could it be used for evangelism? For sharing ideas about church stuff? Could it be specifically for people at the church I pastor, sort of a "What's the pastor thinking about today and what's on the church calendar?" kind of thing? I honestly do not know the potential. For now, I'm just going to drop whatever's my brain's been chewing on and hope that someone will read and chew and drop some ruminations and so on.
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