Letting Go Is Hard to Do Part 3

It is impossible to let someone else be in control if we’re not listening to what they say. It is impossible to let God be in control if you’re not listening to what he says. If you’re not reading Scripture you’re not letting God be in control. You’re merely saying that you are.

Now, you’re probably thinking. Doesn’t God speak to us in other ways such as through prayer, circumstances, and other people?

Yes, he does. But that is not his primary mode of communication. Since Moses, God has chosen the written word as his primary vehicle of communicating with his people. Read through Scripture if you don’t believe me. When God chose to speak directly to or through people, that was something different from the norm. That was something unexpected. God’s primary vehicle for communicating to us is through Scripture. If you want to give control over to God, you need to consistently read the Bible.

For me, I find morning is the best time, either before everyone else gets up of after everyone else has left the house. I need time alone with God. I need all distractions away from me.

I’ve also found that You Version is a great tool for this time. I open my computer and log on to You Version. It opens the Bible to the last passage I read in the last translation I had open. You Version also has a journal application in the program that allows me to journal online and take my journal wherever I have wifi access.

That’s what works for me. I don’t know what works for you but whatever it is; it won’t work if you’re not reading His Word. You need to be in Scripture if you want to give control over to God.

Letting Go is Hard to Do Part 2

Prayer is vital to letting go of control and giving it to God. Prayer is a physical activity that reminds us of our dependence on God and opens us to hear from him.

For many people prayer comes naturally. They pray all the time. I’m not one of those people. Prayer, for me, is a discipline. I have to schedule it or I won’t do it. I’ve scheduled in my day three times of consistent prayer. They’re not marathon prayer sessions. Just specific times that I consciously acknowledge God and talk to him. I’ve found that since I’ve been disciplining myself pray regularly spontaneous prayer has become more natural and I pray more often. When I get out of my routine, the spontaneous prayer becomes less common as well.

As I pray more consistently, my attitude shifts and I rely on God more consistently and work harder at being connected to him and less hard at being in control.

Letting Go is Hard to Do

If you’ve spent any time in church or around Christ-followers, you’ve heard that we need to give God control of our lives. “Let go and let God.” I’ve heard that over and over again and often wondered, what does that mean and how do I do it? I’m certainly no expert but I’ll share a few thoughts.

Letting go is more of an attitude than an action. God does not call us to be passive, to sit back and wait. God provides us everything we need to become the tool he is going to use. We, however, need to have an attitude of submission and obedience. We need to allow God to guide our actions rather than act and ask God to bless our actions.
Here are a couple of tips that help me submit to God’s control:

1. Pray. I know it’s the obvious answer, but it’s vital. Prayer is a physical activity that helps remind us of our dependence on God.

2. Read Scripture. Another, obvious answer. Yet, God has given us his Word to guide us.

3. Act. God isn’t looking for people to warm the bench. He’s looking for people to get in the game.

Letting go is hard. Trying to control things you can’t is harder. Listen to God. Take that next step. He’ll guide you to where you need to be.

Follow the Leader

We’ve all heard the story about why Canada Geese fly in a V formation. The lead goose creates a draft that the other geese follow. The other geese honk behind the leader to cheer the leader on. When the leader gets tired another goose takes the leaders place and the V continues on. This instinct allows Canada Geese to cover great distances in their migration pattern. It’s absolutely brilliant, as long as there’s a leader.

The other day as I was driving my daughter to school in the morning I saw dozens of geese heading back into the sky after a night’s rest. What caught my attention that morning wasn’t the number of geese, though I’ve rarely seen so many in one place. It was the lack of organization. There was no elegant V flying across the sky. It was simply dozens of geese flying chaotically and going nowhere.

As I watched, it occurred to me what was happening. The geese were all trying to find a leader to follow. No goose was taking the first shift to lead the V. Every time a V seemed ready to form the lead goose pulled behind another goose and the V fell apart. Without a leader the geese were going nowhere.
Without a leader, teams and organizations go nowhere. Someone has to cast vision. Someone has to point the way. Someone has to create the draft that others can follow. But leading’s hard. It’s a lot easier to draft behind a strong leader than create the draft yourself. Yet, if God’s called you to lead, you need to lead. Without a leader, the team or the organization is going nowhere.

Thankfulness

This is the obligatory, what are you thankful for post in honor of Thanksgiving. I could list all the things that I’m thankful for, but that would be really boring for you to read. I could ask you to list the things you’re thankful for, but your time would be better spent telling the people around you what you’re thankful for rather than posting it on some blog that your friends probably don’t read.

You see, the great thing about celebrating thanksgiving is that it gives us an opportunity to express our thankfulness. If you’re anything like me, if someone asked you if your friends and family know that you appreciate them, you’d say yes. If pressed and asked how they know you’d probably say something like, “They just do.” Yet, when I think about it, I can’t describe very many times recently when I’ve actually expressed gratitude to the people closest to me. I take it for granted that they know I appreciate them.

I would guess that if you’re honest with yourself, that’s probably true for you too. So rather than reading blogs about what other people are thankful for, or posting what you’re thankful for, turn off the computer and go let the people closest to you know that you’re thankful for them. Even if you have to pick up the phone and call them. They’ll appreciate hearing from you. Call during the Lions game, no one’s watching that anyway.

By the way, lest you think I’m a hypocrite, I wrote this post last week and scheduled it to drop today. I’m spending the day way from the computer and with my family.

Shiny and New

The Air Force is transitioning to new uniforms. By now, you’ve probably seen them. They’re shades of gray, green, and blue with tiger stripes. Pretty much everyone in the Air Force has their new ABUs. But, some of us in the Air National Guard are still stuck in our Cold War era BDUs, those old forest camouflage uniforms that no one under 30 remembers.

Over the weekend as I was performing my monthly training my new ABUs came in. I’ve got to confess, I was pretty excited about it. That is, until I got my box and the supply sergeant told me I couldn’t wear the uniform because the new boots haven’t come in yet.

You can’t wear a new uniform without the matching boots.

It was at that point that a realized how easy it is to not be content. I’ve worn BDUs for over eight years. They’re a perfectly acceptable uniform. Yet, I’m not content. I want my shiny new tiger stripe uniform.

This lack of contentment is featured in more places in my life than my Air Force uniform. I find it true in my spiritual life as well. I tend to be content with where I am but not content with what God is doing. That is so backwards. I should be content with God and frustrated with my lack of growth in God.

How about you? Are you finding yourself content with your effort and frustrated with God? Maybe God is frustrated with you because you haven’t grown to the place where he can use you the way he’s planned. It’s time for us to stop being content with ourselves and start being content with God. Then we’ll see what God can really do through us.

Out of Control Control Freak

In my last post, I shared that I recently lost my job. This has been an interesting experience for me. For the first time since I was 17 I find myself without a job. And to tell the truth, I’m scared. You see, I’m a control freak. Not only do I want to know what’s going on, I want to be the one directing it.
You’d think as a pastor and student of theology I’d know better, right? I can’t even understand how I am able to form the thoughts that I’m trying to communicate to you as I type. How can I possibly expect to direct the circumstances in which I find myself?

Yet, I think I can.

And, so do you.

As I ponder the direction my life is taking, I’m learning a new way to trust God. It’s a great experience too. It’s incredibly stressful trying to control things I can’t understand. In my current situation, I am acutely aware of my lack of ability to control things. I’m acutely aware of my need to get out of God’s way and trust him. I’m acutely aware of the freedom that this brings.

I’m still working hard looking for work. I’m working hard at trying to discern the direction that God wants me to move. But, it’s not stressful. I’m relaxed and at peace. I don’t know the situation in which you find yourself. But, I do know that it’s too big for you to handle. Yet, it’s not too big for God to handle.
So, take a deep breath, close your eyes, and let go. Stop trying to take control away from God. Instead, follow God’s guidance and go where he leads you.

Eulogizing the Living

I’ve had a very interesting experience over the last two weeks. As part of a restructuring at my church, my position was eliminated. During this transition I have had several people encourage me by sharing with me the impact I have had on them.

This has been an amazing experience. I have never felt more loved and appreciated by my friends and coworkers than during the past two weeks. And as I think about that, it makes me a little sad and very disappointed in myself. I’m not sad about the impact I’ve had. I’m surprised at the impact that God has had through me over the past several years. I’m sad how little I knew about that impact three weeks ago. And, I’m disappointed at how little people know about the impact they’ve had on me.

We seem to have this bad habit of eulogizing the dead and forgetting about the living. That’s what my friends and coworkers were doing over the past two weeks. They were offering me a eulogy as we mutually grieved the end of our working relationship.

Thinking about the love and encouragement I’ve felt during this time makes me think about all of the opportunities to love and encourage others I’ve missed. Like most people, I wait until the end to tell people about the impact they’ve had on me. Why do I wait so long? Why don’t I take the time to share my love for others as it’s happening? Why don’t I take time to eulogize the living? Imagine what life would be like if we made a point to speak well of, to eulogize, the people around us. Start today. Make a difference. Change the world. Eulogize the living.

Save Your Marriage Before You Get Married

Divorce bothers me. It bothers me a lot. It bothers me because I think it’s avoidable in pretty much every instance. Working at a church and having a wife that is an attorney that does some family law I have an interesting perspective on the subject. I have the misfortune of seeing divorce a lot. In my experience the root issue has always been that the people should not have gotten married to begin with.

If you want a successful happy marriage it starts prior to the proposal. My wife pointed this out to me after she had read Ephesians 5:22-32. Being a strong confident woman, she had a hard time with verse 22, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord” (NIV). Then, as she was studying verse 25 really hit her, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (NIV). She realized the importance of these verses for a single woman. She realized that it was her responsibility to find a man that would love her like Christ. Then, submission wouldn’t be an issue because her husband would be looking out for what’s best for her.

This is important for anyone who is considering getting married at some point in their life. It is important that you read through Scripture and learn what the Bible says about marriage. Look at this with a dual focus. On one hand open yourself to God to work in your life to be the kind of person that will be the kind of spouse described in the Bible. On the other look for the person that will be the kind of spouse described in the Bible and don’t settle for anything less. You are a person created in the image of God and you deserve to experience the marriage that God intends as defined in Scripture.

Take responsibility for your marriage before the proposal. Find and be the kind of spouse that God describes in Scripture then you will save your marriage before you get married.

Later this week I’ll talk maintaining a healthy marriage.

How Twitter is Helping Me Grow Closer to God

Yes, you read that right. Twitter is having a significant positive impact on my spiritual journey. No one is more surprised by that than me. I kind of got dragged into Twitter. I checked it out a couple of months ago and thought it was a complete waste of time. No one cares what I’m doing right now and I really don’t care what they’re doing either. Well… that was how I felt then. I opened the account and ignored it. I was following one person who never posted a tweet. Then a couple of my friends started following me. I felt pressure to start putting something up for them to follow.

Then I discovered that there are people in Twitterworld that actually had something worth saying. I started following more an more people. Then I found this little application called Alert Thingy. Now everyone’s tweets and facebook statuses pop up almost as soon as they’re posted. That made Twitter much more accessible. Throughout the day I started seeing people post prayer reqests or not even requests but information that was worth praying over. The I started following @StJohnChrysostum. I’m still not sure why a dead guy needs Twitter. Okay, actually @StJohnChrysostum is a ministry that tweets one line prayers originally attributed to John Chrysostum every hour. A nice little reminder throughout the day. Then I started following ministries like International Justice Mission or the Not For Sale Campaign among others. They tweet different things both praise worthy and in need of intercession. I found myself praying for them as well. I’d like to say that I’ve gotten to the point that I “pray continually” (1 Thess. 5:17 TNIV), thanks to Twitter. I’m not there, but I do pray more now. It’s cool how God works when you pray. The more you pray, the more you believe that God is there and actually listening to your prayers. The more you believe God is there and listening to your prayers the more you pray. It’s an awesome vicious circle.

If you’re not on Twitter, you should check it out. If you are on Twitter, let me know about your experience and try following:
@WorldVision
@IJMHQ
@compassion
@WorldVisionUSA
@Not_For_Sale
@trafficksucks
@StJohnChrysostum