Goals

For some odd reason the idea of having goals has been in my head a lot lately. And yes, I realize that I’m sports oriented, but I’m not talking about soccer, hockey, or anything like that. My question for you this week is if whether, you have goals in your life, and whether you strive to achieve them.

Let me take a step back and talk to you a little about my goals. I have them in three phases.

• Spiritual Goal: To get closer to Him by learning more about Him every day through studies and reading the Bible, at a minimum.
• Family Goal: To ensure that my family grows closer to God, for them to know that I love them, and to get our family out of debt and enslavement of the world we live in.
• Personal Goal: To get in shape, both spiritually and physically.

So, now I’ve been working towards these goals for quite some time, and will continue to do so. Sure, they can all have sub goals along with them, but my main focus is on these 3 things. My thought is that if I can focus on accomplishing these, then I’m going to be in the best position I can put myself into in order to be used by God.

Now, I have the goals in place – now it’s time to take action, right? I mean, anyone can set goals – but only so many people will be willing to work towards the goals they set. Let’s look at the New Year’s resolutions that everyone sets for themselves. Did you realize that studies show that over 80% of people resolving to do one thing or another have already given up by now? Isn’t that a sad fact? We’re not even three months out from people setting those goals and they’ve already given up. No wonder the world is in the state it is!

This week I’d like to encourage you all to set goals for yourself if you haven’t. They don’t have to be like mine at all, but need to be specific to you and your walk with God. If you have already set goals, what are you doing to achieve them? Are you still working towards them and feel good about what you are accomplishing? A successful walk with the Lord needs to have ways of making sure you stay on the right track, and I hope that having some goals will help you accomplish all that He has set forth for your life.

Valentine's Day Thoughts

So here we are a few days after Valentine’s Day. It’s a holiday that is spent by most finding a way to reconnect with their spouse or significant other. Most people do this by spending money on those that they love. Were you one of those people? If you’re a guy you possibly spent money on flowers, maybe a nice meal, or diet-busting candies of some sort. If you’re a lady you got one of those thoughtful things for him that if we admit it, will blow away many of the gifts the guys give to you.

You see, the holiday is about expressing your love for that someone special in your life. We don’t always find time to do that in our day to day lives. We get busy with work, kids, family commitments, and so much more. When you actually have time to do so the rest of the year, you’re often too tired or out of money, etc. So, having this holiday is very nice for all of us to make sure that we reconnect with our loved ones.

My question to you today is this - Do you do the same thing with God? Do you need to have holidays like Easter and Christmas on the calendar to remember to show Him how much you love and appreciate all that He has done for you? If telling your loved ones here on Earth is a smart thing to do on a daily basis, why not do the same with Him? This should be a part of your daily prayer life. Start by thanking God for all of the blessings in your life. You’ll be amazed at how many there are when you start looking for them. If you start reconnecting with Him daily as you do with your loved ones you’ll start to see that each day on the calendar is just another day of being a part of His kingdom – and how blessed you are to be a part of it every day….not just a couple times a year when it’s circled on the calendar for you.

It's Not Easy Being Green

I’m sure most of you remember who used to say this a lot. Think back to your past. I’ll give you a hint, his girlfriend is a pig. Yep, it’s Kermit the Frog. He was often quoted as saying that about his life. For some odd reason, I started to think about that just this past week.

I think this can relate very easily to our lives. You see, you and I are Kermit. (No, I’m not saying your spouse or significant other is a pig, and that your kid is a tadpole or piglet!) We look at our lives for what we are here on earth all the time. We complain because we don’t have enough money and can’t buy something, or are stuck at a job, or never get enough sleep, or that we’re green, etc. We don’t see where we stand in His Kingdom! We don’t realize on a day to day basis all the blessings that we have. We don’t see all that we have been given by Him.

You may ask why that is, right? It’s so easy because the world we live in tells us that we shouldn’t be happy. You should want better clothes, you should want the newest IPod or cell phones. We’re constantly told that we aren’t good enough without this or that, or that we don’t look good enough. We tend to measure ourselves on all the things that the world wants instead of what really matters: God.

My prayer for you this week is that you start to accept yourselves for who you are. You don’t NEED all the things of the world. I’m not mad at you if you get some of that stuff, and neither will He be. Yet, getting into debt or caught up in life is what leads to sin. Accept your place in His Kingdom. Accept who you are and why you were placed on this earth. Maybe your circumstances aren’t the best or you don’t have the best of everything. Yet, if this is where He wants you to be here and now, isn’t that all that matters? It’s time to accept what He has in store for your lives, even if you have to be green to fulfill it all.

Don't Get Boxed In

For years, at least in the business world, a big saying has been to think outside the box. The theory is that we all have our own boxes and that the majority of our ideas come from that box because it contains all of our training and experience, etc. Thinking outside of that box is to come up with ideas that are so different from the norm that they will actually work. They’ve talked this idea to death in the business world, and I know that it also spilled into the real world.

The reason I mention this is because I think that quite often we as Christians live inside boxes of our own. We’re seen by the outside world as regular, boring, etc. I mean, aren’t all Christians people who go to church every Sunday, and are nice people? Don’t they do things for others because it’s what they should do? And they never have arguments or problems, right? Why do we have to be a stereotype?

I’m not saying that you should go bar hopping every night, or fight with people just to prove you are different. What I am saying is that we need to show the world that it’s not boring to be a Christian. Let me give you an example: this past weekend Traci and I took the boys to Winter Jam in Cleveland. This is a great concert that has quite big diversity in the bands and fans that attend. There was a guy dressed up like the joker (he was a youth pastor of a church in fact) and then there were people easily in their 50’s and above there to watch. The bands were diverse as well. The headliner was Third Day. They have been around for awhile and have a huge following. They are more of a rock emphasis, but they are great at doing hymns as well. Before them was Tenth Avenue North. This group of 4 guys is not a huge rock sound, but not R&B either. Then there was Thousand Foot Krutch and Fireflight. They are definitely hard rock. I was taken back to my head banging days with these groups. They really rocked the place, and left everyone wanting more. Sidewalk Prophets seem to be more of an R&B type group, and actually started their set by doing Man in the Mirror that was originally from Michael Jackson. There was also Revive (looked like a much hipper Jonas brothers kind of group) and Robert Pierre who is a solo act who is only 17 and wore a pink shirt with a vest over it!

Each of these groups was unique. They were anything but your cookie cutter Christians that the world tries to portray us as. We had one guy with dread locks and face paint, almost every male had his ears pierced, and of course the guy in pink. Then, instead of the hymns that the world thinks we listen to all the time you had some bands doing rock music that almost blew the lid off of the Wolstein Center. You see, these groups are not going to be limited by any box.

We don’t have to be who the world thinks we should be. How boring would that be? How would we get others to a relationship with Christ if we didn’t have anything in common with people in the world? I’m not saying that it’s ok to do many things that people in the world do, but what I’m saying is that it’s ok to go out there and shine. You can have a Mohawk and still love God. You can pierce your nose, listen to rock music, and dress up like the Joker if you wanted to do so. In fact, I’d like to encourage people to do things just like that. Sure, it’s not for everyone (me included) and it takes a special person to do some of those things. I don’t expect everyone to be that way, or how would reach the people that are more like us “normal” folks? My main point this week is that we don’t have to live inside the box. You can be “different” and still be effective for Christ in leading others to Him. Go ahead and think outside the box, and you might just find a lot of other people there, waiting for you to lead them.