Progress

As a person who really enjoys coaching my kids and their teams, there is one huge thing that I like to stress.  My goal is to have every kid make progress every season. Some kids will make a lot of progress, while others will only inch along. Yet, if they are making progress I am a happy coach.


I think God feels the same way with all of us.  He's happiest when we are making positive progress with our spiritual lives. Some of us will be making huge leaps in our spiritual walks while others will just be crawling. The most important thing is that we are all making progress every day.


Are you making progress? If not, maybe it is time to get back on track.   Get on track through prayer, Bible study, small groups, or even worship music.  Just get yourself back to making progress.

God Makes Time

So yesterday we had a pretty good storm come through Norwalk.  It caused trees to go down all over town, people to lose power and cable for hours.  The cleanup is going to take minutes for some of us and hours for others.

While I was driving around town looking over the damage in some of the areas it had me thinking about God and people’s relationship with Him.  You see, all the time I hear from people that they don’t have time to read the Bible, to pray, to go to church, etc.  I don’t normally argue with these people because I know that I can’t change their mind, only God can.  Now as an extremely busy family, I understand the busy schedule problem.  Yet we’re still able to make sure God is first in our lives.  We prioritize God because we know where He should be in our lives.  

Well, then a day like yesterday hits.  A day where many people have to make time in order to assess and damage from a storm that has come through.  For some people that is just picking up twigs.  Others will be spending time contacting their insurance companies and cleaning out major areas of damage. 

Now what strikes me with this situation is that all of a sudden these people have time to do this work.  They have time to pick up twigs, or they have time to call the insurance company.  They have that time because they now make it a priority in their lives because they feel that it is important, and rightfully so. 

My question today is if they can easily make time for things like this in their lives, why can’t they make time for God?  Why is it that when bad things happen they can make time in their lives, but not for the one thing that can make their lives so much better?

Put God First

Can you believe that it’s almost the middle of June already?  I remember when I was a child and the days seemed to go on forever.  Now as an adult with five million things to do every day there never seems to be enough time in the day. 

I mention this today, as in the midst of all the hustle and bustle of our daily lives and the stuff we have to do, it’s so easy to forget about the most important thing.  Every day you have to make sure that God is a part of your life.  Through prayer, worship, and your activities God needs to be there.  He isn’t an afterthought, He is the main attraction.  If you can put that kind of focus on God every day, then those millions of activities won’t be so hard to conquer.

"In everything you do, put God first, and He will direct you and crown your efforts with success." - Proverbs 3:6

A 6th Sense

Have you ever seen the movie “The 6^th Sense”?  I won’t give anything away for those who haven’t seen it (where have you been?)   Let me just say that at the end of the movie the major plot twist is revealed and they show you that throughout the entire movie they were giving you clues as to that exact twist.  The problem is, unless you’d heard about it beforehand or had seen the movie before, you didn’t know that the clues were there.

I think we can easily correlate that to being a non-believer in Christ.  There are clues all around them as to how God is working in their lives or the lives of people around them.  Then one day they get a relationship with Christ and all of sudden they realize all the clues that He has left there throughtout their lives .  Their eyes are now open, and they are now aware of God and all of His greatness.

My question to you today is twofold.  First, do you remember what it was like when you opened your eyes to God for the first time and saw all the clues He had left for you?  If yes, then question two now applies:  Why not make that happen for someone else?  If you truly embrace the life that He has given you, then you have to be willing to share His love with others whom He is longing to reach.  Just like the plot of a good movie, the clues are already there…but sometimes the people around us need  to have their eyes opened to the main story line.