Planting

So, all last week I had thoughts on weeding out the garden and not only used that here on the blog, but also discussed it during Unscripted at church on Sunday. So, wouldn't you know it - God had me working on landscaping with Traci Sunday afternoon.

We were working on the driveway side of our house where a weed had taken over in the past month. We haven't planted anything there since we bought the house so the area was pretty rough. We found that previous owners had pretty much just used stone in the area, and that someone eventually put some dirt over it.

So, what are we to do? We've found that the flower bed needed some work in order for the transplants to have solid ground to work on. Yes, we could have planted them there in the dirt and stone, but more than likely the roots wouldn't have found anything to work with and the plant would have died.

Instead of trying with what was there, I ran off to the store to get the topsoil we'd need. The new soil worked to fortify what was already there, in addition is builds up the area making it look better over all. The transplants now have a place with rich new soil that is free of weeds and that can give those transplants the best opportunity to grow and flourish in the future.

This reminds me again of our spiritual walks. There are times in people's lives that it's best to refortify the ground in order for the flowers to grow. I think that is what we do by getting into the Word of God. Every time we learn scripture we're building up the area around the items we plant in order to allow them to grow. We grow stronger plants in the flower beds of our lives that will help the light of God shining upon them.

I don't know about you, but I often take a second look at a house that has a lot of flowers growing in their flower beds. I enjoy the many different colors and admire the homeowner's willingness to work hard for such beauty. Think of yourself now as the flower bed showing off the many different flowers that God has gifted you with to the entire world. Do you think that others will take a second glance? Do you think that makes others want what you have in your life? Take some time this week to work on your flower bed, and allow all that you are planting to blossom through all of your hard work, it'll be worth it!

Weeds

One of the things I really dislike about owning a home is the yard work. I don’t mind doing some good hard work, but it never seems to last very long, which is the very annoying part for me. Weeds just seem to take over the yard if you don’t watch things for even a day. Check your flower beds at home and I bet you’ll find something there as well. Then there are also the weeds in the grass, and anything along the edges of your house, garage, kid's equipment, etc. No matter how much you work on them, the weeds are fighting to find a way to make their way further and further into the yard.

I realized as I was outside this weekend that once again this is just like our lives. We are a freshly planted flower bed when we’re born. We’ve got new dirt and have just been planted with something nice. As the days go on eventually weeds start to invade. They start out small and are often taken care of quickly at first. Then, as time goes on there are times when the a weed finds its way into a more permanent position. It not only gets a good hold in the flower bed, but then the weed starts to spread to other areas. If that isn’t kept in check, eventually that one weed can take over the entire flower bed.

Have you ever had that happen in your life? Where a weed (sin) came into your life and you didn’t get rid of it right away? Then that one weed spread and took over? This week I’d like to challenge my readers to check over your flower bed and see what weeds are there and start to get rid of them. Take out a few and see if you can clean up the entire thing. After that you just have to maintain it….which will be a lot easier than the initial cleaning of the flower bed. If you can clean your flower bed and keep it clean of weeds, the more Sun (or should I say the Son) the flower bed can get – and the more you can grow!

Positive Power

They say that people who put on a happy face get more positive reactions when out in public. Happy smiling sales people are also said to get more sales than those that aren't so happy. Happy spouses seem to like us much more than when we aren't smiling. We know all of these things, and yet we still have problems being positive. Why is that?

Let's not look at the negative today, but instead let us focus on the positive. You can exude happiness to everyone around just by smiling here and there. That positive power that you have inside of you has a way of attracting other positive power. You end up lighting up the area around you thanks to something as simple as a smile.

So, this week let's work on showing off that smile a bit more. If we progress on that a little bit every week, we'll get to a point where it shows off more often than not. Try it with me, let's try to make the world a happier place - we have to be here for awhile anyway!

Good Intentions

How many times in your life, when you have seen a new invention, have you said to yourself that you had that same idea years ago? Or even better, you wish that you’d have had that idea and made the money for something so simple? How about this? How many times have you wanted to help with something at church? How often have you seen a need and thought you could be the person that who could fill that spot? Need another? How many times have you thought about talking to a loved one or neighbor or friend about Christ?

The next question, how many times have you actually taken action on those ideas? IF you had actually done something with the idea you had, what would have that invention been like, and how rich could you be? What if you stepped up and helped with the youth, teen group, or started a ministry of your own that you see a need for in the church? What would that other person’s life be like if you took action and talked to them and attempted to lead them to Christ?

You see, it’s all about that word there isn’t it? Action. We’re all full of good intentions and have great ideas. The problem is that very few of us take action. Very few of us see an idea through, even if it fails. We all do it all the time, especially with spreading God’s love for others. Why is it so hard to take action?

I’m not here this week with all of the answers. In fact, I think that this week the answers will be different for every one of us. We all have our own reasons, although probably few are really any good. What I’d like you to get out of this week’s message is that the next time you see an opportunity to do anything, at least start to think about taking action. You have to first ackowledge that the possibility is there and that action can be taken before you can react. After you do that, pray. If God wants you to move further with it, then you’ll know – he’ll make sure you get hit over the head with it. The question is, will you be willing to act?

The Decision

So, it has been a week since "the king" has announced "the decision". Have you been able to get over the way it was done yet? Are you still hurt by his leaving?

As I started to evaluate the whole situation a thought came to me - What if #6 did all of this to announce a different kind of decision? What if he went on ESPN to announce that he's finally figured out that God should be the one calling the shots in his life, and not LBJ himself. Would people in Miami be so happy? Would people in Cleveland be so hurt? Would 9 million people have watched it on TV? Would all of the sponsors have paid money to be a part of that show, one that ESPN might not have even shown?

It's funny to me the things that we find important. Now, I'm a huge sports fan too, but I don't let it run my life (at least after a day or two...After all ... I AM a Cleveland fan!) Yes, I watched the show since Noah wanted to and sat there stunned like everyone else in Cleveland, even though I expected it to be bad news for us. Yes, I was critical on Facebook to a point. However, I wasn't throwing rocks at a sign on a building, burning jerseys, etc. I've let it go, as frankly he had every right to go. No, I don't like the way he did it, on national TV and all without really thanking the fans, but he did have the right to leave.

So, today, more than a week later, what is important in your life now? Are you still a Cavaliers fan even if the name on the back of the jersey is changing? Better yet, what does it really matter in the larger scope of things? Will this hurt your advancement of the Kingdom of the one true King because Lebron left? In fact, it may just help the advancement instead of hurt it. Now you'll have nights free that you use to sit by the TV and watch the games. Now you may have more money as the tickets will get cheaper to games.

In the end his "decision" doesn't mean anything to God. It's not the decision that he really needs to make in his life. Don't waste your time on wondering what could have been, but instead focus on those things in the world that you have some control over. Use the time that James' flight to Miami will give you to advance the Kingdom of God and watch how it advances. It's a much better show anyway.

Into Muddy Waters

On Saturday Traci and I took the kids to Huron Beach for a fun day of swimming and family togetherness. Now, this wasn’t the easiest thing for me to do since I’m not huge on the lake any more as I really prefer swimming in a pool, etc. However we have no pool, so I thought that the idea was a very good one as it was something different that we don’t normally do and it’s cheap.

So, we arrive at the beach and a few things become apparent to me right away. 1) It’s as rocky as Traci said it would be (I’d never been there, while she had) and 2) The water is quite nasty.

That is when it hit me. This is a small comparison of what Jesus headed into when he came to the world to save each and every one of us from our sins. Here I am looking at all the different reasons why this could be a “not so much fun” experience like the nasty water with the dead fish floating in it (we found that after an hour or so in the water), the crowd that kept building at the beach, the rocky beach itself, etc. It would have been so easy to look at all of that and just want to turn around and say that the family time is off and we were going home. Jesus could have done the same thing as well. He could have just seen how nasty the world was at that time and tell his Father that He didn’t have the heart to go through with it. Instead, He stayed, knowing the outcome of His time on earth and still willing to follow through with all that was planned for His life.

Now, I’m not comparing myself to Jesus, but instead, noticing how little outside things can easily keep us from the things that God has planned for our lives. That family time we spent on Saturday could become a memory that they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. It could easily be my last weekend event with my whole family, not hoping that I’d die – but instead just pointing that out. If we all don’t take the opportunities that are presented, we never know when the next one will come. I pray that the next time you are presented with an opportunity that you fully embrace it, just as Jesus did when He came to earth for all of us.

Video Games

You know one of the great things about a video game? You have control over the character in the game and get to make all the decisions. You can make him/her go left, right, up, or down. You can make them stop and go on demand, jump, fly, whatever else the game allows. You get to determine the course of the character’s life in the game. You get to say how much the outside forces of the game can control the character, which is another plus!

Now look at your life. How much in control are you? How easy is it to keep those outside influences from making you do what you want? Why is it that in real life those influences seem to be so much stronger and have more weight in our decision making than in the game we were just discussing? Why is it that we so often find ourselves doing things that we don’t want to be doing?

Maybe, just maybe, the answer is in who has their hands on the controller. You are trying to control everything that goes on with the “you” character, instead of allowing the person running the game to do their part. Can you imagine playing Super Mario Brothers and fighting with the game to control Mario? How many levels of that game would you complete at that rate? Yet, every day all of us try to keep control of our lives away from the one who has the best ability to make sure we win the game: God.

This next week, start to loosen your grip on the controller of the game of life. Let’s see what He can do when you aren’t fighting Him to run the course of the main character’s life in the game – it just may help you win every day.