Tag: Faith (Page 18 of 24)

So What Should I Pray For?

March 29, 2022 / / 0 Comments

A week or so ago, I wrote a post that said don’t just pray but instead just pray! And I know reading that line might be confusing if you don’t read it in context, so I’ll try to explain for those of you who didn’t read the post. The idea is simple actually. How often is prayer thrown in as a last resort? That’s the idea behind don’t just pray. It’s like we can’t figure it out on our own so we may as well pray because it won’t hurt anything.

That is totally different than knowing that all you can do is pray and starting out that way from the beginning. That’s what I refer to as instead just pray. It means, start from the position that God is the only way not the last resort. Start form the place of reliance on Him instead of DIY-ing it through life.

If just throwing prayer in as a last resort isn’t the best way to handle things, then what things should I pray for? The short answer is everything! The Bible says to pray without ceasing. Pray through the good times and the bad. Pray in moments of plenty and times of want. Pray with you’re feeling lost and alone, but also when you’re experiencing what being loved and cared for feels like. If you read no more than these couple words, know that it is clear prayer is a vital part of the Christian life and we should do it far more often and far more intentionally than we currently do!

But for those of you who want to go a little deeper and get a little more depth into prayer, let’s keep going. Sure we are to pray for everything but really what kinds of things? And how in the world do you do it? These are questions that I hear a lot! I know some people who pray for hours every morning in the dark corner of their kitchen or living room before anyone gets up. This was how my grandpa did things. But I also know some people who are pretty darn ADHD with their prayer life, hello that’s me! We have a hard time just staying focused on prayer while we’re reading one let alone pray for hours in a dark room.

Pray the little things.

One of the things in life that makes me chuckle but also shake my head is when people talk about prayer as if God doesn’t really care about the little things. I know a guy who prays before he leaves his home that he gets a close parking space at the grocery. For a while I thought that was absolutely ridiculous. I mean really? Does God need to worry about where you park?

But then it hit me. I obviously had a wrong view of God. If I truly believed that God was a loving father, then why wouldn’t he want to know about my silly wants? I loved hearing my children tell me about their silly desires when the were kids. As a matter of fact now that they’re growing up, I find myself missing these conversations more and more. I want to know what they’re thinking and what’s going on in their day. I believe God has the same feeling toward us. He wants to know what’s going on. So tell him the little things. Share your frustration with your bad hair day, or your realization that you have no hair kind of day. Share your happiness of the new personal record in weight lifting or speed in running.

God cares about the little things. Share those. He knows them already but just like a good dad wants to hear what’s going in their children’s lives, so also your Heavenly Father wants to hear from you too!

Don’t forget the BIG things.

The other end of the spectrum is that person who doesn’t feel they can ask God for the big thing in life because they’re not good enough or haven’t earned the right to ask God for something of that magnitude. But God wants us to bring the big, huge, gigantic requests before him as well!

I am not going to say that God gets bored freeing up front row parking spaces but come on he’s the creator of the universe. We can probably give him a little more than give me a better hair day tomorrow! Test God with your prayers a little. Ok before you get all weirded out by that statement, it’s not testing to see if he’s real. It’s taking what he’s given you and promised to you and testing his promises. God won’t disappoint. He will, as it says in Malachi 3, open the floodgates of blessing. While that passage refers specifically to bringing our offerings to God, I really think it applies here to our prayers as well. Test God in his promises.

I had a professor once say that prayer is rubbing God’s promises back in his ears. Not that God needs reminding but that we need to be reminded of God’s faithfulness. We need to be reminded of the ways God has already answered us in the past and how he’s still present with us today.

So here’s a question for you to ponder. What are you praying that you actually need God to answer? Understand what I’m asking. What are you praying for that God alone can answer? Are you praying prayers small enough that if you wait long enough, drive around the parking lot enough times, you can find the answer? Or is the prayer of your heart today something that God alone is able to answer?

I think so often we either don’t pray big prayers because we don’t think we can or because we don’t even think that big. But God is a big God. He created all of the world and everything in it, I’m sure he can handle whatever our tiny little brains can dream up. Pray the earth melting, kingdom exploding kind of prayers. Pray for healing when the doctors say it’s not possible. Pray for some miraculous explosion of God’s goodness and mercy to be rained down on you today. Pray something so big that you can’t mistake it is actually God answering when it actually happens.

Ok so there you have it, pray for the bad hair days and the give my bald head new hair moments. Pray for the rain to water the ground and for God to raise up a power house of light and grace in your community. Pray the little things that no one else cares about, but also pray those things that God alone is able to pull off.

In short – pray because it’s more the one to whom you pray than the thing for which you pray.

A Different Approach To Lent

March 18, 2022 / / 0 Comments
May be an image of 6 people and people standing

The months of February and March are typically marked in the church by a season called Lent. Lent is that 40 time period that takes us from Ash Wednesday to Easter. Lent is a time of thinking, praying, and being a little more contemplative. Churches add worship services on Wednesdays for an extra time of gathering to remember all that Jesus did for us.

As a pastor, I’ve typically served churches that have done this very thing – gathering on Wednesdays for midweek Lent worship. The services have always looked the same too. We start with a song, read a reading, pray, a short message is preached, sing another song and then go home. All in all it is a mini version of what we do on a Sunday. But this year we’re doing it different.

This year, instead of a message being preached, we’re facilitating a conversation about a new set of Bible verses each week. We turn to the section of the Bible. I read it aloud and everyone follows along in their own Bibles. Then I turn the group loose to interact with the text. We’re using this as a time of training one another on how to eat all the words of the Bible. Kind of like teaching a child how to use their fork and knife, except here we’re teaching how to use the bible and some of its tools. Here’s what it looks like.

Know your tools

The first thing we do, before being sent off to work on some study questions, is unlock a tool. Better yet, we show how to use the tool that’s already in our hands a little more efficiently. You see, your bible is a great tool to access all of the goodness of God. But the problem is that many people don’t know how to use it to its fullest. So this Lent we’re giving people some fun tips and tricks for how to use the Bible to its fullest.

Throughout Lent we’re asking everyone to bring their bible to church. And I don’t mean bring a phone with a Bible on it but an actual paper Bible (yes they still make paper Bibles). The paper copy has some fun little extras inside that many might not be aware of! The goal is to help you learn how to best use your Bible so you can get the most out of it. And a side benefit is that you won’t have to rely on me to do the work for you because you’ll know how to dig into what the Bible says. The goal is simply to empower you to become obedient to God’s words, to eat on your own, to become mature in your following of Jesus.

This week we looked at the simple things. These tools are nothing earth shattering, but they’re really great things that can help a person in their study of God’s word. Our two tools this week were the little section headings and those mostly overlooked cross references.

The point of the headings in your Bible is to help you better navigate through reading. They weren’t part of the original text. They were added as little tools to make reading the Bible easier. We used them to help track down the same passage in multiple books of the Bible.

The second tool we highlighted was the use of cross reference notes. These are really useful additions to the Bible to help you see how the rest of the Bible talks about a given topic. If you trace those cool cross references around the Bible, you could gain a significant insight into what the Bible means when it says a given word or phrase and why it might be important still today.

Talk about it.

After we read the text and introduce people to the tools available to them, we literally turned them loose to answer a few simple questions and have a healthy discussion about what they read. It was totally different than anything we’ve done before, but it was great to watch and even listen to the various conversations happening. A normal worship service is so one way and the congregation is largely quiet. The style we are using through Lent is very much like what the New Testament book of Acts describes when the church was first formed.

I’m not sure what your routine is with the Bible, church or Lent; but it’s ok to try something new. It’s ok to do things a little differently in an effort to gain a little deeper understanding. The focus of the church should really be about raising people up and empowering them with the right tools to be able to grow in their faith on their own.

It’s called discipleship. It’s what Jesus commanded the church to be about in Matthew 28. It wasn’t a suggestion or a good idea. It was a command. It was a command given to the disciples to make more disciples. Not to the pastors. Not just the apostles. Not just the seminary educated *because they didn’t have seminary educated people back then! It was for the everyday follower of Jesus who was being transformed by the renewing of their minds.

So, what new approach can you take to your time in God’s word that will stretch you and allow you to feast on what God has put in front of you?

I Walk Too Fast

March 17, 2022 / / 0 Comments
Fast

Ok so it’s no secret – I move quickly. I like to drive fast, walk fast, run fast, move fast in general. I even have a tendency to talk fast, and for that matter type fast which explains all of the uncaught grammar errors – sorry about that. I don’t like to sit around and do nothing. I am always busy. I’ve even been given a nickname by some members of the church I serve. I’ve been named Speedy PD (PD for Pastor D). But there comes a time when we all need to slow down. I think I’m realizing that I just walk too fast.

We used to go on family vacations to Disney when our children were younger. We’d hit the parks and see all there was to see. As a matter of fact, my children would tell me to get ready for my vacation walking. It was a type of walking that was faster than normal and allowed me to weave in and out of crowds so we could get where we wanted with limited delays. But if I’m being honest, I think I walk too fast.

For many reasons, I just need to slow down. Personally speaking, walking too fast can leave you alone. There were times when I’d be walking so fast that I’d leave my family in my dust. They wouldn’t be able to keep up with me. It gives a really bad impression to your family when you’re walking so fast that they can’t even keep up with you. I was just walking too fast.

But more than just walks with family on vacation, I tended to walk fast in my spiritual life as well. And to be honest, the faster I walked the less room I would leave for God. Now I know that sounds a tad like an over exaggeration here but in reality it’s more true than we all realize. We sometimes need to slow down to let God catch up. I find myself sometimes leading God. Not that I can somehow move faster than God, but I’m sometimes a few steps ahead of where God has planned for me to be. So I need to walk a little slower.

I’m not sure what walking slower means for you but I would suggest starting with literally walking slower. Moving your feet at a slower pace. Taking smaller strides. Stopping for a minute to breathe the fresh air or take in the scenery. Slow down the pace in the mundane parts of life so you’re more comfortable slowing down in the critical parts of it.

But when it comes to your spiritual walk, literally moving slower isn’t exactly much of a help. We can, however, apply the same concept to our faith lives. We can read slower when we’re going through our daily readings. We can find a still, quiet place to have a moment alone with God. We can turn down the lights and just sit in silence. I know that sounds awkward and nearly impossible, but sitting in a quiet and semi-dark room is very calming.

Another idea that is definitely not original to me is something called a sabbath. The sabbath is the idea of stopping for a day or a set length of time and just going dark. Rest for that time. It’s not a vacation. It’s not a party time. It’s a time to rest and well…slow down! The purpose of the sabbath idea is that we are able to work from our rest and rest from our work.

I think we can all admit that in 2020 we were forced to slow down a bit. We couldn’t go to our gyms, schools, churches and even to work. We had to slow down and even stop for a bit. The point of sabbath is that we pause to evaluate where God is in our lives. Stopping or even slowing down in life is more critical than we might realize. If we don’t slow down, then God will make you slow down.

Let me say that again slowly. If you don’t slow down, God will slow you down. He might do it by letting you come down with something to cause you to pause for a minute. He might do it by making your car break down or giving you a snow day at school. He might even let a global pandemic shut the whole world down for a few months! For me, he let me speed cause headaches and anxiety that pretty much wrecked my body. You don’t have to like it, but if you don’t slow down God will slow you down. And someone else slowing you down will not be fun!

So learn from my mistakes and slow down. Pause long enough to evaluate where you are in relation to God’s plan for your life. It’s ok if you walk a little slower. Take it from me, you’re missing things by moving so fast. Maybe you’re walking too fast like me.

You’ll Know It When You Find It

February 16, 2022 / / 0 Comments

This phrase is one of the most obscure sayings we have in our language. You’ll know it when you find it. Really? What if I don’t know what I’m really even looking for? How will I know it when I find it then? How big is it? Can you at least give me some kind of idea where I can find it? And for crying out loud, what is it anyway?

When we’re looking for our forever home or our next car or even the job of our dreams, it’s likely that we’ll know it when we find it. It’s likely that in those cases, there could be just one thing that’s the right thing for us in that moment. But that’s not exactly what I’m talking about here.

As a follower of Jesus, I sometimes get caught up in the trap of wondering what the will of God is for my life. I don’t know about you but that’s a challenge for me at times. Some call it discernment. Others call it seeking good or wise counsel. Others call it wisdom. And often we’re told that we’ll know it when we find it. That sure sounds like there is only one thing that is right and the rest are not exactly God’s will for us.

The more I read the Bible and look back at my life, the more I start to realize that God’s will for my life isn’t the one thing kind of moments. It’s the everything kind of moments. This whole you know it when you find it mentality isn’t really even Biblical. It assumes that there is only one thing we can do to bring glory and honor to God. It assumes that we can make the wrong choice, a choice God wasn’t expecting and that he isn’t able to work through. That’s not a God I want to follow by any means!

But over and over in the Bible we read that God is with us. He’ll never leave us. We even read in a few places that whatever we do we should be doing it for the Lord and his glory. That means the what we’re looking for isn’t a what at all. It’s a why!

It’s not what job you have or what house you live in or even what you do on your day off that brings glory to God. It’s the attitude and heart you have when you’re doing it. It’s the why that God’s after. We get so caught up in the what’s of life that we all too easily forget the why’s.

We can attend worship because we our parents make us attend worship and that’s not really a God glorifying experience. But we can walk in the park or go to a ball game or give it everything at work so that God can be glorified and to do good for those around us and that is God glorifying. You see the point isn’t did I make the right decision or is this the right job for me. The point is how can this action, job, decision, friend group, or television show bring honor and glory to God? If we can’t see God getting honor and glory through the things we’re doing, then we better stop doing them! And in a hurry!

You may never know it when you find it because you may never find it at all. But you can still know that it, whatever it is, can bring glory to God if it’s done for that purpose and doesn’t go against the truth of His word. So run after life. Grab hold of the promises that He has given you. Rest in the truth of God’s word and presence. And when you, you’ll find it.

A Small Surprise

January 5, 2022 / / 1 Comment

Parents if you’re anything like me, you probably wonder Am I doing this right? I’ve wondered that for the last 18 years. I’ve wondered why in the world God would entrust the lives of 3 small, vulnerable little beings into my care! I just didn’t get it. I remember bringing the boys home from the hospital wondering NOW what!? I had absolutely no clue what I was doing. Well, I’m here to tell you to stick with it moms and dads. Stay the course. You never know when life is going to come full circle and your children are going to shock you.

Now at the outset I’m going to tell you that my children have an amazing mother. She was there for each of them pretty much consistently from birth until present day. She worries for them. Nurtures them, yes even at nearly 19 she’s still in full on nurture mode at times. And to be completely honest my children are amazing! Despite my lackluster parenting skills they turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. But sometimes even my good kids shock me!

Short Back Story

For the past two weeks we were together at home as a whole family again. The last time that happened was on Father’s Day of 2021. We celebrated Christmas and New Year’s and just enjoyed some relaxing time together. Totally not normal for me but it was wonderful! Then this weekend I had to take Lucas back to Fort Drum. We talked about life and how his Team Leader and some of his superior officers have told him that he’s very respectful and that he follows orders well.

He replied to them Well, my dad told me to keep my chin up and my nose clean. So that’s what I’m doing.

You see the one piece of advice I gave him before heading out to basic training was to not stand out too much and keep his nose clean and chin up. He was going to have hard days but keep the chin up. There’s always something good to see. And keep your nose clean meant to not get in trouble that would get you disciplined or singled out.

Well the drive was long and a tad rocky at times due to ice and snow storms on our way to upstate New York. And I didn’t get home until 4am after the nearly 16 hour round trip drive.

The Real Shocker

I backed in the garage, barely able to keep my eyes open. Dropped my bag and keys off in the kitchen. And was ready to just pass out in bed. When my eye caught something on my safe. As I was getting ready for bed I saw a small Moleskin notebook that I had given to Lucas before he took off for basic training. I told him he could use it for whatever he wanted. I knew he was making notes of what he learned and that it was kind of a journal of sorts for his time in training and that I’d get it for Christmas. But honestly I just assumed he’d forgotten.

But there it was. Right on top of my safe. He knew I would see it there because I see that safe every night before I go to bed. I thumbed through the pages quickly. It was full of daily accounts of what he did in the field and some things he felt I could use or would find interesting. Why he thought I needed to know how to effectively clear a room is beyond me but I got your six if you ever need help. LOL

I was too tired to read it all but as I flipped through the pages one page stood out at me. The pages weren’t dogeared or anything. It just kind of opened to this page. It was kind of the hinge point of the entire journal. I read that page in its entirety and stood quiet and dumbfounded.

You see the point of this is that sometimes our children surprise us. They do things we aren’t expecting. I never would have expected my son to write prayer journal and explain the ways he saw God working while at training. I never would have guessed that he’d already have volunteered to get involved in assisting with worship at the chapel on base. These are just little things that blew me away.

You see parents your children will do things that surprise you if you let them. I want to remind you to set healthy boundaries for your children. They need to be able to count on you, but you have to let them fly. And when you set healthy rhythms and boundaries for them, you’ll quickly see how easily they’ll surprise you if you just give them the chance.

Decision Fatigue

August 24, 2021 / / 0 Comments

I’ve noticed a trend lately in leadership circles in which I run. Leaders have been making so many decisions at such a rapid pace, that decision fatigue is sinking in and many leaders have simply stopped making decisions. They’ve settled for sitting in the I’m thinking about it phase. They’re stuck in the information gathering and mentally processing of data stages. 

While these are important to be sure, because we never want to go off half cracked and make a decision without thoroughly thinking it through; there comes a time when we have to just make a move and trust our instincts. Now if you’re a person of faith, we call that moving forward in faith. But I don’t want to assume everyone who reads this is a person of faith. So think of it as going with your gut. 

My sixth grade teacher always told us when we were taking tests that our first instinct on an test question was 80% of the time going to be the right answer. If this is right, then moving forward with the gut decision is something that will more often than not benefit us and those we lead. 

But why do we not make decisions? Why do we sit in the thinking phase for so long? Below are three key reasons why we fail to make decisions, and some suggestions for how to move through this phase more efficiently. 

Fear Of Making The Wrong Choice

This is probably the most common issue that I see leaders facing. Deciding not to move forward because we’re afraid it’s the wrong decision only cripples all forward movement. When we stop moving forward or pivoting through challenging times, we lose momentum. It’s actually a matter of simple physics. An object in motion will stay in motion and an object at rest will stay at rest. Now there are some external circumstances that play into this, but once we let our movement stop it’s far more challenging to get things moving again. 

Think about a car when it stalls. If you’ve ever run out of gas while driving and needed to push your car to the closest parking lot, you know how hard it can be to get the car moving initially. But once you get those wheels turning the force needed to keep it moving is significantly less labor intensive. 

I’ll be totally honest. I hate to fail. I hate making wrong decisions, but I hate even more being in a state of constant inertia. Sitting around not moving causes so much anxiety and it is exhausting. Friends, it is far easier to change directions or make corrections to your course if you’re moving. Even if you make a mistake. Even if the direction you choose turns out not to be what you thought, it’s far easier to make corrective action as long as you never stopped moving. 

If you’re stuck in this mindset, take a moment to consider that one small step you can make. Find someone to hold you accountable to making the move. Check in regularly with your team to ensure the desired shift is actually yielding the change you’re hoping it will make. But most of all, just move. Small steps are better than no steps. 

A Change Isn’t Really Needed

Some would say that I like change, but they really couldn’t be more wrong. I don’t like change at all. It’s uncomfortable and painful to say the very least. But when a change is needed it’s absolutely necessary to move. The challenge however is when we wrestle with a total change when a mere heart shift will work. 

More often than not, we lose steam and think a revamp of a whole system is needed when all we really need to do is turn the dial a little bit. Not all changes entail throwing out whole systems and starting from scratch. As a matter of fact the change we need to make might be simply moving personnel to different roles or changing the layout of our communication structures. Sometimes flipping two steps in a process will yield tremendous results in shorting the gap between the desired outcome and the actual outcome. 

When you’re approaching change and the change looks daunting, carefully evaluate with the team if the whole change is necessary? Ask if there are smaller changes that can be made to incrementally get you to the place you’re hoping to arrive. Be flexible with your change. You never know what’s around the corner until you get there. 

We’re Just Plain Lazy

The hardest one of these to type is that of the lazy leader. Lazy leaders are uncaring. They have the skills to lead an organization into a great direction, but instead of doing the hard thing and making decisions and stepping forward in action…they stall. They don’t move. They clam up. They sit back and wait for the perfect scenario in which they might move forward. 

Lazy leaders aren’t leaders. They’re leeches. They suck the life out of an organization. If you’re a leader and you’re not moving forward, making decisions, leading through the challenges, then perhaps your presence is actually detracting from the life of the organization instead of just passively watching things unfold. 

No action is often far worse than making the wrong action. Leaders it’s time to rise up and lead again. It’s time to research your options and move. Too many good leaders settle for good when great is attainable. Lead. Step forward. Pivot. Keep your eyes open and you just might move into a future you couldn’t even have predicted for yourself. 

I Wanna Go Back

February 15, 2021 / / 0 Comments

I remember my grandpa always saying that life when he was a child was more simple. He said the best times were behind us. He used to think that all of this new technology was making life harder and preventing us from living real lives. In some cases he’s probably right. The times were easier once upon a time I will admit that, but I won’t go so far as to say the best times are behind us.

Today’s Music Monday is about going back, but going back doesn’t mean worshiping the past. It simply means that some things in life need the simplicity of the past. Think of it this way…

When we were children, we’d come to Sunday School and sing simple songs. We didn’t care if we were singing in the right key or even on pitch. We’d sing louder and faster than we do as we grow older. We didn’t care what others thought of our dress or how we did our hair. It was enough to sing with the simplicity of Jesus loves me. Our bedtime prayers were really about having a good night sleep and Jesus being near us.

But as we age, we feel our prayers need more words and our songs need more complicated rhythms. Why? Why is it that when we get older things have to be more complicated? Why can’t we relish the simplicity of grace without complicating things with our intellectual baggage?

I wanna go back. I wanna go back to simple faith. I wanna go back to Jesus being enough. I wanna go back to all the simplicity of what it means to follow Jesus, but remember simple doesn’t always mean easy. Faith is simple but not always easy. It’s time to go back to simple faith in a complex world.

Prison Lessons

February 11, 2021 / / 0 Comments

So there are certainly a few jokes we could throw around with this one but I’ll leave that up to another time and place. The point of this post is to take an unfortunate experience and see what might the learning moment be in a bad time such as imprisonment.

The audio clip below is from a message on the imprisonment of Peter in the book of Acts. While it would be great if you’d read Acts 12 and listen to the below podcast, I have the highlights below. There are three main principles we’ll cover.

The promises of the past give us peace in the present.

This first principle is a reminder that not all things that are bad in the moment really are all that bad when we step back and reevaluate. Peter is in prison after watching a friend an colleague killed in public. Kind of awful I know! But he’s in prison and the same thing is threatened of him. Instead of freaking out though, he remembers a promise Jesus gave him. Jesus told him that he would die as an old man and since he wasn’t old this moment was not going to be his end. So instead of freaking out, he slept!

God will do God’s work, but you have to do yours.

The second principle is found when Peter is told to get dressed and tie his shoes. This seems pretty unimportant at first glance, but there’s something powerful here. The angel will free Peter from the chains and from the prison but he won’t tie his shoes. Jesus will do all the work to save us and deliver us from evil and shower us with grace but he won’t believe for us. He still wants us to serve our neighbors. He still has stuff for us to do now that he’s done his work.

Pray expecting God’s answer.

This one is a pet peeve of mine but so often I hear so many prayers said as if we aren’t expecting God to answer them. I love the thy will be done section of the Lord’s Prayer to be sure! It reminds us that not all things happen the way we want. But it seems we like to hide behind this part of the prayer. We start our prayers bold and knowing exactly what we want then get to this part of the prayer and the wheels fall off. We use this phrase to erase our prayers altogether. Peter gets out of prison, exactly what his friends were praying would happen. Then he finds his friends and they didn’t even believe it was possible for Peter to be released! So why were they praying if they didn’t think God would answer?!

The long and short is we can learn from every situation in life, even the most challenging like wrongfully put in prison or insignificant like simply tying our shoes. God has a plan and that plan will happen. We just need to move forward in the faith of His past promises and in hopes of his future presence.

Character Attacks & More

February 4, 2021 / / 0 Comments

There is a method of arguing known by its latin name ad-hominem. I know it’s not a word we say all the time but we probably use this method of arguing and don’t even know it. The idea behind an ad-hominem is that you can’t win an argument on the basis of the content of the argument so you start slandering your opponent. You move from content discussion to character attacks.

When we are backed into a corner and realize our argument really doesn’t hold water, sometimes it’s tempting to stoop to attacking someone’s character instead. Character attacks are just not cool. Actually a character attack demonstrates how weak our argument really is.

The story of Stephen in the Bible is one that starts with an argument based on content, but it’s soon realized that Stephen’s content is rock solid. Then the attack moves to his character. They make up things about him just to make others think poorly of Stephen. But again he doesn’t budge. Finally, when nothing else works they resort to murderous threats and eventually killing him.

We may not go around stoning people, at least we better not! But we often find ourselves easily backing ourselves into a character attack scenario. When we don’t get our way, we lash out at our opposition. When we don’t hear what we want to hear, we attack the person instead of arguing the merits of our position. When our personal attacks fail to get through, all too often we just drop the person from our lives, delete them from social media, block their number on our phones, act as if they no longer exist.

There must be a better way. Check out last night’s message to see what that better way might be.

Jericho

February 1, 2021 / / 0 Comments
Jericho || Andrew Ripp | WGRC

What are you afraid of? What keeps you awake at night? What are the things that just make your pulse rise and your blood pressure skyrocket? What makes you freeze in your tracks and not be able to move? These things act like walls that keep us immobile at times. These walls need to come down.

Today in our Music Monday, we look at a song about walls that need to be tumbled, walls that isolate us and prevent us from living our lives to the fullest possible.

We spend so much time building these walls of fears and failures. We stack block after block on our foundation of unaccomplished tasks. We let our failures pile up to an insurmountable obstacle that we’ll never be able to escape. How do these walls come down?

The song Jericho is an echo of a Bible story about God’s people in the Old Testament. They had an enemy that was encamped in a well fortified city with massive walls. God’s people simply marched around this city and trusted in God’s ability and power and eventually those walls came down. They were persistent. They were faithful. They were trusting. And God did the work.

All too often when our walls keep us from living the lives we are called to live, we try to go it alone. Or we dig deeper for that extra measure of power deep inside ourselves. But the power needed to bring down these walls of fear and failure doesn’t come from inside us. It comes from God. He is our power. He is our wall breaker.

Happy Monday friends! Time to tumble those walls with humble, faithful obedience.

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