Please take time to listen to this beautiful piece by the Gloucester Cathedral Choir.

Hello cyberworld! Yes, I’m still alive and kicking. Wow, what a busy summer it’s been. The past year has been quite a journey for my wife and I as we wrestled with questions concerning the future of our family and my career. Early this summer after discerning that God would keep us plugged in at our church home here for the foreseeable future I finally committed to pursuing a career in financial services. The summer has been filled with classes, exams, some travel, and working whenever possible. I’m currently working towards my series 7 securities license ( a marathon in it’s own right) which should finally get me over the hump to get rolling. Hopefully I will soon be able to keep the blog updated more faithfully.

How about leaving a legacy like this men? What say ye?

This past weekend our church was privileged to have Brother Gayle Erwin here from Cathedral City, CA for a series based on his book The Jesus Style. (You can get the audio book here for free or call Servant’s Quarters and order the book.) Oh the flesh doesn’t like it, but like Jesus said, if we want to find life then we need to lose ours. That’s an oxymoron from our perspective, lose my life to find it? However if we just take a moment to look back over our lives we can quickly see it is a time tested and proven truth. Think with me for a moment. When are we most miserable? Never more than when we are focused on ourselves. Just last week (before our meetings) I heard of a very successful and wealthy business man who overcame serious depression when on the advice of a trusted friend he began to think of those who helped him become successful and then began writing letters of gratefulness to thank them for what they had done for him. This man had tried everything including seeing a number of doctors and psychological/psychiatric help until he finally ended up at a mental hospital where his good friend gave him the life-changing advice. Sometimes I may want to boast of how everything I have I earned by the sweat of my brow or perhaps we’ll hear someone talk about being a self-made man. Certainly hard work does make a difference, but in all reality we do not have one single thing that wasn’t given to us in one form or another. To see this we have to look no further than our entrance into this world. We are totally helpless at that point and without the life-giving/preserving efforts of our parents or someone in their place we wouldn’t last past day two. Over the years input and various gifts from people in our lives such as teachers prepare us to make our hard work count for something. Even some of the least privileged in life must receive help of some degree or the opportunity to “become their own person” would never materialize. Why is it so hard to have consistently grateful attitudes? I believe it’s because gratefulness is about as others-oriented as it gets and by nature I’m usually looking out for me before I think of anyone else. Jesus’ life epitomizes an others-oriented life, nothing He did was to serve Himself. His focus was totally on the will of the Father and hurting and dying world (people) around him. Truly the heart of a servant! When we hear it someone share their story of a life-given and see the results of having a servant heart we’re inspired and we’d love to have those results for our own story, but when it comes time to live it out the glamor disappears and suddenly we find ourselves looking for a way out. Ahh welcome to public enemy number one – self! The only one who can prevent me from experiencing inner peace and happiness – self. So what’s wrong with the world? As G.K. Chesterton once put it, I am (me).

I was blessed by this and thought I would share it with you, my readers

Wow – Perhaps I should be excited. My blog is visible; at least the spammers have found it. Encountered my first spammed comments today and got 5 of them at once. That’s not cool, but if it in any way indicates growth on the part of my blog, I’ll deal with it Have you ever wondered what it must be like to live with yourself when you can’t let others see who you really are; when you have to hide behind garbled URL’s and other anonymous identities? It must be awful to be too ashamed to just be who you really are. Miserable because when we hide like that it’s because we know we aren’t who ought to be or even want to be, so why do we do it? Notice how I’m becoming more personal the longer I write. It is easy to lash out at others when they perform less than admirably, but if we’re really honest who of us hasn’t lived behind a mask of one kind or another? We want to be accepted, loved, and admired so we put on some personality, force some giggles here and there, or perhaps we drive ourselves tirelessly to prove we can make the cut and hide the emptiness and hurt inside. Ahhh… but deep inside we long for rest; a rest or peace that has nothing to do with location or circumstance. Like a camel fresh off it’s trek across some vast desert we are thirsty for that rest. My friends the good news is, it’s available! If only we will deal honestly with God and ourselves, facing the masks in the mirror and exposing them for what they are in confession and humility and then… Simply waiting on Him! Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit, The Comforter to those who come to Him in repentance by faith and essentially wait on Him. Here are a few passages that perhaps may speak to the unrest in your soul today.

“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:28-31 ESV)

““Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.” (Isaiah 55:1-3 ESV)

Wow! What a night my wife and I endured Sunday night. I know it’s all a part of parenting and life in general, but it’s been a long time since we had a night like last night. To set it up, one of the girls was sick all day Saturday, but seemed to be some better Sunday although still laying around and running some fever. Everything seemed normal and on schedule when we went to bed, but sleep would be a long time coming. We spent some time talking through some things/decisions we’re processing right now (normal part of marriage right?) and for whatever reason we were already having some trouble falling asleep. That’s when the fun began. Our baby woke up and wouldn’t go back to sleep and the sick girl suddenly picked up where she had left off Saturday except this time it’s in the middle of the night. So there was no rest for either of us as one was required for each situation (putting the baby to sleep and caring for the sick child). Lately I’ve been thinking about self (as the Bible refers to it) quite a bit, and there’s nothing quite like sleep deprived night to put one to the test. When my comforts and “right to a good night’s sleep” get taken away the natural/old man seems quite willing to shine through. The fortunate part of last night’s episode was the battle/conversation was between God, John, and the evil one not directed at another person. In the beginning my attitude wasn’t exactly on the right side of the fence, but thankfully my focused shifted and a better perspective was attained. Nothing accomplishes that quicker than a few thoughts from God reminding me that it is a special blessing just to be able to hold and rock my precious little son (the baby) and he’s healthy too. I suppose I should have been expecting something like this as I’ve preached on the subject of self vs. selflessness a fair bit lately and often if you preach/teach on something you can expect to be tested in that very thing. I really do want to live an “others oriented” life, but I sure like to look out for my personal well-being. Thanks be to God for His all-sufficient grace and the patience and mercy He extends to us!

Some of my latest ponderings have been on self (as described by the Bible) and it’s role in my life. Here is a thought provoking excerpt from a message by KP Yohannan I thought I would share with you.

This afternoon one of my worst fears relating to blogging, website maintenace, etc… was realized. I’m hosting two blogs with the same account and by some mistake/accident – I still have no clue how – the database of my main blog just disappeared. I was adding an additional database when it happened. I suppose it’s possible to accidentally click the worng thing, but it always asks for comfirmation before deleting anything and I don’t remember answering any such thing. I just know that when I hit finish after adding the second one the first one was not in the list. Poof -gone! there went all my previous posts along with the comments that had been left by gracious visitors. The fortunate part of this whole thing is that the blog was not old and so I didn’t lose a huge subscriber list or a lot of posts, in fact thanks to feedburner I found a copy of my previous posts and was able to re-post them. So all in all it turned out fine, but what a heart stopping feeling! Yikes! It was new enough I hadn’t backed it up yet, but no more. There’s too much work/time involved to do this over and over again.

As I get started here I’m going to begin on a personal note. I have been pondering the words of Jesus in Matthew 6:19-34 and what it means to not worry about what you’re going to eat, drink, and wear. What does it mean to lay up treasure in Heaven vs. on the Earth? What does it mean to first seek the Kingdom of God and then have “all these things added unto you”? What does all this look like in the real world? How do I live this out and how is my life conforming to this or not conforming to this passage? While this may be on a more personal note it certainly affects my (our) everyday life including our business or work life. I would be interested in some feedback from those who care to engage.