Calm

It’s great to enjoy the calm before the storm but even better to experience it during. That’s the peace Jesus has for us, let Him bring it.

Sameness

God’s highest hope for each of us is to find and stay in an intimate, unique, and completely fulfilling relationship with Him. It’s not His idea for us to walk the path of everyone else. Different is good.

The world is countering God’s plan with sameness. We’re becoming franchise humanity with no tolerance for anyone unlike ourselves and will soon be herded into one of only two crowds; it’ll be them and us. Much of the church today is playing right along with this plan.

Our answer has to be personal. Our intimacy with the Lord will result in an outpouring of love on individuals, persons that are different than we are and our goal can’t be to make them just like us.

Order

Our God is not confusing or complicated. He is the God of peace and He’s put things in order for us. In today’s world man wants to order everything for himself; we film life and arrange it to tell the story we want, we take pictures and edit them, we even rearrange scripture to use it to our benefit.

Life is often difficult and can be confusing but God is here to help us simplify, to gain perspective and to make sense of it all. His sense not ours.

Disengage

Jesus set an example for us by regularly disengaging from the world around Him. There is nothing more valuable than time alone with God.

Adore

Jesus, I adore you, lay my life before you, how I love you.

How we love Him is by loving His people, all of His people, not just those that are like us. Please help us do that today Lord.

Dwelling

Poor thinking, negative thoughts, believing lies, mistrust and so many of the other things that have a way of creeping into our minds are going to happen. We shouldn’t be surprised when they do. Where we get into trouble is when we dwell on them and let them take a prominent place. The sooner we can recognize them and turn them over to God the better. The more we practice this the easier it gets.

Perfectly Ourselves

“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them” — Thomas Merton

Perception is not reality

Though we often hear differently, others opinions are just that, opinions. They may hold a fraction of truth but that doesn’t make them the whole truth. We do need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water but the bath water still needs to be thrown out. So don’t let someone’s misguided judgment inhibit the truth the rest of us know about you, you’re amazing, God says so and we can see it.

Run

More often than not you’ll hear me suggesting we slow down. However there are times when haste is fitting such as when we find someone with all the answers.

Thank God

More from the wide world of sports: I came across an interesting article by sports writer Will Leitch. In the piece he addresses the issue of athletes thanking God for their efforts, in particular Los Angeles Angel Josh Hamilton. I especially appreciated this paragraph from Mr. Leitch:

“Christianity isn’t some peripheral notion of Hamilton’s life; it is his life. When you live a Christian life, everything you do, from showing up to church on Sunday, to going to the grocery store, to pumping gas, to hitting a home run, to striking out, is done for the glory of Christ. Hamilton isn’t thanking Jesus for helping him hit a homer; he is thanking Jesus for everything. From the homers to the strikeouts to the millions of dollars to all the boos.”

You can read the entire article here.