One on one

My wife and I have 3 little kids, and our house moves at the pace of a blender. There is always something going on......

ALWAYS.

Today was an awesome day like most days here, but today was different. I got to spend time with one kid alone this afternoon. Then tonight some great friends took our boys sled riding, which left me alone with my daughter for a couple of hours this evening. For the first time since I can remember, I was not battling for my kids attention. I wasn't fighting the other elements (kids) to get my kid to look at me in the eyes without distraction. Sometimes my kids want to say something to me but with 2 other kids screaming for daddy, it is hard to get them to complete their sentence before running off with their sibling and forgetting all about what they were wanting to say to me. It was an awesome day. I told my wife, I am gonna start making some one on one time for each of them from this day on because of how much that time meant to me today. Tonight was great and I am now jealous for that kind of interaction from my children.

I now understand what the Bible means in Deuteronomy 4, when Moses wrote : "For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God".

He hungers for our undivided attention. He hungers for a relationship with His children. We are quick to throw up a short prayer before a meal or while we are laying our children down at night, but are you getting One on one time with your Creator? From my experience today I can tell you this........There is nothing He wants more from you than that One on one time.

Spend some time this week withdrawn from the everyday hustle and bustle of your daily routines and get somewhere where you can look into your Fathers eyes and give Him your undivided attention. Just the two of you.....One on one.

Just be still

This post is going to jump around a bit. Hang in there with me, we'll pull it all together.

One of my favorite all-time verses in the Bible is Psalm 46:10. "Be still and know that I am God"

I used to worry quite a bit. When I was younger, I would worry about tests in school and what I was going to do after I graduated high school. As I got older I would still worry but just about new things. I would worry about completing boot camp, graduating college, finding a wife, raising children, where my next sale is coming from, money for retirement and so on and so on and so on.

I don't worry so much anymore.

The greatest football game I have ever seen in my life was the National Championship game between the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Miami Hurricanes in 2002. Both teams came into the game with an undefeated record. Regulation time ended in a tie and the game went into multiple overtimes before Ohio Sate walked away with the victory and the National Championship. It was a roller coaster of emotion as there were a couple of controversial calls by the referee that left everyone watching the game holding their breath to find out what was going to happen. I literally got sick to my stomach on the last drive by the Hurricanes as they tried to tie the game up again. I couldn't take the drama.

Not too long ago ESPN Classic aired that game and I just so happened to catch the last part of it. This time however, I didn't get an upset stomach. As a matter of fact, I wasn't anxious at all. What was the difference? Why in 2002 was my stomach in knots and now I wasn't uptight in the least?

The difference lies in what I know now.
I know that the game does not finish in regulation. I know there will be several overtimes. I know what the score is going to be, and I know the Buckeyes ended up being the victors.

Why don't I worry like I used to?
The difference lies in what I know now.
Time and time again, God has come through for me in ways that make it quite obvious that I am not in control. He is.
Time and time again I read scriptures that all tell me to trust in Jesus. They tell me that if I trust in Him, that He will supply all of my needs, and time and time again He has.
His eye is on the sparrow. His eye is on you and I also.

God tells me: "Be still and know that I am God".
I used to worry quite a bit. I don't worry so much anymore.
His track record with me speaks for itself. There is no longer a need to worry because I already know how it ends.
It ends with God taking care of everything………...when I let Him.

Give Him something today that is worrying you and then……..just be still
And know that He is God.

And I hope you're amazed

Last year I started this thing with my sons. After they are tucked in and we have said prayers, we have "Man talk".
No girls allowed.
This is their time to ask any question they want to, and get my undivided attention and honest response. Since starting this, we have covered a very broad range of questions that I cannot betray their trust and share here, but believe me….we have covered just about EVERYTHING!
What is interesting to me is that more recently, all of their questions have to do with God. Now…...I realize that this is going to sound ridiculous, but I have been intimidated by their questions lately. It's the truth. I have actually not done "Man talk" with them in probably 2 months and I am pretty sure that's why.
(I just called my son and asked permission to share some of his more recent questions that he has asked and he said ok.)
He asks stuff like:
What does God look like?
How do I know he is real?
What does heaven look like?
How does God make the Earth just hang there and not fall?
I can deal with adult questions all day long. They don't scare me. Adults ask questions that they already know the answer to. They just want another adult to confirm their answer so that their ego can be inflated. That's pride. We hide behind our adult questions and our adult answers don't we? There is no imagination in adult questions. Perhaps that is why my kid's questions are so tough. They still have ownership of their imagination.
In Matthew 18, the disciples are trying to figure out who among them will hold the highest postition in Heaven. Jesus then takes advantage of the opportunity to teach. He pulls a child into Himself and says something like, "unless you become like a little child, you will not enter the Kingdom".
So when Jesus says that we need to become as the child, what is He saying?
In what way do I need to become like my son?
Jesus is telling us to humble ourselves for sure, but I also think He is saying……get back in touch with your pure wonder and amazement of God. Find your imagination again.
My kids are amazed by the awesomeness of God. Their questions reveal that don't they? My questions reveal my pride and my attempts to inflate myself to appear bigger and more important than I am.
Tonight, we will have "Man talk" for the first time in a while, but this time I am going to try and recall my imagination. I am going to prepare my mind and soul to be in awe of our awesome Creator as I listen to the questions spill out of my boys….and this time I will not pretend to know the answers. I may not even answer them. We might just have a great time sitting and talking in wonder together.
I hope you take time tonight to just think about God……and I hope you're amazed.

Pray BIG

I was speaking with a very good friend of mine a few weeks ago over a beer and some hot wings and he mentioned to me that he recently heard this message about praying big. As the conversation progressed I asked him, "Do you have a particular sin in your life that you have tried to beat and overcome, only to be pulled back down by it time and time again?"
His reply was, "yes".
I said, "Can I ask you another question?"
"Sure"
"Do you think it is possible to be 100% free of that sin by the end of 2010?"
He laughed and said, "No"
I said, "Can I ask you another question?"
"Sure"
"Do you think God is capable of anything?"
"Absolutely!", he said.

The point being that as Christians, we can't believe both. We can't believe that on one hand, God is the Alpha and the Omega, creator of Heaven and Earth, the great "I AM", and on the other hand think that there is now way God is big enough to remove some sin in our lives.
We can't believe what Paul said in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us, and at the same time believe that our problem is too large for God to rid us of.
I went home later that night and as I sat on the couch, I posed the same questions to myself.
Would it be possible for God to flush pride completely out of my system by the end of 2010? You see, you can fool people anytime you want to, but when it's just you and God, there is no fooling. Knowing that I can't fool God, I had to honestly answer that question with a "no".
I was basically saying, "God I know you're big, but you have no idea how hard it would be to flush pride out of me…..it can't be done".
It bothered me all night long.
I woke the next day and listened to a message by Andy Stanley called "Pray Big". The essence of the message was that most of the time as Christians we pray about little things that regardless of weather or not we prayed about them, would most likely work themselves out anyhow. In other words, pray big. Why not pray for things that there is no way you can do on your own. That way, if God so chooses to come through in that way, you will know that it had to be God and he will get the glory for it.
I was reading in Isaiah this morning in chapter 7. God was using Isaiah to speak to King Ahaz and He said, "Unless your faith is firm, I cannot make you stand firm". God also said something to the effect of "test me with something as big as the Heavens".
After letting everything soak in I decided to start praying freakin' BIG. So right now I am praying that by the end of 2010 that God rids me 100% of pride.
You might be reading this and thinking something like this: "That sounds good Tom but you have no idea how bad this particular sin is in my life…there is no way I can be rid of it….it will always be there".
I would then say to you: Then you don't know my God!!!!

James 4:2 ……you do not have because you don't ask God.

So what are you gonna pray for freakin' big this year?

Friendship & Marriage

If you are married, have you ever thought back to your wedding vows? I thought about mine last night for the first time in a long time. Sadly, I think I have failed in some of those vows to a degree. I mean, how often do we truly cherish our spouse? But while I was thinking about them I noticed that there was no vow to be best friends. We never promised that to one another. Why wouldn't the traditional wedding vows include something like that? Here is what I think…..It's assumed.
The wedding vows assume that if you follow your promises "to have and to hold", "for better or worse", "for richer", "for poorer", "in sickness and in health", "to love and to cherish", "till death do us part", that you will just be best friends automatically………and the assumption is absolutely correct. How could you not be best friends if you lived your life with that kind of commitment to your spouse. What I want to ask you is: Can you count on your buddies to stick around if you are flat broke? Can you call on your pals to come and comfort you when you are sick, or worse yet could you depend on them to sit by your side, day in and day out as you fought against cancer? Most likely your answer is no, and rightfully so. Your friends have their own life to worry about, their own kids and their own spouse. That is what is so awesome about having a wife or a husband. In those trying times in your life, you are their priority. They are your priority.
If you are best friends with your spouse, congratulations. There is just simply no better relationship on the planet and you know exactly what I am talking about. If you are reading this and you don’t have that kind of relationship with your spouse I would ask you this: Are you loving and cherishing them like you vowed to? I mean really cherishing them?
If you desire for your spouse to be your best friend, give it an honest try…..you might be very surprised by the outcome!

Update

Earlier this year I blogged about how I was going to make a list of people I needed to go back and apologize to for various reasons. Today I am pleased to say that the calls are complete. I feel like a large weight has been ripped off of my back and I am anxious to start the new year in a fresh place in my life. If you have people in your past that you have wronged, or maybe there are just people that you have fallen out of contact with, my wish for the new year would be that you would start making some calls. Handle that business and make it right. It will be one of the most freeing experiences you will ever have.
Happy New Year all, and remember to seek His face in 2010.

Just like Play-Doh

My kids wanted to play with Play-Doh the other day. So we all sat down at the kitchen table and I got all of the equipment out and started opening the cans. At our house, the colored lids mean absolutely nothing after the first use. Brand new cans containing a singular color have a life expectancy of about 8 minutes. I did manage to find a couple of cans that had not been opened yet and so I broke those out and divided them among the 3 kids. I tried as hard as possible to keep the colors from mixing, but 3 kids equal 6 hands and that is 4 more than I have. I was able to rescue some projects in the beginning few minutes, but after a while it was a total loss. The Play-Doh looked like someone lit an M-80 and threw it at a Thomas Kinkade painting.
If you catch the different colors early enough you can salvage them, but there comes a point where the colors are blended to such a degree that any hope at all in separating them out again is impossible. You just have to come to accept the fact that they can't be separated and deal with it.
Here is the deal: Jesus' love for you is just like the blended Play-Doh. It doesn't matter if you believe in Jesus or not. It doesn't matter if you have accepted Jesus or if you reject the claim of who He is….you cannot separate yourself from His love for you.
Romans 8:38-39 says it this way, "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord".
Nothing can separate you from Jesus' love……………..NOTHING.
You can ignore Him, flip Him the bird, curse at Him, or spend your entire life running in the opposite direction of Him, and He still loves you just as much as someone who has spent their life seeking His face. So you can continue living your life the way you want to and distance yourself from Jesus, but if that is your choice then I have some questions for you. Why would you? When was the last time anyone let you disrespect or totally disregard them and then love you just the same afterwards? I would think that you would want to sprint toward that kind of relationship. Christmas is upon us, which is basically just a fancy word for when God, seeing all that went haywire on this planet, knew someone had to pay for humanity's blatant disregard for Him, and Jesus loved you so much, He said…..I will go.
That is unconditional love, and it looks just like Play-Doh.