Bring on the SUN!

Great week weather wise! Yes, the snow is gone, there is no forecast for snow, the wind is blowing, the sun is shining! Bring on the Sun. After a VERY long winter of stupid cold and snow, it is so good to again see the sun, be outside in the warmth, and to experience a reawakening of the world. Spring is awesome. I realize that at times in my life I need a spring time in my relationships with God also, a time where I shake off my laziness and apathy and I look at Jesus with eyes wide open, with energy, with excitement. Spring reminds me of the need and the power of the warmth and the life of Jesus.

I love spring, time to get the sandals and shorts out and experience a little Jesus with the sun!

Saying Good-Bye

A friend of mine passed away last night as a result of an accident he had last week. He was an amazing musician, could lead people in worship anywhere and from a group of 5 to a group of 5000, he loved Jesus, and he influenced hundreds of people. In the week he was in the hospital, his blog had 10,000 hits and 400+ comments. He impacted people everywhere he went.

Death is hardly ever an easy thing to grasp and when you are forced to say good-bye whether it is because of death or moving it is hard to understand why. I was talking to a friend this morning and he said when I get to heaven I either have a lot of questions that I want to ask God (and why Kevin died is one of them) or simply being in the presence of God will be good enough. I don't understand death, don't necessarily know the best way of dealing with it, though I have had the opportunity to be with people who have lost people very close to them. I do know that death is not the worse case situation for people who believe in Jesus, because of the promise that they are experiencing the next step in eternity minus sin, but it can feel like the worse case scenario for those of us left behind. Questions, anger, sadness, hopelessness, can overwhelm and invade us if we aren't careful, so for me when I deal with saying good-bye I hang on the promises in Jeremiah 29 and realize that in the most painful times God is there and I realize that Satan is trying to use death to tear us away from Jesus. Many times for the people who have a relationship with Jesus we can ge shook by death and forget what the person who dies stood for, what they believed. See, when I die I pray, hope, plead that my death will not push people away from God, but instead point people to Him. Kevin's life and death pointed people to Jesus, for that I am inspired.

So, good-bye for now Kevin, until we all meet again.

RELATIONSHIPS -- WEEK 1

Relationships can be difficult to begin but even more difficult to maintain. Most of us have plenty of people around us that we casually hang out with, and even do life with, but few of us truly have those deep relationships in our life. For most of us the reason we don't have those type of relationships in our life is that we have had really poor models of what relationships look like. We go through relationship after relationship or we become so hopeless that we give up on the possibility of deep relationships period.

From looking through the life of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego we can learn a little about true friendship. Daniel 3
FAITHFULNESS -- do you have someone 100% faithful in your life, you never have to question if they have your back. Are you 100% faithful to anyone in your life?
ACCOUNTABILITY -- Do you have someone who holds you accountable to who you are, to making the right choices, that will challenge you if your morals or decisions change? Do you hold other people accountable or do you rationalize it is their life, I don't want to butt in.
SHARPEN YOU -- Do you have friends in your life that make you a better person or do the people that you surround yourself with make you worse off, dumber, have less integrity, etc... Do you make the people you are around better?
DO THEY HAVE YOUR BEST INTEREST AT HEART NOT THEIR OWN INTERESTS -- It is so important to have friends that have your best interest at heart, not their own, not their own agenda, etc... when you have friends that will do whatever it takes for you, you have real friends.

Jesus says in John 15:12-13 -- Love others as I have loved you, there is no greater love of a friend than if he lays his life down for that friend.

What kind of friend are you? What kind of friend are you becoming?

Life in the Fast Lane

Most of us live life in the fast lane -- we are constantly running from one thing to the next or getting so consumed by stuff that we miss out on what is going on in the real world. I have spent much of my life living in the fast lane, after all I was taught the more you do the better, if you are sitting around then you are lazy, just avoid tough situations at all cost and you will be ok.

God has been faithful in giving me opportunities to see life for what it was meant to be -- living for God to its fullest, which sometimes means sprinting, sometimes means resting, but always means staying focused on Him. Every time my eyes get taken off of Him, I fall, I get caught up in the fast lane of life and I miss out on peace, purpose, and a whole lot of fun. I am not sure where this is leading my in my life, but it is nice to get out of the fast lane and into clarity.