Category Archives: Creativity

Posted on by
Reply

God, you are my God. You are my Peace, my Desire, and my Drive. You created the entire world and universe and space with your voice, and yet you are capable of relating intimately with my heart. You are able to relate to my heart so tenderly and intimately while simultaneously relating just as intimately with every other human being on this planet. Should there be life on other planets, which we cannot even conceptualize, you are capable of relating intimately and tenderly to them as well. Do you know the numbers of hairs on each animal? Do you know how many hairs are on these strange characters from other planets (should they exist!)? Do they have hair at all? God you expansive existence is one I will never fully know; I could never contain it. Every human on this earth could have a phenomenal revelation of you, and together, we would never be fully capable of praising you for what you are worth.

I have no idea why you love me, why you bring me up to you in intimacy and love. How, oh God, could you love such a spec as I am? I could never praise you enough or give you enough (though you have everything), and yet you give me so abundantly much. I will never fully understand it.

My best friend Augustine

Posted on by
Reply

Augustine and I have been hanging out together so much lately that I may need to create a nickname for him as well.  All my good friends have nicknames (or I refer to them by their first name at least…the real friends right?)…Brennan….Ozzie….and Augy?…The Saint?…Stine?…I’ll work on it.

Today, Augustine said something that actually made me smile right here in the coffee shop.  He is talking about the wonders of being a baby and asking questions of God regarding where was before the womb…what was he before the womb?  After asking many great questions, he writes,

“Do my questions provoke you to smile at me and bid me simply to acknowledge you and praise you for what I do know?”

What a great image and challenge in and of itself!  I love the image of God smiling at all my crazy questions.  I find myself smiling when a child asks, “Does God have feet?” “Whatcha doin?”

I have to think God sits up there and smiles when his children ask him questions.  I’m sure he just smiles at Augustine’s questions because they’re brilliant, and if he smiles at Augustine, he roars with laughter over my questions.

I can imagine myself telling my daughters, “You know what; just enjoy what you do know and go play.”  I can certainly see God telling me, you know a lot of other things about me.  Do not overlook those.  Praise me for those things.

Invited but Unwelcome

Posted on by
3

The room is full of those people. You know the ones! THOSE people. They are the ones we have learned to hate. They are the ones who look nothing like us physically, morally, spiritually. We do not want to SAY we are better, but…

The room is full of them, and there is Jesus just hanging out with them as if He did not see what we all see in them. Why are they all there anyway?

Only a few hours ago, Jesus invited one of them to follow Him. The man did leave all the things that make him one of them to follow Jesus. We will give him that, but then Jesus went to hang out at his house. Now Jesus is with the one who is unwelcome. He invited the man to follow Him, and then went to the man’s home.

For the first time ever, here is a holy teacher willing to take one of them under his teaching and care. Here is The Epitome of one of us taking on one of them.

Now the house is full of them.

Of course it is! All these people are crammed into the man’s house to follow and hear Jesus. Though the call and invitation was to one, it seems to have drawn all the others.

Which ‘sinners’ do you like to avoid? Who of them need finally to be invited into your life, your love, and your care? Who of them would be able to tell all the others about you being different from the rest of us who avoided them?

That one invite into your life just may draw many others to Jesus.

the time I prayed for strength

Posted on by
Reply

I found myself
broken on the floor in tears.
I did not know what to do or where to go
who I had become.

So I asked
for strength
for wisdom.

Rarely do I ask for much
I am more content to pursue intimacy
than to ask for things

brokenness makes you ask for things

I started asking
and I waited…

……..

 

……..

 

I listened until
I was frustrated with the silence
Just before I fell asleep, I lay there
with dried up eyes and I heard:

“I am not a genie. I am your God, and I love you. If you want strength, I am not just going to GIVE you strength. It will start to get really difficult now. Will you be strong in those times or not. I am not a genie; I am your God who loves you.”

Notes from the dogeared pages of #32

Posted on by
1

Today I retired journal #32. It is always good to look back on the thoughts and reflections. The quotes and jots. The drawings and scribbles. So here are a few random notes from the dogeared pages of #32.

- A love letter from a stranger means nothing to us…but even a tiny note from my wife means the world…most of our not liking scripture is just not understanding or being in relationship with the one from who the letters were written

- Discipleship: action needs to be important, not just a Bible study…Application is a must throughout, but doctrine has to be important or at least clarifying of the essentials…contracts is necessary; this is a commitment you will only get what you put in…

-[vision casting] ENVISION a new culture SHARE vision with everyone GET ALIGNMENT with leadership MODEL the culture you want to create FORM URGENCY sense

- “Boredom is the natural byproduct of redundancy…and church ministry is redundant by nature.” … create new and fresh experiences with God instead of repeating the same stories over and over and over again..we tell the same old stories about God because we are having no new experiences with him…the pastor needs to teach and lead in a way that creates new opportunities and new experiences for the church family…but my teaching and leadership cannot be new, fresh, and alive if my personal experience of God is not new, fresh, and alive

- Pull away…look within…look around…Fill up…change it up

- “Greed is a sign of slavery; you have to hold on to something because you NEED it”
- “Generosity is a sign of freedom.” – Cody Cannon

- “People who don’t know Christ do not get to OUT-SERVE Christians.” -Cody Cannon

You’re Welcome: most highlighted quotes

Posted on by
Reply

A few days ago, I came across an Amazon page indicating the top highlighted quotes of all time on the Kindle. By no surprise, there were a ton of Hunger Games quotes. Either way, it was pretty interesting to see the things which stuck out to the most people reading ALL books found on the Kindle at this point.

Here were some of my favorites:

#1 – “Because sometimes things happen to people and they’re not equipped to deal with them.” – Catching Fire, Hunger Games 

#4 – “It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it takes to fall apart.”  - Mocking Jay, Hunger Games

#8 – “Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.” – Pride & Prejudice

#23 – “What is childlike humility? It’s not the lack of intelligence, but the lack of guile. The lack of an agenda. It’s that precious, fleeting time before we have accumulated enough pride or position to care what other people might think” – Heaven is for Real

#31 - “What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say.” – 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

#33 – “While the goal of the American dream is to make much of us, the goal of the gospel is to make much of God.” – Radical

#36 – “Those three things—autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward—are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying.” – Outliers

#38 – “life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.” – The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

#45 – “Pretend to be completely in control and people will assume that you are.” – Steve Jobs

Christians – by Carol Wimmer

Posted on by
2

Christians – By Carol Wimmer

When I say… “I am a Christian”
I’m not shouting “I’m clean livin’.”
I’m whispering “I was lost,
Now I’m found and forgiven.”

When I say… “I am a Christian”
I don’t speak of this with pride.
I’m confessing that I stumble
and need Christ to be my guide.

When I say… “I am a Christian”
I’m not trying to be strong.
I’m professing that I’m weak
And need His strength to carry on.

When I say… “I am a Christian”
I’m not bragging of success.
I’m admitting I have failed
And need God to clean my mess.

When I say… “I am a Christian”
I’m not claiming to be perfect,
My flaws are far too visible
But, God believes I am worth it.

When I say… “I am a Christian”
I still feel the sting of pain.
I have my share of heartaches
So I call upon His name.

When I say… “I am a Christian”
I’m not holier than thou,
I’m just a simple sinner
Who received God’s good grace, somehow!

Trust me; I’m a doctor [sorta] – guest post

Posted on by
Reply

Today I guest posted at my friend Malisa’s page:
——
I am sort of a doctor, or I should say I am a doctor of sorts. I have no patients and I prescribe no drugs. I have not exhaustively studied human anatomy to know the inner workings of disease and healing.

I am a pastor and I do have congregants. I prescribe books, music, films, and verses. I have spent years studying the anatomy of the heart, soul, and mind in order to recognize the inner workings of brokenness and the hope of restoration.

Doctors and I both want to see healing and restoration of broken places. Ergo, I am a doctor, right?

Here are a few of my most common prescriptions…read more here

Prayer molecules

Posted on by
2

A woman in the church who is quite sick and whose doctors are frustratingly running out of options still continues to go to her small community group. She is asked to share her story at this next week’s meeting, and she jokes with the group leader on the phone, “Oh, you just want me to hurry up and share because you think I’ll be gone sooner than later.”

It’s one of the heaviest jokes you have ever heard, but you laugh because it is still light enough.

At the group meeting, she shares that God has given her a few pictures lately of what prayer really is. One picture is of molecules. She explains that prayer is like a molecule, and each prayer a person gives for a person, a situation, or circumstance is another molecule attaching itself to the mass.

One prayer by itself floats alone, but when more and more people pray, all the molecules connect and cover.

Beautiful.