::Gratitude: The Fish On The Hook::

It's thanksgiving tomorrow and it's going to be the first time that Melissa and I have hosted and the first thanksgiving in our new home in Rochester.  Looking forward to having the family in from out of town.  It's gonna be great.   I was thinking about what I could write about for the holiday but unfortunately everything seems so cliche:  Holiday cheer, giving, turkey & ham, family time, lounging around in pajamas.  As I type this I'm actually getting pretty excited about doing those things, but to write about them can seem overdone right? Outside of the things we typically function within during the holidays, I think we're connecting with something greater.  Here's my thoughts.

In Christianity, it's often expressed that it's tremendously difficult to connect with the spiritual realms of God.  The supernatural if you will is something that only the spiritually elite attain and everyone else just suffers with a lesser version or maybe they settle that it just doesn't work for them.  It's thought you must already be a "spiritual person" to connect with God in this way or that maybe those who walk in these paths must have earned this through some level of sacrifice and thus have greater access to God.  While some of these thoughts are apart of the journey with God, they aren't the key to encountering Him in your personal life.  We all have access to the secret place of God, His presence and His power.

Have you ever heard fishermen who've had some success, talk about how to get the "fish on the hook?"  While this might sound like the logical point of fishing to non fishermen, it's a distinct challenge to actually get the "fish on the hook".  It takes some experience to get something on the hook with more significance than a blue gill, if you know what I mean.  This expression now also has a more common meaning, often referring to accomplishing a goal and getting it to last or sales teams acknowledging that they sealed a deal. It's a great statement to make because it states the fact that something that was difficult to obtain was obtained and it's going to have a great outcome.  So how do we get the- encountering the presence and supernatural power of God "fish on the hook"?

 I did a teaching series on crafted prayer recently.  One of the main aspects of effective prayer is getting to a place of no distractions.  It's popular in christian circles to talk about a "prayer closet".  This simply refers to Jesus telling the people of His day to pray in their room with the door shut and that they could find God in this secret place (religious leaders were known for praying loudly on market corners).  While teaching I brought out the fact that we actually have to make the decision to "come into the presence" of God.  It's a place that we enter consciously.  I believe that we can stay in the place all the time, but distractions limit us for sure.  Anyways, the greatest component of coming into the presence of God is referenced in the Psalms over and over.  It's Thanksgiving.  Come into His presence with Thanksgiving or more relevantly: with gratitude.

While being grateful about life doesn't sound like a profound answer to encountering God, I've found that most things about God have been overcomplicated.  This simple answer isn't the one punch ticket, but it's the launch pad for all things that lead to encountering God.  Think of it as good bait on your hook.  It's the right lure.  When we begin to give thanks about all that is in our life, it softens our inner walls of skepticism and inhibition and allows our heart to be open to whatever and however God wants to encounter us.  It destroys that spirit of entitlement that permeates our current society and culture.  I've found being mindful of the this and intentionally looking to receive during moments of gratitude has lifted my expectation and thus my experiences with God are becoming even more dynamic.

So, tomorrow is a big day with lots of food, family and friends.  What about tomorrow could be a beginning to encountering God like you never have?  Be gracious with expectation.  Who knows, in your spirit of gratitude, maybe you'll have the best day with family you've had in years.  Maybe dinner goes a little better than planned rather than the complete nightmare that history holds in it's hand.  Maybe you have a breakthrough to encountering everyday life at a level that you just haven't been able to connect with.  Come into His presence with Thanksgiving.   It can just be about the turkey and the Lions losing to the Patriots or a great new beginning.  Let's get the fish on the hook.

Thank you God for the best thanksgiving we've ever had.

State Of The Church Address: What If?

State Of The Church Address:

Could you imagine if someone each year got up in front of the world and let everyone know where the church was currently and where it was heading? This leads me to a catastrophe of thoughts, but needless to say it's interesting to think about.  Here are a few quotes from two of our most beloved presidents.  In times when Americans needed reminding of who they were and the values they stood for, Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy both delivered thoughts that will resonate in us for a lifetime.  If the church had a president, I wonder how close in resemblance to these statements he would come to remind us of who we are and what it is we stand for? (I'm asking for a long leash here, there are obvious thoughts that don't relate, but create context for the  remaining quote, thanks for reading.)

Ronald Reagan, our 40th president.

"Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty."

"Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves."

"Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives."

"I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the US Congress."

"If the federal government had been around when the Creator was putting His hand to this state, Indiana wouldn't be here. It'd still be waiting for an environmental impact statement."

"If we love our country, we should also love our countrymen."

"Man is not free unless government is limited."

"There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect."

"There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder."

"They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong."

John F. Kennedy, our 35th president.  

"A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people."

"Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them."

"Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth."

"I look forward to a great future for America - a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose."

"Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other."

"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic."

"The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds."

"The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining."

"Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly."

  

Man's Design and Women's Dream.

I went to Indianapolis this past weekend for the wedding of my cousin Deborah to a great guy named Jarrod.  It was an awesome celebration of love for the family to be apart of. Congrats again to my wonderful cousins.  I pray continuous blessings over you guys!    It got me thinking about what we are really celebrating at weddings? For the cynics, maybe they are there to celebrate another person choosing to live in the same misery they are, thus growing the membership to "Club Bad Roomate Marriage".  For the hopeless romantic, maybe the reminder that others are still believing in the the beginning of the pursuit of blissful love.  Then there's the people that no one knows that want to grind on the dance floor all night until you literally turn the lights off on them.    No matter what angle you work from... you're still there to celebrate.   In our more modern times,  I think we're celebrating a miracle.   I think it's a powerful miracle that two people would want to share in front of all these witnesses that their love is worth giving up the rest of their life for.  That the companionship with that person is more valuable than anything that could ever be represented by automatic deposit,  going platinum,  32 seconds of fame on Youtube or any other relationship in their lives.  Marriage is the beginning to something extremely exclusive and everything else in your life flows through the filter of that priority.  This is a miracle considering the "me first" mentality that permeates our current times.  Marriage is a big deal.

The commitment of the marriage relationship creates the safety needed to experience the deepest of realms with a person that you otherwise never would.  Not that those realms can't be experienced outside of marriage, there just isn't the safety of lifelong commitment to protect it.  This is another topic, but I wonder why so many people are broken in relationship these day?  They want the benefits of intimacy on all levels, but not the commitment to cover it. These powerful commitments yield the need for great leadership, focus and selflessness... but nonetheless, it's the decision that TWO people make.  The influence they have with one another is like none other (at least it should be).  There's no one else who has the right to speak into our life like our mate does.  They earned that right on the wedding day and the trust to support that right is birthed through life experience.  This is a dynamic facet to healthy marriage.

So we could say that marriage is a miracle of trust that creates the chance to experience healthy intimate companionship like none other.  I love that thought... but even greater I love the opportunity to experience relationship that has no limits or bounds because of where it's authored from. This leads me to my faith and relationship with God.  One of the pictures used to explain the relationship between mankind and the creator is that mankind is a bride and the groom (Christ) is coming to unite with us here on the earth through His return.  While being a husband doesn't qualify me to comment that I know what it's like to be a bride, I can comment on how my bride (Melissa Rae, I love you.) interacts with me.  I believe we culturally have a hard time putting physical attributes to God and our interactions with Him, but the thing we easily forget is that God made us like Him.  We're made in His image and likeness.  We are who we are because God made us from what He knew of Himself.  That said, I have one final thought.

What does it look like for mankind to interact with Christ as a bride does her groom?  I think about how much influence my bride has on my life.  It didn't just happen.  It was a growing thing, but the moment we were engaged, we catapulted into the trust gauntlet, learning how to navigate with one another selflessly.  (we made a lot of mistakes, but our commitment through it has yielded a dynamic relationship)  Remember the old adage "a happy wife is a happy life"? This statement is an old adage because it's inherently true to most marriages.  I wonder what level of influence we have on God to motivate Him on our behalf?  I wonder what level of companionship and deep levels of intimacy are available to all of us that we've never encountered only because we didn't know it was possible?  What if God's greatest desire is to have a companion that will say I Do for the rest of their life?  What if a happy wife is a happy life for God too?  What if we have the right thru covenant to the biggest influence in God's interactions with mankind? What if He longs to bring us happiness and He gets great fulfillment out of our success and joy?  This what it is for me to my wife so why not God to His bride? What if our interaction with the almighty God was everything that we've dreamed about since we were "little girls" and just didn't know it would be God that would fulfill it?  What do you dream about?  What if God is the beginning to the life you always desired to have?  I believe He wants a companion and He's on one knee, asking.  What are we going to say?