Take time to realize......

In a world that never sleeps there are a million things grabbing for our attention....So many demands we feel as though we have to fulfill. Everyone in our world has some kind of expectation that they look for us to meet each and everyday.

Somewhere in the chaos the ones we love most are the ones that their voice becomes muddled. The people that we love so much and that all our activity is for are the very ones that we can no longer hear because there is so much grabbing for our focus.

We can love someone with our heart....

The problem is the people we love can't feel or see our heart....They can only see where our time goes and who it goes to.

So eight weeks ago with a world that shouted for my attention I decided to mute everything and to just get quiet.......I stepped away from a lot, and took time to realize what matters most.....

At the end of life what matters? Why do I do all that I do?

At the end of eight weeks I have realized that it really doesn't matter if the shoes are always put where they belong. What matters more are the little feet that fill shoes. When I look back over my life the placement of where the shoes were aren't going to matter....What we did while he was in those shoes is what we will remember the most.

Sometimes we can get so busy trying to get where we are going that we forget to chill out and enjoy the journey. To take a deep breath and realize that God is the one driving and that I will get to where I am going at the perfect time. So my windows in my house have a few more fingerprints......Instead of worrying about those fingerprints I am enjoying every single one. Realizing where there will be a day when I will have a house with everything in place, and when that day comes I will look back on these days and miss the shoes out where they don't belong. I will miss the little fingerprints from children laughing outside while they play. There will be a day when toys won't be hidden all over my house......Then I will look back to the day I am in today and smile.....I will have memories not just of cleaning the messes but enjoying the ones that made those little messes.

Have you ever stopped to realize that we are always getting ready to enjoy life, but we never actually start? We always say one day we are going to get away and do this or that....but we never do?

Last weekend we went on a mini family vacation in the middle of everything we just got away with our kids and had the best time. They did story time in their pajamas.....They ate food in the hotel bed. We did nothing but love on them and do anything they wanted to do.....We just took time to love the day we were in.

The greatest day of your life is today....The greatest blessings you will ever have are all around you right now. Today is the day you realize that your joy doesn't lie in your someday but rather it lies your today....Today has everything you need to live a happy fulfilled life...The question is have you taken time to realize it?

The power of a single question....

I was running the other morning on the treadmill. I began to think about things....When you are in minsitry you get the priviledcge of meeting people in all kinds of different walks in life. Some you walk with in good times others in hard times and few you walk with thru both. In all people in life I have noticed one constant theme. They refuse to challenge what they have always known.

It is as though thru life we begin to get a settledness in our mind of this is the way it has always been so this is the way it will always be. Why are we ok with life dictating to us who will be and what will become of us?

Words. Words in and of themself are nothing. As you read this they are just black font against a stark white background. Words have no power until they are released over someones life. That is when everything begins to radically change.

You know growing up I was always rejected by every coach that came my way. I was never given a second look as being an athlete. I was poked and ridiculed by peers for my obvious lack of ability to do anything athletic. I now get to go into schools all over east Texas and preach the Gospel to sports teams. Kind of funny when you think of it. For the last four years I have seen countless salvations and peoples lives radically transformed with the Gospel of Jesus on baseball fields, dugouts, and locker rooms. A coach looked at me at one of those schools recently and commented "Man I bet when you were in school you were a star athlete". He then began to list all the reasons why he thought so from my height, build etc. I couldn't help but laugh out loud and say no it was quiet the oposite I was always told all the reasons why wasn't good enough. He then said "Sounds like the problem was never your potential because the potential is still there today. The problem is you didn't have the right coach to see beyond where you were to what you could be."

WOW!! I stood there in awe as I listened to his words. So many times we take everything that has been said over all our life as the truth, and refuse to ever question its validity. I was running on the treadmill that morning and my mind became flooded with all of the people in life that I have watched with huge potential on their life yet they refused to question if the negative stuff that had been spoken over them was actually true.

You see words are powerful they have the ability to affect our entire being yet at the same time words when challenged can make a radical impact. So I have to ask you a question.....

What if everything that has been spoken over you all your life was a lie?

What if you really can do more with your life than where you are now?

What if it isn't too late to restart your life over?

What if this is the day that will change everything?

What if this is the moment you seize and decide to fully grab ahold of everything God is doing in and thru you?

What if you are valuable?

What if you are worthy of love and affection?

What if life is more than a mortgage a car payment and a job?

What if God sees you differently than you see yourself?

What if this is the first day of the rest of your life......

Look out Jesus is in the Kitchen!

I always tell people it isn't the big things in life that take us out. It is the sum of all the little things added together that run us down. It is the loads of laundry that have to be folded ironed and hung up. The vacuuming and sweeping that at times seems as though it is never going to go away. The dishes that always need to be washed even when a load is already done. The homework to help kids with that you are thinking I am not qualified to be helping with these kind of things. Then there is the everyday work and just life....With all these things it is easy to say that being a woman in today's world is a lot of work!

If only it was as simple as the Leave it to Beaver shows made it seem in the "good ole days". Where each day was easy and all people were full of joy. Where the daily tasks got done with ease and everything is always in place!

Colassians 3:17

And whatever you do no matter what it is in word or deed do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus and in dependence upon His Person, giving praise to God the Father through Him.

You see this says that everything we do we are to do in dependence upon Jesus. Why is it that we take this verse and never apply it to the dishes and the daily life? We think that it has to be some "holy" situation to use the word of God. I have news for you chiks. God wants to be a part of every area of your life.....from the scrubbing of the toilets, to pulling weeds, to cleaning out the refrigerator....Jesus desires to help you in everything.....The problem is we think we can try to do it on our own....

Question: How is that working for you?

I have found that when I try to do life out my own strength and ability it makes me always feel like I missed the mark and came up short. When I start looking to Jesus as the author and the finisher of everything I do then all of a sudden things get easier then what they are.

Psalm 34:1-2

I will bless the Lord at all times His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My LIFE makes its boast in the Lord....

In this is a scripture that we love to skip over that word is the smallest word yet the most powerful....ALL. This doesn't mean your praise Jesus comes on when you pull in a church parking lot or see your Pastor....No! This means in your everyday normal regular nothing spiritual about it life you are to be thanking Jesus praising Him for how good He is. When is the last time you did this?

It says here in the second verse that your LIFE will make it's boast in the Lord. You see when you live a life of praise you don't have to tell people about the goodness of God they will just see the goodness of God. When is the last time someone saw you and recognized the goodness of God? I am getting all personal with you aren't I?

Life wasn't made to trudge thru and barely get by! Life was made to enjoy and to be lived with our amazing Jesus! I have news for you chiks Jesus is in the kitchen and that my friends changes everything! That makes the normal boring life become exciting and full of joy. That is the kind of outlook that will change your life when you grab ahold of it!

I think if Jesus drove a car he would drive a UHAUL. For real I don't think that He would drive a Suburban or a Mercedes sports car or even a Lexus. I believe He would be driving a UHAUL.

Jesus was always on the move in His ministry He never stayed in one place for long and off He would go to a new place for a new thing.

I find it funny that the one thing that we as people hate is a UHAUL truck! It symbolizes everything we don't like

*work

*change

*transition

*leaving things behind

Just to say the words "We are moving". Brings instant sigh from the person you are telling then followed with "Bless your heart".

Why is that?

Everyone knows who Abraham is from the Bible. Abraham had a father whose name was Terah. Terah too was called out of the land he was at. He was called to load his UHAUL with all his stuff and head out to a new place. In Genesis 11:2 as they journeyed eastward, they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they settled and dwelt there.

He found a plain place. Can I put it this way. Most Americans find a "plain" place in life. One that is comfortable and not challenging where they can live there life with no real obstacle. All along Terah was headed to a place where he was called to and that was his destiny, but he settled.

How many of us in the journey to where we are going do we find a place that is comfortable. An easy place and we decide that we have gone far enough and we decide to settle.

At the end of Genesis 11 we see that where Terah settled he died. He compromised he stopped pressing forward. As people we desire a place to set up camp in our life a place to get comfortable and get settled in. Can I say this where you settle is where you will die. No one made Terah stop pressing forward. It was a choice that he made to stop going forward. That where he was, was "good enough".

You see Jesus never stopped moving forward in life. I believe that He doesn't want us to stop moving forward either. He wants us to constantly pressing forward. Paul said that this one thing I do forgetting those things which are behind I press on! You are made to press on! Worst thing you can do is unload a UHAUL in your life and decide that this is good enough. Don't ever quit!!

Have you come to a place in life where you have settled?

Are you still moving forward in life?

Then life happens.....

How much of our life do we spend trying to make things happen? I think that most of our life we try to chase down opportunities and open doors. We try to make a connection with someone who will help us out.... We try to impress people and make them like us when they could care less about who and what we are. Yet we spend all our time and resources trying to prove our self to them.... We spend countless hours trying to think of how there is some way to make something happen.... Why do we spend our life trying to make life happen?

I was reading the Bible the other day (good idea huh? Ha!) in the book of Ruth. In Ruth Chapter 2 verse 3 it is says this:

Then she left, and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers. And she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech.

So here in the story Ruth and Naomi are at the end of there rope they have no money resources and what is even more sad no hope from all that has gone on in their life. So Ruth sets out just to try and get enough to survive from what falls from the people reaping in the fields....when she happens on the field of Boaz. Her whole life changed from this happening.

You see all the time you spend in trying to make things happen will never come up with anything then one day God will line things up to happen and all of a sudden everything you want and dream about all begins to fall into line. So much time we waste in life worrying about what is going to happen to get us to our destiny when the God things in life happen.

Job put it best at the end of his life in Chapter 42:2

I know that You can do all things, and that no thought or purpose of Yours can be restrained or thwarted.

God's plans in your life will be brought to pass. You don't have to make them happen. Your job is to just be faithful, and keep growing in the things of God. Luke 16:10 says if you are faithful in little you will be faithful in much. God is looking at what you are doing in your small situation to determine what BIG things are to come.

Ruth was faithful. She was dedicated to Naomi when she could have walked away. She kept on doing what she knew to do. That is why things begin to happen in her life.

What are you doing where you are?

Are you being faithful?

If the answer is yes....I have to tell you something.....Life is about to happen for you!

A Christmas like no other

In Luke chapter 2 is a story that will be told a lot this time of year. It isn't about last minute Christmas shopping. It isn't about getting what you want or didn't want for Christmas. It isn't about making the best green bean casserole. What it is about is the birth of Jesus.

In that chapter you will see it said twice Mary pondered these things in her heart. You see Mary had her baby in a stable. There were animals all around. She didn't give birth in a maternity suite at Baylor medical. She was in a stable. A stable means poop. You could say it literally stunk where she was. Can I say this where you are right now may stink. Things may not be going your way life maybe really hard....Can you do one thing this Christmas can you take the time to enjoy right where you are?

If this sounds like where you are I encourage you to listen to this full message by clicking here. I hope you too will take time to ponder this time in your heart this holiday season.

HOLIDAZZLE

This Saturday is our annual Christmas party at Family Life Church! We will be having an ornament gift exchange and a free brunch! We have done this for 5 years now and we always have the best time. Saturday December 12th I hope to see you at Family Life Church at 10a.m.

I am going to be sharing a word about enjoying life today right where you are in the midst of anything you are going through enjoying that moment. The other day when I was reading my Bible I came across 1Kings 19:6 Elijah had just gotten done with a big battle and he had fallen asleep. An angel woke him up and in the amplified it says "behold there was a cake baked on the coals".

You know what this tells me? God loves cake! God loves to celebrate! He likes a good party! I think in the midst of it all that God was not only providing food for Elijah, but He could have made anything for Elijah. After all He is God. But God picked cake. I think in the midst of the battles in your life, no matter what is going on take a moment to have cake. Enjoy your life right where you are.

I am taking time this week to eat cake. To enjoy my life right where it is. God loves the party, and it is going on everyday of your life. All you have to do is take a moment and enjoy life today and everyday!