Eat and Grow

When my boy isn't eating his food I look at him and say, "you need to eat so you can be BIG and STRONG."  He smiles at me and tries to copy my flexing gesture, and begins to eat.  I was thinking about that this morning.  The whole idea that if he didn't eat, he really would begin to get weaker and weaker.  He needs food to grow and he needs it for strength 

Well, when I think about my spiritual life, I truly want to grow.  But if I am honest, I often don't want to eat.  I just want it to happen: no effort, no energy...just happen.  But that isn't how things work.  That is only the way our selfish and lazy minds work.  We want something, but don't want to put the work into getting it.  Ponder this idea.  Ask yourself what you are truly after.  If you truly desire God, than no amount of work, pain, or struggle will side track you from pursuing him.  But if what you are after is your own good, than you might just find laziness more appealing than God himself.

You need to eat your (spiritual) food so you can be BIG and STRONG!  Feed yourself.

Controlling our Hope (Part 2 of 2)

I can’t control the weather.

I can’t control who lives.

I can’t control my kids.

I can’t control my wife.

I can’t control what people think of me.

I can’t control what is demanded of me.

I can’t control when unexpected costs come.

I can’t control if I get a disease or major health problem.

I can’t control if I get hit by a car.

I can’t control if my “stuff” works how it’s supposed to.

I can’t control my kid’s health and safety.

I can’t control my brain to function as it should.

I can’t control politics.

I can’t control who wins the Super Bowl.

I can’t control.

I can’t control.

I can’t control.

Thinking about life makes me realize how little is up to me and how much is out of my hands.  Why then, do I spend so much physical and emotional energy trying to control what I can’t…all the while neglecting the very things I can control.

By God’s grace and through the power of the Spirit, I can control my obedience to Him.  

I can be faithful by saturating myself in God’s word, whether I feel like it or not. 

I can be faithful by loving my wife, despite how she responds. 

Loving and disciplining my kids, whether it is easy or exhausting. 

Sharing my faith, whether people respond or not.    

Sometimes faith seems complicated, but I think that is because our hope is in so many different things and we try to control all those things.  Maybe faith is simple.  Our duty is to obey God and keep his commands (Eccl 12:13).  It is that simple.  What makes it complicated is not what is asked of us, but that our desires are not where they should be.  It gets complicated because our sinful hearts pull us in so many directions, and in that we try to control much of life around us.  Maybe it is time to stop trying to control so many things.  Time to stop being anxious and worried over things we can’t control.  Time we just look at what God has called us to be obedient to, and do it.  Time we trust God for all that other stuff, and focus our energy where it should be focused.  After all, trying to control these things instead of trusting God accomplishes nothing except revealing our hope is in something other than God Himself.    

Controlling our Hope (Part 1 of 2)

I hope I make a difference.

I hope my marriage thrives.

I hope my kids love Jesus.

I hope to provide for my family.

I hope people like me.

I hope to enjoy life.

I hope tragedy doesn’t strike those close to me.

I hope my neck stops hurting.

I hope it rains.

I hope my car will work when I turn the key.

I hope to have more kids.

I hope our economy will strengthen.

I hope.

I hope.

I hope. 

“Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” -1Pe. 1:13

Hope.  Fully.  Those words rise from the page as I read this verse.  How many different things is my hope in?  How many things, even good things, do I hope for because I want them to come true.  Yes, it is a good thing to want to make a difference.  But is that a hope I have because of what I want?  Or is it a hope that overflows from a hope that is fully on Jesus Christ?  How would my life look if my hope were fully on the grace that is to come?  How would it be different?  Why am I so far from that? 

All these little hopes seem harmless, but in the end focus my attention and energy away from the sovereign plan of God.  Why do I hope it rains?  If God wanted it to rain, it would rain.  So why not, instead, hope in God through the drought.  Hope that He will accomplish his purposes through this.  I believe that as we are swept away by the greatness and beauty of who God is and what He has done, that our lives will be changed.  It is not trying harder, doing this or that, or learning more that will transform us into who we are called to be.  We need to hope in Christ.  Fully.  Everything else will work itself out though that hope.