Lucky or Blessed?

I just read an interesting and thought provoking article from the LA Times about the tornadoes that ripped through Union University and God's hand in all of it.

Check it out for yourself by clicking here.

Three's a Charm

I don't recall posting to simply recommend reading someone else's blog, but today I am doing just that. In fact, I'm pointing you in three directions.

For a compact and cool look at "preparing for the tests of life" click here.

For a random look at little (and yet truly big) things in life, click here.

And for a delightful piece on vintage aprons and the stories behind them, click here.

Enjoy!

PS: I go into 7-eleven every morning for a Glaceau Vitamin water and a Snicker's Marathon. I engage in intentional conversation with a young clerk named Abby. Today Abby finally asked me where I was going at 5:30am every Sunday. I told him, "to church" to which he replied, "pray for me."

I did. I will continue to do so. Will you join me? Next week I will ask him what specifically I can pray for him. I'll keep you posted.

Oswald's Been "Reading My Mail"

The following are yesterday's and today's entries from the classic, My Utmost For His Highest, by Oswald Chambers. Talk about meeting me where I'm at...man! Oswald is all up in my head! Enjoy. Yeah right! More like - "Buckle Up!"

February 5th - Are You Ready To Be Offered?

“Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all.”
Philippians 2:17

Are you willing to be offered for the work of the faithful - to pour out your life blood as a libation on the sacrifice of the faith of others? Or do you say - "I am not going to be offered up just yet, I do not want God to choose my work. I want to choose the scenery of my own sacrifice; I want to have the right kind of people watching and saying, 'Well done.'

It is one thing to go on the lonely way with dignified heroism, but quite another thing if the line mapped out for you by God means being a door-mat under other people's feet. Suppose God wants to teach you to say, "I know how to be abased" - are you ready to be offered up like that? Are you ready to be not so much as a drop in a bucket - to be so hopelessly insignificant that you are never thought of again in connection with the life you served? Are you willing to spend and be spent; not seeking to be ministered unto, but to minister? Some saints cannot do menial work and remain saints because it is beneath their dignity.


February 6th - Are You Ready To Be Offered?

“I am already being poured out as a drink offering.” 2 Timothy 4:6

"I am ready to be offered." It is a transaction of will, not of sentiment. Tell God you are ready to be offered; then let the consequences be what they may, there is no strand of complaint now, no matter what God chooses. God puts you through the crisis in private, no one person can help an other. Externally the life may be the same; the difference is in will. Go through the crisis in will, then when it comes externally there will he no thought of the cost. If you do not transact in will with God along this line, you will end in awakening sympathy for yourself.

"Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar." The altar means fire - burning and purification and insulation for one purpose only, the destruction of every affinity that God has not started and of every attachment that is not an attachment in God. You do not destroy it, God does; you bind the sacrifice to the horns of the altar; and see that you do not give way to self-pity when the fire begins. After this way of fire, there is nothing that oppresses or depresses. When the crisis arises, you realize that things cannot touch you as they used to do. What is your way of fire?

Tell God you are ready to be offered, and God will prove Himself to be all you ever dreamed He would be.

Nehemiah

I had a great Bible study this morning with my fellow IronMen at our Tuesday morning study, The Edge. We have been working through the book of Nehemiah and following this great leader's journey from apathy to action. It is an amazing story.

This morning we were all challenged by the simple fact that private worship precedes public witness. Nehemiah did a great work for God, but only after God did a great work in Nehemiah. It is a very simple truth, but it trips me up most days. I can't do a thing for God until God does a thing in me.

God give me favor and a big project. But first break my heart over the very things that break your heart.

Amen.