And so it begins.....

It is Saturday afternoon, the day before the official start of a new church, Axis Christian Church. I was going to begin this by saying the start of "our" new church, but that would not be right. It is God's church... we are simply serving to further expand His church to help do as He said, go out to the ends of the earth spreading the Good News of his love and grace.

Yes, there is an air of excitement about tomorrow. Yes, it has been exciting to be able to participate in the journey towards this new beginning. Yes, it has taken a lot of hard work and dedication by many people over the past several months.

But more than anything, for myself, it has been another way that God has found to stretch, challenge, and hopefully, further grow me in my daily efforts to be closer to Him.

Being completely authentic, I will confess that it has not always been easy nor have I always understood or trusted in Him the way I should. You see, the challenges and difficulties were because of me, not Him.

Don't know about you, but for me, that is always the case. If I completely surrender and trust that God is in control, what seems difficult or daunting is so much easier to deal with. It's when I lose sight of this that he has to whomp me upside the head to get my attention.

Frankly, when I try to look ahead to figure out what is coming next, how to plan, etc; this is when I have the most problems. It's when I remember not to look ahead, but to look UP, to look to God, that makes a difference.

No matter what tomorrow's start of Axis Christian Church brings, despite all the last minute details as we scramble to get ready;
as long as I continue to remember God's in control, there is a tremendous peace that washes over me.

May you know Him & come to experience the peace He offers to us all.

In God We Trust..

In God We Trust..

If I have it all figured out, I don’t need God. I sometimes forget that God wants us to trust Him….. Completely.

Ouch, there’s the catch. I have to be brutally frank here… it’s the “completely” part that I sometimes struggle with. Sure, in most areas of my life I tend to think that I have put my trust in God, that He is there with me and will take care of things.

But every so often, He gives me one of those “whomps” upside the head… of course it’s these times that I most need to be reminded that I am trying to control things. That I am not “completely” trusting Him to help me handle whatever it is going on in my life.

I just have to remind myself, it really should say-- “In God We Trust… Completely!”

www.axischurch.com

I love to plan & be prepared….

Now, this is just my thinking here, but I really think that God gets a kick out of disrupting my plans.

He sees me getting all wrapped up in doing what I think needs or has to be done.

I can almost see him shaking his head…”there John goes again, getting all worked up, forgetting who really has control of things.”

You may be reading this thinking I have completely lost it, thinking how dare I say that God enjoys messing with me like that. Good for you! I am sure you have it all together.

But me, not a chance. I personally can be hard-headed. Me, I need God to whomp me every once in a while to help get me back on course. To help remind me that no matter how much I want to be, I am not in control.

So for me, I think of it as a true win/win. God gets a kick out of it, and once again I get the benefit of his grace & love helping to get me back on track. Seems like a fair deal to me.

www.axischurch.com

We teach best….

“we teach best what we need to learn the most”

I may not have the quote exactly right, since it has been some time since I read the book. And it may have been said by someone else and quoted in the book. But when I first saw this statement in “Illusions” by Richard Bach many years ago, it was simply a cool sounding quote that I wrote down & kept over the years.

What I didn’t know at the time is that this simple sounding statement is anything but simple. It is incredibly profound.

The older I get, the more I figure out how much I don’t know. Sure, it’s easy when talking with someone else to just “know” the answer to their problems. It’s not so easy applying those same answers in my own life when needed.

I was reminded of this recently while talking with a friend. As we discussed what was going on with his life, I shared with him as best I could what I thought I heard him saying, & how to deal with it. Even if I say so myself, I was offering some rather astute insights at the time!

Before I hurt my arm reaching around to pat myself on the back, I have to admit that the more we talked the more I recognized what I was sharing was from hard learned experience. On top of that, my eyes were further opened to some of the same situations in my own life, and that I had not really been handling them the same way I was recommending to my friend (man, these learning moments can be humbling!).

As long as I am able to take a breath on this earth, I pray I remember this quote & the wisdom it holds.

www.axischurch.com

Don't Push Me!

When you first read the heading here, you probably had images of someone extremely aggravated. Well, there is one word I forgot (ok, so I didn’t really forget) to put at the end. It should read: “don’t push me AWAY!”

Or better yet, I should probably rewrite it to “don’t let them push you away.”

But the fact is that when people in our lives are blocking us out, pushing us away, we can go from mildly upset to the point of feeling like telling them “don’t push me”. Then if you are like me, you start thinking (or acting like) that if they don’t want me around, they don’t want me in their lives, fine!!! They can have it their way.

In fact, at times, I have been the one guilty of doing the “pushing away” to the people in my life.

Having been the offending party before, you would think I would have learned the lesson a lot faster. What can I say. Sometimes it takes one of those “whomps” to get through to me.

Lately, I have been blessed to develop a better understanding of when & why people in our lives push us away.

It’s not really a secret. I finally got it. When people push us away it is simply their way of letting us know that they are hurting in some way, and are afraid that we might figure that out if we get too close. So viola, the farther a hurting person can distance themselves from others in their lives, the easier it is to avoid facing whatever the struggle is.

I use to take this personally (ok, probably still do at times). Now I try to remember that it is not about me but it IS about them. It triggers my radar now to pay closer attention, and more than anything else, make sure to not allow them to push me away. Even if that is hard, challenging, painful.

I pray that the next time you or I get to the point of “don’t push me!” try to remember why they are pushing you away…. So you can make sure that doesn’t happen.

Do It Again!

In my last blog, I talked about being so busy & feeling overwhelmed. Just like everyone else, it is easy to get caught up in the day to day “stuff”. When that happens, I start cutting down the wrong things in my schedule, like prayer time, reading my bible, or just reading whatever book I am currently working on.

I even thought I had a great excuse: I work for the church. Surely “doing the Lord’s work” on a daily basis would justify my trimming those other things.

As He usually does, God whomped me upside the head a few weeks ago (yep, I am hard headed, so sometimes it takes a big whomp just to get my attention). So, I got my head out of my hind-end, and started back on my daily bible, prayer & reading time. In fact, since then I have made a renewed commitment to myself & to God to keep prayer first.

Interestingly enough, the past few weeks have seen some spectacular things take place that can only be described as “God moments”.

I never win anything. For years I have entered all sorts of drawings. Now, I seldom bother with them. But at the North American Conference this year, I did register for one…. You guessed it. I won!! Now, winning is good, but the fact that it is for a graphics signage package that will help cover most of our sign needs at the new church…

Then there is office furniture. Gotta have something to work on. We started looking for some used office furniture. Found some for sale. Turns out the people selling are good friends with our Lead Pastor & his family. Check out the furniture; great for what we need. Ask how much? The answer.. “for you guys, just get it out of here and it’s yours.”

Our Lead Pastor has been trying to sell his house for months so he & his family can move into our new church community. To say that there have been a few people look at the house would be an understatement. Just before he was about to take it off the market, here comes a pastor & his wife from out of town. They make an offer the next day.

A family that I have been praying about for some time is needing help with their relationships. More prayer, some spent with each of them. God working here….not me. I find out toward the end of the week that they have started breaking through the barriers that have been blocking communication. (yes, I still get tears in my eyes when I think about it).

Growing up, when my dad did something fun or amazing, I remember yelling “do it again, daddy”.

After the past few weeks, with all that God has done in our lives, I keep thinking over & over again….

Do It Again, Daddy, Do It Again!!

The Why

Like a hamster in an exercise wheel, life has lately felt like no matter how hard I worked, I wasn't getting anywhere. Work harder, faster, longer.... the list just kept getting bigger. I'm sure you know what I mean; we all feel that way at least once in a while. For me, the past couple of months have definitely seemed chaotic. I'll admit, there have been times when I have wondered if it was really worth it. Why was I doing all of it?

A simple phone call. One that I should have made way before today, but just "never had time". Today, I made time. Since I can't speak to what the past would have held, I can only say that in the here and now, I'm glad I made the call. Wish I could say it was about good news, but that's not the case. Found out that someone I really care about is having such a hard time that they want to kill themselves (yes, I can identify with those feelings having been there before). The good news is they went to someone for help. No, they were not miraculously made to feel better.

This is someone who I have been talking with about life, God, and getting things together. Talking with for a LONG time. Yes, they are dealing with some junk in their life. Guess what? They have been going to church! Now, going to church does not mean they are at a good place with God, religion, or much else for that matter. In fact, right now they are pretty angry at God. But to me, this is good news. Being angry, and knowing that they are angry, these are strides in the right direction. While I know that it is all because God is working within them, I also know that all of the prayers I have been praying for them have not gone unheard by God. HE is moving in them.

One phone call, and I am once again reminded that there are so many people out there that are hurting, struggling, in pain. And they are searching for a way to get out. Without God, that will never happen.

These past few months when I was thinking poor me -- who had so much to get done as we try to do God's work in starting a new church (www.axischurch.com), I am seeing it all from a different perspective.

One phone call ...... helped me to remember "the why."