BOLDLY FORWARD

Have you thanked Him?

Have you praised Him?

Have you made it your priority to agree and cooperate with Him today?

Have you taken that deep breath and listened for what He has for you today?

1 Timothy 2:1 (The Message)

The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know.

...I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me… I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back. Philippians 3:13-14 (MSG)

I'm not going back, I'm moving ahead

Here to declare to You my past is over

...in You

All things are made new, surrendered my life to Christ

I'm moving forward – Houghton

Last OFH for 2017

Great day to REFLECT.

How DID we do on those resolutions?

Lose the weight?

Get through the Bible in a year as planned?

Were you nicer? Did you serve like you thought you would?

Don’t get too bogged down if you didn’t.  

Don’t beat yourself up for a FRESH chance looms at the top of every 24 hour clock at 12:01am comes the mercy that GOD promises with each NEW day not just each NEW YEAR!

The Lord’s love never ends; his mercies never stop. They are new every morning… Lamentations 3:22-23 (NCV)

Remember, the LORD wants us to LEARN from our past and trust Him with what is "FORWARD".

“This is what the past is for! Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives is the perfect preparation for the future that only He can see."

Corrie ten Boom

And as we learn from the past, from 2017 our job is to keep our eyes FIXED forward on the GOAL.  And the GOAL as PAUL surmises is to grow CLOSER to CHRIST.  For Christ is BECKONING us to trust HIM today and to trust Him with what is just over that date-line horizon and beyond.

So, while today is a great opportunity to thumb back through the FACEBOOK posts, the pictures, the calendar and see where you have come, don’t lose sight of where you are GOING and who is GOING with you!

Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God…(SO) trust God…you know you have a future in God.

1 Peter 1:18,21 (MSG)

We all do have a GLORIOUS future with GOD.

We do.

We need to step into it boldly. ten Boom reminds us to “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”

Therefore, let’s BE bold!

For here we all stand at the precipice of a new year.

Let’s reflect on the learnings of 2017.

Let’s look to 2018 with GREAT anticipation and HOPE!

Our future IS in WONDERFUL and MERCIFUL hands.

…this year, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives not looking for flaws, but looking for potential. - Ellen Goodman

It certainly is there!

I love you all

HAPPY NEW YEAR

OPPORTUNITIES for HOPE

AUTHENTIC CONNECTIONS

Have you thanked Him?

Have you praised Him?

Have you made it your priority to agree and cooperate with Him today?

Have you taken that deep breath and listened for what He has for you today?

1 Timothy 2:1 (The Message)

The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know.

 

“In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others.” - Brennan Manning

 

2017 has been a year of the deeply unexpected.

I have been so blessed to be a part of and share in so many amazing meetings and to have met so many incredible folks.  2018 looks like it will be even more of the same!

 

That continued to be true yesterday during a session with some folks from OCAAR (https://www.oca-ohio.org/) Ohio Citizens Advocates for Addiction Recovery.  We have intersected at events over the past 18 months or so and yesterday they were asking if I wanted to be a part of the BOARD for OCAAR; quite the honor. 

As a “citizen” and “advocate” for those in recovery, I think it will be a great way to serve in the upcoming year.

 

But it was what occurred after the “business” that intrigued me.

One of the OCAAR folks and I lingered at the lunch table for a much more important conversation.

 

She shared with me that she “really hadn’t done the church thing” for more than a decade but at the encouraging of a friend decided to go to a CHRISTMAS EVE service.  And while she found the service uplifting, she asked the question that SO MANY I work with ask, “what happens next”?

She observed a real flaw and blind-spot in most of our churches today.  We focus so much attention on the “service” and NOT ENOUGH attention on the relationships that could be fostered from it.

 

This young lady is astute.  She is deeply intelligent, well read and intensely discerning and in the matter of only 60 minutes unearthed what is MISSING in our churches; REAL connection.  In fact, we talked more globally about HER generation, the millennials and their decided NEED and DESIRE for connection. 

That is why she POSED the question, “How do I connect”?

 

She WANTS to connect.  She DESIRES to have MEANINGFUL, FRUITFUL, and HONEST relationships in her life and feels much like someone standing outside the department store window thinking they would like what is in there, but can’t seem to find the DOOR!

 

CHURCH, my friend is NOT an exception.  I encounter so many folks dealing with things like substance use disorder, gambling challenges, porn addictions, depression, the list goes on and on, who are WISHING the CHURCH would help them to meaningfully CONNECT.  Yet more times than not, our CHURCHES appear inaccessible to the hurting; inauthentic. 

For sadly many “church folks” would RATHER conceal their vulnerabilities rather than allow their journeys, their scars, and their lumps serve as barrier breakers and opportunities for shared empathy and connection. Remember what C.S. Lewis said,

“Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .” ― C.S. Lewis

 

Nouwen said it this way,

“Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.”

 

Yet far too often “the church (that is us)” does as Manning reveals, we CONCEAL our wounds behind masks and inauthenticity rather than allow them to be opportunities for illuminating the GOODNESS and FAITHFULNESS of our FATHER (Jehovah-Mephalti).

Remember:

God always comes alongside of us to comfort us in every suffering so that we can come alongside of those who are in any painful trial. We can bring them this same comfort which God has poured out upon us. 

2 Corinthians 1:4 (The Passion Translation)

 

So, friends, as we approach the new year I am praying that our CHURCHES will begin to see the INCREDIBLE gift that is our STRUGGLE.  I am praying that WE will begin to see the VALUE of our hardships and challenges and the IMPORTANCE of making them accessible to a SEEKING WORLD!  And I am praying that WE and OUR GATHERINGS will become authentic, trustworthy, and safe places for the seeking to find MUCH needed CONNECTION!

 

 

I love you all!

HAVE A BLESSED DAY!

OPPORTUNITIES for HOPE

WORK OF CHRISTMAS

Have you thanked Him?

Have you praised Him?

Have you made it your priority to agree and cooperate with Him today?

Have you taken that deep breath and listened for what He has for you today?

1 Timothy 2:1 (The Message)

The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know.

 

When the song of the angels is stilled,

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their flock,

The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,

To heal the broken,

To feed the hungry,

To release the prisoner,

To rebuild the nations,

To bring peace among people,

To make music in the heart.

"The Work of Christmas" in The Mood of Christmas - Thurman

 

I have a great colleague and friend Pastor Nancy who posted this yesterday to her feed on FACEBOOK. And before I go any further I must say that Pastor Nancy is the PERFECT person to POST this. 

 

She DOES the WORK of CHRISTMAS tirelessly the other 364 a year. 

 

She is an advocate for the addicted. Her church is a refuge for the oppressed, impoverished, and the disenfranchised.  She has GRABBED the calling of Teresa Avila (“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”) with BOTH hands and BOTH feet and expresses the LOVE of CHRIST every day to her BELOVED WEST SIDE of Columbus. 

 

She is an inspiration.

She is the REAL DEAL.

 

So, when she posts something to encourage us to:

find the lost,

heal the broken,

feed the hungry,

release the prisoner,

rebuild the nations,

bring peace among people,

make music in the heart. 

You must believe it to be an encouragement to JOIN her in that work!

 

I deeply appreciate and love my friend.

 

But what can WE take from Thurman and Pastor N. today? 

It is obvious.  Let’s channel the energy of CHRISTMAS to infuse our hearts, spirits, hands, and feet to the WORK that needs to be done around us.

 

Folks ARE lost and broken. 

Can we help them find NEW direction, help heal their hurts? Sure, we can!

Can we help feed the hungry?  Pastor N. feeds 200+ every FRIDAY out of a AUTO SHOP in conjunction with FEED MY SHEEP in Columbus.

Find a food pantry.  Donate. 

 

Link arms with the teams that minister to the incarcerated.  At least pray for them.  My dear friends from Patterson Park Church in Beavercreek Ohio visit the MONTGOMERY COUNTY JAIL ONCE a WEEK to share the hope and healing of JESUS with the inmates.  Kairos delivers hope and often a sweet treat to prisoners all over the country, pray for them, support those who are doing the same near you.

 

For when we do things like THURMAN and NANCY DO we help to REBUILD our communities and meet the call of this important passage and mandate from Isaiah.

If you are generous with the hungry

and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,

Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness,

your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.

I will always show you where to go.

I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—

firm muscles, strong bones.

You’ll be like a well-watered garden,

a gurgling spring that never runs dry.

You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,

rebuild the foundations from out of your past.

You’ll be known as those who can fix anything,

restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,

make the community livable again. Isaiah 58:10-12 (MSG)

 

Let’s get to WORK!

 

I love you all!

HAVE A BLESSED DAY!

OPPORTUNITIES for HOPE