Steering Through Chaos

Recently, I have been given the opportunity to review a great book, Scott Wilson's, "Steering Through Chaos." It focuses on how churches can find direction in the midst of change.

While the book is focused toward pastors and people in leadership positions, it is also worthwhile for Christians in general. Wilson has developed a great principle that he calls "chaos". Chaos is the area where transition happens, but Wilson urges leaders that the time for change is before rather than during hard times.

Change is a scary and hard thing for most people, so Scott Wilson has devoted his book to helping leaders ease the transition for the rest of the church body. Anyone in a leadership position has much to learn about Wilson's theory of chaos.

Not Your Typical Thanksgiving Day Post

Today is Thanksgiving, and I have much for which to be grateful. However, that's not what this post is going to be about.

I've never been a huge fan of holidays, but Thanksgiving sickens me. Every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger, and it is estimated that around 800 million people in the world go hungry every day.

Please check out this website, it won't take more than a minute, and it updated in real time: http://www.stopthehunger.com/

Ridiculous.

When I have a family of my own, I don't want to celebrate Thanksgiving in the traditional way. Sure, it's great to get together and have a nice meal, there's nothing wrong with that, but to gorge oneself to the point that most people do is just flat out gluttony. And the worst part of hunger is that it won't kill you right away, oh no, it tortures and torments you for a long, long time. Hunger is a pain unlike any other; one that many people can't even begin to understand. So many people are suffering greatly while we cook enough food to eat for days, and even then end up throwing leftovers out.

Imagine yourself in the D.R. where I or some other third world country. Now imagine trying to explain Thanksgiving to the people over there. Tell them of your yearly holiday devoted to food where you eat until you pass out on the couch. Can you see the look on their faces?

Now comes part two of my rant: As I was watching the Packers game, some of my relatives were talking about how much it would cost the Bears to get a certain new coach. Millions of dollars, and that's just for one year. Millions of dollars to coach people who play a GAME professionally. I love sports, don't get me wrong, but there is something seriously distorted about these numbers. I literally feel a bit like throwing up thinking about how many people we could help feed, clothe, and educate with that money (and trust me, that's not from eating too much because I didn't).

Think about how much of your food you waste on a daily or weekly basis and then think of the money also wasted. Now think of the money you waste on other stupid, petty things like football. In the time it took you to do that, several people died of hunger. I urge you, nay, I beg you, use your resources wisely. We have been blessed to bless others. From now on, think about Thanksgiving differently, act differently. Try feeding others instead of focusing on yourself.

"At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality" - 2 Corinthians 8:14

Does your giving reflect this? Or do you not trust God to provide for you if you give generously? Make a choice to act.

Reflect the Glory of the Lord

Sorry it's been over a month since my last post. Life has been a bit crazy, and last week I was really struggling. Today, however, I could not resist posting.

I was in my Foundations of Christian Thought discussion group this morning and we were talking about the new-atheism movement that is becoming extremely prominent and what exactly that particular worldview entails.

Then the thought struck me: atheists are not the biggest opposition to Christianity; "Christians" are. Those lukewarm Christians who do not live out their faith are a bigger stumbling block to non-believers than vehement atheists. We all know the people who call themselves Christians, but to them it's nothing more than a title; the ones who don't really care about their relationship with God but still throw around the word Christian. It's those people who defer non-believers from Christianity the most.

People look to Christians to live set apart lives, and when they see people not living any differently than others, they become disgusted with the Christian faith and get a distorted view of Christianity. While intellectual atheists are a danger to uninformed non-believers and new Christians, the largest greatest obstacle to these people is the poor example and lukewarm nature of the so-called Christian world.

It is, therefore, our solemn duty to "Live in a manner worthy of the calling you have received." Eph. 4:1 We must be set apart, not only because it is what God has called us to do, but because we are constantly under a microscope - the world looks to us for an example, and our lives must reflect the glory and perfection of the Lord.

Dwelling in the Lord

Tonight my small group studied Psalm 90, and what I learned was awesome; I just had to share it with you guys right away. Go read it now, please, you'll get more out of this if you do.

Verse one states "Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations."

This will be my theme for this entry.

Verses one and two focus on the fact that God's nature is eternal, or in the ESV, everlasting. Now read verses three through six. These focus on the fact that we, on the other hand, are not. We are quite temporal, in fact. This is a huge contrast. God is so everlasting that He isn't even inside of time. Before a system of time was created, God was there. Before the sun and the stars and the ocean, He was there. We flourish in the morning and fade by evening. A thousand years are like a day to God.

Fast forward to verse ten. We won't live much more than seventy or eighty years. A lot of our life has already passed away. How much longer do you have left? In light of this, read verse twelve. "Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom." Why should we number our days? And what does wisdom have to do with anything? We are temporary, yet God is eternal, therefore, live the few days you have in a wise matter, that is in a way that is glorifying to God.

The point I want you to consider in light of this chapter is this: Are you dwelling in the Lord at all times? Or are you wasting your precious, precious time trying to do things all by yourself? What are you holding on to for dear life that you won't give to God? Bitterness? Anger? Envy? Lust? Why won't you give it to Him? Put your trust in Him; dwell in Him!

To dwell in God doesn't mean some of the time. It's all the time. I find myself dwelling in God for the small things, I know He can take care of those things, but sometimes for the bigger things, I tend to run away from the Lord's presence. Keep in mind that Moses wrote this. Remember what happened when the Israelites didn't dwell in the Lord? They ended up in the desert. This is what we do when we try to estrange ourselves from God, we wind up wandering around and suffering in the desert, when we belong with God.

God has been our dwelling place in all generations. Forever. Back when Moses lived and wrote this psalm, God was there. Long after you're gone, God will be there. God has proven Himself trustworthy more times than anyone could ever count. Never once has He failed. Why then, in light of this information, are we still so terrified of trusting God with our problems?

I challenge you this week to wrestle with the things that you're holding from God. Assess the following: What are you keeping from Him? Why are you holding it? How can you let it go? Who can you get to hold you accountable to this?

Nothing in your life is too big for God to handle. Dwell in Him, He will give you rest and peace, but only if you let Him.

The Power of the Tongue

I bet you that there have been things people have said to you that you remember vividly. Hurtful things. Cruel things. Unnecessary things. Have a particular instance in mind? I bet you do. I can think of a few myself. A lot of the time we don't realize what an impact our words have on other people. As a writer, I focus on the importance of words. Typically when people address the use of words, they address it from a negative point of view. Today, I'm going to do the opposite.

First read James 3.

Powerful stuff, isn't it? The tongue really is a powerful thing. Just as James wrote, we should not use it to praise God and curse men; we are called to a higher purpose than that. We are called to use our words for spreading the Gospel and building each other up.

I'm going to focus on the latter.

Building each other up can include multiple things, such as accountability and gentle correction, but right now I'm just going to talk about edification, or the literal building up; to put it more simply, encouraging.

I believe that we, as humans, remember kind word more than we remember the negative. In fact there have been several instances in my life where something trivial I have said has made a huge impact on someone else's life without my realizing it until later.

In junior high I used to say "Never worry about the future; it's already tomorrow in Australia." I simply thought this was a clever play on words, so I repeated it. Turns out, one of my friends took it to heart. I was spending the night at her house, and she let me read part of her journal. I was in it. It was about the start of the summer and how she missed me, but also about how I had deeply impacted her. I was shocked. I never thought that I had done anything out of the ordinary; I was just doing what I thought was proper for a friend to do. My encouraging and even my jokes made a serious impression on her.

Later in high school, one of my friends was struggling with some pretty heavy stuff. I told her about something that I had read once because her circumstance reminded me of it. Turns out, those couple words of encouragement helped convince her that taking her life wasn't a good option.

Soak that in for a minute. That's intense. Keep in mind that I don't write this to lift myself up. My desire for this blog is to push you, as my readers, on to become better for God's glory. It's not like my words are the only ones that have an impact. I can almost guarantee that something you've said has had the same impact on someone else, even if it was only a passing remark.

Now that you're aware of the power of words, I challenge you to use them to edify others. Practice the art of taming your tongue. It's hard, impossible even if you try to do it alone. The great thing is that we don't have to do it alone, we have the perfect Christ to help us out along the way. With this in mind, focus on using your words to build one another up. Don't tear people down, even in a joking manner.

Words have more power than many of us will ever know.

"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." - Eph. 4:29