If you have a tendency to be a “Type-A” personality, control freak, “I like spread sheets, to-do lists, color-coded calendars, charts & graphs, every ‘t’ crossed, every ‘i’ dotted and for my life and everyone in it to go just the way I planned” – then the reality of Scripture is incredibly frustrating for you, and you are going to be a very stressed out person. (And if that is you, look around the room – my hand is up with yours right now!) But here’s the deal, God loves you so much that He is going to constantly remind you how little control you actually have. It is God’s great love and mercy toward you.  Because when you start thinking, “Ahhh, my day is NOT going the way it’s supposed to go. My life is not going the way it’s supposed to. Everything is falling apart.”  That’s God going, “Yeah, it sure is. Looks like you could use some help! You want to try it again, maybe with Me?”

Control is one of the greatest illusions in the world. Because once you start to reflect, you realize how little control you really have. You did not control WHEN you were born. You did not control WHERE you were born. You didn’t control WHO your parents were. You could go to the store or head home from work today and be the safest driver on the planet, but some guy texting his buddy and not paying attention could run a red light and BAM – everything changes. It is amazing how little control we really have. And the beauty is that when I recognize how little control I have, it drives me to my knees in worship. Because when I accept that I am not in control, then I recognize that someone else is! God is in control and He does a much greater job at running the planet than I do.

And the great thing about God being in control is that He is holy and good and outside of time, so when you make that really foolish decision that devastates your life…OR when you get that crushing news from the doctor that rocks your world…OR when the man who promised ‘for better or for worse’ walks out on you and the kids, GOD IS NOT SURPRISED. That did not catch Him off guard. He didn’t look at the angels and go, “what in the world just happened?” It may have sucker-punched you and knocked the wind out of your sails, but it did not throw God into a tailspin.

One of my all-time favorite illustrations by John Piper explains how “God is not the EMT who shows up on the scene of an accident after the incident, but rather He is the Surgeon who knows the problem and operates for healing and health”. He doesn’t get a surprise call in the middle of the night and show up with lights flashing to do triage. He knows what’s coming and He’s prepared to lead you through it. Or, He sees the problem in your life and takes the initiative to make the incision to remove the danger. Not for your pain, but for your health.

For more on God’s being in control in our life and in our trials, check out the ‘Bold Confidence’ message in our BOLD series here:

Join us at 7pm on Wednesday May 30th as we celebrate graduating high school seniors and incoming 6th graders and freshmen.  All high school and middle school students and parents are welcome.  For more information, or to RSVP, please contact Amy at 616.6700.

Someone once said, “Whoever longs for the quiet life has certainly chosen the wrong generation.”    But this is our time – what are we going to do about it?  As Christians there is no doubt in our mind that God is still the Sovereign over all.  His throne is higher than all thrones.  It is time for us to make the decision to serve Him and obey Him no matter what the cost.  Join us at 9 or 11am this Sunday as Pastor Chris Lyons explores this from the life of the prophet Isaiah.

Last Sunday on the way to church, my girls put Disney Princess tunes on their i-Touch and we jammed to Aladdin and Snow White.  As they did, we reminisced (not sure they used that word) about how I used to carry them around on a pillow to “Whole New World” and pretend it was a magic carpet.  Which reminded me of a VERY IMPORTANT game we also played when they were younger.  They would dress up and pretend to be princesses and I would ask them, “HOW WILL YOU KNOW WHEN YOUR PRINCE COMES ALONG?”

Eventually, after some coaching (and coercing), they learned to answer confidently and enthusiastically, “I’m not worried about it because my DADDY will tell me who the right prince is!” (Emphasis mine.)  Listen, I know that I’m the one living in a fairy tale and that the beauty of that moment has already begun to fade, even though my girls are still in grade school.  But I am instilling deep into their souls that NOBODY loves them more than daddy, and that I care desperately about the future and their marriages and their happiness.

So with that, I wanted to serve the daddies and give a few important criteria to daughters that they should look and long for from any dude that hopes to become that prince:

1.  He needs to love Jesus more than anything else (including you)!  Couple of things here, girls:  one, if he loves you more than Jesus, you will become an idol for him.  No matter how amazing you are, you don’t make a good god.  Rather than loving, serving, cultivating and helping you become all God hopes and desires for you, he will either enable unhealthy behavior or become a passive coward that flatters you but does not fulfill you.

Or – if he loves other things (himself, his career, sports) more than Jesus, he won’t submit to Christ’s call to serve and sacrifice for you no matter what.  If he is not actively pursuing Jesus right now, then he will not actively pursue Jesus’ best for you once you are married.  When things are difficult he will gravitate toward that which he values most, rather than obeying and trusting Christ.  And when the pressure comes and the honeymoon fades, he will run, abuse, or accuse rather than protect, defend, and serve.

2.  He needs to manage his money well!  What kind of debt does he currently have?  Does every penny he makes go toward himself and having a good time, or is he considering his future and legacy?  Marriage is not cheap.  In face, some of you ladies are very expensive!  If he can’t manage his finances, then he will create conflict and stress and drag you into that conflict.  If “save” and “budget” are like kryptonite to that guy, find a new hero!

3.  He needs to be able to keep a J-O-B!  Let me clarify, I’m not talking about a guy who has a great work ethic and is reliable, but got laid off because of a difficult and pervasive economic recession.  I’m talking about the guy who flunked out of college and still sleeps at his parent’s with his Transformers sheets and can’t get up before the crack of noon because he was up all night playing Halo, watching TMZ, drinking Rock Star and eating Cheetos.  The guy who says he just can’t find the right job because “he’s worth more than minimum wage and should be able to set his own schedule” and doesn’t want to settle.  Listen, Ladies, if he can’t take care of himself, he will not be able to take care of you.  And he certainly won’t be able to take care of your kids one day.  Having a good heart is not enough, he needs a good plan and a good work ethic, too.

I love my girls…a LOT.  I adore all of our ladies.  I pray for your hearts and long for your joy!  May God’s promise sustain you and His wisdom guide you.

BOLD: Confidence

BOLD: Obedience

BOLD: Speaking

Our next dinner service at the Las Vegas Rescue Mission is Thursday, May 24th, from 4:30-6:30pm.  Can’t make that night?  We’ll be going back on Monday, June 4th, as well.

We also provide the Mission’s chapel service on the first Tuesday of each month.  You can pray with, listen to, and fellowship with residents on Tuesday, June 5th at 7:30.

No special skills are required for you to participate in either the dinner service or chapel service.  Sign up this Sunday in the Welcome Center or contact Janice at 616-6700.

BOLD: Prayers

God Is Able Pt. 2 “Easter Service – Prodigal Son/Father’s Love”

God Is Able Pt. 1 “7 Sayings”

Freedom Pt. 3 “Freedom From Sin”

I try not to, but sometimes I get angry!

And that happened to me last weekend. It does sometimes. I know the Bible tells us to be patient, kind, slow to anger. I was all of those, but at the end of the day. I was angry. It had started at the end of what was a long week, that, for the most part went really well, however they are still long. We are in the height of the tax season and that is what my wife is an expert at, so she is very busy right now. I have two kids left at home. One of them is running track, and the other has a full leg cast on from running track so he needs help getting everywhere. For us this is a busy time of year, and with the addition of the injury to my son’s leg it’s not any slower this year. A few weeks ago, our family buried my grandfather who would have been 92 today – and I had plans for my weekend. I should know better because I know that for years God has shown me that his plans may not align with mine. I’m not exactly sure what I’m supposed to do about that sometimes, because he made me a good planner. I guess not quite good enough to wait for His direction sometimes, ‘cause I tend to think I’ve heard from Him, and start running without waiting for His doors to open.

With all that setup finished, I can tell you that most of my plans for the weekend never happened. I was called to the hospital on Friday to pray with one of our church members (something that never ceases to bring me joy from being in a room with people longing to reach out and touch the God of the universe). He was in the hospital and worried, as many of us would be about outcomes and big picture stuff. On Saturday morning (1:34 a.m.), I got a call from another church member about a family member that was also in one of our local hospitals. When I hung up the phone I remember telling my wife, “I just need to rest for a minute”, and then I woke up. It was a couple of hours later, and I felt horrible for not being there. I raced to the hospital and found out it wouldn’t have mattered. The family member had made it out of surgery, but was asleep, and on a ventilator. I spoke to his wife, and spent some time with them. I was there for a couple of hours, and when I went back out to my truck, that’s when it hit me. I was mad! I couldn’t fix the guy in the hospital, I couldn’t help the older gentleman that I had seen on Friday, and I couldn’t get my list completed for this weekend. I absolutely consider it the ultimate honor that a friend or member of our church would call me and ask me to come see them at the hospital. That someone would think to call me when they need comfort is the highest compliment for me, but at that moment I wasn’t happy. I was mad. I sat in the front of my truck and tried to figure out how to save everyone from pain knowing that there is no prayer of that happening. I wondered – if I was in the same position, would I be able to put out the same level of resistance, and save my wife’s life like the man I just left did. I wondered why I felt so alone, and unworthy of their phone calls asking me to come see them.

And then I remembered.  I am unworthy. I am broken, fallen, weak, and I couldn’t solve a problem apart from God if I wanted to.  Then the biggest revelation of all; I had not read any part of my Bible aside from a quick section of text for a meeting two days earlier for over a week. I had done what I have done so many times before…..I thought God had given me enough discernment to figure it out on my own, so I took off and left him behind for a few days.

Don’t do that. It’s not smart, I know better, and I get spanked every time I do it. People depend on you, and if you don’t think they do, you’re nuts. God will use you, and you are here for Him to do just that. So be with him, pray without ceasing, and serve hard. The chores will be there when you have time to finish them.

Peace!

BG

Freedom Pt. 2 “Freedom In Christ”

Yeah, I had no idea what this meant the first time I heard it, either. What I did know is, whatever those words meant they equaled pain, and lots of it. Those words “Tibial Tuberosity Avulsion Fracture” are a definition of an injury my 15 year-old son sustained a couple weeks ago while at track practice. He was running a technique drill toward a single hurdle when we were offered the chance to learn more than we wanted to about the medical field. The call came from his twin sister. I answered my phone and she was trying to say something, but was talking to someone in the background at the same time. Turns out it was their track coach who got on the phone and asked me to come down and take a look at him. Your heart races a little bit, however I found comfort in knowing that they didn’t call an ambulance so at least he was awake. I guess in hindsight I should have asked what the injury was before I got in the car. That might have helped with the heartbeat. Showing up at the high school, it was clear that we needed to go see someone with the equipment to look inside his knee. There were parts to his leg that clearly were no longer in the wrong locations. A trip to the doctor, two hospitals, an hour in surgery, and an overnight stay in a hospital room later, and we are left with what is going to be a long recovery. Tomorrow morning, ten days after the bone at the bottom of his growth plate let go, and fractured from itself, our son will be placed into a hard cast for 6 weeks. The cast will come off, and he will run again, but this hurdle in our “perfect” world helps us remember the little important things; God, family, and friends. The rest you can keep!

Freedom Pt. 1 “Biblical Faith”

Spiritual Sight Pt. 2

We all say, “I know how it feels,” to our friends when a family member of theirs passes away.  But I don’t know if we really do until we experience it ourselves. It’s not fun. And, it’s permanent. Having traveled that journey recently, it occurs to me that I’ve got a pretty big hole in my life with the passing of my grandfather. I don’t like having that hole, and there is nothing I can do about it. But if I look past the frustration, and examine the hole closer, I see that it is filled with a ton of wonderful memories. I was doing that this past week (looking in the hole at the memories), and I discovered that I have more than one hole. I have another spot in my life that feels like a big hole where something should be. I originally thought it was just one big hole, but it is two. You see I have a friend leaving town who, in just the short few years that I’ve known him, has become a very big part of my life. I have been mentored and loved by a man that I now consider my older brother, and this week he is leaving town to start his next season, and I will have to start mine. The impact that these two men have made on my life could never been explained in a few short words. I simply can’t express the level of love I have for them. One I can still talk to on the phone, both I’ll see in heaven, and they both mean a lot to me.

I hope and pray that I might be a hole in a friend’s life when I leave.

Spiritual Sight Pt. 1

February 19, 2012

Supernatural Pt. 4 “Bitterness”

Supernatural Pt. 3 “Counterfeit Signs & Miracles”

I find myself settling into a place where I feel pretty good about myself, and my efforts to expand the Kingdom. Now, I’m not saying that I’m ever happy with the current results. I’m always looking for a way to make a bigger impact, but I’m a systems guy, and when you work on the systems there are times that they seem to run decently, and you start to look at your efforts and say, “Well done”.  Then I get a reminder that hits me in the face like a Mack truck.

I love my job, and I love working where God has called me in this season. However, it never ceases to blow me away when I see those working in ministry who have been called, and answered that God with an ‘even if’ attitude.  Theirs are the hearts that say, even if there is no money, even if there are no resources, even if I have to give up every comfort I know and love, I will go. They answer the call because it was God calling.

I got to experience that last Saturday while we served with one of our local outreaches here in Vegas. I’ll get to see it tonight when we sponsor a chapel service at another. But the one that hit me the hardest was yesterday when I was asked by one of our missionary partners to send them a note of encouragement that they intended to read during their staff meeting this week.

I was blown away that they would ask me to send something to encourage them. “Are they kidding me?” I thought. Clearly they don’t understand the impact they made on my life with the witness of their obedience to God’s call.

As I struggled with, and prayed about, what to write that might explain these thoughts that I can’t fully form, it became clear to me. God will use us. God will use all of us, in His way, and in His timing. If you are walking with Him in obedience and faith, constantly searching for His direction, He will use you. Even if it’s halfway around the world in a third world country. And, even if you never get to see it.

Supernatural Pt. 2 “Spiritual Attack/Satan’s Tactics”

Supernatural Pt. 1 “Spiritual Warfare”

One Pt. 2 “I Love My Church”

One Pt. 1 “Call to Christ”

Connected Pt. 2

Connected Pt. 1

South Hills Christmas Eve

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me…” (1 Corinthians 13:11)

Wow, I can’t believe it is 2012. What an amazing year this has been in our family. So busy, so blessed, so excited to see what God has in store for this year. Yet as this scripture came to mind to me… I started to think about how fast time flies…. Remember when you would count down from about month eight how many more days till your next birthday… Remember how long a week seemed to take… Remember laughing, not just the controlled laugh at the appropriate time, but the belly laugh over something as great as milk coming out of the nose of the guy next to you in the lunch room, or how a goofy joke or bodily releases of gas were not only appropriate but hilarious!!  Kool-Aid and playing outside until the streetlights came on. Praying you were not only picked on the good team, but not picked last for the game of kickball, dodge ball, baseball, or any other team sport.  Coming in from playing outside and all you had to do when you asked the question, “What’s for dinner” was wash your hands and sit down and eat.

Of course getting older does have its benefits –  driver’s licenses, voting, college education, (college loans), no curfew, wearing whatever you want, serving in the military, marriage, owning your own home, (your own mortgage), having children, making your own choices, and your own mistakes, responsibility and maturity.

Some of us need to be reminded of what it was like to be a child.  Don’t get me wrong, some need to accept the fact that they are not, and grow up too. However I am reminded of the words of Jesus, “let the little children come unto me and do not hinder them.  (Matt 19:14)  Return to the faith that sings, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”  The kind of childlike faith that said, “ I can be anything God wants me to be”. The simplicity of a child that says, God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.  With the wisdom of an adult that can put it into practice.

I know that you can’t ever go back to being 10 years old again, but in Jesus we can be made new every morning.  We can return to a faith that says “Abba Father” (daddy God), I trust you today that you hold my future, that you have a plan for my life, and I will pursue you with passion until my days on this side of Heaven are done.  And we can have fun while doing it!!! Don’t ever get so grown up that you miss out on the joy and fun that the child in all of us has been created with!

The Hot Seat Pt. 6

The Hot Seat Pt. 5

Have you ever gotten a blessing from doing something that you didn’t want to do in the first place?

That happened to my wife and I recently. She (my wife Amy) had called and asked me if we could host a couple of runners over the weekend that were coming in for the Las Vegas Marathon. These runners were raising money for a nonprofit that helps women get out of the entertainment industry. I didn’t want to do it, I really wanted to say no. The part that got me was the question in my mind that someone was bound to ask, “How can you be a pastor and not give to those in need something that you have and aren’t using?”.  We had the room, two extra bedrooms with our kids slowly moving away, and a travel trailer in the driveway that has three queen beds in it. I tried to come up with a reason to say no, but there wasn’t one I could find other than, “I don’t want to”.  (I hope Jesus never says that about me.)

I told Amy that I was good to go with having them stay. Then the bomb dropped. This is a prime example of why husbands should listen carefully when their wives are speaking. I’m sure she told me in the beginning, but I clearly didn’t hear it until after we were committed. 11.  Yes, 11 of them were coming. That’s not a couple! We now had to go shopping, make sure food was there, pick up things they needed to have when they arrived, and make a bunch of beds. It was too late to back out. I had committed, and really it was just going to take my time, but I’m the guy who never has any of that lying around.

The team is gone now, and I want to say to you; if you ever get the chance to help someone out that, without your help, would not be able to do something like travel to Vegas for a weekend, or move into a house, or because of lack of a baby sitter can’t spend some much-needed time with someone special, DO IT! Help them out!

I got to spend some time, although nowhere near enough, with an amazing group of young people living life, and loving Jesus while doing it. Each one of them different, each one of them committed to Christ. Within an hour they were like family, and their impact on our life here at home will be felt until we get a chance to serve with them again. It was truly a blessing to have them in our lives, even for this short time.