Only goin to the Candle Maker and submitting to His hands will allow Him to remold, reshape, re-lengthen, and replace those ends.

Go to the Candle Maker.  He . . . → Read More: Burning The Candle At Both Ends]]> Did you know that if you’ve been burning the candle at both ends, simply going somewhere to STOP burning doesn’t replace what has been lost?  It doesn’t re-lengthen the candle.

Only goin to the Candle Maker and submitting to His hands will allow Him to remold, reshape, re-lengthen, and replace those ends.

Go to the Candle Maker.  He will fix your wick, repair your scratches, and even put back that which has burned away.

The Bible says walk by faith and not by sight.  It says nobody should build something unless they count the cost, otherwise they could get half-way done and get stalled.  Yeah, that’ll look . . . → Read More: How Far Can You Reach?]]> Remember Monkey Bars when you were a kid?  How about those rings on chains?  And those igloo-shaped bar cages you could crawl all over?

The Bible says walk by faith and not by sight.  It says nobody should build something unless they count the cost, otherwise they could get half-way done and get stalled.  Yeah, that’ll look good for God’s name, huh?  To have a building with half a roof and the rains come…

Two sayings spring to mind:

1)   He who hesitates is lost.
2)  Haste makes waste.

Okay, which one leads?

The bible is a lamp unto our feet, and a light unto our path.  Without faith, it’s impossible to please God.  With God, all things are possible.  And then, all that stuff about prudence and stewardship and accountability and and and…

If it wasn’t for the fulness of the Holy Spirit, I’d just give up, wouldn’t you?  But He lives inside us.  He speaks to us.  He illuminates His Word, and THAT is where our help comes from.

There’s nothing wrong with swinging from one monkey bar to the next, and for those big jumps you have to let go of the one in your hand in order to reach the next one!  But even that’s not bad.  What would be bad is this: not to look before we make that leap, and to make it with our eyes open.  Just because we can see, doesn’t mean we’re walking by sight.  Ooo!  That’s deep, huh?

So walk by faith.  Be faithful.  Work like it’s up to you, and pray like it’s up to God.  Because it is.

We’ve been to a lot of conferences in our life together.  Karen and I were in Amway years and years ago, and . . . → Read More: How To Tell A Conference]]> Clever post title…I know.  Well, okay, maybe not that clever.  We just got home from a week-long conference last night — or as Christopher reminded us with, “Good Morning,” it was after midnight this morning.

We’ve been to a lot of conferences in our life together.  Karen and I were in Amway years and years ago, and it was fun and exciting to go to confences where everybody got pumped up and motivated and informed of the new stuff coming in “The Business,” and everybody got to walk around and lie to each other about how big their downline had grown…

It was good to see how powerful our particular organization was growing, because that added a big value of membership, of belonging to something that is vibrant.  I guess it was also good to dream, to connect – albeit only on a surface level – with other people trying their doggoned-est to build the business.

We’ve been to conferences across the country and to be perfectly honest, they have not been as grand, not had as much lasting impact as we would hope.

We got out of Amway ages ago.  Don’t have any hard feelings.  Didn’t “lose” any money or anything like that.  In fact, we learned some life-lessons about people, work, strategy, and a lot more in our time there.  There came a time when we felt that God was showing us that although it is a good vehicle, the MLM model is not what He has for us, and we needed to get focused on His plan.

We started Promise about a year and a half ago.  To again be perfectly honest, we were NOT striving toward a chance to go open our own church.  Yes, we’re called to pastor.  Yes, we are eager to pour into people’s lives.  Yes, we’ve been groomed by the Holy Spirit to lead in the Body of Christ.  But people on the outside just can’t understand the weight of the decision to be set into a position of being such an easy target. 

If your life isn’t absolutely perfect, people find the areas God is working on with you, and just shoot you!  And then they can use that to filter everything you say and then  they don’t  hear well anymore.  Everything goes through the, “They have a problem with keeping their cars clean, so they must have a problem keeping clean in every area of their life, so I am their judge, they should listen to me, because at least I clean my car!”  It happens to every pastor in the Church.

So setting one’s self into a place of leadership in the Church is suicide.  That’s why it has to, HAS TO, be the strategic placement of the Holy Spirit.  And over-filtered people will not be able to see or hear that because your car needs a wash.  They don’t know  you washed it yesterday morning, but drove out a dirt road to minister to a family who called for help, but when you got there they tured on you like a terrible Domestic Violence episode of “Cops.”

And when we went to our first conference last year as pastors, we didn’t really have all that high of expectations.  I don’t want another rah rah pump pump go go go session.  I want something with even more substance.  I got it.  There really are groups of people scattered across the globe who believe in one another and want to help each other.  Then a few months later we tried another conference.  Home run!  Actually our hotel room was pretty scummy, but the actual conference event was great.

And then another, and a fourth.  A lot of the same attendees go to the conferences.  And they come up and call us by name and we call them by theirs, and I thought we were the only ones who cared enough about people to remember their names and pray for them since we saw them.  But then to have one say, “God’s had you on my heart, and I’m so glad you came, and what’s going on with you, and how can I pray, and how can I help, and I really mean it!”  Well, that’s the greatest!

Or to have dinner with a pastor’s family, and sit and listen to Godly counsel on where landmines are, on how to make practical decisions based in  faith and aware of physical things.  Well, that’s the greatest!

And to connect with a pastor who is inexperienced (well, more than you at the time,) and be able to show him how to do something more effectively, and see the light come on in his eyes…Well, that’s the greatest.

And to be asked to be part of the ministry, and to be able to add value to all the people who attend looking for something in their own lives, and to have so many come and humble you by telling you it was exactly what they needed.  Well, that’s the greatest.

And, and and and.

You can tell a tree by its fruit.  We’ve been connected to some great people, grafted in without some kind of oath  of membership, just a mutual love for advancing the Kingdom. 

There really is such a thing out there.  Not competing against each other.  Not even caring if you have 18 or 800 in your church, just caring for each other, exhorting each other, encouraging each other, and giving testimony to each other that there’s hope and we’re doing the right thing, and we’re making a difference.

And then there’s the actual conference sessions.  I almost forgot!  They were the nuclear bomb!!  Hitters in the Kingdom coming and showing what the bible says about the work we’re doing, and how to do it better.

How do you tell a conference?  By the everything.  The planning.  The content.  The people.  The results.  The love.  The and and and and.  We’ve been to a handful of conferences in the last year and a half, and every one of them have been beneficial and worth whatever the cost has been.

So if you stumble across this blog and . . . → Read More: I Wonder How Much Of This Is Real?]]> When I watch reality shows, when I listen to commentators, or when I see people interact, I wonder how much of it is scripted and how much of it comes from the heart.  By the way, just because it’s scripted doesn’t mean it’s not from the heart, but usually….

So if you stumble across this blog and wonder if the posts are from the heart, you can rest assured that it’s the real deal.  Not too preachy because who wants to get preached AT?  Not too trendy, because if supply and demand dictate value, then trendy is cheap!  And not to prim and proper, because this is my blog, not some perfect giuy who has it all together.  Yeah, I just saw that typo, but I’ll leave it there to make my point.

God is God, and He’s faithful all the time.  Not just when it’s been great sailing.  We are us, and we’re NOT God, all the time!  So do what you can to be faithful.  Try.  Press forward.  Don’t give up.  He really loves you.

And He is 100% real.

Look at it from the point of view of a person who just won the bazillion dollar lottery, married the sweetest high school sweetheart in the world, and found out that wild idea to help regular cars get a hundred miles per . . . → Read More: …Of The Rest Of Your Life]]> Today Is The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Life.  What a cliche, huh?   

Look at it from the point of view of a person who just won the bazillion dollar lottery, married the sweetest high school sweetheart in the world, and found out that wild idea to help regular cars get a hundred miles per gallon really works and the country’s going to adopt it as the standard and they’re making an official holiday after that person’s name.

Now look at it from the point of view of a man who was successfully framed for running a human slavery ring, and his wife saw the evidence and couldn’t believe him anymore, and whose children were told they needed to say goodbye because their daddy is leaving on a trip for the rest of his life, and a guard is putting him in his prison cell saying that phrase.

Two different pictures.  One truth.  People who say your attitude changes everything are not completely accurate.  There are other forces at work that affect you, aren’t there?  Other people have plans in which you are only a bit-part actor, and as soon as your scene is over then they are through with you.

Circumstances are real.  Anybody saying differently is either ignorant or dishonest.  Yet, there’s a free-will inside each of us, and the breath of life still breezes through us.  There is a myth about when the ancient Greek gods gave mankind Pandora’s box.  One myth says it had lots of evil things in it and when she opened it they all entered into the lives of mankind.  Another myth says it was a box full of wonderful things, but she opened it and they all fluttered away.  But both stories agree that Hope hung around.

In the real world, God’s Word says that three things still abide: faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love.  But that doesn’t discount faith and hope, it just elevates love.

Keep hope.  If you’re entering something like a prison cell in your life, you would never look up without hope, and maybe…just maybe…they left the window open and you can escape your own personal hell.  If you did invent a cure for cancer, or pollution, or bad gas mileage, look up with hope!  You need to give credit to Whom it is due because He’s the Great Idea-Giver anyway, isn’t He?

I don’t know how long this thread of life is, and I can’t see the end, and yes: I can picture the person who says when they reach the end of their rope they’ll make a knot and hold on.  I see life as more of a tightrope walk than repelling down a rope.  I’ll get to the other side when my journey is over.

Until then, this is only the first day, and you know as well as I do that if we’re just beginning this ‘…Rest of your life,” then we have a lot of work to do, so let’s get crackin’!

I just had a flashback to Billy . . . → Read More: I Don’t Feel A Day Older Than 44]]> Well, maybe exactly a day over 44.  Yesterday was my 45th.  Promise gave me a new backyard propane barbecue, then a surprise birthday barbecue at one of our member’s houses.  Well, Karen lined all that up.  What a wife!  And I got about a hundred Happy Birthday’s online.  Fun, huh?

I just had a flashback to Billy Crystal riding a horse in City Slickers, and finally pipes up, “You know, it makes you think…” and his friends start laughing because they had a bet on how soon he’d start talking about mortality.  (See the movie, they had just buried their trail-cook.)

I’m not going to wax eloquent here, just make the point that at 45, I really did have plans to be much further along than I am today.  I had hopes and dreams just like anybody else.

Do you know what happens when you cook a spicy sauce for a while?  One word for that is called, “reduction.”  The water evaporates more and more, and the spices get sharper and sharper.  If you had hot spices in the mix, they get hotter.  If you had sweet spices in the mix, they get sweeter.  But there is LESS quantity in the pan.

I genuinely hope that all this simmering, all those reductions, subtractions, hot hot hot days, and the lessening is paying off.  The Apostle Paul wrote that he counts everything he gained in this world as loss to the bigger picture.  Now don’t get me wrong: I know we have needs here in this world.  If I don’t pay my mortgage, taxes, electric bill, they tend to get insistent.  On the other hand, maybe what Paul meant for me is to focus on the main thing.

Now we’re back to City Clickers.  One Thing, the trail boss said.  I’m okay with it being a few things, but maybe the point is just like what Paul said.  Do what you’re supposed to do, what you’re created to do, and do it with all your might.  Anything that distracts you from that is a loss.

I’m 45.  I think I’ll act like it today.  Tomorrow….?

Years ago I worked for Transamerica; you know: the pyramid tower in San Francisco.  But I worked here in SoCal.  They had their corporate office in . . . → Read More: Will Having Kids Really Change Anything?]]> That almost sounds like a dumb question, huh?  Does having kids change anything?  Duh!!  Another mouth to feed.  Diapers.  Sleepless nights.  Fevers.  Bumps and bruises and scratches and you name its….

Years ago I worked for Transamerica; you know: the pyramid tower in San Francisco.  But I worked here in SoCal.  They had their corporate office in Los Angeles, and once my boss and I had to go in and meet a Senior Executive Vice President.  Woo hoo!  We were instructed where to park, which elevator to take, what floor to get off, and to walk down “Walnut Row,” until we get to a secretary’s counter (counter?  not a desk?) and wait to be summoned.

So we get there.  We park.  We get to the elevator.  And this little guy of about 5′ 4″ asks to hold the door.  He gets in and we all look at the ceiling, the numbers, whatever while the elevator takes its time.  I finally look at him and say, “Hey, that’s a pretty nice tie.”  He says, “Thanks, you too.  Um, did you see that?”  And he points at my tie and I see some spit up from burping our daughter before I left.  My boss hadn’t said anything thank you very much.

So I laughed nervously and said, “The joys of parenthood, huh?”  I guess he laughed, but I went on.  “We’re supposed to meet a VIP, and I’ve got baby puke on my tie.”  I remember smiling, and he laughed with me.  The dinger told us we reached our floor so my boss and I got out.  We went to the magic counter, and I asked where a bathroom was.  Five minutes later we were waiting on very, very plush seats in an antechamber to the mucky muck’s office.  My boss had his nervous hands in his lap, and I had a half-damp tie that showed darker where I had washed the vomit off.

We were summoned.  We went in.  And the guy from the elevator smiles ear to ear and says, “So YOU’RE my nine o’clock?”  and shook our hands.  Then he told me to come around to his side of the HUGE desk and look at his family pictures.  He had a couple daughters, both grown up now, and he told me how much he missed those days when he  could hold them in his arms and just love on them, and yes sometimes get spit up on.

Our appointment went famously.  That’s not the whole story.  MY appointment went famously.  The VP asked my boss a couple questions about his family, but he only talked about the trouble his kids were, and how a kid like me would learn, and could we get to the business at hand.  You can guess the rest of  our 1/2 hour was mostly the VP talking with me, sharing stories about his girls growing up and what I had to look forward to.

When we stood up to leave, he told us he enjoyed the meeting and looked forward to hearing how our division was doing for the company.  My boss said, “That’s what we came here to review with you!”

“Mister, do you think I need a middle manager to tell me how you’re doing?  My secretary makes more than you do, and she already has given me the numbers.  I know what you’re doing out there.”  Then he turned to me and said, “Besides, wasn’t this much more important than trying to impress Corporate?”  He reached down and flipped my tie and said, “Remember the little things, Jeff.” 

He shook my hand again, opened his door, and that was that.  Never talked to him again.  And it was a mighty quiet drive back to our office too.

There are parents, and there are parents.  And there are parents with their priorities right.  Be that last one.