The righteous gives good advice to friends, but the way of the wicked leads astray. – Proverbs 12:26 (NRSV)
Do you have friends that give good advice? What about friends that bring you down the wrong path, do you have them too? What kind of friend have you been to others? When have you led someone astray? When have you been good?
A couple of months ago I was driving along the street. For a couple of blocks I had been following the same car. I do that sometimes, just try to follow the same car, let that person lead and I’ll follow. It makes driving easier. If the person in front of me slows down I slow down, if he speeds up I speed up. The person ahead is on the look out for danger, or at least sees the danger first to prepare me for it. Sometimes after following someone for a while I’ve noticed I stop paying attention to things as well as I should. I become more concerned with following than making sure I am looking out for danger or other important things with which to be concerned.
As I followed this particular car, ahead of us a fire truck turned on its lights and stopped. A fireman got out into the street. The car I was following slowed down and then changed lanes as he got closer. He went all the way over and then went around the fire truck and the fireman in the street to keep going on his way. Without even thinking I did the same thing, after all I was following the car in front of me. It wasn’t until I looked in my rearview mirror as the fireman threw up his arms in disgust that I realized what I had done. I got so concerned with being a follower I didn’t even consider where I was being led.
My mother always told me to make sure that I have good friends. It is still good advice. She also always told me to try to be a leader as opposed to a follower. That is still good advice too… well that is if we are following Jesus. Following Jesus is a sure way to keep from being led astray. It is also a great way to ensure that when others follow us they are given good advice, because we are getting the advice from the best.
With hope and joy,
Garrett
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Keep Doing Good
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. – Galatians 6:9 (NIV)
When have you grown weary? Did you keep on going? What about those times you have given up? Do you regret having given up? What type of harvest have you reaped by doing good? Who have you seen do good in the face of adversity? Did he/she reap a harvest?
Kenny Walker became deaf at the age of two after a bout of meningitis. As he got older he grew both in size and strength, and never let his deafness keep him from his love of football. Walker was an excellent high school player that caught the attention of several colleges. When asked where he wanted to go he signed “N” for Nebraska, and that is where he went.
Walker was a great player while at Nebraska being named an All-American and the Big Eight Conference “Defensive Player of the Year.” But perhaps the most amazing moment of his college football career came during his final home game. Traditionally, senior players were introduced alphabetically and ran onto the field, welcomed by a cheering crowd. Because Walker is deaf the university wanted to find a special way to honor him. The fans were all taught before the game how to sign the word, “Applause,” and were told to sign their ovation in silence while standing and waving their hands from side to side.
Standing in the stadium tunnel, Walker could feel the vibration of the cheering crowd as each senior ran on the field. When he ran out suddenly the vibrations stopped. Confused, he looked around the stadium to see over seventy-five thousand fans standing for him, waving their hands in a way only a deaf person would recognize as applause.
In that moment Kenny Walker reaped the harvest of continuing to fight on where others would quit. If we do not give up there is a harvest for each of us to reap one day! All harvests may look different, but that will make them no less incredible. Today and forever more let Christ guide our steps to the places where we can do good. Our example may even inspire others to do good, and perhaps that will be our harvest, others doing good by doing the work of God they first saw in us.
With hope and joy,
Garrett
When have you grown weary? Did you keep on going? What about those times you have given up? Do you regret having given up? What type of harvest have you reaped by doing good? Who have you seen do good in the face of adversity? Did he/she reap a harvest?
Kenny Walker became deaf at the age of two after a bout of meningitis. As he got older he grew both in size and strength, and never let his deafness keep him from his love of football. Walker was an excellent high school player that caught the attention of several colleges. When asked where he wanted to go he signed “N” for Nebraska, and that is where he went.
Walker was a great player while at Nebraska being named an All-American and the Big Eight Conference “Defensive Player of the Year.” But perhaps the most amazing moment of his college football career came during his final home game. Traditionally, senior players were introduced alphabetically and ran onto the field, welcomed by a cheering crowd. Because Walker is deaf the university wanted to find a special way to honor him. The fans were all taught before the game how to sign the word, “Applause,” and were told to sign their ovation in silence while standing and waving their hands from side to side.
Standing in the stadium tunnel, Walker could feel the vibration of the cheering crowd as each senior ran on the field. When he ran out suddenly the vibrations stopped. Confused, he looked around the stadium to see over seventy-five thousand fans standing for him, waving their hands in a way only a deaf person would recognize as applause.
In that moment Kenny Walker reaped the harvest of continuing to fight on where others would quit. If we do not give up there is a harvest for each of us to reap one day! All harvests may look different, but that will make them no less incredible. Today and forever more let Christ guide our steps to the places where we can do good. Our example may even inspire others to do good, and perhaps that will be our harvest, others doing good by doing the work of God they first saw in us.
With hope and joy,
Garrett
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Remaining Calm When God Fights
“You only need to remain calm; the LORD will fight for you.” – Exodus 14:14 (NCV)
Are you weary? Have the times been rough? Is the stress getting to you? Have you tried to remain calm? Has God fought for you before? Do you believe that God will fight for you again?
The Associated Press just wrote an article about a study which found that the youth of today (High School and College students) are five times more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression than youth of the Great Depression Era. Apparently today’s youth have such high expectations for success that the stress to meet those expectations is overwhelming. Looking out at things I am sure that it is not just the youth.
Our expectations for success say that we should each be rich, all have whatever we want whenever we want, have big homes, drive big cars, and all the rest. When these grandiose expectations are not met our existence seems shattered, and then we try to cope with our shattered dreams. Today it is harder to cope than ever before because God is so rarely kept at the forefront of our hearts and minds. We prefer to blame than to pray. We would rather be consumed in anger than ask for peace. We would assume sit in depression than seek the only path to joy.
It is not the success that culture prescribes that promises us peace, it is Jesus Christ who promises us peace, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.” It was this promise that let Paul joyously proclaim, “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus,” even as he sat in prison. And it was this promise of God’s that let Moses confidently say to a nervous nation, “You only need to remain calm; the LORD will fight for you,” as they saw all the might of Egypt descend upon them.
Putting our faith in Jesus means that we stop putting faith in the promises of the world. The higher rates of anxiety and depression are reason enough to turn to Jesus. We are not meant to go through life scared and alone, stressing out about empty promises that we cannot control. God still runs after us offering a new life, a different life, and a life where we can remain calm and know that somehow, someway God is control and fighting for us. Today let us pray for that life!
With hope and joy,
Garrett
Are you weary? Have the times been rough? Is the stress getting to you? Have you tried to remain calm? Has God fought for you before? Do you believe that God will fight for you again?
The Associated Press just wrote an article about a study which found that the youth of today (High School and College students) are five times more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression than youth of the Great Depression Era. Apparently today’s youth have such high expectations for success that the stress to meet those expectations is overwhelming. Looking out at things I am sure that it is not just the youth.
Our expectations for success say that we should each be rich, all have whatever we want whenever we want, have big homes, drive big cars, and all the rest. When these grandiose expectations are not met our existence seems shattered, and then we try to cope with our shattered dreams. Today it is harder to cope than ever before because God is so rarely kept at the forefront of our hearts and minds. We prefer to blame than to pray. We would rather be consumed in anger than ask for peace. We would assume sit in depression than seek the only path to joy.
It is not the success that culture prescribes that promises us peace, it is Jesus Christ who promises us peace, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.” It was this promise that let Paul joyously proclaim, “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus,” even as he sat in prison. And it was this promise of God’s that let Moses confidently say to a nervous nation, “You only need to remain calm; the LORD will fight for you,” as they saw all the might of Egypt descend upon them.
Putting our faith in Jesus means that we stop putting faith in the promises of the world. The higher rates of anxiety and depression are reason enough to turn to Jesus. We are not meant to go through life scared and alone, stressing out about empty promises that we cannot control. God still runs after us offering a new life, a different life, and a life where we can remain calm and know that somehow, someway God is control and fighting for us. Today let us pray for that life!
With hope and joy,
Garrett
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Receiving the Holy Spirit
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” – John 20:21-22 (NRSV)
What type of peace is Jesus offering? What does it mean to be sent out by Jesus? How important is it to you that Jesus sends you out? Do you experience the Holy Spirit as you go out? If so, how have you experienced the Holy Spirit?
On June 11, 1988 a concert called “Freedom Festival” was held in London. Musicians throughout the world came together to hold a concert in honor of Nelson Mandela on his 70th birthday and to make a stand against apartheid in South Africa. The concert began with Sting working the crowd into a frenzy. Then musician after musician took the stage to sing while speeches were given in between sets. Over 72,000 people were loving each minute watching it in person while it is estimated over 1 billion people watched on television across the world! When Stevie Wonder made a surprise appearance the crowd was even more worked up.
Toward the end of the 10-hour concert Dire Straits was performing and the crowd was singing to every song. Then the final act came on stage, Jessye Norman an American soprano. She was not considered a rock star, and as she slowly came on stage the crowd was getting restless hoping Dire Straits would come back and sing another song. Some people were shouting out for another musician while she positioned herself behind the microphone. Then in a beautiful a cappella she began to sing “Amazing Grace.” When you hear her start singing you can hear the crowd still somewhat upset, and then quickly a hush falls over them. As she kept on going the crowd began to gently sing with her. Later Norman confessed that she had no idea what power fell over the crowd that night.
There is no doubt that the power she experienced was the Holy Spirit, ensuring that people were still sent out from that concert to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. What was a grand concert became church because people experienced the Holy Spirit! God is still at work all over the place, breathing the Holy Spirit onto us in order that we can be sent out to do the work of God. Today let us pray that we caught up in this wave of glory that is the Holy Spirit!
With hope and joy,
Garrett
What type of peace is Jesus offering? What does it mean to be sent out by Jesus? How important is it to you that Jesus sends you out? Do you experience the Holy Spirit as you go out? If so, how have you experienced the Holy Spirit?
On June 11, 1988 a concert called “Freedom Festival” was held in London. Musicians throughout the world came together to hold a concert in honor of Nelson Mandela on his 70th birthday and to make a stand against apartheid in South Africa. The concert began with Sting working the crowd into a frenzy. Then musician after musician took the stage to sing while speeches were given in between sets. Over 72,000 people were loving each minute watching it in person while it is estimated over 1 billion people watched on television across the world! When Stevie Wonder made a surprise appearance the crowd was even more worked up.
Toward the end of the 10-hour concert Dire Straits was performing and the crowd was singing to every song. Then the final act came on stage, Jessye Norman an American soprano. She was not considered a rock star, and as she slowly came on stage the crowd was getting restless hoping Dire Straits would come back and sing another song. Some people were shouting out for another musician while she positioned herself behind the microphone. Then in a beautiful a cappella she began to sing “Amazing Grace.” When you hear her start singing you can hear the crowd still somewhat upset, and then quickly a hush falls over them. As she kept on going the crowd began to gently sing with her. Later Norman confessed that she had no idea what power fell over the crowd that night.
There is no doubt that the power she experienced was the Holy Spirit, ensuring that people were still sent out from that concert to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. What was a grand concert became church because people experienced the Holy Spirit! God is still at work all over the place, breathing the Holy Spirit onto us in order that we can be sent out to do the work of God. Today let us pray that we caught up in this wave of glory that is the Holy Spirit!
With hope and joy,
Garrett
Minister's Minute from January Issue of the Journal of Hope and Joy
Again we begin a New Year. Life is a series of new beginnings really. That is a comforting thought to me. There have been many times in my life I have messed up, or something has happened somewhat beyond my control, but which nevertheless severely affected me. At many such moments of difficulty I wanted to give up. The moment was too overwhelming and I discovered myself trapped, stuck in that moment in time like it was some prison. The prison of course was my own creation. No moment can hold us, but we allow the circumstances of moments to haunt us, to grab onto our thoughts and our dreams and steal them from us. In those quiet moments of desperation when peace seems fleeting at best, or nowhere at worst, we exist fearing how life will play out, how life will continue, how we will ever make it.
Yet each of us has made it through such valleys before and will make it through them again, it is the nature of life. Sometimes life is miraculous, pregnant with promise and potential. We might call such moments our mountaintops of glory. We have all experienced them, and God willing we shall all experience them again. A graduation, a birth, a chance encounter with God, only you know your mountaintop experiences, oh and what experiences they must have been. I have found myself high atop such mountains and in my jubilation I have seldom seen the valleys down below. Nevertheless there are always valleys down below because the truth is life is a journey and not a destination. Below each mountain is another valley, and beyond each valley is another mountain, and we keep walking because that is what we do.
So the New Year arrives and I am reminded that I keep on walking, because that is what I do. Somehow God walks with me, pushing me along when I would rather collapse in despair, pushing me along when I would cement myself in joy, pushing me along because there is so much still to experience. Not every day will be easy, but as the pressures of life are overcome, like a piece of coal that becomes a diamond only under severe pressure so shall we one day discover that we have become a jewel of infinite worth. Life is a series of new beginnings, and while the journey we have already travelled has helped create who we are, it is the journey we have yet to travel that will eventually make us complete. Each of us is a work in progress, and God would not have it any other way, and should we be truly honest neither would we. Something about the pains have allowed the joys to be so much better, and something about the joys have allowed the pains to contain some amount of meaning, even if words cannot express what that meaning may be.
However there is only one way to keep on going, and that is to humbly walk with God. Without that ever-vigilant and ever-present partner we would be lost. So let us say with the psalmist, “My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise!” I have seen many scenes in movies where a frightened character is told by the protagonist something like, “Keep looking at me, keep looking at me.” The goal of course is that the fear might stop overwhelming the poor character who cannot handle the situation. In our difficulties it is God who says, “Keep looking at me, keep looking at me!” If we look then we will be able to sing and give praise in the pain because our hearts will be fixed on God, and then at some moment we will notice the valley is over and again we are climbing up a mountain, a new mountain, a new beginning, as a new person. When we get to the top of the next mountain we still must sing that same psalm and God will still say, “Keep looking at me, keep looking at me!” because that moment no matter how glorious will be better with a friend.
I hope and pray that this year is full of new beginnings for each of us, and from whatever befalls us in the course of this year we emerge on the other side a more precious jewel than we entered it.
Riding the Wave of the Holy Spirit,
Garrett
Yet each of us has made it through such valleys before and will make it through them again, it is the nature of life. Sometimes life is miraculous, pregnant with promise and potential. We might call such moments our mountaintops of glory. We have all experienced them, and God willing we shall all experience them again. A graduation, a birth, a chance encounter with God, only you know your mountaintop experiences, oh and what experiences they must have been. I have found myself high atop such mountains and in my jubilation I have seldom seen the valleys down below. Nevertheless there are always valleys down below because the truth is life is a journey and not a destination. Below each mountain is another valley, and beyond each valley is another mountain, and we keep walking because that is what we do.
So the New Year arrives and I am reminded that I keep on walking, because that is what I do. Somehow God walks with me, pushing me along when I would rather collapse in despair, pushing me along when I would cement myself in joy, pushing me along because there is so much still to experience. Not every day will be easy, but as the pressures of life are overcome, like a piece of coal that becomes a diamond only under severe pressure so shall we one day discover that we have become a jewel of infinite worth. Life is a series of new beginnings, and while the journey we have already travelled has helped create who we are, it is the journey we have yet to travel that will eventually make us complete. Each of us is a work in progress, and God would not have it any other way, and should we be truly honest neither would we. Something about the pains have allowed the joys to be so much better, and something about the joys have allowed the pains to contain some amount of meaning, even if words cannot express what that meaning may be.
However there is only one way to keep on going, and that is to humbly walk with God. Without that ever-vigilant and ever-present partner we would be lost. So let us say with the psalmist, “My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise!” I have seen many scenes in movies where a frightened character is told by the protagonist something like, “Keep looking at me, keep looking at me.” The goal of course is that the fear might stop overwhelming the poor character who cannot handle the situation. In our difficulties it is God who says, “Keep looking at me, keep looking at me!” If we look then we will be able to sing and give praise in the pain because our hearts will be fixed on God, and then at some moment we will notice the valley is over and again we are climbing up a mountain, a new mountain, a new beginning, as a new person. When we get to the top of the next mountain we still must sing that same psalm and God will still say, “Keep looking at me, keep looking at me!” because that moment no matter how glorious will be better with a friend.
I hope and pray that this year is full of new beginnings for each of us, and from whatever befalls us in the course of this year we emerge on the other side a more precious jewel than we entered it.
Riding the Wave of the Holy Spirit,
Garrett
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