Common to Uncommon

“What are we going to do today Brain?” “The same thing we do every day Pinky, try and take over the world!” That is how every episode of an Animaniacs cartoon started. It was two lab rats bent on escaping from their scientific lab-rat cages to take over the world. They did the same thing everyday. Like a hamster on a wheel, but these were rats in a cage.
We tend to do the same thing everyday, especially as school is getting ready to start and our schedules find a more familiar rhythm. We jump into our well worn rut and trudge ahead into obscurity. Of course, when you read that last sentence, something inside you gets a wee-bit agitated, because you have no desire to work yourself into obscurity. Normal. Common. No, we want to be popular, well known, and very successful. So I guess the real question to ask then, is how did those truly successful people climb out of the rut of mediocrity and start running up the slippery slope of success?
What are we going to do today? Well, the same thing we do everyday, try and make a buck, feed our family, and pay our bills; That normal, common stuff. Every one of us has tasks that are common to our daily work. We don’t even consider them important, yet they are. In order to reform our ruts, we need to begin doing our common things in an uncommon way. Don’t stop doing what has always worked for you, just amp it up to a whole new level.
What separates a common company from an extraordinary one? Simple. The best companies do common things in an uncommon way. It says in the Bible that we should do everything we do as though we are doing it to the Lord himself. Now that’s a challenge.
If we take that challenge and apply it to our personal lives, then what we find is a new filter to run our thoughts and actions through. No longer can we allow our common tasks throughout the day to just be common acts. Now they must be uncommon. Extraordinary. Our days then evolve from the mundane to the spectacular.
To be honest, I’m sure this sounds as far fetched to you as it does to me, but the truth of the matter is that it really works. Over the last few months I’ve been applying this principle to my own life, and it truly changes the very fabric of my day. I take almost every event and attempt to make it uncommon. It doesn’t always happen. In fact most retain the same commonality as before, but now and then you push one of those common tasks over the bar of heightened concern and viola, your day is special. On top of that you realize that not only was that day or event special to you, it was special to someone else. Maybe a neighbor, or a co-worker, possibly even your child.
Everything we do, we should do it as though we were doing it for Jesus himself. Many times that’s just the motivation we need to turn those ordinary common tasks, into uncommon works of art. After a few years of that we’ll turn around and realize that not only have we enjoyed life to the fullest, but we’ve also decorated our communities with incredible masterpieces, that all resemble the master himself.

I'm a complete person again.

My laptop has been in the shop for an entire week. I felt lost. Abandoned. Lonely. Ashamed. Guilty - yet no reason to - sad. Depressed. I know sounds like it was a rough week. Okay actually it's been a pretty good week, but I must say it feels REALLY GOOD to be typing on my very own FIXED laptop. YEA! Who knows, now maybe I'll even write a real blog entry. :)

wanna see the video?

We baptized 15 people for oour very first baptism. WOW! It was Awesome! Wanna see? Click below.

Just a tidbit of the H2O Experience

Microsoft is still alive

You just gotta watch this. Seriously.

Discovering God's Will

If everything goes according to plan then I know I made the right choice. If all the proverbial doors swing on their well-oiled hinges, and I walk through without a hitch, then obviously I’m in God’s will. Those statements sound nice and true. We often judge how deep we are encrusted in God’s will by how well our circumstances are going. Unfortunately, external indicators are no indicators at all.
Most people that I talk to in the church realm want to know God’s will for their lives. In fact, many people not in the church realm still have this desire to do God’s will. They call it different things, but a rose by any other name…yea you get the picture. Since we want to do God’s will, the next logical question is how do we know God’s will? How do we hack into the cosmic communication network to hear and understand exactly what God wants us to do?
We hear sermons, we get advice, or we trudge it alone. But when it is all done and said we determine if we are in God’s will based solely upon the outcome of our lives. If we are successful and have money in the bank then we are in God’s will. If our families are happy, healthy, and wise, then we are in God’s will. If tears never run down our face then we have heard from God and are in the center of his will.
The last time I checked the center of God’s will is not the center of the “American Dream” will. When you pore over the Bible you find that the main characters who were absolutely in God’s will had horrible lives you begin to question the American mindset. The Apostle Paul wrote over half of the New Testament, had a personal visit from Jesus Christ, and was instrumental in shaping the church that we now hold dear. So was he in God’s will?
I would say yes, but then why was he ship wrecked? Beaten? Stoned? Ignored? Imprisoned and executed? Sorry this is not according to the good church plan now is it? Being in the center of God’s will is the most tumultuous place to be. It is a place reserved for those that are not scared of adventure. Not frightened by the unknown, and not unearthed by adversity. The center of God’s will is not a place for those who question every step of life, but are faithfully moving forward in spite of the groping darkness.
Does that mean that we are only in God’s will if things look like Hell on Earth? Of course not. In the book of John, chapter 10, it says, “A thief comes only to rob, kill, and destroy. I came so that everyone would have life, and have it in its fullest.” God wants us to have life to the fullest, but we also need to recognize that the enemy wants the opposite. It’s a balance in life. Just because things are going awry in your life does not mean you are out of God’s will, it could just mean that you are messing with the enemy and his territory. That’s not a bad thing, but a godly thing. After all, Jesus called for workers and warriors, not satisfied spectators.
So the next time you want to know if you are in God’s will, don’t just look at the ease of the journey. The trail that God lays out is not a concrete nature trail but an open terrain with obstacles, valleys, mountains, and streams. You’re not lost, you’re on an adventure.

The 'and' Factor

How big is your ‘and?’ Do you ever feel like your ‘and’ is longer than everybody else’s? You think you have it all figured out, but then something else happens, or actually something doesn’t happen, and you question it again? Sometimes the ‘and’ can seemingly take forever!
And, is a conjunction. It links two clauses in a sentence. That’s important because we read Bible passages and take two clauses and make them one, totally ignoring the all important ‘and.’
In the book of St. John it says, “Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” We read that and we get all excited and ask, and wait. Then we ask again, and wait. We wonder why nothing is happening so we dive into the bible to see if we have the right code or combination to make it all work out. Of course, after you do this once or twice, you realize that God can’t be figured out, and on top of that, there seems to be no one secret ‘code’ to make God work his Heavenly miracles. The simple truth of the matter is that some times we are just in the middle of our ‘and.’
I’m sure that tid-bit of information does not make your six month wait any easier to swallow, but if you swallow it with a dose of sand it just might. Imagine, the children of Israel wandered around in the wilderness (dessert) for forty years. To me that sounds like a really big ‘and.’ What they had prayed for in Egypt was coming to pass, it was just taking a really long time to walk through their own ‘and.’ Their long wait was based one their own poor attitude. The real trip would have only taken roughly seven days. Imagine how messed up they got in just seven days that God had to detour them from the promise land.
Realistically we need to look at our own lives as we walk through our ‘and.’ As we wait from asking, to receiving. Not all the time, but many times we will find that the waiting process is really a purifying process. God is trying to work things out in us.
Imagine if you prayed for success in a certain area. Then ‘poof’ God answered your prayer overnight. You were an instant success. You would probably thank God for the first hour, but then your human nature would kick in and you would think you had actually done something special to deserve or earn this new successful standing.
God has an incredible way of knowing what is in our hearts even before we do. He is more interested in the outcome than the time frame. He is patient; we are not. We get in our Egypt and ask God to respond now! Then he helps walk us through that big fat ‘and’, and we balk and say, “Come on God where are you?” We complain. Really, we were born complainers.
The Children of Israel were led through the dessert by a towering pillar of fire. Pretty Sci-Fi wouldn’t you say? Yet they still cried out, “Where are you God?” I read stuff like that and I want to reach into the Bible and snatch those Israelite bald-headed. It’s like, “Hey idiot! Your God is right there in a towering flame!” So obvious.
Then we turn that same intuitive gaze to our own lives and God is just as obvious. Just as present, but we are so focused on getting this one specific prayer answered that we are missing the hand of God in all the other vitals areas of our lives. We ask for something, and while we are walking through the ‘and’ process we only focus on that one thing while God is molding, shaping, and rejuvenating hundreds of other areas in our lives.
In life we all have to walk through our personal ‘and’ times, but in those times we can’t contract tunnel vision. We need to look up and realize that God is not just at work in our lives, he is leading us through those wide-open ‘and’ times.

He Looked, and it was good!

Today we baptized 18 people at our very first baptism! How incredibly awesome is that? And on top of that we had 4 million people show up to watch and participate! Yes it really was exactly 4 million people. I counted each and everyone. Of course I am a preacher and we tend to exaggerate. But we did have 18 get baptized and it was awesome! It was so neat to watch these people get baptized. Knowing that behind each dunking was an incredible story of redemption. I stand utterly amazed at how God brings everything together for such a time as this. Wow.