Smarter Sheep

Julie and I received some scary and concerning news from the doctors yesterday. When that happens, you tend to walk away wondering about the future, how this all turns out and your mind immediately starts in with the “what if” movies. These are the kind of mental movies you just can’t entertain and you should seriously walk out on.

“God is a safe place to hide, ready to help when we need him. We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom, courageous in seastorm and earthquake.” - Psalm 46

I’m truly thankful that we have a shepherd through the scary valleys regardless of what cliff edge we may be standing on…

While reading in In exodus 36 this morning I was struck by the story of Moses summoning his “boys” to start skillfully building the temple of worship. The Israelites began bringing there offerings in morning after morning after for the building project. They brought so much stuff that the artisans working on the temple had to go to Moses and complain that there was way to much stuff coming in and that they couldn’t keep up. Now, these were skilled tradesman and they knew how to utilize everything coming in. Working as fast and skillfully as they could, they found that they couldn’t keep up with the inflow of gifts and offerings that the people were bringing to God for building of the new house. AMAZING… Moses finally had to send an email throughout the camp to tell the people to stop bringing stuff because there was already plenty of material for all of the work to be done….Enough and more than enough!

I wonder if my offerings have been enough? Have I given my time and my resources to the point that anyone has had to tell me to stop and give them a breather because they can’t keep up?

Life has hard questions..

• Am I willing to ask the hard questions?
• Have I made excuses on God’s behalf because I couldn’t answer the tough questions myself?
• What are some areas of my life that I don’t yet trust God in… especially because I couldn’t resolve a tough question.

I yelled at God this week.  I think He may have been yelling at me the last several months…. so a  few days ago I yelled back…. in fact it was more like a tantrum.  I guess all the Monday’s in my life ganged up on me at once and I had a breakdown… after words I could barely speak.. in fact it’s been several days and I’m still struggling with losing my voice. In all the hollering between God and I, apparently I damaged something.  I’ve read many times in the book of Psalms where David yelled at God…. theres a few places where It really sounded more like my tantrum.  Well, needless to say, God and I have things in perspective again…. I’ve decided to let him take care of running the world… and I’ll practice listening more. I’m sure glad that He’s big enough to take it, and love me the same when I was done.

Dear Dad,
I have to say that I’m continually amazed at your openness to learn new tricks even as an “old dog”… as i have watched the last couple of years, your ability to let God show you new things that may seem contrary to the old school way of doing things is incredable. The other day I mentioned to another pastor that you said you were really having a good time with the “Confessions of a Pastor” book and even preaching out of it . He laughed and said “wow, he’s going to get himself fired if he’s not careful..”  The neat thing is, that you seem to be at a place in your life where all that matters now is what God wants to do with your life and how he wants to use your influence regardless of the status quot …as your proud son and a friend, i just wanted to encourage you, dad, and let you know that it really shows… and it’s driving me to go deeper in my own relationship with Christ… so at the end of the day, your accomplishing what you set out to do… raise kids that would go farther, dig deeper and trust Jesus Christ even more than you did… thank you for the example that I’m working hard to compete with for my own kids.