No prostitutes allowed...

I was reading a book the other day. I know, I am so cutting edge. Anyhow, the book is entitled Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. I am rather enjoying the book, because it gives me a lot to think about. I don't always like to read people that think just like me, I like to read people that will give me something to think about. Let me add, that Shane Claiborne very much so causes me to think. So I am reading and he tells of a conversation that he and one of his hippie friends has and here is how he sets it up and tells of what happened with their interaction: "I have this old hippie friend who loves Jesus and smokes a lot of weed, and he's always trying to get under my skin and stir up a debate, especially when I have innocent young Christians visiting with me. (The problem is that he knows the Bible better than most of them do.) One day, he said to me, 'Jesus never talked to a prostitute.' I immediately went on the offensive:'Oh sure he did,' and whipped out my sword of the Spirit and got ready to spar. The he just calmly looked me in the eye and said, 'Listen, Jesus never talked to a prostitute because he didn't see a prostitute, he just saw a child of God he was madly in love with.' I lost the debate that night."
Something about that story just echoed in my spirit. What if i saw people as Christ sees them and not as the sin or their shortcomings. I think the world is crying out to be loved where they are and not for what they do. If we as followers of Christ could live this way, I think we would shine as we have been called to shine. So let us not look at people based on what they do, but on who they are, and they are loved by our Heavenly Father. So instead of us picking up judgment, let us pick up grace, instead of holding up condemnation, let us hold up Love. A challenge indeed, but worth it all the same!

Drop kick or grace?

So I am watching ESPN the other night, yes, a very manly thing to do, because I am known as a man's man. Okay, not really, but I do have some manly tendencies. Anyhow, I am watching ESPN, they are going through the previous nights' highlights. So there is a recap that catches my attention, it was recapping the game of a major league baseball game. The batter was up and the umpire signaled to the centerfielder that he was ejected from the game because he was stealing signs. Nevertheless, the centerfielder was not at all happy about the call, so he proceded to sprint from centerfield to home plate and he was going to let the umpire have it. What happened next made me a little upset, he was so angry that he let every explitive fly known to man and he tried to grab the umpire and cause him so bodily harm. The reason I was so upset is I know that there are kids watching this athlete and taking cues from him on what it means to be an athlete. I did not want this guy to be the example. I wanted to drop kick him! Then I had a very sobering moment. I asked myself this question, is that how God feels about me? Let me have a really honest moment, a lot of the time I do not represent the name of Christ very well. I am the represenative of Christ in this world, whoever calls themself a Christian is! I wonder if Christ ever wants to drop kick me. I know that sounds like a very awkward question, but think about it, if you died on a cross so that people could have the opportunity to live for you, and they took that sacrafice and lived however they wanted, it would bother you. I learned something from watching ESPN, I am not living for my own gain, but for the renown of Jesus Christ, that is a pretty big deal! I should live my life in such away that people know whom I am living for. See, the really splendid thing about living for the Lord is when I stumble and deserve a drop kick, he gives me grace and because of that grave I will get up and run this race with endurance!

Suffering from squirrel syndrome...

I don't know about you, but I am suffering from something called squirrel syndrome. Let me explain, have you ever seen a squirrel cross a street? It is quite a site. Squirrels start crossing so confidently, until a car comes or something startles them. Once that happpens it's as if they have forgotten what they are doing or where they are going. Back and forth they dart across traffic, and the sad part about this is some lose their life. Others just go back to where they started not daring to try and cross again, and then there are those that keep running to the other side. Those are the ones that are resillent. But my faith and my walk with Christ is a lot like that. I will be walking on my journey towards Christ and a car comes, which can take on many forms: sin, tragedy, dissappointment, you name it. It gets me off my course and I run back to things that are comfortable, forgetting about the journey I am on. I follow christ and then my own way and then Christ and so on and so forth. The sad thing is some people don't get pass this point, they live their life in the mediocre or their sin leads them down a path that requires their life for payment. Even though I do suffer from this squirrel syndrome, I wan to be one of the ones that makes to the other side, I wan to be a follower of Christ that finishes the race. Even though there are times I lose my way, I want to finish the race and finish well. Maybe at the end of this race I can say I overcame my squirrel syndrome.


Much love,
Nick

Jesus in a little red truck...

Today i was driving from a coffee shop in town to my office and i turned on a road that had a lot of construction and road work going on and my first thought was "oh great" how long is this going to take to get to my destination? I happened to get behind a little red truck. I did not think much of this truck until we started hitting some road construction spots that had flagmen(to all the ladies of the world, the reason in which I call them flagmen is because I did not see any women, just saying.) and I noticed that the driver of this truck proceeded to wave at the flagman. I was a bit taken back by this gesture. Because in my head i was beginning to get frustrated, but this guy in front of me was waving at all of the flagmen in which we passed. I watched intently as he waved at everyone that looked in his direction and who he passed. Then something very surprising began to happen, the flagmen and road workers began to wave back at him. I could not believe what i was seeing on this Monday morning commute. So i found myself do something that caught me off guard. I began waving to them as well, and they waved back at me. Crazy, and what also caught me by surprise was how my attitude began to change drastically. Now I saw this gentlemen on the side of the road as people and not just beings that are impending my progress to work. Then it hit me, isn't that what being the light is all about? Aren't we called to shine our lights in the darkest of situation and it doesn't get much more dark than a M0nday morning commute. So to whoever that gentleman was in that little red truck, thank you for stepping into my path this morning and allowing me a reminder of what my role is to play in this world. In my head, you were Jesus in a little red truck, because you stepped into a very bleak situation and shined. My prayer is that I may shine as well.

From pollen to honey...

It is amazing to me how easily i get distracted. But i have learned that sometimes in those distractions, I can learn a lot. Which recently, a distraction was able to teach me a very valuable lesson.

The other day i was doing one of my man choirs, if you are not sure what a man chore is, it is a choir that you can do, without screwing it up and usually it is given to you by your wife. Anyhow, I was walking my pup and I noticed a bee buzzing around as my pup took care of her pup business. i noticed how the bee flew from one flower to another collecting pollen for it's hive. It did this just by landing on a flower and going to another one. I am not sure if it had any idea about the impact of it's actions. We are a lot like that. Each day we come in contact with people and walk into situations where we are either going to make those better or wreck them. What if we were like that bee, that because of our nature, we made the world a better place. We have an opportunity everyday to plant seeds of faithfulness in the lives of people. My prayer is that we will live life that way. I don't know about you, but I desire to make the world a better place. Besides, that is what we are called to do, ¹³"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men."-Matthew 5:13

Color of love...

The other day, I was headed to lunch with a friend of mine and my younger brother. I always dislike trying to decided where to go and eat. But we finally came to a consensus and headed off to lunch. My buddy was in the car in front of me and we were on our way to eat lunch. Everything was going as planned and we were tracking to lunch, until we saw an unusual sight to our left, there was a lady on the side of the road flailing her arms and yelling, " call 911!" It was a very surreal moment, in which i was not sure as to what i should do. So my buddy in the car in front of me pulled over and i followed suit. I tried to call 911, but my phone is also my ipod so it took me a bit longer, so my buddy called 911. I got out of the car and I noticed what was wrong. An SUV had swerved off the road and hit the side of a building. It did not appear that the car had a chance to apply the breaks, because it hit the building head on, and it was in the building basically. The lady that was screaming was almost hit by the car. So we go over to the car and see how we can help. The scene is a mess. The driver is laid out in the front seat, and it appears that he is having a seizure, the passenger is badly bleeding and trapped in the front seat, and the guy in the rear seat is bleeding as well and is very disoriented. What do you do in that situation? Well you help, that is all you think, let me help. So my brother and i cleaned out the back of the car so that the emergency crews could get to them easier and then when they had the situation under control, we prayed. We knew that the person in control was not the medical crews, but the Lord above. So we prayed. So many fire-trucks came and ambulances, it was a scene from Cops or Rescue 911, for those who have never heard of those shows, they show real life situations. Then I noticed that a lady came to the scene that was apparently related to the guys involved in the crash. I watched her as she took in the whole scene and you could tell that her heart sank in her chest, which i imagine would happen to anyone in a similar situation. I felt let to go and pray with her, so I did. I went and put my arm around her and held her hand and prayed, it was a moment that i felt honored to be a part of. I got to play my part in the story of God. It is so funny how you react to situations, you just do what needs to be done. During this whole time I was helping in this situation, not once did I care what color this people were. Not once did i hesitate to help based on how much money i thought they had. It was a none issue. What if our churches operated in the same way? What if we loved people, because they were people. There is a crazy thought out there in the world that if you are the same color, then you should go to church together. It is funny, because i can not find that verse in my bible. I think the body of Christ is a place for all people. I think worship is a corporate thing based on a living God, not the color of the people or financial situation. Because love has only one color, and that is red. That is the color of the blood shed on the cross for all people, of all walks of life. So we cannot base our love on any color but red, because that is what has set us all free. So let's love like Christ loves, not based on color of skin or rank in society, but because we have been called to love, because he first loved us...

Once when i was little...

I don't know about you but it seems to me that life keeps going by faster and faster the older I get. I mean, when I was a kid, I felt as if time moved by so slow. But now that I am older, it is zooming right by. I remember when I was a kid my outlook on the world was a lot different than it is now. When I was little, I could do anything. There was no job to big, and there was nothing that I was not able to do. When I was a kid I wanted to be a doctor, a lawyer, an astronaut, and a model. I had the audacity to believe that I could do anything, and not only could I do anything, but I would do it the best that it has ever been done. I also, wanted to be superman, stopping the bad guys and saving the day. I wanted to be a vital part of the world, I wanted the world to know who I was and the good I did, when I was little, I had not limits. I remember, when I was little, I would dream. I would think of how things could be. That was when I was little, now I have grown up. You know what i realized, I don't dream anymore audacious dreams. Why? Why have I stopped dreaming. What has happened to me, why don't I believe that I can do anything? I think what happened to me has happened to me happens to a lot of adults, we become mature and realistic. Things get put in perspective for us and we realize that we do have limitations. We realize that we are human and that we can't do anything, but I think the problem with this line of thought is that we think about ourselves to much. What I mean is, we forget what kind of God we serve. We serve a big, audacious, amazing God that has no limitations. How many times have you felt led to do something kind of crazy, and thought, I can't. I am too little, I don't have enough time, or so on and so forth. But the thing of it is, we serve a God that is not small and that has infinite time and that desires to use his people for his glory. What if we trusted God to do what God does and did those audacious dreams. I think that the world would look different, because God's people would be people of faith in action. So the challenge is to have "faith like a child!" Jesus was on to something when He said that we need to have faith like a child. Because he knew that adults are compelled to safety and not faith. He knew that if we had faith like a child we could change the world. The challenge for our lives is no longer to live in why we can't but to dwell in what we can because of the God that we serve. So no longer shall we say, once when I was little, but say I can because of who God is!