I Know I Can Trust God Today!

Father, Help me today to know you and see you in everything that happens, in every person, in every word. Thank you for your enveloping presence and the sustaining courage to meet this day with excitement and hope. I need to say to you that I need truth today, your truth, to see through your lens and filters. I trust you to unveil my eyes, to uncork my ears, and replace my thoughts with your thoughts. I love how you have given your Spirit to do all this. I pray for this world, waiting for your redemption, who does not know your courage and truth. Give me your fire to stand on the hills bright, shining, with You. You make everything beautiful. Today will be no exception! In Jesus Name. AMEN!

Ecclesiastes 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Close your eyes and imagine looking at a flower.

Get a good image in your head.

Make it a beautiful flower.

What color is it?

Give it texture. Is it smooth, rough, lined, or overlapped with ridges?

Count the petals.

Put a stem on it.

Can you smell it? 

Let the imagination soak into your mind. 

Take a minute to examine the flower in your mind.

If you try to describe it to me you actually take away from its beauty. We open our eyes, then open our mouths, and beauty slips away. We have to discern it over and over again.

Yet all things are beautiful if we would think about them long enough. A spider is beautiful. A snake is beautiful when we begin to inspect it. We don’t have to like spiders and snakes like we do flowers, but they have their own inherent beauty. What Solomon has learned is that every event in life has its own inherent beauty. God is at work in all events. We don’t like every event. WE don’t smell every event like we do a flower, but with context and that hidden, connectedness to God at work, we begin to know, see, understand that there is more at work than FATE or UGLINESS.

Solomon doesn’t ignore the ugly parts of living. He doesn’t embrace bad things as friends. He doesn’t say death is as good as life or picking up stones is as good as tearing down walls or buildings made of stones. He is simply stating that there is a context, a connected string between that event and many other events, all of which God orchestrates in some beautiful pattern, which He only knows! I learn daily how to trust God, and believe He is on my side!

Retreat to Advance

Retreat means to get away from the battles of life to a purer nearly stress-free lifestyle.

Jesus retreated about a third of his time! Some retreats were overnight. Another was for 40 days. He spent every Sabbath on retreat!

Retreats are not to do something, not to see something, and not expensive. Those things add stress.

Each year I try to go on a retreat with some friends. There is little stress. We eat a pick up breakfast and lunch so minimal prep and clean up. We have a nice supper and take turns cleaning up. We have a Bible study in the morning, and more study and sharing at night. Most of the guys have a Bible in their hands or a book to read during the day. Lots of talking takes place. Some go running or biking. Fishing has been great, too. We miss our families, but the fresh air, beauty of the lake and nature, including vicious thunderstorms in the middle of the night, soothes our nerves.

The purpose of retreat is perspective. We get a new way of looking at life and God. God talks in whispers. He shows new possibilities. God rearranges the patterns of perception. Our neural pathways get freed from stagnant transportation. Creativity expands. It’s as if we have rubber bands wrapped around our minds and spirits during normal life, so that retreating loosens the rubber bands.

When I lived at Cedar Campus, a Christian community in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, for six weeks one summer, I experienced a new community. The experience was so powerful it became a template for my future retreats: expository preaching, robust singing, deep secrets shared openly, communal labor, praying and personal Bible study for hours a day, physical exercise, great food, and God-seeking, serving, Christians all around.

Big retreats are not always possible. So, a simple retreat has these elements in it:

1. Sleep and nap as needed
2. Long periods of reading the Bible
3. Praying, writing in my journal, and reflection on the moment, life, family, career, etc.
4. When with other people study the Bible (don’t get caught in business talk or petty subjects as the main thrust of the retreat)
5. Excercise
6. Good, healthy, home cooked food
7. In nature

You’d be surprised how many camps, monasteries, and Christian schools allow for low-cost get aways! Some are free, meals included. Think about what the huge health benefits of a retreat for yourself and those around you. I can’t imagine not going on retreats, nor could Jesus!

5 Ways to Increase Motivation

Sometimes I have no idea why I can’t get moving. Nothing motivates me. The lists I’ve made don’t work. Deadlines don’t work. Even stepping on the scale doesn’t work. Some people don’t have money, don’t feel like looking for a job, or complain about how bad the economy is, yet still, they don’t get motivated to change or move in new directions. When I’m stuck I’ve found five ways to get me motivated.

First, no doubt about this one: pray. Pray in the Spirit. Know that God cares. God helps sort out priorities. The Spirit living within Christians energizes them. Eleven years ago, I totally stressed out over the lack of money. I pleaded with God for an answer. A few minutes later my wife walked in to the room, and asked what was wrong. I told her, and from that day she has handled our budget. God answered that fast.

Second, making lists motivates, but the trick is to keep them in front of my eyes. I like to post household fix-it problems on a list on my mirror. I have a couple of places for my other to-do lists on my computer: in iCal, on my desktop, and synched to Google tasks.

Third, results motivate. I imagine the finished product. I love the look of a freshly mowed lawn. Checking off something from my list motivates me. Watching my wife’s face when I give her a dozen roses is worth it (and better when she finds out I bought them on clearance!). I like to exercise because I feel better. As crass as it sounds money is a “result” that motivates. Unfortunately, the love of money brings all sorts of evil, but allow me to illustrate. My son’s bedroom ceiling fan broke two years ago! I knew that a blade had broken or come loose, but I couldn’t find the motivation to get the step-ladder, the tools, or spend the arm crunching couple of hours working above my head. Finally, in the heat of this summer, I realized we could save money by using his fan instead of turning the AC lower. Tah-Dah! In thirty minutes the fan was back in operation.

Fourth, knowing it’s the right thing to do motivates. I’ve struggled to read my Bible daily over the years, but I know it’s the right thing to do so this year is my 17th year of reading through the Bible. Exercise is painful, sweaty, and time-consuming, but it’s the right thing to do. I vary my workouts between walking, swimming, biking, lifting weights, and as my doctor says, “Don’t kill yourself too often or you won’t want to exercise the next day.”

Finally, deadlines motivate me. Every Sunday I must have a sermon ready–so it is. I’m working on another degree  with new class deadlines each semester which has motivated me to study and write like I never have before.

The important thing is to choose something and do it. Pray and start moving. Make a list. These will help you get unstuck.