A Mile From The Beach

"For I Know The Plans I Have For You..."

11 ....declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Jeremiah 29:11-13 (NIV)

There are seasons in our walk with Christ where we are simply walking.  We have no idea where we're headed - we're confused, perhaps lost, unclear on what our focus should be.  We hit a spiritual valley, and we forget that the source of our strength is in Christ.

We forget to call upon Him.

We forget to pray to Him.

We forget that He will listen to us.

We forget that when we seek Him with all our heart we will find Him.

And yet He promises that He will reveal His plans for our lives when we seek Him. 

Why don't we do that more often?

So when I read of someone who clearly called on Him, who prayed, who sought Him with all his heart, and the Lord revealed His plans to him, I get that proverbial smack upside the head reminding me of this great promise from the Lord.

My good friend Will recently traveled to Kenya.  He took a step of faith not knowing Christ's plan for him on this trip - all he knew was that he had to go.  By the end of the trip, he knew why he went. 

I won't spoil the details here - the story is far too cool and amazing.  Check it out here - and be encouraged that when we seek Christ with all our heart, we WILL find Him, and He will reveal the plans He has for us.

Discouraged? Irritated?

From John Ortberg's latest book, The Me I Want to Be – Becoming God’s Best Version of You:

“How is your spiritual life going?”

 

I used to answer this question by looking at the state of my devotional activities:  Did I pray and read the Bible enough today? The problem is that by this measure the Pharisees always win.  People can be very disciplined, but remain proud and spiteful.  How do we measure spiritual growth so that the Pharisees don’t win?

 

I asked a wise man, “How do you assess the well-being of your soul?”

 

He immediately said, “I ask myself two questions”:

 

1)      Am I growing more easily discouraged these days?

2)      Am I growing more easily irritated these days?

 

At the core of a flourishing soul are the love of God and the peace of God.  If peace is growing in me, I am less easily discouraged.  If love is growing, I am less easily irritated.  It was a brilliantly helpful diagnostic to assess the health of my soul.

 

How would you answer those two questions?

The Foundation

Writing has been a difficult task for me as of late - but in four and half years of blogging, I've had seasons where writing has become a chore - the ideas simply aren't there and I just don't feel like I have anything to say.  These past few weeks in particular have been difficult - and to be honest, it's been tough since I finished reading the Bible in 90 Days.  If I were to be a bit more of a braggart, I'd say that the time I could have spent writing was spent in prayer and in seeking Christ and all sorts of other "spiritual" endeavors.

Why is it Good?

It occurred to me this afternoon that I never gave much thought as to why today is called "Good Friday".  What's so "good" about this day when Jesus was crucified and died?

It's quite simple actually.

God is so good to us that He allowed His own Son to be sacrificed for our sins. 

And it sets the stage for the ultimate victory, as revealed on Easter Sunday.  We can't appreciate the victory of Easter without the Goodness we commemorate today.

That's why today is a good day.

"I Met This Guy On the Internet..."

It's not what it seems.

Although...I did meet this guy on the Internet - that is the straight up truth.

Y'see, Roy and I met commenting at Donny's blog about 4 years ago.  He checked out my blog, I checked out his, and we've gotten to know each other from our assorted writings over the past 4 years, along with various email and text message exchanges as well.  Last February, when my family and I went to Orlando to check out Walt Disney World, we drove 70 miles to Tampa and worshiped at Roy's church, meeting him for the first time. However, we didn't get to meet any of his cool family.

Until yesterday.

Roy and Jeanne traveled west this week, arriving in San Francisco yesterday.  Page and I met them for dinner at a classic SF establishment, Alioto's, last night and we finally had the chance to really spend some time talking and getting to know each other.  It was a great night of conversation over a seafood meal, creme brulee and tiramisu (okay, I was the only one to have the tiramisu), and a bottle of merlot, as we shared stories of faith, of family, of work, of travel, and suggestions on what to see in San Francisco.  We walked them back to their hotel in Fisherman's Wharf, and headed home, happy to have become better friends with this couple from Tampa.

This morning, after church, Page turned to me and said, "What if you call Roy and see if they're available for dinner tonight?  We could take them out for some good Chinese food in the Richmond."

"Great idea!  I'll call him."  And left him a voicemail message suggesting that we pick them up at 7 pm in front of their hotel.

Roy texted back minutes later - "Yes!!!"

So after a morning at church, an afternoon at the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby race, followed by Little League Baseball practice, we headed back into SF, kids in tow, to pick up our friends to take them to a great Chinese joint in the Richmond, a neighborhood not likely to have been covered by their open-air double decker bus tour of SF today.  This time, the conversation included my kids, who shared much of their own lives and interests while we had a spread of fried rice, fish, beef, chicken, egg rolls, won ton soup, spareribs, and assorted other food.  We weren't just meeting new friends now...we were sharing a meal with friends, with a fellow brother and sister in Christ.

"So I met this guy on the internet..."

 

Pete and Ted: From Death to Life.

I was on New Montgomery Street and Mission Street yesterday when I got the call from Margaret.

"Daddy?" she said with a shortness of breath that told me she had been crying, "Pete died."

Our beloved Peter Rhino Lie, our hamster, died after a brief illness.  He had been in our home for just a little more than 2 months, yet had brought quite a bit of joy to our lives in that period.  Page, Margaret and Hank had returned home to see the stillness in the cage, and all 3, through their tears, shared the fun stories from Pete's brief time with us.

When I got home, Pete's cage was clean, and his lifeless body had been wrapped in a paper towel, softly placed in a shoebox, ready for burial.  I turned to Hank asking him if he would like to help me dig a little grave in our yard for him.  In the brief break from the rain, he and I dug a hole in the muddy dirt to the side of our house.  As we placed the box in the grave, I asked Hank if he wanted to say a few words.  The tears began to flow on his face as he said how much he would miss him, and he took a shovelful of dirt and placed it over the box.  We said a little prayer thanking God for the joy Pete brought into our lives, and we finished burying him.

As I cleaned up from the muddy dig, it struck me how a little hamster had found a home in each of our hearts in such a brief time.  Our capacity to love grew to include Pete.  It is a singularly beautiful sight to know that the human heart has no boundaries when it comes to love - that as we choose to love another person or an animal, our capacity to love grows to include that individual or animal, and we wind up loving each other more because we share the same love for that individual or animal.  Because of our shared love for Pete, we grew to love each other more as well, and now have shared memories of Pete.

As Margaret spent the evening with friends at a dance, Page, Hank and I decided to run a few errands, get some dinner, and found ourselves back at a nearby pet store.  We hadn't really intended to get another hamster so soon, but we knew that part of our healing would include bringing home another hamster, another animal to care for and love. Pete already held a special place in our lives, but we wanted to grow our love even more.

So...a little furry brown teddy bear hamster came home with us, a lively little guy with no fear of his new environment, who nearly chewed through the little box we brought him home in, and promptly started running on the wheel in his new home. 

Welcome home, Theodore Peter Lie.  We're happy you've joined the family, Ted.

 

 

Hank is 9 today!

Show Hank a little love today!

True Fasting

 ⁶ "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
       to loose the chains of injustice
       and untie the cords of the yoke,
       to set the oppressed free
       and break every yoke?

 ⁷ Is it not to share your food with the hungry
       and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
       when you see the naked, to clothe him,
       and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Isaiah 58:6-7 NIV

I read this passage this morning and was challenged with these questions: have I been as generous as I could be?  Have I been a good steward of the resources entrusted to me? How can I do more?

As I read Will's first account of his reaction to his missions trip to Kenya, coupled with this passage that I read for my discipleship group, with thoughts of how my family and many in my community stepped up for Haitian relief efforts, I am being challenged once again to think and pray through what true fasting really means in the context of this passage.  I know I will continue to wrestle with this today...

 

Sirona Cares: Goods for Haiti: Information for Volunteers and Donors

Nothing's Impossible.

 ¹Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. ²This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. ³So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick."

 ⁴When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it." ⁵Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. ⁶Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.

John 11:1-6 NIV

Hank and I read the entirety of this chapter tonight, and as we read it, I was struck at Jesus' words in verse 4, that "it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it."

Jesus knows that he will be raising Lazarus from death.  He knows that God will do the impossible through him - resurrecting Lazarus from death.  Notable, too, is that when word of Lazarus' illness comes to Jesus, he doesn't rush back to be with his friend.  It makes the miracle that much more amazing when Lazarus is raised from death later in the chapter (v 43 and 44), and is yet a sign that the impossible becomes possible when Christ is at the center of the event.  

So often we have seemingly impossible tasks in front of us - perhaps it's difficult deadline at work, a friendship that's gone awry, an upcoming job interview, a messy separation proceeding, a potentially long wait at a local government agency (have YOU been to the DMV lately?)  How often do we enter such situations under our own power rather than call upon a God who is the master of the impossible? 

This weekend a good friend said to me that he was challenged to pray before every situation - not just "foxhole prayers" but prayers for guidance and wisdom prior to each event during the day.  I heard that and realized that too often I only pray the "foxhole prayers" rather than simply pray for God's blessing over each event of the day, whether meeting with a friend or an assignment at work or even time spent with family.  I started to do that today, and I could see how God cares about each small detail, how His hand moved ever so slightly in each situation. 

It is all possible, because it is for His glory.

Are you willing to believe that the impossible is possible everyday when you have Christ on your side?