the blog

“And you, O Bethlehem in the land of Judah, are not least among the ruling cities of Judah, for a ruler will come from you who will be the shepherd for my people Israel.” Matthew 2:6 is actually a quote from the Old Testament prophet Micah (Micah 5:2). I love prophecy in the Bible – it’s so interesting to think that Micah “preached” this message almost 700 years before it became reality, when Jesus was born in the small town of Bethlehem.

In keeping with the theme of humility – Jesus Christ was born in an insignificant town, in a stable, a feeding trough as his cradle. He never owned a home, didn’t amass wealth, didn’t marry or have children, and didn’t build a church building. He knew his purpose and lived his life constantly moving towards that purpose . I wonder how fragmented our lives become in our search for purpose or significance – we spend our entire lives in a search, on a journey, adhering to the world’s standards of significance: getting a decent education, getting a great job, getting married, having children, amassing wealth, and finally ending up with enough wealth to retire and “enjoy” the last 10-20 years of life with that feeling that we lived a significant life, only to realize that we missed the point entirely. I hope this doesn’t sound too pessimistic…

I am just thinking that in the grand scheme of life, our true significance comes not from worldly possessions or accomplishments, but from our position in eternity, our position in “Christ” as some preachers put it. Significance is now, not when you feel like you have measured up. Realizing that God sacrificed everything to be in relationship with us, realizing that he has promised to give us a life that is significant now (abundant life, John 10:10), he has promised to take care of us, never leave or forsake us, and give us the desires of our hearts – all this puts us in an incredible position. I’m not even sure what to say.. I am just encouraged to look at life differently, to take more chances to love God, and to love people – what being a Christian ultimately boils down to.

Okay, so here is my first blog and I hope it’s a good one. It’s a little more on the personal side, but maybe this touch your lives as well. As some of you, I’m in the US Navy. I work on Camp Pendleton with the Navy Hovercrafts that were just used to deliver all the fire trucks to Catalina Island during the fires last week. My particular job is to maintain the communication and navigation suites for these craft. Typically there are ten people to take care of our thirty or so craft. Right now I physically have eight, but four are on deployment and two are getting ready to transfer to new duty stations. So in reality, that leaves two of us to pick up the remainder of the craft that are not on deployment. To say the least, our work load is double its capacity right now. So with all that said, we’ve had some really long days the last couple of weeks. I can’t go into to many details, but operational commitments require us to jump thru a lot of hoops to make sure that we can make our commanders tasking. Well, this week, especially has been rough. Usually I get off work around three in the afternoon which is a pretty sweet deal. I haven’t been off of work before five o’clock this week. Today especially was long being that it was supposed to be a half day (an even sweeter deal). I didn’t get to leave work till well after five.

Okay, so am I complaining? Maybe, but this is my point: I’ve been so tired, I can barely keep my eyes open on my forty-two mile commute home. I find myself nodding off while driving being scared, um, you know. Today I fell asleep at the stop light for the on-ramp to the I15. I pulled over and took a thirty minute nap and came to this realization. It is a total blessing that I didn’t end up hurting someone, or myself. What would happen to Stephanie and our Baby? God is telling me that I need to get more rest, to manage time better, and to remember that I have a wonderful family that I need to take care of. Wow. Praise God that nobody is hurt.

Okay, so I wanted to talk about one other thing. I’m doing a golf competition thru my command (sounds like I have a awesome job, huh?) My teammates and I have been golfing pretty regularly trying to bust the rust off the swing and make sure that we can when this event. Well, my game has just been going downhill fast. I can’t drive, can’t make puts, can’t do chip shots, etc. Last week, I finally got so fed up I just pulled out my nine iron and my putter and played the rest of the holes like that. It didn’t matter if it was a 300 yard tee shot or 90 yards. My trusty old nine iron is accurate and reliable. My game improved, obviously not enough to count but yet improved.

So, what does this mean? It’s like life where God puts all these challenges in front of you. Anything you could think of, addictions, work stress, home stress, issues with friends, and all the other curve balls you can imagine. If your life is starting to “shank left and slice right,” go back the basics! God is always there, always reliable, and always accurate! Only you can hold back and not trust God to be reliable. You see, if I didn’t trust my nine iron, and had thrown it away with the rest of my game, where would I be? I was able to work on aim, chip shots, and get on the green with out loosing balls left and right. It was there, right where I needed it to be. So the point is God is my nine iron in life. Always reliable, trusty, and somehow accurate.

Does any of this make sense to anyone but me? Now it’s time to finish up icing my knees, get some dinner, and get some rest before I head back to work tomorrow. God is my Nine Iron!

“www.creedthoughts.gov.www/creedthoughts” – Creed

“my first choice: Jack Bauer” – Dwight

“i didn’t get both of your messages” – Micheal

“Defcon 20!” -Michael

“Oh my God!” – Pam

“Swing Low, Sweet Chariots” – Creed

“This is emotionally magnificent” – Michael

“I am what I am… that’s Popeye” – Pam

“I have something no one else has, my brain, which I use to my advantage when advantageous” – Andy

“Your advice was good, but Jan’s was bigger” – Michael

“Who’s ready to work?” – Dwight

“That’s beardy!” – Michael

“This is a Schrute-Buck!” – Dwight

“Amen” – Stanley

“What is the ratio of Stanley nickels to Dwight Schrute-Bucks?” – Dwight

“I did not tell her” – Michael

“I’ll probably get some negative feedback on my Ebay profile” – Michael

“Maybe one day I will find my own Karen, that is ah, uh… you know ah… uh, a man version… I’m not gay” – Pam

“Who was that?”, “No one… You and I are done!”, “What?!” – Kelly & Ryan

Spending time daily listening to God is crucial for developing a deep and meaningful relationship with God. Someone once said that “those who read his Word the most, hear his voice the best” – and so I am encouraged and challenged to spend more time reading and studying the Bible, listening to what God is saying. All that to say that I am going to begin posting my personal devotions here as a challenge to myself and as an encouragement to others. We’ll see how it goes – Here’s todays:

Matthew 1:21-23
…and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet: “Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’”

This was the moment in time when God stepped into time to fulfill his promise to send a Savior to redeem man. It’s like one point in history that changed everything – ok, so it’s not “like”, it is that point in history that changed everything. God sent his son Jesus to save people from their sins – He became Immanuel: God with us. And to think that God, existing outside of time and space, the creator of the Universe, came down to Earth, a tiny spec of a planet in the vast world that he created. He took on the form of his creation, and as the story goes, allowed himself to be completely humiliated by his own creation – all to redeem that which was lost: man’s relationship with God.

I think the word of the day is: Humility. It’s so easy to let pride creep up into our lives – humility is the Godlike character that we should be striving towards. Living every day knowing it is a gift from God, realizing that it is him who holds our lives in his hand gives us perspective and reminds us that God is on the throne, not us.

A few days ago, my dad handed me “The Creative Leader” by Ed Young. I have been a huge fan of both Ed Young and Fellowship – I visited last year, took a mini-tour of the facility and went to one of their services – pretty incredible. Anyway, I’d say I am half-way through it right now, and I can’t put it down – I can’t finish it because I keep going back and re-reading everything. Other than the cheesy cover, I’d say this book should be in every pastor’s or staff person’s hand who wants to succeed at building a healthy, relevant church today.

There is so much in this book that deserves mentioning, here’s my advice: just read it. But, I will talk about one section dealing with the weekend worship service. Ed has come up with an acronym (I know, cheesy!) for describing the weekend worship service: W.O.R.S.H.I.P. I’ll just give you the really short version.

Welcoming – “the biggest obstacle for most people when they enter a new church is fear. This is especially true for those who have little or no church background. However, it is also true for those who have become disillusioned with other churches”. Creating a comfortable, welcoming atmosphere is key to attracting people. Ed also talks about simple things like not having bad breath, parking lot teams, welcoming teams, information screens, communicating detailed information, following up with visitors, and those who want to get involved.

Organized – “creativity emerges from order”. “Every worship team participant – all staff members who are responsible for the speaking, music, drama, videos, lighting, sound, and stage design – has to be on the same page, working on the dominant theme each weekend”. This is so important, not only for the presentation to be effective, but for the staff and volunteers to maximize their potential each weekend – the more they know, the better job they can do.

Relevance – “What difference does this make in people’s lives?”. This is the question that gives significance to what you are doing. It’s easy to be busy, to have a lot going on, even do it well. But it must matter – it has to, or else you may as well close the doors and tell everyone to go home. If we are not speaking people’s language, meeting them where they are and sharing something that causes them to rise to a new level in relationship with God and others than we are doing something wrong. Look to Jesus who was extremely relevant, always teaching, discipling, and loving people at their level and leading them to new levels of understanding, commitment, dedication, and leadership.

Next: S.H.I.P.