Just joined the facebook network today.
So far so good.
Great to see so many friends from across the country that I haven’t seen for years.
Category Archives: what I am working on right now
MY FAVORITE PAIR OF GENES.
Really looking forward to my newest series starting this weekend.
Yes, I do know how to use “spell check”.
My favorite pair of “GENES” come right from Psalm 71:18 “Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, O God, until I declare your power to the next generation and your might to all who are to come.”
I feel like God is really going to accomplish something in the next five weeks through this message and the hungry hearts that hear it.
I will keep you informed along the way on these messages and let you know how THEY FIT.
Generation (from the Greek γενεά), also known as procreation, is the act of producing offspring. A generation can also be a stage or degree in a succession of natural descent as a grandfather, a father, and the father’s son comprise three generations.
PROGRESS
Quick ankle recovery update.
SEEING PROGRESS IS GREAT!
This week I was able to start driving for the first time in 8 weeks.
Started walking with a cane and got to lose the crutches.
Put the cane away yesterday and started walking with no sticks (nice to have two free hands) I can actually get my own coffee in the morning now.
Start physical therapy next week with the sports medicine guys.
Only problem so far is a chlorine rash from the swim therapy that attacked the new “baby like” skin on my right foot…..man it burns.
So at this point no bike shoes yet.
ENJOY YOUR BIKES!
FROM THIS TO THAT
Now that Mr. cast is off my right leg I can start some bike therapy.
This morning I am really excited because I set up a bike trainer some friends let me borrow for the next month or so.
Steve and Cindy over at Highgear Bikes have always been willing to do what ever it takes to help people in our community. Yesterday they provided me with one of their personal top of the line indoor bike trainers.
I have know these awesome people for about five years and about a year ago it was a great joy for me to perform their marriage ceremony up in Jerome.
As you can see, I have taken off the XTR clips and replaced them with the conventional peddles. I need to go from the clips to the conventional because of the ankle injury….SO going from “THIS TO THAT” is fine as long as it gets me to the place I need to go.
Thanks Steve and Cindy of Highgear Bikes for the help.
Can’t wait to get back on the bike.
LET’S GET LEGIT UPDATE
Last weekend we started into our “Let’s Get Legit” questions portion at the church.
It was really great to watch our church get involed in this experiement.
Here are the questios we attempted to tackle last weekend.
1. If a Christian is walking the “straight and narrow” and serving the Lord, yet they have a fight with someone and are angry when Jesus returns, do they go to Heaven?
2. If someone accepts Christ, but continues to live in sin are they truly saved?
3. Why did God/Jesus show himself visibly so readily in the Bible-yet not in our times? He desires to know us, but doesn’t let us see him. It’s like the people in the Bible had an advantage. Why did he leave the scene?
4. If God says do not murder as a commandment, where does war come in? There is war in the bible. Does the bible contradict itself?
5. In Genesis 29 Jacob marries Rachel & Leah. Solomon had 100’s of wives, and in other examples polygamy is a regular practice. So why is it not ok now? Was it ever ok? Why would God condone it by putting it in the Bible?
6. My niece says that when she went to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, she started cursing…why?
7. If God forgives us, how do we learn to forgive ourselves of all the wrong choices we’ve made in the past, when it hurt family and kids?
The group on the pannel did a great job last week.
Our plan it to take this up to another level this week. The questions that came in are difficult but I know God has an answer for everyone’s honest legitimate questions.
Here is what we are diving into this weekend.
1. Why does God allow children to be abused, raped, beaten, and all else? That child didn’t have a choice.
2. Why are we taught to be selfless but to worship a selfish and jealous God?
3. When it comes to creation, were the 7 days actual 24 hour days?
4. If you committ suicide do you go to heaven or hell?
As you can see, we have our work cut out for us this week. Pray with us that God will no only help people’s faith but do some massive inner healing as well.
Remember, questions are not ment to be brick walls to our faith. Legitimate questions are opportunies to activate our faith.
Let’s get legit.
CASTAWAY
This is just a quick ankle update.
Yesterday Mary Beth who is Doctor Phluger’s assistant cut the cast off my right leg. When she finished she ask me if I wanted to keep it?
My response was……………. “throw the cast away.”
After the doc gave me the physical therapy options talk I knew I was making progress.
Here is a short list of the progress made yesterday.
1. I Started walking with only one crutch.
2. Went swimming at our pool for the first time this summer. (wow…pretending to be Michael Phelps was awesome.)
3. Took my first shower in 6 weeks. Good bye bathtub!
4. I put a sock on my right foot.
5. Today I will wear a pair of jeans to the office.
For the next few weeks I will become AQUAMAN!
CONNECTING RESOURCES
People connections are one of the most important resources we each have.
Think about it just for a moment…. what resources do we have to help us prosper, produce and move forward in this life?
I want to just suggest three right now.
The first one is a “natural”….we call it natural resources its what helps us get the familiar term “GNP” (gross national product) Measures of resources of national income and output are used in economics to estimate the welfare of an economy through totaling the value of goods and services produced in an economy.
Another resource is of the human kind. It the “human resources” that come from people. People who produce with their intelligence , their work ethic and just being a positive force on the globe can make someone a great human resource.
The third resource that is available to us is what I call a “divine resource”.
You might be asking what does a divine resource look like?
Here is the “readers digest” version of divine resource. It is God helping us accomplish what could not be done with out Him.
Its doing all you can do and letting God do what only He can do.
I love that. It really helps to know that we have multiple resources within reach to help us become all that God intends us to become.
NATURAL, RELATIONAL and SUPERNATURAL RESOURCES make life run so much better.
This week I re-connected with one of the best human resources of my life. I talked with my good friend of 25 years ago.
This is Jim Palmer and his family who came to visit us last summer.
Brenda and Renee at slide rock in Sedona
Our families had a great time at slide rock in Sedona. Our son Caleb is not in this photo because he was in school at the time
Thanks Jim for mentoring me in the “start stages of ministry” you are one of the finest relational resources in my life.
LET’S GET LEGIT
I’m really excited about an experiment we are doing in the month of August.
We start a new sermon series called “let’s get legit.”
During the next four weeks our congregation will ask some of life’s toughest questions and then have a conversation around them.
It will be interesting to see how our people respond to this series and how it includes them in this whole teaching process.
Questions, no matter how shocking or arrogant or ignorant or raw, are rooted in humility. A humility that understands that I am not God, there is more to know. Questions bring freedom. Freedom that I don’t have to be God and I don’t have to pretend that I have it all figured out. I CAN LET GOD BE GOD.
In the book of Genesis, God tells Abraham what He is going to with Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham fires back, “Will not the ruler of the earth do right?”. Abraham thinks God is in the wrong and the action is not in line with who God is, and Abraham questions Him about it. Actually, they get into a sort of bargaining discussion in which Abraham doesn’t let up. He keeps questioning God. God not only doesn’t get angry, but He seems to engage with Abraham all the more.
What’s the first thing Mary says to the angle who brings her the news that she’s going to be the mother of the Messiah?..”but how can this be? I’m a virgin!”Questions, questions, questions.
What are some of Jesus final words? “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus-on the cross-questioning God.
Most of our Christian experience is the art of questioning God. Not belligerent, arrogant questions that have no respect for our maker, but naked, honest, vulnerable, raw questions arising out of the awe that comes from engaging the living God.
I think that is what God is looking for- people who don’t just sit there and mindlessly accept whatever comes their way, but people who really what to interact with Him in a way that keeps them asking, keeps them seeking and keeps them knocking.
I mean just take a look as far as you can into the universe…..it is unending just like our curiosity should be.
I will blog about our series from week to week to update how it is all working out.
THE SHADOW OF INFLUENCE
This weekend I will do a teaching called the shadow of influence.
Really looking forward to exploring how our influence impacts people our entire lives and beyond.
I am looking at Acts 5:13-15 that talks about the time when people would bring their friends and family and lay them along the street so that “at least” Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them.
The passage goes onto say that everyone was healed.
It is also said that in India people would try to position themselves in a way that Mahatma Gandi would pass over them….ummm?
Wow, to be able to help people at that level would be unimaginable.
Here are my thought points I am developing.
1. OUR INFLUENCE IS ALWAYS ACTIVE.
2. OUR INFLUENCE IS MOSTLY UNCONSCIOUS
3. OUR INFLUENCE LIVES BEYOND US
4. OUR INFLUENCE IS IRREVOCABLE.
Phillip Brooks says;
“no man or woman of the humblest sort can really be strong, gentle, pure and good, without the world being better for it.”
“I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me, And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.” – anonymous
Really looking forward to this teaching.
NEGATIVE PEOPLE MOTIVATE ME
I hope this blog post doesn’t bumb you out but rather motivates you.
This afternoon I almost took my cast off a month early!
I came home from the office after a long day of meetings and phone calls.
With crutches I was headed toward the front door of my house with my wife and then it happened…..The voice from the road in front of our home came toward me like a audience of cynical spectators… “what happened to you” …..did you fall off your bike?” The question was surrounded with almost a laugh from a neighbor who walks his dog past my castle everyday.
It wasn’t the first phrase that fired me up….nope, it was his second grouping of bad weather words that almost motivated me to go into my garage and get my gig saw and cut my cast off and start physical therapy tonight.
As he continued to walk by he said, “you’ll never be the same” and then he threw in a quote by Clint Eastwood we all know, “A mans got to know his limitations”. And then he was gone.
He was gone but his negative words and negative outlook on my outcome have helped me make up my mind to be back on my bike quicker than expected.
I’m not being over sensitive or unfair to this guy, I have always known him to have a negative view of life since I have known him.
I feel sorry for negative people…….but I don’t have to feel sorry for myself for having to be around them. They actually make me want to prove them wrong.
In the mean time, here are a few suggestions when you have to be around a Grinch.
1. Keep moving forward toward your goals
. movement forward generates motivation. A sense of pride in yourself will follow.
2. Separate yourself from that negative person. Don’t listen to their negativity or change the subject.
3. Set personal goals The spirit of inspiration and motivation continues by driving for results.
4. Don’t take someone else’s negativity personally. Let it roll off your back and let their negative attitude motivate you to focus more on your goals and proving the negative voice wrong.
5 Choose to fight or take flight. Most of the negative people are not going to change their outlook on life, so chose your wars wisely.
Side note #1 …..I still have my cast on….the voice of wisdom and my wife win.
Side note #2……I can’t wait to ride past Mr. Grinch’s house on my bike soon.
Thank you Mr. Grinch for the motivation 🙂
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