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Category Archive: Spiritual Growth

Restoring The Lost Years

Posted by on July 18, 2014

This post was at first a very painful reminder of all that I have lost. Then as I read it over and over again it was an encouraging reminder of the faithfulness of God throughout all of life and what I still have left. None of us would choose dark days but we now realize the lessons we learned through them come no other way. Great writing by Colin Smith:

“Money can be restored. Property can be restored—broken-down cars, stripped painting, old houses. Relationships can be restored. But one thing that can never be restored is time. Time flies and it does not return. Years pass and we never get them back.”

How To Share Your Faith At Work

Posted by on June 11, 2014

One of the hardest things we do as Christians is share our faith. It becomes extremely challenging at times when we try to do it at work. For that reason alone and because of all our other fears we just by default don’t do it at all. The front lines of the gospel have moved from the churches we attend to the places where we work and this post by Greg Gilbert is incredibly helpful:

“God has entrusted to you the message of reconciliation, the good news that Jesus reconciles rebels to God. That’s as true from 9-5 Monday through Friday as it is for any other hour of your life.”

5 Ways To Deal With Emotional Pain

Posted by on December 11, 2013

The one thing we all have in common is that at some point in time other people are going to hurt us. Most of the time we either stuff those painful emotions or dump them in a rage on someone else. There is a better way to deal with them and Ron Edmondson helps us all:

“What do you do with pain? You’ve been injured. It wasn’t fatal, but it hurt. In this post, I’m talking about emotional pain. The fact is emotional pain often hurts more than physical pain. It certainly can last longer. All of us have experienced emotional pain. Some more than others.

What do you do with emotional pain?”

A Bored Man In The House

Posted by on December 6, 2013

Its easy to lose your passions when you start to take things for granted that should motivate you to be grateful everyday. A bored man is a man who has lost perspective on whats really important in life. Legacy Dad challenges us as men to see the blessings that surround us:

“Are you bored? Does your life have purpose? Are you being a good steward with your time, talent and treasures? Or do you find yourself bored with Life, Work and your Existence?”

When you lose your passion, it won’t be long before you no longer have a purpose either: Read More …

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Sports Vs. Church

Posted by on November 29, 2013

I have to admit that I am more than a little old school on this one. I get the whole idea that the family is the primary platform for spiritual growth and that character can be built in sports. However, it still bothers me when I see families making choices that seem to have very little to do with discipleship and more to do with culture. This blog post by Family Discipleship Path will at least challenge your thinking:

“WARNING: The following may make you uncomfortable…may even make you mad!

Last Sunday morning I found myself sitting on a soccer field with one of my children for a tournament game. It was a beautiful morning. The sun was shining. I was enjoying some fabulous coffee.

I was also experiencing great frustration and conflict.”

Very important conversation: Read More…

Categories: Core Values Parenting Pastoral Leadership Spiritual Growth | Comments Off on Sports Vs. Church

3 Ways To Create A Legacy

Posted by on September 13, 2013

I have attended a lot of funerals over the years and the one common denominator is in every service someone is trying to communicate the legacy of the person who has died. There are some patterns I have noticed when people have lived their lives in such a way that truly leaves a mark on the world.

Begin With End In Mind-All of the people that really made a difference took the long look about life and determined what they wanted the top priorities to be in their lives when it was over. When a person values friendships then you can see a pattern from there earliest years all throughout their lives where other people came first. If you want to be known for something later then you need to live it now.

Leave Something Better Than Found It- This is the type of person that is always trying to help others be successful and is not consumed about themselves. If they are a leader in the corporate world they are not looking out for number one they want the department or the corporation to be better when they leave than when they came. The true test of someone’s leadership is not when he or she is there but what happens when they are gone.

Gave Away More Than They Took– In the end people are either more consumers or contributors. They see other people as a means to their end or they see other people as the target of their generous spirit. These are the people that are always adding value to whatever they do from community involvement, relationships, work and faith. They simply love to give more than they take and people are moved by their humility and servant heart.

It is never to late to work on your legacy. The really important thing is taking the time to decide what you want it to be and then when the time comes other people will gladly step up and write your eulogy for you.

What practical steps are you taking to build your legacy?

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6 Ways To Make Emotional Deposits

Posted by on September 3, 2013

We are all familiar with the metaphor of making emotional deposits and taking withdrawals from another person both personally and professionally. When you end up taking more than you give to another person you end up with a negative balance and believe me there are serious fees and late charges involved.

Stephen Covey in his great book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People gives us six ways that we can make sure we are making deposits on a consistent basis with another person:

Understanding the Individual—really seeking to understand another person is probably one of the most important deposits you can make, and it is the key to every other deposit. You simply don’t know what constitutes a deposit to another person until you understand that individual.
Attending to the Little Things—the little kindnesses and courtesies are so important. Small discourtesies, little unkindness’s, little forms of disrespect make large withdrawals. In relationships, the little things are the big things.
Keeping Commitments—keeping a commitment or a promise is a major deposit; breaking one is a major withdrawal. In fact, there’s probably not a more massive withdrawal than to make a promise that’s important to someone and then not to come through.
Clarifying Expectations—the cause of almost all relationship difficulties is rooted in conflicting or ambiguous expectations around roles and goals. That’s why it’s so important whenever you come into a new situation to get all the expectations out on the table.
Showing Personal Integrity—personal integrity generates trust and is the basis of many different kinds of deposits. One of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present because that builds trust with those who are.
Apologizing Sincerely When You Make a Withdrawal—when we make withdrawals from the Emotional Bank Account, we need to apologize and we need to do in sincerely. Great deposits come in the sincere words we share with the people we have hurt.

What are some ways that have worked for you to make emotional deposits?

Categories: Marriage Parenting Servant Leader Spiritual Growth | Comments Off on 6 Ways To Make Emotional Deposits

Marriage Must Have Love & Respect

Posted by on August 16, 2013

There have been a lot of great marriage books written over the last twenty years. The Marriage Builder by Larry Crabb is probably the best based on how our individual needs for security and significance impact our relationship with our spouse.

Love & Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs is extremely good from the standpoint of giving a simple foundational framework for the major role that each partner needs to play in the marriage. Then the book gives lots of practical applications and illustrations on how to live this out in real world.

He writes that the husband should love his wife by:

Closeness—she wants you to be close
Openness—she wants you to open up to her
Understanding—don’t try to fix her; just listen
Peacemaking—she wants you to say, “I’m Sorry”
Loyalty—she needs to know you’re committed
Esteem—she wants you to honor and cherish her

The wife should respect her husband by:

Conquest—appreciate his desire to work and achieve
Hierarchy—appreciate his desire to protect and provide
Authority—appreciate his desire to serve and to lead
Insight—appreciate his desire to analyze and counsel
Relationship—appreciate his desire for shoulder-to-shoulder friendship
Sexuality—appreciate his desire for sexual intimacy

One of the very helpful points that he continues to make throughout the book is just because our needs make us so different that does not make either of us wrong. When we assume the best about our spouse’s motives then we can give them the benefit of the doubt when they fall short of giving us what we want and need.

Categories: Marriage Spiritual Growth | Comments Off on Marriage Must Have Love & Respect

Sorry For Wrong Reason

Posted by on July 27, 2013

I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have been sorry in my life. As I look back on all the mistakes I have made and the consequences I have suffered a clear pattern has developed.

Most of the time when I have been sorry it has been for the wrong reason. I was sorry that I had been caught saying or doing the wrong thing and I knew that there was a price to be paid.

My sorrow was that I was not going to get to do what I wanted and it was nothing more than a form of self pity disguised as real quilt. I was sorry because of the personal embarrassment factor and how people would think negatively of me as a person.

I also say I am sorry many times just to end an unpleasant conversation so that I do not have to deal with my own personal responsibility. It can be a quick fix but never a permanent solution.

Sometimes I went a step further and really felt sorry for the damage I had done to other people. Because of my actions they had to suffer and no one should ever feel good about that.

I will never forget the first time I really understood II Corinthians 7: 9, “Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing.”

God is not very impressed with our prayers that merely tell him what He already knows about our mistakes. What He is looking for is a genuine spiritual grief at what we have done because we have believed a lie by not trusting Him.

Sorrow is never real until we change what we believed in our minds to what God has already said in His word. There really is a change of mind that always produces a change of direction. Sorry, anything less is a disgrace to grace.

Why is it important to be sorry for the right reason?

Categories: Core Values Spiritual Growth | Comments Off on Sorry For Wrong Reason

Radical

Posted by on June 22, 2013

The subtitle of this great new book by David Platt is taking back your faith from the American Dream. This is by far one of the most challenging and rewarding books I have read in a long time.

When you become a follower of Christ you accept both the privileges and responsibilities of that relationship. Discipleship demands radical obedience to be on the mission of impacting the world with the gospel.

The mission is to be carried out as you are going about your life everyday at home, work, neighborhood, community and ultimately to the ends of earth. This means that we all need to see ourselves as missionaries and our task is to tell our story to as many people as possible.

The most challenging part of the book is how we as American Christians have bought into the lie of the world and committed the sin of materialism. He is not saying in my opinion sell everything you have and give it all to the poor.

He is saying that we have been blessed beyond measure compared with the rest of the world and every Christian should be living a lifestyle that reflects biblical priorities. We may not need to sell it all but we sure don’t need to buy it all either and we must be generous in helping others who are literally dying every day from preventable causes.

According to David, “today more than a billion people in the world live and die in desperate poverty.” This reality forces us to move beyond mere knowledge and even debate to sustainable action that seeks to do something to help.

How many starfish are you willing to throw back into the sea?

Categories: Church Scattered Missional Living Spiritual Growth | Comments Off on Radical