Tag: encouragement

Categories
Ramblings

How My Plans Turned Into Lies

It’s not that I planned to be a liar!
It’s just that old “best laid plans of mice and men” situation.
We all know that the best of intentions don’t always succeed… and my plans are no exception!

Approximately one year ago I started a blog. I started out posting on facebook, and then some church members asked for it to be emailed because they weren’t on facebook. So I started doing both. Someone else told me they preferred twitter. So I then added in some tweeting. And then someone else (my brother, more specifically!) wanted me to put it into a blog…

So I did.

Since that time I have written 122 blogs. This one will be 123. That means I have averaged just over 2 a week, which is not too bad for an initial attempt. The bad part was the inconsistency… some weeks were “heavy” weeks with a blog almost every day, and some weeks I didn’t post at all.

The reasons for the irregularity… well there are mucho…
I am often too wordy. I am a perfectionist. I have another job. I am still learning how to maintain a website…Take your pick from any of these and/or write up some new ones. (And you can already tell from this post that the “too wordy” description is probably the most accurate!)

In writing the blog, what I find is that I not only want to create original posts with helpful content, I also want to fully express each idea. But I have discovered that doing so takes a lot of effort!

a path through the woodsAll this has been realized by me before, and on those occasions of clarity, I have said that my plan would be to post more consistently by not worrying so much about polishing up my ideas. So several months after making that statement, I find that once again what I said I would do did not happen. (Yep, that makes me a liar. But not a malicious one!) So I’m gonna try once more to live up to what I have intended to do. With the hopes that one year from now, my average will be at least 3 posts per week. We’ll see if this new plan becomes reality!

And thanks to all of you who have encouraged me to keep posting!

It has been an enjoyable journey for me, and I look forward to seeing where the path will take me next.

Now stay tuned for a short post today!

Categories
Relationships

How Far Does Your Compassion Go?

How Long Has It Been Since You…
     Took the time to go see someone who lives alone?
     Wrote a letter to someone who crossed your mind?
     Read to someone who was unable to read for themselves?
     Encouraged someone who was having a hard time in life?

Every one of us can do something compassionate to encourage someone else.
But how far will our compassion go?

One of my favorite stories is the one where four friends pick up their paralyzed friend to get him to the One they heard is a healer. They’ve heard of this miracle worker and probably even knew someone else He has healed. So they go to their friend, tell him the plan, and start making their way to the house where the miracle man is supposed to be. They weren’t going to let anything stop them, because they knew that this Healer could change their friend’s life.

But when they arrived they couldn’t get in the door.
So they ripped through the roof.

What?
Seriously?
They tore up another person’s home to get their friend to this healer?
They must have truly believed this was going to work to be willing to go to that extreme.

What would have happened if I was holding one corner of the mat? Or if you were?
Would we have told our friend that we’d try to bring him to Jesus another day?
When our other friend said – “Hey, let’s go get some rope and some tools and we’ll rip through the roof and lower him down to the Healer!”, Would you have said – “No way, we can’t destroy this guy’s house. We’ll have to fix it or pay to have it repaired. Let’s just come back another day.”?

Or would you have been the first one to grab an axe to start busting a hole in the roof?

I think it all depends on how much we believe that this Healer, Jesus, can change lives.
If we truly believe Jesus can change the life of our friend, then we are much more likely to go to any cost to get them to Jesus. Even if it means destroying someone’s physical property to get our friend the healing that he needs.

But it might be that we examine our own lives and realize that we don’t seem changed that much, so is it really that important to get others to Jesus? We can do it later, and even if we don’t… then what does it really matter? If we have not been radically changed by the Healer… if we have not become new creatures because of what Jesus has done in our lives… then we will not be very passionate about getting others to Jesus.

We are passionate about music, we are passionate about the vehicles we drive, we are passionate about sports, we are passionate about politics, we are passionate about making money. When are we going to get passionate about the only treasure that we can take with us when we die… other people?

When will we become compassionate about those for whom God is passionate and wants to heal?
When will we believe that God really can (and does) change lives?

What do you think… How can someone get and keep the type of compassion the four friends had?

Categories
Relationships

Building Up The Body

Missionaries strive for building up new believers so that the church in a given area can be strengthened. This is done through developing friendships and discipling new believers. In the process, sometimes a person who did not feel hand grasping another and pulling them up depicting the need for building up each otherthey had much worth in this world find new confidence and self-worth as they realize that God has given them talents and abilities. I have seen the effect of this in Honduras, and it is remarkable to watch. As a missionary, Christy was developing a friendship with a woman in the community. She was teaching her English and informally discipling her. Here is what she said about the young lady:

“She admired me extravagantly, beyond any deserving. And if I cared about her enough to single her out to spend long hours with her, well then, perhaps that secret person on the inside, who from shyness and deprivation had kept herself so covertly hidden all these years, was a woman worth knowing. This gave her the courage gradually to let her true self out of prison.

“Having tasted freedom, she was certain that the world of knowledge and beauty was hers for the taking. And because she gave me full credit for laying the world at her feet, she could not find enough ways to express her gratitude…. Once I unfolded a scrap of paper to find written on it:
        I love you for what you are making of me.
        I love you for what I am when I am with you.”

I wonder who, if anyone, would say this about me. Do I live in such a way that my encouragement and support is changing someone else’s life for the better? How about you? Dads, would your sons echo this sentiment due to how you are training them each day? Moms, can your daughters say this about you when you spend time with them? Do our friends or coworkers hold these feelings toward us?

Henry Blackaby wrote – Due to the essence of the church being koinonia (“intimate fellowship & community”), there should never be anyone in your church who is lonely.

Yet, there are many in our own churches who are lonely, who are struggling. In what way am I building up their lives and helping them to know the love of God through me? Life is all about relationships – an intimate relationship with God and intimate friendships with others. Am I building up others by teaching them and informally discipling them through my words, actions, and attitudes? Are you?

(Quotes from the book “Christy” by Catherine Marshall)