What's your excuse?

My mom tells me that when I was a young child, I would say “I too tired mamma, I too tired”, whenever she asked me to do something. What is Father God asking you to commit to? What is he asking you to be or do that will require your trust and obedience? What are the excuses that are keeping you from committing?

“Excuses are the crutches for the uncommitted.” – Randy Morrison

Our willingness to make commitments is usually limited by what we see and feel. Expressed positively: Our Vision + Our Passion = Our Response. Vision and passion are twins. When we give God our passion, he gives us his vision.

Mediocrity and complicacy are the fruits of excuses. Evaluate your life. Where do you find yourself complacent? Complacency stalls commitment. God is asking us to possess a holy discontent. We shouldn’t be satisfied with the way things are, either in our own lives or in the world.

It is time to stop making excuses and become the people we were created to be. God will not judge us for where we are, but for what we refuse to become. That takes change, change takes commitment and commitment requires our trust and obedience.

Imagine the possibilities!

Taking God for granted

Do you take your mate, family, friends and God for granted? I know I do. I think I take God for granted the most. Sometimes I feel that he is distant. I get so busy I don’t take the time to talk, touch or taste that the Lord is good. I let myself get too busy, then I wonder why I can’t feel or hear him.

It reminds me of a story about an older couple who was driving down the highway to see their grandchildren. They were listening to the radio, when the wife said to her husband of 50 years, “Why don’t we cuddle like we did when we were newlyweds?” He looked over at her with perplexed but tender eyes and said, “Who moved?”

I wonder if God allows difficulties in our lives to get us to move closer to him. We are speeding down the highway of life taking God for granted, missing the exits that he has designated for us. Sometimes he has to “pull us over” to get our attention. Do we call on him only when we feel lonely, lost or broken? Then we cry out “Where are you God? Why have you forsaken me?” He looks over at us with perplexed but tender eyes and says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you. I am here for you.”

I am convicted that I need to practice the presence of God more faithfully. Put simply, I need to talk to God more often. I know it starts by opening my heart to him. Will you join me?

Imagine the possibilities!

Becoming complete

Do you ever feel inadequate or even defeated? Our conditions, relationships and failings can cause us to think that we are incomplete. We may think that we are not skilled enough, not good enough or not spiritual enough. If you are like me, you dwell on these thoughts all too often. I refer to this as “stinking thinking” (I got the phrase from Zig Ziglar … and I don’t know who he stole it from). The problem with stinking thinking is that it leads to stinking living. What decisions are you making based on stinking thinking?

The only way to overcome deceptive thoughts and feelings is to counteract them with truth. The Apostle Paul wrote, “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness or completeness in Christ, who is the head over every power or authority” (Colossians 2:9-10). The Apostle Peter wrote: “His (Christ’s) divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption (lies) in the world caused by evil desires” (2 Peter 1:3-4).

Because of the work of Christ, we are totally complete, lacking nothing. Our value (or position) is not based on what we bring to the table, but what Christ has done for us by living, dying and rising from the dead on our behalf. It is both freeing and humbling to realize that I am complete in Christ, yet only because of Christ. Apart from him I can do nothing of eternal significance.
Because of Christ, we have been showered with spiritual riches. In Ephesians 3:20, Paul declared that God is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”

What does all this mean? First of all, we can have confidence that we have right standing with God. He loves us, is for us and wants us to succeed. Now he is asking us to live up to the calling he has given us. He is asking us to grow into our role as ambassadors for Christ, children of God and lights of the world. God wants us to complete in practical living what he has already completed in terms of our relationship with him.

I rejoice when I see God working out of me immeasurably more than I could ask or think. I have to allow his Spirit to do his complete work in me.

Imagine the possibilities!

Failing forward

A Chinese Proverb reads, “The great question is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with failure.” I have failed so many times that I feel like I have become an expert.

My expertise led me to write a chapter in “God Loves Do-Overs” entitled Failing Forward. Failure doesn’t have to be final or fatal. In fact, God can use your failures to draw you closer to him and realign your life with his purposes. When you stray from God, failure can be the best thing to happen to you. It gets your attention, like a splash of cold water in the face. Your response to a failure — not the fact that it happened — is what really counts.

When you fail, fail forward. When you fall, you can land on your knees instead of your rear end. These “failing forward” experiences can fuel your future. It means that you choose to keep following God’s plan for your life in spite of your failings.

We all fail. But failing does not make you a failure. When you fail, God is still in control and his promises still apply to you. The key to failing forward is in your response. Will you acknowledge the failure, learn from it, and move ahead? Or will you give up and sink back into the mire? Here are 10 lessons I have learned about my own failings:

• God knows we will fail and has made provision.
• God loves to use people who fail; the Scriptures are full of examples.
• Your failings do not have to define you, but can refine you.
• Your failings do not have to be a permanent path; they can turn into steps toward personal victory.
• No failing comes into your life that does not first come through God’s hands.
• God allows failings according to your need.
• Do not fear failure; fear succeeding at what does not matter.
• If you are afraid to fail, you will never attempt something great for God.
• Success is not in the absence of failing, but in how you respond to it.
• Don’t focus on the failing; focus on the lesson learned.

So when you feel failure is at hand, remember that God wants to turn your failing into your future, your mess into your message and your pain into your potential.
Imagine the possibilities!

Victim or victor?

Do you live like a victim or a victor? Too many Christians live their lives full of fear, robbing them of faith and courage. I have been there all too often. Living by fear makes me a casualty to the circumstances and conditions that confront me.

The truth looks much different: “For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is victory that has overcome the world, even our faith” (I John 5:4).

Victim living reminds me of roller coaster rides. I hate these rides because I do not know who made the track. I can’t trust someone I do not know. When I get into the coaster I go into white knuckle mode and hold onto the safety bar for all my might.

My kids love to sit behind me and laugh at my futile effort to keep the car from going up, down and sideways. All of my struggling only created anxiety and fear. My children and grandchildren, however, let go and enjoy the ride.

“Letting go” is an illustration of victorious faith. The big difference between the roller coaster illustration and real life is that we really can know the creator of the track (of our world) personally. We will not trust a God we do not know. Thank God that nothing comes into our lives that does not first come through the mighty hand of our creator, who has overcome the world.

It’s time to let go and enjoy the ride.

Imagine the possibilities!

Trivial pursuits

On occasion, Cathy and I enjoy playing Trivial Pursuit, even though I must admit I’m not very good at it. I don’t have to win. For me it’s just a moment of leisure. But I’m sure that some people take the game seriously. If only we would take life as seriously as we do games. At the end of our days, we don’t want to look back and think that we spent them in trivial pursuits.

At the age of 35, my father (who had a wife and five kids), sold all of his possessions and left middle America to pursue a ministry to the Paiute Native Americans in the Nevada desert. I recall asking him why he did it. He simply responded, “Eternity is a very long time.”

He chose not to live for self gratification, but for an eternal cause and the eternal souls of men and women. He once said, “I can’t take it with me, but I can send it ahead.” What a contrast to those who put all their fortune in financial investments of one sort or another. The Bible warns that we could pursue all this world has to offer, gain it, and then lose our very purpose and destiny. What is valuable enough that we would exchange our soul for it?

A wealthy young man once asked Jesus what he must do to inherit the Kingdom of God (Matthew 19:16-22). Jesus told him to keep all the commandments. The naive man insisted he had done this. Jesus responded, “You lack one thing. Sell all you have and give it to the poor.” The man walked away because he had great wealth. He had broken the first and most important commandment, to not put anything before God.

I have to ask myself what loyalties I am putting ahead of my devotion to him. Am I engaged in trivial pursuits? I must not fear failure, but succeeding at things that do not matter. Will you join me in this prayer? “Lord, I freshly commit myself to pursue what really matters, and that means seeking you wholeheartedly.”

Imagine the possibilities!

Maximize Your Marriage retreat

Although I seldom use this blog to promote upcoming events, I want to make a rare exception. Cathy and I invite you and your friends to join us at the Maximize Your Marriage retreat on May 1-2.

Are you ready to take your relationship to a higher level of trust, harmony and oneness? Are you tired of settling for conflict and mediocrity? “Maximize Your Marriage” by learning how to break through the barriers that prevent true relational intimacy.

Learn more and register here.

M.I.A. in marriage

Last December Cathy and I celebrated 38 years of marriage. It has been amazing what God has done throughout the years. Cathy is a gift from God to me. It has been an incredible walk of faith for her to live and serve with me.

On our anniversary, I was reminded that for the first half our marriage and family, I was M.I.A. (missing in action). It was about 20 years into our marriage that I got a rude awaking. While driving home, I heard Dr. James Dobson on the radio. He suggested that if you want to know how your marriage or family is doing, then ask your wife. I was deluded into thinking that I had a strong and vibrant marriage. So, without hesitation I asked Cathy, “We have a great marriage, don’t we?” It really wasn’t a question. I was making a statement. Cathy did not even stop what she was doing. She continued washing dishes and said, “What marriage? You have to be here to have a marriage.”

Her response shook me to the core. Cathy was committed to the marriage and would never have divorced me. Yet I had been self deceived, and as a result, I was succeeding at what did not matter. I was finding my identity and significance in a “what” (my job, my career) instead of a “who,” my wife and family and God.

It has taken 18 years to turn things around. I realize now that the more I find my identity and significance in Christ, the more I exhibit his character and seek the things that please him. Where is your identity?

Imagine the possibilities!