Christmas Collissions

Within my most favorite time of year are collisions...

Financial Collissions where the size of my heart to give collides with the limitations of my pocket book.

Relational collisions where the countless Facebook faces instead of soliciting joy create in me anxiety...too many to love well. 

Spiritual collisions where minutes for meaning and significance are choked out by shopping agendas parties and Christmas obligations, all of which I too love. 

The collision is within. Another Kingdom fighting to break through in each soul.  The cookies, Santa, presents, and parties are not to blame. They are our best attempt at something much more significant. It's the craving of our souls for "good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.”  Luke 2:10-11 NIV

Over 2,000 years ago there was a collision. It reappears each year in each soul. The earth felt its impact the same as each soul does each Christmas. Eternities hope desperate to break through. 

...let it

Redeeming Love!

This week we had 17 of us under one roof.  Once a year the Woody family gathers at one of our homes in the four different states we live in to spend one week together. It's the only time we see one another living so far a part. 

The history of the Woody family like so many families is one of brokenness.  But that has changed and is still changing. Here is my journal the Sunday morning my family loaded up at 5am to return to their homes. It is my tearful experience of his redeeming love...

Psalm 127:3-5 “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.”

You are still restoring a broken family.  You are never done redeeming!  I can't thank you enough. I am in tearful awe of your love and majesty that keeps healing, keeps restoring, keeps redeeming, keeps giving grace, and keeps building our future.  We try to fight it, we sabotage it with our sinful ways and stupid thinking. But we can't do what you do.  We can't draw so perfectly a masterpiece as you. Your masterpiece is redeeming love!!  Nothing is more beautiful. It's even more beautiful than original design.  Because no love has never stretched so far or given so much endured so long, or fought so hard as your love has.  That love is an unmatched brushstroke.  It's an original work.  It's a color more vivid, texture more complex, and shading more real than anything else!  

Why would anyone walk away from that. Why would anyone want to try to paint anything different?  Why would anyone choose a different canvas then the one you put brush too?  "Where can I go from the lord? " "What good is for a man to gain the whole world but forfeit his soul?" 

This is why I must serve you. I didn't know what I needed from this vacation. But you did!!!  I needed you to restore. I always do. I need it more than anything. I need heaven. My soul craves heaven. It's Paul's struggle with staying or going desiring so much to be there where you are but needed here. My soul craves 100% of redemption. Heaven to be real in me and all around me. 

You gave me a piece of heaven this week. My soul feels restored!  My hope restored!  My spirit renewed!  

Thank you Jesus! 

Leadership decisions: Risk, Confrontation, Reward

Thoughts 1.  You stop and listen when someone on your team speaks in reference to a core value. You don't change things when they speak a personal value. 

2.  Risks are worth taking, the question is how and when do you take risks. You take risks when a.  You set up its success as best as you possibly can. B.  when the reward is so big it's worth the risk. C.  If God clearly says risk it. 

3.  Valuing team members is worth the risk as long as it's not in conflict with the vision. 

These may help in your decisions. 

Also:  I think a step of leadership is when your willing and able to confront another with your frustrations with their best interest and the interest of the team at heart. Something to think about. 

Life From a Different Center!

If the point of life is to avoid suffering then whether you like it or not you have adopted a philosophy that allows for no impact, no community, no innovation, no new possibilities, and ultimately no life.  The words of Solomon in ecclesiastes paint a picture of a world that makes no sense. And I would echo his rants if my philosophy of life centered around safety and comfort.  Life looked at through this lens is not fair, is not just, doesn't make sense and is not mine to change.  So my conclusion would be as Solomon's, let's just "eat drink and be merry" and not own anything.  Sounds like America doesn't it. 

Paul has a great response to this. It's a response that looks at life from a different center, that breeds a different motivation.  Check out what Paul says. 

"But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:7-14 NIV)

Knowing Christ, his heart, his motivations, his way of looking at life, his love, his grace, his wisdom is my total pursuit.  That changes everything!  No longer is everything meaningless. Because my focus is not corporate advancement, it's not fiscal achievements, it's not influence supremacy.  If that is my whole gain then Solomons study of everything under the sun becomes the only possible conclusion, "everything is meaningless."  Why?  Because eventually when it all catches up to you (for some sooner than others) we all wind up right back at the same place, empty!  

Instead, my focus as Paul's, is making whatever is in Christ's heart my own, matching my heartbeat to His.  Making my mission his.  Its about discovering real life that is not found here on this earth but in the kingdom of God where virtue, character, love, integrity, honor, courage, and every other great virtue lives and reigns.  My whole goal in life is to know this surpassing glory that is Christ and to partner with it and bring it to be on this planet in my world, in my relationships, in my space; That the world I inhabit and live in, the space I occupy becomes an increasing reflection of the place where God lives and Christ died to ensure for us.  

So eat, drink, and be Merry,  Yes!!!  But as a celebration of that coming reality both now and upon Christ's return. 

But we all get to choose.  We all get to decide what life we desire to live. Decide yours. 

Two non-expendables for every leader.

Revelation and Wisdom:

Perhaps the difference between the two is that wisdom is the compilation of revelation lived out. Revelation is Gods speaking in the moment. It is the verse that "man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the fathers mouth.". I have experienced this as life giving.  A word from God, when scripture jumps off the page and makes sense.  It's as if God is right there in front of me leaning in from across the table taking my hand and speaking truth, direction, vision.  It's as if life makes sense all in a moment. That which is unknown becomes known and I feel on top of the world.  Those moments feed life. They propel me out of the mundane and forward into destiny and future. 

Wisdom is a living out of now the new knowledge revealed by God.  The ability to see through the lies of the world and it's inhabitants to see what is really happening in you and around you. It's the ability to slow the world down to see what otherwise would be moving too fast to notice. Both are life giving. One opens life to you and the other allows you to live and remain in it not swept here and there by life's foolishness. 

Every leader needs both.  It is an investment of significant time in the word.  It is a remaining there long enough where the world can shrink down and all that now exists is God and his truth. That place becomes the center, the beginning of which we think, contemplate and interact with God.  All direction flows from this place. It is a forming of the heart that does not move from the world to scripture but from scripture to the world. Then and only then can it interpret life.  

Christmas, The Highest Value. Isaiah 3:8

It's easy to replace His presence as a highest value with other things. Christmas season has this same battle raging within; So many competing values with Gods presence for Christmas. Our actions without meaning it become that of selfishness even in giving. Wanting for ours and our own. A value of family distorted by the increasing shame of not being able to do for our own kids as much as we want in the context of Gifts. Where does that shame come from? How did the value of family become about stuff over presence?  It's the right heart but wrong action that distorts the highest value, Gods presence "with us". The prophecy that should awaken our souls bounces off the surface of our hearts holding tight a different dream of bought affections. I so want my kids to know my love for them and Christmas threatens to define that as presents not presence. 

How do I fight it:
1. With every gift bought a prayer of gratefulness to God.
2. Context every gift with presence and schedule time with that kid with that gift. (Blake's art set a sitting with him as he draws, Gabe's shoes a challenge to a one on one game of hoops, Caden's gym a personal training session with him lifting.)
3. Give a coupon with every gift for time with them with that gift. My wife as well. Others as well. 
4. A scripture attached to each gift that contexts the gift in Christ Jesus.

More Than Evangelism

This mystery has been kept in the dark for a long time, but now it’s out in the open. God wanted everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out, regardless of their background, regardless of their religious standing. The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, so therefore you can look forward to sharing in God’s glory. It’s that simple. That is the substance of our Message. We preach Christ, warning people not to add to the Message. We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity. To be mature is to be basic. Christ! No more, no less. That’s what I’m working so hard at day after day, year after year, doing my best with the energy God so generously gives me. (Colossians 1:26-29 MSG)

This Scripture is vision. It extends the purpose of the church far beyond the just reaching people for Christ. It has poetic overtone of that of a bride being prepared for her groom.  Prepared in the old context. It was a being made holy and presentable. It was a developing the heart, the mind, the physical body for the groom. What if we have missed it as the church. What if we have painted the picture of this glorious thing when you receive Christ.  Our culture interprets good for me as comfortable, as convenient, as pleasant. Funny how Paul never describes it this way. He never invites people to this. As a matter of fact, neither does Jesus. It's not like he was up against that different of a culture. Yet he didn't water down the invitation nor the journey.  Maybe that's why there is such a celebration when a person comes to really know Christ. Because they see with new eyes. They don't receive a convenient Jesus but the leader Jesus who leads them on "paths of righteousness", that leads them to "springs of living water that never run dry;" who leads them through "valleys of the shadow of death.". It's an invitation to life, to mission, to purpose, to meaning, to eternity, to selfless sacrifice that reveals our significance and releases joy. To tell of it is of some use.  To vision cast it necessary.  Both are a deflated balloon that in order to really capture the imagination and excite the soul requires the life of another surrendered to Christ that adds breath and life and makes real the fantasy.

A church full of these people becomes the vision, the means, and the motivation that becomes a portal to the kingdom "on earth as it is in heaven". This kind of church leads people as Christ did.  It walks into the valleys of the lives of people and guides them through the turmoils of life and into the pain of sin their own sin in order to create in them a righteousness that is made only by gazing for long periods into the blinding light of the sun that reveals all and burns the darkness of sin away. For Grace River to be this place we must each be willing to be held ourselves in the fiery gaze of a holy Jesus. We must be willing to stand in the fire of redemption and be made by Him into his likeness where our lives become a blinding reflection of that same glory!  Only then can we be found worthy to hold another there in that same place with the same love, grace, and mercy as our Savior holds us.

In what area of my life am I refusing to turn hard into the direct gaze of the savior?