Hoping is Loving.

"When he mentioned the ark of God Eli fell backward off his chair by
the side of the gate. His neck was broken and he died." 1Samuel 4:18

Eli had just received news that his two son's were killed and the ark
captured by the Philistines. Eli did not mourn for his son's. This
scares the junk out of me. I have 3 boy's and the thought that my
boy's death would not tear me apart scares me. It scares me because
it happens all the time all around us. People lose hope in their
children, and when they do they lose love.

"When we lose hope, we lose love." When there is hope there is a
reason to love. Hope makes love worthwhile. The dream of what could be draws us to care, to hope, and to love. Without the dream loving becomes only hurt. If I believe any of my son's is doomed, then every thought of them is only pain, failure, hopelessness. Eli stopped
loving because he stopped hoping. I never want to stop hoping. Nor do I have to.

"Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him." Psalm
62:5

A little push, A little pull!

Ever noticed how everything in life that has any real value requires
sacrifice. Rest, Play, Financial Security, Health. They all require
sacrifice. There is a push and a pull in every area of our life. The
push is the holy discontent. "Something needs to change here." "This
just ain't working." There is also a pull. It usually looks like a
dream of how it could be different.

I have felt it recently with working out. First off, I don't yet
enjoy running and lifting. I do it so I can better compete at
whatever sport I am playing. My pull is my desire to play better, the
dream of being the best softball player the world has ever seen. The
push is how after I run from home to second on a double I know that
that from second to home will end in me throwing up. It's my nickname
at the YMCA, "puker." Now that is a push.

I see this in my relationship with God too. The push in areas of my
life that I am not satisfied with and the pull of the holy spirit
dreaming for me a new way of looking at it, dealing with it, living in
it.

Wonder in what areas of your life you feel the spirit of God pushing
and pulling you.

Words that Tickle

"See I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of
everyone who hears of it tickle." 1Samuel 3:11.

How would it feel to have the words of God tickle your ears? How
would it feel to be one who God used to tickle the ears of people?
Samuel was one of those. Scripture says that Samuel "let none of his
words fall to the ground." My problem is that so many of my words
do. Our words fall to the ground when there are no ears to hear
them. Sometimes no ears to hear is our fault and sometimes it's not.
I close ears when I talk too much. It's one of the areas I am working
on. I also am very passionate. Put those two things together and
people don't know what I am really passionate about and what to really
listen too if everything is so important.

5 rules I am trying to implement:
1. Don't answer until asked.
2. Don't talk first.
3. Write it and then speak it (process what your going to say,
instead of just throwing up)
4. Say it and then let it lye. Don't feel you have to defend it.
5. If it can be said in the form of a question, then do.

God help our words not "fall to the ground."

Marriage "Take Me There."

If you have not heard the Rascall Flatts song "Take Me There," you
need to download it from Itunes. It is a song written for everyone's
heart. Who doesn't want someone especially that special someone to
want to engage their own story and know them intimately. Who doesn't
want that person to want to go down the same backroads they have been
down, enter the experiences they have experienced, feel the joys and
pains they have experienced that helped to make them who they are today?

Strange is how few of us know how to do that. My wife are working
hard on this one. It amazes me how often we can just want to pick up
from today and just build the new memories without sharing the old
ones. It is amazing how hard work it is to sit in those past moments
with that someone you love especially when they are filled with hurt.
It's hard. It takes time. It takes a lot of emotional energy. It
takes a lot of listening. It takes a lot of love. When we don't know
where our spouse has come from do we really know who they are? What
if we all took the time to not just hear the stories of the past but
let our spouse take us there? I imagine understanding your spouses
heart may feel a little more attainable.

Marriage "Fallenness vss. Aloneness"

In Marriage listening is one of the best skills we can learn to
develop. Just listening isn't enough though. Two ways you can
listen; in order to speak or in order to understand. Too often I
listen in order to speak. When I do speak without really
understanding I read my story, experiences, insecurities into my
wife's heart and in doing so miss her heart. If I could learn to
listen to understand her heart I would speak to it differently.

Two ways to speak; to fallenness or to aloneness. It is amazing how
often we speak to a person's fallenness when what they are really
experiencing is aloneness. Fallenness means speaking to the problem.
Aloneness means speaking to the person's emotions. I can't tell you
how many times I have wanted to fix my wife's problem when she just
wanted me to enter into her hurt and live there with her for a while.

Here is how you can do it. 1. Listen to understand. 2. Don't
speak. 3. When she asks you to speak, enter her hurt by echoing her
hurt in your own words and telling her how sorry you are for the pain
she is experiencing. Take care of her, not the problem and she will
love you for it.