Reflections on the Day

It is about 9:00 PM on Tuesday, January 5, 2010 and I am taking a moment to reflect on the day.  I did not sleep well last night even though I had my first workout in about 6 years.  I was up at 5:00AM preparing to attend my weekly men's group, S.K.I.N.  We are studying the book of Joel and I am blessed to be leading this study. I was also shoveling snow at 5:30AM in order to get to my meeting.  Global warming my butt!

I went to work only to find out that one of my Consultants will be off of work a week earlier than he had anticipated.  He will be out until sometime in March, he is having his large intestine removed due to Krohn's Disease.  The work load was not too bad for two of us.  I had to take a 1/2 day of PTO to go to a meeting with our school district and our lawyer concerning some learning issues with our daughter and to request that the school pay to fix the problems that they helped to create. The meeting lasted an hour and a half. 

We came home and my wife took our daughter to her tutoring session.  I stayed home and practiced my bass guitar in preparation for playing at church this weekend.  After practicing I read day six of my Bible reading plan on youversion.com. 

During my practice time I received a text message to pray for a friend's Father who is in the hospital and for him as he is having an issue with chest irritation (near his heart).  I was also messaged a request to pray for a Friend of a Friend's daughter who is going through heroin withdrawals on her own. I lifted these folks up in prayer and sent prayer requests for the young woman to my S.K.I.N group.  The prayers of a rightous man are powerful!

My point in writing all of this is that thorugh this entire day I was reminded how the Lord continues to bless my family and me.  I consider it a privledge to lift up my friends and their family and friends to the Lord.  I know that I should not brag or boast about praying to God, and I am not. 

I just wanted to take a few moments to reflect and to share that the Lord is moving all around us each and every day.  If we are faithful to Him, turn from our sins truly repent he will supply us with our deepest needs.  I am thankful to be His child.

Basking in the Love and Glory of God I am at peace this evening.
 

Strangely Optimistic

Well 2010 is upon us and I am strangely optimistic.  The feeling started on New Years Eve during the day.  I have to say that 2009 was a time of spiritual change for me and my wife.  We left the church that we co-founded in 2004.  The decision was not a light one and we both have received affirmation that it was the right thing for us to do.  We are now active in the very vibrant and large North Way Christian Community Church.

Over the past couple of years January has not brought the best outlook.  I have not been this spiritually active and fired up since we opened Faith Community Christian Church in 2004.  This year is going to be a year of change for me and my family.  It is hard to explain it but I know that my wife and I will have a much clearer picture of how we will be using our gifts to further God's kingdom. 

I will graduate with my Masters in Public Management in May of this year and I will be moving into a new career path.  My wife is also working on her career.  We are focusing on how we are going to use the gifts that God has given us to the best of our abilities.  We are excited and a bit scared, change and the unknown are always un-nerving.  Without it we cannot grow.

This year is the year that I truly live my favorite scripture
Joshua 24:14-15
Jos24:14 Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD.
Jos 24:15  And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that [were] on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. 

I am also getting my physical body in order again.  I led a healthy eating lifestyle 5 years ago and I am heading back to it.  I will update my progress as I go along.  My long term goal is to go from 260lbs to 180lbs over the next 1.5-2 years.  I will then maintain the weight and the lifestyle.

I am strangely optimistic that this is a year of changes!

The Glory of the Lord above Pittsburgh

This morning I had the opportunity to ride in to work by myself so I decided to bring in my motorcycle.  It was in the mid 40's but the sun was shining.  As I took the on ramp for the HOV lane on I-279 South I noticed that there was not one but two rainbow halos around the sun.  I knew that the rainbows were caused by ice particles high in the atmosphere.  The fact that there were two of them meant that there were a lot of them in the area above the Pittsburgh area. 

My thoughts went from the scientific to the Holy.  I said out loud to no one but God, thank you for showing us your presence this morning.  I had a hard time concentrating on driving the bike, a dangerous issue.  I just could not take my eyes off of the affect.  It was beautifully sublime in its simplicity and symmetry.  I thought about all of those people around me in their cars and I wondered if any of them were seeing what God was showing us this morning.  Most of them probably missed the show.

As I rode in I just enjoyed being out in the brisk morning while the presence of God was above the city.  We spend a lot of our lives looking at what is right in front of us.  If we take a moment and look up we may be taken by surprise at what God is waiting to show us.

 

Avoiding the Spiral- a followup to my last post

It is now 2:10 PM and I am feeling much better.  I took a walk across campus and picked up some Indian food for lunch.  It seems that the morning coffee at 6:30 AM and then french toast casserole at 9:15 AM really screwed up my sugar levels.  I am feeling significantly better and my overall out look is very positive at this point.

Time to really start watching my sugar and caffeine intake.  There goes the root beer that I was going to have this afternoon.

Watching out for the downward spiral

I am at work and it is lunch time.  I am feeling very strange right now.  I seemd to be starting in to a spiral of apathy and bad attitude.  Overall things are going well.  It is several little things that are bugging me and starting to bring me down.

I am not hungry, I can afford to miss a meal or two.  I feel that I am becoming disconnected when it comes to the family.  I am having a problem working on my group project and I am tired.  I attribute alot of this to the fact that my diet has been extremely poor and I am not exercising at all.  I am making excuses and not making the time.  I have to be careful not to let this get the best of me.  Just one of those days I guess.  Having trouble getting into the frame of mind to tlak with God so I have to really watch it. 

I don't get it, great services at church over the weekend and a meeting with some of my brothers at S.K.I.N, most of the guys were out this week and there were only 3 of us but it was good.  Not sure how to get through this at the moment.  I will update as I make my way through this particular rough patch.

Paying Attention to the Holy Spirit

As I am sitting here at my desk reviewing my customer problem tickets I just a a very strong urge to lift up one of my brothers in the Lord.  He is handling some employee issues currently and notified our S.K.I.N group that he needs prayer today.  He did not say when he needed but that he needs it to help him as he resolves an issue with an employee.

At 12:30 PM EDT I had to overwhelming urge to pray for him and his co-workers.  So I stopped what I was doing and lifted them up.  I then contacted him to see if he is OK.  He is and is going to be working on resovling the issues soon.  I write this because yesterday I had trouble hearing God, because I let other things get in the way of our communication lines. 

Today He spoke to me very clearly, pray for your friend, now! So I did and I am going back to prayer as soon as I am done with this post.

In the words of one of my other brothers in the Lord - It is time to go to center court with God.

Losing Focus

Yesterday the day started out great.  I walked out of my house at 6:45 AM to go to S.K.I.N and I stopped to look at the wonders that are the stars above our heads.  There was no moon and it was very dark.  I really felt connected with God.  I prayed as I stood there in my yard looking up at the universe.

I met up with my brothers and we had a good discussion. I picked up my wife and we headed into work.  At work I began to lose my closeness with God.  Throughout the day work went OK but I started to stress about school issues.  As the day wore on I felt worse spiritually by the time I got to class I was getting angry about our project. 

The ride home with my wife and daughter was not as pleasant as it could have been.  Each of us are going through a season of change and struggle and we were not feeling close to God or each other.  When I headed to bed I had a hard time falling asleep.  I just tried to listen for God again, but it did not work very well.  I tossed and turned most of the night.

My thoughts are how can we be focused on God and feeling the Holy Spirit only to have it erode throughout the day?  And how to we recognize and take steps to prevent the erosion of our attitude?  Sometimes it is hard to keep focused on the Lord.

If we don't take the time to refocus the enemy will get a foothold on us and tear us apart.

Any comments are welcome.