Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Easters




Easters. Okay, I know you are thinking this has to be a typo. It’s not. Yes Easters. Sunday is coming, and I hope and pray that you will be up early to celebrate our victory in Christ. So going to church is Easter celebration one. Now for Easter celebration two: the time with your family celebrating Jesus for who he said he was in overcoming death giving us an eternal hope.

As a child Easter was one of the few times we went to church. I would get all dressed up sit through a service which would seem to last for a week, and then get ripped off with a bread crumb and a sip of juice. Wow, I thought it was torture.

However, the best part of Easter was the coming dinner. Was this the special meal to celebrate the egg? Or just the bunny that laid the egg? Wait bunnies do not lay eggs. Maybe this guy Jesus I heard mentioned created the holiday like George Washington’s birthday. I thought it was fun!

What I am trying to get at is what are your kids getting out of Easter? Is it a day of traditions with a little bit of Jesus added in for flavor? Or it is a day that Jesus is completely and absolutely the center piece of the day and every day after?

As parents, we need to ask ourselves if Easter is truly a day we are helping our kids understand the importance of Jesus overcoming death. Are our lives celebrated every day in that victory? I just want to challenge you with something.

Challenge: At the end of Easter Sunday ask your kids what the day was all about, and why you did certain things that day (i.e. church, special meal, etc.). See what they say. Some might be right on, and some kids might surprise you with how far you’ve moved away from the true meaning of Easter.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Random


Have you ever noticed how random life seems to be? Never knowing what is coming next or what is around the corner. We think we live in a world where we truly believe things randomly happen and where luck has such a huge role to play.

If we were to take the time to look back at our lives, we would see that “random” has little to no part to play. Chaos and luck are just products of our fears and lack of trust in God. What we call life’s randomness is actually God’s hand working in our lives.

Well for me, as I grew as a believer and in my walk with the Lord, I started to see that God was using “random” moments to truly take me where He wanted me to go. In the reader’s digest version, I look back on my years of being in the restaurant business, not just as a job, but also as a training ground for today. My years of volunteering at different churches in children’s ministries, was His prompting me to move along and gain more experience for today. There is so much more to this life story, but I hope you get the idea.

All I went through on my journey was never random but calculated training ground to prepare me for my mission today. However, when I was in the middle of it that was not my perspective. I saw it all as random.

     But I ask you all this:
  • ·       Do you truly believe life is random?
  • ·       Is God working in the randomness of life?
  • ·       Can you look back to see God’s hand directing your life?
  • ·       Is our God a God of chaos?
  • ·       Is it luck or a blessing from God?
  • ·       How quick are you to turn on God when He is directing you in a direction you do not want to go in?
  • ·       Does God love you? And if He does, then why would he let you be in a state of randomness?

I have learned over the years that the best of times have been when God radically changed my life and generated me in a direction I did not want to go. Oh, what a blessing to see at the end of this chapter what He has done with me. My feeling is, bring it on God!

Share with me your journey, from what you perceived as randomness, but in actuality was His hand guiding your life.