God Right Now!

Over the last 9 months, God has done some amazing things in my life. Obviously the greatest, in my view, was His calling me to ministry on January 14, 2009. Since then He has clearly defined the path that will get me where He wants me. It hasn't always been straight, but it has been very visible. God hasn't stopped doing those amazing things for me and I have faith that He'll continue to do so. Goes back to that whole obedience thing (I have a two part blog post on it, HERE & HERE). Long as you're obedient, God is faithful and generous with His blessings (may not always be what you want, but it will always be what you need). Anyway, I intend to actually keep this shorter than normal (maybe), so here it is.

I've actually spoke with a friend about this topic a number of times and I actually talked about it the one opportunity I had to preach, but it keeps coming back around. Specifically having to do with the plans that God reveals for our future. I have NO doubt that God routinely shows us what He has for our future (not always, but He has for me quite a bit over the last 9 month). Probably more often than not, He won't show you. That way there isn't this “shiny” object off in the distance that can side-track you from what He is trying to teach you and develop in you. But whether He shows us or not, how often do we find ourselves trying to serve a God of our future or our past? With that said, I'm not talking about hope for the future. On the contrary hope is essential to our faith. Ephesians 4:4 says, “For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future.” We have been called to hope for the future and I can't wait for it. On the other hand, we can also get hung up on the God of our past. We look back and see all the stuff He has done for us. When a time comes that we don't perceive the future to be as promising as what He has done for us already, we long for the “good times”. Again, not talking about detaching from past blessings. His sacrifice on the cross was the most amazing thing He has ever given us. And, all of how God moved in our past (long as we were obedient) shaped who we are today, God is good that way. What I am talking about is when we live so much for the future or hold so tight to the past, being so focused on what He might have for us or what He's already done for us, that we forget what He is giving us right now.

God is a God of right now moments. He wants us to appreciate and remember what He did for us. He wants us to look ahead and hope for the future. But more than anything, He wants to affect us right now. He wants to be with us today. To pour out His love and favor in this moment and every moment. 2 Corinthians 6:1-2 says, “1As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. 2For he says, "In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you." I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.” Paul is quoting what God said in Isaiah 49:8. NOW is the part of your life that God wants you to see Him working in. NOW is when God wants to be with you.

So, do you serve a God that is only concerned about your future? Or a God that you can only look back and see what He’s done in your past? Or do you serve a God that is right here, right now; a God that is present and fully concerned with you walking the path He has currently laid out for you? I can tell you this, we serve an ALWAYS present God, that wants our obedience and wants to impact us right now. Not just a God that has impacted us or will impact us. Our relationship with him is and always should be active and dynamic. He is constantly moving in and trough our lives, we just have to open our eyes and see Him.

I know God has marvelous things for my future, but He also has marvelous things for my right now. I'm loving what He has done, is doing and will do.

Living in God Right Now,
Bruce

My Friends Were Right!

If you read my blogs on obedience (Part 1 HERE & Part 2 HERE), then you know that I recently faced, what I thought was, a pretty bleak financial situation. By human standards, there was absolutely nothing I could do to correct it, I thought it was absolutely hopeless. Initially, I only looked at it by human standards, although I did try to put a God spin on it that helped me reason in a completely messed up an illogical way that God was letting me skip out on my tithe. But there in lies the problem...I thought it was hopeless.

Hopeless??? With everything that has happened over the past 8 months, hope has been in short supply. But, recently I have depended heavily on a hope that I never did before. I've written blogs about obedience, faith, and trust (all to our Lord, of course). I began to really develop this deep hope that I would experience God in absolutely every aspect of my life. I've even repeatedly asked God for that . Funny thing is, one of the only parts of my life that I NEVER wanted or planned to let God into was my finances. With that said, not that I am an idiot when it comes to knowing the right thing to do with my finances, but I was never very active in trying to maintain healthy finances.

Anyway, rather illogically, I had always believed I could manage my finances better than God. I never tested him like Malachi 3:10 says to and I never planned to, until back in February. For the record, I can't manage my finances better than God. That concept ended in failure back in November, only a couple months after my wife left. So, I have been writing all this stuff about obedience and praying to experience God in every part of my life, then when I'm given the perfect opportunity to have both, I almost blew it.

God knows that I had never experienced faith and trust in him with my finances and also knows that I so badly want to be obedient. God gave me the opportunity at the beginning of the month to trust, test and be obedient to Him by giving my tithe. At a time when it seemed impossible to pay this unexpected (rather large) bill and provide for my son's birthday, He asked me to continue to be obedient and trust Him and I couldn't see it.

Luckily He put people in my life that love me enough to hold me accountable and people in my life (some that have known me a little longer than others) that care about me enough to offer whatever help they could. Because of those people, God has made it more than clear that I'm very blessed. I feel that it is often more than I deserve, but somehow I'm that important to Him. Somehow, through all my failures and everything I've done, He loves me that much.

I WAS obedient to Him and He took care of EVERYTHING!!!! He provided a way to pay the unexpected bill and take care of Andrew's birthday (and there was some left over). I'm speechless. The coolest part is, it didn't matter to Him that I thought about not being (and really had already decided not to be) obedient. He didn't withhold His blessing and favor, "to teach me a lesson" not to doubt Him. Instead, because I was obedient, He poured out His blessing and favor to prove His love and that His word STILL applies today. The other cool thing is He doesn't just love me that much or offer that blessing just to me. He does it for EVERY single one of us.

Whether you believe it or not (I didn't use to believe it), there was NO, and I mean NO, way that I should have had the money to pay that bill or get Andrew presents by Tuesday evening. But I gave my tithe on Monday morning and by Tuesday afternoon He took care of all of it. There is only one explanation: GOD!

Experiencing Christ,
Bruce

When You Dis' Obidience - Part 2

This wasn't intended to be a multi-post topic. I intended to talk about obedience in "When You Dis' Obedience" (HERE) only pertaining to me being obedient to God about forgiving my wife. Then this week turned out to be a little less then stellar. Honestly it was pretty decent until Friday. Without getting into it too much, Friday morning I found out some "stuff" about the impending divorce that caused some additional anxiety. So that was the start of it.

After that, I get a letter from some legal office telling me that my wife's previous vehicle (registered in both of our names) had some toll violations, from sometime in September, totalling out to $300.00. Now, I do fairly well financially, however with the recent additional cost for legal fees and what not, money has not been growing on trees. So I call the law office (I know my wife can't and won't pay them, so I have to) and they tell me, no payment plan, no settlement, and they want $300.00 or they're going to call it refusal to pay. That would allow them to go for wages garnishment and being that I'm in the military, that would go over so hot with my Commanding Officer.

Ironically, my normal tithe is $320.00. So my first thought and only solution (as I see it) is to skip tithe and pay the fine. Surely God would understand, right??? I called the Toll Enforcement Authority to try to work a payment plan and to my surprise they actually reduced the cost by $110.00 and gave me until May 8th. I looked at that and thought, "Surely God is blessing me so I can use my tithe to pay it and bonus, God still gets like $120.00." (Genius thinking, I know)

So, I wrestle all weekend with the tithe v. pay fine (oh and it's Andrew's birthday - doesn't help the money issue) thing. By the time I headed for church Sunday morning, I had pretty much decided to pay the fine and skip tithing. I had convinced myself that God had poured out His blessing, by the cost being reduced, and was allowing me to "skip out, just this once." Even though I had "convinced" myself that God wanted me to pay the fine, I was still questioning if God would actually do that. As much as I don't want to admit it, I knew that God wasn't showing his favor with the fine being reduced to tell me it was ok to skip tithe, but it was my safe room.

Then I went to lunch with some friends (Thomas and Angy Hogan). Some how this whole thing came up and they were on me like a couple of spider monkeys (well Angy was anyway). Of course they went for the throat with Malachi 3:10, which says, "10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it." How in the heck do you argue that? Like I said, I already knew what the right thing was, but I had retreated into my safe room.

So this got me thinking about obedience again. I've already said that obedience is about faith. In Part 1, I wrote:

What it comes down to is this, God can't fully bless us if we're not obedient. He may bless us, but in order to receive the fullness of His blessings, we have to be willing to not question and be obedient to what He asks of us.

As long as we hold on to any unwillingness to be obedient, whether it's giving forgiveness or whatever it might be, we are only robbing ourselves of God's goodness and blessings...It is easy to obey the things we like, but the real test of our faith in and love for our Lord is our obedience to the hard stuff He asks us to do.

I just stinking wrote that a week ago. I keep forgetting that God has a way of actually testing our faith in the stuff we actually say. I put that out there and I truly believe it, but saying it is ALWAYS easier than DOING it. As far as Part 1 goes I was mainly talking about forgiveness. That in itself, while more emotionally difficult, can be acted upon primarily with simply saying it. There is some action involved, but a large portion of it is just making the choice to do it, then reinforcing it by saying it. This latest challenge is tangible. If I tithe, I don't have enough to pay the fine. If I don't pay the fine, I could get in trouble. I didn't want to have to explain to my son why he doesn't have birthday presents on Tuesday. This is something that would be difficult in a lot of tangible areas right now.

Essentially, with the decision I had made, I was telling God, "I don't trust that you'll take care of things. I have the money right now, so I'm gonna use it." I've been reading and writing about obedience for the last few weeks and when an opportunity comes to actually put it into action, I almost bit it. Obedience is the way we show our love and faith in our God. Our God is bigger that a $300.00 fine. He's bigger than a two day deadline for birthday presents. But I almost missed out on an opportunity to actually show just how much I trust Him, like I've been writing I do.

So, lunch with good friends is what God used to show me that I wasn't being obedient or faithful and to get me back on track. Friends that will keep you accountable are not always easy to come by, but they are so essential for growth in your walk with Christ. Without them, you are left to your own devices and you will always be able to make what you're doing, justified in your own mind. This obedience thing is WAY harder than it sounds. But it wouldn't help develop character if it wasn't.

Back on Track,

Bruce

When You Dis' Obedience - Part 1

Recently God has really put it on my heart to really forgive my wife (well, unfortunately soon to be ex-wife). Not to just say it and be nice to her, but really forgive her. I'm talking real forgiveness, the kind that includes being able to wish them well.

I won't lie, I'm totally not ready for that and I've really been trying to interpret what God is telling me in a different way that doesn't involve asking him to bless her. I'm still angry and I still feel like she doesn't deserve it. With that said, I have been routinely telling God that I not ready and that I needed to postpone that for a bit, until I am. Like I can actually pick and choose what and when I listen to our Almighty God.

Now to back up a little, I'm in the middle of the book of Numbers for my devotional time. Not only is it a super boring read, nothing super significant has stuck out to me (except Numbers 11, blog HERE ). I mentioned before the last time I read it I really didn't understand how the number of Israelites was significant to me, but reading it this time around has changed my perspective on it completely. It isn't just a book of "numbers", it's completely about obedience. God tells the Israelites to do all sorts of stuff, sometimes weird stuff if you ask me. When they obey...instant blessings heaped on them (mind you, this doesn't happen often. Most of the time they're whining). When they don't obey, people die (and I mean a LOT).

So God has been after my heart to really start forgiving her and praying blessings on her. Needless to say I DON'T want her blessed, so I decided not to pray it. Then on Sunday night, I was writing in my journal about this being my biggest struggle and was just about to write something about understanding that God wouldn't ask me to pray blessings on her if it wasn't important. I continued writing, "I don't know why He wants me to wish her well, but really knowing why isn't important. I know he just needs me to...obey."

There it was, I got it. I hesitated writing the word obey at first and all I could hear was God saying, "Go ahead Bruce, write it, write - Obey". So I wrote it. Then I knelt beside my bed and prayed for Dana. I ended my prayer by asking God to help her know He is still there for her and to bless her.

What it comes down to is this, God can't fully bless us if we're not obedient. He may bless us, but in order to receive the fullness of His blessings, we have to be willing to not question and be obedient to what He asks of us.

As long as we hold on to any unwillingness to be obedient, whether it's giving forgiveness or whatever it might be, we are only robbing ourselves of God's goodness and blessings. God will always be there to help through whatever He asks us to do, but WE still need to make the choice to be obedient. It is easy to obey the things we like, but the real test of our faith in and love for our Lord is our obedience to the hard stuff He asks us to do.

We often expect unquestioned obedience from our kids, but when our Father asks us for the same obedience, we offer the same excuses our children offer us. Then we get mad when they don't obey. Our God is way more understanding then that. I want to offer my Father the same obedience I expect from my boys.

Being Obedient,
Bruce

Perspective – You Could Call it a Comeback!

NOTE: For the record, I really tried to keep it short. REALLY!

Recently I have been trying to put the finishing touches on my first sermon (4 months ago I never thought I’d be saying anything close to that…love how God works). Element Church’s Youth Pastor, Andy Hazlet (Blog Love HERE) has given me my first opportunity to preach on April 14th to the high school youth. The sermon, based largely on the events of the past 7 months, is very close to my heart.

Writing this sermon has been pretty therapeutic for me. It’s really opened the door to a lot of stuff that I needed to think about and not only give to God, but give thanks to God for. It’s allowed me to look at all the events of the past 7 months in a different light, with a different perspective if you will. Kutless has a song called “Perspectives”. In that song they ask, “Why can't you see that freedom is sometimes simply another perspective away? Who could you be if your lens was changed for a moment, would you still be the same?” I’ve been able to see through the lens a little differently. I’ve seen the person I’m meant to be and who God is leading me to be, and I’ll tell you this, he is not the same guy I was.

When all this started, all I wanted to do was blame God, I’d been looking for a reason to run from him (really I don’t know why though), and I finally had one. I could have very easily run and wallowed in my self-pity. I could have run from God, slowly let my hurt and anger turn to hate and let it destroy me. But, because of my kids asking if we could still go to church (they really are my heroes, they rescued me before I even realized I needed it), I kept going. Just going to church allowed God to refine and readjust the lens that I was looking at life through. Slowly, but surely, God tweaked that lens just enough to let me see things differently, more focused…better.
Before Dana left, I was not the person God desired for me to be. God changed my lens, just a little and it completely changed the person I am and I am becoming. I don’t think I’m exactly where God wants me, yet. But I am leaps and bounds closer to becoming the person He has always intended me to be. Don’t misunderstand, I still wish that it didn’t take Dana leaving for me to get where I’m at, to share this journey with her would have been wonderful. However, I do believe that her leaving was the catalyst God used to walk me down the road He had for me. Without all the trials and sorrow over the last several months, I think it may have been a long time (if ever) for me to hear and actually answer Him.

On Friday, theSHIFT (Blog HERE) talked about luggage. Not like suitcases, but the baggage or wounds that each of us carry around. My boys and I have a lot of wounds; we have enough baggage that we could probably be considered the equivalent to an airplane cargo hold. I have told myself, and Dana, that I forgive her for what she has already done and continues to do; I have even put that forgiveness into action, definitely more than she deserves. But Friday night, it was said that forgiveness really isn’t fully given until you can wish that person well. Uh, I’m not there yet. I have tried, I’ve even slipped while praying for her and actually corrected myself, I took it back (I figure me slipping and wishing her blessed was God’s way of telling me that I needed to do it). I know it’s not about me being ready to forgive her completely, because if I wait until I am, I’ll probably never be ready. I know when I do start praying that for her, God will do the rest. Even if it’s not for her (which I’ve blogged about this before HERE), I can NOT have that hate or hurt or anger or any of it control my life. I need one controlling force in my life and that’s Christ. He can NOT do His job, if I cloud the rest of my spirit with the fog of anger.

So, God has changed my lens. I am seeing things clearer and more vibrant than ever before. I am a different person. And soon I’ll be different than I am now. But here is what God has shown me the most through working on this sermon. All the trash that I have had to sift through, all the muck I’ve had to trudge through and all the pain I’ve had to experience is absolutely NOTHING compared to the blessings he has heaped on my boys and I.

I have a stronger and deeper relationship with my Lord, my God Jesus, more so than ever in my life (it’s a love like nothing I’ve ever experienced). I have a church family that I love and I know without a doubt loves me. I have friends (both new and old) that have impacted EVERY area of my life, all in a positive way. I have a new calling from God; I finally know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know exactly how I will fit into God’s ministry, but I know that next to my relationship with Him and helping my boys grow to be men after God’s heart, it is the best and most important thing I’ll ever do. Who could orchestrate a comeback like that, but God

I don’t know what my life lived for Christ will end up looking like. In 3 to 5 years I could be happily married again, have a happy family, serving Christ here in Cheyenne or I could be happily single (making the point that God provides that happiness, not someone else), living with my boys and doing missionary work in Uganda. I don’t know, but the point is, whatever my life looks like in the future, one thing is certain, it will be fully grounded in and consumed by Christ.

I'm pressed but not crushed persecuted not abandoned

Struck down but not destroyed

I'm blessed beyond the curse for his promise will endure

And his joy's gonna be my strength

Though the sorrow may last for the night

His joy comes with the morning!

It’s a new morning, folks. I’m finally awake and His joy really has come!!!

Looking through a new lens,
Bruce