LiveYourPassions

The Gate to the Narrow Road

Last week we started a new sermon series at our church that asks - “What if everyday was Christmas?”. If you happen to be in the Katy area around Christmas (or any other time) I would love to have you come join me, my family and my many friends at CrossPoint Community Church at the corner of Westgreen & Kingsland.

Luke 2:8-11
“And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.”

Have you ever signed a contract, bought a house, been married? These events shape your destiny in ways you can never fully understand at the time. Becoming a Christian is like that. It is the acceptance of an invitation that when accepted creates a profound change in your eternal destiny. Most of us have read or at least heard the story above and in two and a half short weeks we celebrate the birth of Christ that we call Christmas.

Psalm 8:3-4
”When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?”

It is still tough sometimes to wrap my head around the magnitude of love in the Son of God becoming man so that man may become sons of God. “….what is man that you are mindful of him” – that question, it blows me away and leaves me humbled and in awe. It is all too easy for us to forget that we, you and I, are God’s greatest creations.

Romans 9:33
As it is written: “See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”

The stumbling stone is, Jesus and many of us still stumble away unable to fully get salvation by faith - I mean nothing in life is free, right?? As for me I tend to stumble over His values. Values that run contrary to the accepted norms of our day. He asks for obedience and we are proud, he asks for humility and it is hard to be humble and most of all he asks for love and forgiveness and darn it all, does that mean we have to give up being right? We live in a time of cafeteria-style faith - I’ll take one of those, pass on that love your neighbor thingy, two of those, and, no, I think I’ll pass on that forgiveness thing too.

Matthew 7:14-15
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

So as we zoom into Christmas and we fight the traffic and the malls and the irritated people be aware that while the Christmas sermons are great, our families, our communities and God are listening and looking; looking at the road that we have taken and listening for the gate in the sermon that is our life.

Stories, Past, Present & Future

Part of being a Life Coach includes sharing the stories of my life and listening to people’s stories. Sometimes the stories that I hear are light and encouraging and sometimes they are about wives being beaten. I have learned that there are two kinds of relationships: those that take lovers and those that take hostages. Some stories are about the sense of pride that little Johnny was accepted by A&M and others are about mothers, fathers and children not talking for 20 years. Inside each of us we have a little story teller voice (it’s the one right now asking - what little voice?) that creates repetitive, one-sided stories. The most tragic of all stories goes something like - “but I have no other options” or “I’m stuck”. One of the most amazing story tellers was Christ. I mean this guy bumps into a woman at a well that is clearly stuck inside her “fallen woman, living in sin, hiding out from society” story , gives her a new story and - poof - now she is a vibrant and fully alive woman who is clear on her purpose. Wow! Jesus told the truth and in doing so He told new stories that created new realities for new lives.

The truth is that nothing ever happened in the “past”, it happened in the “now” and nothing will ever happen in the “future”, it will happen “now”. Yet all of us carry around our “past” like old luggage that we continue to trip over in the present, with our kids, with our spouses, with our new boss, and then wonder why our “future” looks so much like our past. I’ve had people tell me “… yes, but I got that from my Dad…” or “… well if you had a mom like my mom you’d be this way too….”, and many other stories. Maybe so, but it’s our lives and choices that affect our lives are just that - our choices! Have you ever wondered - if nothing changes “now”, what will be different in the “future”.

There is a Zen saying as follows: “Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it is dark.”

Sounds a little silly, right? But the problem is that once the lights are out we forget that we ourselves turned them off. We step into our own darkness and then forgot that all we need do is to choose to step back into the light and back into knowing that as partners with God we help to create the world around us. That doesn’t mean it will be easy or without some pain but new stories,”now” stories, create new relationships, new possibilities and new lives.

Thank you to the many amazing people in my life that have supported me in stepping out of my own lengthy shadow.

Simple Play, Play Simple

Matthew 18:3-5
“And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven? And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.”

I have watched several younger kids play the last couple weeks and what always strikes me is the ease with which they connect - ” wanna play ” - are usually the only words required. As we mature, gain more knowledge, smarten up and fly right we begin to “know” that life is not really that simple. Right? And in that “knowing” we lose our connection with our sense of awe and wonder of the world around us, with each other and with our God. Questions like “How are you” have become almost rhetorical or often leave us wondering about hidden agendas.

And maybe if we only had more time to listen we would but in any case - Life’s not that simple and I’m sure they are fine. I hear much about the decaying moral fabric of our communities and this country. I’m not sure what the answer is but I think it lies somewhere in - time:

Time to be with our kids and our neighbors the way that Christ is with us;
Time to connect with the “I’m Fine” faces passing by us at church and at work;
Time to allow life to be simple once again;
Time - to actually give or wait for the response from “How are you”
….and Time to turn our eyes back to the only kingdom that really matters.

Wanna play?

Secret(s) of Relationships

Many of the conversations that land on my coaching doorstep recently are about couples experiencing various problems. Most of the conversations are accompanied by the all too familiar “….it was completely out of the blue”. There is, of course, an eternal secret to maintaining an extraordinary, open and free relationship which I’ll save for later. Suffice it to say that when I talk with these folks, rarely was it even close to out of the blue” and usually the warning signs were miles long.

“The problem with most ‘troubled marriages’ is that both partners are trying to accomplish far too many things ‘in the world,’ and in the process, like Martha in Luke 10:42, they neglect the ‘one thing most needed.’ Next to the love of God, the ‘one thing’ that is by far the most important in the life of married people is their marriage, their loving devotion to their partner. Nothing on earth must take precedence over that, not ever - not their children, their jobs, other relationships, the pursuit of money or security, not even their devotion to ‘Christian work’.”
The Mystery of Marriage

As many of you know, on October 30, 2004, I am getting married. I consider our relationship to be a very strong one, and I have a truly wonderful partner. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t know how to dork things up and create this sort of trouble when I miss this powerful point above. It is too easy for me to confuse the urgent with the truly important in the midst of our action packed lives. For me it requires a conscious effort to not get lost especially in my “service work” which will be particularly slippery in that it makes a difference in other’s lives, it is work that I love and it is work that I believe serves God. So in just 16 days I will marry a most amazing woman and God has made it so very clear that above all else the #1 calling for all husbands is that our wives feel our relentless love and devotion to her and to “us”.

Oh yes, and back on that secret to maintaining an extraordinary and open relationship. Ready? Here it comes…………….Tell the truth! And if those three words didn’t just shift every relationship in your life I will try it again with a few more words - Really, no kidding…Tell The (whole) truth! And by the way “the truth” does not = verbally vomiting on your unsuspecting victim or pummeling him/her with guilt, drama or your “story”.

As Mother Teresa once said, “If you want to work for world peace, go home and love your family.” Yep, what she said!

Time to Practice for Heaven

On they way home last night I looked up to see a sky that seemed to literally glow with some holy inner light and through the magnificent shades and colors that seeped slowly out and around it was like a sign that pointed well beyond to the much greater reality, which lied behind it all, to the One True Light. It was like God saying - get a load of this - try doing this on your graphics software. And as breathtaking as that sight was there is something far more miraculous. It is my children, who are the greatest gifts from God that I have ever received, my family who have loved me in ways I could have never imagined and then there is my wife who is as close as anyone in the world can come to being for me, in that glow of hers, what Christ is to me in spirit.

We are, all of us, so very skilled at unraveling, invalidating and turning the miracles of our lives back into the ho-hum common stuff of everyday life. We sprinkle the unmagical dust of our busy, “got-to-go, got-to-go”, “not my fault”, “not my job”, “but he/she hurt me”, “who cares anyway”, lives, over the beauty and grace that surround us, over our children, over our families and over our wives and soon the wondrous beauty of life is transformed from heavenly to “yeh….whatever”.

How will any of us every cope in an afterlife where there will be nothing miraculous to lift us out of our boredom and sameness because there will be nothing unmiraculous? It seems to me that here and now, today, this very moment, is the time to practice amazement and awe. Either we continue to suffocate ourselves under all that is unsurprising, unspectacular and ungraceful that surrounds our lives or we choose, here and now to breath the air of grace. We learn how to appreciate one another, to see one another as precious and to get what a miracle it truly is to be alive.

Yes, my friends, now it seems is as good as any time to practice for Heaven.