What a Difference a Year Make

Luke 17:15-16 , “Now one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to Him…”

For Thanksgiving 2012 I choose to praise and thank God for all that He has done in the past year.

I thank God that this blog, an act of obedience and the ministry God has given me has reached nearly 13000 in 62 countries.

I thank God for an awesome wife who teaches me about loving on a daily basis, and who is a phenomenal partner and my definition of a soul mate.

I thank God for all my children being healthy and for His clear and ever present pulling and direction in their life. That like me, He is causing all things to work together for them as well.

I thank God for being employed as a year ago I was not.

I thank Him for my Dad’s return to health and surviving a quadruple by-pass.

I thank Him for the strength he has brought to my sister, nephews, and niece in the loss of a husband and a father.

I thank God for my books that He gave me to write and that I now see published.

God thank you for the numerous financial miracles in the past year that are literally too many to name.

Thank you God for opening your Kingdom up further to me.

Thank you God for family, for friends, for the good times, and for the bad. Thank you for teaching me to feast on life as I pursue You. I love you so much and cannot wait to see what good You have planned for me in 2013.

Whinny Tittie Baby

1 Thessalonians 5:18, “in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

I thought of calling this post Turn Back to Praise but I have used that already. So I am going to call it Whinny Tittie Baby because it is a much needed reminder to me to give thanks IN EVERYTHING. Plus it is a powerful line in Matt Redman’s Blessed Be You Name included below.

I guess that I could go into something “preachy” as my friend Paul says about “everything” being God’s will for you and me, but I think that in shameless surrender I would rather tell the story of what let up to this.

For the past few days I have been, let’s say… a little irritable. Certainly justifiable in the midst of getting off, then back on hormone replacement therapy, but even spiritually I have been irritable. My assessment of God and our relationship has been critical, unappreciative, short sighted, and ungrateful. My prayers continue to be answered with answers not exactly like I would like them. For me, I just want money. Then with the money I can make my life easier and do the things I want to do. Like knowing that I have enough to go to New York in December to see my daughter graduate, or enough to send my one in a million hunting dog off for a couple thousand dollars more in training in Nebraska. All the while losing sight that just one year ago I was unemployed. Losing sight that just a couple of months ago I nearly had to file personal bankruptcy. I’ve been a big whinny tittie baby, and more spoiled that my eight year old son.

I whined about not have $500 to build and stock a quail pen so I could have some birds to work my dog on. Even though just this past week a man, who has trained multiple field champions, who has a facility 20 minutes from my house, who has quail pens (with the quail), and who has extended an open invitation to train me to train my dog free of charge… to my dumb self this is not good enough because I don’t have to pay for it, because I can’t afford to send my dog to the BEST.

I whined about money for a host of other reasons even though God blessed me this month and covered every expense, and did it miraculously. And so with this fowl, selfish mood I went to my men’s group. But before I stopped in to see my friend John. John is 71 years old and a pretty hard man. I can’t say that there is no charity in him, but I can say that charity does not include parting with $1 of his money. And so we were catching up and I asked, “How has the economy affected your business?” He replied, “I’m not going to make $20 million this year like last, but I will make $4 or $5 million so I guess I’m not destitute.” 

I have to say a little jealousy stirred in me. Particularly since he does it with a staff of 4, and so it made me think.

You see John has a son my age and perhaps that is why he has been fatherly to me, and so I asked, “Why don’t you get your son in here and start mentoring him… teach him what you do.” His reply, “My children are worthless… they are spoiled, they know how to spend money, but none of them are interesting in working hard to make it.” 

I wanted to say adopt me, but I didn’t. Instead for the first time I had a kind of sorrow for my friend. Sure jealousy, envy about how naturally good he is at what he does, but I was kind of sad that when he is gone, his work will be gone too.

Staying less than 30 minutes I left to go straight to my men’s meeting. And it started off very well. One of the guys read a letter to himself, something I have seen a couple of times from different sources, and it convicted me that I probably couldn’t write a letter to myself without crying.  Beyond that I felt very disconnected from the group. In fact I felt as disconnected as I did the very first time I went there. I really didn’t want to hear about other people’s issues. I didn’t need to know that one of the church staff members in our group is in a place where he does not believe in God. That he is, “ok with the business of church and selling the drug of religion if God in fact turns out to be real.” And I certainly did not want to hear from Wilber. (Name changed to protect the innocent.)

Wilber is a strange bird suffering from some very real psychological issues created by one horrible life. Don’t get me wrong, the man is a certified genius. He can site studies and data and knows more about all the world’s religions than I know about Christianity. But every time he talks it is long, it is overly detailed, and it is sad. Wilber’s life truly has been a shit sandwich that every day he has to wake up and take another bite either in reality or in memory of the past. (no apologies to the religious for the profanity) But that is absolutely the best description I can come up with. It is said that he suffers from a super form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Now get this… inflicted upon him from birth to age 17 by his parents. Yesterday was another new story of his childhood, and it included a confession that boiled my blood. Disconnected I thought what am I doing here? And what was I complaining about, my issues look like cake and ice cream compared to these people. 

I am miserably convicted by not being completely thankful for EVERYTHING. I am thankful that God answers my prayers, even though in the strangest of ways. I am thankful that I was raised in a good home, and don’t have to daily deal with the demons of having had demonic parents. I am thankful that like the minister, I too have come to the place where I have question God’s existence in the face of lifeless religion only to have Him prove to me over, and over, and over again that He is not only real, but inside me and beside me. Even more so I see He is in folks like Wilber too.

I am thankful for someone so far beyond a wife, that soul mate only touches on what she means to me. And to the lonely out there. To the young man of Iwo Jima who thinks he will NEVER find someone… God has some who is not perfect, but perfect for you.

I am thankful for my friends, for my family, for awesome children.

Father thank you for everything. Blessed be your name. 

Turn Back to Praise

Luke 17:18, "Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?"

I write a lot about life's challenges, but it would be completely disobedient and ungrateful of me to not give God thanks and praise for the blessings. Or sure, everyday with Him, experiencing His presense, discoverying Him in the offensive, being a reflection of Him to those in my life is a blessing. But from time to time there are those things that come as if an undeserved reward.

So today I give praise to God for Him blessing me with enough work in November to be the top producer in the office. There are 7 of us, all keeping the same hours, all getting the same number of leads, and here in my first month I out performed them all. Thank you Jesus for that blessing.

I have to praise Him as well for my Dad's health, but not only for the successful surgery, but the inspiration to do something about my own health. Not to mention getting to celebrate his birthday today. The scale says I have lost 9 pounds in the same period of time it took to become the office's top producer. As a bonus the weight loss has stopped my snoring for which both my wife and I are grateful.

Today I just praise God for a good life. Even though this life has been full of struggles, I especially turn back to say thank you for the first month in a year where the monthly income will meet the monthly expenses.

Humble beginings that are nothing less than God blessing, and worthy of my praise.

Praise the name of Jesus.

(The photo is my friends Paul & Kristin expressing how I feel)