This Really Stunned Me: Take Time to Read it Please.

The other day I emceed and event called the Turn Around Awards. The awards are given to students who have turned their lives around. The stories these middle and high schoolers shared with us brought tears to the eyes of those in the audience. The following poem was written by a young man named Jovan Leavitt. When he finished his speech I was speechless. Take a few minutes to read it, think about it and add your own lines to “I Believe.”

This I Believe

I believe in shades of gray
I believe in love and laughter holding back the storm
I believe in sugar and spice and everything nice
I believe in forgiveness and second chances
I believe in never giving up, never losing hope
I believe in luck
I believe in the power of dreams.

I believe in every moment that takes my breath away and I believe in holding each and every one of those moments in a special place in my heart
I believe in nights ablaze with moon and stars
I believe in letting no one hold you back
I believe in trying new things
I believe in love at first sight
I believe in taking joy in the little things
I believe in facing my fears
I believe in learning from my mistakes
I believe in happily ever after.
Jovan Leavitt
May 2011

Why I love Cemeteries.

Services without Strings

What we need more of in the world is service without strings. We need people who care about the big picture not their own selfish motivation.

Serving others is a big buzz phrase in our culture right now and that’s spilled over into the church culture as well. We are starting to realize that we’ve failed to really help people and in order to compete service has become our mantra.

But when you serve with strings attached is that really service?

I look at the life of Jesus and see service out of love not service out of getting people to do what you want them to do. I don’t see Jesus serving to get people to join anything.

Followers of Christ say they want to lead people to Jesus. If we follow His example and read His words the way He did that was by simply serving with no strings attached.

It is terribly difficult to serve without motivation and that is why truly following Jesus is so tough. I watch as churches try to unite, creating a message of unity as a way of bringing the church together. Perhaps what we need to do as a church is drop the membership requirements, broaden our definition of church, get rid of the walls that separate us from all of God’s people and rediscover what it means to follow Jesus and feed his sheep, no strings attached. Now, that’s a message that can really save the world.

Isaiah 1:17  Learn to do good! Seek right-ruling, reprove the oppressor, defend the father-less, plead for the widow.

Sometimes You Have To Move

Do you ever have those times when you just don’t feel right? When no matter what you do you just can’t quite get in sync with life around you?

Lately that’s how life feels for me. I think it’s a combination of things the biggest being my one-year post cancer treatment check up is just around the corner. I start feeling myself slip into a funk and when I take time to ask God, my wife and myself “Why” it usually leads back to an anniversary like cancer.

I get to go have another PSA Blood Test in June and that always makes me nervous. In the back of your mind these thoughts that it’s back ebb and flow and you can’t stop it. All of the old tricks to get your mind off the subject don’t work once cancer is a reality in your life.

My wife and I taped Oprah’s final show the other day and watched it. I know some of you are laughing and that’s fine laugh all you want. Oprah is an icon in the industry and after watching that final show I almost wish I’d watched more of her shows when she was on the air.

She said a couple of things that made great sense to me. She believes, as I believe, that each one of us has a calling and we need to respond to that calling. She gives credit for her success to God and I admire that about her.

As my funk causes me to re-think life I have to wonder whether I’m truly fulfilling God’s call on my life? I’m reminded that my job and my calling are not always the same thing.

I believe everything we do is getting us ready for that moment when we hear the call of God and move. I understand, cancer, life, funks, crappy gray weather and mishaps and miss-steps are all part of the journey but I get tired of those uphill climbs and long for a good downhill rush with the wind in my face and the past at my back.

Perhaps it’s time to step out a little farther and take a chance on falling flat on my face?

Don’t worry, no rash decisions here I have an amazing wife who won’t allow me to be too stupid. But sometime you’ve got to ask yourself the difficult questions. Sometimes you have to say to God, let’s go. Sometimes you have to look past the past, pull up the anchor and set sail.

Cottage Grove Needs Your Input: Monday Night 6:30pm

Hard to Remember.

There are days, sometimes weeks and for some probably years when it’s hard to remember there is more to life than living day to day.

There are weeks, moments and times in our lives when the difficulty of other people’s circumstances silently pile up in the back of our minds and it’s hard to remember that Jesus is still here.

There are mornings when you wake up searching your mind for joy, peace or something to brighten the day but the clouds and rain outside become a simple reflection of what’s going on inside you.

In all of these moments it’s hard to remember, but not impossible, to find a nugget of truth in the word of God and hold onto it as if it’s the only thing you leave the house with today.

In these moments we have to trust that our joy will catch up with us later in the day. We have to fight the urge to escape and instead hunker down and push to find the next sentence and be willing to put a period at the end of the one we are currently living in.

But that is so hard to remember and even harder to do.

Ecclesiastes 7:14

Be glad in the day of prosperity, but in the evil day take note that Elohim has also appointed the one as well as the other, so that man should not uncover whatever shall be after him.

7:16 Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise, why destroy yourself?