Check is in the mail.

<sup>When i was young i loved getting the mail and answering the phone. I can tell i am getting older now because when the phone rings i sometimes groan. When i get the mail i already know that most of it will be useless advertisement and the rest will be bills.

Money, and the responsibility of obtaining it and spending it wisely is an unavoidable part of life. In our family I happen to pay the bills and organize the budget. Stephanie used to but we have changed roles over the years in this. For now she and I are both happier with me doing the bills. The Lord has helped me to create a schedule and a budget that is way beyond my "natural inclination". With His help I actually enjoy paying the bills and taking care of the family in this way. Jesus can make anything pleasurable. The point of life is to do it all with Him. I believe He is leading my family and I into a new place with money. We are coming out of the land of youthful naivety. We are heading into a place of maturity and real adulthood. :) gheesh. :) Just in time for my mid-life crisis sports car, hair plugs, and expensive shades. ha</sup>

<sup>This verse speaks to me today and gives us great promise.

2 Corinthians 9:10-11
10</sup> For God is the one who provides seed for the farmer and then bread to eat. In the same way, he will provide and increase your resources and then produce a great harvest of generosity^e]">[e] in you. ¹¹ Yes, you will be enriched in every way so that you can always be generous. And when we take your gifts to those who need them, they will thank God.

I believe God supplies all my needs. I believe God is increasing our ability in our finances so that we can be even more generous to others in need. I LOVE giving money to people who need it. I love hearing God tell me to GIVE something away. How fun to obey the Lord when He wants to bless someone. Nothing quite like it.

So Lord bring it on. Bring it on is my prayer today! Bring on the financial wisdom and discipline. Bring on the budget! Yes, I just prayed that. Bring on the discipline so you can then unleash the blessing that I can freely share with others in need. All for YOUR GLORY.

How will not fear; I'm going to check the mail.

Confessions from a nervous breakdown

2 Corinthians 1:9 (New Living Translation)

⁹ In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead.

Troubles, pressures and even pain can serve a good purpose and bring about the most amazing change in our lives. I cant help but think back to 14 years ago when I suffered a nervous breakdown while in graduate school. What causes ones "nerves" to break down? The Doctors explained the physiological reason being that ongoing stress had caused a depletion in the serotonin levels in my brain. Evidently serotonin is, like all other chemicals in ones head, a very important component to maintaining ones mental agility. So as the stress increased year after year the chemical imbalance grew. When the chemicals in my brain reached a tipping point I was found roaming the streets of my University Campus. Thinking back to those days still brings a wave of humiliation in a way. I was proud of myself and my life up to that point. I did not really think I needed a savior. Rich in spirit.

But then in the middle of that mess I woke up as if from a sleep. When I thought I was going to die I stopped relying on myself and started relying on God who raises the dead. Yes, in one moment I accepted the reality that I was in fact poor and in need of saving. When I believed in Christ as The answer He swept over me and through me letting every fiber of my being finally relax. When Jesus says, "come to me if you are weary and I will give you rest for your soul", he means it quite literally.

Today, all these years later I still simply rely and relax. He has healed my chemical imbalance and provided me with the grace to live a life that leans on Him. I can see that through talking with Him and reading all about Him in the Bible I am kept sane. Life is every bit as pressure packed, but I have a God now. Not Rob, but Christ that lives in me. I live by trusting Him now with it all. He is my leader and He leads me beside quiet waters so often. He restores my soul daily. He anoints me and gives me rest. He protects me and provides for me. I thought i would die but in the middle of that pressure i learned to turn to the one who can handle it all.

Father, today I want you to know that i totally trust you. My life is yours. Thank you for loving me and caring for me so much. I'm humbled and yet proud to be your son forever.

It is His drinkability that sets Him apart

Some seasons of life seem to be particularly tough. The schedule is already full and then life throws sickness, relational challenges, death and tragedy right in the middle of it. I am walking through the valley of the shadow of death and I need a drink.

This is life. Life is difficult. I am old enough to embrace the reality of a hard life. I am also not the type to sit around moaning about troubled times. Life happens. Death will come to us all. Dry times are part of what make the good times so good. Electricity never feels better than after you been without it. A hot shower always feels better after a missions trip. Your own bed never felt better than after a night on the couch. ha. Pleasure is so often enhanced because we know life to be so often full of pain.

In the middle of the tough times and the dry times I am encouraged today that we, as believers in Christ, always have a drink available.

1 Corinthians 10:4 And they all drank the same spiritual (supernaturally given) drink. For they drank from a spiritual Rock which followed them [produced by the sole power of God Himself without natural instrumentality], and the Rock was Christ.

This is one reason Jesus is better than anything or anyone else. This is one of the reasons I will NEVER TRUST ANY OTHER WAY THAN JESUS...He always was Gods plan for us. Even thousands of years ago when God lead the people out of slavery, who was there with them? Jesus. he was the water in the dry and thirsty land.

Fast forward to when Jesus came to earth as a man. He meets this six time loser woman at the well who was understandably tired of her life. He told her that if she would only ask then he would give her a drink that would turn into eternal life and she would "never thirst again". She gave in and He became not only a drink but a way of life and peace.

"give me this drink" she said from the deepest part of her dry soul. Jesus floods every soul that asks. I know from personal experience what this drink is like. He has become in me a river and a well that is a source of life.

Father, thank you that in the middle of everything and anything I face I can drink deeply of Jesus Christ. You walk through the alley with us. You provide a table of food for us and you lie us down beside still waters. I turn to you today for a drink my soul needs. Lord, don't give me what i think i want but rather what i really need....a drink from YOU ALONE. Amen

god reminds me of my motives

Why do I do what i do? What is the motivation of all the activity in my life? What is the underlying purpose of it all? Who am i trying to please? What am i wanting to accomplish? What is it on the inside that really motivates me?

I can think of so many things. Money. Bill paying. Children. Wife. For the pleasing of those who employ me.

But all of these don't feel to me as true. They are real and they plum to a certain depth; but not to the core.

I am reminded today that at the core there is deep peace. There is the "inner child", if you will. A child that has accepted Jesus as the Christ. Not some biblical historical figure that moves slowly through a crowd with a gold pan behind his head. Jesus that laughs. Jesus that cries. Jesus that sweats and lives and reasons. Jesus that burns with passion and even anger. Jesus that suffers.

Jesus that rescues. He is the one that finds the fallen and lifts them up. he is the one that brings to strength the ones who are too weak to walk on their own.

And i am a child. I look up to Him and find in Him all that i need. My motivation is to be with Him. Yes, i want to make Him happy. yes, I want to make Him proud. But i am always brought back to the child that i am to God. I am His child.

I stared at the pictures of my kids today as i prayed for them. When i looked at the youngest i laughed out loud. No reason. Just laughed because he brings me joy. Everything about him pleases me.

And this is my motivation: to bring such joy to God. Perhaps today He just used my son to remind me; "hey Rob, i saw you today and laughed. No reason. You just bring me joy . You are my son. I am a god who takes pleasure in my children too."

Now that goes to the core of who I am and what i am about. I hope to pay bills and please those who employ me. I want to be the best father and husband I can be. But only after I am a son. maybe that is what prayer is all about; to remember the adoption.

How to live

Romans 12 (the message)

Place Your Life Before God

^1-2 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

The best part of waking up....

Rolling out of bed. What i do when my feet hit the floor is often the most important decision i make. Bible reading and prayer set to the tone for my day every time. Wake up and read and listen and pray and it sets my mind and heart on the right course. Opens my ears to the most important voice in my life. Opens my heart to the only source of my life. Thhe only quiet time is first thing in the morning. How i dread when i dont take advantage of it.

Our life is so full right now that it is easy to limit my thoughts to the mortgage, the number of miles on the mini-van and birthday parties. In this season of life days can be swallowed up by my sons stuffy nose and midnight visits to our bedroom. Peyton is in karate and just her best results on a standardized test at school. Jenna called me yesterday and needed $20 for something going on in 6th grade band. Stephanie has started to work afternoons at a wonderful daycare in order to help our stuffy nosed Caleb attend a couple days a week.

It is easy to find my whole existence rotating around the gravity of my family life. And like anyone else i find that my calling in ministry also has a serious degree of "pull". I am ambitious and energetic and love to work, preach, lead and grow the organization I am so blessed to be a part of.

The scripture reminded me today "But make sure that you don't get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off, oblivious to God. The night is about over, dawn is about to break. Be up and awake to what God is doing! God is putting the finishing touches on the salvation work he began when we first believed. We can't afford to waste a minute, must not squander these precious daylight hours in frivolity and indulgence, in sleeping around and dissipation, in bickering and grabbing everything in sight. Get out of bed and get dressed! Don't loiter and linger, waiting until the very last minute. Dress yourselves in Christ, and be up and about!

Romans 13:11 (The Message)

Thankfully the Lord has reminded me of what matters the most today. My dear friend and neighbor across the cul-de-sac is fighting for his life as i write this. I have been able to spend a number of hours bed-side the last few days with my friend Tracy. We have prayed and cried and read scripture. I watched as his 8 year old son climbed into Tracy's sick bed as he struggled to wrap trembling weak arms around his boy. I cried hard. We all did. And I prayed out loud prayers of thanks and praise and healing.

I came home this morning after my visit with Tracy and rolled around on the floor with my son. I hugged him a little more and took the time to enjoy the smell of his baby-shampoo hair.

Now i am preparing to speak tonight to a room full of energetic teenagers. I want to be up and awake to what God is doing. I want my life to matter. This brief time I have on earth will matter as i am about my fathers business. By the grace of God I will be the husband and dad and pastor that he wants me to be. Becasue of Christ I am making a big differnce in the lives around me!

Father, help me to be up and about your business every single day and to work while it is day. Thank you for the opportunity to walk through these trials with our neighbors. May they all know you and see you through us. I trust the one in heaven with the issues of life and family and work. Let me be the diligent servant that you can trust to do your work on earth. Amen

A Rock higher than I.

Romans 9:32 How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were so absorbed in their “God projects” that they didn’t notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling.

33 Isaiah (again!) gives us the metaphor for pulling this together: Careful! I’ve put a huge stone on the road to Mount Zion,
a stone you can’t get around.
But the stone is me! If you’re looking for me,
you’ll find me on the way, not in the way.

The secret to a great curve ball is that you don't know it is a curve ball until it is too late. Life throws curves.

My neighbor and dear friend Tracy appears to be losing his battle with cancer. His wife and 8 year old son will be left behind to live through the most grief filled days they have ever faced. I have been through this enough to know that there are no pat answers. Life hurts. Sometimes it hurts deeply. Curves will come our way.

All of these stones that block our way from having a peaceful, fun and happy existence. Cancer is not fun. Sickness does not make us happy. As a matter of fact it appears to be a huge block in the road of life. These situations block us from having the kind of life we want. Sorrow and pain and troubles appear to be a real block in the road. No one escapes this life without asking WHY? In all of our lives there comes these times when we ask why.

In this passage I read this morning I was reminded that the very obstacle that the Jewish people could not get around was actually God in the flesh. They saw a stumbling block while God saw a cornerstone that all of life could be built on. The stone that was causing Jews to stumble was Gods most critical stone for building.

In my troubles and in my pain do I see something to stumble through or something to fall upon? When i look at my troubles and the issues I so easily come to hate, do i find God in the middle of them? Are the issues in my life that make me bitter, angry and full of self pity really absent of God?

Life's joys are full of God. Laughter, love and peace are from the Lord who gives us all tings to enjoy. Joy comes in a million different ways through a given day in my life. Coffee with a friend, a funny email that is shared, an encouraging text message, watching my son tease his sisters, seeing the brace-filled smile of my pre-teen daughter, sending my light weight 8 year old girl into orbit on the trampoline as she laughs with total abandonment, sharing a conversation with my wife before bed.

But what about lifes stones and lifes curves? Is God absent in the hard times?

He laughs with us and love us. He jumps and runs and drinks deeply the joys of life with us. But i have found He is even closer to me in times of trouble. I have been alone in a ditch in the middle of a nervous breakdown and He was very close. I have been bedside with those who are dying and He is there. I have wept with a friend after her fathers suicide, and He was there.

Is there any place where we can hide from your presence Lord, the psalmist asks. if i make my bed in hell you are there. You are there.

Father, help me when life is hard, as it often is, to see not a stone for stumbling but rather a rock that is higher than I. You are indeed here. I want you to know today that I dont need to know all the "why's" as long as I know that you are here.

action oriented

I am an activator. I once asked some of my best friends at the start of a bible study, "are we going to do this or not?!"

They had to laugh at my need for action even in the middle of a so called laid-back bible study time. I laughed too...but i never retracted what i said or what i meant. I am a person geared toward action. I make decisions and I move on them. I want information that leads to application so that we can get on with the business of becoming what we ought to become.

Today in church I heard some thigns i need to act on.

First i heard that one of the meanings of the word "father" is architect and builder. This stirred in me the following questions: Do i really believe God is the architect of my life? Am i allowing god to be the builder? What needs to change in my actions and words and prayers that would enable me to see God as the builder of my entire life?

The next item the Lord spoke to me was about keeping the SPARK alive in life. Again i come away with questions: What am i doing currently to make sure my relationship with god has a spark? What am i doing in my marriage to keep the spark alive? What am I doing to keep the family spark alive with my kids and in my home? What about the spark for my work?

I noticed that in all of these items my BODY is involved. I must take care of myself physically so that i am not a slave to my body. It is, afterall, in my body that all of these other things must happen. my body has to be subject to me and subject to the spirit of god in order for all of thes great spiritual steps to take place.

Change. I love it. thank you Lord for showing me some areas that need to change. Work through me to bring about all that you want to change in me. I am expecting a new spark!

Sabotaged

Yes. I'm full of myself—after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary.

^17-20But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

^21-23It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.

²⁴I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?

I'm so easily tripped up and how often do i respond to the pressures of life as if I have no God to rely on? I trip and i fall. I say things i wish i hadn't. I become impatient. My selfishness shines through all too often.

And at these times I am then reminded that Christ lives in me and wants to live through me. I repent for the millionth time and often have to apologize to those i love. I get back up.

Sometimes i think i should be further along with jesus and that i should be better than i am. I should be walking in the spirit more than i am and i should be more like jesus by now. Sometimes i am discouraged by the lack of apparent spiritual growth in my life. How easlily i forget the power that resides in me.

This is why reading the Bible every day and some time in the morning in prayer are so very needed in my life. I find that in reading i force my mind to think on God and remember all that i have already known. In praying i speak and am spoken to. I gain strength and my faith is recovered. I come away clean and ready to try again. Until i see Christ and am made to be like Him, i will always need time away to get my mind in touch with what my spirit already knows.

Christ in me, the hope of glory.

Best laid plans

How much of my life do i really plan on? Yesterday I had a good time of quiet and listening to the Lord and I again made a list of what makes one day great. These things are what i would love to do each day. I have found that when i do these things i am productive, happy and at peace:
*get alone with the Lord early
*run at least 3 miles in the morning
*study or learn
*work
*eat dinner with family
*roll on the carpet with kids
*drink decaf coffee with my wife in the evening

Of course life almost always interferes with that perfect little pattern. Last night Stephanie and I were up with Caleb most of the night as he tossed his cookies all over our bed and struggled with a really high fever. After a night of almost no sleep i have finally made it through the day. Not a perfect little day.

the question is: has Christ been able to live through me today inspite of all the pressure and problems? Do i still have a peace? Joy? Love?

Yes. Christ is indeed in me and lives through me. thank you jesus for being with me on the days when all my best laid plans fall apart.

LEADERS ARE READERS

I have been re-reading the books that have meant the most to me lately. I have also been cheating by just listening to the books on my audiobook feature of the i-phone. Everything about how i lead and think and react comes from some book at some point that i read some years ago. Sometimes i feel as though i am nothing more than a culmination of all the books i have ever read. Good to great by jim Collins and Prayer by Phillip Yancey are two that i am going through right now. I have also just started the book written by two teenagers called "do hard things: a rebellion against low expectations."

it is in reading that i am inspired to think. it is off of the thoughts of others that my own thoughts begin to bounce and grow into something i can actually implement. Implementation is all i am really interested in. I forever and only think about how these words and thoughts and ideas will be able to find root in my own family, ministry and life. if they are no good to live with then they are useless to read in my opinion. but let me find one good solution or one good idea that i can put into motion in my own life and BANG....i am compelled to read all the more. I write in the margins of every book just to maximize the "look-back-through- the- book" approach. I dont have to re-read it as much as i just need to read what touched me and spoke to me when i read it the first time. This is one of the primary ways i stay fresh and on edge about ministry and life....READ. Maxwell's rhyming is often annoying but this one he got right: LEADERS ARE READERS.