constant in change

What can we take on trust
in this uncertain life? Happiness, greatness,
pride - nothing is secure, nothing keeps.
~Euripides, Hecuba

change is currently what im in right now. my wife will be giving birth to our son in april and we're moving to a new place tomorrow. change is what the world is dealing with as we watch markets tumble and nations and peoples go to war. As Robert C. Gallagher says"Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine." change produces alot of unknowns. it can leave us worried and confused or feeling out of control.
still, the only constant is change most people will say and that does ring true in this life. but the counterpoint is there: even ships in constantly changing seas have an anchor to help them in the roughest waters. change often makes us feel like a ship floundering in massive swells and we find ourselves searching for an anchor. is it there?
"...God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change And though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea; Though its waters roar and foam, Though the mountains quake at its swelling pride...". (Psalm 46:1-3 nasb) I'm wondering if this the anchor we've been looking for. If God is our help and strength when the earth is changing and mountains are collapsing and waters roar then it would stand to reason that God is there when my wife gives birth or when we're going through all thats required to change locations. what change are you dealing with? is the earth changing around you like it is around me? God is our refuge in all of this. Our anchor in our changing seas.
"So that when it was God's desire to make it specially clear to those who by his word were to have the heritage, that his purpose was fixed, he made it more certain with an oath; So that we, who have gone in flight from danger to the hope which has been put before us, may have a strong comfort in two unchanging things, in which it is not possible for God to be false; And this hope is like a strong band for our souls, fixed and certain..." (Hebrews 6:17-19 bbe) God has a fixed promise and purpose for us. Even when everything else changes- His purpose is fixed and sure. Still wondering if He is your anchor?
"Every good and true thing is given to us from heaven, coming from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change or any shade made by turning." (James 1:17 bbe) Our Father doesn't change. In the midst of your change, hold onto the One "with whom can be no variation" (James 1:17b asv). The One who does not change. I'm reminding myself to do just that, cus my seas are rolling along at a nice clip and i know i need an anchor.

deeds that move the wheels of the world

"The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere."
The Lord of the Rings Book 1 The Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien
-Elrond, Chapter 'The Council of Elrond'.

do you feel like whatever it is you are trying to accomplish is work done in vain? or that the little battles you have to deal with everyday are starting to feel like they are not worth going through anymore? i've been feeling that way lately myself.
the quote above mentions "the deeds that move the wheels of the world" and that "small hands do them because they must". i wonder if the small hands even know that they are moving the wheels of the world...
the things we do everyday, in the shadow of the history of the world, seem very insignificant. we go through our day just trying to keep ourselves alive and together and cling to some measure of hope that whatever we do will take us somewhere, somehow. where is somewhere? how do we get there? and why even try? the moment we cannot answer these questions; this is where we begin to feel worthless and hopeless. so where does our misaligned hope find it's ground?
"That you were at that time without Christ... having no hope of the promise, and without God in this world. But now in Christ Jesus, you, who some time were afar off, are made nigh (near) by the blood of Christ. " Ephesians 2:13 (d-rb) our hope finds its foundation in Jesus. "I know the plans that I have for you, declares the LORD. They are plans for peace and not disaster, plans to give you a future filled with hope." Jeremiah 29:11 (gwt) a future filled with hope... now thats something we all desire- to know we have a future and that future is filled with hope. armed with this hope, how do we then live?
"For ours is not a conflict with mere flesh and blood, but with the despotisms, the empires, the forces that control and govern this dark world--the spiritual hosts of evil arrayed against us in the heavenly warfare. Therefore put on the complete armour of God, so that you may be able to stand your ground on the day of battle, and, having fought to the end, to remain victors on the field." Ephesians 6:12-13 (wmt) feeling insignificant? look at who our battle is with: "the forces that control and govern this dark world"; and look at our mission: "to remain victors on the field". this is a massive responsibility.
what are the "deeds that move the wheels of the world" then? each little Christ putting on the full armour of God and fighting to the end. we each have our little battles, but in the big picture only God can see, each little victory in each little battle will decide the outcome of our conflict with the spiritual hosts of evil arrayed against us. Like the quote i began with: "This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must." we may feel insignificant, but we must realize that our small hands serve a much bigger purpose.

dreaming

i put this up on my twitter feed and i thought i should cut and paste it here.

-the question i have for myself today is: "whats my dream? am i following it? is it unrealistic? does it follow where my talent leads? does it align with God's word?"-

my hypocrisy

today is an historic moment. the united states is swearing in her new president. regardless of how you feel or what you believe, this is a moment to be proud of. congratulations president-elect Barack Obama on your well designed, well fought and gracefully won campaign. i pray that you will lead this country forward and that you will lean on God, not man, when you find yourself in great indecision.
with that said, this is a great oppourtunity to discuss hypocrisy: my hypocrisy.
during the campaign for president, both sides threw around words like stones at windows using names such as hypocrite to label their opponent and mar their reputation. and they are not alone. we throw our own stones, trying to judge others in an attempt to make ourselves look better. but Jesus quietly walks in as we madly rush about to pick up our stones and spin them wildly towards those we wish to judge and says: "...He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone..." (john 8:7) (kjv). time to put on the brakes.
hypocrisy defined: " a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not ; especially : the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion". do we feign to we believe something we do not?
we act outwardly offended when in a public situation someone says (insert swear word) in our general vicinity but when we are alone in our cars getting cut off by some crazy guy in a pickup truck; we'll use the same swear word ourselves very liberally, possibly even sprinkling in a "dear Lord bless that man" to remain "holy". (editor's note: this situation was pulled directly from the author's life experiences)
but i digress. or do i. either way you could call me hypocritical. i'll take the chance and continue.
romans 2:1 "No matter who you are, if you judge anyone, you have no excuse. When you judge another person, you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, do the same things." (gwt). there's the zinger right there. right in the kisser. a straight upper cut to the jaw. a... anyway, if the do not throw stones part didn't stop us, this should. am i abdicating a lawless society or that we should fire court judges? no. i'm talking about our condition as little Christs. or more specifically, my condition.
i tend to judge, to throw stones, to label others as hypocrites when i am just as much a hypocrite myself. i am guilty of this and more and i hope that you and i can recognize where we need the reconditioning before we try to recondition others.
as we welcome a new president, it's not time to point out all his faults or make rush judgements about his character. it is, however, time to do to others what we would want them to do to us.

making cents

unless you reside under a stone, you might notice that the current economy is running on weak knees. when money is tight, there is a change in attitude among most people towards a more gloomy outlook or at least a darkening view of the world in general.
it came to me that, while not everyone has money; everyone has an attitude. what we bank into our attitude changes our attitude. in an unstable economy that is out of our control, we still have the ability to stabilize our attitude and bring it under control.
how we do this? first, let's imagine every encouraging word you use is worth one cent and every demeaning word subtracts one cent. while money is a limited item, there is no limit to the words you can use, so it's time to invest what you have.
you tell someone that you appreciate them. you have now deposited one cent into their "attitude account". you say hello to a co-worker instead of ignoring them. one cent into their "attitude account". now someone tells you they really liked the effort you put into something you did. one cent into your account. if this was to continue, we would all end up being "attitude millionaires". how does this help? it could change the very nature of our world.
we've seen how speculation, lies, rumours, thievery, terrorism and the like have been able to impact our economy to a devastating affect. isn't it time to see what truth, honesty, encouragement and the like can do to impact our economy?
why did people flock to Jesus wherever He went in His 3 years of ministry on the earth? He was the Love and the Hope to their normal, desperate lives. isn't it time we were the same?
its time to start making cents. it's time to start investing the unlimited words we have into other people in an effort to change the attitude of our times and impact our world.
if you have nothing, even something is worth everything. give someone who has nothing something today. keep it up. see what happens.

redemption

the tv show 24 on fox featuring one of the greatest characters created for tv, jack bauer (portrayed by keifer sutherland), is back on for a new season and i'm watching every minute i can of it cus when chuck norris wants to go to sleep feeling safe, his momma reads him jack bauer stories. but that is beside the point.
yesterday, i ran across a quote from one of the shows seasons in which jack bauer states "...part of getting a second chance is taking responsibility for what you did wrong in the first place." and then i had a thought.
that's why Jesus came to save us. so we wouldn't have to bear all the weight of the responsibility for what we did wrong in the first place. "It is God who has delivered us out of the dominion of darkness, and has transferred us into the Kingdom of His dearly-loved Son, in whom we have our redemption--the forgiveness of our sins." Colossians 1:13-14 (wnt)
Jesus is our redemption, our second chance. in life, when we get a second chance i.e. traffic cop giving one a warning instead of a ticket or a judge sentencing one to community service instead of 1-5 years in the cell; our second chance requires is to be responsible for what we did wrong in the first place.
when the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was discovered, sin was welcomed into all of our lives. "For the wages paid by Sin are death; but God's free gift is the Life of the Ages bestowed upon us in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6:23 (wnt) sin results in death. God loved the world so much that He choose to redeem us, to give us a second chance at life. He knew that if we were to take this second chance AND have to bear the weight and guilt of what we did wrong in the first place, we could not do it. thats why God gave His One and Only Son, so all that responsibility and guilt and shame would not fall on us, but on the shoulders of a dying, bleeding Christ who died and rose again to give us the greatest second chance of all- eternal life.

you feeling lucky, punk?

wow. what a title to start the new year off with. no, this post has nothing to do with dirty harry or clint eastwood but as you'll discover, the title is relevant...
if you have ever used www.google.com to conduct a web search (i assume most have!) you'll notice the 2 choices just below the word search bar. the one on the left says "google search" and the one on the right says "i'm feeling lucky". are you? would you gamble your life on an "im feeling lucky" result? where am i going with this? here we go...
it crossed my mind today that we sometimes treat our search for answers to life like we're asking google and not God. God doesn't have a "i'm feeling lucky" search wherein you are given a random search result out of a myriad of possibilities available. He clearly states "'For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.' jeremiah 29:11 (nasb)" God does not rely on luck at all for the answers to our lives. but we have the tendency to do so ourselves.
if God knows the plans He has for us, why do we find ourselves at wit's end reading through every book but the bible, watching self help tv shows, asking everyone's opinion but God's, crying ourselves to sleep because we have too many answers or none at all, yelling at kids, friends, strangers because we're fed up and frustrated; and then hitting the "i'm feeling lucky" button and end up following either the advice of a book, neighbour or our discontent? (editor's note: possibly the longest sentence on CRW) because relying on God's plan requires relying on God.
its so simple to go the route of lucky and be able to blame someone or something else when the answer falls apart and we're left with our finger over the "i'm feeling lucky" button for the umpteenth time. but when it comes to relying on God, it requires our faith to go to work and our resolve to go through what we have to go through to see the answer God has already determined for us.
this year, the next time we are desperate for an answer to a problem in life, we should ask ourselves: "you feeling lucky, punk?" because once the answer becomes "no", we'll be well on our way to trusting in God who knows the plans He has for us and not towards gambling our lives away on random answers from random sources with random results.