One thing that I have noticed as of late is how bad that people can be at listening to someone. I am guilty of this to, when someone is talking for a while it is easy to tune out and make affirming sounds like, "uh huh", so that they feel that they are being listened to even though I may have no idea what they are saying. Why is that? I am hearing them but not listening.
It is easy to use listen and hear interchangably, but they mean two completely different things. Hearing is knowing that you are being talked at. You can hear a noise, a voice, etc. But listening is trying understand what that voice or noise is saying.
One of our biggest difficulties as Christians is trying to decypher the hearing and the listening to God aspect. People will tell me, "you know, I don't think God is out there. I ask him to tell me something and I do not hear him. He must not exist." My follow up question is usually to ask him what he is listening for. They usually do not know... which is okay, because if you don't know what to listen for, you will not know when God is talking to you.
If you are one of those people who are reading this and agreeing that you cannot hear God, I may not have the best answers, but I can do my best to help. Here are a few ways that I know that God is speaking to me...
1. Among all the chaotic noise in my life, there is a soft sobering message that comes to me. I struggle with ADHD, which means that there is a constant flow of traffic going through my brain at any given moment... imagine having a bunch of televisions and radios playing all the time... thats my mind. But among all of that, I can usually make out God's voice since it is not demanding or oppressive.
2. Have you ever had an "ahha" moment? A lot of the time that is God talking to you. If something is very out of the ordinary but makes complete sense to you, then it may be God. I am not saying go do something sinful, but instead, here is an example. I accidently bought the wrong strings for my bass, and I was going to return them. Instead, I felt like God told me to give them to a specific person. It was weird, but it made sense. When I offered him my strings, I found out that the guy that I gave them to did not change his strings in 2 years since he did not have the money for them. So I totally blessed this guy because I obeyed what God said.
There are more examples, but I am about to leave for church. I just wanted to encourage you to spend time trying to listen to God, and not just be happy with hearing him and knowing that he is out there.
Something that I tell all the people that I teach is that the only way to get to know the shepherds voice is to spend time near the shepherd. This is how sheep know their master, and this is how we know our God. We start by hearing him, and knowing that he is there. As we spend time with him, we listen to him because we know his voice and trust his words. When we trust his words, that is when we can comprehend him and what he does and we have a deeper understanding of who he is. As Christian leaders, we must do this with both God and others. It takes work, but I believe that you can do it!
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
Rules without Relationship
This weekend I heard a message that was inspiring from multiple standpoints. The pastor spoke about the story of Joseph, and how he won favor with his father. He had won favor to the point that his siblings wanted him done away with. What I thought was really cool about the message was the fact that the father supported the dreams of Joseph, and that he empowered him in the process. The truth is that we often times do not have empowering fathers in our lives, and we often times do not have church "fathers" to empower us either.
In light of fathers day, I thought this was a very powerful message for fathers. Are you empowering your children? Are you letting them know that their dreams are important? Are you helping enable those dreams? As a Christian leader, I have to ask myself am I doing that for those that do not have a Christian parent to do that? I can say that I try to do that, but I am not always the best at it.
Having been in the church for a few years now, I can say that I have met more discouragement than encouragement from pastors and respected leaders. The issue was that I had no relationship with them. So to me, I just disregarded them and moved on, and at times I was tempted into rebellion. I felt, "how dare they tell me this when they do not even know who I am?" This is what leads to the next part of the post.
Rules without Relationship= Rebellion. This goes for any sort of circumstance. Whether it is a ruler, a boss, a parent, or a mentor, if the person does not have an interest in those they are over, rebellion is bound to ensue. This is why strict parents lose the respect of their children at times. The kids see the rule book but they do not see the love or investment in their lives. They learn to fear the parents wrath or avoid their judgment, but they never love them because their is no connection.
One of the best bosses that I had in the Navy was a women who was very cantankerous. However, at the end of the day, we looked out for one another so I did not mind the fact that she was a bit angry at times. We usually laughed it off shortly after. But when I knew that I was going to get yelled at no matter what and that they really did not care about me as a person, I was either going to shut down or rebel. I usually did both.
I am never quite sure if Joseph's brothers were supported by their father, but it seemed that the creativity that they had went towards getting rid of Joseph. I think that the important thing to remember though is that Joseph dared to dream and dared to share things with his father. This is because he had a relationship with him and felt comfortable with sharing those dreams with him. This is the same way with God, our fathers, and our church fathers. If we never get close enough to them to share with them what we feel or what we hope to do, we will always fear their judgment or rebel against them.
So today, I hope that you feel as inspired as I did to want to empower those that are in our care. I also hope that if you do not have a father that you can be relational with, that you can be bold enough to step out and dream without fear of rejection and failure. Always remember, the rules that God has are their to keep you safe, not to be abusive. He gave you those dreams for a reason, but have you learned to believe in yourself? I hope you would, he gave you those dreams because he believes in you!
In light of fathers day, I thought this was a very powerful message for fathers. Are you empowering your children? Are you letting them know that their dreams are important? Are you helping enable those dreams? As a Christian leader, I have to ask myself am I doing that for those that do not have a Christian parent to do that? I can say that I try to do that, but I am not always the best at it.
Having been in the church for a few years now, I can say that I have met more discouragement than encouragement from pastors and respected leaders. The issue was that I had no relationship with them. So to me, I just disregarded them and moved on, and at times I was tempted into rebellion. I felt, "how dare they tell me this when they do not even know who I am?" This is what leads to the next part of the post.
Rules without Relationship= Rebellion. This goes for any sort of circumstance. Whether it is a ruler, a boss, a parent, or a mentor, if the person does not have an interest in those they are over, rebellion is bound to ensue. This is why strict parents lose the respect of their children at times. The kids see the rule book but they do not see the love or investment in their lives. They learn to fear the parents wrath or avoid their judgment, but they never love them because their is no connection.
One of the best bosses that I had in the Navy was a women who was very cantankerous. However, at the end of the day, we looked out for one another so I did not mind the fact that she was a bit angry at times. We usually laughed it off shortly after. But when I knew that I was going to get yelled at no matter what and that they really did not care about me as a person, I was either going to shut down or rebel. I usually did both.
I am never quite sure if Joseph's brothers were supported by their father, but it seemed that the creativity that they had went towards getting rid of Joseph. I think that the important thing to remember though is that Joseph dared to dream and dared to share things with his father. This is because he had a relationship with him and felt comfortable with sharing those dreams with him. This is the same way with God, our fathers, and our church fathers. If we never get close enough to them to share with them what we feel or what we hope to do, we will always fear their judgment or rebel against them.
So today, I hope that you feel as inspired as I did to want to empower those that are in our care. I also hope that if you do not have a father that you can be relational with, that you can be bold enough to step out and dream without fear of rejection and failure. Always remember, the rules that God has are their to keep you safe, not to be abusive. He gave you those dreams for a reason, but have you learned to believe in yourself? I hope you would, he gave you those dreams because he believes in you!
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Act of Giving or Life of Giving?
I had this interesting run in when I was at wal-mart last week. I met a guy in a motorized wheelchair that apparently wanted money. He gave me a lot of information, including getting my military supervisor to write me a letter of commendation. So I gave him the dollar that I had in my wallet. He then asked me if I had an ATM card so that he could get money, to which I promptly said that I did not have any more money to give. With that, he took off quickly. Should I have given him the dollar? I am not sure, but at least I can say that I gave him something if he really needed it. If not, its between him and God. Was I being stingy? Thats all I had in my pocket. I was not about to give a lot of money to someone that I was not sure about.
This made me think a lot about how we view giving. I do not want to get into a discussion about tithing and the Biblical view on that, because I find that the discussion comes up the most when the church is in a financial pinch. I think it is important to tithe because the church needs to be taken care of. If the roof leaks, who is going to pay for it? But are we as Christians willing to give outside of our tithes? At times I think that sometimes I look at giving as an event rather than a life style.
This is a very touchy subject that I am moving into, and I do not want to sound preachy and I do not want to condemn people. I am writing about it because it is something that I think about and have been working through, and I think it is worth discussing. This incident made me wonder about giving to someone on the side of the road, because some of those people may not use their money for food. It also makes me think about boundaries that we have on giving and at what point does someone have to be responsible for their own actions. Also, should money be the only thing we give?
On the money subject, I think about not only how do we share with people, but what about things such as tipping waitresses? Most of them only make 2 something and hour before tips are considered. It made me really think about ways I could bless them. Instead of leaving a tract without tip, I would rather give a decent amount and know that I did my best to help them through the day. They have hard days often, and they often times view Christians as cheap and needy... so I try my best to dispel that stereotype.
Speaking of words, what about the words that we use? Giving someone a compliment goes over a heck of a lot better than an insult or a sarcastic joke. We constantly give words to people, are the words that we are giving giving life, or are they giving death? This is why I have tried to take sarcasm out of my language, because usually it does not give life to people.
What about the way in which we give our time? I have found that churches often times look at ministry as events, rather than a life style. It is time to go to that ministry, or do this good thing. What about just living life, and when you are able to meet someone's need, that you do your best to meet that need?
So one thing that I would like to encourage you to do this week is to find a way that you can give to someone without asking anything in return. But always remember, that when someone expects you to give to them, you really have to be careful because giving is not something that should be taken for granted. And when you give, do not say, "Okay, I will go to this ministry today." but instead, ask God to show you who really needs to be blessed today... whether it is with your time, money, words, or talents.
This made me think a lot about how we view giving. I do not want to get into a discussion about tithing and the Biblical view on that, because I find that the discussion comes up the most when the church is in a financial pinch. I think it is important to tithe because the church needs to be taken care of. If the roof leaks, who is going to pay for it? But are we as Christians willing to give outside of our tithes? At times I think that sometimes I look at giving as an event rather than a life style.
This is a very touchy subject that I am moving into, and I do not want to sound preachy and I do not want to condemn people. I am writing about it because it is something that I think about and have been working through, and I think it is worth discussing. This incident made me wonder about giving to someone on the side of the road, because some of those people may not use their money for food. It also makes me think about boundaries that we have on giving and at what point does someone have to be responsible for their own actions. Also, should money be the only thing we give?
On the money subject, I think about not only how do we share with people, but what about things such as tipping waitresses? Most of them only make 2 something and hour before tips are considered. It made me really think about ways I could bless them. Instead of leaving a tract without tip, I would rather give a decent amount and know that I did my best to help them through the day. They have hard days often, and they often times view Christians as cheap and needy... so I try my best to dispel that stereotype.
Speaking of words, what about the words that we use? Giving someone a compliment goes over a heck of a lot better than an insult or a sarcastic joke. We constantly give words to people, are the words that we are giving giving life, or are they giving death? This is why I have tried to take sarcasm out of my language, because usually it does not give life to people.
What about the way in which we give our time? I have found that churches often times look at ministry as events, rather than a life style. It is time to go to that ministry, or do this good thing. What about just living life, and when you are able to meet someone's need, that you do your best to meet that need?
So one thing that I would like to encourage you to do this week is to find a way that you can give to someone without asking anything in return. But always remember, that when someone expects you to give to them, you really have to be careful because giving is not something that should be taken for granted. And when you give, do not say, "Okay, I will go to this ministry today." but instead, ask God to show you who really needs to be blessed today... whether it is with your time, money, words, or talents.
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