Tag: faith

Senseless….

I know that this may not make a lot of sense, and this post is so scattered.  But I just need to vent this….

This is the season that for many of us, is a joyous fun time.  We get together with family, we take small trips, we remember all that we have to be thankful for, we remember all of our blessings.  But as I sit here writing this, the father of a Kindergartner, and the Husband of a teacher, my heart is breaking for the families that have lost their children today.

This year in multiple senseless acts, too many people have lost fathers, mothers, children, friends.  I cannot even begin to imagine, the grief that these families are feeling as we come into the holidays.  Over the next few days, many people are going to try and link these acts to how the person was raised, or gun control, or the music they listened to, or a myriad, of other psychological things.  No matter what it gets linked to, the only thing that remains that there are now empty holes in too many homes.

Tonight across America, I know that there are parents holding their kids tighter, hugging them longer, grieving for those other families.  Also across America, many people are heading to churches to pray for those families, and to seek God in these times.  It is my hope and prayer, that for many of us we take this sobering experience, and realign our priorities.  Don’t let this be the one time this week, that you snuggled up with your kids and read a story, or had a “sleep-over.”  Don’t let this be the one time that you put away the cell phone, stepped away from email.  We need to examine what matters in our lives.

Life is way to short, spend what time you have with the ones you love.  And as we go into the Christmas holiday, remember what Christmas is really about.  It’s about God’s gift to us, His love for us, His Son.  Spread Love, spread Joy, spread Hope.  Remember, that no matter what we may feel or what the world may tell us, God is with us, even when it seems he isn’t, he is there.

God, I don’t understand why these things happen.  I just know, that these families need you right now.  Please send you Holy Spirit around them.  Be their comfort, Be their hope, bring them piece.  Help them as they go through these trying times, You are the Rock, and the Shelter.  You are our stronghold, Father, I praise your name through everything.  Amen.

by corymcglone

Don’t worry, it will pass…

It’s a part of life, we all have things that we worry about.  But there are only so many things that we can actually do something about.

Stress and Nail biting

This post has been running around in my head for a few weeks now, but wasn’t ready till last week, and I’m just now finding the time to get this all out.  But we just finished up a series at Church called Courageous.  We touched on the stories of David, Gideon, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, Benaiah, and Jonathan.  Bible heros who didn’t go with what everyone else was doing and what was easy.  They went against the grain of what everyone else was doing at the time.

The main point of all of these stories was that these people did not do what was expected of them.  These are my favorite type of bible story, God using the unexpected to do amazing things.  David and GoliathWe all know the stories of David, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, God using young men to defeat a Giant that had everyone in the nation scared, and to change the mind and direction of a king.  You see these people weren’t worried, because they knew what God was capable of, and what God had done in the past.  It’s not a matter of knowing what God might do, it’s having faith in what you know he can do, and having the mentality to keep on going even if what God does is not in your favor.

One of our pastor’s main points in this series was to look back at your history book with God.  Look back at a time in your life and look at what God did then, and now that your in the same situation, why wouldn’t God do the same for you now.  So many times we get caught up in the situation that we don’t look back, or the situation is disguised as something completely different.

Fighting the giant

It’s these times in our lives that we have to just remember that God is always there and the He will always provide.  There have been a few times in the past few years that I have just felt an absolute peace in my life and my families life.  In all honesty, they were times when conventional wisdom would say, you should be concered, but I knew that God had worked this out this way for some reason.  A few years ago this happened right after I had been laid off from job, and another is right now, when my wife quit her job to do her student teaching.  Both of these times we were down to one income, now we have a child and we are on one income, but at no point have we had issues.  We knew that God has is hand in both of these situations, and even though we couldn’t see it at first, the end results were amazing.

Pray for it

So my advice, to anyone reading this, if you can change the situation to make it better, go for it.  If there is nothing you can do, pray for it.

by corymcglone

The world does not revolve around…

When the path you walk always leads back to yourself, you never get anywhere – Oogway.

Anyone that has read any of my posts knows I find inspiration in the most random places. The quote above is a prime example. This weekend the munchkin, saw Kung Fu Panda as we were flipping through Netflix. It was in the short Secretes of the Masters, that I heard the above quote and thought that it was a great thought.

Then at church, our pastor was recapping the past few weeks in the series we were on, and mentioned the service 2 weeks ago that was about attitude adjustments and rejoicing. Since we weren’t there that week, I went and pulled the podcast and started listening to it. The main point was that you cannot be self-centered and still be truly joyful in your serving. While you maybe serving God, but if you are doing it for the wrong reasons you are not going to get the results that you are looking for.

Philippians 2:3-4   3 Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. 4 Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.

We go through life, looking for what we deserve. We, I’m lumping all Americans into this, have a feeling of entitlement. I did the work, I should get the credit and the glory. I’m not saying that we should all just say nothing matters and if you want to steal my work and call it yours that fine. What I’m saying is that we are so lucky as Christians, the God does not give us what we deserve, death, he gives us something better, that we cannot even begin to fathom, eternal life.

I am a firm believer in the idea of you get what you put in, if you work hard, and do something that you would be proud to call your own, you will be proud of it. By the same token, if you just don’t give a (insert your own word here), it will show in your actions, and in your life. While you may not get the same benefit or payment as some else, if you did your best and left nothing behind, you can walk away proudly.

It is when we give all that we have, like the small boy who had 5 small loaves of bread and 2 fish, and step back, letting God grab what we have to give, and make something amazing out of it that He gets the glory. One of my favorite songs right now, is Background by Lecrea, and it talks about not needing to be in the spot light and letting God be in the forefront. If you let God have the starring role in your life, the overflow that falls onto you, will be more than enough.

by corymcglone