Tag: father

Praying with sunglasses on…

Man Praying image from Google image search

I realized this weekend how distracted I get.  Call it ADD, ADHD, stressed, etc. When I try to focus on one thing, my mind starts racing.  I try to take the time every morning as I’m getting ready for work before the munchkin wakes up, to spend time with God.  During this time I find my mind going to everything that I had to do yesterday and didn’t get to, everything that I need to take care of today, that song I was listening to yesterday, or the theme from Jem, (another story for another time).  Even focusing to write this post has taken me a few days, every time I would start to write something would come up that needed to be done.

Lost in the crowd from Google images Search

In a world where 25 hours a day still aren’t enough, we have to find time to spend in quite devotion with God.  Even if it’s just a few moments sitting in the car on your lunch break, a quick walk around the parking lot, or even getting up 15 minutes early to find a quite spot to collect your thoughts and be alone with God.  It is in these few minutes that we must make an effort to put the busyness of the world away for just a few minutes, and listen to God.

Sometimes just a few moments is all that God needs to water that seed that has been planted in your heart or mind.  Even though it may not seem that God is there, it is in these small times that he will manifest himself in a great way.

At this point your probably wondering if the title will ever tie in to the message here, and it does.  I’m sure many of us have seen, Big Daddy with Adam Sandler.  The little boy is the movie is scared at times, so Adam Sandler’s character gives him a pair of sunglasses and tells him when he is scared to put them on and he becomes invisible.  So yes I know it’s a stretch, but if it comes down to it and the only way that you can get a few minutes alone with God is to become invisible to everyone else, put on those sunglasses and spend time with God.Big Daddy Screen Shot from google image search

by corymcglone

History doesn’t make the man, The man makes history…

2 Corinthians 5:16-19— 16 Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. 17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. 18 Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

So many times in today’s world we hear about people’s past and that’s why they do the things that they do today.  We get sometimes are trapped in the stigma that what our parents were, that’s what we will be.  Or that one mistake in our past labels us for our entire future.  We get so caught up in the past, and what we came from, that we let it become us.  If someone comes from an abusive home, they will become an abuser, or always look for abusive relationships.  If someone comes from a poverty-stricken family, they will never get out of that situation.  But it is then that we have to overcome, we have to strive to do better, we have to reach for a better life


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I was lucky growing up, unlike so many people of my generation, my parents are still together after all these years.  I had great parents that always taught me the value of hard work, and the importance of family.  So no I didn’t come from a broken home, I didn’t have an abusive father, I didn’t have to deal with a lot of things that many deal with today.  So no I can’t talk first hand to these situations, maybe my outlook would be different on this subject, but I know that there are people who overcome the demons of their past.

No matter what is in your past, it is not your past that makes you.  Take the things from your past and let them shape you.  The things of your past should help you make decisions, they should help you teach others and try to lead them in a better way.  Take your old mistakes and learn from them, take the dark things of your past and find ways to not go down those roads again, learn from others mistakes, and try not to repeat them.

Take the past, put it behind you, learn from it, don’t dwell in it, use it to teach others, and go forward making your own history not shaped by your past.

by corymcglone

What’s your hope?

So last week I started with passion, and this week I want to move on to hope and faith. No not the sitcom, but true hope and faith.
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hope |hōp|noun1 a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen: he looked through her belongings in the hope of coming across some information | I had high hopes of making the Olympic team.• a person or thing that may help or save someone: their only hope is surgery.• grounds for believing that something good may happen: he does see some hope for the future.2 archaic a feeling of trust.verb [ no obj. ]want something to happen or be the case: he’s hoping for an offer of compensation | [ with clause ] : I hope that the kids are OK.• [ with infinitive ] intend if possible to do something: we’re hoping to address all these issues.

faith |fāTH|noun1 complete trust or confidence in someone or something:this restores one’s faith in politicians.2 strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.• a system of religious belief: the Christian faith.• a strongly held belief or theory: the faith that life will expand until it fills the universe.

faith – noun 1 he justified his boss’s faith in him: trust, belief, confidence,conviction; optimism, hopefulness, hope. 2 she gave her life for her faith: religion, church, sect,denomination, (religious) persuasion, (religious) belief,ideology, creed, teaching, doctrine.

hope – noun 1 I had high hopes: aspiration, desire, wish, expectation,ambition, aim, goal, plan, design; dream, daydream, pipe dream.2 a life filled with hope: hopefulness, optimism, expectation,expectancy; confidence, faith, trust, belief, conviction,assurance; promise, possibility. 3 have we any hope of winning? chance, prospect, likelihood,probability, possibility; informal shot. verb 1 he’s hoping for a medal: expect, anticipate, look for, be hopeful of, pin one’s hopes on, want; wish for, long for,dream of. 2 we’re hoping to address the issue: aim, intend, be looking, have the intention, have in mind, plan, aspire.

To me, hope and faith, are the same but different. Faith to me is the belief of things unseen, and hope is what we want to happen. I have faith that the studs in the walls will hold up my house, I have faith that my heart will continue to beat, I have faith that God will provide for me and my family. I hope that my car starts every morning, I hope that my computer works properly everyday, I hope that I save my blog posts… It is also my hope that my daughter will grow up to be a great woman of God, and find a nice christian husband. I hope that I am the father figure that God has called me to be, I am the husband that God has called me to be.

If faith is a belief in the unseen, why do so many people say the the will only believe in things they can see. Do we not have any faith anymore. To me the best description of faith I have ever heard is; “I’ve never seen the wind, but I have seen the effects of the wind… but I still know that there is wind.” So while we can’t see God, we can see his creation all around us. We can see and feel the effects of his presence around us. Just when we don’t know where else to turn, we see a way out. God knows the answers the entire time, we have to look to him to get those answers.

Think about some of the team building exercises that are out there; the trust fall, walking blindfolded while someone else guides you. With all of these exercises you have to hope that people will catch you, and that they will guide you properly. Look at all of the plays that are used during a football game; the quarterback has to hope that his line will keep him protected, and that a receiver is going to get open, and be running the route that he is expected to run so that the quarterback knows exactly where to look.

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It comes down to the fact that we need to have a child-like faith. We just need to trust God that all will be taken care of. As kids, we didn’t care about the things that our parents did, house and car payments, bills, etc. We just wanted to know that mom and/or dad would be there to: pick us up when we fell down, make dinner, and that things were the way they were because that’s how God made it. As we get older, we start applying logic to our thinking, we start questioning faith with logic. It is here that we have to go back to the child-like faith, and realize that the things of God, don’t always make sense in the now. Many times we can look back on situations that happened in the past and see where God was in it, but it is hard to see when it is happening.

The biggest question that I want to pose to you now is, where are you putting your hope? Do you put your hope and faith into people, material things, sports? Do you put your hope and faith in God and Family? Take this time leading up to Easter, and reflect on where you place your hope, and what your passions are.

by corymcglone