New Beginnings

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,

he is a new creation;

the old has gone,

the new has come!”

(2 Corinthians 5:17) 

            Today is the first day of the rest of your life; believe in it. We have a great chance every day to start over. Yesterday is past, tomorrow the future and today is a gift from God. It is up to us how we are going to use it; carry around our old baggage or go out and harvest new joys. It is our choice.

            To use a golf analogy, life is like match play, hole by hole versus day by day. A bad golf hole in match play does not cost you the match, it counts as one of eighteen! In life, a bad day is painful and certainly not wanted and may contribute to a bad week. However, it can be a bottom and life can be all uphill from there, or not. We can turn bad into good.

            One of the benefits I get out of writing these is the phone calls and emails from readers. A year ago my mobile rang and it was a non recorded number. I was way too busy to answer a call from someone I did not know and was going to let it ring through. The old softie in me answered after four rings and it was from an old friend and Good News buddy. She was having a really bad day and gone to the Spirit of HopeUMC web site looking for relief. She found my messages and the first one she opened applied to her issue. She made my day by calling to say thanks for being there.

            If you are reading this today you are on the right track and giving yourself the opportunity for a better day. Meditation and prayer will jump start your day and open the window to the light of our faith.

Thought for Today: Today let us start a new beginning and reach out and help another do the same. 

Prayer for Today: Heavenly Father we give you thanks for our many blessings and especially for a new day. Today we pray that we capture the joys of life that you lead us to and that we may help someone else also find them.

Amen

The Navigator

"The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail."
(Isaiah 58:11) 

            Often when we wake up in the morning we do not have a plan. Sometimes we are energized and happy other times we are stressed and depressed. Many times we need to adjust our thoughts to the spiritual side of the balance scale. We need to open the windows to our mind and allow God's fresh breeze to liberate us when we are down. This morning I am waiting for the breeze.

        When waiting for the breeze, there seems to be a need. In my case that need is often met with strong coffee, sugar and perhaps some Ibuprofen. That is not the best solution. It has a physical and temporary lift, but the need is better met spiritually.

        This morning the need was met through prayer. The breeze that arrived came through Isaiah 58:11. Sometimes we forget what we need. We forget that God is with us; we leave Him in the back seat rather than use Him as navigator for the day.
As navigator He will take us to places that we would not have gone on our own.

Thought for Today: Today there will be stress, problematic decisions and times of anguish. We need to focus and remember that "God is with us" and we need to let Him lead. We need to pray over the tough decisions and focus on following His will.

Prayer for Today: Heavenly Father, we pray for your guidance. We need to understand our immediate world and area of control and also understand the happenings around the global World. Neither seems very well organized today. We pray that we can find a way to contribute through You to help your will prevail in tough situations.
Amen

Following the Way

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy,
to offer your bodies as living sacrifices,
holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is...
Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought,
but rather think of yourself with sober judgment,
in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you."

(Romans 12; 1-4)

    Society does not fit the biblical model that we are taught and often desire. Truth, honesty, integrity, love and many other virtues seem rare at times. Often in our human desire to "fit", we join in and need correction. It is normal to err and join in. It is also forgivable.

    In a discussion last week in a business environment, we were discussing several long term successful business men. We were comparing the successful men with some that were sinking fast or already out of business. It seems that the ones that have long term success may have read Paul’s message to the Romans. Fairness was their trademark and perpetual growth seemed to be a trait. They were not always right, but always seemed to be growing and striving for excellence.

    They earned the respect and trust of those around them. They were not "sharks" but win-win business men. Somehow, they incorporated their Christian beliefs into the tough world of doing business. That is truly doing God's will.

Thought for Today: Today we will all have a chance to stand up and be counted. We will have opportunities to demonstrate our faith in circumstances where we would not normally do so. Let us demonstrate that we are considerate and Godly in our daily activities.

Prayer for Today: Dear Lord, the world we live in is distracting and volatile. We all have too much to do, too many commitments and too many fears. Throughout all of this we pray for peace. Peace in our own lives, peace around the world and an end to hate and prejudice. We pray that we end anger and hate in ourselves and can demonstrate the value of peace to others through our example.
Amen

Fool Hardy Behavior

Hi all. It has been a while since I posted here because of my annual involvement with Get In Gear, a Minnesota group of races that occur the last Saturday in April. I chose spiritual health rather than physical health today. Thank you for being a reader.

“Before his downfall a man’s heart is proud,

but humility comes before honor.”

(Proverbs 18:12)

            My mom used to use some interesting terms and expressions when describing humanity. One of her favorites was “fool hardy” when someone did something out of line. Another was that “It is better to be silent and be thought a fool that to speak out and remove all doubt.” Somehow, when we are proud in the context of today’s text, we are not paying attention. When we kid ourselves with false pride, it helps us grow to have an appreciation for the realities of life.

            We are often overconfident. It seems that the younger we are the more likely we are to suffer from “cockiness”. Somehow that is God’s way of teaching us. We constantly have to monitor our pride and confidence. The elders of society have knowledge and experience but are not always correct. Technology and society are changing faster than fifty years ago. Therefore many of the rules of life have changed.

In our spiritual lives, the rules have not and will not change. We need to take inventory on our pride and be real. The ethics, love and traditions taught to us by Christ will endure regardless of technology changes and cash flows. We need to hold up our values to serve the Lord in an ever changing world.

Thought for Today: Every day is the first day of the rest of our lives. The mistakes and experiences of our past are nothing more than learning experiences and enable us to move forward with confidence. Today let us focus on being humble and dealing with the realities of our individual worlds. 

Prayer for Today: Heavenly Father, today we give thanks for the lessons we have learned and the great loves that we have. Through all that Jesus taught us and what we learned from the past, thank you for putting it before us.

Amen

Patriots Day! (Boston Marathon)

 April 19^th is Patriot’s Day, a Massachusetts holiday. It was celebrated on Monday with the Boston Marathon. Mother nature, the Lord’s chief meteorologist, turned the heat in Boston up to 90 degrees. I prayed for my friends and all who were trying to run there. 

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run,

but only one gets the prize?

Run in such a way as to get the prize.

Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training.

They do it to get a crown that will not last,

but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.”

(1 Corinthians 9 vs. 24& 25) 

            Growing up in Boston we celebrated Patriots day. That gave me two choices to write about today; Paul Revere’s ride or the Boston Marathon. There is a similarity and it is not direction!

            The marathon involves over 20,000 participants, one lady and one male will make a six figure pay check and be declared winners. As many as twenty others will receive appearance money and have a good pay day. The majority will receive personal gratification, be the recipient of a great engine for their body from their training and recognition for a great effort. That is all they want. They do it out of the passion that endurance runners have and the feeling of accomplishment.

            In 1775 Paul Revere and William Dawes raced out of Boston with a message that the British were moving out. Their message to the people of greater Boston was the call to arms. Unfortunately, Paul did not get very far because he was picked up in west Cambridge by a British patrol. However, he did get the poem named for him, I guess William Dawes did not rhyme as well! They were both on a mission to benefit humanity, both were unselfish and both are American heroes.

            Life is not a sprint. It is a marathon. We need to race it and live it with our eye on the ultimate prize that is promised through our faith

Thought for Today: For today let us focus on our race for the prize. Let’s take a step closer to perfection.

Prayer for Today: Dear Lord today we pray for the safety and success of the many who ran in Boston. May they be blessed with fitness and great memories.

Amen

Boldness

Happy April. If you are visiting please consider joining me.

Below is a April 1 Good News!

Good News 040111 Boldness 

"Almighty God, may they be filled with the Holy Spirit

 and speak the Word of God with boldness..."

-- Acts 4:31  

                April fool’s day is a day of practical jokes, misleading emails and general tomfoolery! Ok, so let’s skip reading our devotional, forget the Holy Spirit and our Lord so that we may participate. That will not work because we cannot hide from the God we all believe in.

            Today the comics in the newspaper will have Fool’s Day jokes, the news and sports programs will be full of them and there will be a few bogus press releases to get your attention. If I was to write a press release for today it would be “Bob shoots par at St. Andrews!” or “… donates a million towards the church mortgage.”

People would recognize immediately that these were jokes and some would know they were my fantasies.

            Today like all days I hope this devotional puts you on track to recognize the Holy Spirit in your life and the role it plays for you. While others are playing the jokes, we need to be sure that we are bold in our faith.

Blessings to you all and enjoy the start of April.

Thought for Today: For today we will be bold in our faith and remember that it is ok to be a joker also!

Prayer for Today: Father, we give thanks for all that we are and have. We thank you for having the freedom to enjoy a good joke, a great laugh and the faith to know the real truth. We thank you for being with us and meeting our needs.

Amen

Harvest !

We are approaching Easter. Lat's celebrate with new friends.

“It’s still four months until harvest’?

I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields!

They are ripe for harvest.”

(John 4 vs. 35) 

            We are in the spring of the year and our fields are softening from the winter frost and it is getting close to planting time. Harvest will be in the fall. That is how the world works in my upper Midwest mentality. We till, plant, weed, water, prune and when we are lucky, we harvest. Along the way there is wind, rain, hail, heat and all the forces of nature that we have no control over. June and I had beautiful gardens for over twenty years and miss it a bit every spring.

            Jesus is not talking about a food harvest, his disciples are. Jesus is talking about making converts, telling the story, inviting people to worship. To that task there are no seasons. Hold on to that thought because there just may be times of harvest in our churches; times when we are more invitational than others.

            There are times when we are fairly open to inviting people to worship, Easter, Christmas, rally Sunday and many special events throughout the year. It is fairly easy and most of us feel comfortable inviting people to join us at those special times. However, there are 52 weeks a year and most of us hold on to our invitations to worship way too much. 

            We are all proud of our faith, our congregations, and our church and are willing to share on special occasions. We are asked to “…open your eyes and look at the fields!” Let’s ask a fiend to join us soon.

Open your eyes and look at the fields! 

Thought for Today: Many of us are members of declining Christian churches. Today let’s think about why.

Prayer for Today: Dear Lord and Father, our troubled world seems to often take control of our lives. Trouble seems to supersede your will. Today we give thanks that in our personal world we have a choice to follow you. We pray that we can choose to contribute to doing your will here on earth by following Jesus teachings.