Quarantine
Ok, how are you doing in this time? A little stir crazy? I love all the funny posts on social media about before and after quarantine. Or the joke where a man is given the choice, A he can spend the time with his wife and kids or B, and he immediately says B not knowing what it is. A friend of mine told me he does not watch the news, because that will make you more paranoid, he just checks the news. I like that better.
Each morning I get up early and I will sit at the kitchen table and there is a bird feeder outside of the window. The birds are not social distancing! (joke) This bird feeder must be the place to be in the morning because the activity is nonstop. The cool thing is most birds which are eating is cardinals. They are a beautiful bird with the bright red being the male. I have always loved cardinals growing up near St Louis (another Joke). They are early morning eaters and when cardinals pair up together they are together for life and their life span is about three years. We have a bird house that sits on the fence at the side of the yard. Each night I see the cardinal sitting on the fence outside of the bird house to protect his/her family and eggs which they are sitting on. I will take my dogs out to go to the bathroom at 2 or 3 in the morning and I will shine the light and the cardinal is still sitting on the fence.
I cannot help but think that our Heavenly Father is guarding over and protecting us in the same way. What ever our circumstances are, do you feel blessed?
It speaks many times in the Bible where there were always dark days before the light shines. Starting at the beginning “God said let there be light” and there was. Plagues in the Bible, Noah and 40 days of rain and floods. And most certainly Holy week. Jesus suffered and it was dark and painful, but on the third day he rose again. Our sins were forgiven, and our destiny was changed.
The other night the wind was blowing and lighting was flashing and it got kind of scary the dogs were huddled up right next to me, and then the rain came and it poured for a while, and then it was over. When I got up the next morning and walked outside the air and the sky seemed cleansed. The freshness was overwhelming.
We have 1st responders, nurses, doctors, grocery store workers, restaurant workers and many more that put their health on the line each and everyday for the well being of others. I have noticed where the attitude has changed. I hear many more thank you’s for what they are doing. People being kind to one another, checking on friends we have not checked on in a while. As Pastor Alan has challenged each one of us to stop and pray at 8 each night, pray for those who are suffering from Covid -19 and those families who have lost loved ones because of it. And pray for our circumstances. God is listening.
When this pandemic is over and we return to a new normal, it is my hope we will have a new since of gratitude and thankfulness. We will have more appreciation walking down a grocery store with stocked shelves or sit down and a restaurant to have a meal, see an old friend and give them a hug, worship together. Maybe this is a re-boot where we get our priorities in line with God.
In John Chapter 4:23 states,
Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.
When we gather back together I hope and pray we will not forget or go back to the old ways of taking many things for granted and worship the father in spirit and in truth with a new hunger for the heart of God.
May God Bless you and protect you.
Mike
Jesus is King
This past week one of the most controversial Christian albums dropped. Kanye West, a rapper known almost more for his controversies than his music, has recently became a Christian and released his first Christian album last Saturday. Since then, my Facebook has been filled with people either praising his work, criticizing it heavily, wondering if it will be CCLI compliant so they can use a song on Sunday, the horror of playing his album on Spotify and then it going to his older profanity filled songs, and so on. So last night on my way back from Pensacola I listened to the entire album. These are my thoughts:
First of all, rap is not my preferred genre of music. I was never a Kanye fan to begin with so I can’t compare this album to his previous work, but I was disappointed. From a production side, I was often annoyed with how the songs ended, the mix, song structure, etc. The guy has talent, but it was hard for me to see where he was going musically on a lot of the songs.
But let’s take my bias against rap music out of the equation and focus on the lyrics. Yes, there are some horribly corny lyrics. Probably the worst is from a song called “Closed on Sunday” which says:
Closed on Sunday, you my Chick-Fil-A
You’re my number one, with the lemonade
I wish I was joking. However bad those two lines are, the lines right after are:
Raise our sons, train them in the faith
Through temptations, make sure they’re wide awake
Follow Jesus, listen and obey
No more livin’ for the culture, we nobody’s slave
The two biggest complaints I see are that his lyrics are theologically shallow and that Kanye is just doing this for the money (or in other words he’s not really a Christian but saw an opportunity in the Christian market to make more money). When people talk about the shallow issue, I just have to laugh. No his lyrics aren’t completely accurate or deep, but they are at least on par with the majority of what is on K-Love at the moment and this is coming from a guy who has been a Christian less than a year. Hopefully we hold the long term Christians to the same level of scrutiny, but if we’re being honest we don’t.
On the second issue of if Kanye is really a Christian… How dare we. Besides it probably being a horrible career move into the Christian music industry, what makes any of us think we are in a position to know what his relationship with God is? We rejoice with the person who goes to the altar in our church and gives their life to God, but when a famous person does it we assume the worst. The sad thing is, Kanye knew this would happen. In the song “Hands On” he says:
What have you been hearing from the Christians?
They’ll be the first one to judge me
Make it seem like nobody love me
I’m not tryna lead you to Visas
But if I try to lead you to Jesus
We get called halfway believers
I’m not sure if I’ll ever willingly listen to his album again, like I said, it’s not my preferred music style. I really dislike a lot of what Kanye has done in the past. But this album, this over talked about album, has already brought people to Christ. Maybe instead of tearing each other down, we should rally around new believers, even the ones who haven’t quite figured out all the theology (ok, especially those people), and build them up and show them Christ’s love.
What Are You Focused On?
As I get ready for a surgery on my knee this week, I have been surrounded by people who have came up to me and said you will be so glad to have it done. There are so many people who have had the same surgery and you would never know it. Folks who have had this surgery said it was a piece of cake but make sure you do the rehab. It’s all about the rehab!
You know it’s like when you buy a different car, then you get on the road and notice so many other cars just like it.
As I read my devotional for the day I got encouragement and focus.
“Go gently through this day, keeping your eyes on me. I will open up the way before you, as you take steps of trust along your path”
We will all have obstacles in front of us, and it is how we address these roadblocks that can define us.
I will always remember my first time coming into Nashville wanting to be a musician there. A good friend of mine had been in Nashville for 10 years and had just gotten a job playing piano with George Jones. He told me “welcome to Nashville you will find out how good you are not” but with that he said all you have to do is find your niche. It was the best advise I ever received.
Each of us has that person in our lives in which we can vent to, someone to be vulnerable with, someone to hold us accountable. We need to be thankful for those people in our lives who keep us balanced.
There are days and times where we will have the weight of the world on our shoulders. Its not “if” it will happen., it is when it will happen and how we react to it. Most of the time we think we are in control. One of my favorite quotes is “You want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” When the time comes where the weight of the world is on our shoulders, are we turning to God for guidance? God’s presence enables you to face each day with confidence.
So as I go to have surgery this week, it is like I have the full confidence in my surgeon and the staff. But I know through my faith God is present and what ever obstacles I have, God will guide me through them.
See you in a few weeks. I was going to say I would be in rehab but let me be clear, I will be re-habbing my knee.
What are you focused on? Who are you focused on? If you focus on the love of Christ and its will you will succeed.
Ephesians 3: 20-21
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus through out all generations, forever and ever amen.
Saved By A Cookie
On Friday night August 16th we held a concert at Navarre United Methodist Church. We had special guests Nicki Montgomery from Orlando, Sandy Wyatt from Jay, and Chloe Channell from Pace who was on America’s Got Talent and American Idol. For some reason this was one of the hottest days of the summer. We could not seem to get the sanctuary cool enough and the back stage area was blistering hot. We all gathered around to pray 10 minutes before the concert and we were all drenched in sweat because the air was not working in the back part of the church. We are all having a laugh about it now but at the time the women and men were melting!
We had a few goals for the concert. The main goal was to glorify God, be professional in how we played and sang, and to give everyone who attended that night a glimpse of our church where everyone would say "I am glad I came”.
Although it was “warm” for us on the platform, one person actually had more heat than anyone. John Davis our drummer for the concert was in the drummers “cage” as we call it. John went through two bottles of water in the first 20 minutes. The temperature in the cage was about 15 degrees warmer than the rest of the stage. Not to mention he was whaling away on the drums and sweating. I did not know the following information until the following day. There was a point in the concert where I did some speaking and sang one song by myself. I did not know that John was face down on the snare drum pouring water down the back of his shirt. He had almost blacked out. John is a tough guy and is in the military and has gone through all the training. So when he was telling me about this I felt so bad for him. He was close to blacking out and was kind of blurry eyed and remembered he had brought a cookie in from dinner. While I was singing, he ate the cookie, drank all of the water, and came back to life and finished out the concert.
The week leading up to the concert was a great week for the team who served. We laughed, we prayed, and we served. Not only did we get to know each other a bit better than before, but also we knew after a Wednesday night and Thursday rehearsal we had each other’s back. We were not doing this concert to glorify ourselves but to glorify God and do the best we can for our Church.
The concert week came to an end, we were exhausted but rejuvenated at the same time, knowing we did everything in our power to do the best we could for the kingdom. All saved by a “Cookie”. We did it together, not any one person but all of us together.
1 Corinthians 12:12
12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.
1 Corinthians 12:18
18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.
Regardless of where we are or whom we are with, there is a satisfaction knowing as a team we accomplished this project together. God has placed all of us in the place where he wants us to be. Do not spend your time wishing you were somewhere else when God has placed you in the very place where you can further his kingdom. He supplies you with all you need, and sometimes it’s just a cookie!
To watch the entire concert, click here.
Horsepower
At the end of the 19th century, cities were faced with a health epidemic. Horses were the main source of transportation. While they were the fastest way to get around, their major downside was that they were not potty trained. A horse’s waste is the perfect play place for flies. Doctors and scientists had recently discovered the correlation between flies and transmittable diseases, and so they were now concerned with how to control the flies. Countless man hours and money were invested in finding out a way to chemically engineer the food horses ate, or to find an alternate source of food for the horses so that the flies were no longer attracted to their droppings. In the end, their research really didn’t matter the way they thought it would.
You see, right around the time they were really trying to solve the fly issue the automobile was invented. In just a few short years city roads went from a horse’s bathroom to the car’s domain. As the switch to automobiles became more common, horse droppings in the street decreased as well as the flies that were attracted to them leading to a healthier city.
I know this sounds like a really random story, and it is, but we have so much to learn from it. We can spend out entire lives trying to fix the problems that we’re faced with and miss the next opportunity completely. The funny thing is, our current conversation about climate change is centered around the use of fossil fuels (in large part because of the automobile industry). While I’m happy that there are people trying to figure out more fuel efficient cars, I’m more excited about the people who are trying hard to get us away from gas altogether.
In our own lives, we can spend all of our time and energy trying to address the problems we have. Or we can instigate a paradigm shift where we completely bypass the things that are causing those problems to begin with. The public secret of the Christian life is that we aren’t free from troubles. Our troubles just look different as a result of following Jesus. We all came to the realization that trying to do life on our own would get us nowhere (or more like lead us to H-E-double hockey sticks). Following Jesus is simple, but hard. We are supposed to love God and love others as God loved us. But how that plays out in our lives is rarely simple. So stop worrying about the horse poop. It’s there, it stinks, but there is a better solution just around the corner if only you can admit that there’s a better way.