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When the unexpected happens, what do you do?

I tend to think that what has been truly cultivated deep within ourselves, will most certainly reveal itself when we collide with the unexpected. People will know you and me … deeply… by how we respond to the things that knock us off of our path and plans.

Do you panic? Do you curse? Do you calmly ignore the facts? Do you punch walls? Do you strategize? Do you see the silver lining? Do you see it as part of a bigger plan?

I think we are all capable of any of these reactions. Our responses will improve when we intentionally choose to cultivate our hearts with God’s priorities and promises for our lives.

How can you intentionally prepare your response now for your next catastrophe or unexpected glitch?

Michael Jackson had an unmatchable opportunity with his life, as each of us do…. to do phenomenal things. To change lives. To be someone that people follow towards something Greater than themselves. We have watched MJ search for meaning his entire life. I echo the sentiments of Faith. She says it very well. He had become a shell of a man and the true MJ died long ago.

I would add that when MJ died yesterday, hope was lost for the future of what he could become. That is the strange thing about death. Sometimes we are more saddened by the hope that dies with that person (and for that person) than the person himself. We must remember that Hope is never dead.

Life is but a vapor. Let this be a reminder to us all that we can become shells of who we once were. Even those we put on false pedestals are reduced to dust. We will certainly die one day, too. We will stand at the end of our lives and be asked, “Who did we make famous?”

Our lives are not about us.

Three encounters on Monday proved to me, once again, that my life is not my own. Frankly, your life is not your own. We are to be servants. Sometimes it requires a jolt of pure opportunity and force to rip us from our comfort zones. Sometimes it takes three jolts. God sets up opportunities.

One.
A lady politely interrupts me at a local coffee shop. I’m working on something inconsequential, like organizing my computer desktop and freeing some extra space. Yeah. Sounds nerdy. Exactly. So she interrupts me. She is incredibly nice and apologetic. She can’t seem to get internet service on her computer. She asks me if I can help. Yes. I can. We try to connect. We try everything. We both grow frustrated with the process. I eventually let her use my computer as she says she only needs it for a moment.

Why did she need to get online? Well, she is a real estate agent helping those who couldn’t previously afford housing, buy foreclosed homes. She is serving others. She simply was on the road and wanted to check and see if a little old couple was able to get the house that would change their lives.

Two.
While cutting the grass that afternoon, an older gentlemen pulled his car into my driveway. He hopped out, slowly. I was busy. He walked up and asked if I knew where the old school was located. He explained that he had lived out here in this section of the county a long time ago. He went to an old elementary school nearby in the 1930s. He had moved away, but moved back when his wife passed away. He explained that sometimes he just gets nostalgic and wants to drive out here and see how things have changed over the years. He smiled. He wanted directions, but he probably wanted the conversation more. We talked for a few minutes, I gave him directions, and he drove off. Strange how people pop in and out of your life.

Three.
I kept looking for others that God might bring my way to serve. Turns out that my wife had a long, strenuous day and was dying to smile and laugh. We spent the night on a date. Talking about our lives. Wondering what was next. Talking about all the things about the present and future that excite us. She needed that. She didn’t need me to be anyone but myself. Her husband.

These sound simple, but I think it means the world to someone when you push aside your whole world for them. Serve someone. Take the opportunities that God sets up.

An ego unchecked. A heart filled with hate and unforgiveness. An ungrateful life. These are just as damaging as bigger sounding things.

If you leave yourself unchecked, you could be the next train-wreck.

What we can learn and gain from suffering….

• Gives your friends and family an opportunity to be focused on something beyond themselves.
• Helps you to let go of your pride and realize that you are not in control.
• Develops a depth of dependence upon God that you’d never know, otherwise.
• Provides another opportunity for us to realize we are not God.
• Gives us an opportunity show the world where we turn during valleys.
• Takes more energy to fight God’s plan than embrace it.
• Will give you a great story of victory to tell in a year (or five years)…
• Gives us a new heart and passion for those who are broken and far from God.
• Can break us free of the lukewarm life, if we allow it.
• We are too comfortable.

Could go on. Am I right? I’ve been known to be wrong.
Your thoughts?

Each of us has our own specific dreams. We want to be moms or cops or heroes or even adventurers. Singers or dancers or even cake bakers. Instant gratification tells us that our dreams are ours for the taking…. right now! Instant gratification keeps us looking for a quick and easy way to live.

Living vicariously through others isn’t new, but it can most definitely be a silent killer. Whether we pull for others to win a singing competition or our favorite team to win or a mom and dad of multiple’s marriage to survive. We live our lives through the lenses of others.

Two equal and opposite errors occur through living vicariously.
• Inactively achieving the mountaintops of our own lives through other’s mountaintops. We allow ourselves to live through others fulfilling our need for accomplishment or heroism.
• Inactively achieving the valleys of our own lives through others valleys. We allow ourselves to live through others and say “I would never do that” or “Our lives would never get that bad.”

Both of these deny the fact that God made us unique, capable, and prepared for an adventure that is specific to us only.

What does this mean for reality television, singing competitions, tabloids, paparazzi, your rich friends, the bad parents you know, and celebrity news television shows? Well, for starters…. playing the comparison game is one of the seeds from which lukewarm lives grow.

Live your life. It is yours. Just because there isn’t a television show with your name as the title or a book written about you… doesn’t mean that your life hasn’t be set up for a spectacular victory for God and His cause.

The story of the vicarious life is never retold.

-EB

Over the past six months, I have been discovering/facing up to who I am more than any period in my life. I’ve been on mountaintops and in valleys. I’ve been in places with an abundance of light and places where darkness took over and light was absent.

There comes a moment (or a few months) where we come head to head with who we really are. We search our motives. We look in the mirror. We ask ourselves tough questions. We listen to the answers we hear. We wonder where God is in a deafening silence. These places are all-at-once dangerous and life sparking. These moments challenge us, frighten us, and move us towards forward motion or slow paralyzing death.

I’ve come face to face with who (and whose) I am.

When you get turned around, upside down, and inside out, you begin to question who you are and what your purpose is. You fly from mission to mission, adventure to adventure, and idea to idea without regard for the main purpose. Eventually, your main purpose is lost among the rubble of mismatched dreams and crumbling self-centered ambition.

I had come to a place of not being inspired or even liking the person I saw in the mirror. The mirror reflected truth though. I had become self-centered and saturated with my own story. The problem remains that I am not central protagonist in this story. Or at least I shouldn’t be.

When I realized that I had become the center of my life, I put the emergency brakes on everything that involved self-promotion, ego, and my own significance. This included blogging, writing music, building a resume, Facebook, etc. I began reading, exercising, praying, dreaming, getting outside, enjoying life away from a computer screen, and I sought a rekindling of an adventure.

There is more to life than I have been representing. My apologies. If I become skin-deep again, I will remove myself again. I must not be about me. I must be all about, obsessed with, and consumed by the One that is greater than myself.

I pray that as you read what I am compelled to write, you might be challenged and inspired to forward movement. I pray that you will find something, someOne bigger than yourself. I pray that I represent God in a way that would challenge the stereotype the world has created for Him.

This is just another paradigm shift. I am here to serve you.

We woke up without power this morning. I have to admit (quite reluctantly) that with the realization of no electricity I had no idea what I would do with my day. It changed the direction of the day.

I’m sure I could say the same about rain for people who work outside, or high gas prices for people who travel for a living. What would change the direction of your day?

Sometimes God uproots everything we know. That is when we cling closest to Him.

What if there were no more cars? No electricity? No pens or paper? How would the absence of these things change your purpose, if at all? What would you do without the tools you use everyday? Would you be okay? God would still work through you, right? Imagine the possibilities.

When do tools become chains and shackles?

Often quoted is the saying “money is the root of all evil.”

To set the record straight, here is the actual verse it came from.
“For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”
1 Timothy 6:10 (New American Standard Bible)

So, money is not the root of the evil…. the love of money is.

It is not only a root of all evil, but all sorts of evil.

This is important. Money can be given up, used, and passed around very generously. Great things can be done with the tool called money.

The only hang-up comes when we love money or are more devoted to money than our Maker. That’s where all sorts of things go wrong.

I just recently found out that a great mentor and friend has cancer. It’s pretty serious. Interesting how news like that refocuses our hearts on the things that truly burn within us; the things we were born for.

Life is very short. We allow fear, laziness, peer pressure, the way we look, money, time, stress, and dozens of other things to hold us back. Forget it all. Do something HUGE, today.

Today. Not tomorrow. Today. Stop waiting.

We dream about ‘it.’ We feel as if God placed ‘it’ on our hearts. We burn for ‘it.’ We plan for ‘it.’ We can’t wait to watch ‘it’ happen. Perhaps ‘it’ is just right around the corner.

Stop waiting for ‘it’ to happen. Make ‘it’ happen. God gave us everything we need. Do it today. Tomorrow might just be for people who don’t want it bad enough. Do it today. Start it today. Literally.

Or else, tomorrow you might just regret today… again…