On the road again

Just sitting here with my beautiful wife waiting for the time to go by so we can catch our flight. Can't help but think how much time we waste just waiting. If only we would dance while we wait, or maybe engage a stranger for an exchange of stories past. Maybe hold hands and think of old times gone by.

My fear is we sit waiting for so long we never get around to doing anything and we settle or nothing.

Don't ever settle, love those people in your life an enjoy every moment.


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Reminder about your invitation from Bradley Jones

I like to make candles

Because he is the Lord – Paul speaks in Romans 9: 20 “But who are you, o man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it “why did you make me like this?”

I once went to a candle decorating place and made a candle for my mom. My skill level in fine art and candle making leave lots to be desired. However unique my candle was, does it have any right to say to me “Why did you make me with so many odd colors, and a splash of pink?” Does the candle have a right to question the purpose I have for it? I think that candle still sits on my Moms dresser in her room.

God has created us, given us everything we need to achieve his purposes and plans he has for us. Ephesians 2: 10 “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” God made us, and he loves us and he is perfect. The God of the universe, the creator of everything took some time to make you. He does not lack the skill level that I did in making candles. He has made you perfect for the plan he has for you. 

The devil made me do it...

My mom used to love to do crafts and a type of fabric paint. I remember many an afternoon where the family would sit down and draw their names and a spider or a unicorn on our pillowcases. For the record, mine was the spider.

Needless to say after many years of fabric painting and the invention of laminating pictures, our walls in our rooms where filled with random pictures. Some of cartoons and others of random flowers in a field. I remember I had one of this little hot stuff devil character with a pitch fork that had a saying next too it “The devil made me do it”

I wonder how much of what I did as a child, and still do today is with the mind set that “The devil made me do it?” That I don’t take responsibility for my own selfishness, I don’t take seriously my own inward focused attitude. My attitude that serves to protect myself and no one else.  To make everything about me?

I am scared of responsibility which is rooted in the fear or not being good enough. We worry so much that we will be found out we are frauds or fakes that we blame others, or shift focus onto other things instead of taking responsibility.

Yes the devil might influence us, or lead us into temptation sometimes. But we need to realize we are our own worst enemies when we live self centered lives and worry more about out bottom line than about God’s bottom line. 

Walking in the dark

The other night I had to go to the bathroom and I could not see where I was going and I stood on Seth’s shark that made a loud noise. Almost as loud as me stumbling my way though the dark. Luckily no one woke up. The point is though, the longer I stayed in the dark the more my eyes adjusted and the more I could see, the more I could start to convince myself and my brain I was in the light, rather than the dark. The more and more we justify the darkness in our lives, the more and more we will start to convince ourselves its actually light.


The more we will justify selfish behavior and let it go unchecked in our lives. We need to hold our actions up to the light of the word of God and the Holy spirit. Not the world. Just because something is culturally permissible does not make it what is best for us. 

It is all about the "I"

When I was growing up I was always looking for something, I always wanted to fit in. I always wanted to be accepted. Be loved. I looked in the world, I looked to my friends but they could not give me what I needed because it was not their place. I looked to skateboarding, and I felt accepted as long as I was skating and landing tricks. But when I was not skating I still felt empty. I looked for acceptance in girls but they could not find it for themselves so how where they suppose to share it with me. I looked for it in drinking but only found it while I was drinking. Once I finished I would just be left with a headache and still searching for something. Some where to fit in.

The problem was with all the I’s.  I made it about me, about everything I wanted and needed. I lived a life with the ideas of what can I get. That I wanted too be the center of the world, the center of my life. The sad thing was though I could not even fix things in my own life, how was I going to fix the world if I was actually the center.

One day through my search, Jesus found me and said these words “You can love me, because I first loved you” Jesus was accepting me for who I was. I did not have too put anything in too feel loved, to feel like I fitted in. The he had made me who I am for a reason, and everything I need to be who God was calling me to be I have already been given.

My life was changed because of what Jesus had done, not because of who I was and what I could do or not do. It was all about Jesus. I still find myself sometimes making it about the I, instead of Jesus and his love. God is gracious and loving and gently puts me back on the path of ultimate acceptance and love. That as he works through me I am able to share his love with others.

Jesus loves me, even though my “I” attitude is the root cause of the worlds issues. It is because of Jesus dying and taking the place of the “I” that I am able to know his love and peace and acceptance. Without his love I would know no real love.