A new place to worship

For those who read this and want a new church to go to I recommend Blessings Community Church-
http://www.blessingyou.org. and not because my uncle is the senior Pastor....but because he is "going out on a limb" and taking a tremendous step of faith.

For almost 20 years he had been working with Congregation Beth Simcha and something tells me that he would have been content with another 20 years there. However, the Lord seems to have called him to a new outreach. And he had a Abrahamic-type decision: to stay where he was or to step out in faith, not knowing which direction he was going to go-leaving the comfort of a family that loved him and going someplace new-listen to the voice of the One who called him. So he has decided to follow the Lord and go to a new place.

Now if you remember the story of Abraham, it wasn't easy being in a new place, but in the end he ended up with tremendous blessing and being the father of a nation. Now I'm not saying that my uncle will be the "father of a new nation", but he is seeing Him who is unseen and being braver than many who only see what is seen and don't take any chances. To paraphrase Robert Kennedy: "Some men see things as they are and ask 'Why?', through faith I see things that are unseen and ask 'Why not?'".

And I pray that the Lord will bless Jesse and this new work that he is doing for the Lord.

Fat Man 3

If you've read this blog, you've seen the posts about "The Fat Man"....Well, I'm here to tell you, that because of said alter ego; I have to give myself shots in the stomach. Not insulin, but a medicine that is supposed to control my appetite and make sure that I don't eat too much.

In the end, there was no one else to blame-I could if I wanted to, but in the end the fault is my own. I did not take care of myself in the way that I should and now I am paying the price for that abuse. And it affects every part of my life, not just my physical health. This is the "wake-up call" that my physicians are giving me to take care of myself or I will be taken care of (by my body breaking down faster than it should).

But just as there was a punishment for me letting myself physically, there is a punishment for those of us who let ourselves go spiritually. I wish there was a medication that we could take to that could control our "appetites" for the things of this world, but there isn't. So then God designed a way to control ourselves, and that is the Holy Spirit, which acts as a guide to let us know what not to do and when not to do it.

But in the end when we don't take care to listen to the Spirit, what happens is that the voice becomes smaller and smaller and we end up a slave to the things that we shouldn't and it begins to destroy us, our families, our relationships etc....And we pay the price in every area of our life. When this happens, it should act as our "wake-up" call to get ourselves back in the right relationship with God or end up being taken care of (either by something happening to us or by God stopping us and putting a halt to our dangerous activity).

So like the old commercial used to say: "You can pay a little now, or a lot later"....in my case it is to discipline myself into eating better and taking care of the body God has given. In your case, it may well be discipline yourself spiritually and taking care of the Spirit that He has given to you. And oh by the way, if you don't, there will be no one else to blame but yourself.....

swimming and fear

Last weekend I went on vacation to Galveston, and I was thinking of doing something that I had not done since at least 2007 (and maybe even before) and that is to go swimming. But I was afraid....not because I'm not that strong a swimmer (and it doesn't help when you are only 5'4" and not a strong swimmer...but because this is the first time that I had gone swimming post-medical crisis....I had taken showers, but being in a pool is an entirely different thing.

But in the end, I decided that this was my vacation and that I was going to go swimming. And in the end I had a good time and some wonderful time of relaxation.

It got me to thinking...how many great things do we miss out on because of fear? Fear makes so many things bigger than they should be and makes mountains out of molehills. There's an old saying "paralysis through analysis"...because we see what is there and we think that we can't do anything about it. So many of us instead of doing great and mighty things instead decide to limit our works to things that we can control and end up doing almost nothing.

How insulting is that to the King of Kings who has us in the palm of His hand? How insulting is it to Him when we say that there is something that we think is beyond His control, His care, or His power? He tells us "Perfect love casts out fear"....and perfect love is found in Him, therefore He casts out fear and gives strengh to those who need it. All we have to do is to attach ourselves to Him and take comfort that He will not steer us in the wrong direction or let us go.

So the question becomes, when are we really going to trust Him (knowing that He is greater than all things and that nothing can separate us from Him) and attempt to do things. We never know what we can accomplish until we say (through the Lord) to fear: "Get out of my way, God is my helper and with Him I am going to do great things for His kingdom!"