Day 2 at the Park

Exodus 4:13

But Moses again pleaded, “Lord, please! Send anyone else."

This past week, my wife and I went down to Orlando, Florida for a short vacation. One of the places we love to go is Universal Studios. We bought a 2-day ticket. The first day we went to Islands of Adventure which has the thrill rides, rollercoasters, etc. We were going back and forth on which park we wanted to go to on the 2nd day. In the past we went to the Studio park and had been disappointed, but I said "they have some new rides, lets go check it out." We did, and we are very glad we did! We had a totally different experience this time. What really stood out was the Harry Potter section. When we first walked up to it, all we saw was the front of a very ordinary "bank-looking" building, but we saw people going in and out of this small but also ordinary doorway. We didn't know where it led, we didn't know what was behind it, but something was drawing people into it. We decided to go through it...and we are glad we did! When we went through the doorway, we came out in this Harry Potter village that was filled with shops, cafes and one of the coolest rides we've been on.  Had we not gone through this ordinary doorway, we would have never discovered another section of the park.

When God called Moses, Moses didn't want to go. He let his fear guide him. He went back and forth with God..."send someone else," he said, "let someone else do it." Finally, God convinced him to go and Moses did. By deciding to go, this opened up a whole new world to him that he would never have experienced if he had let his fear guide him. Just about every day we have choices to make, some of which involve us doing something we've never done before, something that we are scared to do. If we don't do it, we will always be wondering "what if" and if we do it, we are scared that we won't be able to do what is asked of us. 

God knew Moses wasn't up to the task at hand, but it didn't matter what Moses thought, God was the One able to do the task at hand. When God asks you to do something out of your comfort zone, don't look at your abilities to do it, but look at God's ability to do it. Saying "yes, Lord" will open up a whole knew section of your life that you would never get to experience if you let fear guide you.

Mountain Biker Scars

Revelation 5:6

Then I saw a Lamb that looked as if it had been slaughtered, but it was now standing between the throne and the four living beings and among the twenty-four elders.

As a mountain biker, like all mountain bikers, I experience crashes. Most of them are not bad crashes. Usually, I hit a root or rock the wrong way and I lay the bike down and I have time to jump off the bike with no scratches or scrapes. But every once in a while I have a crash that scrapes the skin, draws some blood...and if I'm luck, it will leave a scar. Why did I say lucky? Because it is a battle wound. For mountain bikers, when we get scars while we are riding, it is something to be proud of, we want to show them off, we want people, especially other mountain bikers, to notice them just so we can say "yeah dude, I was riding down this gnarly trail and did an endo." Yep, we mtb'ers are proud of our scrapes and scars we get on the trails.

While our scrapes and some of our scars will fade away, Jesus' scars will not. He will forever have the holes in His hands and feet, the scars on His back from the whips, the scars on His head from the crown of thorns...all of those will NEVER go away. But I can only envision that for Jesus, He is proud of those scars. Without those scars, we could never be with Him. It if weren't for those scars, we could never have that forever life that we will have with Him. We could never have the never ending peace and joy that we have with Him. To Jesus, those scars are something that I think (and this is a Kentism) He never wants them to go away. That is how much He loves us!!! 

So the next time you get a scrape or scratch that draws blood and you have a scab for a while, or you get a scar, let it be a reminder of Jesus' scars and the love He has for you!

One-On-One

Matthew 26:39
Going a little farther, he threw himself down with his face to the ground and prayed

For many years I have made a habit of waking up in the morning, getting my cup of coffee and going into my "man cave" to have my one-on-one time with God. That is my time to worship, read, and talk to God. In having a discussion with a good friend of mine last night, he told me that he tried doing what I do, going into a room, sitting still and trying to have that one-on-one time with God. Unfortunately, that drove him crazy, he couldn't sit still, he couldn't be quiet. Another friend told me that she can't have that one-on-one time with God in the mornings, her time is in the afternoon when she gets home from work.

We are all wired differently. We may have similar personality characteristics, but none of us are alike. That is what is beautiful about how God made us. If we were all the same, it would be either a very boring world, or we would be at each other's throats! What is important about the interaction Jesus shows us between himself and the Father is that they had a one-on-one time. Throughout the gospels, Jesus meets with the Father at any part of the day, at any time. However, what is common in all his meetings is that He separated Himself from everyone so He could have that one-on-one time with the Father. 

Just because I sit still, have my coffee in the morning and meet with God, that doesn't mean that is the way you are to do it.  Be true to yourself, be who you are when you have that one-one-one time with God. My friend meets with God on his 45 minute commute to work, worshipping God and talking to Him. We each NEED to have that one-on-one time with God, and when you do, be true to who you are!

Recovery Workout

Psalm 119:154
Revive me with your word!

Last week was a rough week for me, physically speaking. I did two CrossFit workouts that were some of the toughest I've done. That was followed two days later by three days of mountain biking doing a total of 44 miles. On the last day of biking, I hit the wall, my legs just wouldn't go any further. My body was spent, and I was considering not doing any physical workout for the next week, however, a couple of my friends and my coach said I need to do a recovery workout with-in 24-48 hours of my last ride. So two days later I went to do a CrossFit recovery workout. Let me tell you, it was painful! The result? I was kind of shocked. My body felt as if it had a little more life in it and my legs weren't as sore. The next day I felt even better!

The psalmist also knew what was a good "recovery workout" when he was spent. The word of God! The word "word" in Psalm 119:154 in Hebrew is "imrah" which means the word of God or the Torah (which is the first 5 books of the Old Testament). No matter how down, how defeated, how near death the psalmist felt, he knew that the word of God, the imrah, would revive him. The word of God has power! It has power that we will never fully understand. However, one thing I DO understand is that it DOES revive me when I'm struggling. 

One of the things I will do when I feel spiritually spent is start reading the psalms out loud. Now I won't read all 150 psalms at one time, I spread it out over a few weeks, so that each day I'm reading 2 to 3 psalms. When I start out I feel like it is a chore, much like starting out a recovery workout. However, after reading psalms for a few days, I feel life coming back into me! 

I give you a challenge: when you feel spiritually spent, or you are suffering, start reading the word of God. If you don't know what to read, start with Psalms.

Its A Positional Thing

Psalm 119:71 

It was good for me to suffer,
so that I might learn your statutes. 

When I got my first forecaster job in Bismarck, North Dakota, I thought I was "it on a stick!" "I got a forecaster job, I can forecast, I just came out of college, I know everything!" Yep, those were my thoughts. It wasn't too long after taking that job that I got humbled real quick. The forecast called for rain, and for the most part it was raining, but then one city after another started reporting freezing rain. None of the computer models said it would be freezing rain, so I decided not to update the forecast and just keep the forecast as rain. One of the lead forecasters saw what was happening, asked if I was going to update the forecast, I said "no, because the computer models said it wasn't going to happen." He quickly updated the forecast to put in freezing rain, and, it was a good thing he did. But that really humbled me...in front of everyone that was on shift that day. I realized I had a lot to learn!

A lot of people would look at Psalm 119:71 and ignore it because, "hey, why is it good for me to suffer, won't God take care of it so I don't have to suffer?" When things are going well for us, a lot of us don't even think about God much less thinking that we need Him, but when we start to suffer or hurt or things aren't going our way, we go right to Him. God really doesn't want us to suffer, He would really like for us to keep Him at the forefront of our minds, continually seeking Him. Unfortunately for most of us that is not the case. I find it interesting that the Hebrew word used in this scriputre for suffering is "anah." This also means humbled. When we humble ourselves before God, what happens? We positionally put ourselves where we are seeking God. I believe this is what the psalmist meant when he wrote this, that it is good to suffer/be humbled, because it reminds us that we AREN'T God, that we need Him...CONSTANTLY!

A Quicker Short-Cut

Psalm 119:10 

With all my heart I seek you.
Do not allow me to stray from your commands!

Last summer our wireless router went bad, so I had to purchase a new one for the house. When I got it home, I wanted to connect right away, so instead of reading the directions, I just plugged everything in and started it up...who needs directions, right? The lights came on, everything looked like it was working, but my phone nor my laptop would connect. I was surprised...it should've worked, right!!!!???? 

How many times have we tried to take a short-cut and not read the directions God has given us? Right here, many times! And why do we take short-cuts? Because we want everything quicker, faster, we don't want to expend that extra time reading directions when we could be doing something faster just so that we can do the next thing quicker and faster! When I went back to those directions on the WIFI, did what the directions told me to do, I realized I missed a lot of what was very important to the setup procedures. Once I did all of it, everything worked fine. If we stop, breathe, take the time to find out from God what is needed in a situation instead of trying to do it our way, a way we think is going to be quicker, we would find that in the process of doing it God's way, we learn more, we get closer to Him, AND the result of doing it His was is lasting!

Can't Play That Style

Revelation 12:11
And they have defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by their testimony.

Many years ago I was asked to be in a band (I play keyboards). I agreed and over the next few weeks as we rehearsed, I began getting frustrated. I was asked to play a style I've never played before and didn't know how to play. I read about the style, listened to the style, but for the life of me, I couldn't play that style. The more we rehearsed, the more I started saying "I can't play this style." The more I said it, the more frustrated I became and it seemed like I was getting further and further away from playing that style. Finally, I had enough and met with the band leader. I told him I couldn't play the style they were asking me to play, so I'm going to have to quit the band. He said, "just give it one more try, you'll get it." I said okay, and as we went to rehearse, I said: "God, you are going to have to do this in me because I can't...and Kent (speaking to myself now), you are going to get this." No kidding, in the time it took for me to take my hands from my side and put them on the keyboard, I learned the style and started playing that style as if I've been playing it for years. We were all stunned!

So what happened? My testimony changed. The words I was speaking changed. I began trusting God and went from speaking negative, gloom and doom, to speaking life and positive words. If you think the words you speak don't make a difference in your life, think again. Scripture says it does, many times! There are people who have been speaking gloom and doom and negativity over their situation for so many years, it's become habit...and they are still in the same situation and wonder why! If we want to be overcomers, we've got to trust God Who is really the One Who is going to do it, and speak positive, life-giving words to our situation.