When I was nineteen years old, I went through thirteen grueling weeks of Marine Corps basic training. At the time, I swore it was as close to hell as I'd ever get and I certainly never thought that any of the things I was learning were going to translate into my relationship with Christ, but I was young and I wasn't looking for truth in hard things like discipline. During the final weeks before graduation we spent fourteen days on the rifle range learning how to effectively use our primary weapon, the M-16 A2 service rifle. The Marine Corp has each of its recruits shoot from four positions: standing, kneeling, sitting, and in the prone. The last firing line on the rifle range is a 500 yard shot taken in the prone, at a target the size and shape of a man. At 500 yards you figure out quickly that the disciplines that influence your position are essential because even the slightest variant will cause a bullet to be way off the mark. So you employ all of the rifleman’s basics and then you check your natural point of aim (NPOA) before pulling the trigger. The NPOA is exactly what it sounds like; after employing the basics, you close your eyes, relax into the discipline, breathe, open your eyes, and where your rifle is pointing after you open your eyes is your natural point of aim. “Natural” is the key word here and it is the opposite of forced. In order to hit the target every time when shooting long distance shots it is vital to keep your NPOA “in the black.” Even the smallest movement like stretching your feet, or tightening your sling, or shifting your legs can alter your NPOA. So what... what does this have to do with anything? Just this, if I take the time to do an inventory of how I live my life, being honest with myself and seeing things exactly the way they are; is my life lined up with God’s will? When I stop and take a look at my priorities, and the way I live my life - am I pointing at God’s target?  Do I really love him with all my heart, soul, mind and strength? Does my heart break for what breaks His? Do my eyes see what he sees? Do I choose obedience over comfort? Is God’s kingdom coming in my life and am I living for His purposes? These are not easy questions but when answered honestly they serve as a good indicator as to what my life is pointing at. So what is your life hitting every time your trigger is pulled? What is your natural point of aim?

“I will consider my earthly existence to have been wasted unless I can recall a loving family, a consistent investment in the lives of people, and an earnest attempt to serve the God who made me. Nothing else makes much sense, and certainly nothing else is worthy of my agitation!" - James Dobson.

When I read this statement I felt a rush go through my veins. James Dobson put to words the priorities that have over the years become how I try to live my life - if not always in deed, definitely in intent. I have found this focus to be a strength that has helped me choose what I will say “yes” or “no” to.

It seems to me that on the journey of life; seasons, in all their varieties and complexities can affect, if not dictate, the strengths we develop or display and/or they can bring to light weakness that we were blissfully unaware of. Seasons tend to demand new developments of character and over the duration there are only a few things in my life that have remained important to me. Those things are: my family, pointing people to Christ and loving God and people well. It is this focus in my life that has brought me strength and it is this focus that has revealed my weakness. Maybe you can relate.

Weakness is difficult to see in the mirror and even more difficult to admit when someone brings it to your attention. But, I am self aware enough to know that for me, my weakness runs parallel to my strength. I am conscious of the fact that sometimes the reason something becomes a strength in my life is because it is actually a weakness that came to light and I have been forced to deal with it. Let me see if I can explain it this way. Theodore Roosevelt is remembered as a burly, barrel chested, “strong as on ox,” kind of man that never ran out of energy, but that is not the whole story. He was actually a weakling of a boy and constantly struggled with health issues all throughout his childhood. His dad once told him he had better hit the weights and discipline his body or his body was always going to get the best of him. So that is what young Theodore did. He worked out relentlessly and saw very little gain for his effort until well into his adult years. So his physical presence later in life as president- his strength- was actually the weakness of a sickly boy, mastered.

Thus the dilemma - while I would truthfully state that my strength is keeping the main things the main things like: family, pointing people to Christ and loving God and people well - my weakness is woven ever so intricately into the center of these eternal things and it is here that I face internal resistance. Do I really do what I know I should do? Such an ugly reality, I know what I should do and still I do not always do it. Kind of sounds like Paul in Romans 7:15 when he states – “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do everything I hate.” But Paul, unlike President Roosevelt, gives us an answer that is beyond ourselves. He says, “Who will rescue me from this?” and then he answers, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord”. In an unnatural twist of reality, our understanding gets a glimpse into the love of God, in that Jesus is not only our rescue, he is also our strength (the sanctification, or as Teddy would say – the exercise) and life.  The weakness flipped upside down and mastered. So our strength is dependence and dependence sounds an awful lot like weakness. God gets the glory in all things. If we are weak – glory be to God who rescues us in Jesus from our weakness. If we are strong – glory be to God in whom we have been given victory. As for me, in my strength or in my weakness – I will stand on the love of Jesus!

This time two years ago we celebrated our daughter's first birthday. She had been walking, or should I say falling for a couple months so we decided to give her a walk along toy (grocery cart) for her birthday to hold on to while she was in that awkward stage. It was a hit - Brooklynn loved it! That made us happy.

Later that evening while I was walking our dog I was reflecting on the day and smiling to myself, just thinking about how much she enjoyed the gift and how much I enjoyed helping her walk behind it. Some of life's beautiful stuff surrounded me that day. The stuff you don't want to forget. So, while I walked I started to pray thanking God for my wife and daughter and the beautiful day we had shared together. I also asked for help. I asked Him to guide me the way I had guided my daughter up and down the hall. I asked Him to be patient with me like I had been patient with my daughter. I asked God to hold me up when I start to stumble and to turn me around when I head for danger. I asked God to keep pushing me forward when I get distracted and to take the bulk of the load and keep me rolling when I get tired. I asked God to help me with my life the same way I helped my daughter that day. Fathers love to help.

A friend of mine named Carl has a cool tradition. Every Tuesday night his wife goes out with her girl friends leaving Carl home with their four boys. The boys call it “Guy’s Night” and they love this special time because they know that “Guy’s Night” means homemade pizza! Here’s the catch, all the boys are invited to help… for better or for worse. They all can take part in making the pizzas. “I would be better off making the pizzas alone, but the point is not the pizzas”, Carl says, “The point is time together and a chance to validate my sons”.  By helping dad make the pizzas the boys are being taught that Dad values their involvement and time together over how the pizza turns out. At the end of the night the kitchen is always a mess and the pizza never tastes just right but Carl doesn’t care -He got to spend time with his sons and show them that He values them. 

God is a loving Father and He loves “making pizzas” with His children. If you are like me the invitation into the “kitchen” to help with the “pizza” can be intimidating. After all, we are not kids anymore and there is a lot on the line when we decide to trust our father with our time, talent and inevitably our hearts. Things could definitely get messy. Yet we are invited anyway. Some pause here, count the cost and miss out, reasoning perhaps that they may fail, or they are not the person for the job. But think back for a second to Carl and his sons. The point was never how the pizzas turned out or even that his sons become perfect pizza makers but rather a chance for a father to validate and spend time with his children.

So maybe like Carl, when we partner with God in what He is doing, He isn’t expecting perfection but rather our time and a chance to validate us. When He invites us to come along, get involved, it is an invitation to know Him a little better. Remember God is the ultimate giver and there is nothing about us that is naturally generous. Instead, we lean towards self preservation, self promotion and self interest…the ultimate takers. If we trust Him enough to follow Him into the kitchen we will learn that God pulls us towards trust for a reason. He knows that trust cannot be forced or taken; it must be given and as “Takers” we must give to live. So may we pick up the bag of flour and the rolling pin in God’s kitchen and spend time with our Father doing what only He can do. Jesus said that the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few… There are plenty of pizzas to make! Come on in, the kitchen is warm!

One day will we grieve over the prayers left unprayed, the sacrifices unmade, the tears unshed?

The prayers we do not pray, the tears we do not cry, the sacrifices we never make and the love that we deny are packed into every minute of life and are the miracles of God we long to see.
The hands and feet of Jesus tied up in you and me.

Unbind the hands of Christ. Release the love of God in your life.

Recently God has been awakening a passion in me in at least three areas. One specific calling I feel is to boldly speak life into the Church by reminding them who they are and what they are to be about. The second passion that I feel boiling inside me is for the lost people all around our city and the third passion has been for a personal closer walk with God. So today I want to encourage you by taking a moment to remind you of who you are.

I see the American Church today and I see an identity crisis; we don’t remember who we are (John 15:19)! We must understand that this is not our home… We are not Americans, or Kentuckians, or Bowling Greeners, or a particular race, or a denomination, or company men, or college students or bums on the street - We are aliens – live with it! We are ambassadors – embrace it! We are citizens of another city, a heavenly city in the kingdom of God. This is not our home and “you are not your own for you have been bought with a price!”. Everything that is real, everything that is eternal about you, everything that really matters in your brief human existence hinges on your decision to live by faith here and now for a heavenly city.

When we embrace that we are citizens of another City and that this earth is not our home we will live differently and we will have priorities that reflect our true identity. When we realize that heaven is our home and that we are destined for things so much greater than the rubbish of stuff on earth we do not get so caught up in the game of the human condition. We have all seen people who have become fully absorbed and defined by living here and now, and if we are honest, often times that person is the person looking back at us in the mirror. We must be reminded that we are citizens of another city – this world is not our home. We cannot afford to lose our identity or get lost in false, short term realities like: materialism, politics, nationalism, corporate ladders, social justices, causes, plans and efforts…they are all human games (I John 2:16) that can bog us down and distract us from our work on earth. We live on earth for a short time, so while we are here play the game; yes, yet live fully alive independent of it! In other words – we are in the world but we are not of this world (John 17:14).

I think sometimes we forget that God’s Kingdom is not in the least bit affected by our situation, or the economy or whatever happens to be in the headlines. The truth is; should we as individuals or as a nation fall from the heights of the American dream – Gods kingdom still stands. Should our freedom be taken away and our money loose all value – God’s kingdom still stands. God’s plan to redeem is not in the slightest bit wavered by man’s agenda or the human condition. God’s kingdom is not slowed, tainted or prevented – it does not come on hard times. Success or failure, Great Depression or abundance, crumbling government or peaceful reigns – none of it affects God’s kingdom even in the slightest. All these things are the trappings and consuming weights of the world. You and I must not be distracted by them (2 Timothy 1:7-9)

This is our call. This is our mission. This is how we must live our lives. Nothing counts if it isn’t eternal. Only people are eternal- so be about your mission, be about God’s mission – people - lost people. Love them. Show them the gospel – make disciples of them. For we have been commissioned and set apart for this very reason. May we not come to the end of our human life and offer God the efforts of our human condition – it won’t cut it- instead I pray we come to the end of our lives and offer God the work of Christ through our life – a crown of life.

One Saturday morning when I was in junior high my dad told my sister Natalie and I to hop up on the roof and clean off the sticks and leaves that had collected over the winter.

We did not own a ladder so he had to lift us up from the back porch. When we finished we had no way down except the way we came up.  Natalie was afraid so I went first. I scooted up close to the edge, turned over on my stomach and inched my way down over until my feet reached dads waiting hands. He lowered me down.  It was Natalie’s turn. She crawled to the edge of the roof turned over on her stomach and inched backwards. Fear seized her body as she realized her feet could not reach dad’s hands. Dad said, “Come on Natalie I’ve got you” and she started to cry…I quit making fun of her just long enough to get a camera.

Dad told Natalie that she was going to have to crawl out off the roof further until her legs could swing down and he would catch her feet.  To my surprise that is what she did. She pushed herself so far off the roof that her legs were dangling; still my dad could just barely touch her toes. At this point she panicked saying “I am going to fall, I am going to fall!”. I remember my dad saying “Natalie I’ve got you, trust me, just drop and I will catch you”.  Natalie’s words were poetic and have stuck with me to this day, she breathed in through the tears and with all she had, she screamed, “No way!!”. “It’s Ok, I won’t let you fall, I’ve got you” Dad assured her, and with that she fell and dad caught my sobbing sister.

Psalms 62:8-10 says, “Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to Him, for God is our refuge. 9. Lowborn men are but a breath, the highborn are but a lie; if weighed on a balance, they are nothing; together they are only a breath. 10. Do not trust in extortion or take pride in stolen goods; though your riches increase, do not set your heart on them.”

 We do not know exactly what David was going through when he wrote Psalm 62 but we do know the big picture of His life and we know that David was caught up in many instances where trusting God was not only a song he was writing, it was the sound track to his life. Trust is a scary proposition. It can feel like dropping off an edge when you can’t see where you are dropping too. And, It can feel like self preservation or good sense to resist trust.

The story of my sister and I is a simple picture of what is all too often the truth in many of our lives. Don’t we do our best in life to not end up in situations like Natalie’s?  We can rationalize, justify, ignore and pretend all we want but in reality trust looks very little like falling into our Father’s arms in our daily life, and more like deciding to live on the roof.

If our faith is placed in Christ then it goes without saying that our hope is also in Him but that does not mean we necessarily trust Him. Take faith in Christ and hope in Christ and add time and you should get trust. Here’s the point. Trusting is somehow deeper than believing and more demanding than hoping. The act of trusting has an element of letting go of what personally makes sense and replacing it with anything the Lord decides.

Notice verse 9, David addresses the things that people tend to put their trust in instead of God.. “Lowborn men are but a breath, the highborn are but a lie; if weighed on a balance they are nothing; together they are only a breath.”  David is bashing the natural bent of mankind to trust in man. How often do we put our trust in a man or in the talents of a leader?

March madness is behind us now but just a few months ago all across the nation we enjoyed the athleticism and the competition of the incredible athletes pouring out everything they had on the basketball court for the chance to play one more game. There were heart stopping moments as teams won at the buzzer and there were surprising let downs as “greats” fell to underdogs. For each game the commentators were quick to point out the one or two players that the teams were relying heavily on, saying, “If this guy doesn’t show up in a big way in this game the team is going to be struggling to stay in contention”. We’ve seen the highlights on ESPN of these pivotal players hitting the game winning shot and we’ve seen the failures. It is ingrained into our system to look up to people or trust people with our hopes. And in that system our heroes sometimes win and sometimes fail. David says don’t be so foolish as to trust any man, whether he is a buzzer beater or towel boy with what only God can truly deliver.

In verse 10 he points out another place in our lives where we are choosing to live on the roof instead of trusting our Father to catch us.  Here he tackles money. Let’s read the passage. “Do not trust in extortion or take pride in stolen goods; though your riches increase, do not set your heart on them.” Money, now there’s a touchy subject. Thank you, David for shooting straight with us. David tells us that we should not trust in money or our ability to finagle it from people.  Money is a tool to be used and God is to be trusted. “In God we trust” is written on our money but in all reality we have it completely backwards.  We use God and trust in money. I wonder, is that as true for you as it is for me? This statement hits at the heart of what we are talking about here.  How often do we use God and trust “life on the roof”?

When the Bible says “Trust in Him at all times,” it is not just an invitation it is an exhortation, for there is in reality no life apart from relationship with God, and there is no relationship apart from trust, and there is no trust, living on the roof.  If your Father is calling you off the roof it is because He wants what is best for you!  He is good, He loves you, and you can trust Him. Here’s to the roof jumpers!

 Scared too sometimes!

Josh

Hope you are enjoying the blooming of the dogwoods and tulips as much as we are in the Wicker household. God is a wonderful maker!

 I was thinking about the beauty of creation the other day while I was walking through our neighborhood and it hit me that there is something irresistible about beauty. There is something about it that makes you stop and experience it with all the senses you can possibly indulge.

I often get the chance to walk to and from work during the week and I have made it a habit to pray for each of our neighbors as I am walking by their homes and specifically that the Holy Spirit would draw them into a relationship with Him and that my church would get to be a part of that change in their lives. So several days ago, while I was walking, I was thinking about the power of beauty, and how it doesn’t matter who you are or what you have done; beauty has the power to completely seize your world and make you stop, take notice and enjoy.

So, I changed my prayer up a little on this occasion. While I walked I began to pray that God would be irresistible to my neighbors. I prayed that He would shine His beauty into their lives in such a way that they could not resist. I admitted to God that I did not know everything about how he works but that I did recognize the power of beauty and since He is the architect of beauty and the author of the power it wields in humans; why not flaunt it a little?

Yes I said “flaunt it”. You’ve heard the statement, “If you’ve got it, flaunt it”; well, God has got “It”. So in our day to day living may we be praying for the salvation of our neighbors, friends, family and enemies, and perhaps in our praying we might add, that the beauty of God would shine through our lives in such a way that it is irresistible! 

Worship Leaders, Song Writers and Artists check this out. Inspire 2011 is only days away but there is still time to register! 

http://inspireworshipconference.com/

In an effort to remove the distractions and emphasize the hope we have in the power of the resurrection, our creative team worked tirelessly on transforming a gymnasium into a place of worship. 

First we brought in a 40x20' black back drop to cover the padded beige walls and improve atmosphere. We then brought attention to our primary message by constructing four foot high letters of the word HOPE. We also invited people to place flowers on a cross. Finally, we created an overhead graphic that tied the room together and read "This is our HOPE - Christ is Risen from the Dead". This same graphic was used in a postcard that was hand delivered to over 500 people. We were really pleased with how things turned out and felt that the day and the worship was elevated by our preparations.