Shallow Waters Devotional 5

Shallow Waters Devotional from Shaun Mayfield on Vimeo.

Explore the bible as we look at Paul and his "thorn in the flesh". Could it be simpler than once presumed? Could it be pink eye as he references in Galatians, "See with what large letters I write." Maybe he was struggling with conjunctiva and couldn't see well, just a thought.

**So those of you who know, I actually had pinkeye a couple weeks ago but after this video was made audio would not upload due to technical difficulties, it is now working and my pink eye is gone!**

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Shallow Waters Devotional 4

Here is another Shallow Water Devotional from my great buddy Jesse Watson, click on his name to visit his blog. He is one great guy and has a deep insight into the life of swimming with your clothes on can be applied to your spiritual life.


Shallow Waters Daily Devotional of the Week from Student Impact on Vimeo.

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Shallow Waters Devotional 3

Here are some of the most challenging, thought provoking devotionals from some of the most thoughtful minds of our culture. I am honored to be the newest member of their tribe and to even associate with such modern minds!


Shallow Waters Devotional from Shaun Mayfield on Vimeo.

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Shallow Waters Devotional 2

Here are some of the most challenging, thought provoking devotionals from some of the most thoughtful minds of our culture. I am honored to be the newest member of their tribe and to even associate with such modern minds! This is one of my greatest friends Sam, check out his blog here!

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Shallow Waters Devotionals 1

Here are some of the most challenging, thought provoking devotionals from some of the most thoughtful minds of our culture. I am honored to be the newest member of their tribe and to even associate with such modern minds! Jesse is the Senior High Pastor over at Phoenix First and is a awesome guy and a lot of fun.

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HVNCNW8

On my way to my ordination exam I may have been slightly speeding, possibly, maybe, and while I was on my way I passed a beautiful black car with the license plate that read HVNCNW8. I saw the license plate before I noticed the car, after looking at the car I noticed it being a S600 Mercedes-Benz, just so you know it is priced at $108,000. Now first off I have no desire to judge this individual or any person who has the ability to afford what I believe a very wonderful workmanship for a car. However I do want to look at the mindset of not only this person, but so many others who has the attitude of 'heaven can wait' (get it).

America is in the now, and many individuals lack the ability to make appropriate priorities. Unfortunately life after death seems to be as minuscule and minor as McDonalds on the arteries. What isn't seen seems to always be insignificant. This is probably why many Christians seem to be struggling with their relationship with God as much as they struggle running through a forest at night with no light.

Matthew 6:19-21 - 19 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also". If you are familiar with this verse at all then you should understand the simplicity of the gospel. It's simple, crap/junk on this earth won't last, modestly put!

The part that I think shares union with my observation is verse 21, “where your treasure is, there you heart is also”. I am afraid many people have traded their heart, in essence their life, for their eternity. I say 'life' because the bible is filled with statements that eternity is through Jesus' blood that we are saved. We either have a blood flow of this world or have a blood transfusion of Jesus who's blood takes away our infirmities both physical and spiritual. We need to be aware and be focused on what we are focusing on with our heart.

Be rich, be blessed, buy a Mercedes… but don't sell out your heart for the crap in this world and look to those items as an end all, they merely are temporal and can easily be a distraction. Keep your focus, keep your heart on things above and store up your investments in heaven. Bless someone today, tell someone you LOVE them, possibly a stranger, serve someone… then give the credit to God and in that moment you made a heavenly transaction with amazing an interest rate.

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Foggy Days

Here in Arizona, rain, fog, snow, hail, etc are not the norm, however sun, sunny, and hot are. The last few days, five days to be exact, we have experienced rain and it is a great thing for a parched desert. You can recognize the life spring forth from the plants and you begin to have a greater sense of freshness. This morning as I loaded up my 4 month old daughter to take her to her sitter, everything seemed pleasant and norm. As I left my house and go a mile away I started to notice that my visibility was daunting and that there was not clear views ahead. It got so bad that as I sat at a red light I could see the fog blowing across the street as if the house to the right was set to fire. The visibility was reduced to less than a quarter mile and road signs were not readable more than a 100' away as you can see in this picture.

Many times I will have students approach me about their own life and their effectiveness. Almost having a sense of failing because they can't see the outcome of their influence. It is important to know that we don't have to know the plans, we don't have to see the big picture to know that God will lead us to his table. Jeremiah 29:11 says how God knows the plans for our life and His plans are not to hurt us or harm us but to give us hope of a bright future.

I realized in the fog that I was able to see far enough to be safe, that brought comfort however sometimes in life we may not have the visibility in life to know that we are safe. We have to put our faith in God and trust Him in His word that He will never leave us or ditch us or abandon us.

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Every Step Counts

After years of remodeling our house, adding 500 square feet of livable space and 130 square feet we can call it finished. Front yard is all finished and I must say one of the best in the neighborhood. Now the backyard. I was digging the footer for pouring a concrete step off of our patio that is only about 32' long. After I would dig the dirt I would wheelbarrow it out to the middle of the yard and dump it out then spread it with the rake. Nine wheelbarrow loads full and still only about half done is quite a lot of work.

One thing I noticed is there are a lot of dirt clogs in the dirt, some are very hard as well. As we were raking some leaves over this Thanksgiving week I noticed that I would have to step each step onto a dirt clog to break it up. Now this is probably from my OCD which sometimes seems a bit overwhelming when you feel trapped by some idiosyncrasies that seem to make no sense to the rest of the world. What I realized was the thought that came to my mind, "make every step count". I realized that many of the steps as I look like I am ballerina prancing across my backyard I am actually being very productive. I then delved deeper into this thought, how does this metaphorically speak of my life, ministry, family, etc? See I feel that when we begin to make each footprint the most important one then our life begins to bring on new meaning. It is easy to go through years as a Christian and feel that it was all for nothing, sure I am saved and my inheritance is waiting in heaven but what have I counted for here on earth in this time, in this life. I beg of myself to begin a new course of making every step count. Let each move I make be one of significance, of influence, of leadership, of development. Let my life begin to count for something. See the power of this is when others see our footsteps. When the next person beginning their journey can look forward and see what is ahead and what makes sense. Or for yourself to be able to look back and see that there are a lot of dirt clogs broken up, that your prancing through the yard became significant.

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Dreams and Alarms

Our first unofficial night moving back into our Gilbert house was haunted by low batteries. As I lay asleep dreaming of uneasy discourses I am awakened by the chirp of the smoke alarm low battery signal. This design although is designed to help the loss of lives by sounding an alarm to let you know the battery needs changed becomes a hatred sound at 1:14am. As I am awakened the inevitable comes to mind; I am going to have to get up and fix the problem. I am optimist by nature, so at 1:14am I tell myself it will all go away and be better. it beeps every 30 seconds, after 5 beeps I go to survey the hallway to see which smokie I need to dismantle. How fortunate, the beeping stops, I return back to the makeshift air mattress bed. No rest of sleep before it beeps again about 20 minutes later. I wait 3 beeps then hurry to the hall expecting 2 more beeps that never come. I return to the padding of air beneath me to lay for 20 more minutes, after 3 more beeps go and remove all 3 smokies in the hallway. Problem solved, return to bed and begin to allow my eyes to grow heavy. BEEP! I hurry again and wait and hear the beep once again in the office. There it is, now I can destroy the infidel in my house, the terrorist of night sleep.

But lets return to sentence #2, you remember the dream of uneasy discourse. I lay and argue in my mind about leadership requirements with someone in my life. I am explaining why he is in the wrong and if he makes a couple simple, yes simple improvements then he will have a paradigm shift that will give him a freedom to lead appropriately. I begin to raise my voice and explain/demand that if he tries my ways just at least try once or twice then measure the outcome that he would realize my rationale. It is met with much hesitation and frustration. Of course this was already expected, I'm young and extremely inexperienced (tongue in cheek) so what in the world might I have to offer on the subject of leadership. To his dismay some leaders are born some are created, I am both, a little at birth, I learned how to be an instigator and lead those I loved into trouble, then that form of leadership was defined into a deep level of taking people into their world to make a difference. Return again to the story, so, as awoke from this dream paced the house knowing in my spirit that there was a reason that I was awakened and went to God in prayer. I have learned that God wakes me at night to get close to him, He speaks to me through my dreams and then I awake to meditate and pray on what was in my dream.

God's message: Not everyone is at the point ready to receive what you have to say. Knowledge does not give the power to speak into someones life just because you know better or have the answer. One must gain influence to be able to move information into someone's mental storage facility. Sure what I said was appropriate and right, but that doesn't need to translate into arrogance. Any gift or knowledge I have is because God granted me the ability to have it. But he didn't grant me the permission to step into certain people's lives and dump my knowledge or reasoning into them.

God's answer: At some point this person (to only be known as PBW) will return to me in the future to seek advice and/or direction.

Read more >> Options >>

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Seven Reasons You Might Fail to Become the Best in the World

Seven Reasons You Might Fail to Become the Best in the World
by Seth Godin

1. You run out of time (and quit).
2. You run out of money (and quit).
3. You get scared (and quit).
4. You’re not serious about it (and quit).
5 You lose interest or enthusiasm or settle for being mediocre (and quit).
6. You focus on the short term instead of the long (and quit when the short term gets too hard).
7. You pick the wrong thing at which to be the best in the world (because you don’t have the talent).

By “you,” I mean your team, your company, or just plain you, the jobseeker, employee, or entrepreneur. The important thing to remember about these seven things is that you can plan for them. You can know before you start whether or not you have the resources and the will to get to the end. Most of the time, if you fail to become the best in the world, it’s either because you planned wrong or because you gave up before you reached your goal.

Even worse than quitting in the first six cases: not quitting. Settling. Sticking with it but not succeeding.

Is it possible that you’re just not good enough? That you (or your team) just don’t have enough talent to be the best in the world? Sure, it’s possible. In fact, if your chosen area is the cello, or speed skating, then I might even say it’s probable. But in just about every relevant area I can think of, no, it’s not likely. You are good enough. The question is, will you take the shortcut you need to get really good at this?

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/the_dip/2007/04/the_seven_reaso.html

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Wow, may I never decide to quit, may I never accidentally quit. If I run out of time I will reset my clock. If I run out of money I will beg. If I get scared I will turn on the lights. If I am not serious about it then I will recast my vision. If I lose enthusiasm or interst I will try a new cuisine, possibly a cultural delicacy. If I focus on the short tem goal instead of the long term goal I will look up, if that short term gets too hard I will stop take a breath, a good drink of cold water then look up and go. If I pick then wrong thing because I am not talented I will surround myself with anyhing, everything, anyone and everyone that can help strengthen that talent. I WON'T QUIT, EVER!!!!

I am, I will be a speaker, advocate, lobbyist, activist for the God I believe in, not the Christianity that has been created through ideologies but through the mere understanding of his greatness.

Do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised' Hebrews 10:35-36.

God has created me to be who he wants me to be. What ever part of the world in space and time that he wants me to affect I must fulfill. I mut be confident in who God has made me to be. I can't throw that away. Just like in the 7 reasons we fail, without perseverance we are useless. God can't use me if I am not available to be used. If I quit I have limited God and his ability to use me in this place and time to affect my world. Perseverance is in a simplified definition; continued pursuit. Will I pursue God, will I pursue his passions, will I pursue his desires, will I chase his wants? Will I? I must, I have to, I must pursue everything he has for me but not just selfishly, I must pursue him as a living sacrifice. To take up my cross daily is to sacrifice it. God's promises are coming, they are on the way to interact with us in the intersection of finishing the race and doing it with confidence and not quitting. That is the life I want to live.

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Your (you are) Genius (Genie-in-us)

Every single person has in them what it takes to be something, to be someone.

You must take courage to find your genius, when you find your genius you will see that it comes out of your environment.
Have the courage to find your environment where you rub your magic lamp and your Genie-in-us comes out. God gave you the magic. What God gives never comes back in void. God is faithful in everything he says. He has equipped us to be something someday. Our soul for being, our heartbeat for existence is not to settle with mediocrity or to simply be comfortable. Once we know our environment we can begin to take it over. We will simply begin to master it and learn its features. When we know our environment well then we begin to over come it. Michael Jordan was a beautiful genius in his environment. He was the magic to the Chicago Bulls. He was the best person to ever touch the court. Because of his ability and agility to overcome his environment, his courage gave him the MVP and the title of the best player ever.

The saddest thing is that we limit ourselves so much by not believing in ourselves. We hold back our full potential. Maybe somebody one day, one time came down on you or told you that you didn't amount to what you were up against and that took everything you thought you were and it was crushed. You never picked up the pieces and put them together. You stayed there, became stalemate and let the environment overgrow you. IF we don't master our environment the environment begins to take over. I have never in my life seen a garden keep itself weed free, I have never seen a clean house stay clean, or let alone a bedroom. Nature goes bad, our courage to overcome yields its control. We need to step up, take courage and be strong to fight for control over our environment. Then we can be the genius that has been in us the whole time. Our untapped magic is there in everyone, when we see people that are a genius over their environment we think they are a miracle, a perfect package. It is not a miracle, it was one who showed courage over their environment, then the magic comes out and we become a genius.

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God and Our Lack of Worship

Today was a good day. I began to look into some deep philosophies of worship for our youth X/perience:worship: series coming up in March. In one essence I was freaked out, in another I am very excited. God is amazing and as I studied what worship is I learned that worship is initiated with God. Yeah, crazy. He created us in His image to worship him. Him creating us in his image began that worship experience, the initiation process. I think about the students in our youth ministry and see the shallowness, my very own reflection on the shallow pond. Chris Stapley said that it used to be a narrow and a mile deep and now it's a mile wid and an inch deep. I thought about it and thought about it. It came to my mind that our students aren't getting it. They are not getting that God has created them in His image and initiated the worship experience. How/Why/Won't we go after God? What stops us from chasing, pursuing, not stopping until we have caught God and wrap our arms around him and not let go, we say, "God, I'm not letting go until I have X/perienced everything from you."

I imagine it and see it in my mind already. I am not even a father yet. Chez being 3+ months pregnant and already seing me as being a father. I can also picture a father and his young child. The child begins to chase after daddy and he steps back each time as the child is going to grab him. Of course this is an impossible reach for the young child. One step of the father is equal to ten or so steps for the child. The dad also knows that he can run away and hide and the child after a minute will most likely give up, sit down, and quickly be distracted by something and forget all about dad. WOW, is that where our teens are? Could it be that they have lost sight of God, may God have gone too far away and now they have gotten distracted? Well the father knows this and knows not to get out of sight and make the game impossible. Every once in a while the father will stop and allow the child to catch him and the child is exuberant and excited to finally catch his dad. Now I have experienced God in such a real way where he, for what ever reason has allowed me to catch him and I had such an amazing experience with Him. So has God hidden form the teens and they have missed him and found something else? I don't believe so, I believe that the difference between us and toddlers is that as Jesus said, "Suffer not the little children to come to me", then he blessed the child. As adults or even teens we are much more carnal and more self-centered. I truly believe that our reasons for not X/periencing God is because of our self-centered mindset. The psyche of our mind says my needs first before what God wants. Maybe some of us, the teens, have began to focus on themselves and forgot the need and obligation of our being is to worship the One who created us. So maybe I can begin to focus on the reason of my being.

My prayer: How do I convey to a group of teens that God is so worthy of our sacrifices?

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Not Forgetting God

I have been moving out of one house into a new house and it is amazing how many things I have found that I didn't realize I even had. Every time I cleaned out an area I found more and more stuff. Some junk and some forgotten things that brought back memories. I realized that I had to throw out a lot of junk and clean a lot of things up. I realized how many things I forgot about. How dumb am I to forget about so much.

Then I realized that memories never "leave" our brain. Everything that we have ever heard or seen or known is in our memory. In psychology you learn that your memory is literally infinite. So you never "forget" you just have "memory recall failure". It's like going to a door and trying to get in and you have tons of keys on your ring and you can't figure out which key it is. Our problem is linking the memories. you just have to get the right link. I realize sometimes vital information or good memories get put on a shelf or behind that door and what was only suppose to be for a moment becomes "lost".

My question to myself is what does it take for people to really want to experience God. What holds us back? Why are we so calloused to the spiritual things of God? Some guys asked Jesus once, “Which of the commandments (or laws) is the most important?” In other words they were saying that they knew there was no way they could uphold all of the laws with perfection. So which one should they definitely try to nail? Jesus replied, “You should love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hinge all of the laws of the prophets.” Maybe our calloused hearts began one day when we put God on that one shelf. You know that shelf that is right by your door. Maybe you said to yourself I will pick it up later. Later never came, and now we are comfortable without him. God became irrelevant because we lost focus on him. He just began to collect dust and was meaningless to us. Not because we don't need him but because he isn't the first and primary focus in our life. See after we put God on the shelf only intended for a moment it turns into a day, then a day turns into a week, then he gets covered up and forgotten. That's Jesus' challenge to us, to never put him on a shelf. Jesus knows that if we love our God with ALL of our body, soul, and mind we would never forget him. Furthermore if we love him first then love others all other things fall right into place.

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iscariot's bitter demise

are you you, or are you a fake?
i need to know, i have my doubts, they've told me
you are not who u say u are, tell me is it lies
i need to know now, i’m dependent on your answer

if you are not who u say u are then what is this
if i’m not dependent on your offering, then what’s it worth
i get it, some money will buy me out, i can betray
life will go on, money will fix it all

i kiss you goodnight on your cheek, peace
you are collapsed and bound now
was it right, is anything right?
am i to determine this? we sat at the table to dine

we ate and u offered to buy, does that mark my doomsday
i shouldn’t of given in, am i to blame?
i’m going to run out on this one, you have heard the last of me
good by and good night for the last time...

good bye for eternity
good night

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egphhhh, aaaaarghhh..

Thus far the drum of Monday beats at my heart like a silent attack of hatred. Oh I dislike Mondays, eh. Well the rest of the week should do me ok, but I guess its 100% my reaction to what happens so therefore I choose to have a good week. Eagerness to make a buck due to whatever crisis you want to call it, doesn't matter on this daunting morning, recent escalating prices on oil drums has escalated to near terror in itself. Well Chez informs me that my '73 bug is running on fumes when I'm already running late. Eh, yesterday would of been nice to know this sweet inhalation, BOOM, as I feel my heartbeat frustration. First gas station, every pump has someone their pumping there 20 gallons into their beasts at $2.08 a gallon, BOOM, the beat of anger. I need a mere 8 gallons to fill Betsi up (named after Betsy). Next station four miles away, petting Betsi and pleading with her to not run out of gas and strand me on the side of the road next to thousands of cars speedily on their way to work (the thought of someone stopping to help seems pointless in such a selfish microwave society). The drum beats of hatred once again, BOOM. The first electronic machine to purchase gas does not allow for user input *stupid broken dumb piece of man's machinery, I think to myself*, BOOM. I go to the next machine and it wont except the dear lady in front of me's card nor mine, BOOM. I go inside to purchase my measly 8 gallons, there ATM machine is down, BOOM. I have no cash, BOOM. So now I still have a 11 minute drive to work and its 2 minutes till I have to be there and I still have to get gas, BOOM, my heart beats anger. I go 3 minutes out of my way to finally get my 8. And get back on track... I get to work, no one is here, YES, everyone is late, I get to be by myself... I relax to sit down and type this. THANK YOU GOD for my ability to choose my reaction to the life that has succumb to be my ally. Why should I allow Satan to throw stumbling blocks in front of me, Satan I welcome them, they are just stepping stones on to which I can thwart your desire to try to steal, kill, and destroy my freedom and joy, and happiness, once again you can't prevail. Must feel good to be such a loser.

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