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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Dorothy and Earl

I wish I had a picture to show you there beautiful faces. Dorothy, 75, and Earl, 82, are precious and proud.

As we sat to eat at Arby's for lunch with a couple pastors and interns we were being the typical annoying loud people in the corner that most would be upset at us. As Ryan jumps up to do a little dance this quiet elderly couple look over and instead of a frown or look of disgust Dorothy made the comment, "we once were able to move like that, praise God for you young folks". She began to ask us if we were believers in which we responded yes. She was happy and began to get emotional and filled with joy that young people were laughing and having fun and that we loved God. I spent a few moments talking with them as they introduced themselves to me and asked for prayer because they were not doing good. See Dorothy had just had a double by-pass and a stint put in and didn't know how long she would be around. She swore Satan was trying to shut her up because she said she is bold and will never stop telling people about Jesus. She said that Earl is in worse health and that they need each other. I said I would pray for them. Earl said that as soon as they saw us they knew we loved God and that they could feel the presence over us.

As they were about to leave they came over and began sharing the love of God with us loudly and boldly in the middle of Arby's. As she talks Ole' Earl is trying to chime in and give his perspective of seeing a bunch of Christian 'kids' and how happy and moved he was. She then said how much she felt the spirit and shared some scriptures with us. Then with her boldness in that small 75 year old frail frame she said we need to pray. I notice Earl's old weathered hands reaching for his hat and I figured cool, I guess we will pray right now. Dorothy began to pray, not one of these little prayers, "Lord bless these youngens". No, it was a prayer of passion, she truly was praying over us and asking God to use us and care for us. Then we blessed them and they left.

We hurried back to the church because we had staff prayer at one and I told them I would pray for them so I did and began to think and meditate on what happened. I'm not sure everyone that I was with truly got what was happening. Here is some complete strangers yet not caring about anything or anyone around and some were probably missing what was really happening.

Here area a couple saints that are probably close to finishing their race in life and are so filled with God's spirit that they care nothing about public opinion. For many of us we are so worried about what others might think and it changes our actions. I would hate to think that I would become bold when I realize my life is almost over and I have nothing to lose. The bible says that we shouldn't worry about tomorrow because there is no guarantee that tomorrow will even come. If that is the case how come most Jesus-followers don't have the boldness to approach people, don't have the boldness to pray for people in public, to raise our voice for indecency, to not stand up for the impoverished, the hurt, the broken, the neglected, the needy, homeless, drunk, abused and invisible people that are all around us living in the shadows? May God put a burden on us that causes us to hurt like He does, to be broken for the lost like he is! Prior to Dorothy and Earl leaving they talked to another elderly couple and asked them how they were doing and she asked the gentleman who's watching over him and she said, "Is God?" He responded I hope so, and she said, hope so, you better know, do you know Jesus? I realize that todays approach is far different than yesterdays direct, "do you know Jesus?", and that most salvations come through relationship but are we willing to be up front with people, to talk to total strangers?

Pray for Dorothy and Earl, I know they would appreciate it, but also most importantly pray that you get their zeal and energy to do Kingdom Work in your day to day life journey.

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An Overwhelming Urgency

This is going to be one pretty hectic week for me. I am at that moment where everything is beginning to feel overwhelming yet the urgency to get things done is getting more and more real. I am trying to rap up the lessons and messages for Winter Retreat for this year. Our JRHi Retreat is January 19-21 and the SRHi Retreat is February 16-18. One exciting thing is the cooperation of the interns. They will be running the JRHi Retreat for all the events and games. They are pretty excited. However all the programming and messages etc. fall on me. Furthermore I am heading off to Peru in just 7 weeks which doesn't seem to big of a deal but Doug Reed has asked that all of my breakout session material be to him for review by January 10th, eek!

Well in case you didn't know what this Peru trip is, let me explain... Doug Reed with Partnership International asked if I would go with them on a Pastoral Leadership Conference to do the Youth Pastor training. There will be roughly 70-80 Youth Pastors their in attendance. I am excited to be going and being a part of the team of pastors. There will be a team of about 10 pastors, one children's pastor and one youth pastor, me. I look forward to this opportunity and to be able to go to a beautiful part of the world in South America and train some amazing leaders the principles and lessons that I have gotten to learn.

So here goes a couple of days of pushing through and getting everything done. Oh and on top of all of this we are in the final stages of the giant remodel project of The Underground, which I will blog on shortly all about it and put some pictures up of what it is.

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Secular & Sacred

As I met Kevin and Mark, the pastors at One Place in Phoenix I got to see a duo of very creative co-pastors. I knock on the door and wait for Mark to greet me and let me in and we all introduce ourselves and begin dialoging. Mark returns to his office, a makeshift table and a beautiful old 'goodwill' sort of arm chair from the 60's in the front of the stage floor level where the chairs filled on a Sunday night look to be a giant waiting room. He pulls up his desk, a quaint little plastic table with marker graffiti and writing all over it, and begins to tell me that this desk of his is also the cash table for all the concerts that come through their church; the church doubles as a music venue to the community and art gallery on Friday nights. They host in the winter about 1-2 shows a week and in the summer months 20-25 shows a month. Mark speaks up that approximately 70% of the shows are probably not Christian. Oh and then he mentions the table that people write on which probably has profanity on it his covered with a cloth and the elements are laid on it for their communion service the previous Sunday.

Their is something magnificent about how we treat what is secular and what is sacred. It seems to me that growing up, those were not able to coexist, much like a radical Muslim and conservative Christian strolling through the park sipping ice tea together laughing at the most recent 'Fox Trot' Sunday comics. See, I was brought up to believe that once something or someone becomes sacred that any signs of the old, any signs of the secular must be doused with gasoline and torched.

Many times we [Christians], do so good at portraying to non-believers that they are wretched and are unclean as was the individual that had leprosy and was removed form the camp until he was better then still had to wait many days before the priest would allow him back into the camp. And because of their condition we can not coexist!

Can what is sacred and what is secular coexist? I see Jesus who was perfectly content being with the non-believer and I would even further the statement and say that he found joy when he was amongst the secular. Jesus was, at least in my Bible a little more radical, a little more dirt under the fingernails, a little more willing to risk the view of what was suppose to be ideal sacredness for any church leader, let alone a follower. Today's Jesus I believe would mess up the theology of many of today's pastors. I believe Jesus of today would cause a lot of repentance, but not the typical repentance of, "I'm sorry, please forgive me", but a repentance from the church pastor that has the attitude of "how could I have missed it all these years". There have been too many moments of conviction from the 'priest' to the 'leper' of what must change and what can not coexist, and I believe God is saying today, "I want to mess up your theology a little and let you see that I am not so easily defined as you once thought".

Take a walk through the gospels and see how many times Jesus was with the seculars. The interesting thing is both places he went... He was either at the sacred Holy temple chastising the "self-puffed, self-righteous sacred leaders" explaining to them that they have missed it and simply don't get it. They were great on theology but lousy on application. They knew how to live the bible intellectually but not missiologically. Or the other place Jesus was at was with the seculars, the lepers, the drunks, partyers, etc. hanging out, feeding, teaching, loving, and number one of all SERVING. I do believe secular and sacred can coexist, the main difference is that the secular does not try to convict but loves and serves!

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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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The Unrelationship Release

Account form my Addictions Class -
"As we discussed attachment disorders I realized who I am. I have an addiction. My addiction isn't like most other peoples. I am not addicted to food, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, sex (rolling eyes). I watch movies that have relationships that I didn't have. I watch movies that have stories that I didn't live but that I can live vicariously through them. The story on the screen gives me what I never had, an escape into everything I didn't have. I have issues and didn't have what I needed. It has caused problems with me and my relationships.

I always run and hide from people emotionally. I don't connect with people because they will end up rejecting me so I might as well not give them the chance. The class was over and I went to my car to begin the drive home and well.. I started crying, not the crying like I am doing now (soft tears rolling down my cheeks). I heard an animal crying out like it was being killed. Screams and crying came out of me like I didn't know I could even do. I sounded like an animal that was screaming out in pain because I was in pain. The hurts of my past were here present. I didn't have the attachments that I needed growing up, I didn't have the relationships that I needed when I was growing up. It has caused me to not engage in people or give people my time, see I was empty and what I didn't need was someone to come into my life and hurt me. I cried and broke down and began to feel the healing. The abused, broken, hurt, neglected animal raging and crying out wanting out. I provided him the escape that he needed. I let him go and felt relief, and now I am working on letting people in and my relationships are changing. I am a recovering attachment person. I am now trying to reach out to people." - From the words of an unnamed woman with a deep heart

Many times we talk with people or even yourself that deals with attachments disorders, or shall we call it an attachment issue. Disorder sounds pretty heavy. Many people are dying inside because of the relationships they never had and try to live out relationships through movies, watching others, and whatever else forms they find. It is no surprise to me that the church is the bride of Christ, and not the groom. The groom chases his bride, loves his bride and kneels to one knee to propose. Those that don't have earthly relationships has the amazing opportunity of Christ wanting to love you and cherish you. He wants to be your groom, to chase you and love you and kneel to one knee and propose to you and be with you forever. Let out the animal of hate, the crying animal of unlovingness and be enthralled in the best love relationship this world will ever know. "Will you take my hand in Holy Matrimony? Yes Jesus, I do."

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First Intern Meeting

Well Thursday at 3pm launched our first Intern Meeting. I began using an incredible service Pinger, that allows me to send out voicemails to individuals or to groups two weeks ago. The group of interns became my guinea pigs and our first scheduled meeting was delayed a week due to the birth of my beautiful daughter. You can see her at her own website here. Now the amazing thing, the God thing is that I did not have my Mac with me or anything. I know, can you believe it, I was without my Mac. I had left it at the office from our service the night before and didn't think anything about it, well that night we ended up going to the office. Now i had to tell all the interns about or meeting moving. Dial up Pinger, say the word "interns" and then left a voice mail that was sent to every single one, well all six of them. Great service
The meeting went well, left another Pinger that day telling them all to remember to bring their binders however I left all of them in my truck and I rode my motorcycle to work, so Brandon still does not have his. We went over the new youth name - eikon, we went over the requirements and job descriptions and discussed the expectations. The meeting was good, we found a time on Wednesdays from 3-4 to meet as a group. I am very excited for the future direction of where we are going.

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Sometimes I Never Feel Good Enough

Demands. Expectations. Needs. Realizations. Schedules. People. Lives. Hurts. Pains. Goals. Ambitions. Oh and a baby.
My perspective.

It seems with all the things that are demanding of my time all seem to have the need from someone else. It seems I am being pulled into every direction that is requiring my time. It seems like I can't make certain people happy. Unfortunately the people that I let down are the people that matter the most.

Unbalanced. Preoccupied. Selfish. Lazy. Blurred. Unfocused. Narrow-minded.
Their perspective.

Call me what you want. The truth is none of those are true but peoples preconceived ideas and perception unfortunately define you more then the one who knows you best... yourself. Too bad people around me can't look into my life and be able to communicate with me their thoughts and what they are thinking of you. That would help but nonetheless, this is the life that we are given and need to figure out how to work with those parameters.

Well regardless, I am going back to my demands, expectations, fulfilling needs of being unbalanced, preoccupied, selfish lazy, blurred, and narrow-minded life.

See ya.

Philippians 4:13 - I can do all things through him who gives me strength.
God will equip me and guide be to be balanced and not marginalized.

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Our Beautiful Baby Amberlyn Renae

Well we are now one week into being parents. It is a big task. I never realized though how much fun it would be, this is truly the best times of life. I made a Top Ten list for things to learn about babies. Here they are:
10. Diapers are not waterproof, nope not at all.
9. New car smell, new baby smell, diapers are not a new baby smell.
8. Babies, as cute as they are, don’t mind crying when you are sleeping.
7. When they are hungry you feed them, no questions.
6. 3 times in one hour, oh and yes that is diaper changes.
5. They don’t mind spitting-up anywhere anytime, and they are not the best planners of when and where.
4. Its an average of $80-$120 per month on diapers, and they don’t have a job to help support their habit.
3. Did I mention diapers are not waterproof.
2. Despite the diaper mess that you are wearing and being up at night and the spit-up they are very cute.
1. Don’t let their cute looks deceive you.

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About Shaun Mayfield:

Shaun is currently a student at Evangel University finishing his Masters degree in Organizational Leadership. He has a passion towards leadership excellence, team training, consulting for both for-profit and non-profit organizations business and personal coaching as well as motivational speaking.

As an entrepreneur for the past five years, Shaun has owned San Remo Solutions helping people reduce interest on their many lines of credit as well as most recently started brokering telecommunications and energy in the global arena. Shaun would consider himself a serial entrepreneur that loves the small-business world. If you have any interest in being involved in the largest transfer of wealth in history [telecommunications & energy] get more information here.

He has been involved in the youth culture for nearly a decade; as a professional motivational speaker/pastor to teens for the last 7 years, and working within student leadership for 3 years prior to that. Shaun has a remarkable ability to speak into people's lives about leadership, servanthood, positive life choices, choosing to win and to live their life recognizing their purpose. Shaun is passionate towards people as he brings relevant challenges to listeners where they are. Shaun believes that through relevance and humor you will win people’s hearts… and once you’ve done that you can motivate their minds. Shaun also has a heart to lead the leaders, he believes in replicable leadership and pouring into not only the future leaders but the current leaders as well. Shaun has had the privilege to travel internationally to speak to hundreds of leaders about youth culture.

Shaun sees himself as one who attempts the following: thinker, philosopher, theologian, speaker, creative, marketer, youth specialist, student pastor, designer, unicyclist, writer, architect, botanist, graphic designer, leader, coach, while attempting to live life without excuse selflessly!

Background:
Shaun Mayfield is an individual who grew up in the troubled areas of Phoenix, Arizona. At the age of 14, Shaun entered a church hooked on drugs, rebellious, and living a very troubled life and walked out that night completely changed and never has touched drugs since because of the overwhelming power of God.

His parents struggled in marriage for 19 years and at the age of 16, Shaun's parents filed for divorce. Three years later Shaun's father passed away by a heart attack one week before Christmas. His father's autopsy revealed that the hear attack was cause by a drug overdose of methamphetamines which was unknown to the family.

Shaun's life is far from perfect and has been met with many turns in the road of tragedy and troubles. He has learned how to overcome and fight through the toughest issues that life can throw. Through his difficulties he has earned the capacity of compassion, the faith of seeing lives change even in the toughest people, and seeing people dedicate themselves toward their life vision.

His topics for speaking at your event includes, but is absolutely not limited to:
• Choosing a Life that Wins
• ElephANT Improvements - A Very BIG little Talk on Improving Everything
• Character Is What I Create (Not being Subject of Your Surrounding)
• Promises; Broken and Shattered or Lived and Expressed
• The Art of Self-Creation (Creating the life you want NOW!)

If you are interested in having Shaun speak at your church, organization, business, or next event email him.

...read more on "About Shaun Mayfield:"!

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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AZ District Council 2007

John Lindell
James River Assembly of God Sr. Pastor

"The Power With Praying With Anticipation"

Isaiah 40:31 - But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

The only story that is repeated 3x in the Old Testament - Hezekiah and his reign as king.

The king tried to trust God and do what he said.

Isaiah 38:6 - And I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria: and I will defend this city.

The King didn't trust God, he tried to make deals with other kings.

Isaiah 39:1 - At that time Merodachbaladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah: for he had heard that he had been sick, and was recovered. 2 And Hezekiah was glad of them, and shewed them the house of his precious things, the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious ointment, and all the house of his armour, and all that was found in his treasures: there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah shewed them not. 3 Then came Isaiah the prophet unto king Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said these men? and from whence came they unto thee? And Hezekiah said, They are come from a far country unto me, even from Babylon.

2 Chronicles 32:25 - But Hezekiah rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him; for his heart was lifted up: therefore there was wrath upon him, and upon Judah and Jerusalem.

Hezekiah is overwhelmed by the situation. Isaiah 36:6 - God would bring him out of the trouble and speak to him.

When God is speaking you to you, hold on to him. LIsten closely to the Lord. Stop and listen to the verses that speak to you.

6 steps to coming to a place of anticipation on the lord through prayer.

Wait: qavah

1. Understand how big God is.
- Isaiah 40:25-26 - To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.

2. Even though God is big he cares about your needs.
- Isaiah 40:27 - Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God?

3. Remember What you have known.
-Isaiah 40:28 - Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.

4. God can miraculously Strengthen you.
- Isaiah 40:29 - He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.
- Instead of saying I cant do it, say God you have equipped me and made me for this. I can't wait to see what you are going to use me to do. You will give me strength each day, you will give me strength for the battle.

5. God understands that even the strongest get tired.
- The soul and the strength grow together, they both get tired. - C.S. Lewis
- Isaiah 40:30 - Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:

6. If we look to God With Anticipation He will give Strength
- Isaiah 40:31 - But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
- God will give you a supernatural strength.

...read more on "AZ District Council 2007"!

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.

...read more on "Seven Reasons You Might Fail to Become the Best in the World"!

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.

...read more on "Your (you are) Genius (Genie-in-us)"!

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?

...read more on "God and Our Lack of Worship"!

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.

...read more on "Not Forgetting God"!

forgiveness defined

is forgiveness a bitter sweet
must it tinge your breathe a ghastly sour
your tongue claims forgivenss
yet your heart shows ill motive
the past was a sacrifice by a vow
you revive what was dead
your forgiveness is set aside
but only to be picked up again
you hurt me with past arrows
yeah God can forget, maybe you can't
but can you fair to let go
let go to a vanishing point
a point so far that yay remembered
but not desired to pull it back
if you can then I can too
no sense for one of us
if both don't hold true

:forgiveness lets define
turn your head to look aside
my mistakes of rampage and hate
let go to an eternal abyss
don't look back or all is guilt
look forward to future sun
yesterday is dark, gone
farewell

...read more on "forgiveness defined"!

forgetful hurting memories

i never meant to leave you for so long.
friends reminded me of your absence.
my disclosure was for no reason.
im still here may i never depart.
thanks for sending messages to my friends of our memories.
would i of ever came back without them.
possibilites are endless.
chances are taken, some regretted some lived with exceptions.
this was one too long without.
to write you letters in a line to spell the word love.
never stop that for me, i too will return again.
parting always brings such sweet sorrow.
returning brings tears of joy.
i weep joy for you this day.
im here, i remain, till i can write again.
.peace.
.goodnight.

...read more on "forgetful hurting memories"!

reformed to end

you can't rewrite history
you can't rewrite your wrongs
begin to start again
from the start repeat herein

i am no boar in the vineyard
truth lives, truth stands high
in the advent of crosswinds
let my stake stand vert
am i just an invasion to the wronged?
or am i an outcome to the caused?

take to the streets, fire brings warmth
lies bring death, burn the fire bigger
more lie filled paper to kindle heat
the flames stand a test of time

i tell you fear the rod and cry softly
am i a brand plucked from the burning?
i stare out of the second story window
the house is in flames, burn to the ground

you've convinced me of absolute impossibility
can i live at half mast, doubted part way
i will catologue my weakness
establish rules to overcome them

i went to them to convert
but whos here to convert me
lost by my own words
lifes great mystery is my own pit

its a quarter till nine
i feel my heart grow strangely warm
im saved from my pit, my sin, my own death
this unparalleled energy is my assurance

is my rebelliousness to tyrants obedience to truth?
im led by the cloud and fire above
most assuredly im justified
i take the sword to swing lifes end

...read more on "reformed to end"!