REALationships...

Let’s talk about this thing called “Relationships”. From the words of a wise man “Why can’t we all just get along?” A group of us men were talking about this very issue this morning. If we could get to the point of walking in Jesus’ footsteps on a daily basis think how much further we would be in our own personal faith but think of where we would be as a; I hate to use the term Religion but as a body of believers in Christ. When we go throughout our day not showing the true Christ through our walk who is getting the glory? You are. Here is the kicker with this or the problem I have with this, we as believers are faithful to those who stroke us and tell us how we are appreciated and like recognition for the “works” that we have done or are doing. Again I say who is getting the glory for that? Not God! We are to be living our lives and in everything we do it is to be giving Him the glory. I have heard growing up that God is a jealous God. As I have gotten older I understand what that means. It’s not a bad thing, after all he created us. Why can’t we give him credit for our life as we go throughout our day? I can tell you this is something that God has been dealing with me on lately. My wife laughed at me the other day, a problem came up and it was something that I wanted God to know that I was concerned about and I said “Look Buddy, I need you to help me through this and only you can do it”. I am learning to just talk to God. Throughout the day I have learned and I am still learning to just talk to God. You may call your spouse, family, or a friend throughout the day just to talk. We should be able to do the same thing with God and honestly I feel that is all He is wanting from us. He created us to worship Him and seek Him and through this time in my life I am learning to do just that. It was hard to do at first, to just say to myself, instead of saying something under my breath that I shouldn’t be saying anyway and I have made a conscious effort to take that and talk to God about it. What I noticed has been such an uplifting experience. It has helped me to deal with the issues as they come up. I have been praying for wisdom daily, and feel that God has been doing just that. I have tried to have an open relationship with my God. I have included Him into areas of my life that I know He has been just waiting for me to invite Him to be a part of.
Now, let’s take that to the next step with the relationships of our friend and families. Are you perfect? Then why do we expect our relationship to be perfect with our friends and our families. Someone is going to make you mad. Someone is going to upset you or do something a way that you don’t like. You know what? That’s OK! Forgive, because let me tell you something you are going to do something to them to hurt them the same way. Maybe on purpose maybe not but how can we live our lives so wrapped up waiting for the next thing to bother or upset us. Let me tell you something else. That is a distraction from you keeping your eyes on God. Let me clear this up I am preaching to myself the whole time I am saying this stuff. Moving on… Here is the key to all of this, are you ready? It is called communication. Open communication. And sometimes just like with God you need to be ready to hear something that is going to hurt your feelings. No pain, no gain right? Personally I try to make people happy. I don’t like knowing that I have hurt someone but I know that it going to happen. I had a conversation with someone once. They were hurt by a church and they were ready to leave the church. I told them that they needed to talk to that person involved with that church to see what they might have meant by what was done or said. My friend said but I don’t want to be a part of something that is like this. This is not the way church is supposed to be. I asked my friend, what happens when they have a misunderstanding with their spouse? Are you ready to just give up on them walk away from the time and effort that you have put into that relationship? Of course not! You have made a commitment to that person and you talk to them about the issue to get it resolved. The issue comes back to the three “C’s”. 1. Commitment
2. Communication
3. Care
So I said, why would we be ready to just give up and walk away from the commitment you have made to God in serving this particular body? Sometimes we need to be reminded of that when it comes to serving our church or our job, that we have made a commitment to be there. If we don’t give it our all then we are letting God be seen in a light that He might not be proud of. Remember it’s not just your name that you represent, it is God’s! That has to be one of the toughest things to remember. We may be the only Christ that a person might see.
I think with these 3 things you should be able to have a “realationship”. So let’s recap for a minute. If you have open communication, if you have made a commitment, and if you continue to care for this relationship it will grow. Family, friend, or God all different areas of our relationships it can work.
Love you all, Kristian

Freedom...

So once again my children are bringing out the need for bloggin’. Here’s the thing, so I am outside with my son this morning and we are doing MAN stuff (keep in mind he is 4). So we are filling up the tires on his brand new “big boy” bike. We are mowing the lawn, sweeping and having a great time. He asked me if he could ride his bike. I said sure, but I need to give you some boundaries for your safety, your protection. He asked why and I told him because I don’t want anything to happen to you. So I told him where he could ride his bike to and from. That way I could keep an eye on him to make sure that if something were to happen I would be right there for him. He understood everything completely. He received his direction and was ready to go and have fun. Somewhere along the line he had a little malfunction, a brain fart…because I look up and he is way past the line that I set for him. I whistled at him and he pretended not to hear me at first, so I called for him again. Then it was like “oh, you were talking to me”. “What daddy” he said. I said boy, get back here so I can protect you. So slowly he made his way back. My question to myself was…why must he test his freedom? I gave him plenty of freedom with boundaries for his protection. He could do anything he wanted to do, play anything he wanted to, ride as fast as he wanted to, but it still wasn’t good enough. He wanted to move away from my covering of protection…can you see where I am going with this yet? As soon as that thought came to my mind, God said “What makes you any different than your son?” Now why did He have to go and say a thing like that? God was saying that he has given us the freedom to live our lives and the freedom to make our own choices but he has given us some guidelines to follow. Not to bind us or keep us from having fun but to protect us. He knows who (the enemy) is out there and what their intentions are for us. He gives us a free will to do whatever we want. Here’s the kicker; we will receive whatever consequences there are to receive. In many cases that is not always a bad thing. If my children make the right decision and follow my direction, they will actually have more freedom to do what they want because they can be trusted with what little I have given them. Again, God is the same way. God will only give us what we can handle. It’s what we do with it that determines if He can trust us with more. Here is the other thing, we have to learn to trust that God, period! He has given us these guidelines for us to learn to trust Him and as we do he will give us more freedom. The things that might bog you down in life…your job, your finances, family relationships…anything that may be bogging you down, God has given it to you for a reason. God is there with you. And as you learn that there is freedom in Him those things seem to disappear. When you are not following God, you are actually being held captive by those things that are bogging you down. You may think that in not following Christ there is freedom, but you are mistaken. Satan uses that deception to keep you bound to the very things that should offer you freedom. Now, what are you going to do with your freedom? Are you going to go away from your boundaries or are you going to choose to follow what Daddy (Father God) has given you? God wants you to trust Him completely in the Freedom that He has given you.
Love you all, Kristian

Pedal Faster Baby!!!

As I am teaching my daughter how to ride her bike without training wheels one of “those” spiritual moments hit me and I felt a blog coming on. She is 7 and is sometimes afraid to venture out and try things. She is afraid that she will get hurt, or someone will see her and I find it very sad at such a young age to be affected by something like that. Here is the thing, I believe in being real with my kids. They need to be able to trust what I tell them. I don’t feel it right to feed them a line of B.S. and then have them find out from someone else that daddy was trying to keep something from them. So before we even started she asked me if she would fall and I told her yes. I told her that I would be with her every step of the way and that I would keep my hand on her but eventually I would let her go so that she could get the hang of it on her own. I told her that everyone falls but that you would have to just get right back up dust yourself off and get back on the bike and keep pedaling. Well, then it happened… she started off great. I told her pedal faster baby you’re doing it. Then she saw that she was doing it on her own and what do you think happened? You guessed it, she panicked. She lost her focus, lost control of the bike and headed straight for the mailbox. Crash! She had her first wreck and being the sometimes fear monster that she is, she gave up. She was afraid of getting hurt again, so she was done for the day. She was so focused on the pain that she could not see the outcome potential, if she had just kept on trying to pedal faster. For all you mothers that may be reading this, let me tell you she was fine…it was just a small scratch. And I guess that’s what was so frustrating for me. Then it hit me, how different am I or better yet how different are a lot of Christians out there? Here we are trying to learn how to ride our spiritual bike (here is the kicker) “Without Training Wheels” and we want so bad to get out there and do it ourselves but we can’t get past the thought of getting hurt. So it paralyzes us from ever learning to do it ourselves. We never leave the front porch. We have to wait for people to come to us instead of us going out after them. How many people are going to hell because we are afraid of our Father letting go and letting us figure some things out. Sometimes we are going to crash. Sometimes we are going to get hurt, sometimes it hurts real badly. Picture an adult riding a bicycle with little kids training wheels on it, how crazy would that look, but how many of us are at that point. It is time we take some chances. Be bold, take some risks and know that we might get our knees skinned up but all wounds heal and we learn from them. One of the last things my precious girl asked me was “daddy will I be on training wheels the rest of my life” and I told her no baby but you are going to have to take some risk and not be afraid because I will always be there to pick you up. Our Heavenly Father is the same way. He is there to pick us up. He loves us but he wants us to take those risks and show Him how much we truly love Him. So PEDAL FASTER BABY and let’s hit the road…
Love you all, Kristian