DAILY CHOICES DETERMINE OUR DESTINY

Was looking through some of my Henri Nouwen books this morning.... 

"THIS IS BRENNAN MANNING"

A couple years ago I posted comments about Brennan. He remains one of my favorite authors, maybe because he never threw out easy answers and never hid his struggles in life. Here are the comments I posted.....

THE SIGNATURE OF JESUS - a book written by my friend, Brennan Manning, who died in April of 2013. Sounds presumptuous to call this (well-known) author my friend, but let me explain. About 25 years ago our pastor, Bud Reedy, suggested I read a Brennan book titled "Abba's Child".

The book peaked my interest so I checked the internet to see what other books Brennan had written. While searching, I noticed a telephone number so I called and said "I want to get information about Brennan Manning." The guy said, "this is Brennan Manning". How did you get my number?" I was surprised that he answered but we ended up having a great twenty-minute conversation.

About ten years later I attended a retreat where Brennan was the speaker and got to spend more time with him. While there he signed my book "Signature of Jesus", in which he shared one of his prayers. When I was teaching in Sunday School, I shared this prayer with Junior High guys when they were struggling with direction in life. Here is the prayer....

"Dear Jesus, I can't walk away from you. My life has no meaning, direction or purpose if you are not at the center of my personal history. Now that I've experienced the life and heart of you, nothing else in the world can ever again be as beautiful or desirable. You have made me, not a nicer person - but a new creation.

It is my desire to know you intimately, to know your heart and mind so others will see you living through me. Help me to focus, not on what I see - but on the unseen. Help me to realize you have things in store for me that my eyes and ears will never see or hear."

INTERESTING READING - PRAYER

"One of the experiences of prayer is that it seems that nothing happens. But when you stay with it and look back over a long period of prayer, you suddenly suddenly realize that something has happened. What is most close, most intimate, most present often cannot be experienced directly but only with a certain distance. When I think I am only distracted, just wasting my time, something is happening too immediate for knowing, understanding, and experiencing." 

"Only in retrospect do I realize that something very important has taken place."

FROM DIGITAL TO GUTENBERG

Incredible Gift From Our Daughter

Completely surprised 6 years ago when I received a hard cover book containing every post on my blog since it was started in 2013. The 335 page book was from our daughter, and contains a table of contents for each day - and high quality pictures on each page!

I'M COMING BACK

Not sure who originally authored this; but it is fascinating....

"Why did Jesus fold the linen burial cloth after his resurrection? The Gospel of John (20:7) tells us that the napkin, which was placed over the face of Jesus, was not just thrown aside like the grave clothes. The bible takes an entire verse to tell us that the napkin was neatly folded, and was placed separate from the grave clothes.

"Mary Magdalene came to the tomb of Jesus early in the morning and found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. She ran and found Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. She said, 'They have taken the Lord's body out of the tomb, and I don't know where they have put him!

Peter and the other disciple ran to the tomb to see. The other disciple outran Peter and got there first. He stooped and looked in and saw the linen cloth lying there, but he didn't go in. Then Simon Peter arrived and went inside. He also noticed the linen wrappings lying with the grave clothes. But the napkin that had covered Jesus' head was neatly folded up and lying to the side."

Was that important? Absolutely! Is it really significant? Yes!

In order to understand the significance of the folded napkin, you have to understand a little bit about Hebrew tradition of that day. The folded napkin had to do with the Master and Servant, and every Jewish boy knew this tradition. When the servant set the dinner table for the master, he made sure that it was exactly the way the master wanted it..The table was furnished perfectly, and then the servant would wait, just out of sight, until the master had finished eating, and the servant would not dare touch that table, until the master was finished. Now, if the master were done eating, he would rise from the table, wipe his fingers, his mouth, and clean his beard, and would wad up that napkin and toss it onto the table.

The servant would then know to clear the table. For in those days, the wadded napkin meant, 'I'm done'. But if the master got up from the table, and folded his napkin, and laid it beside his plate, the servant would not dare touch the table, because; the folded napkin meant, "I'm Coming Back".

INTERESTING READING FOR JUNE - PRAYER

"When God is about to do something great, he starts with a difficulty. When he is about to do something truly magnificent, he starts with an impossibility."

Four Essential Upper Room Elements

1. The Doorway of Obedience (Acts 1:4)
2. The Atmosphere of Unity (Acts 1:14)
3. The Ceiling of Spiritual Intimacy
4. The Floorboards of Expectancy 

INTERESTING READING FOR MAY - LEGACY

"To fulfill God’s purpose means participating in a relay race, receiving the baton from the preceding generation, running with it by leaving the world better than we found it, and passing on the legacy to those who follow us."

INTERESTING READING FOR MAY - ETERNITY

"Forming our eternal lives begins now and lasts forever. This is your life, your one and only life. Are you the person you want to be?"

INTERESTING READING FOR MAY - FAITH

“Perhaps it takes a purer faith to praise God for unrealized blessings than for those we once enjoyed or those we enjoy now.” 

INTERESTING READING FOR MAY - ONLY JESUS

Author is interviewed by Susie Larson HERE

"Our confidence and assurance that we can enter God’s presence—that we can in fact stand before him with no fear of being thrown out—are actually created by our recognizing that our access to him is based not at all on anything in us or about us but rather on Jesus Christ’s work for us."

INTERESTING READING FOR MAY - BATTLE

"Finding Christ is a long, pride-crushing battle that leads through despair to the unmanageable joy of Spirit-fullness and then back again through darker despair to an even brighter joy. Men who avoid that battle will experience only surface repentance."

INTERESTING READING FOR MAY - DEPENDENCE

“God never gives guidance for two steps at a time. I must take one step, and then I get light for the next. This keeps the heart in abiding dependence upon God.”

HARD LIKE CLAY

Interesting picture taken in Lititz, PA by my my sister. Her picture reminded me of a quote I like from Lynn Anderson's book, "Finding The Heart To Go On". 

This book is full of really interesting stories about David. Click HERE for comments I wrote two years ago.

8 SECOND FILTERS

Hurry. Only a few seconds left to see what James Emery White has to say about about our shrinking attention span. Quick. Click HERE. 

INFORMATION, INTIMACY, TRUST

   

Interesting how the message connects in these books .....

BRIAN HARDIN "In a court of law you can't testify to the character of a person based on things you heard other people say. That's called hearsay. You can only testify to the things you know firsthand. Through some really intimate soul-searching, I've began to realize I formulated much of my relationship with God based on hearsay - what I'd heard other people say about him, which resulted in some massive assumptions and misgivings".

"How much of your relationship with God is based on your first hand knowledge of him? What do you actually know about God for yourself - because of your intimacy with him? What cherished memories and experiences do you have that only you and He share? These are questions worth spending some time on".

ERWIN MCMANUS "Somehow Christianity has become a non-mystical religion. It's about a reasonable faith. If we believe the right things, then we are Orthodox. In some religious circles, whether we ever actually connect to God or experience His undeniable presence has become incidental, if not irrelevant. We have become believers rather than experiencers.

To know God in the Scriptures always went beyond information to intimacy. We may find ourselves uncomfortable with this reality, but the faith of the scripture is a mystical faith. It leads us beyond the material world into an invisible reality. We become connected to the God of eternity. Who you are at the core is spirit. God is Spirit. To walk with God is to journey in the spiritual realm."

HENRI NOUWEN  "But now you are being asked to walk with God in a spiritual journey and simply trust that God is enough. Stop wandering around. Instead, come home and trust that God will bring you what you need. Somewhere along the way, your relationship will grow into unquestionable trust. And when we learn to live in a continual state of trust, our confidence in the future will blossom."

283,000 PEOPLE LOST (LET THAT SINK IN)

A CERTAIN RISK by Paul Richardson is turning out to be a fascinating read.

"If individuals who lost everything can rise up and create new life after a tsunami, what prevents me from responding to a critical statement with a genuine expression of kindness?  If they can rebuild a city, can't I rebuild a stranded relationship?"  

Paul was born and raised in a village carved out of the jungle in New Guinea, where his parents were missionaries.  He writes, "my earliest memories are of sitting on the laps of warriors in their thatch-roof man houses.  "I ran barefoot through the jungle, chasing egrets with a bow and arrow"   

Paul's parents relocated to California, but about 15 years ago Paul returned to New Guinea with his family.  "When I brought my family from California to the islands of my birth, I came with the intention to reveal God to others.  God brought me here to reveal his heart to me".  Paul, his wife and three children continue to live in this country they love.  Check out his vivid description of the tragedy that New Guinea experienced about 10 years ago:

"On that horrible morning, December 26, 2004 283,000 people were swept into eternity, while more than double that amount were left without food, shelter or clean water. The tsunami was one of the deadliest natural disasters to ever assault humanity."  

Not long after the tragedy the author met with a group that survived.  He wasn't sure how to encourage them but said, "From out of all the thousands of people who were lost, God chose to keep you and these others alive one more day.  That must mean that he has a purpose for each of you."  

"I believe God is offering you the chance to help the next generation grow up to become men and women of strength and courage.  Imagine what might happen if they saw you creating, working, rebuilding your lives, and offering them a new hope."  Soon they were outlining their plan of action.

Paul says, "No conversation has ever affected me so deeply.  To this day, the stark contrast between humanity reduced and humanity rising is etched in my mind.  If individuals who lost everything can rise up and create new life after a tsunami, what prevents me from responding to a critical statement with a genuine expression of kindness?  If they can rebuild a city, can't I rebuild a stranded relationship?"  

ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING

Our daughter Melody and her husband gave this book to our Mom for her birthday. When I saw mom marking some pages in the book, I asked if she was checking off places she has visited during her long life. Her response? "No, I'm marking places I want to visit soon." 

During 2017 our 95 year old Mom spent time in Atlanta, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Israel, Switzerland and today she witnessed her 46th grandchild being born in Germany. 

Jeremiah was born 12/28/2017 in Müllheim, Germany at 10:37 pm

LIFE'S NOT FAIR

Roosevelt Avenue and Route 30 in York, PA 

"But, I was following a huge tractor trailer"

The traffic light was hidden from my view as I traveled through the intersection of Roosevelt Avenue and Route 30 in York, PA. When I finally saw it, the light was solid red but it was too late to stop. No problem though, the other cars hadn't moved and I made it through safely. Could have happened to anyone, right? 

The cop car came out of nowhere. And even after my lengthy defense, I got a ticket. That was bad; but since then, every time I get near that light someone goes right through red; not by accident, but intentionally. And more than once, while sitting in my truck waiting for the light to turn green I've thought, "Life's Not Fair". 

Joni Eareckson Tada is one of our favorite people and she often helps to put things in perspective. I just watched a video that Joni produced about her friend Vicky Olivas. Over 30 years ago, Vicky was searching for an address given her by by an employment agency. The search took her to an alley, where during an attempted rape she was shot in the neck. This terrifying event left her permanently paralyzed. Vicky's assailant got three years in jail, while Vickie got the rest of her life in a wheelchair. 

After learning about Vicky, my ticket didn't seem all that important.

OPEN A BOOK....GET READY FOR THE BATTLE

My Armory

These quotes are excerpts from "Church and Culture" blog today.

THE MAGIC NEVER ENDS

Today I finished watching a movie about C.S. Lewis.