Let it out, son. It's the beginning of wisdom.

I LOVE THIS MOVIE! It is one of my all-time favorites.

Now rarely does a sequel to a movie actually surpass the original, but in this case I totally think Evan was better than Bruce. Don't get me wrong Bruce Almighty is a good movie, it has its little nuggets of wisdom, but Evan Almighty has so many little nuggets of wisdom that if you took them all in at once your head might explode. Ok your head won't really explode, but some of the wisdom found in the lines of the movie might actually blow your mind. I know some of you may have written Evan off because of the experience you had with Bruce (I mean who wants to even think about a monkey coming out of some guys hindquarters, not me), but I don't think there is a scene I would leave out of Evan Almighty. I mean, really, just go look up some of the quotes and you will see. I mean even the title of this post (which is a quote from the film) is a little nugget in itself, see Proverbs 1:7. Watch the movie, for real. I would watch it on a daily basis if I could. Here are some of my favorite quotes.

God - "How do we change the world?"

Evan - "One single act of random kindness at a time"

God - (spelling ARK) "One Act of Random Kindness"

God - "Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?"

Reporter - "What makes you think God chose you?"

Evan - "He chose all of us."

Evan - "Then you have to understand that this building an ark thing isn't part of my plans."

God - Laughs

God Helps Those Who...

"God helps those who help themselves."

I hate this quote! I know, I know, "hate" isn't a very nice thing to say so let me rephrase. I LOATHE this quote! Sorry, let me step back a bit. This past week I have been selling T-shirts with the Kats For Christ organization to benefit the American Cancer Society and this Friday night/Saturday morning we will be participating in Relay For Life. While sitting out at our table on campus asking people to donate $10 to ACS and receive a T-shirt in return, someone actually had the audacity to say this to me, and even more they started it out by saying "I think it says in the Bible ..."

FYI - That quote is NEVER in the Bible.

On the contrary, the Bible points out several times that God helps those who help others. Jesus lived His life here on Earth helping others, only to be helped through life by God. There is no mention of Jesus holding a job, but yet he always had food to eat, clothes to wear, and a place to sleep. The apostles were even asked to walk away from their jobs in order to help others, and when they did so, they too were taken care of.

I believe a scripture that sums it up best is John 15:13. "Greater love knows no one than this: that he lay down his life for his friends." I don't think this scripture merely calls us to die for someone else (though it does call for this and Jesus goes on to explain that it is what He is doing), but that we give of ourselves to help others. This could look like stopping when you see someone stranded on the side of the road. It could be helping your neighbor move when you would rather take a nap. It might even look like giving up a meal so that someone less fortunate can eat. Whatever it is that you do to help someone else, God sees it, is pleased, and will bless us a hundred times more.

C.S. Lewis is often attributed to a description of heaven and hell which I find very awesome. He describes both as a room where a great banquet feast is laid out on the most extravagant table ever seen. What's more is that the food never stops. The catch is that the only way to eat the food is with forks that are four feet long (way too big for anyone to be able to use). The difference of Heaven and Hell falls into the attitudes of those located in each place. In Hell there is constant fighting, because no one can eat the food and they are all suffering from hunger. Because they can't eat the food, it just keeps piling up higher and higher, rotting and stinking the whole time. They care only for themselves and can only think about trying to feed themselves. In Heaven however, the angels are rejoicing. They are concerned only with each other and in so doing they have discovered that they can eat all they want if they use the forks to feed each other. They are helping one another and being taken care of themselves all at once.

Jesus said "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you as well." (Matt. 6:33) God's kingdom is a place where everyone serves each other, and therefore everyone's need is taken care of. So to reiterate, "God helps those who help themselves" NEVER, EVER, EVER, shows up in the Bible, rather "God helps those who help others."

Becoming What We Worship

“A person will worship something, have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts, but it will out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our preacher here at the Huntsville church of Christ used this quote last Sunday for his sermon, and it has been flying around in my head since. I like this quote, especially the end. It reminded me most of two scriptures, Matthew 6:24 and I Timothy 6:10.

"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money." - Matthew 6:24

"For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." - I Timothy 6:10

Money is one of the most worshipped objects in the world today. But as we see in I Timothy, its not just money that is the problem, its the love of money. We hear this from Jesus too there is Matthew as He reminds us that we can only love one or the other, God or money. Let's take this back to Emerson's words. We all worship something, whether we actively think about it or not, we worship something. That something is whatever it is that controls our lives. If we constantly think of money, everything we do is to earn money, and all we can talk about is money, then we worship money. Insert whatever person, place, or thing that fits for you into that sentence and that is what you worship. According to Matthew, recounting the words of Jesus, God should be what we are inserting into that sentence. Unfortunately we are human and we all miss the mark (don't worry, God made a way around that for us). But it's that last statement in Emerson's quote that really gets me thinking. "Be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping is what we are becoming."

To illustrate this, consider the man named Donald Trump. When you hear that name, read that name, or even just think of that name, one of the first things that comes to your mind is ... MONEY. His life seems to revolve around money, therefore I would argue that he worships money. I would also argue that he has become the face of the love of money. He is used by companies to promote their products in order to attain more money. He has been a role model of sorts for those who wish to have the wealth that he has. He has become for all intents and purposes "the love of money."

To further illustrate my point, consider another man by the name of Jesus Christ. His life here on Earth (completely as a man) was completely enveloped by God. His daily actions, his thoughts, and the conversations he had (even with Satan) were all to the glory of God. He worshipped God and in the end He was made Lord over all the Earth.

Worship is a way of life. It's what we do everyday, what we think all the time, and the words we choose to pass on to others. It is NOT just the songs we sing, or the fact that we are sitting in a room listening to someone talk about God every Sunday morning. If our lives are dominated by God and His love, then our lives will begin to look more and more like that of Jesus. Daily giving to, helping, and serving others without even a second thought. Everyone around us will know (with certainty) who it is that we worship. It is even promised to us in the scripture that if we live for Him we will become like Him.

Whispers of Wisdom

So I thought I should elaborate on my "Whispers of Wisdom" idea. Like I said before, I believe that everyday God has something He wants to say to us. Now, it won't be the great booming voice as we tend to imagine as we read about God speaking to those in the Bible. It won't be through a burning bush or the presence of an Angel so bright we can hardly stand to look at him (though should these events occur I would probably take them quite seriously). This is why I call them whispers, you have to really be listening to hear them. And when you do hear them you will know that you have just heard the voice of God. Now then, these whispers come in all sorts of ways. The first time I heard one was actually through a Bible lesson and I heard God tell me to leave LCU and go somewhere He needed me to be, somewhere He could better use me. Since then I have heard Him in so many other ways. Sometimes they are ideas that just pop into my head without any sort of trigger. Other times they are picked up from conversations and discussions (some of them I am not even included in). Just yesterday I had one about the Lord's Supper, because I served on the communion table. But one way that has surprised me the most has happened a lot more often lately. Books! My faith and understanding has changed so much the past few years due to my reading of books from authors like C.S. Lewis and Frank Peretti. Even within the realm of books the whispers are different. One of my whispers is to read anything written by C.S. Lewis simply because it is written by C.S. Lewis. Another whisper may even be books that are given to me as gifts (such as The Shack, thank you Aunt Shelli). But the one that surprises me the most is the whisper to simply pick up a book off the shelf and buy it, not knowing who the author is or what might be inside. This has happened three times that I can remember.

The first time was in a Barnes and Noble bookstore in College Station, TX. The book: Not the Religious Type: Confessions of a Turncoat Atheist by Dave Schmelzer. I had never heard of this author or this book, but as soon as I picked it up, I heard that old familiar voice telling me to buy it (I think I may have even heard Him tell me to pick it up, but I'm not sure I was really listening for Him). This book was one of the biggest whispers in my coming to terms with my faith and beginning to build a better relationship with God rather than just with the church. The second time was here in Huntsville, in the Christian section of Hastings books, and sparked the desire to read a whole series. The Sons of Encouragement series by Francine Rivers. These books let me see stories from the Bible that most of us feel like we know so well with such a deeper meaning and understanding. The third happened in Wal-Mart of all places. The Book: Crazy Love: Overwhelmed By a Relentless God by Francis Chan. I didn't even make it through the first chapter before I was recommending it to every person I know . I loved this book and plan on reading it many times, and hopefully you will pick up a copy and love it too.

God is calling each and every one of us to something each and every day. It may be something as large as traveling halfway around the world to help someone with their English, or something as small as reading a book. Unfortunately, He only whispers, and in today's world there are so many other things calling so loudly that we tend to miss His call more often than not. So let me ask you this: What are you listening to?

Finding My Story, Finding My Faith

Finding My Story, Finding My Faith

Faith is a difficult concept to explain, especially when you try to explain yours to someone else. How exactly do you define your faith. Explaining your story, however, is a lot easier. What shapes us as people and what shapes our character are the experiences we live through every day, our story. So it is with our faith, we shape it based on the experiences we have with God, religion, and church. So you can see that people who have bad experiences with any of those three aspects will have a weak or non-existent faith, but they still have a story. Now, no matter what your story is, or however original you think it is, someone in history had a very similar story. More importantly, someone in the Bible had a very similar story. Now then, finding their story, and realizing that it is very much your story is a huge step to finding your faith. For example, I was always good about going to church as a kid in Jr. High/ High School, and I was very much into making sure that everyone knew that I believed in God (maybe a little too into it). But when I went to college I did what every "off on their own for the first time" college kid does; I used Sunday morning as make-up sleep time, Sunday night was last minute homework time, and Wednesday night was hang with friends time. But I always knew something wasn't right, life wasn't going the way I thought it would have. Sound familiar? This is when I found the first part of my story which happens to be the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). So I started to try harder on Sunday morning to get up (usually to no avail), but Wednesday night was always spent at church, and it was soon after that decision that I found the second part of my story. It was the story of Abram in Genesis 12, where God called Abram to just up and go to a place He would show him. I found myself hearing this call as well, which brought me to the decision to leave LCU and go somewhere else, which ultimately ended up being SHSU. There are more parts to my story, but I don't want to bore you too much, so I will end with this: While it may not be part of your story yet, it is always a good idea to have a goal in which you want your story to end. In that respect I have chosen the story of Enoch (Gen. 5:21-24).

Knowing your "Bible" story helps you have a better relationship with God. It helps you see where God is in your life, the ways He helps, and the ways He calls you. By knowing your story, you will begin to have better experiences with God, religion, and church, therefore your faith can grow stronger as your relationship with God becomes deeper. So, what's your story?