Timothy Robinson, a high school football player in Alabama, suffered a major head injury during a recent football game. In a story on al.com, his parents recall what happened and how they know that Timothy will make it through:Dr. Bill Admire, one of (the high school) team doctors, helped Robinson and played an instrumental role in getting the teen to the hospital quickly. Evelyn McGhee said she hopes that her son's situation will motivate every high school team to have an emergency room doctor on the sideline every week.
She said Admire's expertise kept her son from dying.
'It had to be God that intervened and had Dr. Admire there,' she said, 'because never had I seen a doctor in the stands or anywhere. And even the trainer said she's never had a doctor trained in emergency medicine' available to help a player on the field.
'It was just fantastic and an amazing thing to me to have him there. I just thank God for him.'
The McGhees also praised the coaching staff, administration and football team for their support...Said Ben McGhee: 'God spoke to me and told me everything would be all right.'
Ryan Hall, a marathon runner, looks to God for his inspiration. He thinks about how God would run a marathon. In fact, Hall, while working and training hard, focuses on generosity. He set up a foundation to combat poverty and give inner-city children a chance to run.His disappearing dream of Olympic triumph was about to end in a disappointing tenth place, when he says that God spoke to him. 'He told me I had everything I needed,' he recalled.
It was 8:40 on a Friday night, and I was anxious to get home. I was less than half a mile from my house as I approached the crest of a hill driving way too fast. A red Toyota coming from the opposite direction was turning left. I first saw them as they crossed into my lane. I am not sure if they ever saw me. There was almost no time to react. I lunged for the brake and started to turn the wheel to avoid them. Impact, airbags, screeching, screaming -- then silence. I was amazed to find that I could get out of my car. I didn't think the other car fared as well, but I was too dazed to be able to tell. It wasn't long before the sounds of sirens announced the arrival of the police and paramedics. I was taken away from the scene, tested, and booked. Shortly before I was put in Orange County Jail, the officer notified me that there were two people in the car that I hit. A 50-year-old woman had been thrown from the car upon impact and died immediately. Her husband was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
The Star Tribune recently ran a story about Tara Livesay, a Minnesotan who moved her family to Haiti four years ago to help residents there.'When we saw all the poverty in Haiti,' Livesay said, 'we decided there was more to life than having two cars, a boat and a cushy life. God was asking us to leave our comfort zone and do something to help here.'One of the ways that Livesay is helping Haitians is by running the Twin Cities Marathon. In fact, she secured about $53,000 to aid malnourished children, getting pledges from people in 42 states and eight countries.
My church small group currently is going through the book "Life's Healing Choices: Freedom from Your Hurts, Hang-Ups, and Habits." The book features a foreword by Rick Warren, author of "The Purpose Driven Life." John Baker, the author of "Life's Healing Choices," founded Celebrate Recovery, one of the most successful ministries in the history of Saddleback Church, where Rick Warren is the lead pastor.Soon my husband told me how unhappy he was and that it was all my fault. I agreed and felt he was right. He did, however, agree to go to marriage counseling. But during that first session, my husband told me he had been having another affair. This was when I hit bottom. This was too much for me, and I lost all sense of reality. I could see no reason why he should keep on living. When we got home, he went right to bed. I was hysterical, crying. When I knew he was asleep, I took the biggest knife we had, braced myself against the wall, and held it up above his neck. For some reason I thought, 'Maybe God doesn't want him dead.' I had not thought about God in years. So I asked God aloud, 'God, it's Mary here. You know all about my situation and that I am about to kill my husband. If You don't want me to do this, then You have to give me the power to put this knife back.' The next thing I remember is feeling as if a person were hugging me from behind. I cried all night on the bedroom floor. That night I was completely emptied of myself. I asked God to fill my empty body with Himself and to show me where I could learn about Jesus. I didn't know it then, but I was making the second choice in my journey toward healing. (pp. 58-59)
Jill Herringshaw and her son Matthew had quite a prophetic dream on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. The story is shared in the book "Nine Ways God Always Speaks":Jill woke suddenly in the middle of the night. The room was dark, and she was alone in bed. In her dream, she had seen a plane crash and burn, and then saw herself walking through the wreckage. Human bodies were buried in the debris. When she sat up and rubbed her eyes, she realized it was just a dream. But even awake, the images haunted her. Not knowing what else to do, she prayed.
Though her husband had been out of town for the past two days, Jill knew he was driving through the night and would be home in the morning. Feeling calmer, she pulled the covers up and went back to sleep.
It was still dark when Jill was awakened again; this time by her eight-year-old son Matthew shaking her arm.
'What's the matter Matthew?'
'I had a bad dream.'
Jill sat up and hugged him. Safe in his mother's arms, he told her the details.
'There was a man with a whitish robe and a long gray beard. He broke into our house. We chased him down the street, but I was scared.'
With her husband not yet home, Jill rolled over and made room in the bed for Matthew.
'I had a scary dream too. Let's just give them to Jesus and go back to sleep.' They both prayed, and then fell back to sleep for a few more hours.
That morning, as Jill stood in the kitchen making breakfast, she turned on the TV. The screen was filled with images from a breaking news story.
The date was September 11, 2001.
Are you kidding?
What was Jill supposed to do with that?
... even if Jill and her son had realized their dreams' meaning, what could they have done? Could they have called the FAA and told them of their mutual nightmares? Or driven to the airport to see if they could find men with gray beards and white robes and make a citizen's arrest?
Did God really expect Jill and Matthew to stop the atrocities of 9/11? She was a Minnesota housewife with no aeronautical or political connections. Matthew wasn't even a Boy Scout. And the Department of Homeland Security was not yet in existence.
No. Even if they understood the meaning behind their dreams, they would have been considered crazy. No one would have listened. Frankly, even after September 11, Jill is still hesitant to mention the dreams because people are often skeptical.
So what's the point behind a dream like that?
What was God trying to say to Jill and her son through two such inexplicable dreams and their timing?
What did God say to me through this process? He reminded me of the time when he first revealed to me just how dirty I was. My sin was so great and then Jesus said, 'I will wash away all that dirt and make you clean.' Once the cleansing was over, I said to myself, 'It's all over now.'
Little did I know that the process had only just begun. Since my initial cleansing, the Lord has continued to work on me — like that long process of brushing out the matted hair. When God calls us to follow Him, He completely cleanses us from all our sin and yet, there is ongoing work to accomplish in us. Sometimes this work of transformation really hurts, and we might protest (sometimes loudly).
God patiently speaks to us, saying, 'Trust me, this is for your good.' After some assurance, we 'lie back down' and let the Lord do His good and necessary work. This process of unsnarling and detangling (which is God's work of sanctification — that is, making His children holy) continues in me even after 30-plus years of following Christ. Even though it hurts at times, I know it is well worth it because God cares for me more that I can imagine. I am learning to trust Him fully.
Kelly said she fell asleep that night and was awakened just after midnight Wednesday morning by one of her daughters, who said, 'Mom, Wop's been shot.'
Wop was Watson's nickname.
'I started crying and praying to God, and God spoke to me that he was gone. God told me, 'Karen he's gone. He's gone.''
A female friend of Watson contacted Kelly at the scene and told her the news.
'I said, 'He's been shot,' and she said, 'No, he's dead.''
I have not really thought about things from my pastor's perspective, but an article by Dr. Ray Pritchard on crosswalk.com points out that after the sermon is over, most pastors are curious and worry about how their message went over with the congregation.
Dr. Anthony Lazarra was unfulfilled with his career at Emory University in Atlanta. So in 1987, Lazarra opened Hogar San Francisco de Asis, a children’s clinic in Chaclacayo, Peru. His vision is to cure as many poverty stricken children as possible.'My mission is to pray, intercede and take care of the doctor who is taking care of the kids,' Stowers said. 'People say we are a good balance.'
She prays with the children, shares her love with them and believes that she is carrying out God’s plan for her.
'Being in Peru is a mission given to me by God,' Stowers said. 'I was enjoying my life in my comfort zone when God spoke to me in my heart one day. When God tells you to do something, you do it.'
How do people know that they are supposed to become pastors? For James Hill, it was a message from God. Hill, who recently retired from First Baptist Church in Graham, Texas, told his story to The Graham Leader:'...at the age of 13, I had gone to bed, and I couldn’t go to sleep. I just knew God was dealing with me about answering His call to the ministry. About midnight, I went to my mom and dad’s room and woke them up and told them what God was telling me. They called my pastor, and he came over that night.'
When Hill told his parents and pastor that God was calling him to be in the ministry, they all had the same reaction — praise God. A week later, Hill went in front of his church and announced that he would be following God into the ministry.
After the first month or so, the group began to grow. About three months into the group, there were about 10 or 12 people attending. It was around this time that God gave me a 'faithfulness test.' While I was hurrying to get ready to go to the group, I felt that God showed me a picture in my mind's eye of what He wanted to do during the ministry prayer time at the end of the meeting. In this little vision, I saw and heard what God was doing with the others and I saw myself leading this prayer time. It was very vivid. It was also one of the first times that I had ever received a word picture from God like this. I got to the group a couple of minutes early and 'interrupted' the prayer preparation that I had seen and what I thought it meant. I left out the part about me leading the ministry time. The leaders of the group encouraged this kind of participation from the group members so they weren't put off by what I shared.
At the end of the teaching time, the leader of the group shared a part of the word picture that I had shared with him and asked us to respond to God. We all tried to respond to God and waited for God to release the Holy Spirit's power. Nothing happened. Around this time, I snuck a quick glance at the leader, who was looking right at me. Inside I thought, well so much for that idea. I felt a little embarrassed. Just at that point, I heard a voice inside my head say, 'I asked you to lead this time, not the leader of the group.' I knew at that point that I had to respond to this voice. I broke the silence of the group and shared what I thought I had just heard. I shared that I felt a little unsure and insecure about what I was doing but I felt that I needed to take a risk and go for it. I lead the group in prayer and waited. God responded. Exactly what I had seen in the word picture happened. I was a little overwhelmed.
* Worry is defeated as we change our focus.
* Focusing on God.
* Talking to God.
* Trusting in God.
* Worry is defeated as we change our thinking.
* Take every thought captive in the name of Jesus.
* We are not God. We are not in control.
* Worry is defeated as we change our responses.
* The promise of peace.
The Bible passage that was emphasized during the sermon was Phillippians 4:4-9. It's an excellent passage that helps us reorient our focus.
...God uses situations, like his daughter's death, to shape his leaders. God was shaping him. He said that on the day she died, he remembered something that we had said in September about responding to God in a crisis. He chose to go deep with God. He knows that God is with him in the pain. God is providing strength for him. He is experiencing God's love in a new way.
At the end of our conversation, he said one thing that I'll never forget. He said, 'God was right when He said that He was going to receive glory through my daughter. At the time that God told me that, I thought He was talking about healing my daughter. I didn't realize that God was talking about my response to Him in this situation. My choosing to embrace the pain and to embrace God (going deep with God) is the means God is using to receive glory. My response in this situation is speaking louder than any words I've ever preached about God.' We embraced again and I was deeply moved.
This story is about the power of perspective. This precious pastor chose to embrace God and learn about Him. The situation that the pastor and his family are facing together is tragic and it hurts. He said that he (and his family) were still in the process of grieving her loss. We don't understand why God allows certain things to happen. But when we face crisis situations or difficult and challenging situations, we must respond. We can go deep into God or we can turn from Him.
On p. 94 of "Starting Well: Building a Strong Foundation for a Lifetime of Ministry," authors Richard Clinton and Paul Leavenworth cite three major hindrances and two additional hindrances to our hearing God:
1. Unbelief -- an unwillingness to trust God and His ability to come through on His promises.
2. An undeveloped spirit -- a lack of sensitivity to the Spirit based in a dependence upon sight rather than faith.
3. A spirit of deafness -- an inability to hear because of unforgiveness in our lives toward self, others, and/or God. Unforgiveness can provide Satan an inroad into our lives for "torment."
The two additional hindrances to our hearing God are:
4. A callused conscience -- a lack of moral sensitivity because of sin and rationalization.
5. Neglect -- an inability to hear because we are not spending time with God.
This list originally comes from chapters 3-4 of Larry Lea's book "The Hearing Ear."
It can be tough for me to step out in faith, yet I find that when I do, my world gets reconciled.
I always enjoyed the comic strip "B.C." by Johnny Hart. I also enjoyed the "B.C." video game that I played on my cousin's Commodore 64 growing up, although it was a little boring just rolling along on the stone wheel.'He wanted people to know that God had a sense of humor,' said his daughter Perri Hart. 'He really always felt that this was what he was called to do.'Johnny Hart's widow and daughter have compiled the religion-themed "B.C." comics into a new collection, "I Did It His Way."
In 1976, when Carol Wimber started a fellowship in her home for burned out Christians, she found that the presence of God came when they sang certain songs. These were usually songs that spoke to the Lord rather than about him: 'I love you, Lord!' Then the Lord gave her a word -- literally: It was the word worship. She could 'see' it in her spirit like a newspaper headline. It puzzled her, because in her tradition worship had meant a Sunday church service. Carol began to notice that, when the home group sang songs that addressed God directly and personally, the sense of the Holy Spirit's presence was especially strong. The group also learned that the power of worship reflected the depth of each person's devotional time with God during the week. Worship became much more than a meeting. This early experience placed worship as the cornerstone of their church life.
It's amazing when people find their calling by listening to God. For Daren Streblow, that message was to be a Christian comedian, according to an article in the Monroe News:A few years after graduating from college and having been married a year, Mr. Streblow said 'he felt God leading him to be a stand-up comedian. He figured this wasn’t something that God regularly leads people to do … but it was a clear message to Daren and he knew he should pay attention,' his Web site says.
He thought about it and realized that God was right - his talents did lie with his comedy, so he started writing and honing his act. In 1998, he became a full-time comedian.
Tuesday’s witness, who said she had a photographic memory, detailed how a man approached her after he saw her in a northeast Portland grocery store. The man, who said his name was 'Dave,' asked her if she needed help. She was a runaway at the time, and although she said the man seemed nice, she told him that she was just going home.Thank God that she was saved from a worse trauma.
Not long afterward, the man came sprinting after her, holding a gun. He forced her into his car and drove her to an area away from people. He asked her to take off her clothes, which she started to do, but then told him 'no.'
The woman said she started reciting the Lord’s Prayer aloud and prayed for God to forgive the man. God spoke back to her, she said, telling her to get out of the car.
She ran to a nearby store, where she watched her assailant drive back and forth. Finally, she called a friend.
The woman said she reported the kidnapping to police shortly afterward.
The Edmonton Journal ran a story about Taylor University College, a school that is closing after its shifting focus from a Bible school to undergraduate arts degrees led to declining enrollment.'It's tough because I had finally found this really great fit at this really small university, in Alberta of all places,' said Kuyvenhoven, 22. 'The professors, the people ... I was having the time of my life and then the school shuts down. It's like, 'Why did you bring me here, God?''
I am in the midst of reading "Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith" by Rob Bell. It's quite an interesting book. On p. 40 of the book he tells how he got his start as a preacher -- at the chapel service of a summer camp in northern Wisconsin:I remember standing up to talk in front of those hundred or so people gathered among those pine trees and being aware of the presence of God in a terrifying way. Seriously, it was terrifying. But in a good way. The word that comes to mind is holy. I became aware of something so real, yet I couldn't see it or touch it. I was standing there and I hadn't said a word yet, and what did I do? I took off my sandals because I knew the ground I was standing on was holy and that my life was never, ever going to be the same again.
It was in that moment that I heard a voice. Not an audible, loud, human kind of voice, but inner words spoken somewhere in my soul that were very clear and very concise. What I heard was, 'Teach this book, and I will take care of everything else.'
In that moment, my entire life changed forever.
Last week I attended the John Eldredge talk at Church of the Open Door. Here's a recap of his talk, which essentially was an outline of the six stages of a man's life:
Boyhood (birth to age 12)
* Meant to be a time of exploration and discovery
* Made safe by your father's strength
* It's wonderful to have a father show you how life works
* Boys need to know that their father adores them
* Often the wounding first happens in boyhood
Cowboy (ages 13 to 19)
* Ruled by the question "Do I have what it takes?"
* Validation needs to be established, which comes from someone speaking to you and also from experience
* Can be thwarted by: no one showing him how to do it, or boy trips and fails and no one helps him
* God wants us to live by faith and trust Him so we take risks
Warrior (starts around age 18, 19 or 20)
* Young men like competition
* God gives every man a warrior heart because: Adam had passivity, and we need to overcome it, and we live in a world at war with the kingdom of darkness
* Can be wounded by: being told as a boy that all aggression is wrong, or when a boy tries to rise up and fails
Lover (begins in late teens or early 20s)
* Runs essentially parallel to the Warrior stage
* Often takes a woman to awaken the heart
* Most men hide in the mind, but the heart is where the action is
* Friendship with God develops at this time
* Better if a little bit of the Warrior stage comes first
* Can get wounded by: boy being creative, Dad mocking it and humiliating boy; rejection; heartbreak
King (starts in late 30s or around 40)
* Man has a kingdom in which he has influence in the world
* We rule with God
* Question: when can we trust a man with power? There are many bad kings; a man can be trusted with power after he has been initiated
* Most of a midlife crisis is an unitiated man; God wants to come through and fill in the gaps
Sage (starts around late 50s or early 60s)
* A time of fathering others
* The sage is wounded when he is dismissed
* Becoming a mentor to warriors and kings
* Sages typically have to be asked; they won't voluntarily give advice in general
Incidentally, Eldredge was quite an interesting speaker in person. It was an excellent talk.
My small group through church currently is reading "Passport: A Believer's Guide to the Kingdom of God." The author, Tim Davidson, relates an interesting story on p. 33 about cultivating a listening spirit: A church I was in once went through great difficulty. Things were becoming explosive. I walked in the woods asking the Lord what to do. Should I take some drastic action? Shake things up? Force a crisis? It was hard to hear. As I walked in silence, I observed many old dead trees that had fallen, but were still propped up by the trees around them. It would be a long time before they finally hit the forest floor. Then the Lord spoke: 'In my woods, change happens slowly.' In my spirit, I sensed he was warning me against being rash and trying to make quick and radical change. I was very grateful for this wisdom from God.
At church last Sunday, I had an interesting vision during worship.
John Eldredge, an author whom I enjoy and I have written about on this blog, is coming to Minneapolis tomorrow. He will be speaking at Church of the Open Door as part of his "Fathered By God Tour 2009".
The News & Advance ran an article last week about Pastor Lewis L. Tucker Jr., who has written a book for women who have been abused by men. The book, "Damaged Goods: The Restoring Power of the Father's Love," gives the message to women who have been abused yet still feel that they need a man that God thinks you’re worth more than that; you need God in your life first before a man; and the Father’s love can restore you.One of those women called his wife last year, and Tucker says he knew what had happened from hearing his wife’s side of the conversation. He said God spoke to him, so he grabbed the phone and began ministering to the woman.
What Tucker had to say to her and what he says in his book boils down to is, first, God didn’t say a woman has to have a man. In fact, Genesis 2:18 says, 'And the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a (helpmate) for him.’'
'So,' Tucker writes, 'who needed who?'
LaToy Williams of The Bahamas is breaking records and making track history -- and his mother says that she knew of his successes since Williams was eight years old.'I never doubted for a minute that this would take place.
'It was during a trip LaToy had made at the Northwest Classic that the Lord spoke to me and told me that he is going to break many records and that he will be a record holder for many years.'
The day after when LaToy returned home from the track and field event in Miami, he told his mother that he had broken the long jump record at the Northwest Classic.
In "90 Minutes in Heaven: A True Story of Death and Life" by Don Piper and Cecil Murphey, Piper tells the story of his first return to church after his terrible auto accident: . . .I realized I had been foolish in wanting to come, because I wasn't up to the physical demands on my body. My stubbornness had overestimated by endurance.
Perhaps just as bad, I became completely overwhelmed at the congregation's loving response. I didn't know if I could speak. What could I say after all those weeks of absence and all I'd been through?
While I was still trying to figure that out, someone thrust a microphone in my hand. As I clutched it, I kept thinking, You people really have no idea how little I contributed to my recovery. You see it as a triumph. I see it merely as survival.
Just then spontaneous applause broke out. I had expected them to be glad to see me; I had not been prepared for the avalanche of praise to God. Every person in that building stood, and the applause began -- and it kept on for a long time. I finally waved them to stop.
As I stared at them, I felt guilty about their applause and excitement. I couldn't believe those people were applauding me. If they only knew, I thought. If they only knew.
Then God spoke to me. This was one of the few times in my life when I heard a very clear voice inside my head.
They're not applauding for you.
Just those words, but it made a difference and I could speak. Finally, I had it straight. They were giving thanks to God for what he had done for me. God had brought me back from death to life once again. I relaxed. This was a moment to glorify God. This wasn't praise for me. (pp. 120-121)
'I just started praying, ‘Lord help me, help me. Tell me what to do,'' McBrayer said. 'It just came to me, ‘tourniquet.''
McBrayer, of Mooresboro, said God was with her after her arm was severed following a wreck April 2.
'The thought of death never crossed my mind,' she said.
From the earliest days of my childhood, I remember being very connected to my dad. Then came the summer of 1968. The Vietnam conflict was at a fever pitch and two of my cousins were killed in action over there. If that wasn't sad enough, in early July my dad came down with a terrible case of pneumonia he couldn't shake. On his birthday, July 10th, the doctors discovered his pneumonia was really lung cancer that had spread throughout his entire body.
To make a long story tragically short, my dad died precisely five weeks to the day after he was diagnosed, and five weeks after he turned 39. My 12-year-old life shattered in more pieces than I could count. The time leading up to my dad's death was the most devastating thing I had ever gone through.
My dad had always been a clear-headed, hard-charging guy who led a good life morally and ethically. From the age of 25 to his death he'd been a family man working his way up the corporate ladder to become president of a 400-employee company. The only thing that wasn't clear-cut for him was his spiritual life.
At the time I knew next to nothing about God, but in the days leading up to my father's death, I prayed what I discovered later was a miraculously life-changing prayer. I cried and pleaded with God saying, 'Whoever you are, please save my dad.'
Unbeknownst to me an hour away, just west of Wichita, God was answering my prayer. My dad's cousin -- who'd just had a profound spiritual awakening and invited Jesus into his life about a month before -- sensed God telling him to go and share Jesus' love with my dad before he died.
To fully appreciate this story, it's important to realize that my dad had a steady flow of visitors in the hospital each day, and especially on the weekends. This particular Saturday, about four weeks after his diagnosis, he was going downhill fast. His cousin felt God's clear invitation urging him, 'Get up now! Go immediately to the hospital, and I'll give you an opportunity to share your story in a way that will get through.'
He thought, 'This can't be right. It's Saturday and these are prime visiting hours. His room will be filled with people. I'll never get to speak with him in private.' Still, my dad's cousin felt a continuing sense of urgency. The good news is that he answered God's invitation and in doing so became an answer to my prayer (even though I didn't fully understand how until many years later).
Now I'm unspeakably grateful he took that risk and made that long drive to the hospital. And coincidentally (or miraculously -- depending on how you look at it), he got over 90 minutes of uninterrupted time with my dad to tell his story and invite my dad to join him in walking with God. As sick as he was, my dad agreed without hesitation. He prayed a profound and openhearted prayer and asked Jesus to save him.
Sadly, the very next day, the cancer advanced to the point that it affected his brain and he was unable to think or communicate clearly. During the last week of his life, he was either in a stupor due to the cancer or due to the massive amounts of morphine he was being given. The timing of his conversation with my cousin had turned out to be just right.
I didn't get this story from my dad's cousin until years later, but for some reason I was very peaceful in the minutes and hours after getting the news my dad had died. I was relieved that his suffering was over, but more than that, I felt a kind of calming presence around me. I know this sounds a little odd, but as I opened the screen door leading into our house that night, I 'heard' an inner voice speaking to me.
A still and small voice (I would later learn to recognize) was speaking comfort directly to my 12-year-old spirit.
'From now on' the voice said, 'I'll be your Father.' Years later I discovered Psalm 68:5 and underlined the part that explains that God is a 'father to the fatherless.'
Back in the mid-1970s (days of intense racial unrest in Alabama) some friends of mine decided they wanted to 'witness for Jesus' out in front of the bars and strip clubs of downtown Pensacola, Florida. Someone from the group suggested that a good way to share with the people along this strip would be to carry a cross as we walked back and forth downtown and prayed. When it was my turn to carry the cross, something happened that's been burned into my memory ever since.
I was walking along Palafox Street carrying that 6-foot cross and leading a few brave prayer warriors behind me. When I came to a crosswalk, a dignified black man stepped in front of me and pulled back his coat to reveal a pearl-handled .38 special. In a quiet but ominous voice he drawled, 'KKK boy?'
'No sir,' I stammered, utter terror filling my words, 'We're just Christians walking around with a cross and...uh...praying for the city -- we never thought...uh...I'm sorry if we've offended you in any way, sir!'
Casting me a look of intense disgust, he rolled his eyes, closed his coat to cover the gun, and quietly walked away.
This encounter wasn't just terrifying; it was a defining moment for my life and my ministry. That night I realized communicating the gospel isn't just a matter of how positive my intentions are. What others perceive and believe matters as much or more!
A new movie, "The Cross: The Arthur Blessitt Story," has just been released. It tells the story of (surprise!) Arthur Blessitt, a man who has carried a 12-foot wooden cross around the world for nearly 40 years.Blessitt began his ministry on Sunset Strip and became known as the 'Sunset Strip Minister.' Because he loved the people he met on the Strip, he was reluctant to leave when he sensed God calling him to walk around the world carrying a wooden cross. But God reminded him that Sunset Strip stretches around the world.
Blessitt was ready to obey. Two weeks before he was to leave Los Angeles, however, doctors discovered he had a brain aneurysm. He explains in the film that circumstances don't change the call of God. Facing possible death, Blessitt decided he would rather die while in God's will than to live out of it. He left on schedule—Christmas Day 1969.
I'm reading a book called "Outflow: Outward-Focused Living in a Self-Focused World" by Steve Sjogren and Dave Ping. It's about how to share the gift of Christ with others. I'm kind of a shy person, and so I get nervous about sharing my faith with others because I'm afraid that they will reject me.Then God spoke to my heart. He asked if I had forgotten all the successful hunts he had blessed me with? What about all the deer God had provided me with and the wonderful hunting experiences? It was not my place to hold bitterness and I needed to let it go and leave it with God. In short I had to forgive those that had stolen from me and go on.
Silivea Johnson wanted so desperately to give birth to a child. God told her that he had something different for her:On her knees in a back room of her house, Silivea Johnson cried and pleaded with the Lord.
She asked why it was it taking her and her husband, Chris Johnson, so long to have a child.
'I did wonder what if I died and there was no trace of my life,' she said.
When God spoke back to her, Johnson wrote down His words.
'God said my legacy lives on in you and that’s how people will remember you.'
(StarNewsOnline.com)
If you haven't seen the movie "Fireproof" yet, see it. It's an excellent film -- and the highest-grossing independent film of 2008. The writers/producers of "Fireproof" are brothers Stephen and Alex Kendrick of Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Ga. They have produced three movies so far: "Flywheel", "Facing the Giants" and "Fireproof".The natural question for fans of the films is what's up next. But in answer to that, Kendrick could only respond with his own version of the cliché 'God only knows.' But for Kendrick it's no cliché, it's just a fact. 'I do not have any pre-conceived notions about what all our movies are going to be about,' he said. He described the process as going through a 'season of prayer' where the brothers ask: 'God, what would you have us to do.'
Charles Olcott was a successful businessman and a conventional churchgoer when God seemed to speak to him one night and say, 'All this stuff you own is not yours. It is mine. I have a purpose for you to use these things for me.'
This led to a new commitment to Christ. Shortly after, he was appointed as the chief executive officer of a large franchise fast-food chain. He was able to turn the company around and improve its financial condition. 'For the first time I took my hand off the steering wheel and turned it over to God,' he says.
But then he faced his own crisis. The chairman of the corporation which owned his company asked him to doctor some figures, to build a mathematical model which would project a level of future earnings which had no relationship to reality. The idea was to increase the value of their shares so they could sell the business at a handsome profit but at the expense of the company, its employees and shareholders.
Charles said he could not do it. 'Then you are off the team,' said the chairman. It was a harsh sentence. Twenty years on the corporate ladder were gone. When he told me this story, I asked him what difference it would have made if this episode had happened before he made a commitment to Christ.
'I would still be at that company,' he said. 'I would have found a way to bend the figures, because then I was living by earthly values.' Now in a new business, he is a wounded but contented man who knows he did what was right but at significant cost.
The Jackson Sun ran an article last week on two amazing people in their mid-70s who spend their time helping out troubled youth at the Youth Town Christian drug and addiction facility in Pinson, Tenn.'I was so lonely and everything, it was more for me than the kids,' Ray said about coming to Youth Town. 'After God put me here, this takes my time, gives me hope to live.
'Now I wouldn't change what I got for anything in this world,' she said.
It's been a long healing journey for Steven Curtis Chapman's family since the sudden death of his 5-year-old daughter Maria Sue last May. Only recently has Chapman started to speak to the press again. The family's faith in God has been carrying them, according to an article in BREATHEcast:'There's a lot I can't explain, there's a lot we don't understand,' he told People magazine. 'But I really do believe we're proving out everything we believe and God's healing our hearts.'
On Saturday (Feb. 14), Chapman performed "Cinderella" from his latest album This Moment on Fox News' Huckabee show. He was joined last minute by wife Mary Beth, who he later said was 'amazing.'
'God spoke thru her,' Chapman wrote in his personal Twitter page.
'People attribute meaning to dreams when it corresponds with their pre-existing beliefs and desires. This was also the case in another experiment which demonstrated that people who believe in God were likely to consider any dream in which God spoke to them to be meaningful; agnostics, however, considered dreams in which God spoke to be more meaningful when God commanded them to take a pleasant vacation than when God commanded them to engage in self-sacrifice,' she explains. (Softpedia)
Last year I wrote about Ian Henderson, the son of the leader of my Heart of a Warrior group. Just after midnight, Ian Henderson passed away to join the Lord.
In the United Kingdom, Noel Robinson, founder of Kingdom Worship Movement, is bringing together top worship leaders for a conference called Renewal. The conference is the first of what Robinson hopes will be a regular event aimed at giving people the skills they need to make worship a lifestyle and realize their God-given purpose.'I just felt like God wants to use the power of worship in us, not just the songs, not just the music, but the power of worship in us...When God spoke to me about Renewal he said: What happens to the people in the pews on the Sunday morning? Are they empowered? Or when Monday morning comes are they just back to an ordinary week? Do they just go to the church for a top-up and then by Friday they are needing to get back to church? God is saying I want people to bring their worship to the marketplace. I want people to be able to bring their worship so that the Kingdom of God is a vehicle.'
A friend of mine keeps encouraging me to read Randy Alcorn's book, "Heaven". My friend talks about how he and his wife read as much information as they could in the year before they took a vacation to Maui, and that Christians should be spending a lot more time reading about where we will spend eternity.'In 1978, on July 5, God spoke to me. I have yet to figure out how to write about the experience, but I can't and won't deny it happened.'
William Edmondson, the son of former slaves and a janitor in Nashville, Tenn., became the first black artist to have a solo exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1937.Beginning in his 13th year, as Edmondson relates it, God spoke to him. Sometimes the visions were of Bible stories, like the Flood, but, later in his life, they were instructions for a life's work: 'I was out in the driveway with some old pieces of stone when I heard a voice. ... First He told me to make tombstones. Then He told me to cut the figures. He gave me them two things.'
Hip-hop music has typically been known to glorify drugs, prostitution and money -- in general worshipping the secular lifestyle. Now there's a new genre of music known as holy hip-hop that is getting street cred while conveying positive messages.'I was just doing the usual: tipping dollar bills to the strippers, hanging out, getting high,' he remembered. 'God just kind of came to me and said, 'Hey, man, are you really happy?'
'The power of God is really strong when he speaks to you, and you know it's him. Of course, my partners just thought I was high. I didn't really realize it was the full power of God, but the full emotion started to take over, tears were streaming down my face. I knew I wasn't really happy. I wasn't fulfilled. That night, I gave my life to Christ.'
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