What Ever You are Doing

Great song from Sanctus Real that sums up what I am asking God to do in me every day as I seek him to work in my life and do his will. ( Click on image to enlarge)

A Serious Matter

Many times in my life, I said I was sorry. In my mind, I meant it but did I really mean it in my heart? Saying sorry is part of the equation but it is more than saying sorry.

Saying sorry is the beginning of forgiveness but process of true forgiveness must start as David said to Nathan,


"I have sinned against the LORD."

2 Samuel 12:13

Our mis-deeds, anger, insensitivity are all things we should be sorry for but more importantly they are actions that sin against the Lord. This moves it to another level. It is not something just done to another person, it is done before the eyes of God.

Really a serious matter

What really matters

When it all comes down to where our life on earth meets eternity it is summed up in Psalm 51.

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions

Without God's compassion, my life becomes another try of "doing on my own." I need to continually come to him and ask that he blot out my transgressions. Life will not be perfect but I have God's unfailing LOVE.

Have mercy on me, O God.

The GOLD Medal Performance ?

I am an Olympic fanatic. I love watching the competition and the stories behind the competition. When I watched and listened over the two week period, The story of Michael Phelps was enthralling as it transpired over the course of a week. The story of someone who worked very hard in his young life to seek a goal that will be unmatched for many years to come. The gold medals provided some of the best watching sports in a long time. This was a great story of grit and determination and the triumph of focus on a goal.

Well...

My life story could be more characterized by another Olympic event not receiving so much press.

Chinese Olympic rower Zhang Liang turned up for his double sculls heat brimming with confidence. At 6-feet-4-inches tall, Zhang, 22, is a star among approximately 2,000 professional full-time rowers supported by the Chinese government. Zhang has been rowing for six years, training for up to eight hours a day at government-sponsored training facilities.

He showed up...

...Unfortunately the race had started ten minutes before.

He wrongly remembered his time as that of the third group, but actually it was the second group. He missed his raced and was disqualified from the doubles competition later in the week. There will likely be serious consequences for Zhang and his coaches for missing the race. A lifetime of training, lost in a moment.

This is how God has been working in me but with a different outcome. I have showed up "late in life" on many occasions. I have let people down, I trained hard but I did not show up for the race. I tried to "row on my own" This is a personal disappointment as I get older and look back on life. But GOD, has shown me a new way to look at life. A life not focusing on me but a life of relying on him for training and wisdom. I need to be faithful that God has created me in his image but I am broken before him and need his strength every day.

The real issue is not God's faithfulness, but mine. The history of God's faithfulness to Israel and to his promises is found in the Scriptures. I can depend and rely on him to do what he promises, despite the apparent circumstances of my life. The real issue is whether or not I choose to truly love him and live for his purposes when life becomes unbearable and faith becomes hard. This verse has no second, but the ring of hope of faith to persevere when there is no easy reason for doing so. Faith is rooted in Jesus who triumphed over death, Satan, and sin.

I have already won the GOLD Medal while I await finally prize. I need to keep on training but for a different purpose!

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. ( not mine )
    -- Romans 8:28

MADE in God's Image

We have an instinctive need to seek God and his warmth, but I failed to see I wasn't looking in the right place. I was (am) a Christian seeking God's will but I let the sin and shame of my life get between what I wanted to do and what God wanted me to do. I found myself shut off from God's light due to my own choices. I did not honestly seek God's will and let my stubbornness and lack of feeling hinder God's true desires for my life. God sought me out yet I remained trapped behind walls of my own making, walls that kept me from going to him for the life-giving warmth only he can give. I suffered behind walls of intellectual pride and arrogance that I had a better idea than God. My sin that got between me and my Maker . I didn't want to let go, I was driven to seek God, yet I settled for a substitute, settled for something that didn't fully satisfy my need. I thought I had it all together, made all the right decisions, but many times I did not let God do the work. I went way ahead of him. This hurt relationships and left me empty and hurt each time, asking why did I do what I do.

Romans 7

"For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! "
We have a need that only God can fill!

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4).


It has taken me way too many years to realize that the second part of that verse depends on the first part. It is a whole new beginning to delight in the Lord, he needs to become the first desire of my heart. This, unfortunately took years and God opened my eyes to see who I really am. He needs to become what I seek above all else. That's the secret to true contentment. When I continue learn to seek God above all else,

The rest will fall in place.

This is the BEGINNING, not the END

This is not an intellectual exercise but a heartfelt desire to have my emotions be in sync with the still small voice of God in my soul. It is not some project to finish, It is never finished. It is not something that can be done without God in me. By trusting myself, I cannot let God do the work.
I continue to pray that I would REST in the Lord and SEEK his understanding and he would protect me from evil and restore me DAY by DAY.

I am made in his image!

The OK Button

We have an EASY BUTTON at work. It is from Staples and when you press it it says. "That was easy"

I worked out at the YMCA yesterday in the afternoon. I usually go early in the morning so it was a different experience. I was actually awake. I use the time to pray and meditate, and to try to keep going!. While I was on one of the machines, I noticed for the first time an OK button on the display. It doesn't do anything that I have figured out yet but it did have new meaning for me. As I struggled on the Elliptical Machine, I noticed the OK button and concentrated on the button meditating on the thought that I was OK in the eyes of God. I did not need to be someone else. I did not need to have another persona. I did not need the admiration of others. I just needed to know that I was OK just as I was. This does not mean a stagnant person, but a person who is OK in the eyes of God continuing to lean on him for his wisdom, love and grace.

It is a daily battle between good and evil. One that cannot be won on my own power but only through the power of GOD

That is not EASY without him

2 Corinthians 1:3

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort

The Acela

Life goes by fast!

I remember riding the Acela from NYC to Washington right after 9/11 because we could not get any flights to Washington. The airport was closed. What I remember is looking out the window where the train reached 150 mph. You could see things going by but could not see any detail. When the train slowed, things again came in to focus. I experienced this lately on "The Fifty" Some days on the way home, I just sit and relax and look out the window. I have seen things, I have never seen after driving the same road for over 25 years.

I guess that is what it as all about in in life as a Christian. I have allowed myself to move to fast, to not look at the details because I couldn't see them. This has resulted in damaged relationships and not allowing the fullness of God to reach the inner most places of my soul.

As I was praying over the last year, one of my favorite songs kept playing in my head.



Open the eyes of my heart, Lord

Open the eyes of my heart

I want to see You

I want to see You

Open the eyes of my heart, Lord

Open the eyes of my heart

I want to see You

I want to see You


It just took a 2x4 in the head to really open my eyes so I could really see the GLORY of God and what we has done for me, how thankful and joyful I should be... because I really do not deserve it. I need to go before him every day and thank him for the relationships in my life and for the need to listen to God and how he wants to me to grow in grace.

God slowed down the train!

What's the Point?

That is what Jesus said when he dealt with the people mentioned yesterday. He was trying to teach something,

The woman at the well. Jesus was talking about relationships

The tax collector. Jesus was talking about relationships

The cripple. It was about friends and relationships

The critically ill woman. It was about relationships


The Bible is filled with stories about relationships. My pray is God would teach me to value the relationships I have in family and friends.

Galatians - Chapter 6:2

Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. "

It is about relationships

That's the Point

"The Fifty"

I have been thinking about writing a blog for a long time but it has been only in the last 8 months I have been able to have the time to think about what to write. God moved me to a new place to be able to begin to share my thoughts. Another thing that happened was the result of the gas price increase. I started to take the bus to work. It is known as ,"The Fifty", traveling from Saratoga Springs to Schenectady. As I have been riding the bus, you get to know the characters who are regulars on the bus. "Big RED", "Jabber Talker". "NICKy, the cross dresser" and many more! We also had the police called 2 times for a potential fight and a crazy person.

What does this all have to do with our "Adventure in Life?"

Jesus dealt with "The Fifty"

A chronically ill woman
A tax collector
A divorced woman
A killer of Jews
A cripple

..And more

He dealt with people who had a need for him. People who were broken, down and out and "losers" by the worlds standards.

I am one of the people on "The Fifty", broken and down and out by God's standards. Nothing can repair this condition without the hope we have in Jesus. Without him, we can try on our own but we will not be "successful"

This condition is a result of the sin in my life which cannot be dealt with outside my relationship with Christ. The gravity of the situation and the answer is best summarized in Romans 7.

..From The Message

Yes. I'm full of myself—after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary.

But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.

I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?

The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

Something "Totally Different"

...That is the Adventure